OYP Episode 50: Karmen LaMer

Karmen LaMer, Founder of Tight Clinic and veteran of the luxury retail industry, tells us about how fearlessness, tenacity and an insatiable desire to achieve excellence helped her transform from a successful corporate professional into a fast growing entrepreneur shortly after facing one of the biggest challenges in her life.

Interview

Peter Szczerba - Welcome back to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe, about how they've taken control of their career growth and lessons on how you can to. I'm Peter Szczerba, and today, I am extremely excited to be sitting down with Karmen LaMer, the founder of Tight Clinic. Karmen, as soon as I heard a little bit of your story, I couldn't wait to sit down and chat with you and get you on the podcast, really been looking forward to this. Why don't we just jump right into it? Can you take us through your career journey leading up until this point?

Karmen LaMer - Absolutely. So I've had a, an eclectic, multi, multi faceted journey. And so essentially, in my early 20s, I'm fresh out of school, very unsure what I wanted to do. And I was working at an Italian restaurant of all things, and just sorting out, you know, finishing up for university and all of that. And every single day at lunch, we had like 17 tables, it was a small little restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and this guy would come in every day for lunch. Same like Same time, same thing we had, we developed this nice relationship, we just chit chatted every day. And it turned out that he owned a jewelry store and will quite a large jewelry store in Edmonton, and after watching me like facilitate lunches for 17 tables, like seamlessly all day, every day, after about six months, he was like you need to come and work for me. And I'd never thought I would work in the jewelry industry. But I was like, alright, let's give this a try. So I came on, and I just was working with him as a part time sales person. And within six months, I was the manager of the store. And within a year I was the director of operations for his company. I guess I just needed a chance to get into an environment and really have that mentorship and that hands on learning and seeing how everything works from the inside out. He was very, very transparent about everything. And I really got to learn all facets. So yeah, I was there for seven years, six or seven years. That was a big part of my career journey. And then after that, we were actually one of the first stores in Canada back then to carry Pandora jewelry. Right. And so we had one little showcase in the front. And we would do like a million dollars a year just out of that one little showcase. And I was heavily involved. With Pandora, we would have trade shows every year we were in Las Vegas, we were all over the place. And I was involved in the buying and the operations, the trunk shows and all of that. And so when Pandora decided to open their first Canadian location, they came to me and asked me if I would open it for them. Well, if the transition from jewelry over to Pandora and I managed the West Hampton mall store for about a year, they budgeted that we would do like a million dollars in sales. And I think our first year we did 5 million. It was a really intense, crazy journey. No one knew how crazy that was in the guts. And then after that point in time, I actually ended up getting a job offer from a franchisee who owned 11 Pandora stores. And so I moved from the west coast to Toronto, and I spent my time between here and Ottawa, Halifax, all the East Coast and I looked after a lot of stores. Then after that point in time, that takes a lot out of you, you know being courteous and dealing with all these like tiny little charms and I just did not have really the patience for it anymore. And I was approached by the reach Mont group to come on board with them. And so I came on as a sales manager for my blog, which was a really really cool experience. Learning about all these high end watches and writing instruments we got to do some very cool travel up to take a lot of cool courses and and I was with lob long for the four years. And then at the end of that just internally transitioning is much easier once you're in the reach Mach group for us. Yeah, um, so Chloe are one fashion brands has come to Canada, they're going to open up their first flagship location. And so I moved as a director for clothing. And I was there for again a couple of years until I had a full on midlife crisis. Yeah, I did still leave everything that I knew and open up a clinic

Peter Szczerba - Such an exciting journey and there's so many there's so much of it that I want to tap into. I want to start from the beginning. What were you What were you studying while while you were working in the Italian restaurant because I just want to get a sense like you very clearly have, you know, a skill set for orchestration kind of management of activities and logistics and operations, even, for example, like managing 17 tables, I've always admired people in the service industry, because I just, I don't think I have the capacity in any shape or form to do that job. And so I'm in admiration of people who do it so gracefully. And so obviously, somebody else was too, and saw the potential for that translated into a different context, right. So were you studying something that was like relevant to where you ended up going in terms of doing operations in the industry that you were in?

Karmen LaMer - Not at all actually. So again, I was so unsure of what I wanted to do. When I was in high school I had originally I wanted to go into law. And when I, when I was going to school, I was trying to keep things very open, because I was really unsure of what I wanted to do. And at the time, I actually got married in my early 20s. And my husband's was in school finishing his second degree. And so I ended up leaving university and taking care of I was working literally five jobs to support him as he finished his journey, because you never think that at any point in time, right, and then after I ended up working at my Granthi jewelers, the first crew that I was with, they ended up putting me through my GI education for the Gemological Institute of America. And that was taken care of by them. But no, in any point in time, like I had no, I was not training for something specific to be in operations or management whatsoever. Everything was just learned throughout all my experiences and on the job.

Peter Szczerba - Well, I mean, you learned pretty fast like you talked about your first job. Yes. And then six months later, being a store manager? And then six months after that, and am I correct in being a director of ops for his entire company, right? So talk about that, because, you know, there's accelerated growth, and then there's going from zero to whatever astronomical number that is in a very short period of time. So walk me through that. What was that experience, like?

