Speaker 1: You can't just have a great marketing feel and a
Speaker 1: great brand. You should have to have a good product
Speaker 1: that people want to come back and use and talk about. Well.
Speaker 1: I remember us driving down the coast one day and
Speaker 1: someone sent me a message saying that Jesse j had
Speaker 1: just done an interview talked about frank Body. Someone has
Speaker 1: given it to a birthday and I was blown away
Speaker 1: when I hear people say, like, I've said it to
Speaker 1: tell me who wants suits. Well, if you have a
Speaker 1: one in ten track rate, you're going to get one
Speaker 1: of them to quote. So if you want ten people posting,
Speaker 1: you need to be settings to one hundred. I think
Speaker 1: we have to create opportunities for them to excel because
Speaker 1: they haven't had them before. We need to address things
Speaker 1: the gender pay that because it's a really big issue
Speaker 1: and a lot of people still keep pretending that it's
Speaker 1: not there.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Outspoken. Today, you're joined by journalists
Speaker 2: Amy and Sophie Torbert for a very special Under the
Speaker 2: Influence episode. We are excited to be joined by Jess Hatsetts,
Speaker 2: who is one of the co founders of global beauty
Speaker 2: brand frank Body. Jess and her business partners from Melbourne
Speaker 2: turned five thousand dollars into a twenty million dollar beauty
Speaker 2: brand that is now sold in over one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty one countries. Jess generously shares her insights into business,
Speaker 2: how to turn a side hustle into a full time job,
Speaker 2: and her views on women in business and why we
Speaker 2: should stop using the term female entrepreneur. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us on Outspoken. We're so excited to
Speaker 2: have you as a guest because I suppose you're an
Speaker 2: inspiration to myself and Sophie as both being business owners.
Speaker 2: But I suppose a lot of people would be surprised
Speaker 2: to know that yourself and Brie actually started as Red
Speaker 2: bull Wings girls.
Speaker 1: A hight Daniel share well, Sirs, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for having me on the show. It's always lovely to
Speaker 1: talk to some smart and deturmined women. I thank you,
Speaker 1: and yeah we did. We started as Red Bulling's Girls.
Speaker 1: UNI studying and so the jobs are only open to
Speaker 1: UNI students. And it was, to be honest, like the
Speaker 1: best job you could ever at for a the unique
Speaker 1: student because you had very much flexibility and freedom, Like
Speaker 1: our job was to get in the car and drive
Speaker 1: around this person who became the best friend all day
Speaker 1: give people free red Bull before red Bull had been condemned.
Speaker 1: And it was the best marketing and training ground too
Speaker 1: because they had a really interesting targeting and segmentation approach.
Speaker 1: So you learned a lot about I had to talk
Speaker 1: to different people about the products and different situations, and
Speaker 1: I swear I went more there than I do in
Speaker 1: the marketing elements of my degree.
Speaker 2: Wow, And is that where you and Brea became friends
Speaker 2: or did you guys know each other before?
Speaker 1: That's how we met and we've bonded over I shared
Speaker 1: love of writing. We were both studying out studying arts
Speaker 1: commerce and Bree was studying journalism, both with elements of
Speaker 1: creative writing in there. We both just loved it and
Speaker 1: kind of loved each other too. That it was just
Speaker 1: a b man.
Speaker 2: That's so nice and it's amazing to hear that. That's
Speaker 2: where you guys first sort of came up with your
Speaker 2: idea for your first business? Is it? I suppose the
Speaker 2: skills that you learned at red Bull, is that what
Speaker 2: kind of gave you the confidence to launch your first business.
Speaker 1: I think the people that apply for their job at
Speaker 1: red Bull have a bit of kind of go get
Speaker 1: an attitude. You have to be willing to really put
Speaker 1: yourself out there, and I think they're looking for that
Speaker 1: in the people that they hire, So I think it's
Speaker 1: more that it's somewhat attracts people with that kind of
Speaker 1: common element. But it wasn't for a little while that
Speaker 1: we really developed the idea behind our first business, Villa
Speaker 1: and Blake, and it started as it was because we
Speaker 1: really wanted to shared place for all of the things
Speaker 1: that we loved to write. And we both moved on
Speaker 1: from Red Bull as we've graduated from university and I
Speaker 1: went in house to the agency called three sixty Agency,
Speaker 1: which was run by Pie Sofo and Grant Smiley. Was
Speaker 1: kind of a bit of an offshoot of Want of Music,
Speaker 1: and re went in house at Broadsheets and probably were
Speaker 1: both working there and writing all of these pieces to
Speaker 1: Willard Blake on the side. And it was after a
Speaker 1: while of writing what was blog I guess ten eleven
Speaker 1: years ago, and getting a lot of traction and people
Speaker 1: really connecting with the stuff that we were writing, because
Speaker 1: I think it was there was no bs then. We
Speaker 1: were just trying to find a fresh approach on things.
Speaker 1: People really seemed to connect with it, and the name
Speaker 1: will Blake started to gain a bit of momentum when
Speaker 1: we started getting freelance writing requests coming in and that
Speaker 1: was where the idea of turning row on Like blog
Speaker 1: into our first copywriting agency came from.
