the bossbabe podcast - 30. How To Be An Overnight Success and Turn Challenges Into Opportunities with Maria Hatzistefanis

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

In this amazing episode, co-Founder Danielle Canty is joined by Maria Hatzistefanis. Maria is the author and podcast host behind “How to be an Overnight Success” and the Founder and CEO of two huge beauty product lines, Rodial and Nip + Fab. Maria gets super specific on all the details behind being a successful entrepreneur, style icon, and influencer. Maria shares how she took being dismissed from her job in the finance sector as an opportunity to start her journey on the path to growing global beauty empire. They dive into how to go about starting a product-based business, how to find a manufacturer, and how to brand your products. You’ll hear about Maria’s experience working with Kylie Jenner and also about dealing with rejection and taking risks in business. You’ll learn about the importance of having a personal brand and a powerful network, plus you’ll hear Maria’s take on how to be authentic on social media. This episode is super real – and the takeaways are priceless.  This episode is brought to you by The Société. Join the community and learn how to start and scale your business at http://bit.ly/2GM2Xk8 Important moments: 5.43 - How getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to Maria as it propelled her onto the path aligned with her passion 12.25 - The difference between giving up and deciding not to 20.07 - Why it’s important to take risks 29.20 - The importance of having a personal brand when growing a successful brand 37.05 - How to keep up with trends and make sure your brand is super relevant  40.00 - Maria’s words of wisdom to her past self

You have to be very, very honest. You have to be very critical about your own products and be able to look at them from the point of view of the consumer. When it comes to anyone's personal brand, you have to define from day one, what is your brand? You know, what is it that you represent? I did have faith and faith and my gut feeling is something that still guides me to this day. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Danielle Canty, your host for this week's episode and co-CEO of Boss Babe. of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Danielle Canty, your host for this week's episode and co-CEO of Boss Babe.

Now, if you know Boss Babe, you'll know that we're pretty famous for our sassy, insightful quotes. And so every single episode, it feels only right that we start by sharing a new quote with you. So for this episode, the quote is this. There are two things in life that you have control of, your attitude and your effort. Now I chose this quote because it leads in perfectly to this week's episode where I was joined by Maria Hattis-Stefanis, the founder and CEO of not only one but two huge beauty product lines, Radeal and Lip and Fab. Now in this conversation, Maria shares how she chose to see her dismissal from her job as an opportunity. She changed her attitude and with a lot of effort, that dismissal led her onto the path of creating an international beauty empire. As always in this interview, I got Maria to get super specific on all the details that I

knew you guys would want to know. We chatted about everything from how to start a product-based business, how to find a manufacturer, how to brand your products, Maria's experience working with the one and only Kylie Jenner but also about dealing with rejection and taking risks. Now this episode is such a jam-packed interview so I hope you love it and also make sure that you do have your pen and paper ready. Now speaking of getting your pen and paper ready and learning, you will hear me mention a few times in this interview about our membership for female entrepreneurs, The Society, and I wanted to let you know that the doors are currently open for enrollment but they will be closing very very soon. Now for those of you who don't know the Society is the place for female

entrepreneurs to connect, build and grow and in there we provide all the content that you need to build your business whether you're taking it from startup to six figures or even beyond that. Now every single month we release a new success kit worth upwards of $400. Some have been over a thousand and some of these past success clips include things like how to start a product-based business or how to build a brand or how to create and sell an online course. We've also done one on how to create live and profitable video because let's face it we all know how big video is right now and so much more. And all of this is actually just $34 a month. It's literally a no brainer, right?

And on top of this, we have now launched, if that wasn't enough, we have now launched a members directory inside so that you can connect even more with like-minded women and people who are in your area and industry. So if you are ready to join Natalie and I in there and meet your business besties, then head to bossbabe.com forward slash membership. And we'll also put the link in the show notes too. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping

outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, Maria. Thank you, Danielle. I'm very excited. I am so excited to be chatting with you today because not only have I been a huge fan of Rodial and Nip and Fab for a long time, but I've actually just finished reading your book, How to Be an Overnight Success, which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way. And it literally had me making the Boss Babe team full of new ideas. So thank you for that. Thank you. I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed it. I did indeed. And I think it was just amazing to hear your journey because we're in 2019

