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Summary

Hellooo and welcome to my first *official* guest interview as part of our Building The Brand series. Today, I am joined by Madilyn Sonter – Dermal Therapist turned Registered Nurse and Founder of three incredible health brands: The Functional Nurse, The Functional Skin and The Functional Skin Studio. In this episode, Madilyn speaks about her transition from nursing to entrepreneurship, sharing her journey to opening her Brisbane aesthetics clinic and building her skincare line. She reflects on her growth as a business owner, the significance of her personal brand, the risks she took when scaling her businesses and her future growth plans.

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Time Stamps
00:00: Introduction to the Functional Nurse and Functional Skin Brands
09:02: Transitioning from Nursing to Entrepreneurship
12:02: Building The Functional Skin Studio and Creating a Unique Client Experience
18:04: Developing a Skincare Line
22:11: Navigating Profit and Growth in Business
28:08: The Importance of Client Feedback in Product Development
31:36: Overcoming Burnout and Finding Balance
35:21: Shifting Focus from Ego to Personal Fulfillment
39:04: The Role of Personal Branding in Business Success
41:11: Future Plans and Continued Growth for the Brand

Guest Information

Madilyn Sonter is the founder of The Functional Skin Studio and creator of The Functional Skincare line. A dermal therapist turned registered nurse, Maddie combined her expertise and passion to launch The Functional Nurse, a brand dedicated to holistic skin health. Her mission is simple: to help people understand and nurture their skin’s natural functions.

Proudly Australian-made and cruelty-free, The Functional Skincare line is thoughtfully designed with gentle, effective formulas that are perfect for supporting sensitive skin.

Website:

www.thefunctionalskin.com

www.thefunctionalskinstudio.com 

Instagram:

@the_functional_nurse

@thefunctionalskin

@thefunctionalskinstudio

Episode Transcript

[Rachel]
Pour It Out acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land in which this podcast was recorded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

Hello and welcome to Pour It Out, the marketing podcast for health brands who refuse to be bland. I’m your host, Rachel Hawkins, and today you are listening to another episode in our Building the Brand series, which is a series where I sit down with successful founders to uncover the stories behind the health brands we all know, follow and admire. On today’s show, I am joined by Madilyn Sonter.

Dermal therapist turned registered nurse and founder of not one, not two, but three amazing brands, the Functional Nurse, the Functional Skin skincare line and the Functional Skin Studio, which is an absolutely stunning holistic aesthetics clinic based here in Brisbane. Having blended her two passions together, Maddie is on a mission to help others understand and support their skin’s natural functions through her holistic approach to skin health.

Not only does she have a team of skin and aesthetics experts working in her Brisbane clinic, but in more recent years, she has also developed her own skincare line, which can I just say is absolutely incredible. It’s Aussie made, it’s cruelty free, and it is specially formulated to support sensitive skin exactly like mine with gentle, effective formulas. And we should also mention you are also the mom to two twin boys. Safe to say you are very busy. And we have lots to talk about. So hello, welcome to the show, Maddie.

[Madilyn]
Hello! Speaking of busy women, congratulations on your new podcast. You’re always up to something new.

[Rachel]
Oh, you know what? It doesn’t feel like it, but it is actually really fun to be working on a new project. And I’m so grateful to you for giving me your time. You were just telling me this is like the first, I think, podcast. You said the first adult conversation was your words that you’ve had in seven months.

[Madilyn]
It feels like it. It feels like that. It’s been a blurry seven months. So I am pre-warning listeners that I said to Rachel, I don’t know if I can string a sentence together. So she may have to find my words.

[Rachel]
I said there’s amazing things we can do in post-production, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. All right. Well, let’s get stuck into this episode. I really would love to start at the beginning of your journey and talk about how the functional nurse, how the functional skin brands really began.

