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From NCAA Champion to Skincare Innovator: Lesley Hocker on Timing, Entrepreneurship & Wellness

Episode 40 · 9 September 2025 · 31 min

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Leslie Hocker on Timing, Entrepreneurship and Building a Skincare Business

Leslie Hocker has a habit of being early: one of the first women on an athletic scholarship at the University of Oklahoma, a Pilates studio before most people had heard of it, and skincare ahead of the trend. She talks with Randy Lorensen and Anthony Marino.

Recorded at a podcast event in Lubbock, Leslie walks through a career that started in petroleum land management during the oil embargo and ended abruptly in the oil bust. From there she opened a Pilates studio, moved into direct sales, and learned that who you partner with matters.

With her husband, she helped launch Neora, starting with one night cream in one country. She explains why skincare is "sticky" when wellness products often aren't, the "gotchas" in direct-sales compensation plans, and her keys to building a business that lasts. Randy adds his own lesson from being too early in energy efficiency.

Building a Skincare Business, Direct Sales Lessons, and Women in Business

What you'll discover:

  • Swimming at OU, and one of the first athletic scholarships for a woman there
  • The oil bust, and getting let go for making "too much money"
  • Opening a Pilates studio before most people knew what it was
  • Why too early can be worse than too late, from Leslie and Randy
  • Direct-sales gotchas: inventory and compensation plans
  • Helping launch Neora with one product, and why skincare is "sticky"

This episode is for educational purposes only and isn't medical advice.

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome: Randy and Anthony with Leslie Hocker at a podcast event in Lubbock
  • [00:37] Growing up in Tulsa, the oldest of five
  • [01:35] Swimming at the University of Oklahoma, and its first athletic scholarship for a woman
  • [03:16] Petroleum land management and the 1970s oil embargo
  • [06:57] The oil bust, and getting let go for making "too much money"
  • [08:21] Mentors, and opening a Pilates studio before anyone had heard of Pilates
  • [09:29] Moving into direct sales: why who you partner with matters
  • [10:36] The high-fiber diet cookie, and a business with no barrier to entry
  • [11:27] Too early is worse than too late: Randy's energy-efficiency lesson
  • [14:12] Direct sales "gotchas": inventory and compensation plans
  • [15:27] Launching Neora with her husband: one night cream, one country
  • [18:21] A natural alternative to injectables, and how the formula works
  • [20:31] Partnering with universities and scientists, and the big brands behind beauty
  • [21:51] Her mother at 101, and the body-care line
  • [23:04] Her favorite product is the business
  • [24:00] Why skincare is "sticky" and wellness isn't
  • [25:02] Culture, mentors and her five keys to a legacy business, plus Live Happy
  • [27:06] A free skin scan for listeners
  • [29:16] Clean skincare, chlorine and sun damage
  • [31:01] Wrap-up and thanks

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About Leslie Hocker

Leslie Hocker swam for the University of Oklahoma and went on to work in petroleum land management, open an early Pilates studio, and build a career in direct sales. She and her husband helped launch the skincare company Neora.

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:08] Tales of Abundance listeners, welcome back. Uh, today I am here again with Anthony Marino. Uh, we are still in Lebec, Texas at a podcast event and we are honored to have Leslie Hocker here joining us today. Welcome. Welcome — Hey, thank you Randy. I'm excited to be here in Anthony in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, but it's flat. You can see a long ways. — Yeah, that's true. — So, let's uh so we're going to get around to skin care, but before we get there, I want to I want to start with you grew up we were talking earlier, I know in Tulsa, Oklahoma. — And uh and what did you what did you what did you tell me about Tulsa or about It was about Houston. — Yeah. So, um I grew up in Tulsa, the oldest of five children. And uh when I went to university, you'll laugh because Tulsa's in the it's in the uh base of the Ozarks, trees, hills. — So I go to the University of Oklahoma and I'm like, "Oh, this is why they call it the red earth of Oklahoma." Kind of like flat like love it.

