the bossbabe podcast - 344. From University Bedroom To Sephora: Marketing Strategies and Leading A Team to Scale to 7 and 8 Figures with Laura Smith, Founder of Lullabellz

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Today’s guest went from starting her business in her bedroom during university, to managing a team of 40, and selling her top awarded hair products in Sephora, Pretty Little Thing, and Asos. While in the UK, I interviewed the Founder of LullaBellz, Laura Smith. Tune in to hear her incredible story and listen to her share everything from tips for scaling a product based business to the #1 thing Laura focuses her marketing dollars on today. This episode is full of takeaways to exponentially grow your business this next year and beyond. HIGHLIGHTS How Laura went from selling hair jewelry to becoming the #1 premium hair extension company in the UK, and selling in Sephora The time Laura had to travel to China to pitch manufacturing companies to create her hair extension products The video she bootstrapped that went viral and scaled the brand The time she had to refund a large amount of money to customers due to a manufacturing error What Laura did to manage hiring when her brand exploded during the Covid pandemic How Laura runs a team of 40 employees + enrolls them to run with her vision Tips for building a 7 or 8 figure product based company Where to focus + spend your marketing dollars to grow brand awareness and sales LINKS Save 20% OFF with code: Bossbabe20 - go to lullabellz.com Join The Société: The Place to Build A Freedom-Based Business FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie LullaBellz: @lullabellz_

You always have to evolve. You always have to teach yourself new ways of working. What my role is right now might not be my role in two years' time. Because the brand, as it evolves and grows into multiple people, just demands a different version of you. Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast and happy new year oh my goodness we're in 2024 you guys and i already know this is going to be a big year for you i'm so excited for everything that you have in store and i'm really grateful that we are kicking off the year together podcasting it is an honor to be in your ears or in your car, wherever you are right now, starting off the new year together.

And what I wanted to do was bring you a really, really inspiring female entrepreneur to help get your mindset right for 2024. So I actually met Laura when she came to our life and business reset retreat in Tulum last year. After meeting her and hearing all about her business, I knew that she had to come onto the podcast and tell her story. Those retreats that we host are, to be honest, some of the best ways to get to know incredible entrepreneurs just like you. If you would be interested in attending one of our retreats, you can actually drop me a DM on Instagram. We don't have an official page as everyone is hand-selected because we want to make sure that the group dynamic

is exactly the way it gets to be. So we are hosting two retreats in 2024, one in the UK and one in Tulum. So if you're interested in coming, drop me a message on Instagram and I can get you more information. But let me tell you a little bit more about our guest, Laura Smith. Laura is the founder of a company called Lula Bells, and this is the UK's number one online retailer for premium synthetic and luxury human hair extensions. It is an incredible company. They have grown so fast over the last 12 years

and especially during the COVID years, Laura has a lot to share about her journey there. And what I really love the most about Laura's story and the Lulabelle's story is how much resilience, how much determination and how much resourcefulness has gone into building a brand of this size. I know so many of you listening have a desire to build multi-million dollar companies just like this, whether in the product space or the service space. And Laura was really open about exactly what it takes to get there. And that's what I'm really, really excited the most about with this episode. So with that, I'm going to be quiet and I'm going to let us dive straight in. This was such a great conversation. We recorded in person while I was in London over the holidays. And I

think it's the perfect way to start the year. So with that, happy new year. Let's dive in. Laura, welcome to the BossFit Podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, so before we dive into your story, the way this came about was amazing. So we were in Tulum, we're sitting at the dinner table, you were at one of our retreats, and I just couldn't stop asking you questions because you have so many stories. So this podcast, I already know it's going to be one of my favorite to date. So before I get into all your stories, tell me a little bit about what your business is and where your business is at at present day right now. I own a company called Lulabells. We are the number one premium fiber

hair extension company in the UK. We sell a transformation. So instant clipping hair extensions. If you want that salon look, we create that from home we are basically letterboxd hair goals hair goals for your letterbox that's us and we are stocked on pretty little thing asos boohoo and most recently sephora online which i'm always so proud to say that must have been a pinch me getting stopped on sephora i mean all those brands are amazing but was that not just like oh my god what is my life yeah it was I think you just go go go go go go all the time that you almost don't have a chance to stop and think and it was only after it went live that I was like oh my god oh my god from little old me in my university bedroom to now the brand has just evolved so much and it's moments like that

that really truly make you think wow what I love about your story too talking about starting in the university bedroom when we were talking I just realized we had so many similarities having bootstrap companies and you know you and I were both talking about like what's the real secret to having such a successful scalable company and we always have the same answers it's resourcefulness it's being willing to figure it out because I know you didn't start with hair extensions so tell me where you actually started because I think this is one of the most powerful lessons in entrepreneurship. Yeah so I originally started back in 2011 from my university bedroom and it actually started out as a hair jewelry brand.