Karmen LaMer  - I felt like this was my first chance at doing something incredible. I've never been afraid of hard work, and I wasn't one of those people who come to work, and check in at nine and check out at five. You know, for my first six months, I was I was there at 830. Every day staying till 9pm. Every single night, I was working six days a week, I wanted to learn everything that I could. And at the beginning, I really didn't have an intention of being a store manager whatsoever. I just wanted to give it my all and really prove myself. And it turned out it was something I was incredibly good at. Right. He literally showed me everything from the internals of the business to we specialized in natural fancy colored diamonds, we were the first ones in Canada to actually get diamonds from the Diavik mine that were given like government ordinance to be called canoeing, fancy color diamonds, he was a very smart businessman, and he was very open with me about everything. So just I was a sponge, and I learned how to take control. We had in that one location at the beginning, we had about 15 staff. And he was always busy. He was always in the office, there was no one really there who was facilitating, and that's often how it is with a small business. And he was just trying to go the best he could. And so I just took the reins, and I was, you know, took over everything, managing the staff like scheduling, budgeting everything. And then after six months, we opened another location and he was like you are, you're much better with finances than I am. You're much better with budgeting than I am. Because often like as a business owner or a jeweler, you see things and it's like passion. And you're not thinking with your brain, you're thinking with your heart, right? Like no, this is not a good idea to spend, you know, three quarters of a million dollars on a point to five fancy yellow and red diamond. It just didn't make sense. And so I really was able to grow just because of the situation I was put in and really taking taking the ranch and flying and going with it.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah. But I think what you're talking about is demonstrating like enormous amounts of confidence in kind of what your gut was telling you. And then what they experienced is you quickly developed we're showing you I mean, I think there's a level of appreciation one has to have for having a mentor and an opportunity like that, right? Where they basically said, if you see an opportunity to make impact, make impact. And you did that you it takes confidence to actually make the leap and start applying yourself in that way. And I mean, how big was that business? Like how many individuals were there over and above you and the owner like because you're brand new to the industry brand new to your career, and you basically took control. So was the friction in that with the other folks on the team? Like How was that received as a young professional?

Karmen LaMer - It was interesting. So basically, the man who ran the store was in a similar position to me in his early 20s. And he asked for a mentor who owned a Rolex boutique for years and years and then once that gentleman retired, he took everything that he learned and opened up his first his first business so it was him and his wife, there was basically basically an accountant who, like ran everything above us. And that was it. And then by the end of it, there was about 30 staff, and we worked with, oh my goodness, so many vendors. Sure. Um, but yeah, there wasn't really friction, because I think they were just really happy to have the help, and to have somebody who was, you know, growing along with them. And, you know, between my actual boss and I there was like, there's some moments, definitely, especially, you know, being at a trade show, and having a couple million dollar budget spanned, and full on arguing about where it was going and where I supposed to go. But that was part of my job description, too. And, you know, as a woman, and I've always been interested in fashion and in aesthetics of things. And so, you know, I would do research, depending what was coming up for what season and decide what brands we're going to bring on, you know, how we're gonna a lot that between the selections of what I thought were going to sell, and sometimes when I did not disagree on that, or we did not agree on that, but um, yeah, we went with it. And we had great success together. It was amazing.

Peter Szczerba - That's, I mean, it, I love hearing stories like that. And you obviously you were there for an extended period of time, you had all this gross, you you developed, you know, a pretty significant skill set instead of experiences and relationships. So then you have a more corporate opportunity, right, that kind of approaches you in the form of Pandora, how did you make the decision to make that leap? Because that's, you know, inherently a bit of a risk, right? You're, and you're walking away from from mentorship that kind of helped you along the path to where you got. And so to leave that behind? I mean, I'm sure you still stayed connected, and you still benefited from that relationship? I have no doubt, right. That's what a good mentor will do. But there it's, it's still you're very much spreading your wings and leaping into something totally different. Right? Well, not totally. But still,

Karmen LaMer - Yeah, it was, it was an interesting transition, because going from working with high end timepieces and high end diamonds and selling pieces for hundreds of 1000s of dollars, to, you know, even ego wise going and working in a retail store. And selling terms that were $30, like, a lot of time, a lot of patience. And I went from, you know, managing maybe 30 people between two stores, to going to a much more corporate company, who also did not know what was coming, opening up the very first location and starting with 20 employees and all of these girls that we would hire that would want to do a job like that, or between the ages of 18 and 25. Right. And as I said they budgeted $1 million dollars for the first year. And we ended up doing close to five, we had to hire we I think by the time that I had left in that one location, we had over 35 staff. We could not keep up it was like Panic at the Disco in there. But also coming from working for small business, you know, making your salary and making your bonus. And they had teared it in a way that you know, once we hit that million dollars, I was going to make a very comfortable bonus. And the fact that we almost hit, you know, four and a half million was wild. That was one of the craziest times in my life for sure. I definitely did not sleep for like a full year.

