Are you a makeup or beauty enthusiast? Have you taught of producing your own cosmetic line? Before you do that, you must listen to this episode with Kyshira Moffett, founder of Life of a Bombshell and The Power Collective. This is a power-packed episode with LOTS of tips on starting your Bombshell Beauty Brand.

Listen to the Episode below:

In this episode, you'll hear about Kyshira’s:

7-Steps to Start a Bombshell Beauty Brand
Best tips on finding vendors online to work with
Language of the cosmetics business

Key Takeaways

Nine times out of ten, you need to raise your price point to get to the level that you desire for your business
Private Label, Custom Formula or DIY are three routes you can take to start your beauty brand. Choose the ones that resonate best with you, though Kyshira went with the Private Label route because it was the most cost-effective one
There's no rules in running your business. You can be really wild and random with your marketing. Most importantly, HAVE FUN!

Links Mentioned:

http://www.thepowercollective.co

Transcript

Huda Hamid: Today, we have Kyshira Moffett and she is the founder of The Power Collective. She is here today to share a little bit about Building a Bombshell Beauty Brand. I think that is really a sexy topic that we can talk about today.

So Kyshira, I thank you so much for being on the show!

Kyshira Moffett: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I told you I'm already subscribed, and I listen. So, it's going to be fun to listen to this.

Huda Hamid: Great. So, let's get started to get to know you a little bit better. Like how you start your business and share a little bit about that...

Kyshira Moffett: Yeah. Absolutely. So again, my name is Kyshira. I am a serial entrepreneur. I own multiple businesses. The first being The Power Collective, which is a consulting company where I typically consult with small to medium sized businesses on their digital marketing and sales strategies. And that is something that I fell into in my earlier career, working with actually HR and training.

I was freelancing and helping career professionals with personal branding at the time. And entrepreneurs began to reach out for that type of assistance, and it transitioned from coaching them on personal branding to helping them with their business and social media.

And that is how The Power Collective became the business it is today. In 2017, when my company was starting to scale, I was successfully enrolling clients into group programs and courses. I had a little bit more time on my hands to dive into creative projects. I'm a huge creative and cosmetics has been something I've always been passionate about.

I have a ridiculous amount of makeup. I watch so much YouTube in my spare time, and I wanted to try to create my own beauty brand. I wanted to test and see: one, can I create an e-commerce brand; and two, will the marketing strategies that I give my clients who were primarily service-based work with his beauty raised brand.

So, in April 2017, I launched Life of a Bombshell Cosmetics. we currently offer lipstick, lip gloss, eyeshadow palettes, makeup brushes... We even have a skincare extension called Rich by Life in a Bombshell and it's been such a fun journey with that, which is what I want to share with you all today.

If you are interested in starting your own hair care company, clothing company, or beauty company, a lot of it looks the same, but I feel that some people get intimidated by that. The company started off as a side project, a passion project, but then it quickly grew. The launch was a sellout weekend.

There was more demand for the products. We even generated press organically within the first six months of the launch. So that's how I became someone who manages multiple businesses. A project turned into a real-life thing. So in between those endeavors, I've also written several books that are available on Amazon.

I do have my own show called The Bombshell Diaries and I just do a lot of speaking and workshops and trainings in my local community, which is the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Huda Hamid: Lovely. You have such a wide portfolio.

Kyshira Moffett: Thank you.

How did you get started to start your first business?
What was the inspiration?

Kyshira Moffett: My first business was started because of necessity. When I was in college, I even worked part-time at the career center. I've always been a career-driven person and I've been very fortunate to be a part of a lot of development programs where I had a lot of insights to a lot of my friends who were struggling with their jobs.

When we left college, they didn't like what they were doing. They wanted to transition, but they didn't have the resume. They didn't have the skills to do so. I knew that if you built a strong reputation and a strong brand, you could get almost any job you want. You can get into any company that you want.

So, I began to coach on personal branding, just because my friends needed it and they were miserable, and it worked. So, then they would refer me to their friends, who would refer me to their friends, but all of this stuff was being done for free. I didn't even think about entrepreneurship itself until a friend said:

"You need to start charging for what you do. You're good at it. And people are going to paying for interviews."