[01:17] — But uh when I moved to Houston, I went, "Oh, Tulsa is a really nice town." I didn't realize how nice it was till you moved to Houston. Yeah. — So, uh, and Houston's a great place. It's just, — you know, it was different big city. — So, okay, let's talk about the University of Oklahoma. You went there. Now, you swam there and they didn't have women swimming at the time, — right? Well, — tell us about that. Well, when I was being the oldest of five, my parents had put us in competitive swimming, AAU swimming. And so, uh, I excelled at that. Actually, all of us excelled at that. And, uh, the University of Oklahoma, there was no women's swimming. This was the year before Title N. Seems like yesterday, but it's been a while. And so, I swam on the men's swim team. I wanted to continue the sport. I was thinking about uh going to the Olympics. Um I I was nationally ranked and then my sophomore year title nine got passed and I actually got the first athletic scholarship they gave at the University of Oklahoma to a female — Wow. What what events or event was your — uh backstroke and individual medley?

[02:37] — So individual medley is what is that where you do everything? You do all four. Is that it? — Yes. It's butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. And I actually still So I hold six individual Big Eight titles. — So, uh, and I still hold them. There's no more Big Eight — records that will never be broken. — But I actually did hold records at OU until the mid 90s when they discontinued the women's. Well, they discontinued the men's first because the women were better than the men. But then they discontinued swimming at that at the University of Oklahoma. — Okay. So you were swimming and your major was petroleum engineer. — or petroleum. — So my major was petroleum land management. It's a spec it's a business degree with engineering geology and law. — Wow. Okay. — So it's like it's it's an intense degree. But my father was an engineer. I had grown up in the oil patch. Tulsa was the oil capital of the world and uh I thought it would be an interesting career. I'm like the fifth or sixth female to get that degree. Came out of school uh before the oil embargo. So some of your listeners are like what oil embargo and and so I went far fast. It was fun. It was exciting. Price of oil was skyhigh. You know we had gas lines.

[04:03] All kinds of things a lot of people today have never experienced. young people. There was a time where you had to you would go and there were long long lines to go to the gas station. It was like getting into a New York club just to try and put gas in your car. — I confess I had an assistant that actually went and sat in my company car in line, but I saw the lines. They were intent because you couldn't have your corporate staff out of the office for two hours getting gas because it was really crazy. Sometimes it was like, "Okay, this gas station is open for 2 hours between, you know, 12 and 2 or 10 and 1 and they'd run out of gas." — Yeah. I mean, that seems insane in today's world. Although, we went through CO and we ran out of quite a bit of stuff. So, maybe it isn't doesn't seem as insane. — And, you know, I live in Houston now, so we have hurricanes. So, — we run out of food, we run out of gas. So I I think it's it going through those experiences really helps you uh like stuff doesn't grow on grocery store — And there is work to get the oil to the gas station.

[05:17] — Yeah. I think if we need to put it a little context for those that are a little little bit younger, it was the early 70s and we had just it was the first time since World War II that the United States really faced any sort of economic crisis. We were buzzing along. We were the, you know, the uh the fastest growing country on the planet. Everyone was good. Even though we had the Vietnam War to deal with, but economically we were supercharged during that time. Everybody had a job. Everyone was planning to go to college. Everything was great. And then all of a sudden, someone turned off — the gas spot. — And the country came to a screeching halt. And it was exactly like CO. You couldn't go anywhere. And if you plan to go somewhere, you calculated, you know, your 12 miles to the gallon in your gas guzzler back then. Could I make it from where I am to where I want to go and back without having to stop at a gas station? It was a shock to the system.

