In the world of luxury fertility services, few offer the unparalleled level of personalized care and expertise as IMA ART, a distinguished IVF and surrogacy concierge based in Beverly Hills. In this exclusive episode of the Concierge Medical Marketing Podcast, host Steven Schwartz sits down with Ron Sonnenberg, Co-Founder of IMA ART, to explore how his company has redefined the fertility experience for high-net-worth individuals and families.
From their unique transition from Hong Kong to Beverly Hills to their bespoke, concierge approach to IVF and surrogacy, Ron offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of luxury fertility services. Discover how IMA ART combines world-class care with a hands-on, exclusive service model that sets them apart in the competitive fertility space by creating a new area for private clients.
In this episode of the Concierge Medical Marketing Podcast, host Steven Schwartz interviews Ron Sonnenberg from IMA ART, discussing the unique niche of fertility services in Beverly Hills. They explore the transition from Hong Kong to the U.S., the evolution of IVF services tailored for high net worth individuals, and effective marketing strategies to attract affluent clients. Ron shares insights into the complexities of the IVF journey and the personalized, concierge-level service his company provides to clients seeking to grow their families.
Steven Schwartz: Hello and welcome to the concierge medical marketing podcast. I’m your host, Steven Schwartz, and it’s my pleasure to have Ron Sonnenberg today as our guest and Ron is with IMA ART Ron. Thank you for joining us today.
Ron Sonnenberg: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Steve.
Steven Schwartz: Truly my pleasure. The focus of our podcast is to speak with physicians and staff related to Concierge medical practices and direct primary care, as well as other professionals in related industries. For example, folks involved with finances, folks who involved with money management specifically, marketing, digital marketing and whatnot. The idea is that we want to help Concierge and direct primary care physicians to have as much great information available to them through this podcast totally for free so that they can use whatever information they have through us to be as successful as possible in their business and have much better healthcare for everybody who they serve. So that is our goal here. And Ron, again, thank you for taking the time to join us today.
Ron Sonnenberg: Thank you too, Steven. I’ll try to do my best and contribute to your podcast as best I can from within our very niche area.
Steven Schwartz: Exactly. Why don’t we jump straight into that? Tell us about what you do at IMA Art, how you have worked at a very specific niche related to fertility and where you’re located and who you serve.
Ron Sonnenberg: Okay, start with the easy part. We’re located in Beverly Hills, California. California is known as the fertility capital of the world. This was a piece published by Vogue Magazine back in 2019. When we say fertility capital of the world, does not mean that California holds the most number of IVF cycles. That prize probably goes to mainland China owing to their large population. We serve specifically high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals and couples, families looking to grow their families through IVF and or surrogacy. And we’ve built a very niche focused area to the point where if you were to Google search luxury fertility, luxury surrogacy, bespoke surrogacy, bespoke fertility, you will find our company, which was only set up here in Beverly Hills, moved from Hong Kong two and a half years ago, you’ll find us ranking organically at the top of Google’s pages for those words.
Steven Schwartz: Wonderful. Someone’s been doing a great job with your SEO, I’m sure.
Ron Sonnenberg: That would be all in-house. We are not SEO professionals, but we’ve done all of our marketing in-house. have, first of all, found a market that’s never been served before. High net worth individuals through private clients have never had an entity like us to serve them. Nobody does what we do at the level that we do it. So for example, if you were to look at our website, there are no pictures of babies on there. That is by design, not by accident. Our premise is that most everyone in this world knows what a baby looks like. When someone comes to us seeking help, they are oftentimes upset, they’re distraught, they don’t know what to do. And the last thing that these people need is us throwing pictures of babies at them. So we leave pictures of babies off the site. There are one or two pictures of a pregnant Michelle, but that’s about it. We do not publish testimonials. We do not publish pictures of babies or their surrogates, if and when they use a surrogate. basically there’s nothing like us in the market because where the rest of the industry and the space is looking for mass market, large numbers of clients or patients, we go the opposite direction. We limit the number of clients that we take per year to a handful or two handfuls. And we serve these individuals, couples in certain cases, to the max, almost 24 hours a day.
Steven Schwartz: The true concierge feeling and nature of we handle this, we handle that, we handle this, we handle that. All you need to do is relax and let us walk you through this process from start to finish, correct?