Peter Szczerba - Wow. Wow. And so I'm just thinking back to, you know, when I first remember experiencing Pandora as a brand, my experience with it was walking through was probably at the time, like maybe the Eaton Center here in Toronto and and seeing just this massive, massive line of people Yes, waiting to get into the store. And me as like an early 20s individual, it's just like, I don't have no idea what this brand is, what is this? Right. And and that? I mean, I don't think that that excitement diminished for a long time. Like maybe now there's no line to get in anymore. But that's because as you've largely I'm sure a ton of new competitors popped up over the course of the success that the brand experience. So I mean, like scaling one store, right? Or a couple of stores, let's say in your previous experience in a city or in an area to now the entire east coast. Yes, 11 locations. What was that like? Because that, again, is its own huge challenge. It's all happening relatively fast for you, right? Like, you're now sitting on top of like, serious, serious operations across tears, large corporate brands, you know, how was that growth?

Karmen LaMer - That was, you know, I think everything in my career trajectory, prepared me for what was coming next, you know, from being efficient at the Italian restaurants, to being a salesperson in this jewelry store to then, you know, being a director of operations to then be able to take a leap and, you know, manage a huge store where they didn't know what was coming. You know, I think I've always had so much thrown at me Very little guidance or direction. And I've just had to sort of figure it out myself. And so nothing has ever really fazed me even like even scaling on a large level like that. I've really felt like one of the biggest things in my skill set is problem solving. And also, you know, being able to sense what's coming and sort of preemptively avoid disasters. And that's just always what I've been good at. So yeah, that transition to that 11 store. Role. Yeah, there was a lot of travel involved, there's, again, like very little sleep, and like, it was just taking what I had learned at that first level, and scaling it up. I know, that doesn't sound like in depth detail. But yeah, it was wonderful. Like, I feel like that was an incredible experience I'll never forget, and I found great success in doing that. And, you know, I realized that not everything is as glamorous as it sounds, and, you know, being on a plane every couple days, and, you know, having all of that responsibility. Sounds exciting, but like, really, it was pretty exhausting.

Peter Szczerba - I can only imagine, I mean, I've traveled enough in my own career to know what how taxing it can be. But then, you know, you have this strange Stockholm Syndrome, when when, like, for example, for me when COVID hit, and you go six months without traveling, and suddenly, you know what I can go for a business trip, right now. So you so it's a weird relationship with business travel, I want to just circle back because like you talked about, like, in your initial experience, with the jewelry store, you're, you're dealing with items that are like $100,000 in value, or whatever the case, the type of clientele, that walk in, to make a very deeply personal purchase, whether it's a watch that's being added to an extensive collection, right, that has, it is, is 100%, a, you know, an extension of that person's identity. Right. And, and, and kind of positioning of their personal wars in value, like to deal with those types of clientele, right to then transition to dealing with the type of clientele that are buying a $30 charm. Yes, I think that that probably I'm maybe I'm making a logical leap here that probably imbued you with an enormous amount of confidence, right? Like if I can navigate those types of people and vendors with that much history, right? We're talking about brands that are 100 year old plus brands in the watch industry, you know, to then transitioning to this, like you have to walk in there with with just a world of confidence that probably helped you accelerate your growth again, once you hit the ground running at Pandora.

Karmen LaMer - 100 percent. And that was honestly like, like I mentioned earlier, almost like an ego step back, that was quite difficult. And it is funny, because you know how often when they say that, really wealthy people, you'll not know that they're wealthy, because they're spending their money on real estate, they're spending their money on different things, and they don't need to dress a certain way to prove anything. Sure. It was funny, because some of these clients who were sending like, I remember we did this fancy color diamond suite, it was like half a million dollars, we did diamond Riviera, neckpiece, and a matching bracelet and an eternity band. And each diamond was a natural fancy color of graduating from one color to the next. Like it was spectacular. It took so long to make. The people that bought this were just like so low key, slow, relaxed. This is like going to be something special for them, but also an investment piece. And they really wanted us to do what we were best at. And so I always found that interesting. A lot of our like clients, we had celebrity clientele, my our store really dealt a lot with the Edmonton Oilers, we actually made our family coverings, very cool in the past and like so it was going from that type of clientele. And yes, I had the confidence, but stuffing it back to selling $30 charms to like 12 year old children and reminding her and it would take them like 40 minutes to decide on one charm. I swear to God, the patience that that instilled in me because that's something that you sort of forget as your career journey. And after that I was like, oh, yeah, it also taught me patience, again, which is very important.

Peter Szczerba - And I'm sure empathy on top of that, right? Because now you're having to relate and be able to establish an immediate connection and relationship with somebody in the moment as you're trying to sell to them. That is totally different than the folks you've dealt with earlier. And so having that breadth of relationship making ability, probably then empowers you to running you know, 11 locations with a probably a huge spectrum of individuals that you're overseeing different career stages, different walks of life, right? So I mean, the patience right, as you said plus empathy like those things had to be incredibly valuable. And now so now you jump over to reach from which you know, I admittedly have a bit of a thing with watches is huge passion of mine. I'm very interested I'm I'm staring at a humble you know, Seiko Diver Collection in front of me right. So in my early stages of collecting, but the point is, is that some of the brands that sit under that that you know, holding group are talking about JLC, right, like these are some of the most important brands In the world of watchmaking, so now you dive into that world in a non insignificant brand of Mont Blanc, you're back in the realm of, of the initial clientele you were dealing with, on a big scale. So talk about that experience and what it was like moving back from to that from Pandora.

