the bossbabe podcast - 408. How Maria Hatzistefanis, Founder of Rodial, Built a 9 Figure Viral Skincare Brand from Scratch

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Sit down with Natalie and Maria Hatzistefanis - bestselling author + founder of Rodial - to talk building a viral brand, influencer marketing, motherhood, and all things business growth. Maria shares the full behind-the-scenes stories of how she collaborated with Kylie Jenner, getting her products in the Oscars goodie bags, writing her three books, and the most pivotal moments in her business. If you’re a current or aspiring entrepreneur, this episode will inspire you to go all in. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Introduction + Meet Maria 1:20 - Maria’s Background 3:30 - Early Days of Starting a Skincare Brand 10:15 - Maria’s Viral Product 16:25 - Influencer Marketing 21:50 - Big Moments In Business 24:25 - Almost Going Bankrupt 32:30 - Motherhood 40:15 - Writing 3 Books 46:50 - Working With A Spouse + Prioritizing Your Marriage 53:00 - Living A Full Life 58:40 - Maria’s Morning + Skincare Routine 01:07:00 - Top 3 Product Recommendations RESOURCES + LINKS Join The Société: Our Exclusive Membership To Help You Build A Freedom-Based Business. Get Our Weekly Newsletter & Get Insights From Natalie Every Single Week On All Things Strategy, Motherhood, Business Growth + More.  Drop Us A Review On The Podcast + Send Us A Screenshot & We’ll Send You Natalie’s 7-Figure Operating System Completely FREE (value $1,997)  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Maria Hatzistefanis: @mrsrodial

What kind of tips do you have for any women listening who might have multiple kids under 10 and they're feeling like, oh my goodness, I don't know what I'm doing. Are they going to resent me for having a business? Like what would you say to those women? If I compare my relationship with other moms, didn't have jobs and they were stay at home moms and they were spending all the time with their kids, I do not see any difference. Can you take me back to the early days of even wanting to start? From an idea and from getting fired. That's how it all started. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I had nothing and I had to make it happen. What has kept you wanting to continue growing this business and remain CEO versus selling the company? It's been a journey and I haven't even thought about that. Maria Hatsdy-Safarnes is a trailblazing entrepreneur and the founder of the global beauty brand, Rodial. From launching Rodial with just one product to building into a multi-million dollar empire,

Maria's journey is a masterclass in bootstrapping, community building and brand innovation. Maria is also masterclass in bootstrapping, community building, and brand innovation. Maria is also a mother, a podcast host, an influencer, author of three best-selling books, and a Dragon's Den judge. Well, welcome to the podcast again. So nice to be here. I'm so excited to be able to actually be in person. It's such a big difference. I was just saying, yeah, you were on our 30th ever podcast. Well, you've come a long way as we all did. Yeah. So you just shared with me you're celebrating 25 years of rodeo. Yes. Tell me about that. Tell me about this journey 25 years how does it feel yeah it's it's been a

crazy journey and it's funny a lot of people ask me did you ever think you would be where you are today and I had no idea I mean you know I was born and raised in this tiny island in Greece and I was always passionate about fashion and beauty when I was eight years old I remember leaving my home and going to walking to the one and only news agent that was selling all the international fashion magazines so I would save all my pocket money and going by Vogue Harper's all the magazines go back home read them them, absorb everything. And even though I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life,

I knew the type of woman I wanted to be. So that was where it all started. And I could visualize myself having this life, but I had no idea that I would be in beauty, that I would have my own business. This all happened. And to see where it's come now, did you still think you'd be doing it

25 years in? That's another good question. I think there's a lot of people in the industry, a lot of serial entrepreneurs who say, I'm going to build this business. I'm going to sell it in five years and then start something new. For me, it was, I am so excited to do what I'm doing. I'm going to take it a day at a time. The business is self-funded. We never got investment. We're still private. So there was never really a pressure to exit or an agenda to achieve certain things.

It was, we're having fun. It's doing great. Let's just grow it. And 25 years later, here we are. But there was no plan. You you know that's a funny thing oh I love okay I have so many questions for you I am I love what you've built and you're one of those entrepreneurs that I really look up to because you've built such an amazing amazing business but from what I've gathered also from reading your books you've also just built a really

full life your life hasn't always just just been about your've also just built a really full life your life hasn't always just just been about your business you've built a really full life and I think that's such an amazing example so I want to get into all of the things can you take me back to the early days of even wanting to start a skincare brand like where where did you begin? Did you just have the idea and then it snowballed? How did that start? When I was at university, that was Athens, Greece, I was studying English literature. And I wasn't really interested in studying. I wanted to work and make money and be in the thick of things. And I applied and I got a job as a freelancer for Seventeen magazine and that was my first interaction with beauty so I was doing beauty features and trying new

products and going and interviewing people in the beauty industry and that that was the first time that I started seeing beauty products from the point of view of not just the consumer, but analyzing them. And at the time there was nothing, you know, we're talking 25 years ago, over 25 years ago. Everything was a basic moisturizer, a cream, a serum, that was all, for all skin types, for everything, one size fits all. And I thought there must be something more exciting we can do within the beauty industry. But at the time I was 18, it wasn't the right time for me. I wasn't even thinking I would do my own business. I just saw the gap. I continued my studies. I wanted to move to New York. I don't know, I had a dream and made it happen. I wanted to live there.

And I started business while I was in New York. I was at Columbia Business School. I did an MBA. And when I graduated, I thought, like all my classmates, that I wanted to go into finance. There's a lot of peer pressure when you are in one of those schools. And I got a job with a company called Salomon Brothers, first in New York and then brought me to London. So I'm doing finance, which was a lot of analyzing companies and doing presentations and a lot of M&A activity. And it was actually quite fun. and doing presentations and a lot of M&A activity.