Ron Sonnenberg: Absolutely. All the paperwork, all the onboarding, all the registrations, all of the escrow management we oversee, we scrutinize, all of the billing from the IVF clinic to the laboratories to the lawyers. Everything is scrutinized by us.
Steven Schwartz: Excellent. And tell us a little bit more about this change from Hong Kong to Beverly Hills. How did that work out and what’s the story behind that?
Ron Sonnenberg: Okay, so I actually grew up and worked in Hong Kong most of my life. And in 2014, 2013 or so, and I was in the trading and manufacturing business back then, producing all kinds of consumer products for export to the US market and the European market. And back in 2012, 2013, 2014, I was noticing a lot of mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong shopping. And I can tell the difference between a mainland Chinese person and a Hong Kong Chinese person. So I approached these tourists and I noticed that all of them, almost all of them were walking around, they themselves were shopping in Hong Kong and they were carrying roller boards. So I approached them, I said, hi, I’m Ron, I’m really curious, you’ve been shopping here in Hong Kong, what have you been shopping for? And they said vitamins, all kinds of supplements, leather goods, luxury goods, milk formula, anything that the common denominator was, it had to be a foreign-branded, foreign-produced product. Excuse me. So I thought to myself, that’s interesting. They’re coming from China to Hong Kong to shop for foreign goods. And then they’re bringing it back across the border to mainland China. And I thought to myself, mm-mm, okay, Ron, you’ve got to come up with something to offer mainland Chinese that they cannot readily get in China, but since you’re an American citizen, think of something that’s quote unquote made in America, produced in America. And I immediately thought of medicine because healthcare in America, if you’ve got money, is among the best in the world, quality healthcare here in the US. So I called a friend in New York and I said, hey, friend, long time no speak, listen, you have anything or anybody or any entity in the US that would be interested and that’s in the medical field and that would be interested to receive or offer to Chinese citizens. And he immediately said, yes, IVF.
Steven Schwartz: Nice.
Ron Sonnenberg: That’s how I got into IVF. Now it turns out that IVF in China at that time was extremely and actually remains very limited to who can do IVF in China. Only a married heterosexual couple - No singles, no gay couples. There was no surrogacy. There’s still no surrogacy. It is strictly illegal. And on top of that, the IVF success rates in China are very low. And they’re low because it’s a one size back then one size fits all protocol regardless of your blood tests, workups, your ultrasounds during monitoring. So I immediately in 2015 jumped into the space medical tourism, but focused on IVF and surrogacy. And we started to send mainland Chinese couples and some individuals that could not do IVF in China here to the U.S. as well as to one or two other destinations. Anyway, in 2019 or maybe it was 2020, COVID came along and disrupted travel. And it shut us down completely. In 2021, Michelle and I, our CEO, jumped on a plane. She was not yet our CEO at that time, jumped on a plane and came over to California to meet some of the clinics, some of the lawyers, and some of the surrogacy agencies that we were working with back from China to the US. And we’re in these meetings and there was one particular surrogacy agency that we spoke with and we had the meeting with them. And to make a long story short, I did not like what they had to say. I felt their standards were too low in terms of providing support to surrogates during the pregnancy. And I thought to myself, now this is not right. Walked out of the meeting with Michelle and I turned to Michelle, said, know, actually very wealthy people who at that point were already engaging us want to know that their surrogates are getting all kinds of support, professional, clinical psychology, PhD support throughout the pregnancy, not just one meeting at the beginning to assess whether that surrogate was right for the work or not, but throughout the pregnancy. So I turned to Michelle, said, this, just spoke to one of the top surrogacy agencies. They are cutting corners. I know why they’re cutting corners. They’re cutting corners to cut costs. That’s it. It’s as simple as that. Cut costs and to just funnel through as many intended parents as possible. I said, I don’t agree. Michelle, we can do it better ourselves.
Steven Schwartz: Love it. starting off, you lived in Hong Kong. You were in a different line of business. You got the idea of providing services or at the time products, I would assume, to people who lived in mainland China, who are coming to Hong Kong to shop. And then through that, you had the idea. What can we offer these people in the medical space? Spoke to your friend, IVF, and the new business was born then of if I get this right, helping people from mainland China somehow get to America to do IVF and or surrogacy. And then at some point they go back home to China. Is that correct?