Karmen LaMer - That was a really cool experience. Because, you know, with my VA, I had worked with high end timepieces before, the original jewelry store I worked at we carry mom long, we had the writing instruments, but we would have like, you know, your classic, back in the day, it was like $395 meisterstuck pen would have sort of like the Starwalker was the end of the entry level things. And when getting hired on to reach my group was a process, I think it took me six months of indwells, wow, on many different levels to get in. Because once you get in, there's there's so much room for growth and advancement, you can jump from brand to brand and from you know, you can accelerate your career very quickly. And they take things very seriously, their HR was pretty nuts. So getting in there, I was a sales manager for the boutique in Yorkdale. And my direct manager had been with the brand for 27 years. Wow. So he agreed with anything. And he was such a lovely gentleman. And again, it turned into that mentorship, where I sort of got fast tracked from, you know, having to learn things from the ground up to him giving me his entire history and really helping me grow. We had one client, who obviously, I've never mentioned any names, but this man was most interesting man I'd ever met, he was a collector of the most exclusive pens that they would put out. And basically, every year, they would launch a new collections. But for some of them, there might only be one in the world. For some there might be 10 in the world, for some of them, maybe 20 in the world, but they were all solid gold all very limited. And these pieces would be anywhere between 50,000 to 500,000. And this this gentleman was this is what he wanted to do and stuff like between all the mobile phone stores in North America, you would have to compete for these pens, basically. And like it was it was a lot. But it was really cool to kind of get back into the luxury component of it. Again, there was a lot of travel, there's a lot of furthering education, there's a lot of study, and you had to really perform at a high level, like there was, as I'm sure you know, working in corporate, it was like, three days a week, you were having intense meetings and like they wanted to look at every single aspect of the business, analyze everything, and like you better be where you needed to be, or you better have an excuse why or not have an action plan on how to get there. But again, our salaries were very tied into everything from you know, performance to what we were selling to how many limited pieces were selling to, you know, whatever. So if you want to make your money, you better be damn good at every single area of doing so again, it was like back into luxury also back into that pressure. But I will tell you one really cool thing about being back in the luxury world and working with mobile and the regional group was the access to some of these items, I'm telling you, we would learn about our brand. Of course, there was opportunities to learn about the other brands, and they would have a sale twice a year exclusive to the Bridgewater employees, you walk in, and like from cardiac to VanCleave to whatever they would have certain pieces that you could buy for like 95% off retail. So I'm telling you.

Peter Szczerba - Listen, as an enthusiast that's very hard to hear. He's gonna look at MSRP and I'm like, In what world do I ever afford something like that. But I clearly need to make some connections,

Karmen LaMer - You need to make friends with someone who works in the Richemont Group like my husband, before I left, we both ended up getting into like solid gold cartier pieces for like $3,000 Each rather than $30,000. Like we did well. Yeah.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah. But that, just sure, I mean, a great perk, if it's something that you're interested in, especially, but also it just kind of helps helps you understand what value is. And then also, you know, everything that goes into does the cost of an item. And for example, like the performance evaluation associated with it, you talk about the stakes, you talk about, you know, being assessed in a very scrupulous way around like, why are you not performing? Or if you are performing, what is the driver of that and having to be on your P's and Q's? I think that level of scrutiny probably was a huge, I guess, building block towards ultimately your kind of pursuit into entrepreneurial endeavors. Right. So I want to jump into to that now. Because you talked a little bit you spoke candidly about the fact that you had a little bit of a midlife crisis. So I maybe if you're open to talking about what you know, was the driver of that and then how that translated into I'm going to move away from a very successful career. Have something that I'm exceptionally good at, obviously, right? The proof is in the pudding. To I'm going to start this, this successful clinic that is now obviously having huge success in Toronto. And I'd love to hear about that if you're open to talking about this.

