Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Best of ‘22 - 6 quick questions with Rowena Bird, Founder of Lush (Part 2)

Transcript

Best of ‘22 - 6 quick questions with Rowena Bird, Founder of Lush (Part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hi, it's just me popping in with a quick message to wish you and your loved ones a beautiful break this festive season. I hope you're able to take some time for yourself to recharge and reset and come back full of energy in 2023.
• 0:15
  Over the next few weeks, our team will all be taking a much-needed break, and you'll be hearing the best episodes from 2022. When I look back over this year, there were just so many amazing episodes. It was near impossible to choose just one handful, but we did, and they're amazing, and I'm sure you're going to love them.
• 0:34
  For now, I'm off to spend some quality time with my mom and my family in Queensland after three whole years of not seeing her. Can you believe it? Three years. Oh my gosh. I'm going to be doing all the little things that are good for my soul over this period and dreaming up my goals for 2023, which you're going to hear about when I come back in January. I'm so looking forward to reconnecting with you in the new year and bringing you more of the good stuff with Female Startup Club.
• 1:04
  Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. Question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 1:22
  I do it because we are going to leave the world lusher than we found it. And that to me is so important. I mean, I don't have children, but I do have nieces and nephews who are now starting to have children. And I do worry about the state of the planet and what we're doing to it. And if we can make any difference, then that's a good thing. So my why is that we are making a difference. And that's really important. Beautiful.
• 1:50
  Question number two is what's been your favourite marketing moment so far? Doing the sort of campaigns that we do I think when they're theatrical you know like Alice hanging herself from fish hooks in our window to highlight the shark finning and how nonsense that is. Bill Bailey wearing bright orange pants to highlight Guantanamo Bay and people incarcerated there that shouldn't have been and
• 2:16
  all our staff going naked but for an apron to highlight the fact that we're not using packaging.
• 2:22
  I didn't know that. Oh, they did. I mean, we got chased down the street by police. Put some pants on. But they stood out there completely naked, but for their aprons. And it's to highlight the fact that, you know, many of our products, I think we're around 75% of our products are naked. And so even though our packaging has been 100% recycled since 2014, and people are saying now in 2022, they're going, oh, we're going 100% recycled. What took you so long? We've been doing it since 2014. So, yeah.
• 2:52
  Yeah. And bringing back the packaging, we will take the packaging back from you because the recycling rates are shocking. You know, you think when you put something in the recycle bin, there's being recycled. It's actually not. It's a low percentage. But if you bring your recycling back to us, our lush pots 100 percent get recycled and reused. So, you know, our green hub is incredibly busy making sure that we're turning any waste into something positive.
• 3:21
  Very cool. Question number three, what is your go to business resource if it goes to a book or a podcast or a newsletter? Do you know what? I'm not really very good at that. I do like a TED talk, but I think I am. I'm not a big one for reading dry books. I like travel books, but I do like listening to people. So I love it when somebody that, you know, in my team or that I'm working with tells me stuff goes straight in.
• 3:52
  So we have leadership meetings and everybody joins in and tells you things that they've heard or learned. And it's straight in there. So people telling me things is where I learn from. I don't I very rarely watch the news, don't read newspapers. I just can't bear the sadness of it all. But I'm aware of things going on from people around me. And that's how I absorb things.
• 4:14
  I feel the same, especially if you're like a high empath person. It's very hard to read a headline that's, you know, so awful, sticks in my brain, upsets me all day. Yeah, yeah, and I'm the same. And you can't let that happen because then you can get weighed down by it and then you can't do it.
• 4:34
  all the good things that you should be doing to make a difference around you they shouldn't be allowed to affect you but you but it's important you're aware of it because you have to know whether you're going to do something about that and what you can and find a way to do something so that you know you know that you're making a difference there yeah having an impact
• 4:57
  Question number four, how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and motivated and productive? Well, I'm very lucky that I live on the beach. So I live right next to a beach and I love picking up litter because I can't bear litter. I mean, if you looked in my room now, it's pretty much a mess. So you'd think, well, I don't know how you can say that, Rowena Bird. You live surrounded by stuff.
• 5:22
  But I don't like litter on the floor. And I'm really passionate about litter in the sea and plastics. So every morning I get up and now it's a quarter past six. And I'm so glad that I got up early this morning before the rain started. But I walk the beach every day. That gives me time to wake up, ground myself, pick up anything that's on the beach that shouldn't be there. And so that's how I start my day. And then through the rest of the day, I sort of smile a lot.