now. And at this point, you are a very successful business owner. You're an influencer, you're a style icon and an author. But from reading your book, I do know that it's not always been that case, Maria. And so I'd love to really start this interview talking about your journey from the beginning, which saw you getting sacked from your job, but then taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Yes. So I was always passionate about fashion and beauty. My first job was a beauty writer for Seventeen magazine back in Greece, where I'm originally from. But I always

had the bug for business. So I moved to New York. I got some student loans and ended up studying business in New York. And at that point, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But I had a lot of student loans to take care of. So I ended up in a job in banking, first in New York, and then moved to London. I did that for a couple of years, but I just wasn't loving it. Everyone was reading the Financial Times. I was reading Vogue. I didn't belong there. And then one day, I was called into the boardroom, and I got fired. And you know what? It was devastating. I was devastated. This was my first proper big job, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It shook me up and it made me realize what my passion really was. And my passion was definitely not banking. So that's

where it all started by getting fired. I love that. It was kind of forced onto a certain path. Now I'm really interested. So you got fired and you were like, okay, that's fair enough. Finance is my passion. But then it's a big change to decide, actually, I'm not going to get another job. I'm actually going to start a business. So had you been toying with the idea of starting a business before then? Or was it literally just like, okay, I can't get a job.

I'm going to have to start a business. I never in my life thought that I would start my own business. This was never in the plans. I don't come from a family of entrepreneurs. I wasn't, you know, this 13 year old entrepreneur selling, you know, lemonade from a stand and becoming a millionaire before the age of 18. I was never one of those people. I was, my parents are teachers. So I was raised in an environment where everything was safe and you just had to find a safe job. And I didn't know any different way. But when I realized I've started, I finished my studies, I worked for a couple of years in banking, had my experience before with publishing, I was at a point that I could not continue in a career that had anything to do

with my studies. So it was like, what is my passion? My passion is beauty, it's style, it's being in a creative industry. I didn't want to go back to publishing because the business taught me a lot of other skills as well I wouldn't be able to use. And at that time, I was really inspired by a lot of new beauty companies that were propping up. I mean, at that time, there was Marcia Kilgore that just opened Bliss, her first company. And Stila was just being founded by a makeup artist. And there were a whole lot of new beauty brands that were coming up by female entrepreneurs. And I was very inspired. And I said, you know what?

I love beauty. I've worked in publishing. I also have the green business. I'm going to set up my own business. And it was purely being inspired by a lot of other people who were doing it and going into setting my own business blindly. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I was young. I had very little to lose and I was, okay, let's just do this. So that's how it

all started. Yeah. I love it. The blind naivety. And I actually also really relate to not being a born entrepreneur. I used to feel kind of a little bit nervous. The fact that Natalie, my business partner, she's always been that born entrepreneur, that 13 year old, like you say, I mean, she didn't have a lemonade stand because it's not a big thing in the UK, but she's always started businesses where I was kind of like, I had loads of jobs, but I didn't have my own business. And I think I was kind of a later developer on that. And I think it's just reassuring for women listening that it doesn't matter what age you are, even if you don't have a history, it's about bringing those new skills to the table and putting it into something you're passionate about. So what I also find super interesting is like,

obviously now Rodiel and Nippel & Turg are absolutely huge brands. But at that point, when you're like, yeah, I'm going to start this business, did you have that ambition for them to be huge? Or was it just like, okay, you want a lifestyle business? Like you were inspired by female entrepreneurs around you, but what was your thought process there? I always wanted whatever I did. And at any point in my life, I always wanted it to be a success. So everything I do, I give it 200%. I didn't know where it was going to go.

And, you know, I mean, at the beginning, it was a very basic business. After I got fired from my job and decided to start Rodial, the first thing was try to get some funding. And you would think that coming from the finance world, I would be lining up offers to get funding from left, right, and center. So I put together a business plan, and I send about 30 emails to investors, try to get investment for my business. I probably got about 10 emails back. I had five meetings and I got zero investment. So here I am, an ex-banker with business status, not being able to get funding for my business. And that was a big slap in the face, not from the point of view of funding necessarily,

but also it was, do I really have a business? I mean, it was also a lack of approval. Not getting that investment was a lot more than the money. So I was with my boyfriend at the time, who's now my husband. And I said, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm a failure. And he said, you know what? You can start really small.

