EP32. Why Beauty Logistics Are Not Boring

Hello and welcome to the Formula Botanica Green Beauty Conversations podcast. My name's Gemma. I'm the relationship manager at Formula Botanica and also the host of this podcast. If you want to find out a little bit more about Formula Botanica, who we are and what we do, then head over to formulabotanica.com and check out our free sample class. In this episode, I'm chatting to Rachel Whitaker from Indie Beauty Delivers. All about fulfillment and outsourcing your fulfillment alongside logistics and how to plan out the logistics for your skincare or hair care business. I hope you enjoy.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Rachel, hello.

Thank you very much for having me. I'm really pleased to be on.

It's a pleasure for having you. I've been wanting to have you on the podcast for ages, ages and ages and ages, and I'm so glad that we finally made this happen. So I know you, obviously, and some of our listeners will know you, but for those listeners and wider community that don't know you, if you could introduce yourself, tell us who you are, what you do, your business, your passions.

Oh, cool. Oh, no, I can do that best bit. So my name is Rachel Whittaker and I'm the founder of a company called Indie Beauty Delivers. So some of you may know me because I have quite a big sort of community kind of feel going on on the social media. So you might be in my Facebook group, Indie Beauty Rocks, or following me on Instagram. My background is that I am where I spent 13 years in beauty logistics. So working actually for a warehouse that specialized here in the UK in dealing with beauty brands. So I guess if I now add in the time that I've been in business, I've been doing kind of logistics for beauty brands for around about 17 years, which seems like quite a long time now. So I used to manage, I'll be the senior manager for a big, big warehouse that dealt with international brands of all shapes and sizes. People like pz, Cousins Beauty. And I worked for Procter and Gamble, Coty, Prestige, lots of big old brands. And also we used to work quite closely with some of the more independent brands. So it was right at the start when kind of independent brands started to come out. So it was quite exciting. And I guess one of the brands that we worked with at that point was Sanctuary, which is now quite an old brand now in Boots. But when I first found out about them and started to help them, they were run by a man in his garage from Devon. So that was the sort of brand that I used to work with and really, really enjoyed. And it introduced me to both the logistics, but also the wonderful world of kind of independent beauty, which was quite exciting. So I guess I had the opportunity then about five years ago to branch out and actually I thought that there was a lot more that I could do for independent brands. When I worked in the warehouse, I got to meet brands quite late on in that journey, by which time there were things that perhaps I could have had a really big impact on. So I decided to go it alone, that big step where you go out on your own. And I launched my business with the specific sort of remit and niche of working with independent brands who are in their startup and early stages to help them make sure that they were thinking about their logistics early on in their journey so they weren't going to get unexpected shocks and costs further down the line. And particularly brands that want to target retail. I do a lot of work with them to help make sure that they understand really what's going to be required of them. And also helping with that kind of amazing fact of outsourcing your logistics and being at a point where you can get rid of it. Because let's face it, as kind of indie beauty founders, not many of us really like to do that kind of thing. We tend to be quite creative and salesy and that's where we have our skills and where we want to be focusing. We don't want to be sitting packing boxes and trying to work our way through 800 page manuals and from retailers and stuff. So I try and simplify that and take it away from independent brands as soon as I possibly can for them, really.

Okay, so just before we go into some of the things we wanted to cover, I thought maybe we could just. I haven't prepared for this. This is. Something just popped into my mind. But like what sort of things are.

Included in logistics for a business brand?

Because obviously we say logistics, logistics for a beauty brand. What are the sort of things you're looking at?