• 5:52
  things that make me happy and pleased and yeah give me some purpose for the day I like to feel like I've achieved something well you do if you start your day like that every day that's amazing gosh question number five is what's been your worst money mistake in the business I don't know I mean it's sort of not mistakes either they're challenges really I mean you
• 6:23
  Yeah, I think it's coming from our previous business. It would be not having a financial, not having the financial know-how, thinking that you can sort it out yourself. I think always have a good finance person with you. Don't let them rule over you, but let them give you all the information about how your finances are so that you can make an informed decision. And I think that's the most important thing
• 6:51
  And that is definitely something we have suffered from, not having good finance. And now we have excellent finance. So it's, yeah, it's really, really important because it's having cash in the bank that means that you can continue. So, yeah. And don't get yourself into big debt either with the banks. Don't take all that money that they promise you because at some point they're going to want it back. And when they want it back will be when they.
• 7:18
  Every market you're in is dipping and that's always when they want it. And that's what closed cosmetics to go. So, you know, although Lush came out of that. So I can say, oh, that's all right. You know, something lovely came out of it. Not everybody is that fortunate. So don't take loads of money from where you don't have to. And always have somebody who can give you expert advice on what's happening on your state of your finances so that you can make an informed decision.
• 7:45
  Love that. And question number six, what is just a crazy story in the business, good or bad, that you can share with us? I feel like you've shared a lot of good ones already, by the way, but maybe you'll have another one in the bank. I don't know. I mean, naming products is always funny. We've recently just redone our henna range as we do hennas. And have you ever used a henna? A long time ago. Yeah. So it looks like cow dung. It looks like
• 8:11
  And but we're really passionate about Henna because it's very good for hair. We've written a book on hair dyes and everything, which is just about to be released. So, you know, so don't be afraid to make a stand. But with the Henna's, this I can remember naming it. And it was like, what are we going to call it? And because of the whole cosmetic industry, a lot of it is seen as very French. So we called the Henna's Rouge, Brun, Noir.
• 8:39
  Marron, all French colour names. And then we called it caca because it was, because it looks like caca. And we thought that was incredibly funny. And I don't know why we, I mean, it was obviously one of these, and I can still picture us in the next room, rolling around with stomach ache, laughing so much. The audacity of calling something French and caca. And we had so many people write into us and say, you know what caca means, don't you? And at first it made personal sense, because it actually does look like you've got cow dung on your hair.
• 9:07
  But also it was taking the mick out of the shit hair dyes. It was like no shit hair shine is what the byline was because hair dyes are not great for you. They're not great. And, you know.
• 9:24
  Traces of it are found in your urine within an hour of you putting it on your head. That cannot be good. Whereas with a henna, it isn't. So it was just about like trying to get a message across in a sort of fun sort of way. It's sort of like, you know, there's no shit hair shine, but we've called it caca and we've named it in French.
• 9:43
  So, yeah, there's a naughty side here. And sometimes the naughty side comes out and it's either understood or not understood. I think sometimes because we're a British company, the British humour doesn't always translate quite so well everywhere else. We make ourselves laugh. It's important at the end of the day, isn't it? So important. I love it. I laughed. Lol.
• 10:06
  This was so amazing, Rowena. What is the kind of key piece of advice that you can leave with us entrepreneurs who are earlier on in the journey? If your passion and if your heart and your passion is not in it, don't do it.
• 10:20
  Don't do something just because you think you're going to make money out of it. You might. And good luck to you. I hope you do. But if you've got a passion for it, you'll see it through the tough times and you'll make it survive because that will be all that's important to you. Keep true to what you started out with, with your ethics.
• 10:39
  Don't diminish those. Don't think, oh, I've now got too big to hold on to my ethics. You're never too big to hold on to your ethics. So keep anything that you started with in your heart that means more to you. Keep that with you and expand on it. Never decrease it. But always while the passion's there, stay with it. When the passion isn't there, move on. Thank you so much. This was amazing. You're very welcome. It's been lovely to speak to you, Dean.
• 11:04
  And good luck with your business. Thank you. I've got the passion. I love this business. It brings me so much joy getting to talk to women like you. Highlight of my day. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
• 11:20
  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.
• 11:45
  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.
• 12:07
  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.
• 12:23
  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.
• 12:48
  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.
• 13:10
  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.