Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 7 learnings from the biggest names in beauty

Transcript

7 learnings from the biggest names in beauty · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hello! Hi! It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Thank you so much for tuning into this solo episode this week, where I'll be taking a deep dive into the beauty space, going over some of the biggest learnings our multi-millionaire beauty founder guests have gained from founding and building the brands that are absolutely killing it in their space right now.
• 0:29
  So let's get straight into it with learning number one. Learning number one stems from the dreaming phase. When you're in the very early days of imagining your beauty brand and you're dreaming about the vision that you have and you're asking yourself, what am I actually going to create? Well, the luxury of being in this position is that nothing exists yet, right? Because you haven't made it. You can literally create anything you want.
• 0:59
  So why not create your product in a way that will make your life a little bit easier down the road? What I mean by this is when we look at successful beauty brands today, there are a couple of things that founders seem to have gotten right straight off the bat. And my first learning is that you should create something valuable, obviously. You should create something beautiful. And nowadays, you should create something that's memorable or memeable. And I'll get to that part in just a jiffy.
• 1:30
  Kolfi Beauty founder Priyanka Gunju pointed out to me that unless you're creating things that people value, there's no point of creating it at all. And we know this, right? Like it's super obvious. But sometimes I feel like it's truly overlooked. There is just so much stuff out there, especially in the beauty industry. Everything is saturated and we know that.
• 1:54
  If you create things that people value and spark strong emotion and connection to, people will discover that and they'll want to share it with other people. It'll start the word of mouth, flywheel. If you put in that quality of work to your R&D, your research and development, to create something valuable and don't worry too much about the immediate gratification of just getting something out there for the sake of getting something out there.
• 2:18
  I mean, of course, you know, I always preach done is better than perfect. And whilst that's true, there's still a balance of finding your magic and understanding why someone would want to buy your product over the million other products that are on the shelf next to you.
• 2:36
  And so on the topic of sharing, we had the founder of Experiment Beauty, Lisa Guerrera, recently on the show just last week. And her hero product, you would probably recognize, it's their acid neon green reusable sheet mask that's been cruising around the internet. This thing was literally made for the internet.
• 2:59
  Leaning into the shareable, memorable, memeable potential of a product literally gets you into a position similar to what Lisa is in now where her product essentially ends up selling itself. And I mean, literally selling itself. She's not spent a dime on marketing to this point and they've been consistently sold out. It's genius and everyone wants it. It's just totally genius.
• 3:27
  But if I've lost you at Memeable because that doesn't really fit your product, there's also ways to leverage this by taking a more classical approach in simple terms, by creating a beautiful product. A beautiful brand also has that same effect on people because, of course, beauty sells. We know that. We've known that forever. People like pretty things. I love pretty things. I buy pretty things. I love a luxury experience.
• 3:57
  Alison McNamara reminded me of this when we were chatting about her creation of Mara Beauty. We live now in this wonderful time where authenticity and genuineness are being, you know, shouted from the rooftops. But it's important to remember that your product also needs to look good. Truly beautiful products that catch your attention and your eye, I guess, they give you a certain feeling. Okay.
• 4:25
  My second learning is around the launch. You absolutely want to be making the pre-launch effort and you absolutely want to kick it off with a bang. Start as you mean to go on and all of that kind of thing. The truth of it is beauty is so saturated and you need to give someone a reason to pay attention to you. Why should their attention go to you when there is so much going on and everyone is fighting for everyone's attention?
• 4:55
  When your website goes live, people are not going to just appear out of nowhere. You have to drive traffic to your website consistently. So I still get people that telling me that their favorite episode of the show was my conversation with Lindsay Martin from Kiramoon, where amongst many other things, she shared her magic potion to a really successful launch.
• 5:18
  And she did all the things. She spent a lot of time building a community early on. She started her Instagram about a year before she launched and she built up a lot of secrecy and a lot of hype.
• 5:31
  Closer to the launch within, I think she said, the one to two month mark, she was reaching out to influencers, like a hundred influencers, and invested in the gifting aspect of her brand up front. First, by sending this quick, fun makeup bag that had a shareable moment to social media before her products were actually ready. And then again, when her products arrived, she sent out another PR kind of package. And this essentially gave her two big pushes on social media.
• 6:01
  So you need to plan your pre-launch with a solid runway to start off with a bang and create some buzz online. And the more effort you put into the launch, the better results you'll see. The third learning is to really think outside the box when it comes to pitching your product to retail.
