Maria Hatzistefanis established Rodial, a skincare company, when she knew nothing about beauty. Back in 1999, all she knew was that she had a good business idea that could fly – skincare products that solved specific skin beauty concerns. She ran from pillar to post to produce her first products and to get partners to take interest. Today, London-based Rodial is worth $90 million with has skincare products sold in 35 countries.
How did Hatzistefanis transition from a complete business newbie to a woman sitting across a multi-million beauty empire?
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She attended trade shows to make contacts
Knowing she needed primary contacts to make any headway in her proposed business, Hatzistefanis began to attend trade shows to initiate business relationships. According to her, “I went to probably five or six shows across Europe in a matter of months,” Hatzistefanis said. “I got business cards, set up meetings and made my initial contact.”
She learnt a lot from trade shows organized by the skincare/beauty industry, and managed to meet with labs, designers and packaging companies. She was looking for partners and labs that could develop specific skincare products targeted at particular skin problems such as hyper-pigmentation, large pores or dark circles among others.
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She succeeded at getting a lab partner to make her products
During many of her attendance at trade shows, Hatzistefanis met with several skincare labs to create her unique brands. She knew what she wanted, but had no chemistry background and didn’t know the formula required to create them. Unfortunately, most of the labs were not too helpful – and a few told her to rebrand existing product formulas. But she did not want this.
Eventually, she got a local production facility willing to assist her in London. And she spent another one year finalizing the formulations of her skincare products with them.
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She adopted and customized designs
After she had completed the formulations for her products with the lab, Hatzistefanis began to work on unique branding. But this was not as easy as she had anticipated. While the lab began testing the efficacy of the products, Hatzistefanis worked on packaging them. Unfortunately for her, most packaging companies would only process orders 5,000 to 10,000; but she was only doing 500 production runs.
Since she was left with very little choice, she decided to adop off-the-shelf packaging and even customized existing label designs to create her own. But she thought it would be best if she could modify the packaging and label of the product each time new batches were manufactured.
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She pretended to be a marketer to initiate her first sales
When Hatzistefanis started in 1999, she could only do retail marketing since online marketing was not too popular back then. But she sent emails to several London stores without getting many responses. Those who replied said they were not able to accommodate her new skincare products. She persisted and within one year, a small store accepted to take stock of the products but with a condition.
All the products must fly off the shelf within six months, or Hatzistefanis must retrieve them and issue a refund to the store. So the entrepreneur had no choice but to assume the marketing and promotion of the products herself, and even went from door to door pretending to be a hired salesperson to sell her wares.
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She hired her first staff to drive sales
Moving from place to place to sell her products, Hatzistefanis initiated a lot of friendships with people, and notable among these is that with a woman from another personal care organization. The woman mentored Hatzistefanis on how to make more sales, but since “I wasn’t a particularly good salesperson, so I brought her in as my sales manager, even though I could barely afford it,” she said.
Hatzistefanis revealed that hiring the woman was her best decision ever for her business. Her new sales manager took the new company to the next level and drove the sales, bringing the needed money and global attention the business really needed. Today, Rodial is fast becoming an household name among women consumers.