Well, it's one of those funny words, isn't it? And one of the things I did when I first launched my business was try to get to grips with what people would understand as logistics. Because when you're in the industry, logistics is logistics and we all know what that is. But when you're outside of it, it's full of a terminology that doesn't make sense. So logistics is really to do with your supply chain and it's everything that sits in your supply chain. And one of the things that I really encourage brands to do is recognize that from a really early stage logistics have an impact. So even when you go back as far as your packaging, you need to be thinking about that with a logistical twist as well. You need to be forward thinking and saying, well, am I going to be a business to consumer and E commerce brand? Because I need to design my packaging so that it's robust enough to deal with being in a courier's van or Royal mail van or parcel force van or something like that. If your goals are to be more of a retail brand, then there are aspects of your packaging which you need to think about with regards to how that's going to sit with a retailer. So even as far back as your packaging, there's still very much logistical sort of considerations to come into that. So it's really everything from the point of sort of design all the way through to the actual delivery to your customer. And one of the things I always say about logistics is it is one of the things which. It sounds so dull, Gemma, doesn't it? It's like logistics, it's really, really dull. It's just people sometimes I go and do like conferences and stu speeches and I stand up and they introduce me and they say that I'm a logistics expert and I almost see people's eyes closed. It's just like, oh no, they've gone already. Which is why I tend to be rather loud and boisterous on stage because I have to get people's attention back. The thing about logistics and the thing that's really important is actually is the most exciting and important part of what you do as a brand because logistics is the only time where you physically touch your customer, whether that's a consumer in their home and you're delivering them an E commerce order or whether that is a major retailer like Walmart or Boots and you're delivering to their warehouse. What happens then is your logistics. And it's the only time that you know, you really actually come into contact with your customer. So it's very memorable and it's very important to get it right.

Yes, absolutely. Is no one wants to receive, you know, they've ordered this wonderful product and they don't receive a big mangled box of Absolutely.

And they will remember. And the thing is nowadays with, we forget that particularly with business, to consumers, particularly with e commerce sorts of orders, you know, the moment when they receive their order, it doesn't matter how great your experience has been on their website and the customer service, the moment that that customer was waiting for was when it was delivered and that's the only moment that matters to them. And so if we get that wrong, it leaves a rather lasting impression which wipes out anything else you've done. And one of the problems today with social media, for all its benefits, is that people are very quick to jump onto it and to say negative things. And so, you know, we have to be very wary of that slight change in the way people deal with customer service now. And just, you know, we have to be thinking about it. So it is a dull subject in some respects, but it's also the most exciting part. And there's so much that you can do with your logistics to make that such an amazing customer journey and from both a retail and E commerce sort of perspective.

So we're today talking about fulfillment.

Yeah.

So let's just talk about quickly before we go into like outsourcing, all that sort of stuff. What do you mean by fulfillment? Exactly?

So fulfillment is the essentially storing your stock. Yeah. Taking an order and converting it into the physical, Taking a paper order or an email order and converting it into it, picking it and then arranging for the delivery of that and making that delivery. So the fulfillment is literally the hands on, on stuff right at the end of that kind of supply chain kind of link.

Okay, so let's talk about the benefits.

Then of outsourcing fulfillment.

Because obviously it's all right if you're doing two or three orders, I suppose a month or maybe a year depending. But if you're doing like 500 a day, where are you going to put it all?