[Madilyn]
Yeah, well, essentially my two companies are the Functional Skin Studio and the Functional Skincare line. And they stemmed from my personal brand, which is the functional nurse. That stemmed from my career, which was as a healthcare professional. And all of that came together because of my long-term issues with my skin. So growing up, I always had eczema and I had really dry,

sensitive skin, it was always really reactive. So growing up, I’ve just always been really self conscious of my skin and it turned into acne in my teenage years as well. So it’s always been a major passion of mine to help others going through it. And I guess the point of difference with my businesses and the way that I treat is that I learned early on that it was more stemming from internal factors. So a lot of my childhood was spent in dermatology practices and the GPs.

and I was being prescribed topical medication to support or to reduce the eczema, which of course was working long, short term, but long term, no one was educating me on why I was having eczema flare-ups, why my skin was so sensitive. And that’s something that I went into discover for myself. And I felt like I really needed to get that message out there. I also couldn’t find a path of…

Being a healthcare provider who could provide that kind of level of support and information, it was either very clinical becoming a dermatologist or it was becoming a naturopath and not being as hands-on. So I kind of just created my own role and joined all of my passions together. I studied the dermal and beauty side of things and then I studied nursing and joined that together and then the integrative health as well. So all of that came together and it honestly started as a blog.

crazy to think because that was around eight years ago. I was working in the industry and I just didn’t know how to get the message out there or how to get my opinions and my point of view on skin out there. And Instagram wasn’t as big back then. It had only just kind of taken off. So yeah, I had a blog and I used to write weekly blogs and that’s how it started.

[Rachel]
I had no idea it started as a blog. Cause we connected, I think I found you on Instagram when you were practicing.

because I had issues with my skin and so I saw you as a client and sort of kept in touch ever since. But I always remember that you really were like a pioneer or someone that was speaking about like a more holistic approach to skin health. As you say, it was really one way or the other, there was no one really in the middle there. And now like all of these years on, I think landscapes definitely changed a lot. Like there’s a lot more people in your space, but certainly I see you as being one of those leading voices.

[Madilyn]
It was hard though at the time because a lot of people were like, you’re contradicting yourself. You’re injecting people with botulin toxin and all of those things. But I just found myself in a really hard space where, as I said, there was no job specifically for what I wanted to do. So like functional nurse came from functional medicine. I was really into listening to functional medicine podcasts and it’s obviously just like another term for the integrative health. But yeah, people were like, well, you can’t be doing that. And then also recommending like.

you know, holistic health. My version of holistic health is looking at the body as a whole and, you know, assessing the patient as a whole. It’s not just, okay, you can’t have any toxin, you know, probably go off on a red with that. But yeah, it was really hard at the beginning because people were just one or the other. So it was really cool to be able to integrate it together and find my type of clients who understood that.

[Rachel]
And you definitely found them because I remember your online presence really taking off under the functional nurse, under your personal brand. And as we know that evolved into the functional skin brands as well. Just going back to your background as a health practitioner and a nurse, how much of that experience shaped the brand that we now see today?

[Madilyn]
With nursing, it’s hard because I know like a lot of your probably your clientele are more in the metropathy and nutritional side of things, which is great because you do your degree, you do your course and you come out and that’s what you are. But with nursing, it’s hard because there’s so many different roles you can play as a nurse. So I actually did hospital nursing for quite some time and I did it because that was my backup. For me, it was like the safe role and.

Although I had a lot of faith and confidence in my dream of becoming whatever the functional nurse was going to become, I had it there as my backup. And it allowed me to make some pretty risky decisions, opening my business because I knew that that was always going to be there. But it also reminded me or also showed me that that’s not what I wanted for my life. Like I would go to my shifts and I would just.

miserable. I was like, I am not someone that can be in a clinical setting for nine to 12 hours a day, dictate at what my shifts are, like there’s got to be more to life than this. And like, this was like, you know, eight years ago, so it wasn’t as easy just to step out of that and make money doing other things. So I guess having that experience, I know that that’s not what I want. And it’s always there for me to go back to, which I never will now, but it was a good reminder that wanted something more and it helped me to step out and take some risks.