Ron Sonnenberg: That’s right. So after a couple or an individual completes her egg retrieval, we will fertilize those eggs in most cases with her partner’s sperm or donor sperm from the sperm bank. And then the couple returned to China. And then, you know, two weeks later, we call them at that time, we would call them and say, okay, listen of the 14 or 18 eggs that we’ve retrieved X number have been fertilized, made it to day five. And we’ve now PGT tested these embryos and we’ve got good news. Five of them are boys. Three of them are girls and you can come back or if you need a surrogate, we will arrange a surrogate for you. So that’s how the business started in 2022. Michelle and I landed here at LAX and we decided to do the entire thing ourselves.
Steven Schwartz: Yes.
Ron Sonnenberg: Okay. Take the surrogacy part and bring it in-house. We do not rely on these external surrogacy agencies.
Steven Schwartz: Right. And it also, it seems strange to me too, is that if a couple has their eggs fertilized here and then leaves back to China two weeks later, you know, now what? And so if it’s surrogacy, that makes sense, but it makes more sense for the couple to stay in America, day five, two weeks around.
Ron Sonnenberg: They could stay in America, but you know, we want the intended mother to recover from her treatment, her IVF cycle. She could stay, but the important thing is it would probably need two months to stay because of the whole timing of the time that it takes to get the eggs out and the time it takes to get the results from the PGT.
Steven Schwartz: And then obviously also once eggs are implanted back in the mother, there’s what? At least several weeks worth of progesterone shots.
Ron Sonnenberg: There’s some progesterone as well, just to keep things steady, as I like to say.
Steven Schwartz: kind of moving forward, 2022, you said "We have to simplify our business. Let’s bring it all in-house, having a high-level, concierge-level, personal touch service for high net worth individuals." And literally, you guys handle everything. It’s in-house and you have a limited number of patients per year, correct?
Ron Sonnenberg: That’s right. I mean, just to give you an idea of that white glove service, when clients and or if they have surrogates arrive in LAX, we personally pick them up from the airport. We are waiting there with an SUV. We pick them up, we bring them to their hotel that we recommend, that’s in close proximity to us and most importantly in close proximity to the IVF clinic so we don’t have to deal with traffic in LA and everything is here in Beverly Hills. The following morning, we will pick up the surrogate or the couple or the individual. We will bring them to the IVF clinic. The IVF clinic understands who we are, that we have this very exclusive service. We have a private room in the clinic where, know, affluent couples and individuals sit, they’re not out in the open with everybody else.
Steven Schwartz: Nice. Truly. Or maybe two or three cuts above.
Ron Sonnenberg: Yes, we wait for treatment to be completed. And then we bring them back to their hotel. And sometimes we go to Rodeo Drive and have a little fun, dinner, lunch. So everything is, perfectly set in this iconic town.
Steven Schwartz: Love it. What a great plan. And I think you’ve really worked out a fantastic niche for yourself. Can you explain a little bit more about the structure of your business where you and Michelle are now, what other staff members are involved, as well as you’ve mentioned other clinics and whatnot. Can you just explain that structure, please?
Ron Sonnenberg: So most of our structure or most of the staffing are individuals that work at the clinic, at the lawyer’s office, at the clinical psychologist, at the escrow management. Our own staff are admin people and accounting people. Everything else is done by Michelle and I. Because we have two handfuls of clients, we can do it this way. If we were, for example, one of the mass market surrogacy agencies, which is actually the rest of the industry, it would be a completely different setup. We interview the surrogates, we screen the surrogates, we bring them on board. We register, we onboard clients at the clinic. So everything is really done hands-on by us.
Steven Schwartz: I love it. Let me ask you this. How did you acquire your first patients to the practice?
Ron Sonnenberg: I believe it was he found, they found us when we were still in Hong Kong. This was four months before we left Hong Kong to relocate the business to Beverly Hills. That was how it started. But back in 2015, we had an office in mainland China and people were finding us through Chinese social media apps.