Why don't you have the passion of what you want to do? Use your savings. And I had about £20,000 worth of savings at the time, which was a lot more than it is right now. That was 20 years ago. And he said, start the business from home, back room, do a small production, take the steps that you want to take. You'll do it in a smaller scale and just see what happens, but don't give up on your dream because you didn't get investment. So that's how I started. And the first thing I did, I needed to

find all my resources. I needed to find a contract manufacturer. I needed to find a lab. And the best thing to do when you're looking to set up a beauty company is to go and visit, there's a trade show in Italy, it's called Cosmoprof. And you go and you find hundreds of contract manufacturers, hundreds of labs. And you spend your day from one stand to the other, trying to find the lab and the manufacturer that will get your ideas and you can work together and they can do the order quantities that you want and all that. So I went to that show and I found a number of labs and contact manufacturers I was interested in. Then I went, I visited them and I ended up

with one lab, which is actually in London. And we've been working together ever since, who got my ideas. And that's how I started. So it was a lot of research. It was a lot of hustling and running around and trying to figure things out for myself. And at the beginning, I was at the backroom at home doing everything myself. It wasn't glamorous at all. It was a one woman show, literally. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place, so it makes collecting data,

creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible, I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com

slash Boss Babe. I love that and to hear how it's grown as well. Just bringing you back to that point where you've got this history in banking and finance and you know that world and to hear those rejections or to get those rejections, how did you actually get over that? Were you meditating at that point? Were you doing mindset work or was it literally just a stern talking to you by your husband saying, no, you can do this? What was the difference between giving up and deciding not to? I really believed in my idea. The idea that I had is I saw a gap in the market for a skincare range that would offer targeted treatments to specific skin concerns. And at that point, there was nothing. There was a basic moisturizer, a basic

toner. This is 20 years ago. So the beauty industry wasn't as evolved as it is now. So I was really passionate about my idea and I knew in my gut that it would work. But I think the problem was I didn't have experience in the beauty industry process. So let's say if I had five years of working at Estée Lauder, then I would have been more credible perhaps and got the investment. But I didn't have that. I went in without any experience in beauty with just a plan and my passion. And that wasn't enough. But I knew deep down that I had something. And, you know, still these days, you get rejected every single day, regardless of

who you are and what is the level of your business or the cycle that you're in. And it's all about believing in yourself and working harder to actually prove to those people that the no that you got should have been a yes. And they'll regret it one day. And a lot of people regretted it, but I did have faith and faith. And my gut feeling is something that still guides me to this day. Yeah. I actually love just coming back to that point again, because when we are ambitious women, we always going to be wanting to put ourselves out there. And we're always going to be wanting to push to that next level. And I think it is super important that this rejection, those no's is not a bad word. It just means that actually you're going to get no level. And I think it is super important that this rejection, those no's,

it's not a bad word. It just means that actually you're going to get no's. You need to expect no's because to get them, then you'll get the yes's later down the line. I think that's just a really good thing to point out who anyone who is starting out or anyone who's trying to move up in the career, like it is part of the process. You're not going to succeed without learning how to cope with those no's and those forms of rejection. But like you say, having that faith that actually something good will come of it. Absolutely. And then when it comes to rejection, what I find is, yes, we all get upset. I mean, no one likes rejection, but then it's taking that feedback and being very honest with yourself. And instead of being annoyed or bitter or saying it's their fault, it's kind of sitting

down and analyzing and say, this is the feedback that I got. How can I take this feedback and improve myself? Not just for the person who said no to me, but just generally, how can I get myself to the next level? And sometimes that no, it shakes you up to find a new direction and a better way to grow. So as much as we hate rejection, I personally welcome it. And every time I get it, I see myself grow even further. One of my favorite quotes is, it's not rejection, it's redirection. And just like getting sacked from your old job, you wouldn't have created Rodial and Nipple Fab. How crazy is that? Absolutely. That's a really good one. Yeah, I may steal it actually.

As long as you quote Boston. Oh yeah, for sure. So you'd went to the conference, you were learning, you found the manufacturer. And was it literally a case of just Googling what you needed to know at this point? Because like you said, you had not got experience in that beauty industry. So how were you learning? Were you letting your manufacturer guide you a little bit? Well, at that point, when you're starting a business, you really need to get any help that you can get really. So it was the manufacturers. I would go to networking events. There's this body of people, it's called CW, Cosmetic Executive Women, and it's a great organization here in the UK and they do meetings every month and you go and you network and you find other people within the cosmetics industry.

