This One Shift Will 10X Your Business Vision (Most CEOs Miss It!) l Jan Arnold

It transformed the beauty industry. I would say in the last 50 years, it was one of maybe three major innovations in the industry. And what did it do to our business? It tripled, quadrupled sales.

I'm Alison Maslin and welcome to the Scale It Method podcast. If you're a CEO or founder and you're ready to take your company to the next level while also living a fuller, richer life, you are in the right place. I built 10 companies over the last 40 years and I'm here to share the most up to the minute strategies and the biggest needle movers that will truly scale your company. Plus, I'll give you a peek into how we do it over at Pinnacle Global Network, where we help business owners multiply their growth and enjoy the journey along the way. Okay, my Scale it friends, let's dive in. CND Creative Nail Design co founder Jan Arnold is a pioneer in the world of beauty. With a career that has spanned over 40 years, Jan has become an unparalleled leader in the nail industry, specifically championing the nail profession or while providing innovative quality products rooted in nail health, safety and style. Passionately driven to progressing the professional nail category, Jan stands at the forefront, ensuring this influential spirit is infused in each aspect of the brand. Jan's personal sense of style makes her high fashion. Wait till you see what she's wearing. She looks amazing today. And when asked about her secret of success, she attributes it to thinking big. Big ideas, big impact, big passion. Her company has collaborated with the world's top designers, including Libertine, Alexander Wang, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Carolyn Herrera, just to name a few. As a result, nails have become the ultimate fashion accessory around the world. Jan and her team scaled up CND and ultimately Revlon. Revlon acquired the company for 600 million in revenue. Jan remains a powerhouse spokesperson. She is the brand representative for cnd. And so we, we are so excited for her to come and share her journey and her secrets with us. So, Jan Arnold, let's give it up for Jan Arnold.

Hi. And hello.

Oh, so happy you're here.

So good to see you. Hi, everyone. I'm so happy to be here. And yeah, eight years ago, it sure went fast.

I know. Do you remember?

Yes.

It was so exciting.

Like it was yesterday.

And that was 2016.

Wow.

Isn't that so? And some of the pins that are here actually did see that presentation in 2016 and remember. But go ahead and have a seat.

Thank you.

Because we have lots of stuff to talk about.

Yes, yes. So much to talk about. Right. You were saying over 40 years. We just celebrated our 45th anniversary on March 31, and I'm just like, how do you build a brand in the garage? And then 45 years later, you're still having fun, still making it happen, still as exhilarated today as I was back then. I'm not sure I even foresaw that coming, you know?

Yeah. And you know what? She. This is for real. Like, I am telling you, Jan is one of the most enthusiastic people and passionate people, and you should love your business. You know, you should be energized by your business. And so if you don't, then we need to look at that. Something's got to change.

So, yeah, I've always believed that we communicate with passion, and passion is what persuades. Right. If you're passionate about something, if you truly understand it and you believe in it, then when somebody says, tell me about this innovation, or tell me about the customers you serve, if you're passionate about it, then it comes from here, you know, you almost don't even need these notes, you know?

Yeah. And I just. Before we start, I don't know if you can. Can you. Can you get up on her nails here and so you can see. Let's see if they can do that. I'm not sure. Can you see that? Look at this. They're artistry. I know. The men are like, what?

Shiny, Shiny nails?

Yes. Amazing. But this is. You've created this whole industry, and nails have become such an art. And so you founded the company in 1979. Like you said, you started in the garage, you expanded it regionally, nationally, to a global company. And so, first of all, congratulations. Let's give it up for Jan in the chat. Congratulations, first of all. And so what was the spark? I mean, you talked about passion. What was the spark that really ignited the passion? And then how did that shape things for the long term?