Speaker 2: That is so cool And you guys have worked with
Speaker 2: some amazing brands since. Did you ever think I suppose
Speaker 2: when you first came up with the concept of the
Speaker 2: blog it would grow into what it has become today.
Speaker 1: No, like, no idea, And I think that was definitely
Speaker 1: part of what allowed us to succeed. We didn't really
Speaker 1: have a plan for what it was. It was very
Speaker 1: much driven by our passion to write and then seeing
Speaker 1: the opportunity and sieving it. And I think we had
Speaker 1: like cute pol naivity on our side as well. Like
Speaker 1: I was only twenty three years old, so I didn't
Speaker 1: have a concept of really all the things that could
Speaker 1: go wrong and all the realities of running a business.
Speaker 1: It was very much focused on the fact that we
Speaker 1: loved doing that, and I think it was skilled at it.
Speaker 1: We really knew how to write creative and engaging copy
Speaker 1: based on all of the different backgrounds that we came from.
Speaker 1: We've definitely grown a lot though, as we've gotten older,
Speaker 1: and I look back at the things that I've wrote
Speaker 1: and the decisions I made a twenty three year old
Speaker 1: version of myself and can't work out what I was thinking.
Speaker 2: It can't be so disturbing. Can't it read old work?
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: What And you guys, you would know this, Like you
Speaker 1: look back on stuff you created when you're younger, and
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, so I knew everything and that absolutely
Speaker 1: knew nothing and it's cringed girthing and it's driven by
Speaker 1: trends at the time, And that's that kind of awareness
Speaker 1: only comes with age and experience.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, And I suppose the thing is as well.
Speaker 2: At the same time, sometimes when you're beginning of business,
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of the time you get
Speaker 2: advice to just get started and go with what you've got.
Speaker 2: So it's yeah, it is. It's interesting because I feel
Speaker 2: like a lot of young girls ask us about starting
Speaker 2: a business, and sometimes you just have to go with
Speaker 2: what you've gotten, hope for the best, and put in
Speaker 2: your best effort with it, which I suppose is what
Speaker 2: you guys did. And you've grown so much with that.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. I think you need to at have
Speaker 1: a rough idea of why you're doing it. And even
Speaker 1: though we didn't know we were going to grow Willow
Speaker 1: into what it is and then eventually start Flank, we
Speaker 1: knew that we wanted to write really good copy. We
Speaker 1: knew there was a gap in the market, but we
Speaker 1: were by no means perfect, and we just had to
Speaker 1: get out there and start trying. And I think the
Speaker 1: best thing you can do is learn from feedback, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people are very scared at feedback, which
Speaker 1: is they think to feedback is criticism, and people need
Speaker 1: to really understand how to differentiate between the two, and
Speaker 1: that even criticism can be really positive because you don't
Speaker 1: really learn and grow from people just telling you that
Speaker 1: you're good at stuff. You run and grow from people
Speaker 1: showing you your area of weakness and where you can improve.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to even think about starting the business,
Speaker 1: you how to be really open minded about that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point. And talking about Frank Body,
Speaker 2: I personally love the story of how it started and
Speaker 2: the fact that it was actually your yours and Breeze
Speaker 2: side hustle. Can you test I supposed to fill our
Speaker 2: listeners into how the concept actually started.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there's quite a few of us involved, and
Speaker 1: even were originally had another business partner who then moved
Speaker 1: on a couple of years ago, and faink Body really
Speaker 1: came out of the combination of a few ideas. So
Speaker 1: at Willow we were really, i kept quite experienced by
Speaker 1: that stage in the idea of creating brands, marketing them,
Speaker 1: launching new products, and we were doing this work for
Speaker 1: everybody else and things are going really well. But what
Speaker 1: we noticed was that some client, even though they came
Speaker 1: to will and Blake for someone out of the box
Speaker 1: esoteric ideas, when they were put in front of them,
Speaker 1: they weren't always willing to execute them because those risky
Speaker 1: ideas are a little bit scary. You have to really
Speaker 1: take a chance. We knew that if we could have
Speaker 1: full creative control over a brand and the product and
Speaker 1: the direction that we took for marketing, we could achieve
Speaker 1: something really great. And this is really on the cusp
Speaker 1: of Instagram launching, and it wasn't being utilized by brands
Speaker 1: at that stage, and they thought there's this community of
Speaker 1: people there who are willing and waiting to have content
Speaker 1: served to them and different you know, I guess experiment
Speaker 1: with creating content themselves, like this platform is right for
Speaker 1: a brand to use, But we had no product. At
Speaker 1: the same time, our business partners, being and Alex were
Speaker 1: really interested in moving into the product space. It was
Speaker 1: everything that we were doing with service space. So we
Speaker 1: had this issue of scalability. It was the real we
Speaker 1: can't do more than a physical man hours that we
Speaker 1: haven't available to us. It's just definitely the ear comments
Speaker 1: with the group, and he was the one that really
Speaker 1: wanted to push us to do something that we would
Speaker 1: be primarily a dot com business. And then it would