I used to do a lot of networking and what really helped me at that point, and a lot of people ask me, did you have a mentor? And I wish I had, but I didn't have one. But what I did is I connected with other women who were starting, whether it was a beauty brand or any brand within the creative industry, jewelry brand or a fashion brand. And they were all at the same stage as me. And what we would do is connect, get together, have a coffee, kind of give a high five to each other. You're doing well. This is what I'm dealing with right now. Do you have any suggestions or I'm recruiting for this position? Do you have any agencies or do you know anyone? And every time I would have coffee with all those like-minded women who were at the same stage as me, we would always inspire each other and get information.

So I did develop this nice support group around me that was really important, especially at the first few years. I could not agree more. We see that within the society. So our membership for female entrepreneurs and a lot of the women in there have actually built their own business through doing business with each other. And it's just incredible to see. And that power of networking is really something I'd encourage everyone to tap into. So you started the business. When did you realize that you're starting to gain traction? So it was year five. We just moved into an office out of my home. I had a staff of four and I get a sample from a lab where we're going to do our first anti-aging serum. I look at the product. I mean, it felt amazing. But then we're talking about the name. What are

we going to call it? Anti-aging serum, you know, there were too many. You would be competing with the Lauders and the L'Oreal's and the big brands. So I'm looking through the list of ingredients and one of the ingredients related to Viper Venom. So I say to my team, why don't we call the product Snake Serum? And they're like, you must be crazy. You're going to take us out of business. And I said, you know what? We have nothing to lose.

Let's just call it Snake Serum. And what we did, we capitalized on the name. We made the packaging black. We did a photo shoot with a live snake. We made the packaging black. We did a photo shoot with a live snake. We got some postcards. We put it online and it went viral. And within a month, we're getting orders from new markets. We opened Germany, we opened Japan, we opened Australia. And taking that crazy risk suddenly took us from being an anonymous brand to this crazy brand with a product called Snake Serum that everyone was talking about it.

So it was year five when I actually realized, okay, well, I have something and this company could become a player within the beauty industry. But it did take me five years to get there. I think that's really important to recognize, isn't it? A lot of people in your book titled right, it titled how to be an overnight success. And actually when you come down to it, yes, snake sim was a really big pivotal moment in your business, but there had been five years before that where you had been setting up and trying things and pivoting. And I think it's just really important to recognize that. But I have to say when I heard this part in your book,

actually, that's when I rang our marketing team, like this woman's a genius. But did you have a backup plan? So you were getting some pushback from colleagues saying, look, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. How do you look forecast for, okay, this could be really terrible, but we can afford to lose this much on this. Or was it like, no, we are all in that I am going to make this a success. I'm going to get it in front of the right publications. We were all in, we were all in and we believed our own hype, I think at the end, but you know, it was a risk. And I have to say that over the years, we have taken other risks and not every other risk has paid off. There's been products that we thought would be the next big thing and they weren't, they were a flop. So you cannot always

take a risk and you cannot always have a risk that is successful. But if you take enough risks and one of them does the job, then you're halfway there. So, you know, there are no guarantees and you never know. Even now, after 20 years, if I launch a product, we believe in it. That's why we launched it. But you have no idea how it's going to do until it hits the shelves. So, yeah, we had the faith and we still have the faith to this day. And you have to be a bit crazy and have the faith and go for it 100%. That's the only way to succeed. And talking about risks, I know that when you launched OpenFab, you brought on Kylie Jenner to be your ambassador. That must have been a big risk at

that time because she is an absolutely amazing boss babe but I also know that would have been a hefty investment to bring someone like her did you um and ah about that for a while or did you just know in your gut it was the right thing to do so it all happened quite naturally and remember she was 16 this was before she had any beauty campaigns. And this was before she had her own range. This is very early on. What happened was we work with a lot of makeup artists in New York and LA, and we constantly send them free products. So one of our makeup artists was working on a shoot with Kylie and he had the Nip and Fab glycolic pads with him. So he used them to prep her skin before makeup. She took them,

she loved them, and she Instagrammed them. This was before the time, again, that people were paid thousands of tens and hundreds of thousands to post something on Instagram. So she posted about them because she loved them. And suddenly we get all this attention to the brand. We get phone calls, we get emails. And someone from my team said, why don't we do something with Kylie? And at that time it was Kendall who was on the app. She was getting all the campaigns and she was everywhere. Kylie was a little cute sister at home, not really doing much yet. And we connected with her team and we're like, okay, well, let's just see what we can do.

