Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Primally Pure Founder Bethany McDaniel shares how she grew her business from $250 out of her in-laws kitchen to a multi million dollar venture with 40 staff

Transcript

Primally Pure Founder Bethany McDaniel shares how she grew her business from $250 out of her in-laws kitchen to a multi million dollar venture with 40 staff · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Bethany McDaniel for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doona Rasheen, and I'm just really happy that you're tuning in today and spending some time listening to this amazing episode with Bethany McDaniel, the founder of Primally Pure. Primally Pure is a holistic skincare and wellness brand that handcrafts natural and non-toxic products with a whole person approach to wellbeing for skin, body, and mind.
• 0:40
  Based out of Southern California, they formulate each product with real, recognizable ingredients. What started with a $250 investment from her in-law's kitchen, Bethany has grown this business over the last six years to now having 40 full-time staff, crazy product expansion of more than 50 products, and their own full-time formulator.
• 1:03
  This episode has so many nifty tips and bits of tactical advice. I know you're going to get so much out of it. So if you're loving these episodes, please do take a moment to subscribe and rate and review the show. This is Bethany for Female Startup Club.
• 1:18
  Amazing. Bethany, thank you so much for joining me on the Female Startup Club podcast today. Of course. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. Me too. Can you start by firstly introducing yourself and a little bit about who you are and what your business is?
• 1:37
  Yeah, definitely. My name is Bethany. I own a natural skincare company called Primally Pure, and we make non-toxic skincare products. I started it really to fill a need that I had personally of wanting more natural products for my skin after kind of years of going down the path of seeing dermatologists and using conventional products and just not having success with that route.
• 2:06
  And then finding that my skin responded so much better to natural ingredients and as well as like natural lifestyle improvements. So we really focus on skin care from a holistic perspective because it's.
• 2:22
  what you put on your skin is so important, but also how you care for your body is so important. And so we kind of take it away from this clinical perspective of caring for your skin to a holistic perspective. And we do that through our products, which are incredible. And we also do that through the education that we provide on our blog. And we have an ebook and send out newsletters with all kinds of clean living tips, stuff like that. So that's kind of us in a nutshell.
• 2:52
  In a nutshell, I love that. Can we go back to your life before you started the business, what you were up to and what kind of like gave you the inspiration to go down the path of entrepreneurship?
• 3:05
  Yeah. So my path was anything but linear. I went to school for communications and creative writing. And I worked at Trader Joe's, which is a nice little like organic grocery store. I worked there all throughout my time in college.
• 3:25
  And then afterwards, I went to work for the Lance Armstrong Live Strong Foundation, which is the Cancer Foundation. Did that for a summer. I was an intern. So it wasn't like a full-time job. And then after that, I started writing for a magazine called Business Leader. And there's another one called Business to Business Magazine. So I got to interview a lot of really successful business owners during that time, which was really incredible because I learned so much
• 3:55
  start my own business at that point. But I kind of like tucked that information away in my head somewhere in there. And so I'm super grateful for that opportunity. And after that, we were living in, I was living in California. And then I got married to my husband, we moved to Arizona. And
• 4:14
  I started working at a retail store, Lululemon, and then the Special Olympics, which is another nonprofit, I worked there after that for a little while, was doing some freelance writing stuff on the side.
• 4:29
  And then rewinding just a bit, when my husband and I got married, he had started a regenerative livestock farm with his dad and brothers. So we were all kind of starting to think more about what we were putting into our bodies. That was the first step for me, just examining the foods I was eating. And right away, when I started trying to eat less processed foods and more whole foods, I gave up gluten, dairy, grains, refined sugar, all of those things, and noticed he
• 4:57
  huge improvements in my skin and in my health overall. So that was kind of the first light bulb for me. And then I started looking at what sort of products I was using. So it was kind of this simultaneous path of like, I had these different jobs that I was at never felt like anything was the perfect fit for me. And then
• 5:17
  On the side, I was really interested in health and wellness and specifically in natural skincare. And I was formulating products in my kitchen. I was having my family and friends try them. And after almost two years of doing that, we got to a point with our jobs in Arizona where we were still at them, still working these full-time jobs, but driving back to California constantly.