Speaker 1: be who owns a series of cafes in Melbourne who
Speaker 1: actually came up with the product idea. He was surrounded
Speaker 1: by coffees all day and seeing people come in and
Speaker 1: ask for the leftover grind from his machines for all
Speaker 1: different reasons, and this one idea stuck. And then we
Speaker 1: did a lot of research and it wasn't anything called
Speaker 1: a coffee scrub in the market. It was just DIY
Speaker 1: recipes at home. And what noticed was that if you
Speaker 1: use left over coffee grinds, it didn't actually have a
Speaker 1: huge amount of benefit because of caffeine was in a
Speaker 1: couple of coffee. So we started making like this little
Speaker 1: batches based on whatever we had in the kitchen, making
Speaker 1: sure that it was really highly caffeinated and using fresh
Speaker 1: grinds and got in the shower and covered ourselves in
Speaker 1: this stuff that wouldn't difference. I'll never forget it, and
Speaker 1: no matter how often I talk about it, it still
Speaker 1: is like the strongest memory in my head because I
Speaker 1: felt so ridiculous. But when we went to off it
Speaker 1: was incredible, and you would remember, you know, body washes
Speaker 1: that you could buy at the season market even now
Speaker 1: they're even more so teen years ago that we're just
Speaker 1: gel with like a couple of beds growing in like
Speaker 1: there's nothing we don't scrub. This is Stokes with a
Speaker 1: couple of boobs thrown in. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remove sate pan or if I've got really
Speaker 1: draged skin, this isn't going to cut it. This is
Speaker 1: a hardcore scrub. And I had a little incredible benefits
Speaker 1: for things like stretch marks x amount to rise the
Speaker 1: imm and body acne. And when you saw this great
Speaker 1: product that was one hundred percent natural, we could make
Speaker 1: really affordably to awful women a product that given cross
Speaker 1: them and arm and a leg and actually worked for
Speaker 1: and then market it through social So it all kind
Speaker 1: of came together, and that's how Frank Bodying and the
Speaker 1: original Coffee Good performed.
Speaker 2: I love the fact that you said that you were
Speaker 2: a bit mortified when you first put the product on yourself,
Speaker 2: because I suppose when you're now it's marketed so beautifully.
Speaker 2: Obviously people want to take photos of themselves with the
Speaker 2: Frank body scrub, and it's I just find that so
Speaker 2: interesting that it's become such a huge part of your
Speaker 2: marketing to have people take photos. But initially you were
Speaker 2: sort of mortified by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we had clients, you know, working in the
Speaker 1: health and beauty space, where we pitched the idea of
Speaker 1: trying to get up generated content. People looked at it
Speaker 1: up that we had two heads. But where it's now,
Speaker 1: marketing has been issued since the beginning of time. It
Speaker 1: just takes different shapes and forms as different meetings and
Speaker 1: technologies and cultural nuances changed, and people seemed to forget that.
Speaker 1: And it was the age of moving out of celebrity
Speaker 1: endorsements into having real people take over and utilize those
Speaker 1: channels and sots. It just seemed normal if you could
Speaker 1: make it cool and show people that they were part
Speaker 1: of a trendsetting movement and that they were early adopters,
Speaker 1: because I think that's always something that we like. We
Speaker 1: always like being ahead of a trend and showing people
Speaker 1: what's cool and what's new. So it's just giving them
Speaker 1: the tools to be able to do that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was us to the start, like they
Speaker 1: were my legs and breed legs and not Alex and Steve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was quite normalized the behavior.
Speaker 2: And who were some of the first big names that
Speaker 2: you did start working with.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a really good question. We didn't like formally
Speaker 1: engage any influencers for actually quite a few years. Everything
Speaker 1: that the start was all organic seeding and so me
Speaker 1: free and airy built lists. I'm not kidding, like thousands
Speaker 1: of people wrong and just emailing and emailing, emailing and
Speaker 1: getting their addresses and sending the products and sending spiels
Speaker 1: about it and why we would love them to try
Speaker 1: it and if they liked it, to share it. And
Speaker 1: it was so many hours of work less days and
Speaker 1: weeks of just doing that stuff. So that was our approach,
Speaker 1: and it naturally and organically as much as you can
Speaker 1: call it organically, from several hundred hours of work through
Speaker 1: from there, we just knew that was what we needed
Speaker 1: to do. And when I hear people say, like I
Speaker 1: spend it to ten man who months to school, if
Speaker 1: you have a one in ten strike rate, you're going
Speaker 1: to get one of them to post. So if you
Speaker 1: want ten people posting, you need to be sending it
Speaker 1: to one hundred and really trying to drive that volume
Speaker 1: mentality to everything that people were doing. And then I
Speaker 1: think some of the first big organic mentions that we
Speaker 1: got from people jesse J that would be credible. I
Speaker 1: remember us driving down the coast one day and someone
Speaker 1: sent me a message saying that jesse J had just
Speaker 1: done an interview talked about Frank Body, someone who has
Speaker 1: given it jest day, and I was blown away. And
Speaker 1: then the same thing happened with Ariana Grande. She did
Speaker 1: a YouTube and did all these press articles talking about
Speaker 1: the original coffee scrub, and we had never given it
Speaker 1: to these people, but it just sort of somehow found
Speaker 1: its way for them.
Speaker 2: So it's an amazing product.