Karmen LaMer  - Of course. So I am now I'm turning 39. This year, when I was 30 years old, I was diagnosed with cancer out of the blue, and my husband was on a business trip. And there was just some things that did not seem right. And my family doctor just kept, he kept telling me everything was fine. So I bypassed him as we do, as you know, when you're not getting what you need, and you're pretty, you know, you know, your own body. And so I bypassed him, and I went straight to Mount Sinai. And I was in there for like, eight, nine hours, and I had a team of people like really looking at me, and there was like internal ultrasound, there was so much going on in that day, I should have known right then that something was very wrong. But after you go home, and you kind of forget about it, and I remember being at work, and Mount Sinai and call me and they're like, You need to come down here, basically, immediately. And I was like, Well, I don't have to be off for the next 10 days. So can you just tell me over the phone, and they're like, this is not something we would ever want to tell anyone on the phone. So anyways, they ended up telling me that I was a stage to see with squamous cell carcinoma, cervical cancer. And so I called my husband bawling. He was in Mexico on the corporate retreats, he came back the next day, and we went straight into Princess Margaret. And within a week, I was having surgeries, and then I was in chemo and radiation for eight to 10 months. And it was just such a, like a shock, because I've never not worked in my entire life, right. And when that happened, they're like, the radiation is going to make you so tired. Also, just mentally, everything that you're going through right now, you're gonna have to make some tough and hard decisions. Right away there were like that I had to make a decision if I wanted to have kids or not. If I did, we were gonna have to freeze my eggs. And it was going to take like six months, I was going to halt my chemo and radiation journey for six months. And because the cancer was so fast growing like my tumor was seven centimeters could not really judge how much faster it was going to grow in that time. And so you know, we had some tough decisions to make. So I didn't work for eight months while I was going through all of that, which is also a real like, that's what sort of spawned the midlife crisis because being a very busy high performing individual going from being at work every single day and coming home and thinking about what was next and what you're going to achieve, to like thinking about your own mortality. Yeah, you know, not sure if you're going to make it through this. And then just like the physically taxing part of it, because again, I've always been in like, great shape. I was an athlete, when I was younger, I've always been diligent with working out and feeling really good about my body, and then just having your body like turn on you. It was just like, the craziest year of my entire life, of course. So when I was when I completed treatments, I took two weeks off, and I went to go see my mom, my dad, and then it came back and I went right back into it like full force, and I just didn't want think about it anymore. And so this was 30, so 30 to 35. That was the time that I was working in the Richemont Group. And I just remember one day, it was New Years, we were out with friends, someone had taken a photo and put on Instagram of all things and like, everyone knows their own angles, you know, your own pleasure. Yeah, I remember looking at that photo, and I recognize my husband, I recognize my best friend, I literally did not recognize myself, just because like the chemo and radiation was so tough on my body. After 25, you start producing collagen as it is, but after all of that in hormonally and everything my face was like on the floor, I'm telling you there was like nasal labial folds were huge. I had these like gels and I remember seeing that photo and I just started to cry. And I was like holy shit. Like, I'm getting old. Like what is happening to me, I was just so confused. And so about a week after that I was at Princess Margaret for a checkup. And there's stacks of magazines there and there was Vogue magazine. I was flipping through it reading it and there was an article about the form of treatment and I'd never heard that word before. I didn't know what that was. When I went home. I started doing some research and it's basically like a non surgical facelift. It's like it uses radiofrequency and heats. It's done on the laser platform. It doesn't hurt, it's painless. You do six sessions and it rebuilds your collagen and just tightens your skin up and puts everything backwards supposed to be in a non invasive way. So in Toronto, there was only one human doing that which was Dr. Mulholland and it was like, I think $800 a session and I was like this is unattainable and unaffordable for most people down closer to where the US border is. I found a clinic who was doing it and it was like 200 $250 a session and I wanted to go experience it so I booked a trip, I went down. I had three sessions done. And the difference that I saw in my own face was shocking to me. It was just like, I felt like, how I should look how I did look in my late 20s, I felt like myself again. And I was like, I remember coming home and telling my husband, I was like, I'm, I'm going to bring this to Toronto, I'm going to open, Nick. And he's like, what? And it just like, it all hit me one day, it's so funny how these things happen, like monumental life changing things. We started looking into it. And we're like, how much can this machine be? And in my head? I thought at most like $25,000 $30,000 How much can this thing possibly be? We start researching, we look into it, and like a fully loaded laser. It was like 250 $300,000. And I was like, Oh, shit, maybe this isn't what I'm gonna do. Yeah. So then we had a journey of looking at every single laser every single comparable, every single company. I think we spent a year doing research and I wanted to know why this one was so much why it was better than the other ones. We this was our industry. So we really wanted to educate ourselves. And then, at the end of it, I was like, Let's bite the bullet. Let's do this. I'm ready to do it. And I knew the name and everything. I was like tight clinic. This is what's happening. Yeah. But obviously, when we made that leap to buy this incredibly expensive machine, I couldn't afford a retail space and the machine, you know, and I ended up starting my clinic out of my three bedroom condo downtown Toronto. So we literally had made the place look like we didn't live there. We had signs up, everything was like completely professional, it was beautiful. And I converted my dining room into the clinic. And at first I just started having friends come and you know, I would do their face. And they would like talk about me on social media. And the results were incredible. And like I have a really good friend. She's like a mom, blogger for rebel mama. And she posted about me a lot. And I started to get quite busy. I didn't say nice and quickly. But you know, it was like going from no one to two or three people a day, every day, five days a week. And then an influencer a library shot who has got like, I think a million followers on YouTube. Several 100,000 on Instagram. I started harassing her that she needed to cut my internet harassing her that she needed to come she need to try this. She was going to love it. And she was like, yeah, yeah, I'll come Yeah, we'll come. And then one day, I was out at a bar. And I saw her. And I was like five shots of tequila in and I went up to her and I was like, you're like Michelle. And she's like, Yeah, and I'm like, I'm the girl isn't pestering you on the internet, need to come to my clinic. So she agreed. And we joke about it now because she was sort of the the force that really propelled me. You know, all it takes is one person with a crazy YouTube following or crazy Instagram following to do something. And then you know, the world also knows about you. So she had come in, and I remember I was with a client, and I know, receptionist, I know nothing. So she came in and was like, looking at me. I'm in my dining room doing someone's face. She's sitting on the couch across me like am I gonna get murdered here what's happening. And after her first session, we chatted, we got to know each other. She came in for another one a week later. And then I remember waking up and looking at my Instagram and my Instagram and blown up. She posted something on YouTube. And she was like, Yeah, you know, I did this for my facial. And she's like, like, I really think it's working. It's only been two but like, Oh my God, look at my face and this and that. All of a sudden, like every day I will be with clients. And I would now I was getting to the point where I'm at 567 people a day books for you know, five days a week, my phone is ringing, I can't answer the phone, I can't take points. I've no idea what's going on. So I bought a second machine. And I can go another room in my condo. And I hired somebody else. And we were both going full force. And we were both just like booking out a month to two months in advance. Like it really happened so quickly. But I taken everything that I learned from, you know, customer service from how people want to be treated to having a luxury experience from everything that I learned in 15 years in corporate and running, you know, all of these locations, putting all that passion into my own business. And, you know, making it a full on experience. Like I was the first person in Toronto, doing treatments like this, documenting all of it, like I wanted people, you can go as a woman have a procedure done. And the next day you're like, Man, I just looked like myself again, you get used to it so quickly. Once I wanted to document and be like, let's make it something tangible that people can see that way they actually know it's working. So I have like a system where we're doing before and afters whether you wanted them or not whether you know they were private or not. There's waiver forms we wouldn't post if the client was private. But getting to see the journey from beginning to end on how your face was changing. No one was doing that before we were doing that and now it's on practice. Everyone's hanging out. It's it's that's great. But we, it was a Yeah, it's been a wild journey.