[Rachel]
I can’t imagine how challenging nursing would be, as you say, the shift work, the long hours. If you imagine yourself, you know, back in that time, can you remember that point where you realized, okay, what I’m doing here and what I’m trying to build here, like this could actually be like a legitimate business. This isn’t just a hobby or a passion project. This could actually work.

[Madilyn]
It was really hard. It was something that I honestly kept to myself between my husband and I, because although I have like an incredibly supportive family and friends, I know it was only eight years ago, but things were so different eight years ago. Like it wasn’t like Instagram and social media now. Even just talking, I was talking on Instagram a lot and people were like, that’s weird. And now that you know, we all do it.

Yeah, my family and friends were like, no, like nursing’s safe. Like, what are you doing? Like, I didn’t even know how to pay my tax. I didn’t know. Like, I think I’ve got a bit of book smart, but I didn’t have any like, just general life smarts. Like sometimes I forget to pay my registration. So I was like, how on earth can I have a business? But yeah, I figured it out. And what I found was I was just working insane hours. I was working at the hospital, then I would try and work. I was working at.

like the clinic and then I was doing online consultations and then Instagram was like a full time job. And I was just, I wish I had that amount of energy now. I definitely don’t, but I was doing every day, every waking minute was about brand and my business. And yeah, my husband was probably the biggest, I guess, fan and supporter of me. And he was like, let’s just do it. Let’s go do what you want to do. And you can always fall back on nursing. So yeah, that’s to answer your question.

[Rachel]
Yeah, no, it’s amazing because I think so often we don’t really hear those conversations around like the support network or the things that are happening, you know, on a personal front that can allow you to sort of take that leap. So it’s so nice to hear that you had the support of your husband to do that. can you talk to us about that transition from like making the decision of, yeah, I’m going to, you know, open my own clinic space? to, you know, building that out. Cause I know there were many iterations on the journey, you didn’t just go straight into the studio that you have today.

[Madilyn]
Yeah. Something that I was really passionate about was not going into business with anyone. Yeah. I had seen a few businesses that I’d worked for previously have business partners and I just seen how it just did not work. And for me, I just want to pure creative freedom and I didn’t want to have insane amounts of debt. So I think I was like,

very, very smart about it. I just started with a small room and it was all I could afford. My rent was next to nothing. I didn’t need to get out a massive loan or anything. I just, I think like the whole thing was like I just did my time and it was slow. So although a lot of times with businesses, it seems like an overnight success. I have been chipping away at this since I was 17. Like I started working in a day spa and I hated it because it was like…

I knew I wanted to be up here and doing this, but I had to start at the bottom. And all of that shaped where I’m at today because I learned from all these other businesses and I learned from starting at the bottom. But yes, when I went out on my own, I was like, let’s just do a small space. It’s just gonna be me. Like, let’s just see how it goes. And yeah, I stayed working at the hospital during that time as well. So I knew that my rent could be paid at least. And then if I could make profit, then that’s amazing. And then it just gradually progressed from there.

[Rachel]
It’s so funny you say that cause I was listening to a podcast this morning and, uh, Raquel Boris, the founder of Who Is Elijah Perfumes. I’m not sure that you’ve seen them, but she was talking about her business journey and they’ve like really taken off this year and they’re sort of everywhere. They’ve experienced this rapid growth, but she said they’re like seven or eight years into the journey and they’ve like only just really like gotten off the ground. And to your point.

It is so easy to see all of these brands that you admire or aspire to be like online and compare yourself to them and sort of think like, Oh, it’s happened so quickly for them, but there is just so much that happens behind, you know, the scenes if you like to, you know, create the brands that we see today.

[Madilyn]
A hundred percent. I do see a lot. I’ve recently gone on TikTok and started looking at TikTok reels. There are so many brands on there that have seen just… They take off within like 3 months or people are making insane amounts of money through social media. But at the risk of sounding like a Miley Cyrus song, it is the journey as well. So I’m sure we could all create a digital product or a product tomorrow and push a whole lot of money into it. But having a brand and having that journey, it’s been so fun. And that’s what I want to do every day for the rest of my life.