So I used to hand make hair jewelry that I'd sourced from car boot sales, vintage markets, and I used to turn them into hair pieces. This was when online Kim Kardashian went to her wedding wearing a hair jewelry piece and the brand just evolved from then. I listened to customer's feedback and understood that my audience not only was interested in hair jewelry but loved the whole look and rewind back to me being 15 years old I was never blessed with the best when it came to hair so I just found that I was constantly searching for this salon look so you, you know, when you go to a salon and the

hairdresser makes your hair look unreal and they flip it forward at the end and it looks perfect. And then you walk out the salon with this great feeling, but you can never replicate that at home. So if that was something for me that I constantly tried to replicate from home. So yeah, university bedroom me, started off with hair jewelry and then evolved the brand into hair extensions, went full time after university. This was back in 2013 and really plowed the brand forward until 2016 when it really started to gain momentum. And it took five years, five years for the business to actually get off the ground before it even became known. So you started with hair jewellery and you said it originated from Kim's wedding. Did you just see it on TV and saw, okay, wait, this is an opportunity. People are

buying this. Like where did the idea come from? So it was a trend. I think I've got two sisters there. We're very onto our trends. I've never told the story before, but when I was 15, I set up an eBay account and I was always into that buying and selling supply and demand from a very, very young age. I used to stand outside Topshop on delivery days and sale days, knowing exactly what I was going in for. There was one, I'll never forget, these pink suede wedges. And I knew that they'd sell out online. So I bought them in size five, size six, and size seven, completely cleared them out, sold them online on eBay for twice the price. And I guess that lust for creating and buying products and reselling them, knowing that there was a trend out there was where Lulabelle started.

So the hair jewelry was an evolution of that. Just buying things and sourcing things, creating things that people wanted and that really made them feel good. I love this so much. I feel like we are the same person. So when you were doing this in uni, I'm really curious, did you have friends that were doing entrepreneurial things or were you kind of just out there on your own, just like with your own hustle? Oh, I was out there on my own with my own hustle. Let me tell you. So my university bedroom, everybody else's was, they'd had like a makeup station and their perfumes laid out on their bookshelves. Mine had a string, a washing line string from one side to the other with

packaging label rolls from one side to the other. I had a whole dispatch station going on in the corner of my university bedroom. So yeah, even though we were on a business course and I was studying a business degree, I think people had not found their flow yet. Whereas from a very early age, I just loved business. It's something for me for me I just eat sleep and breathe business I'm very fortunate I have been brought up in a family where my parents are entrepreneurs they're business owners so from a very very young age I think from the age of 13 I knew I wanted to start my own business but I just never knew what in I just never knew I thought okay you know I did eBay I went to car boot sales, created hair jewelry.

I always loved that supply and demand, buying and selling, but I just never knew what in. And then how hair extensions came about was I, yeah, I've always worn hair extensions since I was 15 years old. By the time I was 21, I'd probably tried every single method out there possible. You name it, I've tried it. And I always tried to create that salon look at home. I was at university. I couldn't afford hair extensions.

You know, these salon luxury hair extensions were costing 500 pound. I just didn't have the budget for it. So back then I couldn't even curl my hair either. Couldn't curl my own hair. Imagine now I own a hair company, but back then I truly't even curl my hair either. Couldn't curl my own hair. Imagine now I own a hair company. But back then, I truly believe I was my customer.

And that's what enabled the brand to become so successful is that I knew exactly what my audience wanted. And I listened to them. So if I created a straight set of hair extensions and they were asking for a curly set, I'd create a curly set. And then I knew summer was coming. So I wanted a wavy set. So I'd create a curly set. And then I knew summer was coming. So I wanted a wavy set. So I'd create a wavy set. And that was how the brand catapulted itself into being the market

leader of synthetic hair extensions is just listening to my audience. I love this so much. Going back to your parents being entrepreneurial, I think that's so interesting because I think that can go either way. I think it can have you want to follow in their footsteps, but I think that's so interesting because I think that can go either way I think it can have you want to follow in their footsteps but I think more commonly than not it probably has people rebel and not want to follow in their footsteps so what was it about that about experiencing that seeing that that give you the drive to want to do it yourself great question I think the independence knowing that that it's my own, it's my own brand, it's something that I can mold into whatever I want it to be. And I'm a people pleaser. So I

love creating products that make people feel great. That for me is the core essence of the brand is creating something that makes somebody feel great. And I just used to watch my parents and I saw that transaction of the buying and selling and just realized actually I just loved everything about it and did they have a level of freedom that you really wanted absolutely not they were every hour of the day um yeah they really reallyled. And I think that didn't scare me. That's so interesting. It didn't scare me.

I'm not, I'm very fearless when it comes to business. I think because it's such, it's a hobby. I absolutely love it. So I would wake up at six o'clock in the morning and glue and stick headbands together for, you know, the first start of Lulabells. I would glue and stick headbands and not go spread until two o'clock in the morning but I loved it because it was my hobby so I didn't feel like it

was work I love it okay so you were in business for five years when you noticed or when you realized Lulabells was really starting to take off so you'd been full-time I guess for about three years what was that moment when you realized wait this is really becoming something yeah so back to you saying about being resourceful that was me I was the epitome of resourceful when it came to the start of Lula Bells I convinced my friend I couldn't afford models back then so I convinced my friend like please can you do this video for me I've created this hair extension set and I'd love for you to be my model she was like I'm not a model I said okay I'll take you out in the northern court for dinner afterwards if you be a model for me she was like right okay I said it's only going to take about 20 minutes just clip these hair