Because obviously she resonates with the Nibin Fab audience. And I still cannot believe that we managed to do two campaigns with her. We brought her to London for the first one. She was 16 and a half. And we had her here for 24 hours. We did a live Q&A with her audience. We did a campaign party. And it was amazing. It was such a dream for me to work with someone, you know, from the Kardashian family,

but it's something that we were lucky the timing was right. Obviously now she has her own products. The fees have gone up 10 times. So even now now if we wanted to do something like that we couldn't afford it but going back to your question it was a risk because we worked with her before she became who she is now and it could have gone a different direction we could have invested a lot of money and nothing would have come out of it and for a small company like us it would have been a big deal so you know you take the risks and hope for the best. That's all you can do. And you've worked with a lot of celebrities over the time, which is completely, like you say, normal in your industry as well. And I know in your book, you commented about the effort

of personal brands. And actually, I think that's a really interesting topic because you have an amazing Instagram feed. And I actually listened to your podcast too, with Lorna Lux and talking about personal brands. And I think it's just something to really highlight actually that, you know, when these celebrities, they have these personal brands, I know you had that true insight into what goes on behind the scenes and actually how calculated some of the things are, those photos that are taken, the clothes that are worn and the efforts. And I'm just interested, how have you evolved and managed your own personal brand over the years, Maria? It's interesting that you're asking me this question. This is three months after we deleted

almost all of our Instagram pictures on both our feeds, on the Mrs. Rodial and the Rodial Beauty. The thing with a personal brand is that it's constantly evolving. And I feel in this day and age of social media and Instagram, you do get carried away by trends. So one day would be, okay, you should be doing a lot more videos or that another day you should be having a certain filter or you have to do X, Y, Z for the algorithm. And it was, as I said, three months ago, we looked at the feeds, both my own feed and the brand feed. And it was, as I said, three months ago, we looked at the feeds, both my own feed and the brand feed. And we thought, oh my God, what is this? This doesn't represent the brand. And we went back to the DNA and redefined who is the Rodial Woman and started from scratch.

So when it comes to anyone's personal brand, you have to define from day one, what is your brand? You know, what is it that you represent? Go into detail. And then once you have the definition of the brand, then you can start planning around, whether it's your Instagram or the way you communicate to the press, the media, the online, that just anything that you do, it has to represent your brand and I remember an example here this is from my podcast my overnight success podcast one of the episodes I've had with the makeup artist Mario de Divanovic who is Kim Kardashian's makeup artist and we were talking about the personal brand and one of the things he said to me is I have people who constantly apply to be my assistant to assist me on makeup. And I go to

their Instagram page and I see tons of pictures of them in thongs. And I'm going to their Instagram page to see their work. And this is not what I'm seeing. So, you know, you have to define who you are, you know, and if you are a brand owner and you have an Instagram account, you have to strategize and say, what is it that I'm going to be sharing with my followers? Is it something that has to do with my work? Am I going to share my personal life? You have to define, like with my account, you will see a part of me, you will see me as a businesswoman, you will see me loving fashion just because this is my passion. You will see a little bit of beauty because I'm conscious I don't want to push product.

You will not see my family just because they want nothing to do with social media, and I respect that. You will see a layer of me, but you won't see all of it. And that was a decision that I made, obviously, with my family's wishes. And I feel that everyone who curates a profile within social media, they need to be very specific on what they do, what they will post, what they will not post, and have a very clear strategy. I don't know if you agree with that. I do actually. I think it's really important to, first of all, understand who your niche is,

who you're targeting, and then work back back from that and being comfortable with what you want to post. I think there's a lot of pressure sometimes to be open about everything. And I also think that those who are, have influence on social media have obligation to be true. They need to post the ups and the downs, but it's okay if you're not going to post everything, but you need to stick with that. One thing that really gets to me a little bit is those who only put the perfect life on there and make out they're happy and wonderful all the time. And they don't share necessarily those sadder times. Now I have no problem with those people who don't share any of that at all. And it's the constant high feeds that I find a little bit like, oh, is that a little bit inauthentic? You're leading people to believe that everything is perfect all the time. And I just wonder how damaging that is a

little bit to some people who are a bit naive coming off that. Yeah. Everyone is human, all of us. We have our good days. We have our bad days. You have your good days at work and good days with your personal life. And you have your bad days with your personal life and bad days at work. You know, this is life. You know, no one's perfect. I think it's important that you are real. And what I am doing with my feed right now, which I figured it out, and I'm probably going to change it in six months. This is the current situation.