Steven Schwartz: And focusing here in America, in Beverly Hills specifically, are you marketing more specifically to people in and around Beverly Hills? I know you mentioned flying people in from elsewhere. Are you marketing to the whole country or what are you doing currently to acquire patients? Okay, our marketing demographics as well as where we choose to market our brand, our service is done very thoughtfully and very carefully. So for example, we’ve been in some digital magazines, Salon Privé, they’re in London. We’ve been in LUXUO, they are in Singapore, out of Singapore, okay. We’ve been in the Financial Times. We’ve been in Angeleno. This is a luxury magazine serving the LA area. We pick cities and towns where we know there’s a high concentration of affluent families and individuals. Luxembourg, Monaco, Tokyo, Shanghai.
Hong Kong, Singapore, Perth, Sydney, New York. So we don’t market to the whole country. It’s very focused, laser focused.
Steven Schwartz: That makes really good sense. And especially when we’re dealing with exceptionally wealthy, affluent folks, they read certain magazines, digitally or print, they attend certain events. And obviously, as you do your marketing in those spaces, your message will be seen by the right folks. And really, lots of other people who could either not afford the service or not willing to fly halfway across the planet to get it won’t see the ads. And that’s perfect. One of the biggest challenges in business, I think, is people try to serve too many people too wide of a demographic and their marketing is less effective because who are you marketing to?
Ron Sonnenberg: Not only is the marketing less effective, but our business was built from the ground up serving high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals. What we’ve seen now is that a few of these mass market agencies, fertility companies are attempting to serve affluent individuals by writing, we offer affluent concierge, but actually they don’t even meet the parents. Their business model is, let’s say they’re located in Chicago or Atlanta or some other state, and they’re going to send their surrogates all over the country. They don’t come in physical contact. Half of our business is physically greeting and working with our clients and our surrogates.
Steven Schwartz: I think you’ve really got a great niche that you’ve worked out for yourself. As we wrap up here soon, do you plan on growing or do you plan on kind of staying with the same really small handful of clients per year and that’s good enough?
Ron Sonnenberg: Well, I need to, we need to clone Michelle and I, okay? And if we can successfully do that, then the next place where we will help individuals and families would be in Manhattan, in New York City. There are a handful of very good IVF clinics over there. Surrogacy has recently been allowed in New York. It wasn’t always the case. So New York is the next destination and we’ve already started to make certain little touches. Remember, I started sending clients to New York for IVF. So in a way, it’s going back to where I started in this field.
Steven Schwartz: Going back to the roots almost. I know some businesses have expanded in this fashion through franchising or licensing agreements and whatnot. So I know there’s plenty of options available for you.
Ron Sonnenberg: We will not. It’s highly unlikely that we would franchise this because nobody is going to take the level of care. I’ve got, what is that? ADD? No, not ADD, OCD. I’m OCD. Okay. So when you’re OCD, you look at every minute detail. You’re seeking and pursuing perfection and excellence.
Steven Schwartz: This has really been a pleasure chatting with you Ron and getting to know you better your story your business I’m really thrilled with how well this is working out for you and Michelle so thank you for taking the time to to share your story with us today just briefly for anybody who’s watching or listening to this podcast who needs some help with their digital marketing and really wants to grow their concierge or DPC practice. Through our website, conciergemd.marketing, we offer a book that I wrote called The Definitive Guide to Winning with Digital Marketing for Concierge Medical Practices. The book is absolutely free. Just need to go to our website, put in your email and click the button. We’ll send you a link where you can download it. So completely free resource. If it’s helpful to you, please help yourself. Ron, again, any final thoughts in the last one or two minutes that we have here today?
Ron Sonnenberg: Look, it’s a profoundly complex journey. The IVF and the IVF with surrogacy. It’s difficult, especially if you’re coming from another country. Michelle and I are internationalists. We’ve both lived the majority of our life outside the US. So we understand how to assist people who are coming here for this treatment and the hopes and dreams of growing their families.
Steven Schwartz: Love it. Well, Ron, again, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us on the podcast today. This has been Steve Schwartz with Concierge Medical Marketing Podcast, and thank you for being here, and we will see you on the very next episode.
Ron Sonnenberg: Thank you. Thank you very much. You’re really my pleasure. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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