extensions in turn around to the front and we've got it like that's the money shot and she did it bless her and it probably took us about six hours to get the money shot because she wasn't there more than 10 days. Turning around again, again, again. But that video that night, I went home, edited it on iMovie back then, way back when,

and posted it on Facebook and it started to go viral. Wow. So that was the point where I was like oh my god it's happening it's really happening and did you see as the video was going viral the sales were coming in like was that really translating for you yeah absolutely to go from three sales a day to now thousands a week when your phone comes through and it's dinging through of all the sales and you think oh my god oh my god like it's actually happening it was that moment

that I realized okay this is it now this is it's actually happening but it was five years in we're talking five years of prepping the brand getting it ready and position it right learning marketing i wasn't a fully cooked business owner i just thought of an idea did it and then learn on the go it's almost like learning how to ride a bike i just kept going and going and going until it was happening and by the time it was happening i was like okay let's go so it sounds like when that video went viral it really showed you what your playbook could look like okay if i get enough eyeballs on on content and demonstrate the product that's going to have these sales start to come in a lot more consistently faster is that then something that's informed your strategy even to this day

because i know looking at your brand you work with celebrities influencers you're constantly creating those viral brand moments so influencers weren't a thing back then okay it was right at the beginning of the influencer landscape and I noticed when I'd put it on my model people wanted to see real life girls and right back at the start of influencing there was all these real life girls that started to build audiences online and then when we moved into Instagram that's when we started to be like okay well if we send them this product and they wore it for us then their audience would get to see what it looked like and that was what it was it was the constant pushing the product onto influencers that would then genuinely love the product genuinely genuinely love the product and want to work with us more and I think that's so

interesting too because just talking to behind the scenes you only work with people that really do genuinely love your product too has that been part of your success is that is those genuine collaborations yeah so i know my product inside and out and i can tell when somebody's wearing it i think when you create a product that you eat sleep and breathe you know exactly what it looks like i know the curl that we have created so i know when someone's wearing our hair extensions and most recently a love island star was wearing our hair in the villa and And yes, it's not got a label on, so you can't tell if it's Lila Bells, but I knew and I was like, oh.

So when she came out, she did a video getting ready with me. And I, yeah, I just, I saw the video and that's a moment where I think, okay, it's true, genuine partnerships like that, that help the brand grow to what it is today. I think a lot of people will be listening thinking, okay, great, but how on earth would you go about getting in touch with someone like that that helped the brand grow to what it is today. I think a lot of people will be listening thinking okay great but how on earth would you go about getting in touch with someone like that? Like how did you go about in the beginning getting in touch with influencers or maybe even now when it feels like everyone's trying to pitch on the brand deal? Yeah so back then influencers had just started out so we were approaching girls saying okay we've got this brand do you know what i

remember the days that i'd be sat there on my sofa until midnight following girls just sitting there following these were customers and then it came to you know the influencer landscape and i thought okay i'm gonna now start building relationships with influencers for the brand right so we'd follow with dm and say we've this product, we'd love to send you it for free. We'd love to gift it. See how you get on. If you love it, then we'd like to work with you. And thankfully, everybody loved the product.

And that's how we began to build relationships. You can have an amazing product, but if you're not getting it in front of people, they don't have the ability to try it. So that was how the start of Lulabells came about. Okay, so I know we can talk so much about where Lulabells is right now, but I don't want to move off of the building phase because I know that's where so many women are right now. And they're probably in a phase where it feels like they're not getting traction. Things keep going wrong.

They're like, is this a sign that I'm not meant to do this? And so have you ever had a moment with your brand where maybe you've ordered the wrong product or you've like felt like you've totally messed up and you thought it was going to be a business ending mistake and actually it wasn't and you were able to pick up and move on? Yeah. So when I first invested in the biggest product launch, it was an evolution of we created a straight set of hair extensions,

which everyone loved. We then moved forward into a curly set. And then after that, we created a wavy set. Well, the wavy set, I knew it would bang. Like I knew that everyone would absolutely love it. So after many samples later, I said to my factory, okay, we need to get this product out there. It was taking that long sampling. We need to get it in and hit it before summer because I knew that people would want that wave summer. So great. Got the product here. It landed. We started shipping it out to customers. It went amazing. Like it was selling like hotcakes. It was, yeah, it just went amazing. Then we started to get replies from customers through customer service saying the products got a smell to it well you can imagine I was thinking oh my god like what's

happened like we've got a sample here we've signed it off we've done all of our checks what has actually happened so we soon found out after more messages coming through I'm thinking oh my god we're having to refund all these customers. I'd invested the biggest amount of money in this range that I ever had. And back then, it's a fully bootstrap business. So all the money that was coming in was getting pumped back into the business.

Oh God. And yeah, the customers were starting to complain and I'm saying to my girls, like, what is it? So we went to the warehouse and unpacked one of the pieces that had come through that shipment and it had a smell like wet dog. Wet dog. I was like, no, what, how?

Like, how has this happened? We were supposed to be creating wet look waves and we've genuinely created wet dog waves. I was like, how has this even happened? So we had to refund everyone. But that taught us a massive lesson in creating products and having a sign-off process. What had actually happened was

the product hadn't dried properly. So it had gone into the plastic packaging and sweated in the humidity because it had not dried you know when you put a towel in the washing machine and you leave it there oh yeah and never again well you learn from mistakes and you know our factory thankfully worked with us and that's another thing to look back on is building relationships with your suppliers where they've got your back and you've got their back and being 12 years deep into business thankfully my suppliers that I chose to work with my factories knew okay they believed in me and they believed in the vision and they knew at that occasion on that occasion that they'd ruined the product.