[Rachel]
It’s so true. And when you were, you know, creating the studio space, what was like the vision that you had for it when you first opened doors? Cause it’s a stunning, stunning space.

[Madilyn]
Thank you. Honestly, I was just so grateful to have other people wanting to work there because I actually, I was really nervous to ever employ anyone. I was like, I’m just going to do this on my own. I don’t want to be a manager, I’m the healthcare professional, I’m not a business person, I’m not the manager, I don’t like to manage people, I don’t like to teach people. So I was like, yeah, I was so nervous to expand beyond myself, but I knew that I had to because I don’t like to half-ass things. And it got to a point where I was half-assing everything. And I was like, no, I need to get the best of the best in, I need to have the best naturopath, the best cosmetic injector. I need to be able to put my ego aside

bring in the talent and bring in the people who can do the things that I don’t want to do or that I don’t have time to do. So I now when I look at the clinic, the clinic is way too small and I was locked into a five year lease. So we are just like waiting for that lease to be up. But at the time I was like, no, I couldn’t possibly need more than three treatment rooms. There’s no way I’m going to have more stuff than that. So I really capped myself, which I never usually do. But yeah, I was really nervous to go bigger than that. But I’m also so glad.

that I did because it’s stressful enough just being that small. But what I decided was I had worked for other clinics previously and I’ve seen clinics where they’ve just opened like 10 and they have like franchises and the quality of staff, the quality of the experience is just not there. The fit out might be stunning, but the quality is not there. So I’m keeping it small in terms of staff and we really do have the best of the best and I’m able to do that because we just have a small group

we can focus on. So I didn’t really know what the intention was when I opened it. I was just like, if I just have to work seven days a week and it’s just me, then so be it. I just want a beautiful space for my clients to come to. But yeah, I’m so grateful that I do have a gorgeous team now and yeah, it’s kind of all just happened organically.

[Rachel]
So you touched on an interesting thing there when you were talking about client experience. How did you go about designing a client experience that really reflected your holistic approach to skin health?

[Madilyn]
I guess that’s where my history with my skin comes into it because I know just how intimidating it can be going into a skin clinic, particularly like a dermatology clinic or somewhere where you’re going and you’re feeling very vulnerable and you’ve got no makeup on and you’re showing your skin and you…

a very vulnerable time. So that’s something I really had in mind when even just choosing the location of my clinic, it’s not on a main street. It’s really hidden away because obviously you’re leaving and coming in without makeup. And I noticed some people that might sound very like vain, but when you’re dealing with a skin condition yourself, those things do matter. So the whole place is just supposed to feel, although we need to be clinical in the treatment rooms, obviously we’re doing clinical treatments, it’s supposed to feel warm and welcoming

and just no judgement. So a lot of the times like my reception girls don’t wear makeup, we show our skin stories as well because yeah we just want people to feel comfortable and I always think back to how I would feel when my skin was flared and I was going into dermatology practices or skin clinics and how yeah just uncomfortable I used to feel so I never want anyone to feel like that in our clinic.

[Rachel]
That’s so true. I didn’t even think about location. Yeah, as someone who has experienced acne and has been very conscious of their skin. That would be a nightmare walking into like a Westfields or like a big shopping center, not having any makeup on. Like you’re so true, like you can literally drive straight up and then it is a really inviting space when you come in.

[Madilyn]
Yeah. So yeah, that was a big factor that we thought about.

[Rachel]
And can we talk about developing a skincare line? Please tell me, where do you even begin?