And it was actually quite fun. But I found that two years into it, I needed to care about the company that I was analyzing. So when it was a fun company, it was all good. And then I started getting insurance companies and banks. I'm like, I don't like to analyze this. It's not interesting. So I started losing my excitement and I became a very bad employee, showing up late, I'm not doing my work properly.

And not surprisingly, one day I got fired. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me. So that was the time that I thought, I don't want to go back to finance. I feel that I have something to offer in the world of beauty, going back to the gap in the market. And that's how it all started, from an idea and from getting fired. I love this. So from going to university, moving to New York and moving to London, what was your upbringing like that inspired that level of independence? What did you have parents that really supported you? Did you see entrepreneurship? Like how did that shape those big decisions you made? My parents were always very supportive, but they were in such a different area.

They are both teachers. They are retired now. And I had no inspiration from entrepreneurs in my family. My parents never understood what I was doing. They always thought I was crazy. They were supporting me. They were like, if you're passionate about this, go for it. And I always knew every time what I wanted to do, even if it wasn't the right thing. I had a passion and a drive for it. So they supported me psychologically, but then they didn't know to show me the way.

I had to figure it out all myself. I feel similarly. I feel like my family still to this day are like, what do you do? Like, it's so hard for them to comprehend because I know for them, they didn't even have that level of opportunity. So it's so interesting. And it's that whole conversation of, are we born like this or are we made like this? And I truly believe I just kind of came out like this, like, nope, I'm going to go do my own thing.

I'm going to go forge my own path. And it sounds like you were similar, you know, going and reading those international magazines. You had this drive inside of you that you wanted to leave and go do something bigger? Yeah, 100%. I feel that when you have nothing and you try to make something out of yourself, the drive is bigger. I feel that if I was born in a family of entrepreneurs and we had businesses and the money was flowing, maybe I wouldn't be as motivated as I am today, but I had nothing and I had to make it happen.

I completely agree. I feel the same way. I think about what your business requires from you in those early days. I mean, it is a hustle. And I just think if I grew up with a lot, I probably wouldn't, I don't know, but I don't think I would have had that grit in me to just keep pushing and being resourceful, especially when you have a business that takes no funding you have to be so resourceful that looking back I'm like oh I'm kind of glad I grew up like that do you feel like that way totally I mean I'm grateful for everything my parents did but they had no idea what was going on so it it helped me it just you have to figure it out you have to hustle i think that hustle is something that i learned since i was you know i graduated from school and and went into the world of university and working and i realized you know i have to apply for that job and i have to go

out and meet people and i have to go and start my business and I have to go and educate myself on how do you even start a business and put yourself out there and it's a hassle every single day. Truly. So when you started your business, when would you, at what point would you say you started to feel like, okay, this business is really getting some traction like this could be a serious real business um it was year five um we were doing okay the first five years we just moved into a proper office I used to work from home and not in the cool work from home days you know when I was starting my business on my own working from home wasn't that glamorous so we just moved to into our first office and we were going to launch our first anti-aging serum

so i get the brown box from the lab open the box a beautiful serum i tried it felt amazing pumping lifting hydrating everything i wanted from a serum the designers put together a white bottle with a name anti-aging serum by Rodial and I said how are we going to launch this there's so much competition out there how we're going to compete with all the big brands they have advertising budgets they have celebrities will go nowhere so going through the ingredients one of the ingredients related to viper venom so i say to my team let's call it snake serum and they were like oh my god you're gonna take us out of business what are you talking about but we were a small company we had nothing to lose so we capitalized on the name snake serum we made the product black

we did the photo shoot with snakes uh sent out a press release and that was our first ever viral product in a world that we didn't have social media at the time so virality could only happen through press and the product went viral it was picked up by Daily Mail in the UK. Then it went to the China Post, the Japan Times. It went viral. And suddenly from selling a few hundred snake serums a week, we started getting orders for 10,000 pieces. So that was the moment that i thought

oh my god this can actually be something big wow and how at that point did you even because i'm my entrepreneur hats like that's a lot of money to fund 10 an order of 10 000 like how did you think about funding and supplying all of this demand that started coming your way? When we started getting those orders, we had to negotiate with some of the new partners to prepay 50% of their order. And because they all knew we were a small company, we managed to make it happen. But it is a legitimate question. Like you have to keep up with production and make sure you have the stock that's amazing and was that the start of you really thinking about I mean it's

such an interesting marketing strategy per product right like you go viral with one did you start thinking about how can I inject this into all my products because your products from what I see it doesn't look like you've ever looked at what anyone else is doing you've always well maybe you've looked and thought I want to do everything but that and done something very different and so did that start the beginning of the way you were doing things yeah 100% so after we had the success of snake serum the next product couldn't be a lavender oil. You know what I mean? We need to keep up.

And so with various ways, research became a big part of the business. The next big launch was the Dragon's Blood Sculpting Gel with a whole range. Then the B-Venom. And we continued with that theme of unusual ingredients for targeted treatment. So that's how we've always worked. What's interesting is there was a time, probably seven years ago, that I was following all these Instagram accounts, all these beauty brands. And this color was very

trending. The millennial pink. I'm sure you remember the days. Everything needed to be that beige-y, pinkish hue. And looking at all the products that were picked up by journalists and everyone was talking about, they were on social media and they looked so beautiful. And looking at our products, you know, they're the opposite. Bright corals and bright yellows. And for a while, for a few days, I sat down and I thought, oh my God, what are we doing? Do we need to repackage? Do we need to change the brand? I felt we were so off what everything else was happening. But then we sat down, we had a big brainstorming with a team, we redefined who the Rodial woman is. And which I just decided at that point, I unfollowed every other beauty brand. So I wouldn't get all that noise coming to me. And we decided we are rodeal, we are bold, we are unapologetic,

we use unique ingredients no one else is using and we're gonna stick with that. This is our DNA. Sometimes we will be on trend, sometimes we will not. But we need to be who we are and then that way we'll attract the right audience. I love that so much.