So they worked with us and got it remade and reshipped to us in a quick amount of time. So yeah, we could resell the product. And was there ever a moment during that time when you thought the business is going to go under? I'm not going to be able to refund all these people. What am I going to do? It gets like that.

When you are a fully funded business you always have to make sure that you've got enough cash flow to pump in to generate not only business as usual you have to make sure that you the business can live off the cash that you've got but also these investments if something goes wrong it can be so close to the mark that there's no room for mistake. There is no room for mistakes. So having relationships with your suppliers that understand that and understand the vision can help you in the long run because they understand where your vision's going. Elixir's lattes and complex coffees are basically our love language over here at Boss Babe.

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powerful, easy to use Notion AI today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show, notion.com slash boss babe to try the powerful easy to use notion ai today and when you use our link you're supporting our show notion.com slash boss babe so speaking of suppliers there's a lot of women listening that maybe have an idea for a product and they're hearing you talk about suppliers and factories and they're like i don't even know where to begin with this how did you even source a factory in the first place and do you remember like going out and visiting? Like, was that a huge deal for you? Yeah. So when I first started developing products, they had minimum order quantities and I just couldn't withhold minimum order quantities. Going back to being a self-funded business, I knew I had cash to invest. Well, I didn't have enough for tens of thousands of units.

And the thing about Chinese factories is they don't give you a look in unless you've got a substantial minimum order quantity. So I knew that I had to get over there and pitch my vision. Wow. How old were you? 26. Okay. So this was, you know, I'd traveled,

but I'd never traveled to China. And I wrote to my mom. I said to my mom, okay, well, please can you come to China with me? I didn't have any staff at this point. So I asked my mom if she'd come to China with me. I convinced her that if she came on the trip that I'd let her go see the panda sanctuary so she could see a real panda. And she came with me, convinced her that if she came on the trip that I'd let her go see the panda sanctuary so she could see a real panda and she came with me bless her on the first day when we landed in

China I took her out for dinner and I said okay I'm taking you out to dinner to say thank you and we went down this little back alley in China and went through an authentic Chinese I bought her dinner and the next day I got a phone call from HSBC to say that my bank card had been cloned. So my mum had to foot the bill for the rest of the trip. So thank God she was there. So what was that like? What was that experience like being 26, never even visiting China before and visiting a factory and starting to do business with people you've got to negotiate with and pitch your vision? It was a culture shock, but you've got to do what you've got to do, right? And I just went for it.

I knew what I needed and I knew that I needed to be face-to-face with my factory. I knew that I needed to build that relationship for them to trust me and to trust the vision and getting in front of them and showing them that this is my vision. This is the person that I am and let's work together and give me that opportunity.

Please decrease the minimums for me on this occasion. And I give you my word that this is the vision and this is where we're going to go. And the business will be and be able to hit those minimums. Ten bold one day. And thankfully, they trusted me. And thank God I have my mum there with me she's sleeping on hot pot next to me and so what they just turned around and said yeah okay we'll

go for it after a lot of back and forth so I had so many ideas in my head of what I wanted to create at the time we had an eight piece set of hair extensions and I knew that it was too bulky on my head so I wanted to refine. I used to cut up pieces of hair extensions to get the perfect set that I thought, okay, this is not too heavy. It's the right ratio. It's got the right amount of grams of hair in the product for it to sit right, comfortable, it's lightweight. And I drew it out for them and I said, okay, this is the set that I want to create. And I think they bought into the vision. I got them to make a sample up first. And I said, okay, let me invest in this amount first of all.

And we're talking 30 per cooler shade. Wow. They really, really worked with me. And now we order thousands per cooler shade. So the evolution of the brand from the get-go, yeah, they really just trusted me. And what is it like now visiting your suppliers? What's the difference from that first trip to now?

Is it a very different experience? So now my team organize everything. We have supplier dinners lined up. They know us. So it's like visiting family. It genuinely is. And, you know, the factories that we work with, we have a lot of female workers. So it's just so nice to be able to go over and

visit. But this year I made the trip over there since COVID because every year I visited after being 26 and first going to China, visited every single year and then COVID hit. So I couldn't go. And this summer, most recently, I got the chance to go out there and it's so nice to see familiar faces, people that I've worked with for years and years and years. Wait, so talk to me a little bit about that. So if you were bringing in product from China when COVID hit, was that a nightmare? How did that affect your business? The disruption from COVID was wild. So from 2016, I'd say, the brand doubled every single year. And in COVID, it went from doing it 60% to 100%, like that amount of growth in one month.

What? The brand just absolutely exploded. It was already very well known. And by that point, we'd got traction. You know, again, for Mensum Online, people knew the brand. I started to introduce myself and they'd say, oh, I know Lulabels. And at that moment, I was like, okay, I'm on something here. And then COVID hit and the brand just blew up.