[Madilyn]
Well, yes, it’s been a lot. The interesting thing is I think my husband, because my husband, whether he wanted to be on the, is part of the skincare line with me, he owns part of it with me. We get really excited figuring out things ourselves. So for instance, like we always built our own websites. We never like.

maybe we’re just quite stubborn, but we find it exciting. We find it really fun figuring things out together. So the skincare line was just, yeah, it was him and I coming together. We interviewed so many different or met with so many different formulators and we got figures and we just did it really slowly. We didn’t put any timelines on it. And yeah, we just were trying to figure it all out ourselves, which, like I was saying before, the journey of that is really

They can just have a product, throw the money at it. They outsource everything. And then it’s there just making the money, which is completely fine. But that’s never why we did it. We did it because we enjoyed the process. I enjoyed the creative side of it. But yeah, we, we’ve learned a lot along the way, because one thing I’m not good at is money in the sense of earning profit. Or I think like I’m very just in that gratitude bubble where I’m like,

cool. I can sell skincare and when someone looks at it, they might be like, Oh, you’re making $30 profit off a product. And I’m like, that is amazing. How cool is that? But then when they really look at it, they’re like, you could be making $70. Why are you not upping the price? Why are you not doing it this way? But for me, I’m just, as I said, just any amount of profit, I’m like, this is amazing. So that’s something I’ve had to learn because to grow, we need it to make more profit and we need to put more money into it.

Yeah, it went from being kind of like just a little side project that we were loving and enjoying. And now we’re like really having to have our business mind on and do it properly.

[Rachel]
I can’t even imagine the challenges with like not only product production, but then also logistics of like getting that product to people. And even just like forecasting for demands, like, especially with a skincare product, I imagine it has like a shelf life per se. I don’t know whether that’s the right terminology.

[Madilyn]
You know, exactly. That’s the scary part. That’s, I mean, the clinic was a risk, but I had worked in the industry for like eight years prior and I’d always been booked out. I knew my figures. I knew my clientele. I knew they would follow me. So it wasn’t that big of a risk because I knew I had that the skincare line, big risk, scary to invest that kind of money into it. And even when you start in the beginning. So for instance, I used to only order maybe 50 moisturisers at a time and I’d be like, like, I hope I sell them.

when you’re only ordering 50 moisturizers, the price is so high. So you need to be able to get up and scale. And now we’re ordering thousands at a time. And the price isn’t as high. So yeah, it sucks at the beginning because you only order 50 and you pray that they will sell. But as you said, they do have a shelf life. So one thing we did that was not the best in the beginning is I chose to go small batch and micro batch, which is where everything’s yet.

it was locally sourced. We had like a herbalist making it. It was made by hand. I was going to go down that avenue, but it was just so expensive and things would go off within six months. And so there was just no way to scale from that. So lots of lessons learned.

[Rachel]
It’s like blending like your own values, like, cause I can imagine being exactly the same. Like I’d want to go small. I want to go micro all those things you just said. But then I suppose you get to a point where financially it’s feasible and you have to, you know, sort of level up or explore other realms in order to get your product to more people.

[Madilyn]
Yeah. And that’s like, there are amazing options out there to still be holistic and sustainable and all of those things. We just weren’t big enough to get into those manufacturers. So now that we are, it’s amazing and we can still be conscious and health conscious and all of those things and use natural preservative systems. But at the time we weren’t anyone and we could only order 50 at a time, so no one would take us serious and no one would take us on. Whereas now I have three different formulating companies and we can place significant orders and be taken serious.

[Rachel]
That’s incredible. And like, even if you think about the skincare market, like as a whole, it is so competitive. There’s so many different brands out there, so many different products. How did you make sure that the functional skin wasn’t just gonna be another name on the shelf?

[Madilyn]
Well, again, like I already knew that I had the clientele before I did this. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything in my business where I didn’t know. And that’s not trying to sound arrogant or anything. It’s like I had the figures. I have 10,000 clients on a database at my clinic and they were purchasing all of these natural skincare brands that I was already stocking. So they already trust us. They already trust me. I know that I have that database there. So like I would never go and start a haircare line or something because

I know nothing about hair, although it would be fun. I don’t have the clientele and I don’t really care to just do mass marketing to people because it’s not something I’m passionate about. So I already had the clientele. I knew that they would trust me and provide me with real honest feedback. And I also saw it more as, I guess this is again, like I capped myself, but it was more from the perspective of how could I compete with these big brands?