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of brands that I sort of mentor in this area will talk about wanting to sort of outsource it. And you know, one of the things that you have to think about is, you know, what does that actually mean? And when should I be doing it? So kind of outsourcing your fulfillment. I would always recommend that brands do a little bit of their fulfillment themselves when they launch. And for most brands that's probably what's going to happen because there aren't a huge amount of us who have huge amounts of capital behind us ready to kind of get all these little sort of ducks in a row. And it might be that you want to have your contract manufacturer in place first or something like that. So a lot of brands will start to do their own fulfillment. And that's not a bad thing, actually, because it enables you to build a kind of a good idea of what you want your packages to look like, how you want your customer to receive them. You also get Just a good idea of what it's like just to deal with that level of things as well. You know, talking to parcel carriers, dealing with Royal Mails or your sort of, you know, your local mail provider. So quite often that's where people will start. And because we're bootstrapping our businesses most of the time, at some point you want to actually sort of take that and say, this doesn't fit in to my daily life anymore. Maybe it's because your garage is now so full that you, you physically just can't store the stock anymore. Maybe you have got to a level with your orders where they're just taking over your life and that's all you're doing. And you're packing your orders and to the detriment of the growth of your business. You're focusing on something which isn't your strength and is going to detract from may be that you just get to a point where you have enough money to be able to do it. But outsourcing, it simply means just finding somebody. We call them warehousers or third party logistics providers, fulfillment houses, they come by lots of different names, but it's finding somebody that you can trust who will invest in your brand and will help you to grow. And the key thing about outsourcing is you're not just outsourcing now. You're not saying, right, I've got to 20 orders a day and I can't cope with this anymore, so I'm going to go and find somebody to fulfill 20 orders a day. For me, it's about sitting down and saying, I'm at 20 orders a day now. I'm going to be at 500 orders a day by the end of the year and I'm planning to go into Harrods and Selfridges and Neiman Marcus and Walmart. And it's about looking long term and taking a business partner on who will help you to achieve those goals. Because finding the right warehouse takes time. Moving a warehouse, if you get it wrong, when you're much bigger, is an incredibly difficult job and becomes more and more difficult the bigger you are. So the main aim for outsourcing is to find somebody you trust, a company that you trust who matches you both now, but your future aspirations and who can really support your growth. Because you're essentially not just outsourcing that pick pack kind of thing. You're buying in logistics experts who will add serious value to your brand. So if you suddenly decide that you are going to be, you've let your targeting the far east, for example, or Thailand or India or Europe. You want to know that that person, that company that you've partnered with, have experience in that and they will want to offer that experience to you. So you're paying for much more than just that physical stuff. You're paying for all that expertise, years and years worth of knowledge and expertise. And, you know, if you can find the ones that specialize in beauty brands, then nine times out of 10, when you say, oh, yeah, we're going to go into QVC France, they'll go, don't worry, we already supply QVC France for these other brands. So we'll talk you through it. We know exactly what's going to happen and it just takes all that stress away from you. So you're not looking for a supply supplier, you're looking for a partner who's going to work with you long term.

So that's like, obviously the key benefit of you can hand it over. Yeah, to someone else and obviously all the storage, the space, you know, all of that stuff. So just to come on to the second point of something that you mentioned, like, when do you think it is the right time?

It really depends on your circumstances. So I work with brands who from a different. So I've got some brands I'm working with at the moment who do have some investors, they do have some capital and they're making conscious decisions to outsource immediately so that they are free to just completely work on the growth of their brand. A lot of brands will do their own fulfillment first, purely because it just needs to happen because it's a, you know, of cash flow issues. So I always advise brands that you'll know when you're there because it will either be that you've run out of space, it will be that it's detracting from your business and you and your business sort of growth is suffering, you're suffering, your family is suffering. There are all sorts of things that come in there. But what I would say is don't be afraid to explore the possibilities of outsourcing fulfillment before you perhaps need it. So I've recently done a piece of work with a brand where they weren't sure whether they were in the right place. So we went through the exercise and we got some quotes and we worked through everything and we worked out how much it would cost them right now. And they were able to sort of turn around and say, it's not quite right now, you know, it isn't quite the right thing for me. It's a little bit Too expensive. But it was still a really valuable piece of work because they're now in a much better place to make the best decision and they know when the time will be right financially. So don't be afraid to explore the options, you know, before you think you're there. And I once did a talk at Making Cosmetics a few years ago with a consultant who worked in marketing, but she also had her own brand. And one of the things I remember her saying was, it's never too early to look at your logistics and your fulfillment. In fact, there is a never too early point. You know, being ready for it and having the possibility of one is really important. And that kicks up a gear if you're a brand that's focusing on growth into the retail sector. Because when you're talking to retailers, particularly the bigger ones, it's really reassuring to them to hear an indie brand say, oh, yes, don't worry, I've got a warehouse lined up already and they already deliver to you and they're fully aware of what we need and we're just ready to go. It's quite professional way to be able to reassure those big brands, those big retailers that you have the capacity to service them. So, you know, if in doubt, start looking at it.