Having a team, I'm very fortunate that my team at the time were incredible. We'd worked right from the beginning on building out the vision, what we wanted the brand to be. It started off as just sending hair extensions. And the difference between just having a product brand and having a brand is having brand core values. And to install that within your team alone, I now know is a challenge in itself. To ensure that your vision is projected throughout each platform in your marketing team cohesively is a challenge in itself.

When the brand went viral, we just kept that momentum going. And then in COVID, when COVID hit, the team would just absolutely burn out. I couldn't hire fast enough. E-commerce just absolutely boomed. My staff were getting poached left, right, and center. They couldn't work fast enough. I was trying to hire. I was interviewing whilst at the time I was in the head of marketing position in the business. So I'm not only doing the head of marketing, I'm trying to recruit for warehouse staff to fulfill orders. I'm trying to hire customer service staff because orders weren't getting fulfilled in time because the influx of

orders that came through, my workers couldn't work fast enough. I look back and I think it's always a positive problem, but it was a problem. It was a real problem. The business had grown. Yes, we doubled every year, but it grew at a manageable rate. So when there was pressure on one position, I would hire that into two. And I just knew, I felt the brand. I knew where I needed staff at what point. COVID just blew that owl out of the park and every position there was strain on every single role. And what about supply? Like, did you ever worry you were going to run out of supply? Was it a difficult shipping and product like importing product or anything like that? We knew that it was a massive delay. So shipping containers were full. It's not

just my brand that exploded online in COVID. Every e-commerce company I know was seeing the growth that we were seeing because you were spending hours on your phone per day. That never happens in day to day. So when everyone was locked down, they were thinking, right, I've got all of this time. They're shopping, they're viewing, they're browsing. We were so social.

Everyone was on social media and we were showing them products that they could create from home. You know, that going back to what I said earlier about the salon look, we were offering that from home and people weren't feeling great in COVID. They wanted a little boost. They were wanting to invest in beauty hats. So yeah, the brand just really just went viral again in covid so we had to invest in double the amount because we knew that it took longer to get on the water and to get over to us so it was rinsing the company's cash because we were have to invest we had to invest even more heavily into stock which then meant that once COVID started to die down, we'd ship this much stock over. We outgrew our warehouse and had six to eight, at one point,

eight 40-foot containers in a shipping yard in Manchester, full of stock sat there because we knew we needed product to sell. So talk to me about your brand now. You've come out of the COVID wave. Yeah. Have things settled? How has your brand evolved since then? Because I know with us, COVID was huge and kind of the same thing. We didn't anticipate it would grow so much. We thought, OK, COVID, it's going to be so much of the unknown.

We don't know. We scaled like crazy, which was amazing. And then the years following has been a lot of course correcting and getting the business back on track in a place where our team aren't burned out and we actually feel like okay we're back in a rhythm again how has that looked for your business and where are you now with that yeah the rhythm like you just mentioned when you come out of a huge period of growth it takes time to catch up right so it took time for me and the brand and the team to catch up and think okay we're going to stabilize we're stabilized now so when we were in covid we were scrambling for that net so they might

sign up to a website that gave them five templates per week to help them with a blog post they were just spending the business's money because they needed help and I get it. So it took time for the brand to stabilize and over the years we've got rid of the mess that we got ourselves into in COVID. 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'm listening

to this nodding my head because we've had the exact same thing and i've actually never heard anyone talk about it but But even this year, when I started going through the businesses, cashflow and P&L, and I was starting to look at software costs, I'm like, how did we get into this place? Just this year alone, we've saved upwards of six figures

on so much irrelevant software. And I think it's like you say, you're going so fast, you're throwing money at the problem. Yeah. And that's what you do when you're growing, but it's unsustainable. It's completely unsustainable. And to have a team that was completely working from home, nobody knew if one person had bought

Photoshop or one person bought the Adobe Suite, if the other person had bought the Adobe Suite. So we were duplicating costs that didn't need to be duplicated. So we spent the year, this year was all about really honing in on those outgoings, making sure that we're pulling back on things that we didn't necessarily need. And that took a long time to stabilize after COVID. So every year you always look at the brand and think, okay, how can I make it better? Not only from a customer side of things, but from an operational perspective as well. So talk to me about what your team looks like right now at Lulabells. What kind of size team do you have? What kind of departments do you have in the company? What are

you focused on? So I now have 40 members of staff. Isn't that crazy? It's just wild. Does that like sound like feel crazy when you say that? And do you know what? They feel like family. So I genuinely feel like I have 40 best friends. I've got a warehouse team. I've got a customer service department, a marketing team, HR, finance department, which just seems absolutely wild to think that all of those people work for my brand, our brand, should I say. And how has your role shifted from in the beginning wearing every single hat, literally making the product yourself, being customer service? What does your role look like now in your day to day? Yeah, I think I can relate to

every single person in that business because I have done that role. So be it social media, videography, photography. I picked up a camera when I was 21 and thought, okay, I need to take a picture of that headpiece. So here goes. I have done every role in that business. So for me, right now, my role is primarily creative director. I not only founded the business, but I have a genuine passion for projecting the vision and ensuring that when our customers receive that product that they feel so involved in the brand for me I am huge on brand brand first over everything making sure that our customers are happy that they feel great when

