EP142. Why 2023 is your year to formulate change

Happy new year. It's 2023. I wish you a healthy, happy, prosperous year from me and from all of my team at Formula Botanica. This is my first podcast episode of the year and I want to start straight off by challenging you to think about how you're going to change your life. This year. It's time to hit the ground running and I'm excited about what all of this could mean for you. What goals are you going to set? How is formulation or green beauty going to play a role in your life? Just imagine where you could be a year from now if you made a plan to achieve your dreams. This could be an incredibly exciting year for you. Yes, the world is in tough times at the moment, there's no doubt about that. But in my episode today, I want to show you that there is a lot to be positive and optimistic about, particularly when it comes to the beauty industry and where green and indie beauty fit in. So join me as I help you start 2023 full of optimism and positivity for green beauty. Hi, it's Lorraine Dahlmer, chartered environmentalist, biologist and CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my green beauty opinions in which I share my thoughts on green beauty and set you a challenge to make the sector a better place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So new Year, new you, we all feel it this time of year. It's exciting to think that we can hit that reset button and give shape to goals and dreams that we have. I don't know about you, but I set New Year's resolutions for myself each year and then I hang them on my fridge so I can look at them all year long and it helps hold me accountable. You might be thinking about changing your job or learning a new skill such as formulation, or doing something big to change the world by starting your own mission driven business. But you might also be looking at the world around you at the moment and wondering if now really is the time. Don't worry, you're not alone. Unsteady times make us feel like we need to, you know, hibernate for a while. And yet this might actually be the very best time to start. By the time the world's economy starts looking better, do you want to be in a position to be ready to go or do you want to just be getting off the starting blocks? To help show you what I mean, I want to tell you a Few stories about businesses that did well in tough times. So let's start with Procter and Gamble, a well known brand which started as a simple soap and candle making company in 1837. Procter was a candle maker and Gamble was a soap maker. Now that year was better known as the panic of 1837, which should tell you everything you need to know because that year was a financial crisis in the United States that started off a major depression and that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, wages, everything went down. Westward expansion was stalled in the US Unemployment went up and everyone felt pretty miserable and pessimistic by 1859. So 22 years later, Procter Gamble were doing US$1 million annually in sales. That's a lot for 1859 standards, by the way. And the company now has over 100,000 employees worldwide and serves every country apart from North Korea. And while it would be easy to say that things were very different then, which of course they were, I want you to focus on the mindset that it would take for an entrepreneur to get started. When everyone around you feels gloomy, it would have felt just as scary at that time as it does now to start a business in a downturn. But the point to remember is you just don't know what the future might hold. And getting started can mean everything. So let's stick with the beauty industry for a moment and now talk about Revlon, who started during the Great Depression of 1932. Now, Revlon have obviously just filed for bankruptcy, but that's mainly down to the fact that they had mountains of debt and weren't keeping up with the changes in the beauty industry. But regardless of that, the fact remains that they were one of the most successful cosmetic brands of the 20th century. And if we look at their origins, three men, Charles and Joseph Revson, who are brothers, and their chemist, Charles Lachman, started a business during a time when personal income plummeted, when international trade dropped by more than 50%, and when unemployment rose massively. It must have felt pretty bleak at that time. But that didn't hold them back. They just started. Or let's look a bit more recent for more examples. You might have heard of Tatcha, the luxury Japanese inspired beauty brand founded by Vicky Tsai in 2009, just at the tail end of the financial crisis. Now, for context, some commentators estimate that 45% of global wealth had just been destroyed by the global financial crisis at this point. But that didn't hold Vicky back. She just woke up one day and said, I Choose happiness. This is all explained on her website. And Tatcha now brings in over US$100 million in revenues each year. What I love about Vicky's story is she had a mission and it was bigger than herself and she went out and made it happen. Then let me tell you about our graduate, Sandra Velazquez from Nopaleira. We talk about Sandra a lot at Formula Botanica because she's doing so many amazing things. Now, Nopalera started in November 2020 during lockdown and Sandra's business has soared over the last two years. She's just celebrated her two year anniversary by, get this, raising US$2.7 million in investment funding. And it just proves yet again that if you have the right concept, you can achieve success too, regardless of what situation the global economy is in. And finally, I should tell you that L's actually grew during the third quarter of 2022. Their sales were up by almost 20% compared to the same period in 2021. That's astounding. And it just goes to show that there is still plenty of money in the market, even in a downturn. As my good friend Melinda Koss, the skincare business mentor, said on LinkedIn recently, if L' Oreal can increase their sales, then that means there's a market. And if there's a market, there's an opportunity for you to increase your sales as well. So all of that was a very long winded way of saying, don't let fear of failure or fear of the economic downturn hold you back in 2023, this is your year. You don't have to be a celebrity brand. You don't have to be l'. Oreal. You just have to make a commitment and grab that opportunity to change your life by becoming a formulator and beauty entrepreneur. Just like Vicky Tsai of Tatcha, you can sit up one morning and say, I choose happiness. So my challenge to you for this week, if you have a dream of becoming a formulator and beauty entrepreneur, is to do three things. Firstly, I want you to say to yourself, I choose happiness. And realize that you can achieve so much by just getting started in 2023. Secondly, I want you to take a deep breath and realize that you're not taking on the world by wanting to start or grow a beauty brand. You, you can start simple and small. And thirdly, I want you to picture yourself a year from now, having made significant progress on your goals, knowing where you want to go, feeling empowered about your future. How does that feel? Hold onto that feeling as you go into 2023 because you have the potential to be unstoppable. Thank you for listening to my Green Beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course and then come and pre enrol for our next term time, which will be open between January 17th and 24th, when you can take that first or next step in achieving the formulation career that you've always dreamed about and maybe taking that first step to starting your own beauty brand. If you haven't subscribed yet to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favorite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode.