Heroes in Business - Jim Markham, founder ABBA, Pureology haircare companies over $1Billion, author Big Lucky

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

You were made to win. Jim Markham founded four and developed five successful hair care companies, over $1.2 billion in combined retail sales – Sebring, Markham, ABBA, PureOlogy and ColorProof. Author “Big Lucky” is interviewed by David Cogan famous celebrity host of the Heroes Show and founder of entrepreneur community Eliances.    @BigLuckyBook (FB or Instagram)

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's me. It's another day, and we've got incredible guests to be able to interview today where we really share about their secrets to success, what makes them tick, how did they get to where they got to. I've got the best job ever in the world because I have the opportunity to ask the questions that you want to know about them, how you can improve your life.

And I really, again, appreciate the feedback we continue to get from past guests. Most recently when we had, and I interviewed the co-founder of Netflix. So please make sure that you go to alliances, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Go to alliances, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Because as you know, it is the only place where entrepreneurs align. Well, you know, people invest a lot of money in something. And you know what that is? They're here.

I just wish I had some more of it. But they invest a lot of money and they're here. That's right. And our next hero knows about that. In fact, I'd like to welcome you all to the show is Jim Markham. That's right. these. We're talking over $1.2 billion in combined retail sales. You'll know that some of the brands offhand like ABBA, Perology, and others. And you can reach him by going to Facebook or Instagram or Amazon, because we're going to talk a little bit about his book today too, is Big Lucky. And that's where you can get his book at amazon but if you want to find him on the channels like facebook or instagram you can go to at big lucky book and of course

we'll have it on our website at alliances.com so jim boy do people spend money on here or what they really do it's got it's gotten even bigger every year i think think. You know, it's huge. It's really a huge business. Now, you started and, you know, founded, you know, not one, but four of these companies and stuff. Talk to us about really what it was like from forming the first one to the second to the third. Does it get any easier starting it? And why not have just done one and combine everything into one company? You know, I started as a barber. I was,

grew up with a poor mother that was an alcoholic. And at 15, I was married and had a child. My mother said, you got to go to work somewhere. She said, why don't you go to barber school? Uncle Clarence always did well as a barber. I said, okay. So I went to barber school and started cutting hair. At 16, I was cutting hair, $1.50 haircuts and did pretty well. I was a little young. A lot of people didn't want me to cut their hair, but I did well and started entering competitions and winning a lot of awards, national championship, et cetera. Then I met a guy named Jay Sebring, who was then charging $50 a haircut. I've won all these awards and I'm charging five. So I called him up and said, Jay, I need to learn how to charge $50 a haircut like you did. So make a long story short, I flew to California. We cut some hair. He cut one half the hair i cut the other half the hair and it was clearly that his side was better than mine so i saw he had something

to teach me and i was really excited then i started a franchise in albuquerque new mexico sebring franchise and i became a distributor for four states with sebring and did really well. Jay, on the other hand, got killed by Charles Manson and the Manson murders with Sharon Tate in 69. That's when I went from New Mexico to California and took over his business. A few months later, I bought the business. And I had that company for a while and started another company called Markham Product. We had a three-way dispute. It was a Sebring. And started Markham Products, and that did well.

It did better than Sebring. And I kept it about eight years, and I sold it and started another company called Abba Pure and Natural. I kept it about eight years and sold it, and then I started a company called Pureology. And Pureology was really the rocket ship i mean it did it was like the third largest selling sale of all time at that time which was 280 million then then lastly i did colorproof and it did very well and uh recently last year i sold colorproof and um and and i'm in hawaii and uh not doing lot. I'm working on my book and a lot of changes going on. So that's kind of what I've been doing. Jim, why not just start another one? You're on a roll.

