Skin care is turning out to be one of the biggest profit raking segments in the business of ‘self love’. Be it Gwytheth Paltrow or your teacher-turned-entrepreneur friend who was simply looking for an opportunity to put her kitchen-made skin care remedies to some good use. Everyone wants to be in the business of self care.
And we’re not complaining!
To know better about what goes into making a saleable skin care product (that actually works) and how to sell it in the best way you know, we sat down with beauty expert Roberta Perry – founder of ScrubzBody.
From being tired of her own itchy skin – to solving the problem for millions, the founder delved into the ins-and-outs of running a skin care business with it’s heart in the right place.
Ready to get inspired?
Read ahead to know better about the ins-and-outs of this 16 year old business!
No pain, no gain: How failures teach the best lessons –
If you would have told me 16+ years ago that I was going to start a skincare business, I would have thought you were crazy. What did I know about skincare?
My background was in graphic design, and I was freelancing from home after the birth of my children so it was perfect.
I also somehow (it was a friend of a friend) fell into a telecom sales job and then, later on, became marketing director of a failed Adult Education start-up. I say all this because each job gave me something to take with me, and so after I had formulated our scrub, the rest fell into place.
Garage sales to online retail: What the journey was like –
After creating our formulas, my late sister, Michelle, joined me in the business to help figure out how to sell it. She had a bit of a retail sales background so her ideas were very helpful.
But marketing on a budget is hard and so we had to figure out other ways to have customers get to our website or get to us. We showed up at every local craft fair, holiday fair, school fair and more.
We gave out raffle prizes to charities and hosted our own, The Breast of Everything, with the WTFC.org (Women Together Fighting Cancer) for 10 years, creating a chance to be picked up in the local newspapers and thus get free publicity.
We created a production space in my garage so we could move out of the kitchen, and grew our business there for 5 years until we had no choice but to move to larger spaces. Our name and our reputation started to grow.
“ I don’t think I could have started ScrubzBody Skin Care Products. without all the knowledge I had gained from my other businesses, success or failure. “
Rise. Sell. Repeat: What a day looks like for Roberta –
Each day somehow looks different than the day before.
If I open the shop, then I set up for the day and make sure everything is in place. I then go through the Help a Reporter Out emails to see if there is something that would be a good fit for me to answer. I love HARO as a way to get our name and links to our business out there.
I then see if there are orders to process and anything that needs my attention. I love serving the customers that come in.
I also try to stay ahead of my email marketing, so I am always writing posts for future sending. Ordering items and daily business chores make up the rest.
The mood in the store kicks up a notch or three on party days when guests come in for our Make Your Own Scrubz Parties. We get walk-in’s as well, so the day can take on a party feel any day of the week!
Cracking the code for making the perfect sugar scrub –
I had created the scrub for myself to tackle my own dry skin. I was buying up so many jars of other brands beforehand that my husband started calling me Goldilocks. I liked some things about each brand, but found fault with each one as well. They were too greasy, or too smelly, or too granular to use on my face. Or too mushy with not enough grit.
Instead of buying another “porridge”, I finally decided to make my own, using all the great things I had liked and learned about and changing all the bad to make what we believe is the perfect sugar scrub.
Final Takeaway: Happy brands make happy customers –
We make incredible high-end skincare that makes skin sing with joy, but it’s the way we think about our customers’ needs and how we serve them that really sets us apart from others in a similar business.
I am very aware that people have many places to spend their money. When they choose to spend it with us, I take that responsibility very proudly and very strongly.
I want our customers to love the experience of shopping at ScrubzBody as much as they love how their skin feels after using our products.