And it really goes to show that you live your core values too and not pivoting just because other people are doing that. And I remember that it was seven years ago when it was the flat lays and it was such a different age of Instagram. The flat lays, all the nude pinks and all those, you you know just so delicate and bright white yeah it was yeah it was such a such a moment but um yeah we persevered then and it's all about staying in your

lane yeah and knowing who you are it's super important so speaking on instagram i feel like you guys were really one of the first brands that were pioneering influencer marketing brand marketing on social media was that your decision to get on there early as all brands we we got on instagram when everyone got on instagram um tiktok i got on got on TikTok a little bit earlier than the brand just because I was bored in the pandemic and I started doing a whole bunch of videos. Some fun, some, you know, a bit, I cringe when I watch them now,

but you know, it is what it is. But I feel that we definitely want to do our own thing and be the brand who, you know, we recently had this viral video, which was the Banana Lowlighter, one of our bestsellers. It was a computer generated video that showed our product in a Knightsbridge building coming out with a giant hand and then going on top of some black London cabs and turning them banana yellow. So, you know, for me, that was a moment that went viral. It got, I don't know how many millions of views. But for me, that was something we all sat down.

We said, let's do something fun with the banana low lighter, with London, with the taxes, with something that's computer generated, that can be really cool. So, you know, with social media, it's all about learning and unlearning the rules, because the thing is, the moment you learn the rules, you implement them, everyone else starts doing the same thing and we all end up doing the same thing trying to acquire the same customer customer acquisition costs are super high and so yes you can do paid marketing but you also have to do unique and exciting things there's no formula it's not easy but it's all about experimenting and trying new things and some things will work others want and hopefully you know you'll get a 10 success and that's good enough and when when you were on instagram especially in the beginning and kind of forge i feel like a lot of brands and you you guys were forging your way through, what does it look like to partner with influencers?

Does it have an ROI? What does it look like to actually brand ourselves? Was it Kylie Jenner you guys worked with back then? Yeah. So I don't even consider her an influencer. She, yeah, she is. She's Kylie Jenner. Yeah. She's in a league of her own yeah so um what happened was that was about 10 years ago and we over the years we work with a lot of makeup artists including Mario and um we gifted Mario a whole bunch of products from our brand Nip & Fab. And he used one of the Nip & Fab, the glycolic pads on Kylie Jenner. It was the time she was 16. She was just about getting into beauty and posted on her grid about the glycolic pads, how much she loved them by Nip & Fab.

And suddenly, we had no idea this was happening. It was organic. We're getting a lot of calls. We're getting a lot of attention from people saying, what is this Nip & Fab brand? We want to find out more. And it came to a point that I sat down with my team and we thought maybe we should take this connection to

the next level. So it was Monday evening. We say, let's just write an email to Kris Jenner. We write her an email. We thought we're never going to hear back. And then go to work the next morning and here's an email by Kris Jenner saying, you know, let's talk, let's do something. And on the back of that, we did two campaigns with Kylie Jenner for Nip and Fab. One, she came to London and we did 24 hours of lots of activation. So for me, the fun and exciting part of our collaboration wasn't that, okay, take this product and put it on Instagram because I feel this is done a lot. We brought her here. We did a photo shoot. we organized press interviews for her, we organized a Q&A with a live audience

at Westfield, we did a tea party with InStyle magazine which was around at the time and we had a lot of influencers and press. So we created 24 hours of activations and that gave us a lot of content and it was the first time that someone like Kylie Jenner did a project and a campaign and an ambassadorial role that that went beyond to I'm gonna send you that product and post it so I feel that created a lot more depth in our relationship and it gave us a lot more assets to talk about that's so smart to think about it that way and I also I feel like brands have definitely started doing that a lot more in the last few years with the brand trips and the experiences but I still don't feel like you see that as much it's still a lot of the transactional brand relationships, which I think is so smart. What are some other moments you feel

like in your brand's history, the snake serum being one, that kind of campaign where it feels like something just out of the blue hit and you didn't even think it was going to hit like do you have a few of those another one was um when we were still quite young it was around the time of the snake serum that we got a call from the um one of the after oscar parties uh to participate in a goodie bag which you know these days you don't even think about it twice a A goodie bag, if it's a cool party, you participate. But we were a small company and they were asking for 5,000 pieces of snake serum. That was a lot of money. And we would send the stock, but then you get no guarantees that you'll get anything out of it. So's 5 000 products that you have to just forget about and we were lucky because that year there were so many celebrities that attended and got the goodie bag from um jennifer lopez to jennifer aniston to tom cruise um everyone was there

and then what happens with the celebrities is they all have contracts with the big brands. But then when they go and do an interview with a press, they always have to mention a product that's not part of the brand deal. So they all got to try snake serum. And because the product is great, but probably they remember the name. It was something unusual. They wanted to talk about something new and exciting the the product is great but probably they remembered the name it was something unusual they wanted to talk about something new and exciting to the press so on on the back of of this oscar goodie bag um um initiative we got a lot of press you know in some of the major us magazines so again that was another moment that brought a lot of attention to the brand.

Yeah. One of those moments where you're like, okay, I'm going to try it. It's such a big investment. I'm going to try it. Let's see if it works out. Yeah. And it did, but equally it could have been 5,000 products that are wasted and yeah, people took them and use them, but nothing happened. So, you know, it's a risk, but I always say you have to take a risk. Can you think of any risks that didn't pay off uh yes it was um that was a few years ago that we almost went bankrupt and I talk about it on my second book it's the introduction of how to make it happen. We were given an opportunity to launch 120 SKUs within four months. It was an exclusive with a store. They gave us tons of space

to expand into a new category that I wasn't that keen on. But my team said, you know, it's a great opportunity. It would be amazing. You know, we're looking at millions of an opening order. And even though my gut feeling was telling me, don't do it, I committed to doing it. It was a hard category. A lot of it was self-tan and a few other products. And we ended up within three months being delisted in most of the stores.

