Build a Beauty Empire

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Tracy Holland is a Founder investor executive chairman and entrepreneur who is an authority on beauty and wellness and has a global track record for incubating and launching Brands she has dedicated her career to creating new brands and success stories by spotlighting Innovation amplifying authentic and celebrity voices in Beauty and personal care and nurturing promising Talent especially other women entrepreneurs thank you so much for joining us Tracy

Speaker 2: thank you for having me please tell us more about who you are and about your early career experiences leading to becoming the co-founder at hatch Beauty Brands I am an entrepreneur at heart my parents will tell you that I never behaved I always was a rule breaker in fact I was always asking why like that was my favorite question I don't understand why and always loved building things and so I thought you know I was going to own a store in fourth grade I had a business plan I had a p business I put my sisters to work I took over my parents kitchen I would have my little sister go door Todo taking orders I love the idea of exchange of effort for income and the idea of being independent I think that's a misnomer for people who think being an entrepreneur means that you get to decide what you want to do because it's actually you never sleep right and you're always engaged but looking back at hatch Beauty there was this opportunity in the world about 15 years ago before the internet was really a proponent of developing Concepts which is now the social way of co-creating community and product through Community which is the way products are usually done today but in that time there was this Nexus between retailers who desperately needed Innovation and influencers at that time celebrities who didn't have a mechanism for owning something other than their face and image and then co-creating a brand that allowed the celebrity and the retailer to be in the kitchen so to speak on the creation of a brand or concept and so in some ways I think that sounds quite Innovative and in other ways it was just filling a need for three opportunities one was my interest in providing that service or that opportunity to fill the void the celebrities desire to be a co-creator and Equity owner in a brand that they could have an exit and then the retailers desire for Creative new product so there you go and it makes

Speaker 1: sense because at the time it was celebrities who had the reach totally and at that time it was people like salmahayek who was my really first big well-known celebrity co-creator partner that was 20 2011 we worked together there was no Instagram right there was Facebook but that was how you found friends and family and did High School reunion stuff right or post pictures of your kids birthday party and there was some Commerce so to speak in Facebook but I did not at that time that was Pro probably the only social media driver to taking a brand and putting it into retail so retailers are really at the epicenter of launching new brands so being on an endcap having the best space and location in the store the retailer had a lot of skin in the game if they co-created that brand with you

Speaker 2: right it's so interesting how things are shifting today and it's shifting so fast at such a rapid pace and I think it's exciting it is so exciting and it's hard to keep up with right because what's so

Speaker 1: fascinating to me as we are entering this era is the the whole premise of authenticity and people wanting authentic brand so no longer does it really work for consumers to feel like they're just getting endorsed by somebody who's getting a paycheck they really want to know that that brand is authentically driven by that person but where I've seen the most interesting from what I would consider a transactional perspective is the new world of influencers that are really moving the needle on Commercial product is in the world of Tik Tok and YouTube those are the people who can sell 50 60 70,000

Speaker 2: units in a 24-hour period you're right we've done this shift where we want to see real people we want to know the real story behind who someone is and feel like we're a part of their life in order to join them in purchasing a product

Speaker 1: totally and the idea of let me take you behind the scenes and let me show you what it feels like to run around and chase my three-year-old and get you know Mac mac and cheese on the table and by the way I have this product idea and I'm working on it and developing it because this is something I'm really passionate about the engagement level the conversion level and the commitment that those influencers have with their Community the conversion rate is off the charts and I'll admit there's something about a star power that's intriguing but there's also something about where you can be relatable to someone you can look at someone and say you know they're a lot like me so I want to buy their product because we're so similar 100% swarming Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez because of who they are and and and rightfully so but the folks that I'm seeing that are making massive impact on product in terms of product sales transactionally speaking speaking are people that you and I would be ADV V Next Door and like have no idea that yes and I think Co took it a step further because now we've become so much more casual and we want to see real stories yeah because we've all of a sudden we see people's homes in interviews totally it's so fun and what we're seeing in terms of Technology some of what I am excited about is just Instagram live and this idea that we can not only be in 's house while they're filming on their iPhone and they're doing an IG live but then there's technology backing that that allows them to purchase while they're interacting there's just a whole another level of how we're going to see Commerce 100% in this space and there's been changes now that I'm happy that Instagram and other platforms have finally caught up because I've wanted them to offer these Solutions and they haven't done it yet and so it's so exciting to see that shift CU my my background is in business development and marketing too and so when I see a new app I think how does this work and how can you put it into Commerce right and make it work for you and how do you do a frictionless transaction where I never really want an app or platform to ask me to pull my credit card out again right we've hit that point too and it's so easy you just like shop now click here put your face on it recognizes it populates everything I don't have to enter my address that's where you lose people right it's just so seamless how