I’m just going to make a skincare brand for my clients in my clinic. And to the point where I actually had everything in glass, because I had planned for all my clients to come back in and I would have like big aesthetic barrels there and they could refill their product. Like that’s what I was thinking. That didn’t work because of good old COVID and all of the changes in the, yeah, the hygienic process of that. But yeah, I originally had just thought that it would just be my clientele. And now we’ve grown and we ship all across Australia and New Zealand.

[Rachel]
It’s incredible. And you’re so right. You do have such a loyal client base there. And you know, once you have that, that loyal client base, it just really helps with, you know, increasing brand awareness because word of your products just, you know, gets out in terms of feedback from your customers with the skincare line, how big of a role has that played in product development over the past couple of years?

[Madilyn]
Huge. I think because I’m so close with a lot of my clients, I’ve been treating them for years. And I probably a bit of a people pleaser and because I’m so passionate about what I’m doing with the products, the moment there was any like negative feedback, although our clients do it in a beautiful way, any negative feedback, I was like, okay, I need to change that. I need to fix that. Although like you’re never going to please everyone, but I took so much on board.

a lot of clients trialing the products as well and providing feedback. Because as I said, in the beginning, it was purely just for my clients. So if they’re not going to buy it and it’s not helping their skin, then there was no point. So I still accept feedback now, although it’s so much harder. Someone actually messaged the other day and asked if we could change the pump because it just wasn’t working for them. And I was like, do you realize I ordered like thousands of these bottles at a time? I can’t just change it tomorrow. Like, it’s going to be a long time before I change that.

But yeah, it was so important to me because there was no point in the beginning if my clients at the clinic weren’t going to buy it. And iStock, as you know, so many different ranges that are already well successful, have a huge backing and have years under their belt. So to compete with them was really hard. So finding what my clients wanted and finding that little gap in the toolkits that we had at the clinic, yeah, it’s really important.

[Rachel]
What I love about your story, like we keep touching on it both directly and indirectly, but that whole journey that you were talking about, it’s not like you have this idea and you executed and that was, it’s like being this constant evolution and just you constantly evolving and changing to meet the needs of your target market. And as you say, like you identified gaps in the current products that you are offering in your clinic and fill those like without having those years of clinic experience, you don’t even know those gaps exist.

[Madilyn]
Yeah, for sure. I find it really interesting. I had a catch up with a friend a couple of months ago, and she was wanting to start her own clinic and start her own business. But she had one year experience in the industry and she’s like, I just don’t want to work for someone else anymore. I was like, you just can’t cut corners. Like if you want to do this long term, I know it sucks working for someone else. But there’s so much you can learn whether they’re a good boss, bad boss, whether their business is run correctly. There’s so much to learn and I feel like if you’re in it for the long haul, you have to do the time.

[Rachel]
I think that’s really good advice. I think as well, like if we sort of get you to reflect on the business journey as a whole, like I look at, let’s say the skincare line and, you know, having followed you, I feel like it’s gone from zero to a hundred overnight. But as you say, it’s been many years in the making. Have there been any moments that have been like, I suppose those make or break moments, maybe those moments that you don’t really see online or on Instagram?

[Madilyn]
Oh, 100% in the beginning. So the skincare line, we started four years ago and prior to that was like a year’s worth of formulating and doing all of the things and losing money from packaging and whatnot for the first four, probably a year.

Clancy and I would hand fill bottles and hand label the bottles. So I was working six days in the clinic. Clancy had a cafe at the time. He was working seven days in the cafe and we would come home and we would hand fill the bottles, hand label them. I’d be up to like 2 a.m. doing it. And I remember we received a shipment. We ended up, sorry, getting like our formulator to fill them for us and we received a shipment and there was like hundreds of

bottles of broken glass and we lost all of that and no one would take accountability for it. And so we lost all of that money. And we were just like, we just can’t do this anymore on our own. What are we doing? I had no idea what we’re doing. I was like, I can’t be shipping glass out anymore. It’s so expensive. I just need to invest and just do the bottles and the packaging design that I want to do because to do this, you have to order 10,000 or so at a time. So it’s a huge risk.

