Beauty makers know how to collaborate. Over the past week or so, indie and industry beauty companies have struck new partnerships and cooperative agreements at an impressive rate.
Smart Partnerships and Quick Thinking Keep Business Going
For instance, three professional organizations in Canada—Consumer Specialty Products, the Cosmetics Alliance Canada, and Spirts Canada—joined together to create the Canada Hand Sanitizer Manufacturing Exchange.
A group of over 35 women founders have joined forces across beauty, jewelry, apparel, home goods, and more on a campaign called #BetterTogether to promote indie businesses and offer discounts.
Serial entrepreneurs are reaching out to mentor new brand founders, helping them make tough decisions in tough times. While innovative new brands, like Atolla are now inviting user-generated content, effectively collaborating with consumers on both marketing and consumer education.
L’Oréal is helping the small businesses they work with her in the US by freezing payments for salons and paying their own suppliers sooner than required.
And teams all across the industry are becoming stronger and more effective because they’re communicating more openly, more often, and recognizing that everyone has good ideas to contribute.
Conversation and Collaboration Create a Support Network
The current health and financial crisis highlights the fragility of our lives and our livelihoods, and it has made the importance of community and communication perfectly clear. Now is the time to check in with the people you work with, not just your colleagues, but your whole network of beauty industry allies; and check in with you competitors too.
Now is the time to listen, to offer support, and to share ideas. In the comments on a [LinkedIn] post I made this past week, beauty leaders are sharing notes on what they are doing right now to keep their teams and their partners and their customers engaged and sustained.
You’re welcome to join that conversation or just go read through the comments. I’m personally impressed by all of the smart ideas and initiatives there: beauty tech startups, founder-led skincare brands, fragrance consultants, ingredient distributors, specialty chemical makers, and lots of other beauty insiders are there.
And they are sharing strategies and illustrating how collaboration is happening at every level and scale right now. Conversations like this one aren’t just about sharing ideas to keep business moving; they are a way to acknowledge the steps that we are taking now, and to acknowledge that those steps are actual accomplishments, even if they can’t be quantified in the usual ways that we like to measure ROI.
Global Beauty Business Relationships Have So Much Potential
Now, I don’t mean to paint on overly rosy picture. We are living in the midst of truly global health and financial crisis. And all of us, if we don’t already, will likely know and love someone directly affected by COVID-19.
Within the industry, there have already been significant layoffs. Not every beauty venture can hold up their teams and keep business moving. Spa and salon professionals are essentially fending for themselves or waiting this crisis out without an income.
Here in New York City, Ten Over Ten and Mynd Spa have closed forever. [All Ten Over Ten nail salons closed on March 13, 2020; the product line continued to operate.] Manufacturers like Groupe Marcelle in Canada and retailer like Macy’s here in the States have laid off large numbers of employees.
But that makes it all the more important that we stay in touch and support one another now.
Beauty is a strong industry. Insiders often call beauty a ‘small world’ or a ‘family’, emphasizing that many of us know one another, and have for years. Now is our chance to put those relationships to good use and to collaborate like never before.
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this DUviews item was originally posted to LinkedIn and now appears on DeannaUtroske.com
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