Speaker 2: has your early career experiences influenced you as a business leader and running your company and how does that experience help your clients your leadership style and assist you in

Speaker 1: running your business today I think I learned leadership from my teammates more so I think when you're a Visionary you can tend to run so fast that sometimes the people who have to help you execute can't keep up and you have a tendency also to speak can part sentences so those who integrate well into you and understand the rest of the sentence and can complete your thought are the perfect ying and yang but I would say in the early years this idea of feeling like I had to do it all by myself and that there was something that I had to prove I think to my family and to myself that I could be successful there was a Tipping Point certainly in my early 30s where I made my first million dollars and I thought oh okay when you when you're self-made and you make your first million dollars it's kind of a big deal it is a big deal I would say my leadership style has had to shift to be more effective because as an entrepreneur it's not a solo sport it's a team sport and to have a successful growing company you really the only thing that matters is team and that the people understand what you're trying to accomplish and there's everyone's throwing in the same direction and there's a common vision and I would say 10 years ago at hatch Beauty we had a hockey stick growth scenario and there was a lot of collateral damage in terms of team and turnover and people wearing multiple hats and this feeling of never having enough time and constantly chasing opportunities not only does that not feel good and not where I want to spend

Speaker 2: my time and be but the part of this whole process of being in entrepreneur the joy is in the moment and on the journey it's actually there's no destination I think that if if you're an entrepreneur and you're listening there's no there there's only here if you're not enjoying here if you're not waking up in the morning full of joy full of excitement this idea that we're going to get it all done and we have to race to the next thing in order to make the next thing happen that's so depleting and so my shift in my aha was there's not a a money amount there's not a success amount there's not an award amount there's not a metric or a kpi that says okay now you can take a vacation now you can sit back and enjoy I have to build that into every single day and I think that younger years I didn't know the burnout effect the what I call the white knuckling or holding on to the Rope I did not realize what kind of burn out impact that would have so the shift in energy to being more in the receiving mode of listening to people's perspective taking a moment to get the team consensus doing offsites brainstorming this is a team sport that's so true and thank you for bringing this up because I think every entrepreneur will go through this you have an idea the idea becomes your baby you're bringing idea into the world that has never been created so you're so focused on it in the very beginning until you get to the point where you look around you think wait a minute I can't do this by myself anymore I have to bring in team members to help me so that we can continue to feel that joy and want to take the business even further right in my case was marrying someone because I just needed to get married so I could have kids so I could go back to work and be focused on having putting myself fully engaged in into work and working Saturdays and Sundays and missing opportunities to be part of a family event or seeing my kids first Xyz all those decisions I felt at the time were coming from a place of force and lack versus now being really in a second mode of how does this feel there's no there so once we recognize there's no there there's no rush to get somewhere you're

Speaker 1: not so true and such good advice to really be present in the moment yeah can you tell us about a particular entrepreneurial experience that is memorable for you and that you carry

Speaker 2: with you today I would say probably winning entrepreneur of the year in 2017 for Los Angeles and then I went on to the Nationals and I came in fourth nationally in my category for someone who has not in the past taken time to just sit and recognize some of the accomplishments and be in the moment of saying wow that was amazing a year ago I wrote a vision board a year ago I wrote down here's what I'd like to do and how I'd like this to look and how I want to build this and then see that a year later it's actually happened or two years or whatever the amount of time is

Speaker 1: to actually go back and say holy smokes like you nailed it here you nailed it here to get someone else to recognize and give you some acknowledgement around that even though I realized it's not the award itself that means something it's just taking the time to celebrate and I actually never even invited my parents to that because believe it or not I didn't think I would win they called me and said you know you have a table we've reserved a table you have up to 12 guests blah blah blah I'm like 12 guests who am I gonna bring to this it's what a