I remember that was a huge breaking point for me. I was so unhealthy at the time. I had just gone out on my own, like the next level of my skin clinic. So I had like signed a big lease to this two room clinic. And as I said, we were just working insane amount of hours. And I was like, something’s got to give because it wasn’t bringing me joy at that time. It was just so stressful, but people don’t see that. People don’t see, you know, sitting there labelling the products till two in the morning and making sure like,

quality checking myself, like triple checking because I was so anxious that someone wasn’t going to like the product. So yeah, there’s, it’s been a very long journey to get to this point.

[Rachel]
Yeah. I’m so pleased that you speak about that because I just feel like business owners really don’t. We hear people talking when people have had those breakthrough moments, right. And those real success moments, but even just, you know, you talking about like that burnout and.

you know, the impact on your health. And I think we’ve had a conversation previously around the whole like work-life balance. And we were both sort of like, what is that? And can you, can you achieve success in business without having those moments where you are literally hustling so hard and working those long hours? Like, is it possible? I don’t really know what the answer is.

[Madilyn]
I mean, you and I are probably out on the other end of it now. I would not be here without having had that hustle. Mind you, as I said, I have zero energy to ever hustle that hard ever again. Like it’s, it’s not as hard for me now, although we’re still very busy. The hustle isn’t there as insane as what it was like seven days a week was just ridiculous every waking minute. I don’t think I could be here without that hustle. I dunno, unless you have money behind you, which we certainly didn’t.

[Rachel]
Yeah. And like going back to that time, sort of, you know, you burnt out. you’re sort of on the backseat prioritizing the business. Was there something that sort of changed that trajectory into like the path you’re on now? Like, was it just a more gradual change over time, I suppose?

[Madilyn]
No, it definitely I came to the realization that a lot of what I was doing, and not to get too deep, but a lot of what I was doing was to prove myself. And when I looked I don’t actually enjoy a lot of the things that I’m doing in my day. Why am I doing this? So for instance, staying working at the hospital, I was trying to prove that I’m still a real nurse and use that credential. And I wasn’t planning my future based on how I wanted my days to be. I was basing it on status and I’m a registered nurse and I have this degree and I did this. And that’s what I was basing it off, I guess, ego also.

I was saying yes to every event. I was hosting events. I was so burnt out. And as I said, like I needed to be doing those things to hustle, but I was saying yes, I guess, for the wrong reason. So I really sat down and I was like, what do I want my days to look like? How, do I wanna be treating in the clinic 12 hours a day? No, I don’t. So I need to get another employee. And I discovered that, you know, we got to the point where we wanted to have children. And even like, for instance, the house we bought,

further out because I wanted to be able to have a home studio. So I didn’t want to have to go to a warehouse after work and pack the orders. So now I get to stay at home with my babies and pack my orders from home. And although me probably eight years ago would have been like, what, why aren’t you doing another degree? Why aren’t you doing this? Like, I’m so happy now because this is what I genuinely love to do in the day. If that makes sense. Like that’s what really changed it for me. I was like, I don’t need to prove myself to anyone.

I just want my days to be how I want them. And I remember it so clearly. I was driving to the hospital. It was like five in the morning. I was driving to a shift and I just was like, with every inch of me, I do not wanna do this shift. Like I hate this. I’ve got so much work I need to be doing. I don’t wanna be doing this shift. Gosh, I wish my day was just like getting up, have coffee, go to the gym, you know, do some skincare, do some online consultations. And then I was like, why don’t I make…

my life. Like why am I still doing this? And it wasn’t for the money because nursing money at the time was not great at all. It was for like status and ego and all of the other things. So that was a huge moment for me where I thought, no, I need to do this for myself and not try and prove myself to anyone else. And as I said, now my days are stressful with twins, but it’s where I want to be packing my skincare orders.