Speaker 1: It is, I think it's testiment to the product, and
Speaker 1: I think people forget about that. You can't just have
Speaker 1: a great marketing feel and a great brand. It should
Speaker 1: have to have a good product so people want to
Speaker 1: come back and use and talk about.
Speaker 2: So when Ariana Grande, for example, did mention Frank Body
Speaker 2: on YouTube, what kind of impact did that have because
Speaker 2: you hear of I mean, it's often hard to measure
Speaker 2: the impact of influencers, but I'm guessing you might have
Speaker 2: had a few people purchased the product after that.
Speaker 1: It's hard to track it directly because we were doing
Speaker 1: so much influencer work at the time. I think the
Speaker 1: impact that I can contribute to that is that it
Speaker 1: made other influences really willing to talk about the product
Speaker 1: because it was now not just some unknown Australian brand.
Speaker 1: It was still unknown Australian brand that had been endorsed
Speaker 1: by Ariana Grande. So they were then associated with Perch
Speaker 1: and it kind of dated that credibility to.
Speaker 2: Coolness and Arianna turned from big fan to I hear competitor.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, she's a smart woman, so she was working
Speaker 1: at I don't think it exists anymore, but I do
Speaker 1: remember seeing that and yeah, it's hurt a little bit.
Speaker 1: We've had so many people's copy of the brand of
Speaker 1: Lost Track. There would have been dozens of copytats by now,
Speaker 1: and I am really family the way the competition is
Speaker 1: healthy because I think that it makes you stay under
Speaker 1: toe is it makes you innovate. But I think there's
Speaker 1: a difference between competition and copycats, and so that's right
Speaker 1: I set to draw the line. But as far as
Speaker 1: I went, I don't think that her that brand Ari
Speaker 1: the coffee stubcs is anymore.
Speaker 2: Oh well, we can see who won that round then. Obviously,
Speaker 2: for people who are launching a product now in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: do you think influencer marketing is still as I suppose
Speaker 2: successful and has as much power and reach as it
Speaker 2: did when you guys first launched Frank.
Speaker 1: Body, I think it's very different now. It definitely still
Speaker 1: has a lot of impact and a lot of power.
Speaker 1: It's much more contrived and calculated now, but that's just
Speaker 1: the nature of the platform. And that's if we're talking
Speaker 1: specifically about Instagram the platform. When we launched with organic
Speaker 1: there was no advertising, there was no speed, but everything
Speaker 1: that you saw you took as one hundred percent for authentic,
Speaker 1: but now it's consumers. We know that a lot of
Speaker 1: content is sponsored. We don't know it's things genuine, but
Speaker 1: it's still really helps to increase brand awareness. And then
Speaker 1: consumers now can go and do their own research after
Speaker 1: they see something that the influence is posted. Rather than
Speaker 1: that's sort of see and buy impact that we saw
Speaker 1: a few years ago, it's now c and research. I
Speaker 1: think that's there are different platforms to utilize in different ways,
Speaker 1: and that's how we look at things like Instagram specifically.
Speaker 1: But then if you look at new platforms that are
Speaker 1: emerging like TikTok, which is still relatively unregulated, then it's
Speaker 1: a whole new ballgame. And the way that we work
Speaker 1: with influencers and what we expect to see from influences
Speaker 1: on a platform like that, it's really different. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And do you think I mean you hear these crazy
Speaker 2: amounts that some influences are being paid. I think I
Speaker 2: heard some somewhere that someone like Michael Finch might be
Speaker 2: getting around sixty K for a mention in a YouTube video.
Speaker 2: Do you think that they're worth it? Are they worth
Speaker 2: sixty k?
Speaker 1: I think it really depends on the influencerf they work
Speaker 1: really hard, over a really long period of time to
Speaker 1: build up those followings, and it's so easy for us
Speaker 1: to just dismiss it as like, oh, maybe let's take
Speaker 1: photos that they're face. Sometimes that's what they do, but
Speaker 1: they do it like gay in and gay out, and
Speaker 1: the obviously create content that hundreds of thousands or millions
Speaker 1: of people want to follow it. So I have to
Speaker 1: kill kudos where kudos is due. Where I think the
Speaker 1: issue is with the influencers who don't want to be
Speaker 1: accountable for the ROI or don't want to learn how
Speaker 1: to play ball with brands and make it make sure
Speaker 1: that all that sixty thousand dollars there's actually measurable benefits,
Speaker 1: and like any other advertising platform, that is something that
Speaker 1: should be a part of it. So I would nevered
Speaker 1: by like if you buy advertising in a magazine, it
Speaker 1: comes with a rate card, and it comes with expected impressions,
Speaker 1: expected lifting XLIZB. So you can always measure it. And
Speaker 1: I think why brands become hegotant to work with in
Speaker 1: Wanted because they see these locky feeds, but there's never
Speaker 1: any kind of way for them to, you know, somewhat
Speaker 1: accurately estimate whether it's going to be positive for the business,
Speaker 1: or if they're just going to set without middle of empire.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's it's got to be a bit
Speaker 1: of back and forth and then there's got to be
Speaker 1: accountability on both sides for it to be a business deal.