Speaker 2: great surprise for you though that's so

Speaker 1: wonderful this is like on a Monday and I think the awards ceremony was on a Thursday and they said we can't have a table with no one present um for this dinner it's a full dinner blah blah blah and I thought I gotta probably like put a few minutes into figuring this out so I I invited all my best girlfriends I invited some key people from hatch Beauty I invited of course my business partner at the time uh attended so we had probably eight people at our table of 12 and then the next day I called my parents and I said you're not going to

Speaker 2: believe I won this and they were so happy for you when you won that's just you know that's a great moment that was fun you bring up a really good point

Speaker 1: about really feeling our WIS because as career-driven women often we work really hard to accomplish something and then we just move on to the next thing so it's so important even celebrating saying this coffee that I just bought at Pete's even just saying I'm going to celebrate with this coffee it could be that small it's that acknowledgment of what was accomplished and allowing yourself to really feel it right and I do this now and this is called an intention braak bracelet with Chris Pan's company which is an intention bracelet my word for December of 19 was power and then in March of 20 right before Co really took over I came up with this concept called potential to Powerhouse around this trajectory of going from potential of who you are as a human to the PowerHouse that you end up becoming and that came that word power or Powerhouse came from this intention bracelet in 19 so just 12 weeks later I conceived of that but weirdly that just came through me and then you're supposed to Chris pan says you're supposed to wear this bracelet until it falls off naturally so you shower you don't take it off for any interesting has it been on since 2019 it's been on since December of 19 and it says power so it's interesting what you're manifesting as at looking at it every day it's just like a vision board but you're wearing it which is so fun and honestly it's with you know if you look at the intention bracelet site it's basically a washer for a nut and bolt washer and it goes on with a piece of black string right super simple super simple it's definitely not fancy but it's a reminder and it look at what you're manifesting it's so cool so it does work what we put in front of us what we think about what we make a commitment to it's important to stay

Speaker 2: thorough and have good mental hygiene or talk track to keep your intentions clear

Speaker 1: and I only put this together maybe three months ago so interesting yeah what gave you the courage to launch and create hatch Beauty and to make that life and

Speaker 2: career leap you know I didn't see any other option I think if you're an entrepreneur you are going to build things for a living and so if you have a high need to win so it's kind of weird like can you imagine going to a soccer game or can you imagine going to a sport or team event and showing up saying um I don't really care if I win or lose today or showing up at a tennis match or saying I'm just gonna try but if I don't do a great job it's totally fine I don't care no like there's no way no when I see other women winning I'm like yes keep going like keep winning yeah it's just the idea of not winning when you decide to build something and it can be any metaphor of anything you want to build it could be a cake or it could be a car a house whatever it's like you're not going to build that house and say you know I'm just kind of about done I don't think I need any bedrooms I'm just going to leave this half of the house open it feels good too it feels good when you built it and accomplish it even if like you said said there's no end as you're building it it's that Joy of actually accomplishing pieces of it along the way I would say it feels more like a commitment to completion and for me completion was making my sure my clients were winning every time I can deliver a solution to a retailer of a concept that is developed in a white space that makes the influencer feel like a personal investment in that brand that it reflects who she or he is and the retailer gets it on their shelves and it blows out and they call and say oh my gosh it sold so well can we get some more let's do this let's do that there's no end to that opportunity and so the winning part of it is just getting to that phase of just saying what's next

Speaker 1: what's on The Cutting Edge of what's next it's so true I have a background in business development and I always say clients expect the status quo and when you can go above and beyond and like you said sell something out and they call you it's such a feeling and experience to go through and the client's thrilled 100% And it's so fun it's like I love it when people DM us or will you know send us things and say oh my gosh I tried your new gummies and I love the flavor and would you do this or would you do that I mean we love

Speaker 2: those kinds of personal stories so that's fun but I would say the most fun part of this process now is just meeting people like you like the network of especially women founder entrepreneur that is my joy to get to learn with them and hear their own story and Journeys

Speaker 1: and you get motivation from them too

Speaker 2: totally I don't think motivation and empowerment and inspiration ever stops no it helps me be better and I think oh my gosh we only have so many years on this planet have I really embraced and eaten up every single ounce of

Speaker 1: deliciousness that we can have I experienced everything I want to and even mind-blowing stuff like Adventure vacations and doing some extreme sports like I'm just kind of in this mode now and so the competitiveness isn't with other people it's really with myself I love that I've been skydiving and I was reading a book to my daughter and she asked me Mom have you ever jumped out of an airplane and I really wanted to say no cuz I don't want her to go to it but I had to tell her the truth because I climbed the Sydney bridge and done a canyon swing in New Zealand so I'm with