Peter Szczerba - I mean, why I think wild is an understatement. i There's so much that I want to unpack here, I think, I think often you hear about, you know, formative moments in people's journeys, that that are born out of extreme challenge, right. And I was, I would qualify, going through your experience with cancer and surviving and fighting it as extreme challenge. And then that's a perspective shifting moment. And so then now, you know, you jumped immediately back into your career, as you said, because you just couldn't think about what you had gone through anymore, because it's an all consuming thing, especially if you're off work, you're a driven individual that previously was dedicating so much of their life to, to their to their career was passionate about it now have that taken away from you, it's part of your identity, right? So, you know, to hear that, and then as you you talk about, for example, your appearance and not feeling like yourself, I think, especially given where your career was shaped in the luxury goods, industry, appearance and confidence, and, you know, being able to constantly step into any environment with the type of individuals you had to, like, that was a core part of like, who you were as a professional, right? And it's a core part of your identity and your competence. So like, all of that, right? It's not a superficial thing to say, I don't feel like myself, I can't recognize myself, how do I solve this, right? And then I think what's really interesting here is you go, and you have this experience. And then immediately, all of your training and scaling businesses and looking for opportunities with clients, etc, etc, just clicks when you realize that this works, it's given you back something that's more than just aesthetic, gave you back a part of your identity and give you back your confidence. And but what I admire is you immediately translate that to, oh, there's an opportunity here, right? How do we bring this back? So other people, right, can have this experience? But then also, because this could be a very lucrative business? Yeah. And, you know, I love also, that your immediate reaction to this was providing a luxury experience, but an accessible price point, because your first experience with this was I can't afford $100 A session. Yes. Right. And there's plenty of people who are in worse financial situations than I am. So it's just unattainable. So that mindset, right, like there's a little bit of altruism there, where you're trying to give people back part of their identity or their their confidence or make them feel better about who they are and their body image and stuff like that. But at an accessible price point, I think that that's probably a differentiator that when you combine, then all of your knowledge of the luxury goods and services space into this, like crazy intersection that just, you know, put you in a position to be wildly successful, and then all you needed was a spark. Yes. And then you saw the opportunity for that spark with this influencer. And you, you know, you were the use the word harass, I would just say you were being persistent, in pursuing, you know, that it's something that was gonna be accelerative to your business. And then, in doing so, you know, you you stumbled into this person, which is okay, you can chalk that up to luck. But what wasn't lucky is that you had done the work in trying to engage with this person previously. And then that's what allowed that connection, to turn into what it turned into. I think there's so much where you were like, when when did it? When did you realize that this was definitely where you were going to take your career? Like, as you were doing the research, like, when did it become really real? Because I think you could do a research for a year and kind of figure the space out. And I think a lot of people do that. But they still turn that into a business, let alone very successful. And so what when what was the inflection point, we're like, no, no, no, this is going to happen. And this is going to work.