Speaker 1: But really is beneficial for everyone involved?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean it is crazy to think there
Speaker 2: are some huge influencers out there who might still be
Speaker 2: managing themselves and might not understand just how serious the
Speaker 2: business side of it is. Do you think that that's
Speaker 2: where some influencers are lacking they as you said, they
Speaker 2: don't have that business brain and are just managing things themselves.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of influences are incredibly entrepreneurial
Speaker 1: and they're smart, and they've seen a trend and jumped
Speaker 1: on it. It's going there's both ways. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are some managers that make things more difficult and the
Speaker 1: influencers themselves easier to deal with. So I think it's
Speaker 1: just a real person by person sort of situation, and
Speaker 1: I think it's easier to forget as much as you're
Speaker 1: then looking at it as as a transaction occurring. Right,
Speaker 1: we're paying people for content. We have an expectation about
Speaker 1: what that content does, but they're also a human and
Speaker 1: on the other end, and making sure that you build
Speaker 1: relationships with people is really important. I'm so lucky that
Speaker 1: I have amazing team members here who do that and
Speaker 1: they understand the value of that, and they are building
Speaker 1: those connections with relationships with influencers day in and day out,
Speaker 1: just like we did in the world of TV or
Speaker 1: traditional print advertising. It's that kind of fundamental component that
Speaker 1: makes it work, I think all for anyone, it's just
Speaker 1: knowing what you don't know and trying to see what
Speaker 1: your blind spots are and again and getting feedback. So
Speaker 1: for influencers to ask brands how plent learn about what
Speaker 1: they could have done better next time to then be
Speaker 1: able to perform, because if we just continuously don't result
Speaker 1: in anything for a brand that well, you'll eventually dry up.
Speaker 2: And going back to the early days, I suppose everyone
Speaker 2: thinks that when you start a business it's all glamorous,
Speaker 2: but I've read that you guys are actually making some
Speaker 2: of the products in your own house. Can you kind
Speaker 2: of take us back to those early days and just
Speaker 2: the effort that you guys put in to get your
Speaker 2: product off the ground.
Speaker 1: Yes, starting a business is the least glamorous thing I've
Speaker 1: ever done in my life. It is such hard work.
Speaker 1: When we started lard Break, we had negative money in
Speaker 1: the bank account, like no money is a shortfall. We
Speaker 1: took furniture off the side of the road to set
Speaker 1: up our office. That kind of vibe was really statty,
Speaker 1: and we worked I don't know, sixteen eighteen hour days
Speaker 1: every single day, just trying to get a name for ourselves.
Speaker 1: We worked for free. It's not that I recommended, but
Speaker 1: I think where you can prove what you can do,
Speaker 1: do it. And then with bank it was exactly that
Speaker 1: we were not only still only three years old at
Speaker 1: will arm Blake, and then for Alex and Steve having
Speaker 1: other businesses and full time jobs. And then we were
Speaker 1: coming home at the end of the day and up
Speaker 1: to our elbows in scrub mixture, making the scrub, packing
Speaker 1: the scrub, putting labels on it, taking it down to
Speaker 1: Australia Post. And I saw so many things we learned,
Speaker 1: and like how to set up a label making formula
Speaker 1: in Excel if you're doing to type everything out that
Speaker 1: Australia Posts actually come and pick up large deliveries who
Speaker 1: don't have to do all trolleys but down Chapel Street
Speaker 1: to get it done. So let's just you know, you
Speaker 1: make sure the dumb mistakes and be starting out. And
Speaker 1: I think I always tell people Google is my best friend.
Speaker 1: And if you could look back in my search history
Speaker 1: of the stupid things that I've googled, but they saved
Speaker 1: me so much time. So I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: asking dumb questions.
Speaker 2: Oh, Google's amazing. I mean, that's the thing you've got.
Speaker 2: As you said, you you know, in the early stages,
Speaker 2: you didn't even have a you didn't have a product,
Speaker 2: but you just had this amazing marketing brain and you
Speaker 2: knew that that formula would work. How do you go
Speaker 2: I mean, as you said, you use Google, but how
Speaker 2: do you actually go to creating a product and getting
Speaker 2: you know, there's lots of legalities I'm assuming around producing
Speaker 2: a skincare product. Did you have to go seek out
Speaker 2: legal advice? Or did was Google just the answer?
Speaker 1: We always start with Google. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: that you can learn. There's a lot of great resources
Speaker 1: out there. Google is amazing to everything except medical day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're always dying aren't you.
Speaker 1: It's never always like you've got a cold and that
Speaker 1: tells you you've got lebroty you look at that. But
Speaker 1: we start there kind of do our face research, and
Speaker 1: then that was even how we found out production house.
Speaker 1: So when we went we got too busy to be
Speaker 1: able to make it by hand ourselves and we couldn't
Speaker 1: do anything else that the new business required us to do,
Speaker 1: so we had to find a manufacturer. That was incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult because there's a consistency of the product. We had
Speaker 1: to have specially made equipment because because it's almost like
Speaker 1: a wet dry combination, and manufacturing machinery for beauty is
Speaker 1: usually for only web or for only dry. So it
Speaker 1: was just weird little challenges like that setting based and
Speaker 1: that was the amazing things that Alex and Seas led.