Speaker 2: you there there are some things that I adventure sports that I might not do today but I'm I'm usually up for the uh little small small adrenaline I know me too but you too have young kids and so you have to be somewhat thoughtful you know most of this was before kids I will also admit yeah we have to be a little bit more thoughtful but there is so much more life to live so this idea of making surrounding myself with women who challenge me and and and help me think differently and expand my perspective that's kind of been the most fun part yeah and ziplining zip lining is a little safer but still the adventure part at least you're attached you're not jumping from something freef fall that's right what is your strategy for management for staying on task to accomplish what you set out to do as well as motivating your teams I'm

Speaker 1: constantly grappling with this because so I carry around a book I have you're going to crack up here's one this one is just Big Ideas love that great okay love it this one is literally everything I need to do what we have matching I cannot believe this we listeners we are holding up the same that has be bold take risks live life freely how it is sitting underneath my microphone I have like 10 of these and then I go version one and then I say okay now I've written literally every last pages taken yeah I do the same thing so I mean this is old school right we have to write stuff down because for me it helps me keep track of everything but then my assistant who literally makes everything work in my life helps me with Trello so what I love about her so much because this is where I get totally cuckoo is she goes through my email and she'll flag for me those things that I must get done today and then she'll put them on my to-do list being a competitive person I don't like leaving stuff that's not checked right so I get to check every time I get to check it off and it makes a ding I'm like so satisfying but I have a president at hatch Beauty now he joined us about a year and a half ago he's in a jdmba from Princeton and Stanford and incredible human on so many levels he's so excellent cross functionally he's methodical he's an ex excellent communicator and I found that for people like me who are real Visionaries and love to build and have WIS we have ideas for how we're going to win all the time and it's people like him who get partnered with people like me who say hm that's interesting I like what you're saying I think we can execute on that let me put a plan together to do that where he'll manage it and then he'll manage the communication to the team so it's in bite sizes that make sense to them

Speaker 2: that's so great because I'm guessing you have an idea a minute that would be wildly successful yes so we may say okay we need to win here here here and here but there may be four ideas to get to that win so everybody's still tracking on the win plan for what the win is but how we get there can look a little different so he's a great counterpart and I think from now on going into next phase the investor part of me really looks to make sure that there's a Visionary coupled with an integrator on a team because then know it's going to be successful so true right to have both sides you have to have both sides and if you have an egod driven Visionary who thinks it's my it's my way or the highway then I would generally say that's a recipe for disaster you're right probably won't work you need someone who's going to say I I personally Tracy have a Ferrari engine with bicycle brakes that's what I usually mention when I talk with my integrator partner and he's also a Ferrari engine but he has Ferrari breaks I love it so he'll be like okay I get it but let's think about it this way so it seems like you found the right compliment for you oh my gosh he's streamy and then I think the followup to that is just making sure that your teams are doing what they love and that there's no one in on your team that is doing something but they don't really enjoy it 100% And I have a tool now that helps me assess that I recommend it to all my co female friends called cultural index it takes less than 10 minutes and it's a series of questions actually there are two questions but a series of answers and what it does is not only defines who you are as you and and what your style is and where your gifts are and who you should be dayto day in your job but it also helps you define who you are in your current role and I would tell you that if you give that to your employees especially your top SE Suite if there's a big differential between the top top line and performance of who they say they are versus who they actually are in their day job if there's a huge disparity they're an enormous Flight Risk and they are likely not going to stick around so that's such a helpful indicator for me because I'm pretty data driven to be able to go oh okay we have these three people who are probably even if they tell me and they're and they're smiling and say oh it's fine I love it they don't it's so smart to look at all of that because they would probably be happier doing something else somewhere else right and filling your role with someone who loves that aspect totally the great thing is everyone in the world we don't all like to do the same things that's right and even if we came up through the ranks and we do what we do

Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily mean we're really good at it so the cultural index for example will let you see if the person you're speaking to can follow through a follow through means execution getting that across the finish line for example in sales you may need someone who's a Trailblazer and just out to go bring in business but you have to partner them with an Executor so an architect someone who can bring home the bacon understanding people's Profiles In This Way has been the most lucrative investment for me in terms of Roi in team building because it helps mitigate risk on just listening to someone looking at a resume and assessment it