Okay, so if you, you get to the point where, yeah, I'm going to start looking at this, what can you expect a fulfillment partner to do for you?

Things are so exciting now when it comes to it. And again, you know, this is why I get really excited about this kind of geeky logistics side. It used to be that, you know, you had your stock stored in, your orders picked, so that's what you can expect. But now things get really, really exciting because with the growth of E commerce, with the growth of online retailers as well, warehouses and fulfillment houses have had to up their game. So there are some really interesting things that go on now which perhaps you wouldn't expect. So we warehouses now can offer some of the warehouses now, not all of them. I will make this clear. You have to seek these. Some of them will be able to take over, for example, your customer service. So they will be able to offer you a telephone line, they'll be able to take over your email customer service. They'll even be able to manage the chatbot on your website. And their best place to answer most of those questions. Because most of your questions on customer service are a lot to do with when's my parcel arriving? My parcel hasn't arrived. And for the other sorts of questions that you get, you can Train them up and give them scripts and you can have points where you know there's an escalation back to the brand if needed. So you can expect, if that's what you want and you don't want to recruit those sorts of people into your own team. That's now a possibility, a real possibility. The other things that you can expect is incredible. It links. So most warehouses now will link almost seamlessly into the back of most of the major platforms like Woocommerce and Shopify, ebay, Amazon, they're all geared up to link so that orders are passing without you having to do anything literally in between. And it's a two way process. So you're also getting notifications back from your warehouse and fulfillment supplier back into your website to down date your stocks. So you're not going to oversell to push messages back to your customers with, with tracking numbers. You should have access to online portals with warehouses where you can from your own office go in and see which orders are being picked, which orders have been dispatched, which have been delivered, who signed for it, what day they were delivered, real time stock levels, what's available, what's allocated to orders. So there's some real IT benefits to it and also management and statistics. So those portals should also allow you to run reports, reports where you could group all your E commerce orders so that you could look at things there. You could group it by stock code, you could group it by retailer. So there's a huge amount of data that you can get from them as well. And all of those things mean that you possibly don't have to recruit people into your own team because you can access these extra resources and added value through your fulfillment centers.

So should you also expect expertise from the fulfillment center? You know, like you were saying, like they may have worked with retailers before so they understand like how, I don't know, Neiman Marcus or I don't know, you know, like Walmart or someone is expecting to receive their deliveries. Like you know how to get to the place that the stuff needs to be delivered to, how you interact with, you know, people once you get to that side. Because obviously that's something that most people would not have an experience with.

No. And it's mindboggling. When you get sent sort of supplier manuals from retailers, you know, that's huge. And most of the content of them isn't for you, particularly if you're dealing with grocers. You know, there's whole sections in there about frozen chickens and things. And it's like oh, my goodness. Which bit is my bit? I don't want to know about frozen chickens. So it's really key. Not every fulfillment house will be able to offer you the same level of expertise. So it's really, really, really important. And I really recommend for anybody that you partner up with fulfillment centers that are experienced in your industry. They don't need to specialize 100% in it. They don't need to be all beauty. But they need to have a niche within their services where they understand beauty. And it's one of the key questions to be asking when you're kind of working through shortlist and deciding who to have a look at it. You know, have you dealt with beauty brands? Who are they? Where do they deliver? Because when you nail that bit down and you get that bit right, then you're buying in the expertise that you need as well. And they will be very okay with how beauty retailers work. They will probably have delivered to most of the beauty retailers that you're going to be working with. If they haven't, they will still take the pressure off you and they'll go through the frozen chicken manual and they'll find what needs to be and they will do all of that and they'll take over silly things. Like for anybody who's already selling on Amazon, for instance, and you're doing it yourself, you know, you have to go through vendor central and do loads of hideous stuff and you know, they'll take that away from you. So it's not simply the physical. They'll do all that stuff that's happening on web portals and updating ASNs, advanced shipping notices and things like that. So they'll take over all that it and communication for you as well. So. Yeah, but you need to. It really is key to try and work with somebody who does have a specialism in the industry.