Well, my father was a dentist and a chemist, and one day, a nail professional, a manicurist, was sitting in his chair, and she recognized the odor of a monomer and a polymer, a substance that dentists use to make crowns and caps in the teeth. And she said, you know, I'm doing nail enhancements, nail extensions. And back in 79, they were single link polymers. They were thick. They would turn yellow in the sun. They were not resilient. And my dad said, why don't you give me a sample of whatever you're using and. And let me investigate it. So he would work by day as a dentist, and then he would go to his Laboratory in the garage by night. And what he discovered is that everything that the industry had at the time was a single link polymer. So he's like, no wonder, no wonder you're having problems. So he submitted for a patent for the first ever cross linked polymer resin. And then when he got the patent, he came to his five kids and he said, okay guys, I'm a dentist, I already have a career, I love doing chemistry at night, but I have this stuff and it might be important for the nail industry. And he said, if any of you are interested in the nail business, any of you want to take this and do something with it from a business point of view, how? Have at it. But I'm out. Like, I don't want, I don't want to do it. And by the way, I'm not going to give you money to do it. I will gift you the patent, but you have to learn the industry, go to a bank, get a loan and build it yourself. So true enough, we were exchanging product with a local beauty college and I learned all about the business. I, I had worn nail enhancements because I was born with dreadful nails, but I learned how to do it. We went to the banker and I did a long nail enhancement on the banker's pinky.

Oh, that is hysterical.

And to this day I'm not sure if he gave us the loan to get us out of the office and get the smell out of his office or if he really believed in us. But, but we came home with a moderate loan. Dad threw us out of the garage. We started our first facility. My brother Tommy, who was in high school, was in the warehouse and we went to work learning the innovation, understanding the chemistry, understanding that we are a science based company where science informs technique. Science empowers the nail professional to be able to look at an individual client's need. All of us have different nail types, different lifestyles, different maintenance needs and really specifically craft a service to solve that need to offer a solution for every client.

But yeah, and that's really, you know, what is it? The mother of necessity. That's what invention is, is. There was a gap in the industry, there was a problem, the nails were not staying on, it was, they were turning yellow. So if you think about in your own industry, where's the gaps or in.

Your life, what are the pain points? And for us, what really drove us is we've got these, the preeminent world class laboratory for nail innovation in the world. We have seven scientists, polymer scientists, we have biologists, we have a lab, salon, so the turn on for me was the science, the potential of inventing new molecules for different outcomes. The more we understood the nail professional, the more. The more it ignited the big ideas. And I'll never forget talking about big ideas. One day we were sitting around with our team and our chemists, and we were saying, what are the pain points that women suffer from as it relates to their nails now? And this was probably back in 2004, 2005, that we really hunkered down on this question like we had asked ourselves that before. But this opportunity was, what is it really all about? And we realized that if a woman or a man, if anyone goes to a salon, has their nails done, let's say they have a beautiful bright red enamel on their nails and they go home, and three days later, it chips. Three days later, the shine dulls. Like when you get a manicure and you pay a lot of money for it, you expect it to delight you for however long the promise is behind the technology. And then we said, okay, professional manicures, if something goes wrong, you're really annoyed. But if you're doing your own nails at home, how many times have we tried to apply polish the night before a big presentation and we go to bed and wake up with sheet marks on our nails, like, how devastating? Or to break a nail. So we went to our chemists and we said, look, guys, we've got to solve this problem. We want a polish that actually looks like a polish. It goes on like a polish, but it wears tough like a gel. It's going to be protective. It's going to last for two plus weeks. But when it's time to remove it, no nail damage. This was really important to us. So believe it or not, three years later, our chemists come back to us and they said, all right, Jan, we've got it to go on like polish. It wears for 14 plus days, but it takes a half an hour to get it off. And we said, no, that isn't going to work. Go back into the laboratory, believe it or not, two and a half more years to figure out the removal process. So can you imagine in your businesses investing five and a half years not to launch a sparkler, not to launch a firework, but we launched a rocket. It was a rocket ship. When CND shellac hit in 2010, I'll never forget. And this was one of, like, we had this huge innovation, but our biggest mistake is we didn't know how big it was. And we underestimated our forecasting. We scared ourselves. We really and when shellac launched on May 1, 2010, it crashed our website. It went viral. Internet was just really getting hot. Crashed the Internet. And within two months, we were sold out of bottles. The caps were gone, the brushes were gone. We were out of inventory for about four months. And it was so huge. And think about this. We had just come out of a major recession, the Great Recession, where it drove consumers to do their own manicures at home. Many nail pros were going out of business. So right as that recession was coming to an end, we greeted nail professionals and their clients with this rocket called Shellac.