So we took back the stock and we were sitting on all this stock and we spent all this money to buy it. So there was a point that we couldn't pay our bills and I had to pick up the phone and speak to every single supplier that we had, try to get terms and call the bank, try to get some credit lines until we sorted ourselves out, try to sell through the stock in alternative channels. So at the end, it was fine. It took me nine months to clean it up. But I honestly, I had so many sleepless nights. And that the one lesson that taught me was you have to go with your gut feeling.

And I'm going to be open with ideas, but when it comes to such big cash commitments and puts the company in such a big financial risk, at the end of the day, I'm going to be the one there sorting out any issues. So I just have to be 100% comfortable with that decision. So, yeah, it was traumatic, but I feel, you know know it's a lesson and I've learned a lot and you know uh we've we've come out of it better and and more resilient let's say in that situation I definitely think there's this perception that when you grow this huge brand and you know you have this big team you're not as involved but like you say when a situation like that happens you're the one with the sleepless nights you're the one resurrecting this for nine months and I think that's just so important to highlight because I think in business there really

isn't a like set it forget it you walk away like not when you're that involved in the company so what is your day-to-day still like right now with the business and like are you the one that you know when something does go wrong you're the one fixing it in that sense when it's that grander scale um yeah um 100 well first of all I am I'm the CEO of the business and I still own the business with my husband. It's a family company. We don't have external investment. So it's very different when you have a founder who has stepped back and there's a different CEO

and that founder is more there and has a small percentage of the business and does more of the creative stuff. I am a full-on founder and CEO. There's no one else that does the job. It's my job. My favorite parts are the creative elements, you know, sitting down, have brainstorming meetings. I also love the retail part of it, meeting with the sales teams, the commercial teams,

looking at the initiatives, new business. I'm excited about new business. But I find that a lot of what I do is human resources and making sure that the team is right, making sure we hire the right people, there's the right fit, making sure that everyone's happy, we have a culture that everyone likes to come to work. And I do see my job as a firefighter a lot of times. So one day I will be having urgent meetings on a design issue that has come up.

Or another week I'm focusing on our web team. Or there's an issue with a stock that I have to jump in and support. But the good thing is because I've started the business from scratch and I've grown with it, I pretty much have seen every single department. I don't know the details of every department, some of them more than others, but I can give them the common sense that is needed and try to steer the situation into the best resolution. What has kept you wanting to continue growing this business and remain CEO versus selling the company? Because I'm sure there's been so many opportunities. You know, it's been a journey and I haven't even thought about that. But

we have two brands, Rodial and Nip & Fab. When I first started, I was very much involved in both brands. Now I have taken a step back on Nip and Fab I have a different team driving it we're still sharing the same office but it's a different team um and we have had um requests for both brands from from different parties um I feel that with Rodial I'm very much connected I am Mrs Rodial I'm very much connected I am Mrs. Rodial after all it's the business that I started so I'm much closer to that and it would be very hard for me to let go but you know we'll see if I wake up one day and I feel that I've had enough and I don't have the excitement anymore we'll see but until then you know as I say with any job that you do, you have good days and bad days.

It doesn't matter. You know, I've had good days and bad days when I was a startup. Now, 25 years later, I still have good and bad days. You know, it's never perfect. It's a different type of problem, but it's never perfect. So and sometimes I feel, you you know I just love solving problems and if everything is perfect I'm a little bit bored so I always you know maybe crave a little problem or two and that makes you think from a different point of view and become more creative I love that so much and

it's almost like when you have that conversation and people would say well well, what would you be doing if you did get bought out? And it sounds like you're like, well, I'd want to be doing the same thing. Like I want to be doing this. Well, for sure. And as I said before, I was never going to be a serial entrepreneur. If I sold my business one day, I don't know right now if I would have the same energy to start a business again. Or if I would start one, it would be something different. Like I've done two seasons of Dragons Den Greece, which is the equivalent of Shark Tank in the US.

And I've actually invested in a few businesses that have nothing to do with beauty. And it's interesting because everyone thought I would go into Dragon's Den and invest in more beauty companies. And for me, the next step and the exciting thing would be to discover and learn and be a student in a different industry that I don't know. So never say never, but I'm definitely interested in a wider variety of industries. I love anything vegan. I'm almost vegan, 98% of the times.

And I like nutrition. I like health. I like wellness. So I have a lot of other interests that I like to do outside beauty. So yeah, we'll see. this day yeah so going back again um how old was your business when you started having kids so I started the business and then I had kids okay um and when i had my first son um the business was around for has been around for a couple of years i remember i was working at home and i had a couple of employees at that point who would come in i had a home office and we would all work from there and then I would also have

some time with my son but I did get some support to help me because I needed some time to be on the business and work I couldn't be doing both at the same time so I feel that I because I had my kids and I had another boy two years later so I have two boys I find that I had my business and then when the kids arrived they needed to fit in what was going on and you know as a mom you always have times of guilt you know I wasn't able to see this or you know see that or experience everything they were going through but that's a sacrifice we all have to make if we want to have a career if we want to have a business we need to put the time there but I find you know for me it was doing my work at the office and when my office work finished I needed to be at home in the moment with the kids and even if I only had two hours these two hours needed to matter because I feel

sometimes you know if you're on a weekend if you're with the kids all day sometimes like okay I'm so tired now just watch something on your iPad or do something else and I feel you know if I had two hours I needed to be two hours with them being involved and having those conversations and and feeling like we're connecting and I'm a mom so it's it's challenging but um you know you have to have your priorities and there are sacrifices. I love talking about this because I'm definitely in the thick of it. I have a two-year-old.

