Sunny Beutler: CEO of Sunrider
Episode 816
On today’s episode, we welcome Sunny Beutler, CEO of Sunrider International — the global wellness company founded by her parents in 1982 and known as the Original Herbal Wellness & Beauty Experts. After beginning her career in law, Sunny stepped into the family business and now leads the 40+ year-old brand as it blends ancient Eastern herbal traditions with modern Western science across nearly 50 countries.
In this episode, Sunny shares what it takes to re-energize a legacy company while honoring its roots, how she balances family dynamics in business, and why holistic wellness is more relevant than ever. We also discuss leadership, motherhood, cultural heritage, and scaling with integrity. A meaningful conversation for founders, next-generation leaders, and anyone navigating legacy and reinvention.
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To learn more about Sunny Beutler and Sunrider International:
https://www.sunrider.com
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/sunrider-international/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunny-beutler/
Transcript
Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Have you ever stopped to think about where your wellness products actually come from, the sourcing, the philosophy, the intention behind the formulas? Our next guest has, well, actually, she grew up in the business what started over 40 years ago, as a family vision, blending ancient eastern herbal traditions with modern Western science has grown into a global wellness company operating in nearly 50 countries, but carrying forward a legacy brand in today’s fast changing marketplace takes more than history. It takes great products, reinvention, courage and clarity. So today, I cannot wait to hear how stepping into leadership of a family founded 40 year old, family owned company requires both honoring tradition and challenging it. And why Holistic Health, entrepreneurship and cultural heritage matters more than ever. So today I’m excited to be joined by Sunny Beutler, who is the CEO of Sunrider International, the original herbal wellness and beauty expert. So excited and honored to have you here. I love, love, love. Sunrider. So very excited. Sunny.
Sunny Beutler 2:03
Nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here
Kara Goldin 2:07
absolutely so for listeners who have been hiding under a rock for 40 years just discovering Sunrider, how do you describe the brand? And then we’ll get into the history.
Sunny Beutler 2:18
Like you said, we’re definitely a mix of East meets West. My parents have a traditional medical background. My mother’s medical doctor, but my dad is a pharmacist and also an herbalist. He’s probably one of the most well known herbalists in the world. So he grew up making these herbal concoctions for himself because he had a really weak immune system. So I’d say our brand is very much a holistic blend of East, East Meets West in order to heal your body naturally from within.
Kara Goldin 2:48
I love it. Well, Sunrider was founded by your parents in the early 80s, so the earliest memory you have of the company?
Sunny Beutler 2:57
I love that question because I think about it a lot, and it really grounds me. When I think about the company, my first thought is a smell, because our first product is probably one of the first essential oils on the market. It’s called Sun breeze oil, and it has this really beautiful menthol and cinnamon smell. And so and my dad would make it in our basement. He used it for himself because he was a competitive Judo player. So every time I open the basement door, it’s that smell, you know, just it was so strong, but that’s like the smell of home.
Kara Goldin 3:29
And what does that product in particular do for the patient consumer?
Sunny Beutler 3:35
Yeah, he made it because he was a competitive Judo player. He was one of the national champions in Taiwan when he was in college, and so he used it to heal his joints. Because he was so sore, he dislocated his elbow like three times, his shoulder a couple times. And he was really lucky that my mom’s a medical doctor, and just popped everything right back in for him. But he was really sore all the time, so he would rub this sun, breeze oil all over his body.
Kara Goldin 4:00
Wow, that’s, that’s awesome. Well, I love that product. It’s so good. So you originally built a career in law before stepping into Sunrider. Did you always know that you were going to be stepping into this business?
Sunny Beutler 4:15
No, I think probably different from a lot of traditional Chinese families, because my parents are from Taiwan and Hong Kong. They never forced us. So they always wanted us to join, and they made it known, but they always gave us a choice. So I studied law. My sister studied law. My brother’s medical doctor. I have another one who’s really into it, another one who’s really into biochemistry. So we were all given a choice. You know, you can do your own career, you can come back. And I actually had to pray about it a lot because I wasn’t sure, but I finally decided that doing a little work is good. I can help people doing that, but doing Sunrider, I could help 1000s and 1000s of people with their wellness and with their financial health. So I. Decided to come back to Sunrider, and my parents were happy that I chose it on my own, but they were also told me, this is a 24/7 job, and you just have to do whatever I say, whenever I want. So I said, Okay, I can do it. So from that point, I just went 100% into Sunrider.