Lo and behold. That's what happened. So, I started to build a little side hustle and I was in — this was 2014, 2015 — so LinkedIn was a really hot tool at the time. So, I would actually ask my clients to leave me reviews and testimonials and I built an entire portfolio.

And that's how entrepreneurs begin to find me. They found me through LinkedIn search and would message me and say, "Hey, I see your profile. See what you have going on. Can I hire you?"

And from there, it just continues to grow. My first few years of business was all word of mouth. It wasn't until I realized that I liked my business more than I liked my job, that I began to take it seriously and really invest the time to actually run a business versus a side hustle.

Huda Hamid: Wow. That's really inspiring. I think a lot of people, when they start their business, they tend to start because they have a purpose behind it. And for your case, it started off as a necessity. You were just trying out; you're just being nice to your friends and they in turn be nice to you by sharing the service that you offer. I think that's really lovely. You've got really good friends.

Kyshira Moffett: Yeah, I really feel like it was divine intervention because I was on the corporate path climbing the HR ladder. That was my goal. I wanted to work as a diversity and inclusion executive, and I did not think about entrepreneurship.

And it's, that's how life works for women. you have this one path and then you get A U-turn and now you're on this whole other path. And honestly, I'm so grateful for those friends who reached out in the beginning because I didn't really realize how much power you can have in changing someone's life and impacting someone's life through your business.

So how long has this process been around?

Kyshira Moffett: Unofficially, since 2014. I decided to get really serious about it in 2017. I finally decided that this is what I wanted to do. So, I started to invest in my business, and I feel like whenever you make that first big investment in your business, that's how you know what's real.

So, you start spending money on coaches, software, and things like that. I set an ambitious goal for myself that I wanted my business to make one hundred US Dollars in a calendar year before I could quit my job. So, 2017, I probably made about 50K in the year. I was not there at all. So, I decided to invest, my first $1,500 into a coach.

I started to invest in going to conferences by myself so that I can meet other women like you and learn and things like that. And 2018. I did it. I hit that 101 Mark while working full time, a hard job. And I put in my resignation, but then get this, I went back to work in January.

I was just like "Nope". I know I have the money, but I don't want to. So, I waited three weeks before I put in my resignation. So, my quit day was January 25th, 2019, and haven't looked back.

Huda Hamid: I'm so proud of you. I think that's really an achievement. Not many can work on a side hustle and earn $100,000 in a calendar year.

Kyshira Moffett: It is hard, and you will have to sacrifice no dates, no party lunches with friends, but it's possible. And I know we're talking about products today, but one thing that really also helped too, was shifting my mindset to recognize that I could offer higher end services. So, I had to raise my rates. I used to coach for such a low amount of money.

It's embarrassing. And then finally saying, I'm worthy. My skill set is worthy of clients who pay 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 dollars. I have so many testimonials. I don't know that I'm good, but I had to shift my mindset to command that pricing.

So for those who are listening, who are like, I don't even know how to make $100K with what I have now, nine times out of ten, you need to raise your price point to get to that level. And that's how I was able to fund my makeup brand. Product sourcing inventory is not cheap, you need money to invest. My business is what gave me the money to invest in this passion project.

My business is what gave me the money to invest in this passion project
— Kyshira Moffett

Huda Hamid: I think you are one of the, rare inspiring ones that really started from ground up. the money didn't come in, it didn't land on you

Kyshira Moffett: I had no money when I started my business.

Okay. No money. I was paycheck to paycheck. There wasn't. There wasn't anything there. A lot of people feel like they need the perfect tools, and they need money for ads to do this. I didn't run ads for that year. I didn't have the perfect systems. I was using Squarespace and YouTube Live to do my webinars.

I didn't have, at that time, the extra fancy things that we have now, but it's not about the fancy things. It's about messaging, knowing your customer, being clear about your value and then charging what you should actually charge to get the kind of customers you want.

Huda Hamid: I think a lot of our woman entrepreneurs listening in right now. They will definitely be able to benefit. The truth of the day is that entrepreneurship is definitely not easy and not everyone has the blessing and the privilege of having $100K in the bank to start any businesses.

