Starting and growing your own beauty business is both challenging and rewarding when you are faced with the unique opportunity to give confidence, empowerment, and positivity to your customers, on top of providing an effective beauty product.
In the third episode of the online show, “At your SerBIZ!”, two successful entrepreneurs faced award-winning author and speaker Francis Kong, to reveal their top negosyantips on how to effectively manage and successfully grow their beauty businesses.
Both Anna Magkawas and Rizza Lana braved the challenges of the beauty business to confidently claim that “atin ang tuloy-tuloy na success” with these beauty business secrets.
Both Anna and Rizza used their strengths to build the foundations of their operations. They prioritized their abilities and skills acquired from experience in pursuing business goals.
Before Anna started Luxe Beauty, she earned a degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering while operating a “sari-sari store” inside her boarding house. Back then, she knew that she wanted to pursue a business path in Manila instead of taking the board exam. Anna’s determination led her to sell car accessories, photocopier machines, medicines, and eventually, as a call center agent and an online seller of luxury bags. As a salesperson who knows how to market her products, she got the edge to become a persuasive online seller when she dove into live selling.
Rizza was a former hotelier climbing the corporate ladder when her husband encouraged her to make her long-kept business ideas into reality. Rizza’s innate creativity sparked original business ideas which developed into her first shop: a print-on-demand phone case store. From making digital layouts, she further utilized her technical skills, resourcefulness, and advocacy to work on the Lana PH website, its promo materials, and its position to introduce local products that care for the environment and for the Filipina skin.
Anna and Rizza made their presence felt on live selling, the platforms that their customers use. Anna first used a distribution business model where authorized distributors and resellers sell Luxe Skin products. But to expand its reach, she strengthened Luxe Skin’s online presence by maintaining its social media pages, turning live-selling viewers into buyers. Rizza utilized Facebook ads to generate leads, then transitioned to live selling where she advocates Lana’s brand story and purpose to a younger digital-first audience. During online selling on social media, they “flex” and showcase their products through Facebook Live and e-commerce live selling, allowing busy customers to comment “mine” and buy their products in real time.
As they started earning more, they tapped beauty influencers and brand endorsers and cultivated a community to widen their target markets. Rizza pointed out, “Love your community. You have to make sure na sila ‘yung pina-prioritize mo… and always give value to people.”
“Sa dami ng tanong (online), minsan nai-stress tayo pero sagutin lang natin,” Anna explained as she talked about how she maintains exemplary customer service for Luxe Skin. She makes sure that her customers are heard and concerns are immediately dealt with in order to foster strong interactions with customers.
Consistency is the key. “We have to make continuous promotion kasi napakaraming tao sa mundo. Hindi ‘yan makukuha ng isang post lang,” Anna added. By having a consistent posting schedule, Anna’s target market will know when and what to expect from her brand, which is another way to foster brand trust and recognition.
Anna and Rizza let their customers be their biggest promoters with the quality and value their products provide.
“Tayo mismo, brand owners, ang una dapat tumangkilik at gumamit ng sarili nating produkto para makita ng potential buyers na effective ang products,” explained Anna. The businesswoman and vlogger creates rippling effects on viewers becoming customers. Eventually, some customers turn into resellers who strongly believe in her products. On Luxe Skin’s first anniversary, the boss babe marked the occasion by granting awards to outstanding distributors who not only made a huge sale but also helped others to start their own Luxe Skin distribution.
When Rizza started finding out the needs and wants of her customers, she opened up an intimate skincare store called Mink.ph, along with a jewelry and clothing store, while planning for other businesses with foresight on what her customers look for. Later on, her customer base grew exponentially, focusing on a market supporting local products that highlight a zero-waste lifestyle and skin-positive outlook. Today, Lana PH, Mink.ph, and other products are being reviewed and talked about on TikTok and other social media platforms for their quality and advocacy.
Both Anna and Rizza bounced back from their setbacks by hiring wiser people to support them in every big decision. Rizza was scammed out of a total of P5 million three times by different people, while Anna had to deal with the challenges of theft by a former employee amounting to P14 million. From there on, they kept on seeking people who have business knowledge and operations experience that are better than theirs. They listen to them and trust these team players to delegate work over time.
“Kasama talaga sa negosyo ‘yung failure… when we fail, it doesn’t mean that we’ll start from scratch. You start from the lesson that you learn,” Rizza said. She emphasized that an entrepreneur must be humble enough to accept the need to hire people who are wiser than you, “When you start hiring wiser people, matutututo ka rin [from their knowledge] at mapapalago nila ang negosyo.”
Today, they continue to listen to the best people in the industry and work with partners that understand what their MSMEs need. In return, they share the learnings and experiences they get from experience in running their beauty businesses. Join the ranks of these inspiring CEOs and get more negosyantips on how to grow your own customer base with the help of digital solutions from Globe Business. Watch more episodes of At Your SerBiz.
Get access to all our exclusive member-only content
By clicking the sign-up button, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.