[Rachel]
Yeah, that’s incredible. So relatable. I’m sure there’s so many people that’ll be listening to this episode being like, yeah, I can relate to that. I look back at my first business and I definitely think a lot of the things I did was ego driven and very much centered around like what brands am I working with? Where am I being seen, et cetera. And that was just so detrimental to my mental health.

But as you say, I suppose it’s like you get older, your priorities change, you have more life experience and you know, in your case, you’ve essentially shaped this lifestyle that you want to live in and your work fits into that as opposed to the other way around and work sort of playing that dictating role. Is there anything from a brand perspective and building the brand that you wish you could redo?

[Madilyn]
Honestly, I don’t think so. One of the main things is I kind of let go of the functional nurse a little bit. And I think you talk a lot about this, having that personal. brand. I feel like in the last couple of years, I definitely haven’t showed up on my own Instagram. One, because I didn’t want to, but also I just, I started to be like, no one wants to hear what I have to say. And I would overthink my content. And even now, if I post something about skin and genuinely post some information, my business will boom.

And so, yeah, I wish, I think, keeping that personal brand alive. would do again. But I also could, I guess, do that at any time. I can bring that back to the forefront. Yeah, it’s probably the biggest thing. And yeah, I think I’ve heard you talk about it on a podcast where having the personal brand from the beginning because there’s so many just brands out there. Like everyone, yeah, there’s a million different brands and you don’t know who are behind them. So having the personal element to it is really important.

[Rachel]
Yeah, I definitely think so. I’m such a big fan of personal brands and you know, in your case, you know, you were able to leverage that really strong personal brand that built to, you know, go on to develop the brands that you have today. As you say, I also think it’s something that you can go back and pick up. Like you’ve still got that presence, but gosh, you’ve only got so many hours in the day, right? You’ve got to like put your time somewhere.

[Madilyn]
As you discovered with me trying to set up a podcast situation, I’m not tech savvy, so I’m not learning TikTok and I’m not learning the new algorithms.

[Rachel]
Yeah, so, so fair.

[Madilyn]
I read your emails, but I’m not learning.

[Rachel]
That is all good. Look, I have my own challenges in showing up. I’ve got an amazing team that helped me with scheduling all of my social content now. And I went to go schedule my own Instagram reel last week. And I was like, what is this feature? I can’t figure it out. I felt like I was like, I don’t know. My first time using Instagram was really funny. But anyway, I’m just looking at the time here and I’m very mindful we need to wrap. So to finish this conversation, I’d love to know what is next for you. What is next for the functional skin?

[Madilyn]
Well, a lot of my time and energy is going into the skincare line and continuing to formulate products that will genuinely help skin. I’m really focusing on my marketing this year or this year coming to be far more educational, to keep that point of difference. We’re all about the education here and.

We’re looking at a warehouse, so that’s really exciting. And our lease will be up at the clinic soon. So we do have some very exciting warehouse renovations, things happening, but yeah, I am really just focusing on the skincare and not putting timelines on myself because I wanna do it all perfectly and enjoy the journey of it.

[Rachel]
That sounds like a very good plan. And I’m excited to see what this next evolution looks like for you, but it definitely sounds like, you know, onto continued growth and more amazing things. So yeah, congratulations. You’re just incredible. I’m the biggest fan of you as you know. Thank you so much for being here on the podcast.

[Madilyn]
Thank you and congratulations on your podcast. You’re amazing.

[Rachel]
Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you to everyone who’s listening to this episode. This was a building the brand. I’m still learning my own segments. It’s been real. If you enjoyed this podcast and you’re listening to us on Apple podcasts or Spotify, I’ve got a massive favour to ask. Can you pretty please leave a rating and review?

Not only does this help us reach more people, but it also helps me to continue making and producing this podcast. So if you want to hear more of these amazing conversations, then that is the best way that you can support us. Plus, I’m running a little bit of a giveaway comp. So anyone that leaves a rating and review before the 31st of January can also enter that giveaway and go in the draw to win my entire digital product suite, which is valued at over four and a half thousand dollars. So all the details will be linked in the show notes.

Alrighty, that is it from me. Thank you so much for listening. I’ll see you next week.