• 5:44
  almost every weekend to be there for the farm. And we got to a point where we decided to quit our full-time jobs, my husband and I. We moved back to California. The farm was at his parents' house at the time. It was a small 1,700-square-foot house, but it was on two and a half acres. So we moved in with his parents
• 6:05
  His sister and her husband and their son also moved in with his parents. And then his other sister, who was living in New York, moved back in with his parents. So there were nine of us living in this tiny house, just trying to make this farm succeed. I was still making the skincare stuff, but wasn't like officially selling them yet. Yeah.
• 6:23
  And then eventually I decided to start selling them on our family farms website. The customers loved them. And I was really excited about that. And that really motivated me to, you know, press on with it. And so I kept making them myself and my kitchen and eventually moved everything over to my own website just for Primally Pure ingredients.
• 6:45
  And since then, it's just been this kind of slow, natural, I don't want to say slow, but a very natural progression of going from doing like every job in the company by myself, like customer service, marketing, shipping the packages. I was handwriting, you know, addresses on the packages in the beginning. I was like hand shredding newspapers to use as stuffing in the bag. So very DIY, very bootstrapped.
• 7:15
  And it's been a very like natural progression of, you know, hiring people on when it feels right, growing at a pace that really, that has, it's been, you know, a pretty quick, pretty quick, steady growth, but it's been a growth that has felt really comfortable and calculated. And I guess at the same time. And so that was five years ago. So we're about actually almost six years into the business now.
• 7:43
  Wow. That sounds amazing. What an experience all moving into the same house and, you know, coming together as a mini community to be like, Hey, let's make this work as a family and do this, you know, unique situation. That's so interesting. I love that for you. How fun. Yeah, it was fun. It was hard, but fun.
• 8:05
  Totally. I bet. What was the kind of things in the early days that you were doing to spread that word and, you know, find new customers and tell people about the brand? Yeah, I think one thing very early on that I recognized the importance of was
• 8:26
  connecting through quality content. So I was never focused on just pushing the products out, selling the products. I was always really focused on like the education piece and, you know, building trust with our community in that way. So that was like such a pillar from the beginning. And
• 8:47
  I think that allowed all of the outreach I did just to be that much more meaningful and powerful because I would reach out to influencers and I would say, you know, deodorants like our best selling product. It's kind of what we're known for. And I would, you know, ask them if they'd like to try our deodorant. And then I would link, you know, our top free blog posts about how to transition to natural deodorant and things like that. So I think, um,
• 9:12
  You know, I did a lot of outreach like that, but I also wanted to make sure that whoever I was reaching out to that they felt supported in their journey of switching to non-toxic products. And, you know, I wanted to be like a friend to them, not just pushing the products out there. I wanted to really come alongside them and, you know, remove like any possible hurdles that would prevent them from wanting to use natural deodorant or try a natural skincare product. Yeah.
• 9:39
  So, yeah, to answer your question, I just I really hustled with the outreach and went to events and introduced myself to people and sent emails and, you know, got a lot of no thanks replies. And, you know, I was also ignored a ton. But, you know, I also was able to connect with some really amazing people and a lot of the influencers that were still working together.
• 10:01
  with today are people that I reached out to super early on. And in a really intentional way, I think that was the important thing. It wasn't just like a, you know, auto email, like, Hey, we'd love to send you some stuff to try. It was like always a very personal, um, personal outreach. Yeah. Really considered and thoughtful. It sounds like. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:24
  At what point of the business did you start to feel like was the pivot and sorry, not the pivot, the pivotal moment where things started to really gain traction and you were like, hang on a second, like things really are working. People do really want this product. I'm seeing people come back to the website and, you know, purchase again and again. Yeah, that's a good question.