And I had my business before she came along too, but it changed everything for me. I had no idea what to expect. And so I feel like I'm very much in the thick of figuring out what all of this harmony and balance looks like. And what you said about that presence, I think is so important because you're always going to have the guilt. But I do feel like if you're present with work, the guilt kind of goes away a bit. And if

you're present when you're at home, the guilt goes away. But when I'm at work thinking about being home or at home thinking about being work, the guilt starts to come in and so I'm just curious because you have really grown this business alongside watching your kids grow up what kind of tips do you have for any women listening who might be in the thick of it say they have multiple kids under 10 and they're growing their businesses and they're feeling like oh my goodness I don't know what I'm doing am I gonna mess up my kids are they gonna resent me for having a business like what would you say to those women well I can tell you now my boys uh they are 19 and 21 now um I have spent a lot of time with my work and they have

seen me work and if I compare them if i compare my relationship with them with other moms that didn't have jobs and they were stay-at-home moms and they were spending all the time with their kids i do not see any difference between the relationship that i have with them compared to my stay-at-home mom friends and their relationship with their kids. So if that's any consolation, I feel that if your career, your job is something that is really important to you, it's something that you need to persevere with and do the sacrifices. And your kids are going to admire you for what you do and you may not see it when they're young because all they want is

your time and they want things from you all the time but when they get older I feel there's this appreciation and it does get better there is a point that it does get better when they're bit older older. I mean, my teenagers, I remember when we would all go back home when they were, say, 13. And I would go back home from work and we'd sit down and say, okay, hey, guys, you want to talk? They're like, no, me neither. And we all kind of took our iPads and did our thing. But, you know, it's something we all have to go through. But I don't feel that it's necessary to sacrifice your dreams because you're guilty. I feel there's ways that we can get organized.

I've always trusted people and I trusted having someone to support with the kids, any help I could get. Some people have families. My family is back in Greece and I live in London, so I didn't have that luxury. But I would always make sure I had someone there, whether that was a housekeeper, a nanny, someone that I trusted and I trained to make sure that they're there and give them the best support while I wasn't there. I think that's so reassuring to hear because I do feel like you know our generation of running businesses and having kids there isn't necessarily you know a long blueprint of what this looks like and how this has been done so I think it's so reassuring to hear actually there's there's been no difference and comparing them you know they're proud of what I've created and do you feel like because I know at the beginning we were talking

about you know growing up with nothing creates a big drive in you and now your kids obviously have grown a bit with a very different life to how you grew up how have you thought about instilling in them that sense of drive and ambition have you thought about that um it's very hard to instill someone else ambition um because you know I find sometimes you have it sometimes you don't and and that's that. And I have two boys that are very different in both their personality as well as their level of ambition. But for me, it's important to just have those conversations at home and talk about, we talk about business. You know, my husband and I talk about business and they listen. And sometimes we try to engage them, try to make them think big about their careers. And I think for me, just

having those conversations, you cannot guarantee that if you're a hustler, your kid is going to be a hustler too. You can't guarantee that. But at least if you're having those conversations and you're showing them good examples and you lead by example, hopefully they will pick up some of that. Yeah, I definitely it's something that I'm thinking about too. I'm like, OK, I know where I got all of my drive from. How do I create a little bit resilience in my kids? Because it's such a different world, I think, to grow up in. So it's like, it's so top of mind. 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 um so another thing i want to ask you about is you've written three books which how you've done that alongside everything is incredible um your third book so your first book was how to be an overnight success and i feel like that was such a business manual i remember talking to you about that i love that book i think i consumed it in like a weekend it's one of those that was like okay i need it all um tell me about your second and third books and how they differ so my first book how to be an overnight success it's um my story from getting fired to starting a business to growing the business where um it is today and all the challenges um that i have gone through um what i love about the feedback that i'm getting is

a lot of um people who read it say we cannot believe how honest you are about your challenges and I think that's one of the my trademarks in all my three books I am very honest about every single challenge I can't go out there and say well if you have passion you work hard that's all you need well there's a lot of other things that you need and I talk about them in the book the second book was I was getting a lot of feedback from the first one from people saying I love your first book but can you write something that's motivational for everyone whether they are in the business world or not so my second book make it happen is a motivational guide that takes you from let's say you have zero motivation it's find your inspiration set your goals and it's a 10-step plan on how to get motivated and achieve your goals and also i have a chapter there on how to combine

work and family because that wasn't something i covered in the first book, and I got a lot of requests. So it's in book number two. And then the third book is called How to Live Your Best Life. And that is all about being successful while being zen about it so it's it's a manifestation motivation guide so it takes you through the steps to success but also takes you through things like when we compare ourselves to others and we self-sabotage it talks about boundaries and how these are important for us to be happy so it's how to be happy while you're chasing success in a way so it's a it's a little bit different it's more zen a lot of people say oh i prefer your third book it's the third book is very different but it still has examples from my work um all three books have examples from working with the kardashians because there's

always a drama there and how we dealt with it. Wait, can you share a drama? One of the dramas, yes. So we were doing the second campaign with Kylie Jenner in LA and she had a stylist, Monica Rose at the time, and she brought all these fabulous dresses that she borrowed for the day. And there was one dress that she wore by the British designer David Coma. It was half black, half white. She wore it at the blue carpet, the red carpet, we called it blue, for Nippon Fab. And the stylist comes in and says

um i need to ask you something and we're like what um well um kylie wants to wear this dress she has a date with taiga in the evening they go to nobu and she would like to wear the dress so we would like you to buy the dress for Kylie and it wasn't a cheap dress it was quite an expensive dress and you know if you think about we're a small company we did pay a lot of money for the campaign but you know every dollar counts and that was you know thousands of dollars and it's like you know that sort of goes past the point of the campaign. But because we didn't want to ruin the relationship, we said, OK, you know, we'll buy the dress. She can wear it.