So, most of us started the hard way and just like you have a full-time job. you are hustling. You're really going all out to achieve what you want to achieve. So, I really applaud you for doing what you are doing right now.

So, let's talk about, building a Bombshell Beauty Brand from scratch.

You already talked a little bit about the hustle and a journey. So, your cosmetic brands are called Life of a Bombshell.

How to start an online beauty business

How did you first source for manufacturers and how can our listeners learn from you for that as well?

Kyshira Moffett: Yeah, absolutely. So that was actually the hardest piece. you can go multiple ways with this.

Step 1: Private Label, Custom Formula or DIY

First, you have to look at your budget and say, do I want to go private label? And private label means another company makes the product and they put your branding on it. So theoretically you with 20 other companies can have the same formula.

For example, Kylie Cosmetics is produced by ColourPop Cosmetics. It's the same eyeshadow formula, the same lipstick formula. Kylie's is just three times more the price because of the branding. So, they manufacture and ship her stuff, right? And so that's what private label means. So, you can look for private label manufacturers.

The second option you have, is actually working with manufacturers to create your own unique formulas. In that instance, you need a chemist, and you need a lot of money. Because you have to pay the chemist to develop the formula. If you're in the US, you have to file a trade secret with the government so that you're protected.

So that manufacturer doesn't use your formula for somebody else's product. Then you have to find the manufacturer and pay them to make the product. Typically, how they do is they either tell you, pay us just like on a recurring basis or you'd have to order a minimum number of products in order for us to make this. They tell you what the price is.

The third option is, of course you can make it yourself. I'm not that confident. I know there's a lot of videos on YouTube about how to make some cosmetics. that's a liability to me.

Step 2: Search for Vendors

So, I went the private label route. So, all you have to do is open up Google and type in "private label cosmetics". You are going to get a million different search results to narrow it down. I recommend typing in what you're looking for.

So private label lipstick, private label eyeshadow, and you will see all of the options that come up. If you are looking for private label people within a certain region, city, state, country, you can put that country in.

So, for example, a lot of my clients, I typically will just give them a recommended vendor list and I give them 15 US vendors, five vendors in Canada, and then I give them 15 in Asia. Asia is where you're typically going to get the cheapest price. so that's just to be transparent. And so, for Asia, it's actually best to use Alibaba to source because they all have listings there.

If you have ever used Alibaba, it looks like Amazon, right? You can type in what you want. You can order one thing, but that's not what we're on there for. When you find cosmetic vendors on Alibaba, you email them! You do not order cosmetics from them through that site. You email them and introduce yourself. ask them, do they offer private label?

Step 3: Negotiate

Most of them will say, yes, you ask them, can you see their product catalog? And you ask them what's their minimum order quantity.

So again, we've already discussed what private label means, product catalog, basically asking them to send you a list and pictures of everything they make. So, the manufacturer that I used to work with us I've since switched on Alibaba, it looks like they only sell makeup lights, but when they sent the catalog, they sale.

Literally everything like cosmetics, not so close. So, you can see everything. And if they're really good, their catalog already has the prices, but a lot of the vendors I've found they will negotiate with you. So, I've had some that were really like horrible and mean no, you have to order 10,000 units.

So, we won't do business with others will tell you can order a hundred units. We'll charge you $2 item, and you pay for shipping and you're good to go. So, you want to understand minimum order quantity pricing associated because you have to work with the budget. If you have $5,000 to invest in a product-based business, you probably don't want to spend $10 per item on a product, because that doesn't even include shipping. You're barely going to get enough items to break even. So, you have to negotiate a good price.

Step 4: Order Samples

Once you've established that this company sells what you need and they have a good price point, you have to order samples. You have to order samples.

You cannot trust the pictures. And I'll tell you a funny story. I really wanted to start with lipsticks on leaves. I love lipstick, right? I will wear that with no other makeup. And there was one company who I love. They had a wide range. It looks at colors and our formula were great. However, the lipstick had a stench to it when it's mailed. So gross is to open the tube.