Kara Goldin 5:18
So I would imagine stepping into a company that has been run by somebody else, and your parents, they had ideas about the business, and you know, you obviously want to carry that on, but also want to expand and help grow the company. And so do you remember one example where maybe that was something that you had to face challenge in those early days.
Sunny Beutler 5:48
Yeah, I worked for my parents for 15 years before I became CEO, and I worked in a lot of different departments, and we have kind of a split business model, so part of it is retail sales. We have franchises throughout Asia, and then we also have a direct selling model. So a lot of decisions were made between those two, because I had to decide in which market we wanted to really push retail in which market we want to push direct selling. And I often did not agree with my parents, and there are a lot of times we had to work on our communication, but I think we work really well together, actually, and I learned so much from them, and so we went through the transition. We still disagree on things. It’s a given, because I’m not them and they’re not me, but as long as we communicate about it, and we really express ourselves, Well, I think we avoid a lot of the conflict, so it’s just a lot of mutual respect. And I respect my parents a lot.
Kara Goldin 6:47
So for anybody growing up in a family business, you know, as you mentioned, you made a decision, your parents encouraged you to do what was right for you, but going outside of a company and not just having the experience of working for parents and obviously you went into law, very probably process, you know, oriented that you were able to bring back it into the company for any new founder listening. We actually have a lot, in addition to many other people, we have a lot of college students who are thinking about this, maybe some of them who have a family business that they think maybe one day I’ll go and join but what would you say about going outside and getting that experience and then coming back in? What did that bring you?
Sunny Beutler 7:39
I think that it’s very valuable, because when we’re so self insulated in our company, we can often roll like roll ideas and circles in our head, and all of us are like same thing, right? So we think about the same thing the same way, and that’s really great to get outside perspective. And I always like to ask our board members, too, who you know were not with us from the very beginning, what their perspective is, too, because it’s super important for me to know what other people are thinking and not just get stuck inside my own head. So when my kids, we want to keep this a family business for many generations. So I’m the second generation that, and my parents have 20 grandkids. And so we’re thinking these kids cannot all work in Sunrider, so whoever wants to can, but we want them to get outside experience for sure. So we already have kind of like a family constitution, a plan written out. We’ll introduce Sunrider to them, but we want them to get outside experience for at least like five years, so that they can have outside ideas, how outside think, so that when they come back into Sunrider, we’re not so insulated.
Kara Goldin 8:40
So Sunrider is blending ancient eastern herbal traditions with Western science. So I would imagine 40 years ago, when your parents were working on this, it was, you know, herbs was just this Woo, woo, kind of funky thing today. I think it’s, it’s much more respected. But why is that synergy so important that Eastern herbal traditions with Western science to you knowing what you know?
Sunny Beutler 9:15
Well, if you’ve ever tasted traditional Chinese medicine, you know how horrible it is. It’s probably something that you cannot swallow. I mean, when I was younger, my aunt would make things for me, I’m like, I can’t even swallow this down. And she’d say, you have to have three whole cups of this. So I think it’s really important that we combine the two, not only for the taste and flavor, but for the efficacy of the product. A lot of herbs are just ground up and they’re not concentrated, they’re not cleansed properly. They just take the dried herb or any part of and they grind it up and put in a capsule. But for us, we really want to make sure that it’s effective, because people expect something that works, and they want to feel it, you know, pretty quickly, especially nowadays, everyone has that immediate gratification, and so we try. Make sure that all of our products are very highly concentrated and that they’re cleaned very well. Our our facilities are spotless. We get our GMP certification every year, and the person who inspects is always like this is one of the cleanest facilities we’ve ever been in and and that’s important to us, because I feed this to my children, we test everything on ourselves. So I want to make sure that everything as clean as possible. As possible, and that it’s highly concentrated and really effective. So that’s where the Western comes in to make sure that the standards are there and that we get everything as effective and as efficient as possible.