And then I called Kris Jenner the next day and I said, thank you for everything. I hope, you know, you guys were happy. I'm going to send a courier to pick up the David Kohn dress. Thank you very much and I sent the courier and because she wore the dress you know we bought the dress yeah and I just needed a memento of our time together so that dress is sitting in my closet right now oh my goodness you're like have you ever worn it have you you gotten anywhere? I actually did. I did just after the campaign. I haven't worn it since, but it is sitting there and it's sort of a piece of history,

right? You're like, listen, if I bought it, I need to. I have to know because my impression of Chris is that she is just an absolute boss. Like, what is she like? She is a boss. And that's about that. She is the best manager ever. I feel that her daughters are very, very fortunate

to have a manager like her because she, obviously, she cares. They're her kids, but her business sense, it's very unique. But also, you know, she's very smart. So with both the campaigns we did with them, they only signed, we were negotiating with them for six months. They only signed the contract 48 hours before they were about to get into a plane.

So there's a little bit of an uncertainty that goes with that and obviously I get it something better may come along and they don't want to have that commitment uh but she's very smart and boss-like and yeah she she runs a very tight ship over there the Kardashians yeahians yeah i always i always look at that and i think people have so many opinions and i just think you know you can say what you want but no one builds an empire like that without running a tight ship and being very very good at what you do you know they say they don't have talent and i look at the empire they've built and i just think that in itself is a talent to me to build an empire like that I think I think

it's incredible um okay I know I flip-flopping a lot I want to go back to the family conversation um because I I know that you mentioned it about it coming through in threads in your second and third book and people asking you a lot about that working with your husband that must have been a really interesting dynamic I tried it for about six months and I was like yeah we're probably going to get divorced if we keep going so let's go on our separate paths and I think that in itself is so admirable so can you talk to me about how you've both managed this um so when I started the business my husband was a co-owner but he wasn't involved in the day-to-day running of the business he had another job um and there was a time and he was in the finance industry when

everything collapsed um he said to me well I own 50% of this business, so I'm going to come and be the CFO. And at the beginning, I thought, oh my God, this is such a bad idea, because I always felt it's my company, even though he was a co-owner, I always felt this is my thing, that everyone knows me, knows what I want from the business, and I was really scared how this dynamic would work. The good thing is that we're extremely different, and there were enough departments in the business that we have almost zero interaction. He deals with finance, operations. He's very good with tech and IT and contracts, legal, everything, everything that I don't want to deal with.

And in a way, I didn't know how that would work, but it's worked fine because we're both very independent. It's not that we wake up in the morning and we get in the car and say, hey, darling, you know, let's go to work together. We have our different meetings. We have our different appointments. Everyone goes to work whenever they need to. We have our separate meetings, even in the office that we meet different teams.

And the conversations are very different. So I feel because of that reason reason it works because we're not on top of each other we we have very very different skills yeah um and so for for my point of view because i've had a lot of people managing the um sort of cfo duties over the years. And, you know, when someone resigned, it was like, oh my God, you know, it's a crisis. And he was, you know, we were discussing all this. So in a way, I was happy to just have a family member come in and take over this part that was always a little bit challenging for me. Every time left like oh my god what are we doing now have to recruit and have to get involved with that side of the business um so yeah it's it was

scary at the beginning but it's it's working and how long have the two of you been married um so this is it is actually a 25th year anniversary this year. You need to think big. It's a lot of 25s, right? We've been together since university. So we've been together forever. And so how have the two of you, what are your secrets? How have the two of you navigated building this huge company together, bringing a family into the world together, building your emp company together bringing a family into the world together building your empires together how have you navigated staying together and prioritizing your marriage because

that's not easy um yeah I mean I wish I have um a recipe to share with you I you know I listen to people saying oh we have date nights and we do nothing like that. I feel that we have a lot of similarities in terms of we kind of don't like to go out that much. So we're home buddies and we like to be after work to be at home with the kids. And then, you know, we like of sharing um a similar how do I say this way of living like if one wanted to party every night and the other wanted to stay home and watch Netflix that would be an issue but I feel because we both want to stay in and watch Netflix that works so the two of you have you always been intentional about talking about what your shared vision is for your lives um I don't think we ever had the time to do

that we um yeah we we may but not there's no structure to it so let's just you know sit down and have a meeting it's oh you know wouldn't be nice to you know like I said to you we have the place at the Cotswolds and you know I think maybe property brings us together because it that was a project to find it to you know when you buy a property as a couple you have to both like it and that that's a challenge I find that finding property that you both like to be a challenge and and we got that and then we spent time decorating it and make it our own and I feel you know projects like that brought us together and without necessarily sitting down and having a vision board about what were like with the life in cotswolds on the weekends look like it was more

about okay well wouldn't be nice to have a house there and we manifested that i love that you're you were like i'm i'm not just to give this advice because I think I should. Like, here's how we've done it. And I really, really like that because I actually do think in today's age, a lot of people are just giving so much advice that maybe they aren't necessarily following. So I love how honest your response was. Like, we didn't have time for that. I love, love, love that. So when it comes to, we kind of started with this at the beginning and it seems

like that was also a big theme of your third book when it comes to living a full life a good life how have you been able to build something like that alongside having this a huge company how has it not consumed every part of your being? And how do you still find the time for yourself and living a life you want to live alongside that? To be honest with you, I feel we still work too much. I would like to work less. But, you know, it is what it is. There's a lot of responsibilities. You know, I do see some friends of mine who they don't work or they have, you know, more freelance type of jobs that they have more time to be away for the whole summer or take longer holidays. And, you know, don't take me wrong, I would love to do that at some point and