• 10:47
  One thing that I think was big for our growth was starting an affiliate program. I started one pretty early on, I want to say in the first year. And that was a really, I know it's maybe not right for every brand, but the way we set ours up, um,
• 11:05
  I think was we give lifetime commissions through our affiliate program. So it's not like an MLM, but people are receiving like 15%, a 15%, let's say commission on every sale that they make and then repeat purchases from that customer as well, even if they weren't using like a link or a code in their second, third, fourth purchase. And so I was working really hard to make these connections. And then once we started the program, it was like,
• 11:32
  oh, they have this like ongoing incentive to keep talking about Primely Pure and sharing. And that was a really cool thing that I did that really just allowed us to see this continuous like uptick in sales. So I think that was huge.
• 11:51
  Yeah, that's so interesting. I didn't know that you were able to structure it so that you could have that continual percentage going back to that person who's promoting the products. That's such a good tip. Thanks. And since then, you know, almost six years on, how has your marketing evolved and what are the kinds of things that you do now that you can see really drives your growth and helps you acquire new customers? Yeah.
• 12:17
  Yeah, it's evolved a lot. So much has changed since 2000. And when did I start 2015? When I started the business. There was no algorithm back then. So like, someone posted it. Life was good.
• 12:32
  Oh, so good. And yeah, as you know, things are very different now. So we have had to start doing a lot of ads like Facebook, Instagram ads. We do we just started doing some whitelisting with influencers. Yeah.
• 12:49
  What does that mean? I have someone on my team that understands it probably a lot better than I do, but I'll try to give an accurate description. So an influencer, you kind of request sharing access to your Facebook accounts. And then...
• 13:06
  you can kind of work with that influencer to generate a post about Primally Pure. And you like we, the brand would pay for that post to be boosted, but on their account. So it's kind of a win-win because the influencer is getting like more exposure. We're getting more exposure to their audience and...
• 13:29
  Hopefully I'm not missing anything with how that works, but it's been a really special strategy for us. So that's been something recently that we've done that's worked out really well. Sponsoring podcasts, YouTube videos, things like that. We've...
• 13:45
  you know, gotten more involved in in the last couple of years. And, and then also just doing more like surprise and delight types of initiatives for our customers. I think that kind of stuff still goes such a long way. And it's also really fun to do. So yeah,
• 14:03
  I love the surprise and delight element of like, you know, e-commerce brands and what's possible. It's just such a fun part of the business that brings so much joy. Do you have any examples of what you do?
• 14:16
  Yeah. Well, we just did a big holiday gifting. So we're coming out with some exclusive holiday products that like limited edition things we've never done before. And so for our gifting, we gifted a lot of the products to like a lot of the influencers we work with. And then we also took our top 100 customers from 2020. And we sent them all like a handwritten note and
• 14:46
  Yeah, I love that. That is so cool. As a customer, you would just feel so special to receive that and know that like they're on the top of your list and like they're on your radar, you know? Yeah, totally. Yeah. I love that. Oh, my gosh. So cool.
• 15:04
  I often like to talk about the money piece of the puzzle. I think I read you started with $250, you know, started small, bootstrapping the brand. How have you funded the business onwards from there? And how have you been funding it till now?
• 15:21
  Yeah, so we've still just been bootstrapped the whole time. So there's been no funding yet to this point. We're just getting to the point where it is becoming more difficult to keep going along on that path with bootstrapping, especially getting close to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, which is, I think, about 25% of our sales for the year we do around that time.
• 15:51
  a lot of like inventory buildup and things like that and staffing, um, that goes into like prepping for that. So it's really expensive just to prepare for that weekend. And, um, yeah,
• 16:02
  Yeah. So like, you know, the bigger you get, it gets, it becomes more difficult to like put the necessary funds into it. So we've been, thankfully we have been, we've been good up until now. Next year we might explore some options for, for funding, but yeah, up until now, just completely bootstrapped.