Kara Goldin 10:35
So Sunrider manufactures its own products, and vertical integration has been so important, maintaining quality and trust. It’s not what most companies do, but you all have have done there. You talked about quality assurance, etc. Can you talk to the consumer about why that’s so important? I mean, why like, is it it all regulated? Is it not? I mean, I know the answer, but I’m just curious what your response is to that. I would
Sunny Beutler 11:09
say it depends on the product. Some of it is regulated. Some of it’s not, depends on the country too. So every country has their own regulations. EU is very strict, and so we have to be really careful about all of our testing, and we make sure we adhere to all the standards. And so when we go through the process, I’m always thinking, how do we make it as bulletproof as possible, something that can’t fail? So when we’re doing art, we do lots of testing, we make everything ourselves, because we know that this is a legacy company. I want this to last generations, but the only way I can secure that is if I have my own manufacturing because if you’ve ever gone to manufacture, if you don’t buy in large quantities, they discontinue something, right? So it’s everything gets discontinued all the time. Fashion changes all the time as well. They don’t keep the same cloth in stock. So we’re just trying to secure the future. So I want something that my dad made 45 years ago today, and the only way I can do that is if we made it ourselves, because we don’t make everything in huge, huge batches. A lot of it is small batch. So we just have to make sure that we have all the materials that we need, all the processes, so that everything maintains its quality from day one to what now. You know, 40 plus years later.
Kara Goldin 12:24
I love it. So the company is operating in nearly 50 countries. How do you do that? I mean, how do you maintain there’s so many different, as you mentioned, regulations that exist in all of these different countries. How do you do that while kind of honoring the products? Is, is it? Is it as complicated as it seems?
Sunny Beutler 12:48
I would say it’s complicated, but I also think that you’re only as strong as the people who surround you. So we have a really great legal team. We hired a really great chief legal officer, Janet, and I under her direction, a lot of it has smoothed out. We have really good production people, also QC people who look into all these regulations for us. And we also hire consultants, because we don’t know everything, and every country is very different, so we just have to make sure we have the right people with us. And I think having a strong team really sets the foundation for everything.
Kara Goldin 13:22
So let’s talk about some of the products you and I were chatting about some of your favorites. I’d love to hear maybe some of your favorites. But then also, what are kind of the Are there any runaway kind of bestsellers people look to you for certain products. And I’m curious also, if that differs by country.
Sunny Beutler 13:47
Well, we look at everything globally, because we produce for every country, but my favorite, like I said before, was alpha 20 C. It’s an immune booster because I have a lot of allergies, just like my dad did when he was growing up. And so I need something to help me get through the day. And so alpha 22 really helps boost my immune system and also helps prevent me from getting sick. Because I have four kids, they get sick all the time, so just trying to, you know, keep that immunity up so I don’t have to skip work or be out. And my kids favorite is vitadophilus. This is a product that’s probiotic, and it’s also one of our, one of the very first products as well, and it has apple pectin in it that protects the lactobacillus as it goes through your gut. And so it’s very natural. It tastes so good. I remember when you were little, my youngest brother, he used to rip it in like, 10 packets at a time, and just take them by himself. And he was, like, two, and my mom would come in, like, yelling. She’s like, What did you do? She just, he just ate all of this, you know, vitadolis, because it tastes so good. One of our top sellers worldwide is a product called Fortune Delight. It’s a cleansing beverage based off of Camellia sinensis, and it. It really, but we take out the caffeine so it’s non addictive, so it’s good. It’s safe for little kids to drink. It’s safe for adults to drink. And so it’s really great cleansing beverage. And when you drink it, it breaks up all the fat in your system, and it helps you kind of get it out of your system without digesting it. And so we often do this demo where we pour like oil on our hands, and then we pour Fortune Delight, and it just, you can see, it cut through the oil. So that’s probably our top seller worldwide. And it comes in a few different flavors. It tastes really good, but it’s definitely, it has that cleansing effect, but it’s non addictive to your body. So it’s, I think that’s one of our pop sellers everywhere. And for me now, as I get older, I love the skin care. And so my dad has a real focus on skin care too, because he said he wants his skin to look beautiful as he gets as he ages. And my mother as well. So we’ve really put a lot into skin care lately, just natural botanicals.