And let me just say one thing, and then I want to get into team and leadership and some of those things too, because, you know, and someone was saying in there, well, this is about startup. I want you guys to understand we are so impulsive as business owners. We want it yesterday. And the thing is, is that. And I know this story because I remember you sharing this is you wouldn't settle until the product was really like something that had never been done before. So if you can imagine, you know, because they had been around since 1979, this is early 2000s, this is well into the company launching another product. We're talking about scaling, scaling here. This was the big scale for you. But you kept going back to the laboratory saying, it's not it, it's not it. We've got to find it. And then that really put the company on the map.

Well, and back then, you're so right. Like, we're like, okay, we're almost there. But if we come out with this revolutionary nail coating, nail polish will last for two plus weeks and it damages clients nails, then it's not living up to our mantra of being innovation driven, education driven, and super committed to nail health. Like, my dad was a dentist. We learned preventative maintenance. We learned how to prevent nail damage to. To create a coating that would really protect the nail. And yeah, so I think looking back, maybe naivete is a little bliss. Like, we so believed that we could get this 100%. Now, can you imagine the finance guys, the advisors? By then, Revlon owned us already. So I'm very proud of the fact that the corporation had the tolerance to endure the five and a half years to not just build a little firework, a little, you know, little sparkler, but they really supported us in taking it all the way. Now what did it do? It transformed the beauty industry. I would say in the last 50 years, it was one of maybe three, three major innovations in the industry. And what did it do to our business? It tripled, quadrupled sales. It transformed the beauty industry. I would say in the last 50 years, it was one of maybe three major innovations in the industry. And what did it do to our business? It tripled, quadrupled sales. And I remember back then someone sharing with me that sales are vanity, man. You can get high on your own momentum when you see the sales rocket ship up. Profits are sanity. So you have to really keep an eye on what you're investing, how many samples we were putting out, what we were doing to really grow the business globally. But cash is king. And so, you know, that was the bottom line that you can believe this momentum. But after the launch, what's your next move? You know, we're going to fill the pipe for a year, maybe two years. And with shellac, it probably took three years. But had we not gone back into the lab at that time, continuing to innovate, continuing to question. Yes. Is, are we at the top of our game? Yes, we are. And I have to say that getting there was maybe more fun than being there.

Okay, that is huge, right? Well, we say it's the journey, not the destination, because you should enjoy the process getting there. But sometimes you feel like I'm so in it and it's so hard. You know, it can feel that way, but I just, I love we're going to get into some team. But I love you sharing that story because here she was already 20 years in and they were innovating. You all, whatever your products and services are, you have to constantly be optimizing that the world is changing and. And somebody's going to come out with something bigger and better and brighter. And so it might as well be you. And part of this is really helping you to take the time to allow your brain to open up, to come up with new ideas. Now, let's talk about. Because you had to have a robust team. You're talking about the scientists and all the different people that it takes. What were you looking, what were some of the key attributes you were looking for in your early hiring for those team members and then some of those strategies as you were scaling globally?