So I use my feed as an inspiration board of whatever excites me. I have an eye for design. So there's a lot of inspiration around fashion and trends and some of my favorite campaigns for the brand. And I also mix it up with some of my inspirational messages, which they tend to reflect what I'm going through at that specific point in time. So I always relate and I post something that comes from heart rather than, you know, I have a hundred quotes that I will post whenever I feel the quote when I post it. And then what I'm doing with my stories, which actually more excited about this is where I'm real. And this is where it could be that I'm back from the gym.

You know, my hair is like ponytail. I don't have any makeup on. I wear my glasses and I kind of talk about the subject that I feel very passionate about. And sometimes I'm frustrated and sometimes, you know, I've had a bad day and I talk about it or sometimes I feel inspired by something and I want to share it. So I find that with stories, we can be a lot more real. Stories excite me a lot more, but I figured it out now how my stories and feed are different and I'm at a good place but yeah I mean nothing is perfect and I feel that it is the obligation

of everyone out there with social media to reflect a little bit of both you know the good and the bad I agree and do you feel that having your personal brand has been important and helped the success of Rodial as a brand because obviously you you have two separate accounts, right? Yes. So we have the Rodial Beauty account and we have my own account, Mrs. Rodial. You know, the interesting thing with my account is it's my escape. And sometimes I have my team saying, oh, Maria, you should post beauty tutorials or you should post more beauty and do swatches. And what I say is I'm not a makeup artist. I am a businesswoman. I am driving this business.

I'm driving my team. And, you know, I'm not going to force myself into doing swatches or makeup tutorials just because this is what other brand founders do. So in terms of building your profile, I feel that definitely social media is a great way to do so. I feel the more real you can be, the more people will relate to you. And I also feel that part of the success of my account, let's say, is that I am showing people who I am and there is no agenda that, okay, I'm doing this every day because I want to sell product. I don't think in any shape or form I give out this message.

It's not just social media though. It's getting some interviews and getting some online presence and being on the podcast. And I feel that we do need to look at our profile from a 360 point of view because Instagram is a small part of it. It may seem it's the only one, but it's not. There are a lot of people who get inspired by different platforms and different ways. And I feel we have to be present everywhere. I mean, even with our stores, we've started, and this is something we've been doing for the last couple of years, to create events in our stores and bring a community together and offer masterclasses or do one day we had the tarot reader or we got together to sign books and kind of inspire each other. And I do find that in this age of everything being done on a digital form, I think we are missing that human connection. And I see a trend of all of us moving slightly away from social media and the online world and

wanting that real connection with other people. And we started doing this with a brand. As a brand founder, when you want to raise your profile, being part of those events is very important to connect with other people and be there and be present. Yeah, I'm just going to pull a few you want to raise your profile. Being part of those events is very important to connect with other people and be there and be present. Yeah, I'm just going to pull a few things from that because you're so right. I really believe in content delivering value. And I think you're so right. Having that on multiple platforms, it's very easy to get obsessed with one platform. But I always talk about the customer journey and that whole awareness phase where someone comes in contact with you for the first time, and then they always want to do that bit of

research from you so you need to have that other platform there needs to be somewhere else they can find you other than that place that they initially do which I think is super powerful and just coming back down to what you said around connection as well like taking that online to offline and we definitely have seen that within the society as well. Like so many of them meeting up and just craving that connection. We talk about millennials and Generation X and being like the loneliest in a way because we do everything online, but actually there's nothing beats actually meeting your friends and meeting up with people. And we're hosting an event in September in LA for that reason. So people can meet because it just, the energy is absolutely phenomenal. And it's one of my favorite things about being in Boss Babers, the events that we

host as well. And, you know, getting all these ambitious women together, there's nothing like it. Very, very important. Yeah, I need to join you to one of those events. I sound really exciting. Yeah, let me know. We're in LA in September, you should come. I'll send you an invite after. What I was going to say as well, you spoke about it just then like offering these kind of experiences if you like in your stores and i feel like we skipped over that a little bit so how did you take rodeo from you know that back bedroom you were starting the offices how did you get into those stores this is uh it's an interesting story because you would think that's an easy thing to do.