Kara Goldin 16:02
And what was this, or what is the skin care kind of runaway best seller.
Sunny Beutler 16:07
Most recently, we, well, okay, it’s called condescen. My dad made the name because he said it one he wants to make you feel incandescent. So we love the name condescend. And one of our top sellers is our deep moisture lotion, and it’s just a really light moisturizer, but it works really well, so it can keep that moisture in all day. And most recently, we have what we call a bio cellulose mask, and it’s made out of coconut, and so it’s biodegradable and adheres to your like, it’s like a second skin on you. It feels like it just when you put it on, it just adheres completely. And it’s super hydrating. It has a beautiful rose scent to it, but it’s very hydrating. And you put it on after your skin care at night. So I love that one, because it gives you a real glow.
Kara Goldin 16:58
That’s that one’s terrific too. And the eye patches as well are super great. Are those coconut? Yeah?
Sunny Beutler 17:03
My husband like, are those coconut as well? Yeah, it’s coconut based. Yeah, yeah, it’s coconut based. My husband loves those, yeah.
Kara Goldin 17:10
So when you’re making these decisions for products in the company, I mean, everybody talks about innovation, so how do you make these decisions. You have over 400 SKUs now. How do you make these decisions to develop more products, discontinue products? I mean, or is there some metric that you’ve used in the past that you’ve thought, we’ve got to go here, or we’ve got to discontinue some products as well?
Sunny Beutler 17:40
I think creating products is that the fun part, but discontinuing is like the sad part, because, you know, you love a product, but it just didn’t sell very well, so you have to stop it. So, but for discontinuing, we just look at sales globally, because we make everything you know ourselves. So we just look at it globally. Say, you know, what hasn’t been selling very well. We communicate with the markets first and say, you know, if you can sell this to a certain point, we’ll keep it, but if you can’t, then we’re going to discontinue it next year. And so we keep people informed and let them know about that, but it’s really sad, and I often have people emailing me, like, personally, you know, messaging me online. They’re like, Don’t discontinue this, please. I love it. I’m like, Well, you got to sell it. Share it with more people. Tell them about it. But for creating products, I think we often give our R and D team like a little heart attack, because we’re coming up with so many ideas and want to make so many different kinds of products. So we, you know, we start off with maybe, like 50 different products that we want to make, and then we have to whittle it down. We talk to a lot of people. We do a lot of market research, I ask all the different markets too, because every market is very different on what they want, and we want to make sure that our top selling markets really want a product before we actually introduce it. So the whole process takes about three years for us, from like concept inception until final launch, because we’re constantly testing. We go through lots of iterations. And my my daughter, who’s 14, helps me to test a lot of products, including the skin care. And she’s always looking for the new little boxes from our manufacturing. Because, like every month, we sample products together. And you know, we go through all the I asked for her opinions. I asked my husband, I mean, we just, we go through this, and it’s really fun for them to try it out, but that’s the very much. The fun part is creating something new. But we get a lot of input, input from a lot of different people.
Kara Goldin 19:30
I love it. So when you think back on on building what you and your family have done, but you since you’ve become CEO, is there kind of a hard moment where you just thought, Gosh, I don’t know how we’re going to get through this, but you did.
Sunny Beutler 19:46
That’s happened a lot. I think businesses has a lot of ups and downs, and often I wonder, why did this happen? I mean, when the pandemic happened, I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me, like we are. Very much an in person business. We hold lots of meetings in person. We go to lots of shows. And it was, you know, kind of surprising when that happened, but we quickly switched over to hybrid or we switch over to fully remote in certain locations. And so I think having that kind of agility and flexibility is super important. We actually moved our manufacturing facility right at the beginning of the pandemic, because we had been planning it for two or three years already. So that was like a nightmare in and of itself, moving manufacturing when everything was shutting down, and we had already sold our building before. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is just it was a nightmare, but we got through it, and, you know, got over the hump. But yeah, that was a big challenge for us as well. So I mean, challenges come up all the time, and I think we just have to be as flexible as possible and work through everything and listen to all parties and make sure everyone’s on the same page, but that they have motivation to keep going.