Yeah. And think, can you sort of be asking questions like how they manage stock quantities and how they. You know, I was speaking to someone, I have no experience in this area, but I was speaking to someone who runs a large ingredients company and he said that they have their own fulfillment centers. And he said that they continually have this battle with stock management and they've got like some quite advanced systems and things. And he gave me some names. I was like, I haven't heard of those myself. But, you know, should you be asking those sort of questions like what systems to use? How do you control stock? You know, what happens if something goes missing? Who is responsible? Like, I'm assuming you have some sort of contract with them.

Yeah. And I think you should be asking those questions. I mean, one thing that's really important is that I don't believe you should ever decide on who you're going to partner with without physically going and seeing their sites and meeting them. So that's really important because these are people that you are going to work with long time. These are people that are. You want to work in partnership with. So you want to get a feel for them, you want to know their vibe and you want to see their premises. Warehousing can be, you know, it's a dirty, gritty end of the supply chain, but that doesn't mean that a premises has to be dirty and gritty. You want want to see it, you want to see how it works. You want to meet the staff, you want to see that they're happy. You just get this vibe from them. And in the process of doing that, they should be talking you through those sorts of things. But always ask the questions because they'll be happy to answer. They've got nothing to hide. They will want to answer because it gives them a reason to show off their systems and all the efforts that they put in behind the scenes to minimize errors and things like that. So do ask all the questions that you want because it just gives you a chance to talk to them properly and start to build that relationship. And then you kind of, in your gut will know that you're in the right place.

Yeah, I mean, so moving on to another point, I mean, where do you even start to find a fulfillment partner? How do you get in contact with these people? And.

Yeah, yeah. And this is the biggest challenge. And actually a number of brands put off finding a fulfillment house because it's just like, what do you do? And a number of established brands who are unhappy in the warehouses that they're in put off finding a new supplier because it's just too overwhelming to even start with. So there are a couple of things which that I always recommend. So the best way of finding anybody, it doesn't matter, does it, whether you're doing fulfillment or contract manufacturer or anything, is that we are all part of the most amazing community. We're all part of these amazing Facebook groups. Your mastermind group, my Facebook group. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs in there who are doing this, and a lot of them have done what you want to do. So put some feelers out, because recommendation is a great place to start. So, you know, put some, you know, really go to your contacts, rinse your contacts, rinse your groups that you're members of and find out who people are using and that's a really, really good place to start. If you're UK based, I have a free service which is wonderful, where I will consult for you all the way through the process. So if you're UK based and you're looking for sort of, you know, a logistics base or a warehouse base here in the uk, then, you know, get in contact because I'll just take all that stress away from you and work through that with you. And that's a free service. So it's just there to help basically, you know, start up brands and smaller brands, get the advice they need to get in the right place. Internationally, if you're looking for a hub in the uk, then I can help you, but internationally, really rinse your, you know, your groups and things like that. I've got a few contacts in for U.S. warehouses, if anybody wants to contact me for that. I can pass some leads, some ideas on to you for good ones. But it really is, I would say, a networking thing and just really find out, you know, who's already doing it and then make yourself a short list and from there it's all about finding the one that feels right for you. So get on their website, get on their social media, if they've got social media, check out, you know, approach them, ask for references, go and meet them, talk to them on the phone and you can narrow down, you know, your list through sort of, you know, the research that you would do for any other kind of stuff supplier. It's just knowing where to start and recommendations are the best place to start.

I mean, we touched. I don't want to dwell on the negatives, but we touched on things like you said, you know, some people are unhappy with some things and making a switch can sometimes be challenging. I mean, what are the sort of problems that someone might encounter with a warehouse where you know, things that you've seen with your other clients that have been sources of unhappiness.