[06:21] And the country's never been the same. You know, we've now now we know what it can be like to be put in that position. So it was really it it you know I was a high schooler at the time and it was really really shocking — and it it's it is it's good perspective because like with co is that we're going all businesses all countries cyclical. You're going to have ups and downs. You just got to look in the future and keep keep going. — All right. So the petroleum industry, not a great time, not a great time there. And what what came next? — Well, what what actually happened was we in the petroleum industry, we actually were in high demand because, right, — you needed more, — But then it did crash because what goes up comes down, right? And so, um, my boss called me into his office one day and said, "Uh, Leslie, you're really good at what you do, but I'm sorry you make too much money." And I thought, I think I'm getting fired. Oh my goodness. But fortunately, uh, several years before that, when I had gotten to the executive level, I looked around and thought, you know, this is fun now. I literally said to myself, because I was young, I was in my late 20s. I said to myself, "This is fun now, but I don't want to be going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark and working weekends in my 50s. So, I need to start a business." And I laugh, as I shared with you, it's um we saw that happen during COVID. People are like, "Hey, I'm just going to start a business. I'm not going to go back to the office." And there's a lot that goes into evaluating a business and what you want to do with a business. Um, but I just I fortunately found people to mentor me and earned as I learned and opened a Pilates studio at the same time and it was fascinating. I was probably in over my head but didn't know it.

[08:35] — Yeah, that's probably the best way, right? Sometime sometimes sometimes it's really good to not know what you don't — Yeah. Uh go back to the you said evaluating a business. We have a lot of people that listen that are business owners or entrepreneurs, people thinking about starting a business. What advice would you give them when it comes to evaluating a business? — Well, one of the things is timing. Like I started the Pilates studio, so a lot of people listening probably don't realize there was a point in time when no one had heard of Pilates. And so timing in business is is everything. It's like location in real estate. And what ended up happening was I was educating people about it. And when you're educating people to a need, you aren't making money. You need something that the masses are looking for and in order to do that. So I would say timing. Uh, I went the uh affiliate with with direct sales. My next door neighbor introduced me to a company that was wellness, but the owner of the company, so the owner of a company, if you're partnering with a company's important. I didn't know that. So, this was a doctor that started it, you think, oh, great. When you're young, you think, oh, if someone started a company, they know what they're doing. and I have a degree in business which taught me nothing about working for myself, how to evaluate a business. They taught me how to work for someone else. So, — some of the key things are timing, who you're partnering with, um gosh, the uh products need to be unique if you're partnering with a direct sales company because if I can go to a big box store, Costco or Sam's Club, and buy something similar there, — that it's not a long-term, right? You have no competitive advantage, nothing, no differentiators. And I learned that the hard way. I actually la helped launch a company with uh high-fiber diet cookies and it was eat cookies and lose weight. But this was before food bars, before any of that. And so, uh, we created this huge market. I actually opened up the UK for them. Huge market.

[10:58] Three to four years. It caught on and then it's everywhere because all you had to do is take a cookie and add fiber to it and drink water. It wasn't magic. — I made a lot of money, but it wasn't a long-term business venture, — right? Cuz competitors, anybody could copy it anytime they no barrier to — entry. So that Yes. So that's the the no barrier to entry piece was something they don't teach you that in school — and that's a big deal. Yeah, I the timing thing really speaks to me. I don't know about you, Anthony, but I, you know, I've been too early to a few different things. And my observation is being too early is worse than being too late. Yes. — Like I've I I was in the energy of the best product I've ever sold in my life was an energy efficiency product. I won't bore listeners with exactly what it was and how it worked, but this product was amazing, phenomenal, should have been the easiest sale ever, but because it was so new and unexpected, — people just weren't ready for it. And the amount of education you had to do, you had to you had to create the market.

[12:09] — Yes. That's educating people to the need. So, you'll laugh. So, I started the Pilates studio, gosh, dating myself. So, in ' 84 and I ended up turning it into a women's exercise studio because that was new for women too then. It wasn't for me because I had been an athlete and I was used to being in the gym. — That was Jade Fonda time. — Yes. Oh my goodness. with the I remember going to the gym with sweatpants and t-shirt and I'd be the only woman in there in all the guys were in sweatpants and t-shirts but the women had the little um I shouldn't I'm not making fun of it. It's just little leggings and the leg warmers. I was like, — "Oh my gosh, — where was I?" Oh yeah. So in 199 So 10 years later, my youngest sister calls me. She goes, "Oh my god, I just saw in Glamour magazine that Pilates is the hottest exercise on the West Coast." I'm like, "I live in Texas." Like, it isn't here yet.