Keep it going. I keep thinking that, you know, my wife has a heart attack when I say that. You're in Hawaii, right? Yeah, we're in Kona, Hawaii. Wow. So from each of the companies that you started, I assume that you carried something that you learned from the first company to the second company and so on? Oh, yeah. Every time you learn something, something to do, something not to do. What were some of the secrets that you shared that you carried over

from company to company? One of the things is, shared that you carried over from company to company one of the things is you know companies labs when you farm out ingredient format formulas they keep the formula and you don't get access to it so i learned from the first company you got to own your own formula so i started negotiating that when i whenever i developed a formula with them it immediately became mine and they sent me the formula so i did that for four four more times successfully so i always had the formula i had the intellectual property to sell and it built a lot of a worth value so that was one uh getting the proper distribution, that's two. Getting the proper image.

You know, you learn just a little bit on every one of them. And every one you do is different than the last quite a bit. But there's some basic things you've got to keep doing. And those are some of them. So from 15 years of age and having a child and cutting hair to selling your first company, what's that feeling like? Really good, actually. You know, there's several kinds of entrepreneurs. There's like a sprinter, which is somebody that grows a company up, does everything, gets it all right, and then sells it. I'm kind of in that genre i then there's a long distance spreader which is the ones that manage a company long term and that's what they do and that's what

they like i i fall in the sprinter category because i love doing it love starting i love developing formulas love distribution channel i love doing all that i love developing salesforce and then i'm just not as interested anymore it's kind, I know, but it's kind of the way it is. But you stayed within the same industry. I love the industry. The professional beauty industry is so good. And there's a, you know, I got into developing formulas. I mean, early on, I started cutting celebrities hair and doing formulas for them

and they really demand the best. They truly do. But it was a really godsend for me because I became very good at developing the best formulas in the world. And I kept doing it. Each company was better than the last. And I developed the right vendors, the right people. And I had a network of people that I use

and you just keep doing it over and over. But it's different every time. You gotta get a new set of distributors. You gotta get a new positioning statement. Your product gotta have a different positioning. And you just, you keep doing pretty much the same thing every time, but it's different. It really is different.

Yes. Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Johnny Carson, and others. What do they all have in common with you? I think there's something that I've noticed in them that they believe they were born to win. They believe they're going to do it. And I think it's a really important part of anyone is to know that God made you to win. And if you believe you're going to win, you keep getting back up. You will get knocked down.

It's just up and down. But a lot of people don't get back up. So what they have is that they believe they're going to win, and they keep getting back up, especially what they have is that they believe they're going to win and they keep getting back up, especially the ones I did. And I did about 50, a little over 50 of them. But I noticed that in all of them, they're really confident. Yeah. I mean, they were all clients of yours. I mean, which is just absolutely phenomenal. Phenomenal. So now you decided to write your book. It's called Big Lucky. And again, you can get it in Amazon.

Go to Amazon, type in Big Lucky. You'll find it, purchase it. Is this your first book? This is my first book. You know, I had friends and family members and distributors that always said, look, we know where you're from. How did you get to where you are now? How did you make that big jump from having really nothing and charging a dollar fifty haircuts to becoming in a good spot? And I said, well, that's an interesting point. For years, I said, I just don't have the right ending. So I waited until I did the last company and I had a good ending and everything went good.

And I said, maybe it's time to do it now and i think to try to share my ups and downs uh don't quit uh born that you're born to win and some things that i learned would be very beneficial for other entrepreneurs so it's really to help other people become more successful by providing them a road map of up and down experiences that they can benefit from providing them a roadmap of up and down experiences that they can benefit from. Excellent. Well, you're all benefiting from watching, listening to me interviewing Jim Markham. I'm David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. He founded not one, but four and developed five successful hair care companies over one point two billion dollars in combined retail stores, companies over $1.2 billion in combined retail stores, Pureology, Ava, and others. Make sure that you go ahead and get his book on Amazon. Type in Big Lucky because you're watching me again,

David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. So make sure you go to alliances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com, the only place where entrepreneurs align. Now, Jim, I think it's important to note that you've also been involved with a number of charitable organizations. Why and which ones and what led you to those? Well, you know, I believe success means you need to pay it forward. If you don't pay it forward, I mean, what is success? We've done, we were honorees at City Hope. We've raised a lot of money for City Hope. Paul Newman has a charity called Serious Fun.