Speaker 1: We really focused on the marketing, and they really focused
Speaker 1: on all of the crossing of the teas and dotting
Speaker 1: of the eyes while we could grow it and they
Speaker 1: could fix all those problements behind the scenes, and they
Speaker 1: never get enough love and attention to that. So it
Speaker 1: was the glamorous marketers side of the business that people
Speaker 1: want to know about. But then for us to do
Speaker 1: that we had to have the house in order, and
Speaker 1: that's what the guys were doing. So yeah, piece of
Speaker 1: legal stuff when we made so many mistakes not securing
Speaker 1: proper trademarks, and that's why the business went from Frank
Speaker 1: to Frank body. So it's nothing to move scaling. Definitely,
Speaker 1: no mistakes along the way.
Speaker 2: Well, that's so good to hear, because I'm sure a
Speaker 2: lot of people who are listening to this might be
Speaker 2: starting a business. And I think, yeah, sometimes when you
Speaker 2: see the end result, you don't realize all the hard work,
Speaker 2: and I suppose the mistakes that go along the way.
Speaker 2: Soph and I we run a pr business together and
Speaker 2: we're sisters, so I feel like we can be so
Speaker 2: brutally honest with each other, but obviously working with one
Speaker 2: of your best friends free, how do you guys go
Speaker 2: about being really honest with each other? I suppose, especially
Speaker 2: in those early days when big decisions had to be made, I.
Speaker 1: Think we and a lot better with it in time.
Speaker 1: At the start, we were always behind the eight ball
Speaker 1: because of the fact that we didn't really have a
Speaker 1: clear plan for the business and it was growing at
Speaker 1: such such an exponential rate. We would often skirt around
Speaker 1: to difficult conversations. And as we grew as business owners
Speaker 1: and women and into leadership roles, we knew that we
Speaker 1: had have those kind of tough conversations, and then turns
Speaker 1: out that's actually really easy to have if you go
Speaker 1: into them with of these intent and an open mind.
Speaker 1: I think those conversations become really shit to have if
Speaker 1: there's someone in the room who doesn't want to receive feedback,
Speaker 1: or if there's someone in the room who's not open
Speaker 1: to hearing different ways of doing things. But we're really
Speaker 1: lucky that as a founding group, everybody is quite open.
Speaker 1: Everyone can admit their mistakes, and I think that's the
Speaker 1: kind of psychological safety that you need to create. And
Speaker 1: we're lucky, like breathe almost like a sister to me,
Speaker 1: So even if we disagree with something, it's just sort
Speaker 1: of back to normal five minutes later, because that's what
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 2: So you're in that stage where you can kind of
Speaker 2: be a little bit rude and then be like, oh, sorry, exactly,
Speaker 2: that's so good to hear. Well, And obviously you went
Speaker 2: from all the founding members frank Body and you expanded.
Speaker 2: I think I've read you've now got thirty stuff that's
Speaker 2: from an old article, so you might have even grown further.
Speaker 2: But how did you go from I suppose going from
Speaker 2: packing the products, so then having to be people's boss,
Speaker 2: because I've read that you're you felt a little weird
Speaker 2: about being assertive at first.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, well I was a writer. It could not
Speaker 1: be a more introverted job. If you you know, if
Speaker 1: you tried, you live in your computer. You don't even
Speaker 1: have to use your mouth. You just do everything with
Speaker 1: your hands. And as we grew the businesses, I had
Speaker 1: to become more and more confident with you know, taking
Speaker 1: in personal meetings and even just asking the people that
Speaker 1: I paid to do things. I'd go up and like,
Speaker 1: O'm sorry, do you have time? Did your help now?
Speaker 1: Taking a decade, I've been running the world, wait nearly
Speaker 1: can you? And I finally reached the point where I
Speaker 1: think I understand my management style, but I'm sure it
Speaker 1: will evolved. I worked with a leadership coach, I did
Speaker 1: heaps of reading. I consume articles about this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff all the time, did a lot of work on
Speaker 1: self awareness, and I struggle with things like taking criticism,
Speaker 1: so I had to do a lot of work there.
Speaker 1: And then I really try to instill those values in
Speaker 1: my team. But it's hard because we go from doing
Speaker 1: what you love, which for me was writing, to basically
Speaker 1: never writing anything except emails and meaning notes, and your
Speaker 1: job becomes being the coach, and so it's not about
Speaker 1: me writing something great anymore about me teaching my team
Speaker 1: and lifting them up to write something great. And that's
Speaker 1: got its beautiful parts. I've also that it's challenges when
Speaker 1: you sugget gurther away from that thing that you're really
Speaker 1: passionate about.
Speaker 2: Do you think that as a woman in business it's
Speaker 2: hard to be taking seriously as a boss, because I
Speaker 2: know often if you're an assertive woman, you can often
Speaker 2: be called a bitch, But if you're a satan, you're
Speaker 2: a strong businessman. Do you think that it is hard
Speaker 2: to be a female boss in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: I think it's as hard as we let it be.