• 16:25
  Cool. That's so amazing. Good for you guys. I'm sure that also makes you so much more attractive as well for when you do go out for funding and you're able to show that significant growth and that, um, you know, that, that income that you've, you've been able to generate yourself. Yeah. It's been nice too, because we don't have to answer to anyone. Um, you know, we don't have a board, we don't have investors, anything like that. So, um, which has been,
• 16:55
  Yeah, totally. A few women I've spoken to who are also self-funded tell me that they've been able to really expand and grow their business through Wayflyer. And I always just think like, when I, have you heard of Wayflyer? No, what is it? Oh my gosh, you need to check it out. This could be such a game changer for you. This is not sponsored. This is me just being like, oh my God, they're amazing. So Wayflyer is a company that they basically finance
• 17:23
  e-commerce brands growth through their inventory and through performance marketing. So, you know, I don't specifically know the spiel, but it's something like that you plug in your data to their system or whatever, and they're able to fund up to maybe $30,000
• 17:42
  $5 million or something, um, based on how you currently generate revenue. And so they'll sort of like give you a loan, I guess, um, for a certain amount of money and they don't take any equity. It's just a percentage on top of that, that they take back from your ads essentially. But I think they also offer the same service on the inventory side of things and helping you fund your inventory purchase orders. Um,
• 18:05
  And yeah, apparently it's just totally a game changer. You should totally check it out. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's such a website. I think another one in the space is called ClearBank. And that's also one that does, you know, funding of inventory and financing and has a female founder as well, which is super cool.
• 18:23
  Nice. Yes. So nice. No worries. Um, okay. Back to the show. Every, um, every business and obviously every entrepreneur goes through so many ups and downs. And I was reading about a story that you shared recently on Jenna's podcast about a particular
• 18:43
  challenge you had back in 2017. And, you know, we're often talking about the highlights and what's going well in business, but I think it's also important to talk about some of the low moments and some of the challenges that people go through when building a business and that it's not always rosy, like it can look like. Are you able to share a bit about that story and how you were kind of dealing with the mental rollercoaster that was going on during that time?
• 19:08
  Yeah. Yeah, that was nuts. We were launching, we were planning to launch these new deodorant tubes on Black Friday. And we had a whole like campaign planned with like celebrate Black Friday with our new charcoal deodorant in this like black tube. And we were doing a promo. I think it was like spend $50, get a free deodorant.
• 19:27
  charcoal deodorant and like all these, these kinds of plays on like coal and charcoal and stuff like that. So it was like all planned out. Um, and then we were launching, you know, our, every other scent of our deodorant and these new tubes as well. And we had like newsletters planned, ads planned, things like that. And it was our first time working with an international supplier. So we were ordering the tubes overseas and then we would fill them in house at our
• 19:56
  and we hadn't, we were expecting to get the tubes, I think, um, early November and kind of like days, weeks kept passing and there were no tubes and our supplier was reassuring us that they should arrive at any moment. So we, we felt pretty good about it. We felt like, okay, these, maybe they're running a little bit late, but they can't be like,
• 20:19
  There's no way we're going to be like weeks from weeks off from what they told us. And sure enough, like Black Friday came. We still didn't have the tubes. We still felt really confident like they have to be arriving anytime. I think we maybe even thought that they were like had arrived, but maybe we're in customs. There was a lot of confusion along the way.
• 20:39
  But they actually weren't in even like on land. They were in the middle of the ocean still at the time of Black Friday. So we ran the promos. We ran the promos. They did really well. We sold a lot of these deodorants that we still didn't even have possession of. We didn't know when we would get possession of them.
• 20:57
  And thankfully, we did promos on other products as well. So we had orders to fill, plenty of orders to fill. Like after that weekend that we're keeping the team really busy, we just couldn't fulfill any of the deodorant orders. So I think it was like...
• 21:14
  maybe a week or two after Black Friday, we actually received the tubes and they came on this huge semi-truck. Like we weren't even prepared for, okay, how do you get all these boxes like off the semi-truck into our warehouse? So our team like spent, I think two hours, it was like all hands on deck. We were...
