How to start a beauty business from your kitchen table, according to Jo Malone CBE
Have you always thought you might like to run your own business?
Have a beauty idea you’ve been pondering for a while? Think you might have the next Foreo or Juicy Tube up your sleeve? A plus side of the isolated, WFH situation we all find ourselves in is the extra time in our day. Rather than using it to binge watch The Tiger King, why not put the next few months to good use and turn that idea into a fully-fledged business plan?
That way, once the world hits the play button again, you’ll be all ready to take the next steps and put your fine-tuned plans into motion.
We spoke to beauty entrepreneur Jo Malone CBE, who has already founded not one but two fragrance and lifestyle empires (Jo Malone London, which she sold to Estée Lauder for 'undisclosed millions' in 1999, and Jo Loves, which debuted in 2011), to get her advice on how you should go about getting your beauty business off the ground.
“Right now we have the advantage of time and the opportunity to build,” Malone tells the Standard. “I always choose to look at something with a glass half full, and the world is going through this horrendous situation but no one can change it right at this minute, we’ve got to all live through it. But when we do live through it and we all come out the other end, we have to pick up and build again.
"Not everyone is out there to create a business, that’s just a reality, but we are all born with an entrepreneurial spirit to learn and be creative. So every single person in this country is qualified for this next exercise, even if you just go through the process of it.
"What we want in three months or six months' time – or however long this may be, none of us know yet – is you want to have added something to your life. Even if you go back into your job when this is all over with the ability to think differently, then it wasn’t a waste.
"Let me give you the tools to make it happen…"
Jo Malone's 4 main pillars to consider when launching a business
1. Product
What do I want to create?
Ask yourself: Who am I, what am I qualified to do and what do I see the need for? Beauty businesses often come about through somebody seeing a need or a gap in the market or something in which they feel their perspective is a point of difference.
You’re looking for that voice and that attitude and a standout product that you create that you love. Mine was a bath oil all those years ago, and mine with Jo Loves is probably my fragrance paintbrush.
Decide what kind of business it is that you want
Do you want to start a business to just help your family get through and pay the rent? In which case that world-changing product probably isn’t what you’re looking for.
Love the product
Always remember your product is your heartbeat. Are you in love with that product? If you’re not don’t even bother! It’s too much hard work if you don’t really, really love it. And if you don’t love it, no one else will. You have to feel as though it’s a real living thing and you have to love it yourself.
2. Plan
How do I get there?
You’ve then got to put a plan in place and this is the moment for blue-sky thinking. This is the moment to think: Where do I want to be? And what is my big dream? And you set that as your big goal.
Will every person achieve that? No. But if you set that in your mind and think every day 'that is where I want to go, that is where I want to be,' then you are more likely to keep on with it, and you’re more likely to hit higher than if you did just little steps everyday.
Know your strengths
It’s important to be honest with yourself about what your personal strengths are. What are the three things that I am really good at?
Personally, I know I am really good at creating product, I’m good at doing all the PR and the storytelling and I’m very visual. I’m not good at finance, I’m not good at managing people. When you’re first starting out in a business you often have to be all things to all people, but just remember you don’t have to be qualified in everything and if you haven’t got all the talents you require, other people have. Especially at this moment in time, there are a lot of really clever people sat at home doing nothing. So ask for help, reach out. You might hear 'no' a million times, but you might hear 'yes' once and that’s all you need.
If you choose to have a co-founder, pick wisely
My co-founder is my husband Gary and we are completely opposite. He is good at all the things I am not, so I was really lucky. It’s probably why we stayed married and why we built another business together, but life doesn’t always work out that way.
You’ve got to remember when you set up in business together it’s a bit like a marriage, so you need to approach it like that. You often see founders falling out and then the business falls apart, so really make sure that the person you are in business with is on the same page. Because if it goes wrong, it can go horribly wrong and destroy everything, and that’s not good for emotional health, or your mental health… and it's not good for business.
3. Price
The profit mattress
My husband once told me it’s really, really simple: What is your cost? What are you selling at? The bit in the middle is called profit and it’s the profit that determines whether you’re going to be successful or not.
For some people, starting a business is a hobby. It’s not a business. And if you’re happy with that, stick with it. Make that hobby successful; make that hobby earn you some money that pays for your holiday every year, there's no shame in that.