Well, we needed entrepreneurial thinkers. You know, my brother and I founded our company and I always like to say that I was salt because of the white hair. He was pepper, he had little, literally has dark hair. And we rarely agreed on much. And so in the early days, I came from the creative perspective, from our customers perspective. What does the nail professional want? What are they feeling? What is the emotion behind it? My brother was coming from more the manufacturing, what's feasible, all of the technical things. And we would go to the table with our chemists, with our marketing folks and we would duke it out. Like for me building this business, it was about initially creative abrasion. Like I invite creative abrasion. It's if you don't agree with my position, it almost brings me greater joy and than if you say great idea, Jan, because I want to know what can go wrong. I want to know what we can do better. And we would duke it out. And thank goodness he was my brother, we could go to dinner that night and hug each other at the end of the day. And because we knew through creative abrasion comes creative collaboration, had we not gone through that process, and I'll share with you, we didn't think that we were inventing the first ever gel polish. We thought we were inventing something totally different, a soft gel. And lo and behold, we realized, wait a minute, this product is for everyone, not just a niche segment of the marketplace. So back to your question.

I want to. Just because you said something brilliant and Pam wrote it in the chat, creative abrasion creates creative collaboration. Let's quote Jan on that because that is absolutely brilliant. To creative abrasion, meaning you're being creative, but you have different perspectives and you're not always going to agree. And I think this is something really important. And as you're becoming that visionary CEO is you've got to be able to take the input from your team. If it's always your way or the highway, you're not going to be very creative, you're going to be one sided.

Oh, totally. And I really, really believe in diversity of opinion, diversity of background. You know, you might come from the science side or the finance side or the creative side. It is that blend, that combination that you have to lean into. And sometimes the little chemist in the corner of the room who's super shy, the more white personality, super strong intellectual, they've got the nugget that is going to unleash the answer to finding that solution to whatever your challenge is. So I believe that if you call a meeting, and it's been difficult during Pandemia because we were all on virtual means, we had to figure out how to communicate virtually. If you come to a meeting, you are coming with an opinion. And so I don't do all the talking. I don't let whoever is leading the meeting do all the talking. Everyone comes with an opinion or you don't come to the meeting, you're not going to sit there and multitask on my watch. You know, I want to hear what's wrong with the ideas and then let's find that solution. Absolutely, yeah.

I love that. And you know, leadership, which we're going to talk about leadership over these three days, it can be exhilarating, but it can also be challenging. And what would you say? I mean, looking back, what do you feel like your leadership style is?

Well, I'm the visionary. That's what I do. That's how we built the brand. I have the big. I'm an abstract thinker and a creative so I can look into the future. I can imagine something and once I can see it, then I believe I can achieve it. If I can't see it or if it's foggy or there's clouds ahead, okay, my vision isn't right. But if I can see a vision, then as a leader, my job is to engage the people I love. I engage my A team. I count on the biting foxes to tell me what's wrong with it and I have to lean in when they bite at my heels. As annoying as it is, I have to lean into them. But my job is to get them to see my vision. And there have been many, many times when they would listen to my vision and say, Jan, you have lost it. Like officially you have gone crazy. And I remember first year of pandemic 2020. I mean we do these huge trade shows all around the world and we couldn't do the shows. I'm in a touch business. You know, nail professionals are eyeball to eyeball with their clients. They're touching their clients hands. How am I going to do my work if I can't be face to face with my customers? And so what we decided to do is launch an event called Nailathon. And and we had a studio on the east coast, we had another one on the west coast. And my idea, and they all thought I was crazy is to make it a 24 hour nailathon where we would spotlight nail professionals, all the leaders from around the globe, 24, 7. So no matter what time zone you're in, no matter where you are, you're gonna see a juicy segment during Nailathon. Well, the team said we love the idea of Nailathon. We love like, you know, casting the spotlight on all the superstars. But 24 hours is a little cuckoo. So we ended up doing a nine hour event. It was October of 2020. We sold about $100,000 with the product through Nailathon. And the objective was not even driven by sales. It was about messaging and connection. And actually we did have a new product we were launching. But it was for me a great example of having a big vision, selling the vision, getting creative. Now, had I gone and said let's do like a two hour event, like let's make it juicy for the nail, probably would have been an hour event. But the fact I wanted it 24 hours, at least we got the nine hour event and it was successful.