• 21:31
  going like taking turns, like all going up into the semi. Like some people were just like staying in the truck and then like handing boxes down and then other people were grabbing them. And it took us like two hours to unload this full semi truck full of deodorant tubes. So we were just so like inexperienced and didn't know what to expect with any of this.
• 21:52
  So the tubes were in the, were in house and then we still had to make the deodorant because we hand make everything. So it took us a while to fill the tubes. And then we were finally able to fulfill these Black Friday deodorant orders and get them out to customers in time for Christmas, like barely, but it was nuts. Oh my gosh. That sounds nuts. Were there any like negative repercussions from that, that you had to deal with, like kind of like crisis management with your customers?
• 22:23
  You know, if there was, it was very minimal. One thing we did, we sent out an email just letting our customers know there's going to be a delay. Like we're doing everything we can to get your orders out in a timely manner. So we kind of warned people in advance. And then we also upgraded people to a bigger deodorant size. So it was like a 1.7 ounce deodorant that was...
• 22:47
  That was the standard size. So I think anyone that took advantage of that promo to get the free 1.7 ounce deodorant, we ended up upgrading them to a 2.5 ounce. So we may have thrown in like a free lip balm as well. I don't remember. But yeah, we definitely tried to stay in touch with people and just kind of like keep them in the loop of what was going on as much as we could.
• 23:08
  Yeah. And I feel like most people understand if they're like in the loop with communications and you're like ahead of the game, like keeping people up to date and just being like, Hey, we're being transparent. There's an issue here. There's going to be a delay. People aren't angry, but I think what happens is when you don't update customers, that's when people are like, what's going on? And when customers have to contact you first. For sure. Yeah. Do you think that challenges like that one changed how you manage your stress and
• 23:39
  Yeah, definitely. And there's been several things like that over the years. And I think for a while, I was kind of in this pattern of whenever something would go wrong, I would go into panic mode and stress mode. And now I'm to a place where I just, I know that like that is a part of owning a business. Like there's always going to be things like that. And you can't think that every...
• 24:03
  Every road bump is the end of the world. And so now I can look back at things like that deodorant tube disaster and other things that have happened and say like, okay, you know, this thing that I'm going through now feels really hard, but so did these things at the time. And I'm going to be a little bit more.
• 24:19
  we got through them and we came out better on the other end. So it definitely changes the way you look at challenges, changes it from more of like a, why is this happening to me kind of a situation to like, okay, what can we learn from this? And how can we grow from this?
• 24:36
  Totally. Absolutely. Looking back, what do you attribute your success to? And why do you think you've been able to, you know, keep growing the business successfully, you know, four or five plus years or six years now? I think in the beginning, I would say I had my head down a lot and I'm
• 24:59
  a lot of hard work and grit and scrappiness went into just kind of getting us like to that next level and getting us like up and running as a business. And then that can only, I think it's necessary in the beginning to an extent to like really hustle because, um,
• 25:18
  you know, you don't know enough to like work smarter yet. You have to let just like work hard and figure things out. And so that's what I did for the first few years. And then I got to a point where like my hard work wasn't going to get us any further. Like I had to start...
• 25:36
  like learning about, you know, how, how to manage people and learning about, um, just how to grow a business and things like that. And so I kind of got to this point a few years in where I really started prioritizing education. I started prioritizing like my health again, because I knew like mentally I had to be sharp. I had to, um,
• 25:58
  I couldn't feel like I was dragging all the time, which I did for a long time because I was just, I had no boundaries and was working like constantly and things like that. So I knew I didn't want to feel that way. I wanted to, you know, be more alert and, you know,
• 26:14
  just mentally there for my business and my family. And in order to do that, I had to kind of take a step back and like start caring for myself better and also start investing in learning. And that means that can be hard because it's like time, take taking time away from doing things, you know, like actually doing physically, like making product or answering emails or whatnot. But it's like so...