If you are in it, however, to create a big business, then that profit is vital to your survival and your team. Profit is like a mattress between cost and retail (or wholesale or whatever your mark-up is) and it has to go a long way. Small businesses often do so much with so little because that thin little wafer of profit gets thinner and thinner as you hire a team, a PR company etc.
Save for the next product
Have the discipline within that profit margin to always save enough for the next product.
In the beauty business particularly, you have to be ready with the next thing. So make sure that you don’t spend everything and save nothing to invest in the future. Profit equals future, and most strong, steady businesses have that profit cushion, so make sure you set some aside.
Where are you going to sell it?
When pricing your item, you have to think about everywhere you might end up selling it.
You might start out selling on the local market stall, but what happens if your business really takes off and you get a local department asking to sell your product? If your original pricing doesn’t factor in the wholesale mark-up, then you’re in trouble. So from the beginning you need that blue sky thinking to factor in where the product might end up. Far easier if you have that mark-up reflected in the beginning than having to turn around to your early customers and tell them the product suddenly costs more.
Learn how to negotiate
When you are looking at a retail partner remember, you both have to win. You both need to make a profit. You get what you negotiate, not what you deserve.
Remember in negotiation, silence is a luxury. Silence can get you a better deal. My husband always says if we’re not making money, we’re not doing it. And he’s right.
4. PR
Singing your song
How do you tell the world your love story about your product?
If you get good storytelling and a good message, you can go to that blue-sky goal very quickly. But you’ve got to get it right. You’ve got to make sure that it’s an authentic story and heartbeat.
There are a thousand different ways to do that. And that’s where the entrepreneur will always rise to the surface; they will always see what no one else sees.
Get your visual identity on point
You’ve got to make your brand visual. Put your product on a shelf and see if it stands out, if it doesn’t then you need to do something about it.
Don’t expect somebody to write about your product, tell them why they should write about it. Be creative; tell your story.
Practical tips
1. Put together a virtual boardroom
Within your group of friends and family there will be somebody that’s good at figures, there’ll be somebody that’s brilliant at art, there’ll be somebody that’s got a degree in English or who can write poetry… Put together six people with varying skill sets and points of view (and I would recommend including someone aged 15-18 if you can, they’ll think differently and that’s what you want) and ask them to meet on Zoom once a month. Send them 10 questions a couple of days before, so they can think, as you would do an ordinary boardroom. Have a glass of wine and a slice of pizza together and get them to give your their advice. Be prepared not to like what people say, but listen to them and hear them.
2. Know when to use an NDA
If you’re going out to put your product in reality, you must get an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) signed, but you can’t get friends and family to sign NDAs. You’re going to have to have people in your virtual boardroom you can trust.
It’s different though when you’re dealing with the wider world. Everyone we work with at Jo Loves, before we have one conversation, we get them to sign an NDA. It’s belt and braces nowadays I’m afraid. Twenty years ago I would just shake someone’s hand, but I’m afraid not today. Protect yourself.
To protect your ideas, whether it's the product itself, the branding, a formula, a pattern, a logo or some other aspect of your business, you can apply for a trademark or patent. For more information on applying for these, check the Government advice here.
The time is now
There’s going to be a lot of people very hungry for life when we get out of this, so let’s put ourselves through little business schools in the next three months and get ready.
Failure is often the doorstep to success. When something doesn’t work out, stand up again, dust yourself off. A resilient retail warrior is one of the most powerful things in the world.
What I would love is if we can inspire people in this country to start putting plans together, to put virtual boardrooms together… because even at the end of it if you don’t start a business, your mind will think differently. And minds thinking differently is an unbelievably powerful thing.
This country is going to need people to innovate once this thing is over. So let's inspire, let's innovate and let's motivate. Now is the time to dream.
Some essential reading and viewing
Jo's film recommendations:
Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walke, available on Netflix.
Joy (starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano), available on Prime Video or Apple TV.
"The films are both about building from your kitchen table and inspirational entrepreneurs putting one foot in front of the other in order to build a successful business. Uplifting and inspiring."
Jo's husband Gary's business book recommendations:
In Business As in Life, You Don’t Get What You Deserve, You Get What You Negotiate, by Chester L. Karasss
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail - Management of Innovation and Change, by Clayton M. Christensen
Leaders: Myth and Reality by Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone
Read more
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