Yeah, exactly. And I love that you just came up with this idea and brought it to the team. And that's the fun part of when you can get into that creative space. Otherwise you're always just reacting to what is going on instead of being proactive to drive the business forward.

Now, we do not compete with our competitors. That's another one of my mantras. I probably should know more about what they do. Although team members keep an eye on it. But as a visionary, my eye is on the future. My eye is on technology. I my eye is on those consumer pain points to come up with the creative ideas to solve those issues. If my competitors are doing some things great for me, I don't waste my energy on it because I want to be number one. I want to be excellent at innovation and I want to keep launching those rockets. And that's what we're known for.

Yeah. Incredible. Now, as you've been launching the rockets, have there been in your leadership journey, I'm sure that there have been where you had to make a difficult decision that maybe it was a hard decision that you had to make or even a painful decision, but influenced, you know, had a big impact on the company.

Well, for everyone. All of our female as well as our male partners, participants. If you're getting your nails done when you go to the salon today, you're seeing because of Shellac, you're seeing the light cure unit like an LED lamp sitting on the table of the nail professional's desk. Shellac sort of started that wave of light curable gel products, both gel polish, gel extension, extension materials plumpers that can change the illusion of the nail. And it took us, I want to say, probably 20 years to calibrate the use of these light cure lamps with the photo initiators in the chemistry to guarantee correct curing as well as correct removal to prevent nail damage. Now, our very first light cure foray was probably 30 years ago. It was ahead of its time. We didn't have the right intelligence. We were really excited about it because we were the visionaries behind it, but it wasn't quite right. And back then, we were a private corporation. We had hired outside board of directors, the guy for international sales, a marketing expert, a sales expert. And we were kind of leaning on them for advice. It turns out that Solar Beam was not a success. We had to take the machines back. We ate a million dollars that year, was a loss. But how we recovered is we thought, okay, big lesson learned. It was before its time. We had too many projects on the docket. We were getting a little high on our own momentum. And what we learned from that is innovation, discipline, deepening our research and development from a field perspective. And maybe the biggest lesson, Fewer, bigger, better. We were doing too many things all at the same time. And not doing the one thing that could have been huge way back then. We didn't do it to the ultimate that it could have been done. And quite frankly, we were ahead of our time. Took 20 years to get it right.

Yeah. Amazing. For those of you that are impatient, anyone here, but I would say too, what you were talking about, and I used to be so guilty of this. I'm so much better now. But I had one time, an employee that said to me, allison, you are like a red Ferrari. You are running so fast, and we're just running so fast to keep up with you. And. And my first thought was, can't you just run faster? You know, that was my first thought. It was. I didn't say it, but that's what I was thinking. But I realized that it was actually we were spinning out as a company. We were going in too many directions. And I think that's what we're going to do. Over the three days, we're going to build out your strategy, because when you're strategic on not only the what, but the when are you doing it, you know, that makes all of the difference.