they're wearing that hairpiece I've done every role in the business and it's just a natural progression to fall into what you enjoy the most and even though I understand finance and I understand HR it's not my forte so I gravitated towards the social brand event that side of the business so I set the direction do you know what I always say to my team like I set the direction and I let them thrive. Going back to what you said about team members and having 40 members of staff, I genuinely feel like when I hire somebody, I only hire somebody that can do a job better than me. I learn from my staff. They teach me so much. I started this business from a very young age. I've learned on the job. Yes, I know what I need to know now,

but I think that as the brand grows, it demands a different version of you. You always have to evolve. You always have to teach yourself new ways of working. What my role is right now might not be my role in two years time because the brand as it evolves and grows into multiple people just

demands a different version of you like for example crm management email marketing management wasn't a thing when i first started the business but it is now events wasn't a thing in covid but it is now everybody wants that human connection. That community is so important. And every year the brand needs something different. So I position myself where the business needs me the most. And I think that's what makes a great entrepreneur too, is someone that is able to be agile and just moves with the business and is willing to wear all the different hats. I feel like that every six months. I'm like, okay, where does the business need me now? And I'll jump in and then I'll pull out and I'll jump back in. Okay. So I want to ask you a question. Let's imagine someone's listening and they have in

their heart this desire to start a product-based company. They've got this idea for a product. They've been thinking about it for a really long time and they're listening to this and they're thinking, okay, Laura, what would your roadmap be? If I was to have this idea for a product and I was starting from scratch, but I have big ambitions to build, you know, a seven or eight figure product-based company, how do I start? What's my strategy? What's my roadmap? What would your advice be? Okay, first of all, be resourceful. That is number one. Number two, I would say proof of concept. You might think the product is amazing and you might use it every single day. But when somebody is parting with their hard earned cash, it needs to be great for them as well. You need to make sure that there's a thirst for that product. And once you get that and you get feedback from people, then you can start planning out, okay, how am I going to get the cash to even invest in this product?

And how is it going to work? I'd start there. What about marketing? So someone has a great idea. They start to get that proof of concept. Okay, I think this product will work. People are starting to buy it. How would you suggest in today's landscape

going about a marketing strategy for actually getting eyeballs and traffic and buyers because i know it's changing constantly yeah i would always say spend 50 of the business's money on the product spend 50 on marketing there is no point having a product if you can't market it or if you don't have the budget to market it start off on social media start off with word of mouth. Get your product out there. Push it in front of influencers, celebrities. If they love your product, they're naturally going to use it. That's the relationships that you want to thrive on building. People that genuinely love the product and would use it and talk about it. Word of mouth is not dead. If I love a product,

I'm going to tell you, if you say to me, okay, I'm really lacking volume in my hair. If I've used a product that I think that would give you volume, I'm going to recommend it to you because I, you know, I'm thinking I love this product. You're going to love it too. So if you genuinely think that your product is going to be successful, just go for it. And when you talk about spending on marketing, what does that mean? Are we talking about influencers, gifting? Are we talking ads? Where would you recommend a marketing budget going? Content first. I'm always content first. So it's a problem versus solution nowadays. You need to be creating a product. In a very saturated market, your product needs to cut through the noise.

It needs to be a product that is going to make somebody's life easier or make them feel great. If you do that, you're going to speak to your audience through content. So creating content that shows that problem versus solution, your customer wants to imagine that product making them feel great. So you need to do that. So invest in great content. Be resourceful with the budget that you've got. Try and create an organic audience first. Yeah, we are in such a saturated market at the moment, but if you use social media, it's free. If you do it in the right way, you can go viral. And how do you now think about going viral? Does team research trends do you know what works like because

I know for my brand like it's almost down to a science now because we've done it for so long I know exactly what's going to happen did you learn that for your brand have you taught your team that did you hire people that know it like how do you think about that now do you know what we don't actually get so hung up on going viral okay I know the business came from a viral video, but knowing your product and knowing that people love it, that's not the goal. The goal is to evolve the brand and cater to our audience already. And if people love the product, they're going to talk about it. And I guess that's where the brand is now, where I see the vision moving forward is you can't always bank on a video going viral to have a successful brand. Your product has to be great, first of all. So having a great product is number one. The virality, that will all come. You have to focus on your product being great first, and then your customers and your audience will allow for

the brand to be put out there and with a product-based business you have a huge following with your brand why do you think people follow your brand and other brands like it because from another perspective you could say well someone's already bought it you know they've made their purchase why would they want to follow you and keep up like how do you as a product as an e-com business stay relevant and create content that actually makes people want to follow and stick around and consume your stuff i mean there's probably so many hair extension brands out there but the things that we do different and that make us stand out from other hair brands is that we are very trend-led so going right back to the concept of being, you know, trend first, any new hairstyle that comes out, you can buy a hair piece that can

replicate that look. So it doesn't matter if your hair's thin or you're lacking volume. If you shop on our website, we have got a product that caters for that look that you desire. We create trend-orientated products. We look at what's out there on the market and we try and create that luxury look for less. And most recently we created a brush duo that we launched and it sold out in 48 hours. We literally manufactured thousands and it completely sold out because it was a product that could enable our audience at home to create that salon look for £15. So talk to me about a marketing campaign for a product like that. Let's say you've got those duo brushes coming out, £15 for this product.

