Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / SUMMER ‘23 - 6 quick questions with Hannah Drury, Founder of Peppermint Grove (Part 2)

Transcript

SUMMER ‘23 - 6 quick questions with Hannah Drury, Founder of Peppermint Grove (Part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Dune here. I'm recording this quick message to let you know that over the next few weeks, we'll be playing some of our favorite episodes from the past year while I spend some time with my best friends and family back in my other home, London. If you missed these episodes the first time around, they are so good and packed with so much value. I know you're going to love them just as much as I did recording them. See you soon. Bye. Welcome back. Here are the six
• 0:39
  So question number one is what's your why? Why do you wake up every day and work on these businesses? Okay. My why would have to be two things. One, the product. I'm really damn passionate about the product. I love fragrance. I love the way that it can change your mood, make you feel really good. I love the science behind fragrance. I love fragrance.
• 1:01
  The second one is the people. I'm a people person. I love my staff. I love seeing them grow. I love seeing the ideas that they come up with. I love my suppliers. I love my customers. That gives me a hit every single day, easily. I love that. Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far?
• 1:25
  because I'm old school I'm going it's not some fancy PR thing because I didn't have money for any of that it was doing my first trade show you know the trade show acted as a moment for me in the retail space and it was looking back at one stage I went to get a coffee and I came back to the stand and there was like 30 people on the stand and
• 1:50
  experiencing my products and going, this is really cool. That was a really exciting moment that will always be burned in my brain. It was awesome. Yeah. A profound moment in the journey, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Question number three is at the moment, what are go-to resources that you look to if you are listening to a podcast or you're reading a newsletter or you're kind of like getting a book?
• 2:15
  podcasts, 100% podcasts. I spend a lot of time driving because I live in Sydney, but I have factories out West in Bowerl in the Southern Highlands. I'm in the UK a lot, China. So for me, it's podcasts. I love that I can listen to them on the go. Ones that come to mind, how I built this, a diary of a CEO with Stephen Bartlett,
• 2:38
  I obviously listened to this podcast, which is amazing as well. Oh, I feel like I had what masters of scale. That's amazing as well. The podcast with Mark Forrest as well. I think just listening to other people's stories is really inspiring because it can be a lonely journey. I've now got some amazing friends who also have their own businesses and it's so important to have that connection with them. People who work for someone else just don't necessarily understand. And it's,
• 3:06
  nice to feel like you're not alone. And when I'm driving to barrel and I'm driving back at 10 o'clock at night and I'm exhausted, I think, oh my God, 175 things went wrong today. Listening to them and going, oh my God, you know, you're not alone to all of us. Yeah. I think that that point of connection is really important.
• 3:24
  Absolutely. Stephen Bartlett just liked one of my videos on TikTok two days ago and I was like, fangirl moment. You have seen my face. Yes, that is a moment that's going to be burned in your brain for forever as well. Hopefully you'll be a guest on his podcast one day too. Oh, one day. We can only hope. We can all dream. Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:47
  Question number four is how do you win the day? What is your kind of AM or PM rituals and self-care habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
• 3:58
  Yeah, this is a really great question. I'm a gym girl. So Monday to Friday, I am up at the crack of dawn and I am at the gym. It makes me feel so energized and alive and ready for the day. It's also the only time of the day when nobody can contact me. I have my Apple Watch on. Do not disturb. Everything is on. Do not disturb and no one can contact me.
• 4:19
  So I go to the gym, I come home, my beautiful husband always has a coffee for me, I have my breakfast and then I'm off for the day. And I'm really routined now in where I spend each day because I'm working out of so many different locations. It's nice to know that on Monday, I'm in Western Sydney. On Tuesday, I'm in Surrey Hills with my marketing creative team. On
• 4:40
  So I'm really routined about where I am. And it also means that my leadership team and my staff, they know where they can find me on each day. That's really good for me. I struggle with a nighttime routine. I struggle with the concept of balance. I think for me, having a business is a lifestyle choice. There is no balance. You know, I still work Saturday and Sunday.