kind of take, you know, take a step back a little bit. So, you know, it's hard to do it right now because there's a lot of demands in the business. But having our weekends off and that's sort of a great escape and something that we can look forward to, even if we cannot travel, if we cannot fly, we know that every Friday after work, we'll drive to the courts holds we'll be there for the weekend um we'll meet friends you know we'll hang out we'll be in nature and for me that's something that really keeps me going when at times i'm stressed during the week i know i'm gonna have this beautiful weekend um in nature um so that's that and then planning fun things to do uh sometimes we'll plan a fun family holiday um months in advance or a last minute thing oh let's let's go and do this

um so i feel you know it's important to always have things that you look forward to do um if there's nothing that you look forward to you kind of have to sit down and say okay well let's just plan something um so back in um back in april we were so um overworked like january to march we're working non-stop we had zero holidays and so we booked the last minute trip to um somewhere warm um and and that was booked a week in advance and it was just my husband and i um the boys weren't interested anyway um and we went when it was a last minute thing and it was it was great so some things you plan others it's you know you both feel burned out so we decide to do a last minute thing but there's always something like plan a dinner

like yesterday we haven't been out for a while and said okay let's let's go for dinner tomorrow and and now when we finish the podcast I'm gonna go back and we're gonna walk in Notting Hill and it's a beautiful day here in London so we'll sit outside and have a meal and it's not something we do very often uh but you know we have to make an effort to do something that takes you off the routine and your sofa and netflix yeah i mean i know sofa and netflix is so good my husband really wants us to do more dates and i'm like like, I just love staying in, especially when you're talking to people all day long. You just want to know. I know. I know. It's I find that I don't know if we do dates. We probably if we go out, we'll organize with a few other friends.

Like it's it's nice to have that energy of other people around you because we're at the office all day. So, you know, it's the same energy in the evening as well. So we'll go out with friends and I find every time I almost force myself to go out and then meet people and be in a place that has great vibes, I get that energy back and I go back home and I'm so regenerated I'm like why am I not doing this more often yeah I love this I also love that you have that place you drive to the countryside every weekend you know if it's a crazy week you have that that must be so good for your nervous system I am obsessed with being in the country it's um I mean it's I never thought that I would love the Cotswolds so much because I come from Greece.

And when I came to London and people were like, we're going to the country. I'm like, why? It's just some green and trees. And for me, weekends and country is more islands and sea and sun and swimming. And that's how I was raised um but with the time I really appreciated the English countryside the green um having long walks with a dog I mean this is so non-Greek for me I love it you've been here long enough that you're being converted yeah a hundred percent I know I did not think that I when I moved to America 12 years ago you know I would never have thought that I

would even think about having a place here but being there there's just something about the English countryside that you don't get anywhere else and I just knew as soon as we had Noemi I'm like Stephen I think it's time I think we need a place and just to be able to come here and spend summer here is like an exhale because you go back and it's go go go and so that is I love baking moments and like that so can we talk about your morning routine talk to me about what you do from opening your eyes to when you get to work what does your morning routine look like and tell me about your skincare and things like that i talk about in my second book your 5 a.m wake up call to success

i was very strict a few years ago that was before covid and i had to wake up at five in the morning. And my routine was very extensive. Meditation, reading a few pages from a book, working out, making the plan for the day. And I felt it came to a point that yes, it was a great way to start my day and get into the right mindset, but it was too much and i didn't need to wake up at five in the morning every day so um i've relaxed it a little bit right now and i want to make sure i have an hour before i need to go to the office so um i don't like waking up getting dressed and rushing to the office or rushing to start my day. I need that time. And it could be one of those things. It could be some days I will meditate when I feel

I need to calm down or have anxiety. Other days I will go to the gym or go for a walk. And other days, you know, I'll read a few pages from a book, listen to a podcast, or I could do that while I'm walking to the gym or going for a walk. So I'm less rigid, but I do all those three things before my day starts. I think for me, Mondays are super important because I have to set a tone for the week for my team. So I take about an hour in the morning sitting down, making the plans for the week, what do we want to achieve. I may go back to some of the emails from last week to see what are some of the pending issues that we haven't resolved, go on social media, remind myself of our campaigns.

And it's very important for me when I go to work on social media, remind myself of our campaigns. And it's very important for me when I go to work on Monday morning, when we have our Monday morning meeting, very important to set the tone for the week. I mean, that's the least that I can do, right? It's important. So usually that's the Monday. We have what we call the Monday morning managers meeting. So everyone who is a manager comes to this meeting and they talk about their week, what's coming up and what do they need from the other departments. So it's a meeting that they can all get together and get information. But then that also prompts the next meetings that need to happen between the teams. And it's very important.

And sometimes, you know, I'll say I'll take a Monday off. I can never take a Monday off because it's such an important day to really set the tone. And I feel once we have a successful Monday morning meeting, then that's great. Now, the rest of the day in the week, if I have meeting, external meetings or lunches, I prefer to do them lunchtime or after lunch, because I do like the time in the morning is my creative time and I am better with my teams and I leave all the other meetings later on in the day. When it comes to the week I find that I can be creative and do if I need to work on social media or write an article or just do something that's non-business related. I would do them probably on a Thursday

when I've sorted out most of the issues of the week and then Thursday sort of easing into Friday and the weekend. So it gives me a little bit more of an open mind to do something creative. So if the team comes to me and says, oh, Maria, can you film a tutorial about this new lip oil that we launched? I'm like, okay,'m like, wait until Thursday.