Well, and the other thing we learned, when I'm talking about fewer, bigger, better, it sounds easy. But we had to your point? The red Ferrari, we had so many good ideas. We had the world's best chemists in our laboratory. There was so much we could do to make the nail professional help the nail professional reach their ultimate success, that we got too eager to make it all happen. And when you. Well, here's a big lesson. When you launch too many things. Like, let's say we launched Solar Beam. We came out with another iteration of a gel product. We had a new nail polish line. What are we focusing on? You know, are we trying to make light cure technology the next big trend or Are we trying to sell more nail polish? And it comes down to that. It sounds ridiculous, but it's like when you're launching too many things all at once. If you and your team don't even know what you're ultimately focused on, then how does your customer know how to decipher what you're sharing with them? So what we've really learned is do it beautifully, do it perfectly, make sure the testing is excellent. It is the one payoff to having a. Well, there are a couple having a corporate parent company because we were purchased by Revlon. At Revlon, they have a claims and regulatory department. It's a whole separate lab. Anything we launch has to go through an outside claims test that costs around $250,000 per focus. And they poke holes every which way. They really give us the language that we can share with our customers. And, you know, going with a parent company that has that level of diligence now, the reason they have it is they don't want to get sued. I realize it's defensive for us. We used it proactively to our benefit. It's like claims department. We're spending the money. Let's push the envelope. Let's how deep, see how deep we can get these claims. And that's what sets us apart from our competitors. It's why I mentioned I don't care what they're doing, because they're chasing to keep pace with what we're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. I want to talk. In a minute. I want to talk a little bit about the sale to Revlon. I know we do have some people here that want to ultimately exit their business. Actually, I think I'll go to that right now, because you're talking about it, and there are people that are going to get. Because when you build a team managed company, you are ultimately preparing your business for exit. You should run your company that way anyway. And so you have to kind of think of what that end game is. Right. And so what was that like for you to say, okay, here I was, you know, it was our private company. Now we're with Revlon. But you've stayed on all these years.

I know. It's. We. It's really unusual that a founder would stay on. And I've been with the company since day one, you know, 45 years. Well, when we. Before we sold, I mentioned earlier that we took on an outside private board of directors to sort of teach us what. What we didn't know. We were entrepreneurs. We were into the science. We were manufacturing the products but there was a lot that we didn't know. And, yeah, we'll modify the audio there. And that's why we need. So it was very funny. Our outside board, we had them for five years before we sold. And they would say, okay, guys, this year we're going to work on profitability. Like, you have no problem building sales because you have great products, you have great ideas, but now we're going to work on that profitability discipline. Then we worked on our ebitda, making sure the numbers were all lining up. We made sure we put some cash in the bank. So each year we had a task that we had to tackle. And at the end of this five year and no. So my brother and I said, oh, it's time to sell. That was never really our goal. You know, this was a passion project, living up to the expectation of our father's innovation. By the way, we lost our dad two years into the business, but I always felt like my job was to carry his legacy and his vision into the future until I could go all the way to the moon with it. So that is what drove me. So our board went out and they got l', Oreal, Cody, Conair, Redken, Revlon. There are probably seven companies who said, oh, C and D, we want to put our hat in the game. There were top three manufacturers wanting to buy us. And what I remember is the president of Revlon at the time said, jan, where's the fire in your belly? What's it all about for you? Why do you do this? And I said, number one, I'm serving the needs of the nail professional with excellent innovation and education, kind of following the legacy of the original dream. Number two, I'm really keeping that family legacy alive, but I really want to elevate the game. I don't want to be. I don't really care if I'm number one, but I want to be the best, which will make me number one. And so I'm very committed to the science, to the customer, to the vision. And they said, that's why we want you. And if we buy the company, we need you to stay on as the visionary. Now, my brother, in a different situation, he was the finance guy. He was overseeing manufacturing. That's in part why you sell. You scale it up, you leverage, you know, Revlon Scott Manufacturing, globally distribution. Well, we already had our own distribution, but it was the legal, the finance, the manufacturing is why you sell. But Revlon said to me, as the visionary, we believe in you and we want you to stay. We will rely upon you. And still to this day, when I sit at the corporate budget table, when we're looking at vision for our company, my job is to defend world class innovation, to make sure that we're investing in education, to empower the nail proof, to use the systems correctly and to be as creative as exciting. I mean, nails are a fashion accessory and those three principles have been my guiding light from day one in the garage and they have never changed.