And I definitely thought when I started that, what does it take to get into a store? I have my products. I do a little bit of PR. Next thing I know, my products are in the store. And this was one of the hardest things to do. And at that time when I started, online wasn't a big deal as much as it is now, because right now you can go direct to consumer and just have your own website. And sometimes that's all you need and you can be successful.

At that time, you know, online wasn't nowhere as big as it is now. So we were dependent on stores. And I've always had a dream to get into Harvey Nichols. It was one of my dream department stores. And I've always had a dream to get into Harvey Nichols. It was one of my dream department stores. And I remember it was, I just received the products in my small back office and put them in a beautiful bag. I also put together some of the press clippings that we had. We sent them a beautiful package with handwritten note and followed up with an email. What do you think? I've sent you my products. I'd love to work with you, blah, blah, blah, all that. And I don't hear back. And it's like, what do you do now? I thought it would be easy and it wasn't easy. And they came

back to me, we're really sorry. We love your products. We don't have space right now, but keep in touch. And you know what? I kept on doing this every year. I did this for seven years in a row. And then every time I was disappointed, nothing happened, but I kept on going. And year seven, they call me back and they say, come to our offices for a meeting. So I go there and I thought, oh my God, I'm getting counter. It's all happening for me. You have a shelf and you have six months to make it work or you're out. So I got there. I put my products on the shelf. I was there working Monday to Friday

in my office. And on the weekends, I would go and sell my product. And I made it work. And then a few years later after that, we actually got our first ever flagship counter. So all this work was worth it. But this goes to show you that, as my book says, there's nothing like an overnight success. And I feel that it is my personal obligation to be very transparent about my journey and the challenges I had, because that gives a positive message out there that if you don't succeed the first time or even the second time, don't give up. Keep on having faith. Keep on doing what you're doing. You will get there. If you believe in your product, if you have faith,

if you adjust based on your feedback, you will get to your goal. So yeah, I got to Harvey Nichols. It was my dream store. And yeah, it was a dream come true. I love that. I think that's so true and something that I certainly believe in as well. I think anyone in a position where they've had some success in business, it is always right just to say to others, yeah, it is amazing. It's totally worth it, but it is hard and there are sacrifices along the way. And it's not glamorous because I think there's been this big transition over the last few years where entrepreneurship has become like quite glamorous you know now we're getting celebrities that are actually entrepreneurs they're not actors they're not musicians they're entrepreneurs and that's how they've built their

celebrity status and just kind of all of us saying like actually do you know what it's really hard but you know it's worth it and just holding that faith and pushing through and with regards to being in stores I think one misconception that a lot of people have as well which you just kind of hinted at is I definitely know that my naivety before I was starting to look at products etc with us once you were in that store you were in and it was easy from there but you know like you alluded to actually for you to get in someone has to be pulled out because there is only that limited amount of space. So how do you make sure that you're keeping up with the trends and you're making the brand always super relevant?

We're our own worst critics all the time. So it's from basic things like looking at the packaging, which we have changed about six times since the beginning. And the last few years, it's been the same, but we are tweaking the fonts. We are tweaking and elevating the packaging every time we go to a new run. And that's kind of the first basic thing is keep your packaging up to speed and make it interesting and exciting. Number one. Number two is keep up with the trends and come up with new trends all the time

it used to be when I started that you would have a product that's the classic that everyone knew and that's it now beauty is very much like fashion you need to be

launching something new every few weeks so we had to adjust and what we usually do is every year we probably come up with 40 different products, let's say, for Rodial. And we only end up launching about 10.

We're very critical. So unless we may be a minute before launching a product and everything is planned before we press the button for the order, we look at the product again. We sit down as a team and we say, are we still excited by this product? Would we all go out there and buy it? If the answer is yes, we launch it. If the answer is no, even if we put hours and hours of work and resources, we drop the product.