Yeah. So what can often happen, and again, it's really worth working, you know, with an expert to help you through this process, is that success is really down to the relationship that you have with your warehouse. And where things can frequently go wrong is that you come in at a certain level, so you might come in with 20 orders a day and then, you know, hooray, your brand goes absolutely boom and you land this big retailer and then all of a sudden you, your web orders go sky high and you get this wonderful growth, which is absolutely awesome. But what can often Happen in that situation is the communication breaks down between you and your warehouse. And don't forget that you're buying not just their services, you're buying their expertise. So every time you get a bit of good news or a new possibility, you should be going back to your warehouse and saying, oh, my God, I think we can do this. What do you know about this? How would we manage this? And what you can then do is you can both grow at the same speed. What can often happen is the brand will suddenly accelerate, the communication breaks down, and what's left behind is a system which isn't quite matching what's happening actually physically happening. So communication, monthly reviews, quarterly reviews, key performance indicators, all those sorts of measurements, which makes it sound even more dull than it is. But there are some essential to just make sure that everybody keeps moving at the same speed. And if you're in with a really Great Warehouse and 3PL, they'll be talking to you about these reviews all the time. They'll be trying to get them and they'll be trying to stay in contact with you and make that. So it can largely be to do with things like that. The other thing I would say is that things can break down because we're brand founders are not logistical, they're not necessarily operational a lot of of the time, so they can occasionally make some decisions which, when you translate them back into a physical operation, don't work. So an example of that might be that you suddenly change your packaging and you end up in a warehouse with an upgraded packaging. So same product, old packaging and new packaging, but you don't tell the warehouse you've done that because it's in brown cardboard boxes. They can't see that that's happened. And all of a sudden a retailer can planes because they've got half of one design and half of another design. So just sort of things like that, you know, we as founders go, oh, it's fine, yeah, packaging upgrade. But what we forget to think is operationally how all that works. So talk to the warehouse all the time and they'll say, oh, it's no problem, do this, do that, job sorted. And you just keep all that. So it's all that communication and just whatever you're thinking of doing. Talk to your team, your logistics team, and let them help you to make those decisions.

Yeah, I mean, just to echo what Rachel said, I mean, if I have any experience of being in business, it's that if you want people to work for you, you need to make sure that they feel important to you and, you know, investing time in like follow up meetings and quarterly meetings and shared, you know, monthly reviews and everything, it makes the person that you're working with, it might be a contractor or a subcontractor or whatever, it makes them feel important. It makes them feel like you care about their expertise and their knowledge and therefore they're more likely to pay attention to you and go out of the way. I know when I let things slide sometimes and I haven't been as invested then work slides, you know, balls get dropped with contractors and stuff and you know, because you haven't been investing the time with them and constantly kind of reviewing things.

Yeah, that's so right. I always say it's a partnership. You know, you are going into a business partnership, they're not your service provider, they are a business partner. And I think that's really important. And I think when errors occur from both ends, it gets reduced more to that sort of service provider because their value goes out. You're absolutely right, Gemma. The value goes out of that relationship and it becomes that it's your fault. Well, you didn't tell me kind of situation. So yeah, you are recruiting, you know, you're finding a business partner to work with you long term.

Yeah. You have to invest in that relationship and yet keep it focused, have goals. And I think, yeah, talk about your expectations. Because I think where I see people have trouble sometimes is not addressing expectations that they might have, whether it's conscious or unconscious. Because sometimes we make assumptions that we haven't even realized we've done. So what I find useful is to map out whenever I'm entering a new partnership or whether we're trying to do a new project or whatever is mapping out expectations. Because sometimes these things pop up. It's like, yeah, I'm expecting this person to do X, Y, Z over the month and then you tell that person, they're like, yeah, actually, yeah, that's not.

What I thought I was going to do.

I'm not going to be able to do that. So the way this works is this is what happens and you get those kind of slightly more challenging things out of the way right at the start.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if you're working with a really good third party warehouse fulfillment house and certainly all the ones that I work with before the contract even sort of gets signed, they come up with what's called a statement of works, which is exactly what you're saying. It's saying this is what we're responsible for and this is what you're Responsible for. And this is how it's going to work between us. Which sounds very dry, but this is how, you know, you deal with it. And then by doing quarterly reviews and KPIs and things. If there is an issue that's occurred, rather than it being blown out of proportion because nobody's talking about it and it takes over in everybody's head, it's just dealt with there. And then it's like, okay, this went wrong. Why did it go wrong? Okay, well, we can put all these things right. It's not a big deal. It only happened once, so it's okay. So it's just like anything like that. It's all about relationships and all about communication.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you don't know where you can find Rachel.