We've been giving to Serious Fun a long time, 15 years maybe. And we do cancer events. I can't remember all of them right now, but we've been, there's homeless people in L.A. that we've been giving money to and food and products to for years. And it's such a worthy cause, I think. So we've always been involved and we're still involved and we'll stay involved because we think it's the thing to do. You've got to play it pit for it.

Excellent. You talked about the different formulas for the various brands and that what are people looking for most within a shampoo is it having you know shiny hair growing hair uh and and what's considered healthy here i mean you go to the store there's a billion ones to choose from How does anyone even know what to choose? It's difficult. I mean, you know, everyone has really a different issue. You've got women, I mean, we started out doing men's hair, you know, Paul Newman, Johnny Carson, Robert Redford, Frank Sinatra,

and we developed a product for daily shampooing and conditioning for them. That really revolutionized men's hair style. For women, you know, one might have thin hair, one might have medium hair, one might have curly hair, straight hair, very little hair. And so you really need formulas for that specific customer.

That's why professional hairstylists should be able to give you a product just for you. Like if you come in and you're a customer, you have fine hair, you need you need a volumizing product. If you come in your hair is dry, you need a moisturizing product. And women know this women you tell ask what I said, what do you buy? Lushurizing or volumizing? She's without doubt will tell you one of the other and the other she

won't have like if she moisture even just last night we're out to dinner and i said well what product you she told me she was in my friend uh and she i said well do you like the volume or moisture she's oh no volume i mean they're so against it so they want to moisturize then you might ask somebody else they won't buy so you have to diagnose their situation and ask the customer what they want if they want more volume you buy if they want more curl we have one for curly hair you want smoother straighter hair we have another one for that so uh you got yellow in your hair we take the yellow out i mean we know how to do that and that's a professional recommendation generally it would be a lot better than going to a pharmacy or drug store and just looking at that blitz of a product and try to figure

out one on on your own because probably not going to happen right right you mentioned that you had a child when you were 15 years old so you're only 15 years older than your child now what uh what kind of secrets do you share with him or her is it a son or daughter it's a daughter daughter what kind of secrets do you share uh in regards to helping to pass down the wisdom that you have of ensuring that they're successful making a mark in history like you have. You know, we've talked about it a lot in their inheritance and how they should do it. And we have meetings every year and we hopefully are making a difference. It's tough though. It really is tough because everybody's got their own point of view. But we've shared that with all our three children and even grandchildren about paying it forward and doing the right thing. And we think that's very important

to do. Do you ever just look back and just go from the days of when you were cutting hair at 15 years old to where you are now? Oh yeah. I keep going back all the time. seems like you know like i don't cut much hair now i'll cut maybe two haircuts a month you know friend and uh i like to cut hair i i don't want to cut more than two or three i don't want to do 10 a day but i like it a lot i mean it was a good profession it got me where i needed to go and uh i know a lot of hairstylists and they do well. It's a pretty good profession. It really is. through your mind because i imagine that there were many multiple times of you know enough is enough how do you get through that though what what is it what what's going through what what

gets you through it that's one of my lessons that we always we go through lessons and uh payoffs at the end of each chapter and you you know you you just got to get back up and you have to believe that you were made to win god made you win and you as thomas edison once said you got you got to just get up and try one more time you got to keep trying you got to believe you're made to win but you also got to work like hell because it's not just going to happen you got to believe you went and go for it. I believe we all have the acumen and the ability to win. And I think that's an important thing to understand. And just go forward. Just barrel through it.

That's all you can do. And you will win. Excellent. Well, definitely during this interview, you will win because you've got Jim here today. And Jim, you have persevered. You've made your own luck, created brands and consumers that they love and trust. That's a hero. Jim Markham, netting over $1.2 billion in combined retail sales. over 1.2 billion in combined retail sales. Make sure you get his book.

Go to Amazon, Big Lucky. And if you want to find him on Facebook or Instagram, at Big Lucky Book. This has been David Kogan with the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure you check out alliances.com.