I mean, here's the thing, and whatever industry that you're in, and some of you may know nothing about the nail industry, some of our men here and so forth, but you're such a visionary, you're so passionate after all the, I mean, they are so blessed to have you seriously to stay on because a lot of times that doesn't happen. And you've been able to continue to grow and scale all these years. Now we have some of our attendees want to. How many of you want to expand beyond your region and have more of a global landscape? Raise up your hand. What would you say is probably one of the most important things they need to know when expanding globally?

Well, for us, I think we learned this the hard way that if we got in a hurry to rush into a market and glean as, you know, as many sales and grow as quickly as possible, it never worked. I remember when we entered France and there was a gentleman who was the number one beauty distributor in France, but he didn't get nails, he was a hair guy and he didn't really understand our category and we should have listened to that as a cue that if he didn't understand the the subject, then how on earth could he support the customer in the way in which we believe they should be supported? So I really learned that especially globally, you have to meet the person, you have to break bread. You have to endure having those dinners, getting to know each other, understanding the philosophy of the business and then empowering them with your vision. It's not good enough for me that a distributor sells beauty products. They have to embody, they have to understand the science or they can't sell what we do. They have to love the nail professional and understand what they do. You know, you think about a nail professional holding the hand of their client, they're working eight to ten hours a day looking eyeball to eyeball into the client's eyes. They have to have the left brain precision, a beautiful precision application. But from the right brain side, they have to be creative enough to delight their every unique individual client. So this is a complicated customer that has this duality of power. Left brain, right brain. And if you tap into them and you support them, the number one issue a nail professional has, they've got in spades, creativity. But they don't believe in themselves. Because if you think about 50 years ago, the nail pro was doing manicures in the back of the salon and, and now they're the number. They're one of five top topics on Pinterest and Instagram. When people go and get their nails done, they find a photo through Pinterest or Instagram and say, this is what I want. And so they are popular, they're finding their fame through social media and therefore they're finding their fortune. Believe me when I tell you there are nail professionals who are making six figure incomes, sending their children to the best colleges because they're working with credible scientific products and they're doing it in extraordinary ways.

Let me ask you a question because I remember you telling me this before and I thought this was really amazing. So I want you to think about your products, your services and who your target audience is. Who is your target audience? And then all of a sudden another audience comes that you could sell to, but you didn't. Right?

Right. We don't sell direct to consumer. We have home care products like solar oil. We have a nail polish called Vinylux that people can buy and through Ulta, Amazon, Amazon did an Amazon Pro division. But our products listen to our business model. When we come out with like, I'll use Shellac as the example again, it's not one component. It's the base coat, the color coat, the top coat and the lamp. And scientifically, the product communicates with the light output which creates the cure, the set of the product. And then when it's time to remove it. This is the coolest part. The nail pro puts a cotton swab on the top of the nail, wraps the nail in foil for eight minutes. Now what's happening during that eight minutes is the acetone is traveling through these microscopic tiny tunnels through the top coat, through the color, down to the base coat where the quick release polymers lie. When the acetone gets there, the product flies off the nail like a butterfly. We trademark the word butterfly removal.

Now you one thing that I really want to dive into is this thought of you could have sold like in Sephora or all that, but you wanted to stay true to who your market was. So I want to kind of prove a point that applies to all of their businesses because, you know, sometimes we dilute our product or our service in going to too many markets is what I'm trying to say. And I think part of your success. Success is that you did not. You stayed true to pro, to who your target audience was.