Oh, my goodness. Who doesn't?

I was about to say, who doesn't? She's everywhere. I highly recommend that, you know, you go and have a look at Rachel's Instagram account because you put so much useful information on there and you're so fun to watch and engage with and you do make logistics exciting and fulfillment exciting and you provide lots of added value as well. You know, about events and all sorts of things. So go and check out. I'm going to include all of Rachel's details in the show notes accompanying this episode.

Yes. Join me.

Yeah, your Facebook group is Indie Beauty Rocks?

Yeah, Indie Beauty Rocks is my Facebook group. The Rockstars is my mentor program. But yeah, so come and have a look at the group. There's loads of stuff going on in there. We talk about all sorts of things. I'm a complete marketing geek as well. So we talk about sort of social media and stuff a lot in there as well, because we enjoy it. But there's a lot of stuff on the logistics side. And of course, go and have a look at my website if you want to find out about that website. Warehouse match service that's all detailed. There's a page on there all about that. And you can, you know, get in contact with me. Anyway, direct message me, email me, I'm always here.

Let's talk a little bit about Indie Beauty rock stars.

This is kind of logistics. I love it. It's my bread and butter and I've grown up with it for years now, like I said, nearly 20 years. And I really enjoy what I do there, but it doesn't ignite many passions.

Yeah.

Surprisingly, the brand founders I get to work with are mega exciting and they do. So what I also have is my mentor group, which is kind of my Passion and the Indie Beauty Rockstars is a group mentoring program which helps brands who are making their sort of first steps into their online presence. So it's all around how to sort of craft your brand, your online image, and how you can market yourself through content marketing. Marketing. And also how you can market yourself beyond content marketing, because there is still other kinds of marketing that exists. We all get a little bit sucked into sort of our social media, and that's the only thing. And. But actually, nowadays people want a little bit more. So we do a lot of work on sort of email marketing, but also collaborations and public speaking, writing for the press and guest blogging and all sorts of things. So it's really a mentor group where everybody works together and we sort of take each other along on a journey together. So everybody reaches the goals that they set at the beginning of the program, but they're all around really sort of taking your brand and putting it out there and starting to get it noticed and to build your tribe. So, yeah, it's totally my passion. If you speak to anybody who's been on Rockstars, they will say that I am very, very passionate about this one and I absolutely adore it. So, yeah, that launches again in October, so. So watch out. It's a while away. Yes, yes.

Yeah, you can start planning and you can find all the details on Rachel's website about that. And yeah, you can also ask people in the Facebook group, because I know there's a lot of people in your Facebook group that have done.

Yeah, there have. I think there are some testimonials on Instagram TV and things like that. So I think there's two. And there's a lot of testimonials on my website, so do go and have a look. And if you want to chat with me about that, then just again, message me or email me. I know it's October, but we can start talking, so that's no problem at all.

Absolutely. So thank you so much for joining us, Rachel. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule.

Oh, no, it's been so much fun. I've conferenced and podcasted this year. I know. I really. This is super exciting.

Yeah. So, yeah, hopefully we'll do lots more things with you in the future, but thank you so much for joining us today.

It's a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Much thanks.

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope that you found our interview with Rachel helpful and engaging as usual. If you want to find out more about Formula Botanica who we are, what we do, or you want to get in touch or leave us some feedback. You can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Formula Botanica. You can also check out our website, formulabotanica.com and try our free sample class. And you can also join in the Global Green Beauty conversation by heading over to our big Facebook group, the Skincare Entrepreneur Mastermind. Once again, thanks so much for listening.

Have a great day.

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