• 26:39
  so crucial, I think, to to growing. Yeah, that sounds like such a critical step in the journey. And we actually haven't really spoken too much about that piece of the puzzle on the show so far. How do you actually, you know, upskill and figure out how to become a great leader and, you know, manage lots of people? What are the kind of education things that you need to do?
• 27:02
  Yeah, I mean, there are so many things out there. And one book in particular was really helpful for me, a book called Good to Great. And it's like a study book.
• 27:16
  he's this, the author, Jim Collins is his name. He studies, he did this big study on, um, several businesses that like good businesses and great businesses and kind of like nailed down the determining factors and what differentiates a great business from like a good business or even a business that fails. So, um, his insights were really powerful for me. And I know it's a lot of
• 27:42
  gained so much from that, just what he took away from his findings. And so loved that book. Brendan Burchard has a book called High Performance Habits that was great. A lot of like mindset type stuff, but so important. And then podcasts too. I love listening to podcasts and you know, how I built this is great just for like getting fired up and inspired by
• 28:12
  You know, you mentioned you heard me on Jenna's podcast and that was like one of the first ones that I started listening to as well. But, you know, there are so many good ones. And I think people should just like figure out what resonates most with them. Totally. Absolutely. Oh, gosh. And so where is the business today? Like how big is your team? What is the kind of picture, you know, versus five years ago?
• 28:42
  Yeah. So we have about 40 people on our team now. We've hired, I think, around 20 just for the holidays, temporary seasonal employees. So that's been kind of nuts. And then we opened a spot, our headquarters, a year and a half for two years almost ago, which has been super fun. And just kind of like expanding to that pretty consistently. Whenever a new unit opens up in our building, we're like...
• 29:10
  We'll take it. Yeah, just still like growing at a pace that feels really comfortable. And, you know, I never want to get to the point where
• 29:21
  everyone's feeling like overwhelmed and not that there aren't times where I feel overwhelmed or where my team feels overwhelmed. But, you know, I never want to like grow at the expense of our sanity. So, you know, we're definitely focused on growth and we want to grow, but also doing it at a really, at a pace that just feels really good and really smart. Totally. And what does the future look like? What's coming up next?
• 29:51
  Um, you know, we have several new products planned. We hired on a formulator early in 2020. And that's been great because up until then I was formulating all the products. Wow.
• 30:04
  And our holistic esthetician was helping me with that a bit, but we didn't have anyone like fully dedicated to it. So having her on board has been amazing. And I feel like there's just so much potential now for all kinds of new creations. So that's kind of what we have planned for next year. And then after that, you know, we'll see. We'll see where everything takes us. But yeah, super excited about some of the new products we have planned for now.
• 30:31
  Oh my gosh. Sounds very exciting. Yeah. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business? I would say that I think something I see from a lot of people is this big idea. And then this like,
• 30:55
  It's so big that there's no like, they don't know how to connect where they are now to getting there. And just it gets to a point where it feels like unachievable and unattainable and they kind of talk themselves out of it.
• 31:09
  But I think it's so important just to dedicate whatever, like commit to dedicating 30 minutes a day to that dream. Like whatever that looks like, if it's writing a book, like just start writing for 30 minutes a day. Or if it's launching a company, like work on your product for 30 minutes every day or whatever that time is, like determine an amount of time that feels doable. And I think just giving like, even if it's a small amount of time, dedicating like everything
• 31:38
  whatever you can to that big goal, like over, over the course of several weeks, months, years, like a lot can come of that. And, and if you have more time, like even better, but I think that's just one way to kind of bridge the gap between like where, maybe where someone is in the, in the present to like, what could, where they could be, you know, 10 years down the road.
• 32:02
  Totally. I think the compound effect of doing small steps and small actions is just so important. And so something that like, I talk about it all the time on the show, because, you know, just doing that little thing, chipping away every day, every week, every month, you'll look back in five years time and be like, Oh, here I am. Unbelievable. Can't believe I did that. So true.