And in that instance, it's if I just want to knock at the pictures, I probably would have bought a hundred units of this stuff, but you can't sell something that you're not proud of. And in products, it doesn't take much to lose customers’ trust. So that's an example of actually testing it depending upon what kind of products you want to sell.

Step 5: Test Your Products

I recommend testing that for longer periods of time as well, because if you order, let's say 10 lipsticks and you only try one, and you assume that the others will work like that. Sadly mistaken. So, on cosmetics in particular, pink lipsticks and red lipsticks do not perform the same. The red may be really good, and the pink may not show up very well.

Step 6: Build strong relationships with your vendors

So, you have to really be, you have to know that you can't launch this within a week. You need to dedicate a couple of months towards research and sampling so that you're comfortable with your products. But once you find a really good manufacturer, I recommend sticking with them and building a relationship because they will give you good rates.

They will keep you up to date with products. They will ship out to you fast. And it's just amazing to have a really strong partner, even if they are overseas.

Huda Hamid: That's really helpful. I'm here based in Singapore and a lot of the products that we get are from China anyway. So, we did not have, a manufacturing plan, just like what you've mentioned.

So even if I wanted to manufacture any of cosmetics, we would have to go overseas because we're just a small city. So yeah. Private label thing is really intriguing and it's something that's very new to me. So, the fact that you shared, I think this is very valuable to a lot of women who wants to start any cosmetic brands.

Yeah. In fact, just right before this call, I had a conversation with one of my business owner, friends in Singapore, and she runs this by and she says that she wants to set up her own, her own cosmetic line. She has the budget. but she. Doesn't understand the whole, like R and D and things like that.

So, I think this is really going to be helpful.

Kyshira Moffett: Yeah. Pass this to her. it's interesting.

Know the Language of The Business

Like how easy it is to have these conversations with the manufacturers. They're really always excited for new business. I didn't have anybody like, not reply to me or not talk to me, but you have to know the language to and when I say language, I don't mean literally the language. I mean the language of product business.

Minimum order quantity. They're going to use the letters and lo que, you know, when they say, or they may, they may write to you, minimum 50 PCs needs pieces, and you have to know the language. If you don't know. It, you don't, you won't get the best rates.

You won't have the best experience. So, I always recommend, make sure you know what you're asking about and make sure you're clear on the language because that's where people get tripped up. I think shipping for you all will be better, but shipping to the U S Is expensive. So just factor in a whole separate part of your budget, just for the shipping piece.

And so when I tell my clients, it's really easy to get excited to say I'm only paying $4 a unit for my lipsticks, so I can sell them for eight or for six, but it's you're not factoring in the cost of shipping. Some manufacturers will charge you an extra fee to actually put the branding on the product, which is a separate thing.

But private label. The cheapest thing to do is just export blank products, right? So blank pallets with nothing on it, blank lipstick tubes. And of course, you can actually make your own labels. You can make your own transparent stickers online. You can order them. I did that my first batch and I will never do it again.

It is the most time consuming, like to label 300 lipsticks and put the names on the bottom is way too much. So, I just went ahead and pay the extra $50 to have them stamp the logo on. you have to ask," can your custom brand this". They'll tell you sometimes they'll say it's a flat fee.

Sometimes they'll tell you pay extra per unit or they will tell you they will only put the branding on it if you order a larger amount. So that's another thing if that's important to you, but again, asking the right questions. after the first year you ask, can you put the names on the bottom of the individual lipsticks?

look sure this is the dollar extra. And I was like, and it was like a dollar total. I was like, so you were never going to tell me like that you could do that. You were never going to volunteer like that. It's just you never asked.

So, don't feel like you're asking too many questions. Okay. Get all the information up,

Huda Hamid: that's really very fun. I think it's a good adventure to go through, but purchasing products is one of the, I would say one of the most fun journeys. I started my own businesses also in e-commerce and I understand how fun it is to pick and choose so this really takes me way back.

Kyshira Moffett: I know, right? Yeah.

Huda Hamid: Once the product comes in to wherever you are located and, then what do you do next?

Step 7: Photograph Your Samples

Kyshira Moffett: Yeah. So, the next step for me, I don't necessarily do pre-orders with cosmetics with the next steps is actually send it off to a photographer.