So you have to be very, very honest. You have to be very critical about your own products and be able to look at them from the point of view of the consumer rather than from the point of view, oh, it's my product. So it doesn't matter what it is, it's going to do well. And I think that's one of the things that we do that keeps us fresh and relevant. And most of the launches that we do are very very exciting and successful i think that is an incredible lesson actually for everybody because you're so right sometimes when you've put so much effort into something the launch was in the plan you know you start

at the beginning you're like gonna create this product we planned it all through okay now we're gonna launch but actually to take that moment and go, right, is what we have created good enough? And I think it takes a lot of courage to say, actually, do you know what? This is not good enough. We're either going to drop it or we're going to have to tweak it. And I think it's just so important. I think that actually is probably one of the things that you've been doing along the way that's really differentiated your brand and made it stood out because you don't put anything out there that is not exactly as you want it and I think a lot of people can be a little bit oh it'll do but actually when you're in this competitive market it will do is not good enough if you really want to succeed and I think that's a really

powerful lesson that even I'll take away from this interview so thank you Maria. So you've been an entrepreneur for you said you started Road Deal about 20 years ago, is that right? Yes. So if you were to run into Maria when she'd just been sacked, she was just sitting in that back room starting her business, what words of wisdom would you say to her now? Don't sweat over the small stuff. I love it. At the beginning, everything was a disaster. If I got the packaging and it was slightly off, if anything small that happened, I thought I was going to go out of business the next day. Everything was of that magnitude. And I have learned over the years, I think I've become a lot more Zen and I've resolved a lot of situations and a lot of problems over the years that I know that there's always a solution

and it's never the end of the world. So I used to be stressed out a lot when I started out. And I wish I was a little bit more Zen at the time. Are there things that you've done to become more Zen? Because I know you spoke about learning to meditate in your book too. Yeah, I've done lots of things. I've been... Tried it all. Yeah, I've tried it all. But there was a time that, yeah, I was really stressed out and I was meditating every single day. I have this app, I'm sure everyone, yourself and your listeners know of Headspace. And I was doing a daily 20 minute meditation that really helped me. But I have to say that after meditating for about a year on and off, I found

a way to calm myself down without even having to do the meditation. But what I find is really important for me, I need to work out in the morning almost every day or do something to move my body. And if I work out, if I have some sort of exercise, even if that's like a half an hour walk out in the fresh air, that sets me, gives me the tone for the day and it makes me stronger and more resilient to deal with my day. I find that if I don't have this workout release in the morning and I just go into my day without moving at all, I do tend to get annoyed and stressed and perhaps not deal with situations in the best possible way. So I found with me, if I have an hour in the morning to do some sort of exercise, it is the best thing to run my

business. I was saying you're only going to be as successful as you're mentally and physically capable of being because I really believe in that holistic approach to entrepreneurship you know it can't be hustle hustle work work all the time there needs to be that balance of actually you know I'm going to take the time to go to the gym I'm going to eat healthy I'm going to stay hydrated I'm going to look after my mindset because I do think that's a big part of the journey and I think learning like you said learning about what suits yourself I recently did a post and saying that actually do you know what I'm not a morning person I I have tried so many times getting up at 5am oh you're not okay well I see I work with like guys

on PST so they're eight hours behind me so I'm not actually finishing work until 8pm most nights. So by the time I've eaten, I need seven hours sleep. I was like, okay, maybe I'll get up, I'll be more productive. But I can't, I need my seven hours. So I get up at half six, do a little bit of meditation, I do a bit of reading, I'm in the gym for half seven, then I work out from half seven to half eight. And then I start my day at nine, which then often rolls through to like, listen, that's good. If you're up at 6 30 and you're at the gym at 7 30 that's perfect that is perfection that's early for me I thought you were gonna say you wake up at 10 oh no no no I'm still like we start something in seven hours but you know I do have friends who

and colleagues who wake up at half four and they're in the gym for quarter past five half past five and I just can't do it and I think it's just I really tried for so long and had a lot of guilt around it because I you know you read these books like you're only gonna be successful if you get up at this time this is when all the successful people are getting up and I'm like nope can't do it no you just have to follow your own rhythm and your own body. So yeah, totally. Well, listen, Maria, thank you so much for joining me on the Boss Babe podcast. This interview has been absolutely incredible. And there's so many takeaways for anybody who has got a product-based business or is

an entrepreneur growing their business. And honestly, thank you just sharing your wisdom and allowing us all to learn from you today. And just tell me where everyone can find a little bit more about you. Where can look you up and follow you a little bit more thank you for having me it's been a lot of fun I am on at mrs rodia on instagram my book is how to be an overnight success and I am on itunes and spotify with my overnight success podcast as. So thank you for having me, Danielle. Thank you so much, Maria. If you enjoyed this episode, we would love it if you subscribed

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