Beauty Brand Growth Secrets

Speaker 1: [Music] so it's finding opportunity but also pairing it with something that you're passionate about I think timing is really important when you feel like you have an idea that you are losing sleep over you're waking up early just thinking about it and getting excited about then you know I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the Sheil it podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the det details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Shila podcast thank you for joining us Britney what inspired you to launch your company butini thank you so much for having me I'm really excited to be speaking with you today and yeah have my first company I started right out of college I actually wrote my second grade Journal I wanted to have a beauty company and so upon graduation I end up turning down my corporate job offer to start my first beauty company nice and can you tell us about butini so butini is hair makeup services that specialize in weddings and events and were based in New York City how does bui's approach to Beauty help women feel confident and Powerful I always thought when I was writing my second grade journal the idea was I wanted to create products that could Empower women to feel comfortable and confident in their own skin and when I was graduating I wasn't sure where the white space was from a product perspective and I also knew how expensive it would be to start a product business after failing at doing so by starting a brand in high school so I wanted to go into services and so the idea was if I want to empower a woman there's such a beautiful intimate moment of actually providing these services on real women and under understand their pain points and so we focused on special moments ideally weddings and events and special occasions where people really care about the hair and makeup but also the overall experience and that is why I started betini we all feel really confident when we walk into a room when we feel like we have really great hair and makeup agree I think that there's a lot to be said on like the inner to outer beauty but also outer to Inner maybe it takes a little bit of lipstick or curling your hair it whatever it takes you to get to that place of confidence and feeling your best self is 100% worth investing in yourself to feel that because when you are feeling confident whether it's showing up feeling great for a meeting or an event or an interview it that level of confidence is going to seep into every other area of your life as well and you mentioned meetings I have a friend who used to say I have on my meeting makeup into the room just feeling so much more confident that lipstick orar that power suit and you're ready to dominate after scaling butini you decided to launch a second company tell us about it and what impact is it having on women's confidence so is that product was always in the back of my mind that has always been like the end goal but I loved working with women for butini and loved the experience that we were able to create for our clients but fast forward to 2020 there were no weddings there were no events which honestly served as this great period of time that I was able to think about my next business which is called Thea and so I spent that year really interviewing a lot of our butini clients and talking them through their beauty concerns their beauty routines and try to tackle where their pain points might be to ultimately create baa and what we found was even before the pandemic women would come in for their hair makeup trial before their big event and they would of course ask what color lipstick we're using or how we're curling their hair but more importantly listen I sweat really easily my my wedding's in August is this GNA last all night long like yes of course or when they sweat they tend to smell what can we do or they have a low cut gown and they have these blemishes that they can't go away and they were asking us for Solutions and so technically all these questions were Beauty concerns but it's not like you be going into Sephora and being able to quickly find a solution because they were asking it in a level of embarrassment or almost this level of insecurity of these very much impact their confidence and are important to them but there weren't these like straight out solutions that they can go and get and that's where the idea baa was born because I too would leave the office Rush an event and I might smell a little stinky and at those times instead of being in those moments being present during that conversation I'd be so in my head wondering if that person could smell me not getting too close and like we said with feeling confident you just feel icky and therefore you're not going to let your true self shine and so that's where the idea of baa was to create these premium Body Care Solutions that address those intimate concerns when you aren't in a pinch for the on the-go confidence and it's so interesting about the things that came out of Co part of your business has stopped but you were able to take that time to create your new business and it's really smart that you are fixing a problem yeah I did have that time and I realized I could either just dwell and be sad and there was nothing I could do weddings could not occur there was no group occasions happening and so I realized either I can just dwell on that or I could do something proactive and then fast forward to 20121 weddings were back bigger than ever and I had this budding company and I think think that it's been a challenging few years of balancing both but it was so worth having that pocket of time to set the foundation for baa yeah and it's really smart of you that you made that pivot during that time yes as a founder of two Beauty Brands what advice would you give entrepreneurs looking to build multiple successful Adventures so whether there's one business I'd say doing more than one I got the advice like don't do it it is incredibly hard it does allow me to self on both businesses which I'm extremely grateful for but anyone who's looking to start a business or a venture is spend your days and with people being overly Alert on your everyday routines and see where your pain points might be from an everyday perspective talk to people specifically to the industry that you want to build a business in and just listen because the more that you ask questions and listen to people the more you're going to see that there's a ton of opportunities to act upon so it's finding opportunity but also pairing it with something that you're passionate about I think timing is really important when you feel like you have an idea that you are losing sleep over you're waking up early just thinking about it and getting excited about then you know but if you're trying to start a business tomorrow you don't know what what the idea is you don't really know what you're passionate about