When you've got this concept launching, talk to me about the way in which you and your team would think about a product launch like that. Are you creating a ton of content ahead of time? Are you warming up your audience? How do you think about that strategy? So when we were building the brand, we'd do these elaborate campaigns. And, you know, we'd have three different models in all different looks. And this was when the business was building its brand identity. But now the products speak for themselves.

So this Rush Hair Hacks set that we sent out to a hairstylist, she used the product in a video and the video went viral. Showing our audience how they can create the look that we are creating the product for enables them to realize I can do that from home. So I say to my team now, let's not get any models because these products were creating for girls to be able to do their hair from home. I was that girl once upon a time that couldn't even curl my hair. So to create a product that's pre-styled, pre-clip, you know, it's got the clips sewn on already that just clips in and go that's our audience we

need to create content that shows that so you've been doing this i was at 12 years yeah has there been a point where you've gotten bored and you're just like how much longer can i keep doing this like what does it look like to keep going in a business like you're in to scale a business you know day in day out it's the same products yes you're innovating but it's the same brand same products how do you keep your energy and excitement going for the brand okay so at the start of this year i'd say being 12 years in there was a natural evolution of the brand that you know it's like being on a hamster wheel i'm going and I'm going I'm going genuinely I love business I feel like I eat sleep and breathe the brand but it can get tiring when

you've done it for 12 years it can get tiring and there's moments that burnout has been real I've had burnout I've recovered from burnout and the lessons that I've taught myself are there's lots of things and lots of tips and tricks that I can give on how to get over burnout well I guess being genuinely passionate about your products is the number one thing that will keep you going 12 years on I love my product like my customer would love it and I create product for my audience that I love so if I'm genuinely excited about the product I'm genuinely excited about the business if I started a business selling washing machines would I be able to do it 12 years on probably not but I'm a hair extension wearer and I yeah every single day I'm finding ways to cut down my getting ready time so I guess

still being motivated to this day takes a lot 12 years in but I probably love the brand more than I did on day one now how do you not get distracted by shiny things oh boy there's so many shiny things that you can get distracted by sometimes social media makes you think that overnight success is a thing and i always say comparison is the thief of joy if you focus your attention on what everybody else is doing diluted focus is diluted results. You have to stay true to what you know works, what you know that you can provide, and that will be your niche. The reason why we are number one in the UK

is because I'm constantly backing and driving that vision. The team might change, but the vision never changes. It stays the same. And that's to create a product that makes our customers feel great, inspire confidence through hair, and ensure that they can create that salon 500 pound look for 25 pound at home. And the mission stays true always to my core values, which is I think why it's become so successful today. How do you instill those core values in your team? You know, a team of 40 people is not a small team. That has a lot of people and personalities to manage. How are you able to instill those values so that people do love the product and they live the brand values the way that you do? So at the end of every year, I create a strategy for the following year.

The business never stays still. It's constantly, like you said before, about you go where the business needs you the most. And I'll set the strategy at the end of every year and present it to the team and say, okay, this is the vision for 2024. This is going to be our mission. And for that year, I've spoken to you before about mini missions. So every month I put a focus, a spotlight on what we're focusing the business on. So January might be one vision. February will be a focus on another vision. And to do that, I've realized that that helps me with the overwhelm. So now when I look back at 2023, I think, oh my God, I can't believe we've accomplished

all these things. If I was to dump that on the team right at the start of the year, they would feel massively overwhelmed. So I break it down and I give them, so I'll give them the first six months of 2024 and I'll say, okay, this is our mission. This is where we're heading. And then specifically in the marketing team, I'll say, right, this is my vision for every single month for the first six months. This is where we're heading. So they can get into that zone of, okay, this is our message moving forward. And going back to what I said about set the mission and let them thrive, I now give them a wireframe and I'll say, this is my overarching strategy. You take that and run. Because remember going back to what I said about only ever hire staff that can do the job better than you. That's taken a long time to trust that that comes through as an output. And I feel like now I've got a great team of A players that truly I set the vision and

boy, do they thrive. And how do you hold people accountable to say, let's say revenue goals? You know, you've got this idea, you want to grow and you know that to grow, people need to have their own revenue goals and they need to be adding those goals. How do you hold them accountable to that? So that it's not just all falling on you, which I know a lot of entrepreneurs really struggle with. So structure, I have an incredible management team. So when the brand grew, I evolved each area of the business and I have a great manager that manages each department. So I've got a head of finance, a head of HR, a head of commercial, a head of marketing,

and they install the KPIs within their team. And then it's managing director that manages the whole vision. A managing director that manages their KPIs. And so if say revenue goals aren't being hit, is that something your managing director would then go and have a conversation with the team about? Yeah. So when I started the brand, I hate managing people. I'll be honest. It's not my thing. I'm creative and I love the brand side of things and I know where my strengths lie. And I think that's the biggest thing about being a business owner is putting your ego aside and thinking, I know that somebody else could do that job better than me. I'm a bit of a softie and I don't like telling people off. So I knew that I needed somebody to help me with that.

And when we came back from COVID, this is one thing in particular that made me realize, okay, I need to hire a head of HR. When we came back from COVID, nobody wanted to come back in the office. And I was like, but guys, you know, we're a creative team, like we need to get back in the office.