Karmen LaMer  - So it was the day that sort of all of the research was done, we had everything in front of us, we could have made the decision to purchase a laser that you know, really didn't do much, but it was an affordable price point at $20,000. Or, you know, take the leap and spend $300,000 on on the right thing. We had a lot of conversations with my husband. So also as a background, my husband was also in the jewelry industry. And he had a successful wholesale company for 15 years. That's how he used to come to the store that I worked at and presents me with collections of things and I would look at them and be like, Oh, they're beautiful, but not in the budget. I was always that person as well not in the budget. And so when I had come to Toronto, and we'd met at a jewelers function, and we now we've been together for 11 years, congrats, thank you. He had so much also like business knowledge from a different perspective than I had. You know, I was always on the retail and he was on the wholesale. And so he had a whole different set of things. bring to the table. And so he really helped me with all the research. After we were all said and done, I remember having a conversation and he was like, What do you want to do? It's up to you. We're like, what do you want to do? I'm like, let's do it. Let's make this leap. There's no like, I'm also that person, there's no, there's no option for failure. It's either going to work, or it's really going to work. There's love that there's never it's not going to work because it's just not in my personality. And like, I'm telling you, if I bought that laser, and something had happened, and it didn't take off, I would have, you know, sold a property or I would have like, done something to figure it out. Right? Well, he's, he's a person like that as well. So I said, let's take the leap. And let's just do this. And it's been so funny, because on the Titanic dream, it went from just myself in one machine to, you know, booking months in advance to having my first employee and then also booking months in advance, I knew that this was something that could grow and really be something incredible. We just had to sort of, you know, duplicate what we had done and make sure that nothing is lost along the way. When COVID hits, I took the time to find the most perfect location that I've ever asked for I love this location for like 10 years everyday, like I would walk past all the time. And like I wonder what's in there. We had been in negotiations with another location right across from the ATO and everything for a reason. It didn't work out. And I remember I was devastated because COVID Head we'd planned, you know, we knew once the shutdown happened, we're like, this is the time to do renovations while everything's closed, and we can open in a fresh space. When that place did not come through. I was literally devastated. And then my husband was looking on Kijiji of all places, because like when you can't find something that you're looking for an MLS, you know, be creative. Look, see what else is out there. Right? My at that location that I loved for 10 years was up for rent because COVID hits the person that was enough couldn't afford it anymore. Well, it only had been three viewers. And we called and I was like, I'll take it. And she's like, do you want to see the inside? And I was like, Yeah, I guess went inside. And it was perfect. So we took that time to do all the renovations ourselves. And we're gonna go from two rooms to four rooms. And we were we took that time to bring on nurse practitioners to hire new staff. And I plan to take that, you know, two month wait, and be able to reschedule it to other people and then continue to grow. Right. And honestly, this journey has been so wild. Now there is 15 of us. Well, we have four nurses, we have two RMTS. And we're the only ones in Canada trained to do this specific massage, which is like another crazy thing. When we put we announce that massage. The month schedule, we announced it three months in advance. So basically December 1 at exactly noon, March will open, I'll put it up online, the entire month will go in less than one minute. It's like Beyonce tickets. It's crazy. But this whole journey, I'm telling you like I know this sounds cheesy. But you know, if I went from working at a small Italian restaurant making $5.90 an hour when I was 18 years old, to you know, being 39 years old and having something beautiful and successful that I built with my own two hands. But if you literally believe in what you're doing, and you're consistent with it every day, and you're not afraid of hard work, there's absolutely nothing that you cannot do. That goes for every single human out there. You just have to want it put the time in and like it's yours, the world's your oyster.

Peter Szczerba - No, and I don't think it's cheesy. And all these cheesy, I think I've had, you know, nearly 50 of these conversations now for this podcast. And that's been a consistent theme that the overlap of passion and deep care about what it is that you're doing in one fashion or the other. Right, like, you know, I'm a consultant, I work in the digital strategy world. And, you know, it's, it's about finding a passion that overlaps with something in that space, right? So for me, it's about making an impact on organizations that's lasting and accelerative, not necessarily the exact mechanical work that I'm doing. But that's not the point. I've found a passion and something that I'm that I'm doing that impacts a lot of what I touch in my job, which makes it very easy to work hard. And in this case, right? You experienced something that worked that you then believed in had an impact on you that you saw, you want it to have other people feel the impact of and found a passion in that. And I think that of course that's going to enable you to work that much harder than the other person. It's going to increase your acceptance of risk because you're going to believe in the fact that you're going to make it work right and so now you have this cocktail of, of factors that come together to allow for you to have pretty enormous success and and at scale and obviously taking advantage of it. Timing right in preparing yourself to be able to do that, right? I think is important, because it's one thing it you know, you can chalk up fortune for an opportunity falling in front of you. But it's preparation and hard work in terms of being able to seize the opportunity. And you've been able to do that over and over again, I think that's a demonstration of that. And so I mean, no, it's not cheesy. It's, it's, I think it's a fact. And it's demonstrated here, because you had a very strong belief in this product and in the impact that it had on people and the way that you could position it. And that clearly enabled what has come since.

Karmen LaMer - Yeah, it's been, it's been incredible. And I am very lucky as well to have I think, one thing that does make it easier is having a partner that can help you and what like for me, I'm very lucky, because it is my my life partner. And there's no one that you can trust more to help you with your business. This is another thing that I think most successful individuals will tell you is that if you try to do it all yourself, you'll lose your mind. And like back in the day, when I first opened, I was doing, you know, 789 10 treatments a day, which is very physically taxing. And then the social media, and then, you know, Client Relations and all of this and trying to like build that I was working literally 20 hours a day. But my husband from the backend was doing, you know, the website, he was doing all the payables, everything that operationally that I didn't have time to do. But he's incredibly good at doing right, if I had to do all of that, and everything would have taken so much longer to grow. Because my time we've been inundated on that. So I think it's really important to be able to have whether it's, you know, whoever it is you have to have people doing what they're good at to make sure that you can do what you're good at.

Peter Szczerba 

Interesting. So in terms of like, in your experience in how you structure I mean, initially, your business partner, but then I mean, since then a team of 15 plus people is that the mindset that you look at growth of your team through at all times finding complementary skill sets, where to your point, everyone can focus on doing what they're best at. And that kind of enables that kind of growth.