Kara Goldin 21:01
So what does the word, or the term regenerative wellness mean to you?
Sunny Beutler 21:08
To me, it means that your body knows what it’s supposed to do, but often it forgets because of what we put inside of it, so we feed it something that will help it know how to rejuvenate itself, how to regenerate itself, so that it becomes working more efficiently. So we go off of the Philosophy of Regeneration, where we know that if we feed our body Whole Foods, not chemicals, that we can help our body be properly nourished, properly cleansed and find its own balance.
Kara Goldin 21:39
Love it. So you talked about you have a lot of family members who may come in and work at the company over over the years. How do you inspire and not just family members, but other people who are coming into the company who are the next generation of leaders? How do you inspire those people to really have that that mindset of this is a legacy company that is going to be around for decades, and get keep them motivated, right, and keep them understanding
Sunny Beutler 22:17
for our own family members, I try to talk to all my nieces and nephews about the company on a regular basis. We have family calls like every week, and we’re always messaging our kids and our nieces and nephews, making sure they know what’s going on. But we have an annual convention that they love, and they get to meet all of our top sellers and try new products. And so all of our kids love convention. So convention for us is a time is kind of like a family gathering, but it’s also time to meet everybody and get everyone in the same room, and we keep all of our top sellers updated with what’s going on with our own family, because they know this is a legacy business, and they want to see that there’s that continuity, that succession planning. I also tell my nieces and nephews every summer, I’m like, you can come stay with me, live with me for, you know, a few weeks in the summer and get to know more about Sunrider. And so they know they can come whenever they want, and I’ll take care of them. We’ll have fun and go do fun stuff, but we also, you know, we’ll go to work. They’ll learn about Sunrider, and I hope that my own kids, someday also will have an interest in it. So also, another thing is, I always ask for feedback whenever I go to meetings. I mean, I just recently went to India, and we were meeting with some of our top leaders, there top sales people, and I was just like, what feedback do you have? I just want to know what you want. What Kind Of Products Do you want? What kind of trainings Do you want? And I feel as long as people feel like they’re being heard and that you really take into consideration their ideas, and they can see some of those trickling down, then they feel like they matter to the company. But I always want to hear what people say, because I know that if I just ran with whatever I thought, it would not work in that country or with this group of people. So I always want to make sure make sure I’m doing what’s right for them. So, and also, like my nieces, some of them will say, you know, I have an idea for product. I have idea for packaging. So I listen to them, and I make sure that, you know, their parents know that they can always give us ideas.
Kara Goldin 24:18
I love it. So last question, Sunrider is a leader, one of the first and in this space. But with that comes a responsibility. Right? You’re you’re leading an industry. You are high profile as well in that especially in that industry, but overall and in the wellness space, what do you hope that Sunrider brings to not only the consumer, but also to the industry and to other people who are leading, leading companies in the space overall?
Sunny Beutler 24:55
For us, I want to make sure that people know that we have integrity in our products. And integrity in our business practices, because we do want to be around for a long time, and so reputation is important. So I want to make sure people know that we are a brand that stands by our products, that we use them ourselves, and that we’re always trying to create things that are new, but that all stem from things that are natural and that have a really well grounded history in Chinese medicine. So for us, keeping that tradition alive is really important.
Kara Goldin 25:27
Definitely well Sunny. Thank you so much for joining me today. Your story is such a powerful reminder that honoring tradition doesn’t mean standing still. You are continuing to grow Sunrider and represent it. I think that the way your family always wanted it, and it’s, it’s really nice to see. So it’s, it’s coming from a fellow entrepreneur who started a company. I really admire that. So it’s, it’s really terrific. So everyone check out Sunrider International products, and follow sunny on on social media as well. And thank you again sunny and I will see everyone the next time on the Kara Goldin show. Thank you so much. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast, just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.