Absolutely. And you know, my example of how intricate the science is, putting it in the hands of the consumer would be a disaster, honestly. Right. Because they don't have the precision, they don't have the application. They wouldn't have the patience to allow the acetone to go all the way down for that magical butterfly. So had we gotten, I'm going to use the word had we gotten greedy to say, you know what we've nailed, we're at the top of our game with our initial audience, the pro. Let's go retail. And trust me, when once we launch shellac, the floodgates opened, I'm going to tell you, within a year, we had 100 fast followers taking their nail polish, taking their gel, mixing it together, calling it a gel polish. And the word shellac became generic, like Kleenex. So people would go in the salon and ask for shellac thinking it was gel polish. And yet it was our 14 patents later product. But when you work to patent something, when you work to calibrate something, putting it in the wrong customer's hands would become a disaster. And a lot of those fast followers that tried to make their own shellac, they failed. They went retail, they went into Sephora, exactly what you're saying. They. They were in and out the door within a year, two years, because guess what? It's too hard to do. It's why we pay premium price to have a pro do it. And so I'm going to live and breathe and support the pro to the end of the earth. Because hand in hand with my pro, we are reaching all of you. We're reaching the consumer. We're educating you on nail health and nail care. And I can't do it without the partnership of the nail pro. And after we sold to Revlon, can you imagine? Revlon is a mass consumer industry company. And so what do I do at the corporate table? I bang my fist for the pro. And that's what I do. That's my job. If you ask me, what's your ultimate job? That's it. Protecting the pro. And I'll even go so far as to say not only do I get support on that corporately, but I started a scholarship fund for the Pro back in 2016, where CND put $50,000 into a fund for school school scholarships to recruit new nail professionals. I went into 10 of my distributor partners. They each put 10 in. We launched our scholarship with a $250,000 kitty that I've grown to a half a million to recruit that new talent. There are so many nail enthusiasts young that I want them to become applied.

To many of your industries. If you can be investing in education, for who are your potential shining stars for your team? Well, this has been amazing and adventurous, for sure, with the whole everything that just happened. What last piece of. Because we're going to dive into vision next, and we're going to start building out your strategic vision. And that's why I wanted to start with Jan's story, because you've done it. You've done it, and you're speaking from looking back on this journey, what would you say? What is some advice that you can leave with everybody here today?

I mean, you're all here investing in your businesses, so congratulations on that. I think that's another lesson I learned in the industry. I got very involved in the industry. I participate on every board. I pay it forward through philanthropy. I believe that really speaks volumes to your customer, that not only do you want to make a buck, but you want to make a difference. And that has been kind of my vision since day one. My advice is stay focused on the prize. Know what's going to help get. Get you there, avoid distraction, lean in and debate it. And maybe it's the next big idea. And maybe there are times that you have to say, you know what? That's not in line with my strategy. And sometimes, you know, it's the fomo like, oh, my God, I hope I, you know, that's the right decision, that we're not passing up something that could be potentially huge. And, you know, when Allison was talking about, you know, staying focused on the customer, we did one time at the highest ranks of Revlon, they wanted to do an experiment direct to the consumer. And we fought against, failed. We prevailed. And it really proved the point that if you know who you are, you stay true to your vision, you defend it all the way. You treat your community like they're the boss and engage, lean into them, and then pay it forward to make sure that you're not just protecting your business and yourself, but you're protecting your industry, that you are rising to the top of your industry.

That's amazing.

It works.

Yes. Well, obviously, this has been so fantastic. So let's give it up for Jan Arnold, everybody. This is so awesome. I learned so much always with being around you, and I'm so inspired by your passion and coming. She flew all the way here to the studio to be here with you all. You were at like a big conference, nail conference in Orlando. Came out here to Scottsdale. So thank you so, so much.

Alison, a pleasure. Good luck, everyone. Thank you so much. It's so fun to see all of your shining faces. So and, and please connect us. If anyone has any questions, I'd be more than happy.

All right, Wonderful. Thank you.

CND.com follow yeah, right.

Thanks for tuning in to the Scale it method podcast. Remember, scaling your business is about more than just growth. It's about creating the life you want to live. So if your business has hit that seven or eight figure mark, we know how hard you've worked to get there and you're ready to accelerate your success. But with a team managed company that can actually flourish without you there, a team that is all in behind your vision. So check us out at Pinnacle Global Network where we help leaders like you scale fast and enjoy the ride. So head to Pinnacle Global Network to learn more. Until next time, keep scaling and living your best life.