You can't. You know, that's the thing with business owners. We wear so many hats and we expect to do so many things. You know, manage a team, do the HR, come up with new products and then film a tutorial. And the social media team is like, maria i haven't seen you on the feed for a while you haven't done a tutorial are you kidding me i'm like i'm running the business um but you have to do it all and you have to find time yeah and what's your skincare routine in the morning i always use a balm cleanser um i use the Bee Venom cleansing balm. My skin was always sensitive with breakouts.

So a dermatologist told me years ago, use a balm cleanser that will be the best for your skin. And so I've created the Bee Venom cleansing balm and I've only ever used that. We have other cleansers, but that's my favorite. Then I use the Bee Venom serum. Or sometimes I would use the Dragon's Blood Sculpting Gel that is plumping, hydrating, and it sort of gives me a little bit of a primer effect um sunscreen all year round and then i would use one of our low lighters depending on the day we just launched the new latte low lighter that is an under eye brightener um but i just use it for all over the face. Tell me what a low lighter is.

A low lighter. A low lighter is a, it's something between a brightener and a concealer. It's not a concealer, so you don't need to match your skin tone, but what it does is it really brightens your under eye, and we have three shades. We have the banana, the peach, and the latte.

Okay. And so for me, for example, I would use the banana low lighter for a super bright effect. If I'm on camera, if I'm on Zoom, if I go out to a party, I really want that bright light under me. But for an everyday look, I want something that matches my skin tone and it's a little bit more neutral so i would use the latter low lighter okay so they're all stretchy colors and you can use them and and that's the banana low lighter became a massive success during the pandemic because the stores were closed and people wanted everyone wanted something under their eyes to look good on zoom calls and you couldn't go to stores and match a concealer so they're like okay this is for all

skin tones when we get the banana law lighter and anyway this is one of our best sellers so that's my that's my routine in the morning um i mask a lot i don't have time to do facials and if i have time to do a treatment i'd much rather have a full body massage yeah i don't have time to do facials. And if I have time to do a treatment, I'd much rather have a full body massage. I don't believe in facials because I cleanse my face quite well. I know what to use. And I mask all the time. How often are we talking? How often?

At least once a week. Okay. And what I like to do is, you know, when I have a night in, again, I'm on my sofa watching something on Netflix you would think that that's all I do same I'm obsessed um and put on a mask and actually I would leave it on even though some of the masks say leave them on for 20 minutes I leave it on for an hour um okay or have a bath and and put the mask on and I or if I I'm doing a photo shoot or i'm filming something i would put a mask on before my makeup it makes such a huge difference gives you a beautiful glow especially a new bee venom mask is insane it's so good it's all gold uh very indulgent so yeah i mask a lot with all our masks. And yeah, I'm pretty simple with my skincare.

And so for someone who's listening who might be new to the brand, which I would be very surprised if there's anyone new, but if they're new to the brand and they want to start with, say, three products, which three products would you recommend? Okay, I'm'm gonna pick some different products to the ones i i mentioned um i feel that um and this is a bestseller in the u.s so i have to uh to call it out uh the dragon's blood cleansing water it's a micellar water with hyaluronic acid. It's a massive bottle. It's like a makeup expert's size.

And it's great to remove makeup, cleanse your face. It also removes eye makeup. So this is an amazing product. Then I would recommend the vitamin C pads. These are exfoliating pads that are great if you have textured skin, if you have acne, breakouts, pigmentation. It is such a transformational product. And that is your toner step. And then I would continue with, I would say with our best seller which is

the dragon's blood sculpting gel these are the three products um i would also have to add the lip oil i'm wearing this and my lips feel amazing oh my god it it is there are so many lip oils in the market but our lip oil honestly everyone who tries it it just I have friends who buy ten at a time I can tell they need to have one yeah the same in the bag at the office I have one in the kitchen one in the bathroom one in the bedroom is there everywhere okay where you go it's like a treasure hunt of lip oils and we had the original color the the baby pink and now we've launched um four more shades and they're amazing because you can get a

little bit of color as well and it feels like a pop of color but it's really it's vegan collagen cherry oil it's such a natural product so yeah we're obsessed it's so hydrating as well for podcasting for so long it's so hydrating as well for podcasting for so long it's so hydrating i was just telling you we had rosie on this morning and i was telling her we were interviewing you and she just pulls a lip oil out of her bag she's like have you tried this thing this is incredible so that's the product i'm going to recommend um it feels so good it's so light it's it's light and it's you know it took us years to figure out this formula that is non-sticky. Because the problems that I had with a lot of the lip oils, you put them on and then they're sticky and they dry out after a while.

Oh my goodness. And when your hair sticks to your mouth. Oh my God. It's the worst. That's not a good look. It's not a good look. Yeah, I'm all for it. I love it.

Well, Maria, thank you so much for being on. This was such an amazing interview. And I have to say, I think one of the most impactful things that you've shared on this for me, and I think will be the same for our audience too, is just how possible it is to build a really successful business and still have a really great relationship with your kids your partner like it you really are setting a blueprint and I just I'm so grateful for women like you blazing the way and that's had a real impact on me so thank you so so much my pleasure um where can everyone find you so I am um on Instagram and TikTok at Mrs Rodial. And my books are available on Amazon. And we have a book account called Overnight Success Books.

Amazing. I loved Overnight Success. I read it in one weekend. And it was such a, it was motivating, but it feels like a manual of like, here's different steps of all the steps you took to get started. And it was such a game changer for me I read it I think it was four years ago now um I'm gonna read your second book

this weekend so thank you so so much thank you for having me wait wait wait before you go I would love to send you my seven figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift all you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show this is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom based daily weekly and monthly schedule looks like as an eight figure CEO mama and high performer and I'll walk you through step by step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug and play spreadsheet to literally

create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997 but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild right? All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it, and then head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven-figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported you.