[13:11] — And then my brother, who is a scientist, he calls me in 2004 and said, "Oh my god, I just saw on Business Week that Pilates is the hottest exercise out there." And I went and then he laughed. And I'm like, "You're funny. I was 20 years ahead of my time. Way too early." So yeah, it's really hard. I mean that energy efficiency business, I had a partner, but we were trying to do that in the early 2000s and you know, gas had been, you know, gas wasn't a problem and just electric bills. — We would sell it, ironically, the best time to put it in would be in the spring before the hot summer, — but we would sell it in September, October, November when people just got done paying really high electric bills. And then so it was very seasonal. Uh but yeah, that was a that was a big lesson like being a little later that would have been a much a much better business later on and you know I have a lot of opinions on an energy shortage coming to this country you know right now — so we'll talk later. — So um all right so that got you into direct direct sales and health and — and at some point that went into skincare. Well, what ended up happening was um built uh several businesses. I always people ask me like how many companies have you been in? I'm like well it's not that I left the companies. It's just that I had to learn along the way. First company was the leadership ownership of the company's important.

[14:40] We had unique products. I got that right. So I didn't have learn that lesson till the fiber cookie — uh lesson. And then it was then unfortunately there's a lot of gotchas in the direct sales space. And — what do you what do you mean gotchas? inventory and um compensation plan and there there really are unfortunately and that's why direct sales is has good name and bad name. I always tell people it's like, you know, there's always good players and bad players in every industry. And so, um, I retired didn't retire, still did consulting with my husband. So, my husband's doctor pharmarmacology and we met in the diet cookie company. — And we always said we would do something again if we could find the right company and where we could have fun. Fun. fund was the most important piece.

[15:44] — Love that. — And so, uh, one of our friends, also bestselling author of the Slide Edge, Jeff Olsen, he said, "Okay, I'm going to launch a company." He'd had massive success. He said, "I'm going to launch a company is going to take the gotchas out. It's got to have unique products and we're going to have systems in place and training." Because up until then, Ron and I had had to create everything. brochures, training. I mean, it's it's quite a bit, — And so, we're like, okay, can we do it again? It had been like six years. And we helped launch the company actually um 14 years ago — And uh August. And so, we did a hund we did one night cream, one country. We did a hundred million. in our first full — No one's ever done that. No big box, no L'Oreal, no estate, no. No one's ever done that in one country. And it's because the goal was is to have a unique product that took five or six different products and just put it in one. Make it easy for people.

[16:59] — What was the name of that product? — The the name of the product, the well, the company is called Neora and the the night cream is called Age IQ. and we put it's like we're in our eighth generation formula and then added wellness. So it's like activating your youth 360 degrees inside and outside and um but our newest project is a disrupt. So we disrupted the crowded night cream space. — People were looking the before and after pictures did it all. Actually, when I renewed my passport a couple of years ago, we had sent them in to be expedited, I had like three weeks and uh my husband took the photos and gave them gave everything. And then he called when they were ready a couple weeks later, he said, "Our passports are ready." I said, "Would you grab mine?" He's like, "No, they won't they won't give me your passport. They want to see your face cuz no one looks younger after 10 years." So they thought I had sent in an old photo.

[18:07] — I thought, okay, that's quite a — I know. Who Who gets a compliment from the passport office? — I know. It was I actually thought my husband was joking cuz he's he loves to joke around and I told him, "You're so funny, right? Just get my passport." So I had to show up. But we just launched multiple years of research the latest the it's a revolutionary product. It's a natural alternative to to injectables. So, neurotoxins, otherwise known people call it Botox. A natural alternative to uh neurotoxins and fillers — that sciencebacked, that's a key if you're going to have unique products. So, sciencebacked um trains your skin. So, it's perfect for me because I I have a love of health and wellness. It trains your It activates the muscles in your face. It's literally like taking your face to the gym. It You have 40 muscles in your face. It act — This is a topical product.