• 32:28
  So true. Okay. We are up to the six quick questions, part of the episode. Few of the things we might've covered a little bit already, but we'll roll with it. Question number one is what's your why? My why is a lot of times I, when I think about this, I think about like girls that were
• 32:54
  girls that are in high school struggling with skin issues. Cause that's kind of when it started for me. And, you know, I didn't know that there was any other option than seeing the dermatologist and taking like the pills that they prescribed and the creams that they prescribed, which, um, which I'm really convinced did more damage. Like I did more damage to my skin than treating it. Then, then just like, you know, the acne I had. So,
• 33:21
  I just want to share, I want the message to get out there that like skincare is so much more than just masking symptoms. It, it's, it really is a holistic, um, or it should be, you know, this, a holistic experience and that. Yeah.
• 33:38
  what you put in your body and the ingredients that you choose to put on your skin really make a difference. And that's kind of what I want like teenage girls to know. And then, you know, starting at that age and then of course, like carrying through to young adulthood and
• 33:56
  the course over the course of their lives. And then for them to like, then share that with their kids, because I just wish, I wish I had that information sooner and I didn't. And I kind of paid the price in different ways by damaging my skin with like these things.
• 34:13
  and my body with like round after round of antibiotics that, you know, messed up my gut bacteria and made my acne worse. But like, no one talks about that. So that is kind of like what I always come back to when I think about why I'm doing this. So,
• 34:28
  Really just like the product, I think the products are a means to, you know, really spread that message and just let people know that, you know, there's more you can do to heal your skin in a more holistic way than just like seeing the dermatologist and using clean and clear. So...
• 34:49
  Totally. That's such an important one as well. I think it's so important to be able to get that message to girls when they're in that stage of life at school. I feel like we've, we've all been there. Yeah. And it's like, I think everyone overreacts to, you know, what's going on in their skin as well. Like, you know, getting a few pimples and thinking that, you know, you need to start taking Accutane. It's like,
• 35:13
  It's, it's really okay. Like totally. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. Question number two is what's been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop?
• 35:30
  I can think of a few. I'm trying to think of which one is the biggest. I think it goes back to the affiliate program, just the decision to start that. And then like after starting that, there were several, you know, big pops where I think that that was the decision that like allowed the big pops to really continue like into the future and on a consistent basis. Whereas before we would, you know, an influencer with like,
• 35:59
  30,000 followers, which was like a lot for us at the time, you know, would post a giveaway and we would see this awesome like pop in sales. And then, you know, another one would three months later and we'd have like another great pop. But once we started that program, it was just so much more consistent where, you know, and it wasn't always like us organizing it. It was, they were already already had their links already had their code set up. So like they could kind of run with it and we could just kind of sit back and
• 36:27
  watch it happen. So yeah. Yeah. Kind of automate the process. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What's the software you use for that, by the way? We started out on one called iDev, which it was like a really inexpensive option and it worked great in the beginning. But then after about a year and a half, maybe two years, we switched to one called Refursion and that's what we're using now. Cool. I'm going to check it out. Yeah, that's great.
• 36:55
  Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? One of the questions that we've definitely touched on. Great. Great question, though. Um.
• 37:07
  So yeah, I mentioned I'm like a big fan of Jenna's Gold Digger podcast. But I the reason kind of for all that is I did her mastermind a few years ago, which was really neat. And I would definitely encourage anyone who has a business or probably someone who has a business. I don't know how helpful it would be if you don't have like if you haven't started your business yet. But that mastermind was really powerful and powerful.
• 37:34
  it was great to connect with other entrepreneurs that were kind of going through some similar struggles. I, I think a lot of times as an entrepreneur, you can feel really alone and isolated in your journey because like, I know for me, the friends that I went to high school with, went to college with, like, um, just couldn't relate to a lot of the struggles that I was dealing with in business. And so having that community in that group, um,
• 37:58
  was awesome. And I know it may not be possible to have like that in person experience right now. But I think there are even a lot of like, online based masterminds out there that that people could look into joining. So that was just one other thing that was like really powerful in my journey as an entrepreneur. And I would encourage anyone to seek something like that out for sure.