but you need it to happen tomorrow that is an oversight because you can start a business whenever you want but you can happen anytime but I think it has to be the right time for you and have the idea in your head versus trying to fit in the Box based on a timeline that you want and clearly you're passionate about this going back to your I think you said second grade Journal yes so amazing that you knew what you wanted to do at such an early age a lot of people say that I do say it's a blessing and a curse because ever since second grade I wrote it my my second grade Journal that I was going to have a beauty company and blinders were on so even in Middle school high school I started a mascara line to start figuring out what even looks like to start a business and so I'm very fortunate because I've been able to lean into that for a very long time if you don't know what you like there's a lot of Beauty in like exploring because a lot of times our paths are not linear and we can both get to that same end goal but maybe you're more open to taking opportunities that I wasn't and we could both end up at the same place whether you have the idea at second grade or not I think it's equally as valuable thinking back to second grade I was owning an art gallery and a nail salon so I'm not sure what that wow I love that I don't know neither one of them but yeah that's what I did I'd hang my art all over and try to sell it and then I always was trying to do everyone's nails so funny I love that it's so funny I think I wanted to be a ballerina and then a teacher and then the beauty business yeah she built it is along the lines with the multiple businesses that I was thinking about the AG I love that what were some of the challenges you faced expanding from butini to your second business and how did you navigate them as a business leader fast forward to 2021 now I'm navigating all these postponed weddings that I've already accounted for in my revenue of 2020 plus you need to bring a certain amount of business forward to be able to keep the business going and there were so many challenges between testing and making sure we're providing services in a safe environment being flexible with our clients who had to keep rescheduling their special days and so on that one side it was emotionally exhausting to be there for our clients with when you don't have the solutions and I also didn't know what my path forward even looked like but we had to keep going and then on the other side I had this completely different business model going into consumer product is a very different strategy than opening up a service business so it took both sides of my brain took a lot of emotions and trying to figure out how can I make these both work with 24 hours in a day with a very limited lean team at the time was really challenging because service spased businesses and then product are different so how did you approach growing your teams and selling your products in that way I started ideating for the idea of Bea in 2020 we seated the market with a product in June of 2021 but we officially launched in July 2022 so there was time for us to play around with it where sales were not the type priority it was more about figuring out the brand how are we creating a solution for a problem that women experience and making sure that we're doing it the right way whereas butini was very much sales focused so they both had different priorities coinciding so it allowed me to overall know we need sales in order to make both of these business work so I can double down on focusing on my clients for butini and making sure the team's there and I honestly had myself and a incredible now employee Stephanie who was helping me as an intern figuring out the next steps for baa and then I ultimately had hired someone to do a little bit of everything for that business but I knew that was not going to make a ton of money right of the gate so I had to stabilize the service-based business first and get it really out of the pandemic aftermath before I could double down on Bea managing and growing a team handling press and running two companies like you were just explaining is a lot how do you stay grounded and balancing it as a business leader so I firmly believe in my morning workouts that help me get grounded they're hard so that I can't just think about work if I am losing sleep over a problem or how to go about a certain situation it helps me give time to get clarity and get grounded and I think it's really important for me specifically to have a healthy workout both mentally and physically so that's a big piece also who I spend my time with so making sure I have enough family time I have time with my fiance and my best friends that inner circle you don't have to put energy into pretending to be someone they know who you are and I think that serves as a really great reminder to keep me ground Ed when I'm feeling a little out of sorts and ultimately that's an extension of like how I am prioritizing my time because there's only so many hours in the day and who you spend that time with how you spend that time is a big reflection on what your next few months are going to look like whether it's in your business or in your life so I'm a big believer of being very cautious on how you dedicate your time and who it's with because they're going to have influence on you whether it's consciously or subconsciously so true and that's a great reminder thank you for sharing that with us about obviously routines are important but also who we spend our time with yeah and it's hard sometimes like I'm this place where I'm in New York City I'm in my early 30s and I have some friends moving out of the city and I have this urge to make new friends but I also have these networking events and I have to work on the business and so I've gotten to a place where the need to make new friends to make new friends isn't necessarily there because I think organically through these founder events or being with my friends we'll naturally build a bigger Network and I had to be okay with less is more like I'd rather have the best friend in the world versus trying to keep up and go to all these social events just to make an extra friend or two and so I've made new friends at my workout Studios at founder events or what it might be but I think that shift has allowed me to be able to balance both businesses and really give my relationships the amount of attention it deserves without trying to be everywhere and pleasing other people as well yeah and that was so important yes thank you for joining us today and sharing all of your business and Beauty knowledge please tell us how and where we can find you absolutely so you can find me on Instagram it's Britney b r i TT n y. or you can find be at b a u t n i or Bea Beauty at Bei a. Beauty and you can also find us on Tik Tok with those same handles thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave [Music]