[19:12] — This is a topical elixir. — It trains your skin. There's three different formulas in it. One of the formulas trains your skin to lift and fill and plump itself. — It's craziest thing ever. It results in the clinical trials in as little as two It also has a bio stimulator in it with plant peptides and plant stem cells that builds collagen in your skin by,23%. And um which is painful. I don't know. Never done them. Um but I have friends that have. And then — is that what is that what micro needling does primarily is try to build the collagen? Is that the primary goal? — That's the primary goal. It It's It'll build it 400% over several months. — Well, why wouldn't you do a topical elixir? It takes 30 seconds. — Literally two pumps, 30 seconds in the morning, 30 seconds in the evening. Then you do follow it with your day and night cream or use ours. And then the third thing that it does is it helps build loss volume. It's epigenetics for the the skin cells. It's crazy. It's amazing And um what we did was took so we're an indie brand and what we do that's unique is we have relationships with like 19 uh like Princeton University has a patented ingredient in our night and day cream. So we have relationships with about 19 different universities and um entrepreneur scientists around the globe literally Brazil um France um Norway and so we enter into a relationship with the scientists to have the exclusive rights and then they get the money because if they sell to like a big brand it may or may never get used and they may you you know, and then they don't get any royalties. So, it's a it's a win-win.

[21:21] — It's really cool. — It's a It's a fascinating industry. Most people don't realize out of 182 beauty brands, they're owned by seven — So, a lot of these celebrities, it's really not a unique product. It's just a — They're using them as an influencer. — Yeah. Rewrapped. — So, but it's it's been amazing fun. that. Uh you have friends that have been looking for me. It's not so much about beauty, but it's looking as young as I — And my mother just passed away at 101 perfect health except her body gave out. No heart disease, no organ disease, nothing. And everybody was always like, "Why does your mom look so much younger?" I'm like, cuz she's been using this for 14 years. — Yeah. Even the guy that came to confirm, and this just happened a week ago, he said, "Your mother's skin is so smooth."

[22:31] Like, it I'm going to start crying. So, I'm going start stop talking about my — All right. Um, what I mean, are there other products? So, those are the two main products, or do you have a lot of other things? Well, we we have skin care for the body which started trending this year and we launched it in 2014 that works with cellulite and dimpling. So men don't deal with that issue but like 80 plus 85% of women deal with cellulite or if they had a baby the tightening. So it tightens the skin. It's got a patented ingredient in it. We sold like four million bottles. — Wow. So what you know I I love my love my favorite product is the business because I can help people spare time have more choices in life. — You're saying getting them in the business getting them a either an ultimate stream of income or I'm guessing in some cases a full-time — income. It's uh I can easily show anyone how to make an extra 500 to a,000 a month, which changes a lot of people's — Or more. Or as one of my friends said, or gangster money.

[23:47] — Which is fun. And And just so you know, 85 to 90% of our sales come from — So it's a real product, — right? I mean, I have people that have been ordering the night cream we first launched with for 14 years. — And you know, as much as I love health and wellness as a business, it's not sticky like skin, — I mean, if if a woman finds a good skin care product, it she's going to stick with it. — Yeah. But for wellness, my experience was is people 6 months later, they forget how they felt before they started taking something because they're not looking in the mirror going, "Oh my god, where'd that wrinkle come from?" — so some of the most successful direct to consumer companies were things like — um, Tupperware, — and it wasn't so much the product as it was the community aspect of what they were creating, you know, the parties, the culture, the culture.

