CarolAnn Tutera: Revolutionizing Hormone Therapy with SottoPelle | S2 Ep. 76

0:05Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. Today, we have Carol Ann Tutera, who is the founder of Soto Peli. And I'm really excited, Carol Ann, because this is a topic that I've wanted to understand more about and have been recently asking questions to others around it. What inspired you to develop Soto Peli and how has your vision evolved since then? That's a great question because my late husband, Dr. Tutera, actually revolutionized the hormone replacement area field, you could say, with pellet therapy back in the early 90s when a doctor came up to him when we were in Rancho Mirage, California, and he said, hey, how would you like to put in a pellet?

0:49And he said, sure. And when he realized what he was dealing with, he said it was the final piece to finding the puzzle of using a bioidentical product for women. He was all about using common sense and working with women with bioidentical products. So he was very excited to find this. The thing that got me started on this path actually was the fact that we had a patient from here in Scottsdale who got a plane and she would fly all these patients over to Scottsdale because he ended up taking over this doctor's practice. And they were out in the waiting room, just cackling. Oh, it was great. And I couldn't figure out why is somebody so excited to be in an OBGYN office?

1:39went out and started speaking with them and she was flying in new people every couple of months and she came to us and said hey this is getting a little expensive for me and my gas how would you feel about flying everybody else coming over to Arizona and treating everybody over there so we started that in the early 2000s somewhere we thought oh my gosh this is great fun we came over for half a day. It was wonderful. It was like a mini vacation, except that mini vacation didn't last too long. It turned into half day Saturday, half day Friday, Saturday, half day Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then it was full day, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and half day Saturday.

2:21And I said, wait a minute here, we're working way too much. So we ended up leaving Rancho Mirage, California and coming over full time to Scottsdale. I can imagine going back into the 90s You know, many times when you're at the forefront of an industry, not everyone believes that not everyone understands. And then many times, you know, 20, 30 years later, you look like you are the pioneer. So how was how was that going through this process since you've been in business, you know, for a few decades? We don't look like the pioneer. We are the pioneer. He actually is the godfather of pellet therapy now.

3:03and keep in mind a lot of people don't realize pellets been around since the late 1930s. He just brought them back to the forefront because he understood how to use them. He went with the science behind the pellets. Everybody was getting the same does when he was trained. And then he realized, wait a minute here, women all don't wear the same size shoe, the same size dress. It fits a little different on everybody. So he started individualizing the dosing and came up with individualizing a dosing site in the nineties of how you get to treat women and men. So I know it can be complex and misunderstood this whole industry.

3:46What are some of the biggest misconceptions that you see and how are you aiming to solve those? Well, the biggest myth is that hormones are bad for you because something came out years ago by the Women's Health Initiative saying that estrogen was bad. Well, when they talk about hormones being bad, they always talk about pills, patches, creams, injections. They don't specifically say pellets because pellets are placed under the skin. It's like a kid licking a lollipop that when the blood rushes by it, it takes off what it needs. And the pellet is completely bioidentical, matching the chains of what your body used to produce.

4:27So that's what we're giving back to you. So think of yourself when you were in your 30s and you were feeling top-notch and you had all these hormones running through you, right? Well, at the time, women were making 300 milligrams of testosterone. You test women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s now, and they're eking out maybe 17 milligrams of testosterone. So we're giving you back physiologically where you used to be, which is when you feel depressed. Yeah, I can relate. I mean, trying to lose weight, my sleep isn't great now that I'm in my 40s. Like I'm seeing a lot of changes. And, you know, from my perspective outside, I feel like I'm 30.

5:09when I look at myself, I'm like, oh no, I guess I'm in my 40s. So what advice do you give to other health-focused entrepreneurs? I know this is a big thing, right? We interview so many people who are big about being healthy and staying fit, but so they can also work longer. They're not retiring as early. They want to do more in life. So what advice do you give to them? I tell everyone, start with the baseline of your labs. You've got to figure out where you are right now in the moment. Take the labs, talk to a provider who's been trained properly. Because there's a lot of people out there who are doing pellets.

5:51Anybody could be taught how to do a pellet, as my late husband said. He could train a monkey to put a pellet in. But he said the biggest key is managing and dosing and really understanding about pellet therapy. So you've got to see somebody who's been trained properly. That's what we specialize in, in doing it exactly the way he put the program together years ago, get the labs done and go in and start their journey there. I know a lot of women and men who are sitting down at four o 'clock, five o 'clock, 5.36 when they get home from work. That's it. They're toast. I can't get off the couch. I'm tired.

6:30Well, that's exactly what the pellets do for you. They help you keep going. They give you back your vitality, your mental acuity. You can build muscle again and burn fat. I'm all about that. I think we all want that, right? We want to continue to feel confident. in, you know, social media, everything you, you see everyone else who's really fit and they look good. And, and I think, you know, you want to aspire to be that, um, yeah, I think it can weigh heavy on somebody, uh, who might become insecure about how they feel and other things on top of the, you know, health ramifications, but being in business for so long, what advice do you give to other entrepreneurs who are only maybe a few years in, or maybe a year in, uh, because they want to, you know, they want, they're looking at the longevity like yourself.

7:19What advice do you give to them? It takes time. This is not something that's going to happen overnight. It takes a lot of advertising. It takes a lot of talking to your patients about what you do and how good the hormones are. I did a lot of advertising. I still do a lot of advertising just to keep our name out there. But as I learned growing up being an entrepreneur from my father, pick a lane and stay in it and do what you do really best at. I like that. Find what you can do best at and stick with it, but never stop marketing. I think that is a huge misconception of business is people think, oh, now that I have a lot of clients, I don't need to continue marketing.

8:03But as we know, you have to. So if people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more information, how can they do so? Our website is sotopeletherapy.com, S-O-T-T-O-P-E-L-L-E-therapy.com. And the phone number is 480-874-1515. Carol Ann, thank you so much for joining us today. And congratulations on multiple decades in business. That is so difficult. And I'm sure only like one or 2 % of businesses could last that long. So thank you for all you do in impacting others. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.