I have a photographer that I work with who's actually in Atlanta. She's so fabulous! So, she has a service where you can mail her your product and she will photograph it in the studio. She'd also do stock photos and then she mailed it back to you.

So it takes her about a week and a half to get the photos back for me and then the pin on the pond, the range of products I may or may not organize like an informal photo shoot with the local models. So, this is actually something I did right before COVID-19 really went crazy and everything was shut down.

literally the day before my city shut down, I had a photo shoot without invited, eight women of different skin tones, races, and age groups to come. And it was like, I didn't want models. I wanted everyday women and they paint, and they tried on the lipstick and I did video. I did photo. So that way when I put the site up, I have pictures. A swatch doesn't sell like a photo of a woman actually wearing it.

So that's my process.

No time to engage a photographer? Read on!

If I don't have time for a shoot, I'll just put the products on, do it myself, but then I put everything up on the website and then I do a launch buildup. So typically, I give my audience five to seven days’ notice that a new collection is coming. And I've dropped sneak peeks on Instagram and via email.

Then on launch day, I post a reveal video. So, I always do a reveal video on our cosmetic spraying YouTube channel. And I talk about because I give my collections names. So, the new collection that's coming out soon will be called Boss to Bombshell. I always explain that they, I always show them the lipsticks talk about the price point. And I typically do for that first day, some kind of sale, Oh, it's free shipping today, or it's 10% off today. And I do the reveal video.

I send that email out to the list with the reveal video in it and it just kind of gets re-shared all over. And that's how my lots of new products actually do.

Huda Hamid: For a makeup enthusiast like yourself, I think the whole business, it's a fun business don't you think so?

There's no rules, you can be really wild and random with your marketing.
— Kyshira Moffett

Kyshira Moffett: There's no rules, you can be really wild and random with your marketing. Whereas in coaching, you can still be creative, but it's. It's like a box, but in makeup, it's like you can have, general theme, vacation theme and all these things, you can have so much fun and creativity.

And when I do vendors showcases and meet women and they are buying that product, it's like, for so many women, like this is like a boost of confidence and boost of self-esteem. I've had women buy from me who were older, who never worn red lipstick before. And they bought their first red lipstick from me. You know, like it's just so much like it's so feminine, it's so girly and so creative and it just, it gives me life.

Huda Hamid: Excited to actually see the products. yeah. So maybe after this call, I can have a conversation with you about the lipstick. I really want some red lipsticks on my lips too.

Kyshira Moffett: yeah, absolutely. So right now, the new collection will be coming out in the next week or two,

When you first started the business, like what was one thing you wish someone would have told you about entrepreneurship journey?

Kyshira Moffett: I wish somebody would have told me to not be afraid to put myself out there fully.

My first two years in business. Like I was scared to get our camera, I didn't even have me. Name on my homepage of my website because I didn't want people to like, be confused when they saw it.

You know what I mean? So it's just I want it to be behind the scenes, but I feel like the gifts and talents I have required me to be like upfront and vocal and loud and on camera explaining how to do things. I feel like that's one of my gifts. I just wish someone would have been able to say earlier on Hey, you don't have to hide behind anything.

Like you can put yourself out there, the world needs your voice. And so that's a message for whoever's listening to this.

You can put yourself out there, the world needs your voice.
— Kyshira Moffett

Huda Hamid: So how can our listeners get in touch with you?

Kyshira Moffett: Absolutely. So, you can check on that website, thepowercollective.co, that's where you get burned. Everything about me. I have a link for beauty businesses. So, if you are interested in solving all your beauty business, I have a link to my book called Beauty that Banks. That literally tells you all of the details of how to get started my vendor list and all of that stuff.

Huda Hamid: That's a whole lot of, knowledge that we've gained from you today and really hope that a lot of our listeners will benefit from you, especially those who want to start a beauty brand.

Thanks so much for being on the show. I really appreciate your time.

Kyshira Moffett: Thank you for having me.

What do you think?

I'd love to know what you think of this episode. Do you plan on leaving your full-time job soon to start your business? If so, where are you now in that plan? Share with me in the comments below!

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