• 6:19
  Buyers in the beauty world are getting hit by constant blasts. There are new brands popping up every day. There's so much out there. There is so much being created. You need to give yourself a real chance by making a solid impression. And I can hear you asking already, how do I do it? What's the vibe? Tell me more.
• 6:39
  You might remember Amy Liu from Tower 28. She shared her story with us about getting stocked in Sephora, and it's a total cracker. I'm obsessed. She knew that to stand a chance of being stocked in a retail giant like Sephora, she really needed the buyer to feel the brand and to get the vibe that she was trying to create. And it's like in any relationship. The first thing you want is for them to say yes. Yes.
• 7:07
  But you don't want them to just say yes. You want them to be so excited, over the moon, ready to be stocking your brand. You want them to be begging you to have your brand in their store because they know their customers will absolutely love it and buy it, which obviously equals revenue and equals financial gain for them.
• 7:30
  Then you'll have an insider cheerleader forever who wants to push your product even more and work alongside you. So back to Amy's story. She rocks up to the Sephora offices with this whole vibe planned out. There's a group of them. She's got branded popsicles. She's got a boom box. She's got her lip glosses. It's all cute. It all looks super aesthetically pleasing.
• 7:53
  She's playing this loud beachy music when they walk into the headquarters 30 minutes before their meeting and starts handing out products to everyone and anyone in the office that's in their line of sight and who wants one. And everyone got so excited. Everyone remembered them. They made this memorable moment. Everyone was cheering for them and like on their team.
• 8:15
  And if you've tuned into any of my personal stories, you will know that I seriously am obsessed with a cool out-of-the-box story like this one. And buyers are too. It makes so much sense. It's something different. It's inspiring. It catches someone's attention.
• 8:31
  So highly recommend doing that. You can actually also go to my TikTok, which is at DoonRachine, to see two examples of out-of-the-box things that I did. May or may not have been illegal, but did them anyway. Worked a charm. I encourage you to brainstorm things that you can do around your business that will create a memorable moment, that will get people talking about what you're doing. Okay, where are we up to? Lesson number four.
• 8:58
  This is all around not getting complacent when you do land your dream retailer. Don't get me wrong. It's definitely a win. You should pop some champagne. Give yourself a huge pat on the back. Celebrate with your team. But it is by no means the finishing line. It's actually the start. Getting in is the easy part. We've heard this time and time again on the show. What's hard is getting the sale through.
• 9:24
  When I chatted to Connie Lowe last year about her brand, Three Ships Beauty, it was a really good wake-up call that beauty is not the kind of industry where you can just get a partnership and leave it at that. They have this very whole specific system built up around it. They invest in in-store marketing. They do things like samples. They've got in-store promos, and they even gift the sales associates.
• 9:53
  Beauty products are so well suited to these initiatives. And trust me when I tell you, you want the sales associates on your side and you want them to love your product so that they just inherently talk about you too.
• 10:07
  Out of store, they're constantly churning out content that is entirely focused on that particular retailer and shouting about them as loud as they can so that retailer also feels really loved. And it doesn't just stop at that. They're also making sure to collect weekly POS data, and that means point of sale data. So they have a really solid understanding of how they're performing in the store, and they can double down on what's working. Okay.
• 10:34
  They also schedule bi-weekly calls with the buyers just to check in, see how things are going, have a bit of a chat and keep that relationship really strong. The ultimate goal is obviously to get your product off the shelf, not just on the shelf. So don't get complacent when you score a really cool retailer.
• 10:55
  Which brings us to another area that you can absolutely not get complacent in as a founder in 2022. It might not have always been the case, but today I can confidently tell you that you will struggle to do well in your business if you are not leveraging this platform. Now, if you listen to the show, if you listen to me anywhere, if you follow me, you will know what I'm about to tell you. You need to be on TikTok.
• 11:24
  You have to. Obviously, you have to. In beauty, you're in such an amazing, exciting position to do well on TikTok. The platform lends itself to color. It lends itself to pop. It's obviously lending itself to faces. And it's beauty content that we consistently see going viral. So learning number five is that you should use this as a sign to get yourself onto TikTok
• 11:52
  today and start churning out some content. It's actually through TikTok that I found Youthphoria, which is a Gen Z loved and obsessed cult beauty brand. And I spoke to Fiona Chan on the show a couple of months ago, and she shared a pretty complete blueprint on how to get the most out of the platform as a beauty founder today.
• 12:15
  So obviously, step number one, create a product that looks good on TikTok and that works well for TikTok. Something highly visual, highly fun. And as we chatted about at the start of this episode, something that's memorable or memeable.