Speaker 2: does not tell the full story thank you for sharing that because it's such good advice especially as we build as we all

Speaker 1: built out our teams and it's the most expensive investment we make I mean how many times are we it's paying a recruiter you the money's gone right the recruiter gets paid new person in their seat 30 days in 60 days in 90 days in at 90 days the cultural index will say that people can be someone else for about 90 days consistently before they revert back to who they really are so holy smokes do the math so interesting and that's pretty much the training and onboarding time too so you've spent that 90 days on boarding isn't that fascinating so they can stick to this like other role or persona for about 90 days until they go into who they really are and then you've lost your replacement period you recognize you made a poor hire they're not the right fit and you put them into a grow that's not the right fit and you're wondering like now the person's not performing that's been probably the biggest and best Roi I've had because I've had you know four or 500 employees over the last decade so it's been very helpful so interesting to

Speaker 2: think about that yeah how has your business shifted over the last year what obstacles have you been able to overcome and what successes have you had So Co

Speaker 1: was a little bit of a hiccup for all of us I'll never forget I was in Oman it was my first time to the Middle East it was in February of 201 20 I went on a spiritual Retreat spiritual journey for 10 days with other like-minded CEO through YPO it was their first ever like spiritual multi-day event they had all these thought leaders from different areas it was so magnificent and part of the requirement was unplugging for the seven days while you were there and when I came back online after the spiritual journey in Oman I got back online and I had so many Tex text and correspondence from friends all over the world and so we doubled tripled quadrupled all of our purchase orders on everything that was hand sanitizing and covid related because we had already been through H1 in1 and SARS magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that

Speaker 2: brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you

Speaker 1: find and live your joy so part of my joy has been really leaning into the person that I am without having the pretense of like what is expected of me I have really enjoyed that full expression of myself and expansion and that's been a lot of exploration around meditation and mindfulness in writing and reading I've been working with an executive coach for about a year and a half so she's executive coach but she has a spiritual approach she's opened my eyes as to how I can integrate who I am as a professional with who I am as a person holistically not trying to be someone at work that I'm not at home or vice versa that's probably my biggest Joy is the interesting Journey Back Home to myself in seeing the holistic aspect of who I am and enjoying all of that as Tracy coming up to the party without feeling like oh this is business Tracy right and now I'm going to go out on a date and now I'm going to bring date Tracy Tracy is all one and that's fun because I

Speaker 2: think as you're building a company sometimes you feel like you have to be a certain way so it's so great that you're leaning into that authenticity

Speaker 1: 100% And the second thing that I would say for those who are entrepreneurs and Builders the one thing that I recognize is I also didn't say what I thought I would think it and say oh but I can't really say that because what if that was re a misinterpret that could put the deal at risk and so finding the comfort and the confidence in saying I'm never going to say again I wish I would have I wish I had the courage or I wish I would have said this or I wish I would have put my foot down this past year it's been the year of power and the year of just being at peace with the integration the holistic integration and then the ability to say what's on

Speaker 2: your mind thank you so much for saying that because we all have those moments where a year later six months later we think I wish I would have said or done that so thank you for leaving us today with trusting your instincts yeah and encouraging and empowering anyone listening to trust your instincts right and isn't there way to do that so that it's not impulsive where you can pause and say I may want to come back to this statement but here's what my gut's telling me right now my gut's saying I don't trust this or my gut's saying this doesn't feel right and you can couch it in a way that says I might not feel this way tomorrow but here's what my guts telling me I love how you're so open about your instincts and how you're really feeling and I think that can be received so much better than either not saying it or having to feel like you have to make a decision right then right because we don't but we can say I I I'm not totally at this place where I'm feeling resolved about it but here's what my my instincts say so interesting such good advice it's freeing thank you so much for joining us today Tracy you have built an incredible career and cheers to you for your grit and tenacity and everything that you have built thank you can you please share with us how and

Speaker 1: where we can find you sure potential to Powerhouse is my new podcast and my digital platform and I'm on there and I have a Facebook community that is private for potential Powerhouse that is the best place to reach me and where I'm most engaged dayto day as I'm building that conversation out with women powerhouses who have made their way by either learning aha moments the pivots and it's not always a straight line but the story is so juicy because we learn so much it's invigorating I love it

Speaker 2: yeah if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our sheu it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil tip business Consulting and the Sheil tip blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave [Music]