Speaker 1: I've definitely had experiences external to our business where I'm
Speaker 1: treated really differently in the room to my male counterparts,
Speaker 1: and at first I was really offended by it, and
Speaker 1: then I realized that it wasn't about me and it
Speaker 1: was about them, and that that person was too unwilling
Speaker 1: to kind of check their own egos and that that
Speaker 1: would be a way of the serving authority. And I've
Speaker 1: learned to not to bother me and I've learned to
Speaker 1: sort of stand up for myself a bit more in
Speaker 1: those situations within our team, though I don't. I think
Speaker 1: if you're called a bitch generally it works, not because
Speaker 1: you're actually a bitch. And what I could they are
Speaker 1: really different things. Like I've worked with all different types
Speaker 1: of people and I have so many strong, smart, talented
Speaker 1: women around me. So lucky to have that. And I
Speaker 1: said this before, but we create very much psychological safety
Speaker 1: for each other that anything that's direct or assert is
Speaker 1: always taken as popular as intent. So there's never an
Speaker 1: elementar like, oh god, she's a frigging nightmare to work
Speaker 1: with because she's doing x ight there. It's just we
Speaker 1: just get shit done. And that's the culture that we've
Speaker 1: created within our business. That culture isn't about the fact
Speaker 1: that we like to boos up together on a Faturday afternoon.
Speaker 1: So we'd love to come here every single day and
Speaker 1: do really good work together. So I think it's all
Speaker 1: it's a very kind of interconnected ecosystem. But I reckon
Speaker 1: just like don't be a jog head at work, and
Speaker 1: people will generally.
Speaker 2: I think that's some very good advice to everyone out there,
Speaker 2: because there are a lot of dickheads in the workplace.
Speaker 1: I'll put it on a bunch of bigger I'd buy that.
Speaker 2: I've read somewhere that I think it was either yourself
Speaker 2: or Brie said that you didn't really like the term
Speaker 2: female entrepreneur, and I know SOF and I we hate
Speaker 2: the term girl boss because why do we need to
Speaker 2: preface our gender exactly? Is that? Why is that? I'm
Speaker 2: assuming that's why you also hate the term female entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: I think championing women is really really important because like
Speaker 1: gender equality is a regal thing. We all know that.
Speaker 1: But I've written so many rands about grum stories it
Speaker 1: becomes rancy.
Speaker 2: But we love the r.
Speaker 1: I'm malely passionate about us not being championed only depose
Speaker 1: were women. I think we have to create opportunities for
Speaker 1: women to excel because they haven't had them before. We
Speaker 1: need to address the bid a gender payout because it's
Speaker 1: a really big issue and a lot of people still
Speaker 1: keep pretending that it's not there. But when I am
Speaker 1: constantly referred to as female X. It's like I have
Speaker 1: a handicap, and it's there's the asterix next to it,
Speaker 1: but there's I'm only here because I'm female, or I
Speaker 1: can't be as good because I'm female, or if I
Speaker 1: make mistakes because I'm a female. No, I'm just human,
Speaker 1: and I'm because that being my pre personally, when I
Speaker 1: sit in the room with my male counterparts who do
Speaker 1: exactly the same job as me, and then never referred
Speaker 1: to as male or entrepreneurs, they're just entrepreneurs, and I
Speaker 1: don't understand why.
Speaker 2: Maybe we need to stay with that phrase. Well, I'm
Speaker 2: so glad that I'm so glad that you're speaking out
Speaker 2: about it, because I am so over women on Instagram,
Speaker 2: in particular using the term boss babe and girl babe
Speaker 2: as a sense of like empowerment, and I'm like, it's
Speaker 2: actually doing the complete opposite thing. So thank you for
Speaker 2: being vocal about it, because I feel like more women
Speaker 2: should be. I mean, that's not mean. I think some
Speaker 2: women who do it think that they're empowering and they
Speaker 2: might not understand. I think they don't understand perhaps the
Speaker 2: connotation or and that's why it's good to talk about
Speaker 2: I suppose as well.
Speaker 1: I think that people mostly do it with the right intention,
Speaker 1: but we need to progress beyond that. Now. We've been
Speaker 1: doing this thing what we're calling us female entrepreneurs or
Speaker 1: girl bosses for so long, and I just never refer
Speaker 1: to myself as a girl in any acithetic. I'm thirty
Speaker 1: three years old. I haven't been a girl for nearly
Speaker 1: twenty years, So why am I now a girl boss? Like,
Speaker 1: come on, let's come up with certainly better than that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's hard for us to be taken
Speaker 1: seriously as just people in business when then ninety percent
Speaker 1: of these networking events that are specifically designed for women
Speaker 1: become these like pink floral tea parties, And well, that's
Speaker 1: not how I do work. I am in a boardroom
Speaker 1: for fifteen hours and that's my business. And even in
Speaker 1: my personal life separate from my work, I'm not having
Speaker 1: pink blorrel tea parties, So why should I do that
Speaker 1: now combined with my work? We need to just not
Speaker 1: everything needs to be pink and retty girl and like cutely,
Speaker 1: because that's not helping us to be hated seriously.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I love that. That is so actually
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: If you love pink, totally have but just not every
Speaker 1: woman has.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that. I actually hate the color pink,
Speaker 2: but so I'm all about that. I was going to say,
Speaker 2: do you even tho, Well, you know that's your brand,
Speaker 2: that's not you know what, you you might not like
Speaker 2: to wear pink dresses in.