• 12:30
  Then it's all about consistency. You want to be creating at least, at least two TikTok videos a day. I know it sounds like a lot. I know people are always like, yeah, but I don't have the time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Fine. Sure. But.
• 12:47
  Truly, if you want to win, you need to invest your time in TikTok. She says that she actually creates every morning in golden hour so she can catch the nice light and kind of put it into the morning schedule so it's out of the way and then she doesn't need to worry about it for the rest of the day. And I think that is just such a good vibe. So the other thing that I hear people say is that they're shy to get in front of the camera. And, like, I totally get it. I've been there forever.
• 13:15
  the tip that I would give you is who gave me this tip? Sandy Lynn. Sandy Lynn gave me this tip. She said, um,
• 13:24
  create like 50 drafts. Don't like give yourself the pressure that you'll actually have to post them, but just like start creating content that you're saving in your drafts so that you get familiar with what you sound like on camera and what you look like on camera, find your angles, like all that kind of thing. And don't, don't put the pressure on yourself. Don't post them. Maybe if you like them down the track, post them. Sure. But just get familiar and get into a groove and then you'll start feeling more confident.
• 13:54
  People absolutely love getting an authentic peek into the day-to-day and behind the scenes of building a beauty brand. So I just can't tell you enough. You have to be on TikTok.
• 14:08
  And obviously, last thing, keeping your pulse on all the latest trends and only plan two or three days ahead because this is a reactive channel and what will perform today might not perform tomorrow. It's really dependent on what's going on that week, what's trending, what's funny, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 14:26
  So if you are not on TikTok yet, this is your sign to get started. You have not missed the boat. There is so much untapped potential. I can't tell you enough TikTok. I want to receive multiple messages when you hear this episode saying, I started TikTok today. And if I don't, I'm going to be really sad. So message me.
• 14:49
  Okay, brings me to learning number six and one that lies particularly close to my heart because it's something that I am totally guilty of myself and something I think a lot of women are guilty of and it absolutely doesn't serve us. It's the idea of perfectionism. As a woman, if you're planning to be an entrepreneur, if you're an entrepreneur, this is a pitfall I've encountered time and time again.
• 15:17
  I mean, I struggle with this all the time too, by the way. Like this isn't something that I've figured out 100%, but so much of our paralysis comes from spinning in these circles around certain things when what we should be doing is just putting it out there, seeing how people react and then changing it. Get it out, iterate along the way. Done is better than perfect. We are smart enough. We can always pivot no matter what comes our way.
• 15:44
  When it comes to paralysis from perfectionism, you really have to give yourself this internal pep talk. You have to change your internal dialogue. Psychologically, perfectionism works to stop us from having to face failure. But realistically, it just keeps us from moving forward. When I spoke to Stephanie Lee from Selfmade, she said these words to me.
• 16:08
  I'm building this beauty brand for myself and for everyone who needs it not to be perfect. And I hope that resonates with you too.
• 16:17
  And my last but not least learning from chatting to all these brilliantly talented, amazing women in the beauty space is that all good things simply take time. We've heard it time and time again. It takes 10 years to reach overnight success. And that's okay. It's okay that it takes time. It took Lindsay Martin...
• 16:40
  A year, maybe even more than a year to get Kira Moon to market. If it is your first time doing it, starting a business, bringing something into the world, give yourself a year and a half. Whatever you're building, however long you have in mind for the process, just remember it's probably going to take longer. Someone told me when I was in the R&D for the non-alc brand that everything takes...
• 17:03
  three times as long and costs three times as much. And I would say that was probably true in hindsight. And it's all right. Things take time. There are so many intricate and complicated processes involved in building a business. You don't need to rush. You've got to trust the process and go with the flow.
• 17:25
  Alrighty, that's it for me today. Thank you so much for listening. And I hope you got something amazing out of this episode this week, whether you're deep in the beauty space, whether you are dreaming to get there one day, or you're into something totally different. I'd love to know if you enjoyed the format this week. If you have any suggestions for industries that you'd like us to cover next,
• 17:47
  Just reach out and we will make it happen. And as always, if you're on your phone listening to this episode, take a quick screenshot of the podcast and share it to your Instagram stories or leave us a review in the podcast app to help other ears find us.
• 18:02
  You are always welcome to slide into my DMs or my inbox because you know how much I love to chat with you. You can ask me any questions. You can share what you're thinking. You can give me suggestions for the next episodes. You can reach me at Doon Roisin, which is D-O-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N in all the usual places. See you next week. Bye.
• 18:41
  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.
• 19:06
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• 19:28
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