• 5:01
  But I love that. It relaxes me. I still go out and have a lot of fun. Trust me. You know, but it's a lifestyle choice for me. And for me, I wind down by just checking my emails at the end of the day before I go to bed, knowing what I've got the next day. That makes me feel calm. It makes me feel centered.
• 5:20
  um so that would be my routine if you will but it's not for everyone that's how I operate so you know there we go got to go with what works for you totally question number five this is a cracker what's been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you
• 5:36
  God, how long have we got? We've had some doozies. Yeah, look, I know you said quick, so I will try and be quick. It would be a huge mistake with inventory management. Because I'm a manufacturer, you know, I have thousands and thousands of raw materials. So it's not just that I've got my end product I need to focus on. I'm the guy making, you know, the product too and buying thousands of raw materials, right?
• 6:02
  Unfortunately, I took my eye off the ball. I had a new staff member responsible for inventory management and they went nuts with that ordering button. They ordered enough raw materials for 18 months, which you can imagine the effect that had on my cash flow. So how much did it cost? It was millions and millions in terms of obviously I got through the product, but the immediate impact on my cash flow was huge. I nearly went broke. It was that close.
• 6:29
  Because I had amazing relationships with my suppliers, they gave me extended terms, they helped me out. Like it was purely my relationships that got me through that moment and then being amazing and going, look, we can support you through this journey. But it was a big lesson for me in terms of...
• 6:47
  taking your eyes off certain parts of the business. And it wasn't the staff members. I can't say it's anyone's fault. It's my fault. The buck stops with me. It's my responsibility. But that was still to this day a huge moment for me. Yeah, that sounds like a big one. That sounds like a really big one. I think I'm still recovering. Thank God for Botox, honestly, or I'd look about 107.
• 7:13
  Oh my God, lol, 107. Okay, question number six. I'm sure you've got another one in the bank. What is just a crazy story, good or bad, that you can share over the last 10 years? Oh, I don't know how crazy this is, but I haven't touched on it. So maybe I might go into it now, but I'll do it quickly. I think one of the biggest USPs with my brand, which I haven't even mentioned, is the ability for the Peppermint Grove candle lid to be engraved and personalised.
• 7:41
  And when I was actually developing the brand 10 years ago, I was in China, but I'd gone across to Hong Kong to, you know, just do some shopping and looking around, market research, if you will, and there was a huge, huge, huge line. It was hundreds of metres long. People were lining up for something. I thought, oh, my God, what the hell are they lining up for? And I went and had a look, and it was when one of the perfume fragrance brands, I think it was Dior or whoever it was, was personalising the bottle. Now, they were, like, engraving the bottle, and I thought, wow.
• 8:11
  Oh my God, that's really cool. And I thought, look at these hundreds of people lining up for this. And I thought, aha, I need to bring that personalization into the home fragrance space. Nobody was doing it. So that was a really important moment for me where I actually changed the design of the lid because I wanted the lid to be functional.
• 8:32
  But I also was like, it needs to be able to be engraved as well. And that's become a huge USP for me. I have these engravers in not every store, obviously, because that's not possible. But in my Sydney city, my Melbourne, a lot of my big retailers, but also was an online offering as well. And still nobody's copied it. I don't know why. Not in a saleable way, because this is just this machine that takes two seconds. But I'd say that was a crazy story that ended up becoming a really important part of my business.
• 8:59
  I love that. Just a little quick moment. You see something, you're like, I love this. I get a good vibe. I'm going to try it. And it becomes a big deal. Oh, amazing. Got to look everywhere for inspiration. Totally. It's everywhere. It's out there. This was so great, Hannah. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your journey and all your learnings and bits and bobs. Wow. Holy moly. I've loved chatting with you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing your platform and have a beautiful day ahead.
• 9:32
  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.
• 9:57
  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.
• 10:19
  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.
• 10:35
  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.
• 10:59
  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.
• 11:22
  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.