Speaker 1: The real world, I mean black today.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's Do you think that's why a
Speaker 2: lot of women are actually starting businesses? Because I know
Speaker 2: sof and I began our business for many reasons, but
Speaker 2: one was because we couldn't stand working with dickheads or
Speaker 2: dinosaurs in the industry. Maybe I'll put it, maybe I'll
Speaker 2: make a bumper sticker for that for our Yeah, but
Speaker 2: also because you determine what the results are going to
Speaker 2: be in your business. But do you think that women
Speaker 2: are creating businesses more and more because of the that
Speaker 2: we're not getting paid equally.
Speaker 1: I think there's a multitude of reasons. I think primarily
Speaker 1: it's the fact that we now have a lot more
Speaker 1: role models and we're shown a lot more that as
Speaker 1: a woman, you can do that. And that's when I
Speaker 1: think we're missing the conversation and it becomes about the
Speaker 1: fact that I'm a female entrepreneur, but it's more about
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, there was no one that
Speaker 1: looks like me doing this, And now that's the conversation
Speaker 1: shifting to things like race, because there are other minorities
Speaker 1: so under representity in that space. But I remember a
Speaker 1: month ago, my team watched a very old Apple AT
Speaker 1: which was the very first Think Different campaigns, and it
Speaker 1: was showing all these creative and innovating people as a
Speaker 1: way that they launched the first IMAT And there was
Speaker 1: one woman in this ninety second long clip and we
Speaker 1: all sat there this week and when she popped up
Speaker 1: on the screen, we were like, oh my god, there's
Speaker 1: she's there. She is Finally, all the women in the
Speaker 1: room cheers. So I think that's a lot of what's changed.
Speaker 1: Twenty thirty years ago. You were never shown, or very
Speaker 1: rarely shown women in any kind of position of authority
Speaker 1: across any field, from sports to the corporate world. So
Speaker 1: you didn't aspire to where you didn't know that you
Speaker 1: could do it. And now, thanks to modern technology and
Speaker 1: time finally changing, it's actually an idea that you have
Speaker 1: in your head that I can actually do that. That's
Speaker 1: an option for me, I don't just have to be
Speaker 1: a nurse or a teacher, which is what I was
Speaker 1: taught at school, which you're amazing profession. Both my parents teacher.
Speaker 1: But if you want to do something else, now you're
Speaker 1: actually shown that you can.
Speaker 2: I think that's sorry, as I say, that's amazing. Both
Speaker 2: our parents are teachers as well. I feel it's got
Speaker 2: a lot of common work.
Speaker 1: I think, I think children and teachers that are very
Speaker 1: special breed. Did your parents recorrect your homework for me?
Speaker 1: Like mind did? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, even when we even when we're doing our master's degree.
Speaker 2: Our poor mum, she went through line by line with
Speaker 2: a ruler. They're good moms, aren't they?
Speaker 1: For I was very lucky I started my career as
Speaker 1: an EFL teacher. It's an incredibly tough profession. So couldn't
Speaker 1: Janney one that does it.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's so many amazing business people that
Speaker 2: did start their careers as teachers. Actually, I feel like
Speaker 2: if you can deal with children, you can deal with
Speaker 2: anything and deal with business.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: Just lastly, we're just going to ask you. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're I know we don't want to reference female entrepreneurs,
Speaker 2: but if there are any young girls out there that
Speaker 2: are listening, do you have any specific advice for them
Speaker 2: if they're launching a business, And for boys as well,
Speaker 2: but we mostly have girls listening.
Speaker 1: For anyone's launching a business. I think the best thing
Speaker 1: that you can do is understand what you're not good
Speaker 1: at and bring people in around you that fill those gaps.
Speaker 1: Look for people that think differently. You don't need five
Speaker 1: clones with you, And especially as you grow your business
Speaker 1: and maybe hire your very first person, you don't need
Speaker 1: that person to be your friend.
Speaker 2: You have friends.
Speaker 1: You need that person to be a really amazing asset
Speaker 1: to your business. And whether that's tomorrow or in two years,
Speaker 1: if you're looking to hire someone, just really remember that
Speaker 1: and do There's so many great articles and podcasts out
Speaker 1: there that you can listen to about how to hire
Speaker 1: people effectively. And I didn't do that until quite a
Speaker 1: few years into my business, and I think I may
Speaker 1: hikes because of that, and then be prepared to work
Speaker 1: your out offs and sex clear goals. Because there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as an opennight success. Everything is the cumulative
Speaker 1: effective all of the efforts that you put in over
Speaker 1: a long period of time, and you just need to
Speaker 1: break out your goals into little, bye sized pieces. It's
Speaker 1: like something you can do this week, something you can
Speaker 1: do next month, that all eventually leads to your goal.
Speaker 2: That's amazing of us. I'm just inspired listening to that.
Speaker 2: I'm taking notes at the moment. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining us today. We've had so much fun chatting
Speaker 2: with you and obviously hearing your amazing insights into the
Speaker 2: world of business. So we really do appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks very much for having me and thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to me. Ran, and just remember everybody that it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what genders you are, if you even identify
Speaker 1: particular agenda, just do awesome work and good things for come.
Speaker 2: I love that, I love Thank you so much. It
Speaker 2: was so nice to chat with you. We really appreciate it. Bye.