• 38:26
  when you say mastermind, what are the kinds of things that you actually do in that? Like, what do you learn? Yeah. Um, so I think sometimes like guest speakers will come in and speak to a topic that they're an expert in with Jenna's. Um, she was doing a lot of the teaching. So she was teaching about email marketing and social media and, you know, how to set up email flows. And she got like pretty nitty, nitty gritty into like all the details and, um,
• 38:54
  was really open about just answering like questions we had for her of how she's done certain things. So I think it's important to find a mastermind leader who you really resonate with and feel like you could learn a lot from. But yeah, it's like a lot of teaching like that. And then kind of sometimes guest speakers coming in and teaching on certain topics and then also doing things like among the group with other people in the group,
• 39:23
  share about like a problem that you're dealing with. And then everyone kind of goes around and like has 60 seconds to give you their best advice. So yeah, all kinds of fun stuff like that. I love that. That's so cool.
• 39:35
  Yeah. That's really fun. I want to do that like ASAP with my friends who are entrepreneurs. Totally. Help. I know. And it's even if you feel like, like, oh, that wouldn't work. It's kind of like your initial, I think a lot of people's like initial response because, you know, they're not fully in the situation, but you, she made us like not say that, like just, you have to like sit there and just receive it and listen to it because you never know, like down the road, something
• 40:05
  come back to you or you might, you might not think it'll work initially, but then later on you're like, Oh wait, that, yeah, that might actually be helpful. Something clicks. Ah, that's so cool. I love that. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's again, back around your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated and productive. Yes. I love talking about this kind of stuff.
• 40:33
  I think the most important thing I do to kind of win the day is I use the Brendan Burchard high performance planner. And so it's this like big planner. It's huge. And every day, there's like a series of questions that you have to go through and ask like, you know, who's one person that you like want to intentionally connect with today? And like, what's
• 40:59
  What's like a hurdle that you might face today? And how can you, how are you planning on like overcoming that hurdle? So different things like that to kind of get you in the right headspace to take on the day. And then at the end of the day, there's like evaluation questions. Things like, you know, what's one thing I could have done to improve like how the day went and different things like that. So I've been doing that since early this year. And I feel like it's made all the difference in the world.
• 41:28
  That sounds awesome. Love the sound of that. I'm going to check it out after this. Yeah. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? Oh my goodness. I saw this one on your list and I, I was having trouble like, um, figuring out what I would do with it. So is the business in, I'm guessing the business is in like a, not the best,
• 41:56
  like in dire straits. It's totally your interpretation. I guess the question is about like where you kind of see your most important like, um, resources to, to create further revenue. Yeah. Yeah. I think I would, I, I would invest it in some sort of a partnership with
• 42:20
  like one of our top five influencers and just try to think of something like really intentional, really creative, um, like a really cool way to join forces and drum up some sales. Nice. Love that. And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? And that's just around your mindset and approach.
• 42:44
  Yeah, I think failure is such an important thing to deal with. You know, even like as a mom, I have to like hold myself back sometimes from wanting to like do things for my kids that they might not be able to do themselves or like wanting, you know,
• 43:05
  protecting them from failure because I think failure is so important. It's such a critical part of like learning and growing as a person. And I want my kids to experience failure and like learn how to use that to, to fuel like further change.
• 43:22
  to fuel like their efforts to, to try harder at things. So, um, you know, failure is tough. It's like not fun in the moment, but I really try my best to see it as an opportunity to, to get better and to evaluate like what went wrong and what can I fix for the next time around. Absolutely.
• 43:44
  Oh gosh, thank you so much, Bethany. This was so amazing chatting to you about your business and what you're doing and what you're creating for women and girls all around the world. Thank you so much. Of course. Thank you for having me.
• 44:01
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 44:26
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 44:48
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 45:05
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 45:29
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 45:52
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.