No, they were used to working from the pajamas at home, which I totally get and I could relate to them. I love working from home. So it was at that point where I thought, okay, I need a management team that can come and build structure into the team. And we're still our hybrid now. So we do two days working from home, three days working in the office. But I needed somebody to build structure into the business and grow it up. From being a bedroom business to where it is today, you have to implement structure and you have to put your ego aside and think, yeah, management isn't my forte, but I'll hold my hands up and say that it isn't because I know that there are areas of the business that I love and I'm very good at doing.

You're not going to be the master of everything and you'll learn that when you are the master at something and you're truly passionate about it that's when you thrive how do you let go of control and not micromanage all the little things oh my god if I told you a story right at the beginning when I tell me when I first hired my first member of staff I recently told my EA this story, and this is just me to a T. So I've never had a team before. It was my first member of staff. My sister used to help me fulfill orders. So my sister would help me on customer service

and fulfillment. So I had that side locked in. When I first hired my first member of staff, I was really big on the social media side of things. So I hired her and I said, right, right cake this is the vision that I want and I almost used to stand over her she'd be there at a laptop trying to do her work and I'd stand over and say that needs to be there this color needs to be this the brand needs to look like this and I don't know why I was so surprised that two months later she hadn't noticed it. Genuinely, I couldn't believe it.

I said to her, well, what happened? Please, can you tell me what I've done wrong? And she just said, I don't think that I can do the job like you want me to do it. I was wounded. What she was trying to say was, I very much micromanaged her. If there was ever a time where you could picture somebody micromanaging, that was me. I couldn't be further from that person now. And I think as you hire

people, you have to trust. I loved my baby so much. And I'd created this brand that it was so, it meant so much to me that having somebody take over the social media strategy, I was thinking, oh my God, I'm not ready yet. But you have to be, you have to learn to let go of elements of the business to focus on the next. Otherwise, if you're completely bogged down into one area of the business, how are you able to structure the vision? How are you able to see past that position?

So now, going back to what I said earlier set the mission and let them thrive and I only hire people that can do a better job than me and I set the overarching strategy they come on board and they just do their thing and I'm very fortunate that I do have a team now that thrive and what's your secret to having a team of eight players as there certain qualities in team members that you look for do you have a certain process when you interview them how can someone find their team of eight players people that they could trust to really run things trial and error okay trial and error i didn't get it right first time round and I didn't get it right second, third, fourth, fifth. You learn what to look for in interviews. I always ask the question,

where do you see yourself in three years time? I need to know that our visions align. If they say that they want to have their own business, great, but I can't probably get you to that. If they say they want to be head of department, they eventually want to be brand director. Great, let's figure out a way to get you there. I think I've learned every member of staff that comes on board, this is their career too. So what do they need from you? Yes, this is my vision, but I'm here for you as well. And let's thrive together. How can I get you to where you want to be it's a partnership it's not just a come work for me make me a load of money and that's it

that's not what I'm about I'm about let's work on this together you know if you screw up and you do something that's not so great okay what can we learn from this let's not do that again so at interview I will always say yeah where do you want to be in three years time and also what do you need from me as a business owner as a founder as somebody who you would want direction from how do you need to be managed so 12 years in tell me where you are with your brand right now. So Lila Bells is the number one premium synthetic hair extension brand in the UK. We have over 35 color shades.

We are basically hair goals through your letterbox. We are stocked on Pretty Little Thing, ASOS, Boohoo, and most recently Sephora Online online and tell me about the product range that you have we have every single style you could possibly want your hair to look like curly straight wavy synthetic hair extensions we also do human hair clippings as well we have hair tools hair care all the hair hacks lula bells hass has them. So if someone is a brand new to your brand and they want to start with one product, where would you recommend that they start? So our hero product, I would say, is our five-piece hair extensions. If you want hair goals, get yourself a five-piece set because it will give you va-va-voom. And can you re-wear it? Yeah.

So the synthetic hair extensions, it's a premium fiber. It's a mix of fibers that we've created that look exactly like human hair and you get it for £25. Wait, what? You get an entire head? Yeah, entire head of hair extensions for £25. It's beyond, it's that luxury product at an affordable price

we want to always be able to provide that hair salon look that salon worthy look for 25 pound but i will openly admit i'm not like the handiest with my hair like how hard is this to do yourself no you are our target audience okay we target the audience that has never worn hair extensions before and lacks that volume and just wants to wear a piece for a night out with the girls they just want to switch up their look we target that audience so if you've never worn hair extensions before if you're not great with curling your hair buy a set of hair extensions and you will feel great. The fact that they, they're literally confidence in a packet. Oh my God. I love this. Okay. And you've got a code for Boss Babe listeners?

Yes, I do. It's Boss Babe 20 for 20% off. So you can try the hair extensions and see how you feel. This feels like a no brainer. Okay. So tell me, where do you see the brand in the next couple of years? What have we got to look out for? World domination. Well, thank you so much for being here. If you could leave the listener with one piece of advice, whether in product-based, service-based, but they maybe are an early stage entrepreneur, what is one piece of advice you would leave them with? Entrepreneurship is a journey. Don't compare

your day one to somebody else's day 10. And you don't have to have it all figured out from the get go. Just go for it. And you will just thrive. Be passionate about the product. If it is a product or it is a service, be truly passionate about what you're offering people because that will come through and it will give you longevity in business. I love it. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me.