[24:59] — Um, are you employing that with this or — 100%. Yeah, you're 100% right. it the culture and that is the I have five key things for a legacy business and the the fifth is finding someone to mentor you that'll help you that'll work with you and a culture of people helping people so we have a uh live happy culture in fact I'll share with your listeners this is free to anybody so our our founder back in 2013 started did uh he realized that positive psychology was not a thing. So this has been a whole evolution. It was all negative psychology really. It's like you got to live through that and positive psychology. So what he did was he created a site called livehappy.com and it's an aggregate. It's all the latest neuroscience research on success and it's free. It's his way of giving back. And this I laugh because my friends used to say, "Well, I'll be happy when this or when that." And I always they thought I was nuts because because of being in direct sales, because of working on yourself, personal growth. I always said, "No, s happiness comes first then success." They're like, "You're crazy." I was proved right because that's what the neuroscience research shows is that happiness comes first then success. So, it's a great resource for people and um actually the UN declared the International Day of Happiness I think in 2014 or 15 and um we've been front and center in that whole movement and it's we we give it for free to our customers to our brand partners to anyone listening — instead of repeating it once again you repeat the name of the website.

[27:00] — Sure. It's livehappy.com. — I was going to be right, but I felt it was wrong. All right. liveappy.com. — And and the name of the the the product for the um that you described — Oh, the neoiller. So, it's uh an actually I can offer to your listeners a free intelligent skin scan. So, an Atella skin scan where they they actually can uh go to my website and uh it scans their face and tells them the issues that they need to work on. It's a $60 to $100 value. I mean, a dermatologist would charge you for it. — Okay. And how do they do that? — Well, the website will be live in one — So, I'll get that to you and then you can put it in in the notes. I'm so excited about it. — Because I feel like if you I mean it'll save you time and save you money and people don't I mean it I don't know if you guys realize but you got teenagers going to some of these beauty stores buying stuff that's not right for their skin. So it'll work men, women.

[28:12] — So you don't know the name of the website yet? — No, I don't have the link yet. — Okay. I know what it's Well, — tell us tell us what it is because by the time this comes out — I don't have the actual name of the — She'll send it to us. — They can they can also connect with me at lesliehocker.com. — And um I have a form there and then they could say this is what they want and I can send it as well. That's great. So — that's great. Well, being um in my late 60s along with my wife, my wife is a fanatic about her, you know, her skin care. Um so, this will be something that I'm sure she'll look into and — she will love it. We do a 60-day money back guarantee and you know, can't go wrong with that. — And as I said, it's a fifth of the cost of doing fillers. — I didn't know how expensive that stuff is. That's crazy. It's big business and it's being done everywhere and not necessarily in the best sets of uh healthcare. I think you know what's been fun for me is the difference between 14 years ago and today is people are now I have always been aware because I've studied started studying wellness and health at 16 because when you're swimming 10 miles a day you're tired all the time but today people are aware that what you put on your skin does go in your body and does affect your body so clean is important I've been you I've been a skincare snob for decades And because I had a lot of discoloration and sun damage and I know you guys can't see my face, but it's clear. I'm not wearing makeup.

[29:52] — And um the the challenge was over the last 10, 20, 30 years was you had clean skin care that didn't work and you had performance skin care that had a ton of chemicals in it. And so we like to call ourselves clean meets performance. — How did So you you have amazing skin now, but all that time in the pool that the chlorine has to be terrible, right? — And I had there was no sunscreen when I was a kid and I lifeguarded. — Oh my god. — And so that was really part of what prompted me to go the skin route even though I wasn't always a was that I knew I needed something for the health of my — Yeah. And so, yes, I had massive discoloration. I had huge pores. I had dark under eye circles. — It's like I needed help. And now pretty much I mean, most people don't guess my — No, I don't I don't think — and we won't ask.

[30:57] — That's okay. If you could see me, I might tell you, but — All right. Well, Leslie, this has been this has been fascinating. Um, we appreciate the time and I mean the skincare, but personally I like the entrepreneurial journey and some of the lessons and things there that you know really spoke to me. Uh, listeners as always, thank you for tuning in to Tales of Abundance. Why settle for less? Download, subscribe, tell your friends. Uh, and everybody have a fantastic day. Thank you, Leslie. — Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. I loved it. — All right. Thank you. — Listen and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast. Click follow for more content like this or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free tools.