Dear Patients and LovelySkin Customers,

Year’s end is a time to reflect on my team's accomplishments this year as well as the incredible support from patients, customers and family, and our amazingly dedicated staff.

We experienced significant growth this year as we continued to add new staff members, patients and customers for the store and website. Growth came from many areas, including new customers as well as new brands that we were able to acquire due to our standing in the field and reputation for unparalleled customer service.

Fortunately, in order to maintain our service quality, we also added new ways to automate processes in the warehouse as well as add 37 new employees! Our human resources team operated with a remarkable consistency, allowing us to grow with minimal pain.

We continue to expand customer service which required ‘satellite’ customer care representatives during especially busy times. Many employees from the clinic (and yours truly) helped during these busy times and it was enjoyable to chat or write to customers all over the world.

Thirty one new product lines were added, including several hair care lines and tools this year. We also added several new items to our own LovelySkin LUXE line, including the LovelySkin LUXE Microdermabrasion Polish with Triple Sphere Technology, which is now one of our biggest sellers! Adding new lines and products is truly personal for us. We work especially hard to make sure the lines live up to their promises and test them extensively before bringing them on to LovelySkin. Here is a video to get a closer look at some of the upgrades we’ve made this past year at LovelySkin and Skin Specialists.

We worked most of the year on implementing a guest checkout and are pleased that it was initiated in early November without any difficulties. Our web team was flawless and delivered it on time without any challenges.

We also changed from packing peanuts to organic, recycled paper in our boxes. We have always valued the environment, and peanuts didn't fit with our message. We are excited to see the benefits of the paper to our customers, ourselves and the environment.

Video continues to be a focus of our team. We added more staff to the video department as well as a drone to allow for more videos designed to assist you. We also continued to focus on instructional videos and shorter, how-to makeup videos. Here is our list of the top videos this year.

My wife, Nancy, and I were honorary co-chairs of the Better Business Bureau Integrity Awards this year in Omaha. We introduced the Zappos idea-guru, Jenn Lim, who spoke to a sold-out crowd of over 800 about 'Delivering Happiness'. As always, recognition as a BizRate Platinum Circle of Excellence website (7th year in a row) and Google Trusted Store was appreciated. We continue to be one of the top 15 Health and Beauty Cosmetic Web Retailers in the world (Internet Retailer data), a wonderful accomplishment!

There were also many noteworthy happenings during the year.

Although there were many changes that were outward, the most important changes were inward, with many employees reaching milestones, including our physician assistant, Jackie, who passed 20 years with us. We were also happy to introduce better benefits packages for our valued employees, in line with our philosophy to reinvest our profits into both the company and our employees. We couldn't do this without your support.

Our philosophy also includes involvement in the community. When a local company in Omaha went out of business and laid off over 95% of their workforce, we hired 10 of these individuals to assist with our website. They have become valuable employees who have added greatly to the growth and passion we deliver to our customers. I am happy that we could offer a new home to these talented individuals.

For the first year ever we will deliver over 500,000 packages to customers, a milestone that occurred much earlier than we ever expected. We continue to have over 200,000 Facebook fans and hundreds of thousands of other users of LovelySkin. Our reach around the world and involvement in the industry continues to grow, while we continue the family orientation so important to us. We have fun at work and enjoy what we do, every day of the year. It is reflected in our high level of customer satisfaction, and we don’t intend to change that any time in the future!

We have always resisted becoming a 'corporate' website - instead, we relish our personal involvement with our users as a family-owned business. While many of our competitors have the goal of being bought by a large corporate entity, that is not our intent. Truly, the joy we obtain from being a part of over 100 employees' lives wouldn't be possible in a corporate environment.

Remaining a family-owned company allows us to interact with our employees and you in a way that hopefully distinguishes itself and provides an experience that brings you back when it is time to purchase skin care products. Our Omaha-based, Midwestern values-oriented customer service is a distinction we hope never goes out of style.

Our team is also committed to helping others, something that the entire team did this year when we donated to the hurricane relief efforts in Houston, Miami and Puerto Rico. Additionally, we were able to assist many of our customers in California who were tragically affected by the wildfires. At home, we worked to help out at the local charity shelter and many other charities by asking our vendors to donate to them instead of sending any holiday gifts to the office. Please see the video here that details some of the work our folks did.

The invention that my son Daniel and I introduced four years ago, FixMySkin Healing Balm with 1% Hydrocortisone, continues to be very popular! It is now sold in over 200 dermatology offices across the world, Walmart.com, Amazon and of course, on LovelySkin.com. Additionally, it continues to get great reviews and offers a low-cost method of improving skin conditions such as eczema, dry lips and cracked fingers in a simple delivery system. We are pleased to know that FixMySkin Healing Balm allows us to help people who may not have ready access to a dermatologist for their skin care needs.

The medical side of the business has continued to grow, in part because we have added several new procedures this year, including the popular CoolSculpting Arm treatment as well as DualSculpting and EndyMed radiofrequency microneedling. Additionally, we continue to research new treatments for hair loss, eczema, psoriasis and wrinkles. Many innovations continue in dermatology and cosmetic surgery and the future looks bright!

This was the ninth year for our Cosmetic Surgery Forum conference in Las Vegas which I founded to train young and established dermatologists on new techniques in dermatology and cosmetic surgery. Over 450 attendees were present this year, and I personally sponsored 75 residents (now a total of 725 since inception) in dermatology, ophthalmology and plastic surgery so they could learn and be a credit to the profession I love and respect.

The LovelySkin retail store has continued to be successful in its 7th full year, and was once again voted the “Best Beauty Supply Store” in Omaha. Competing against powerful and well-known brands was a huge challenge, but we succeeded! Additionally, our website, LovelySkin.com, was once again voted one of the top three websites in Omaha. Our spas, LovelySkin Spa in the clinic and LovelySkin Spa Express in the retail store, were honored as one of the top three spas in Omaha – for the fifth year in a row! Both spas are seeing large increases in services performed and customer satisfaction.

I was fortunate and honored to be voted one of the Top 100 doctors in the country (as voted by my peers) as well as receiving Best Dermatologist and Best Cosmetic Surgeon awards for Omaha this year. Thank you to all of you who voted.

On a personal note, my son, Daniel, is now a third year medical student. So much has changed since I was in medical school and it is great to see his excitement to learn and the way he interacts with patients. He is doing research in dermatology and loves both his research and medical school.

Nancy, my wife, continues to work very hard behind the scenes in the practice and website and it was a joy to have her as my co-chair at the BBB Integrity Awards this year. Our daughter,

Claire, is enjoying her work as a programmer at a website startup company in San Francisco. She adopted a pug-rescue dog, Garbanzo, this year and brings him to work with her! Our sweet pug dog, Emmy, made an incredible third video appearance on the website in our Halloween video in a reprise of her scary role! At 15 and a half years, she amazes us in her zest for life. My parents, June and Bernie, continue to be a source of strength and my inspiration for how to live a good life. They have been married for over 65 years and still help out in so many ways, including proofreading and other varied tasks. They are a blessing to all of us.

I wish you and your families success and happiness in the year to come. My staff and I deeply appreciate your loyalty over the years and hope to always live up to your expectations by providing you with the best patient care and customer service.

Thank you for an amazing year.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Joel Schlessinger MD, FAAD, FAACS
Board Certified Dermatologist and Cosmetic Surgeon
Chief Editor, Cosmetic Surgery, Practical Dermatology Magazine
President, LovelySkin.com