Karmen LaMer  - Exactly. Even with our employees, like we didn't, we were always very careful with how we spent our money, because we're always trying to, you know, plan for things and be able to grow. And we didn't have a receptionist for the longest time, even in the new location. And it became a challenge because on a lot of days, we have 30 or 40 people, sometimes 60 people, depending on the nurses then coming in through those doors every single day. And I stopped doing treatments about a year and a half ago, because there's just no time. And the machine does the work I learned. And I took so many courses I studied with a plastic surgeon, I I would I fully believe that I was the best at what I did. But I've taught my team how to be incredible. And now they get to do that, and I get to do what I'm good at. Also, my husband and I like we were trying to save money on having receptionists for the longest time. And we were trying to facilitate everything. But it was just like a whirlwind. You couldn't focus on anything. And so now we have two patient coordinators, who are there every day plus I'm there plus my husband is there. And it's still a lot to juggle, right. But you like having people, showing them what they need to do. And making sure that they're incredible at what they do. And then helping them grow, can only help your business grow. You know, again, you cannot do it all yourself and you can't try to, to cut corners or to make anything, you know, you really have to develop the individuals who are for you. And they have to be like you when you're not there. You know, we're all a face of the company.

Peter Szczerba - Right, I think I think what's really important about what you're describing here is the fact that it's transferable to any work environment. I mean, I'm sure you experienced the same thing in your own in your corporate career. This, when you were scaling from one store to 11, you can't do the same activities you did when you were managing one store in 11 places you have to elevate yourself, enable the people next to you and under you to be able to do that work. So that way you can focus on the new strategic, big picture thinking things that are required of you. And in this case, you've done the exact same thing. And, you know, I've experienced that in my career as I've grown and watched other people experience it in corporate or consulting careers. And I think that this is an incredibly transferable tidbit for anyone listening to take aways that you know, as you are trying to progress in your career, there's a scaling and an elevation of your skill set and, and your role that you have to do and when you start recognizing that like you putting your hands on everything is the limiting factor of whatever it is you're working on growth and potential. That's when you have to enable somebody else and then pull yourself out of it right now I think it's an incredibly important thing. And it's I love the fact that you see the proof of its importance in a context like yours in a business like yours, but also I can immediately see it happening in a 20,000 person, multi billion dollar corporation and I'm sure you'd like as I said you saw in your coworker in it totally different industry, right? I think it's really important. And the fact that you recognize probably is unlocked a lot of the business growth that you guys have experienced. Yes, no, for sure. So what's what's next? I mean, what's the future hold? Because I feel like you're definitely having these thoughts. You certainly have a vision for it. You know, what's the next step? What is 10 years from now looks like for Thai clinic, the brand and everything else?

Karmen LaMer  - Well, it's, it's, uh, uh, that's one thing that I'm learning is that it's always evolving, and it's always growing. And I think that's part of who I am, as a human, who my husband is, as a human, I think there's people who do get to a certain point of like, Ah, this is great money, I'm satisfied, I'm comfortable. It's never so much about money for me, or, you know, getting comfortable, maybe I just don't like being comfortable. But like, I always feel like if you're comfortable, you're not growing. So, next steps, were opening a second location. In the next year, we bought a building, which is very exciting, you know, we went from working from my condo to, you know, renting out a dream space to being able to purchase a piece of real estate, that is going to be the next step in our journey. That's very exciting. So we're going to be developing that throughout the next calendar year. And then after that, there's bit like, I want to be in New York, I want to be in LA, but we looked at doing a location in Turks and Caicos at some point in time. And it's all about, you know, being able to duplicate and replicate what we have and bring it to places that need it. And that's ultimately what I plan to do. We've had some interesting conversations with some external companies. And I remember being very inspired early on in my journey, and I listened to a podcast about the woman who owns bliss spas, and she's starting off with one small spa, and are like doing facials for people after helping them workout. And then now she is in every W hotel in the world. And she was acquired by LVMH for like $300 million, like, in 2008. I think. So actually, a couple weeks ago, we had a conversation with another company who wanted to discuss acquiring our company. And that's not anywhere near where I want to go. Now. There's still so much more to do. And there's so much more that's coming. But it's it was really kind of cool. And validating just to have that conversation to be like, Okay, I'm not ready for that yet. But maybe one day, 10 years down the road, when I'm ready to call it a day, there is an exit strategy. And yeah, you're so young in our journey, the fact that somebody else is that interested already? I was like, Huh, that's just that that felt really amazing.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah, I mean, listen, that is just total validation of the value of what you've created. And its potential. You know, I mean, the podcast is called own your potential. I've no doubt you're going to own yours. Just in the vision that you described, you're out here to build an empire, which I admire hugely. And I, I this has been a spectacular conversation. I think there's so much in here for people to pull out and apply to their own careers. I want to thank you for your time, your willingness to do the conversation. And then, you know, I demand a follow up conversation a year or two from now when when you're unsure, you know, three exercise in some new cities. And I want to hear about all the challenges about scaling on that level. So thank you.

Karmen LaMer - Thank you so much for having me. This was this was amazing. Thank you so much.