#awinewith Amy Maree Campbell
MEET Amy, Founder of Island Vibes
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Amazing. Amy, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Amy Maree Campbell (00:11):
Thanks for having me, Dan. I'm excited to be here.
Danielle Lewis (00:14):
So good. Let's kick things off by telling everyone who you
Amy Maree Campbell (00:18):
Are and what you do. So I am Amy and I actually run a salon and I have my own spray tanning and home tanning brand called Island Vibes, which is my little baby at the moment. So yeah, that's been going in production for two and a half years now and I've had a salon for nine years. Yeah, nine years this August. So busy, busy while I'm a mom of two little toddlers.
Danielle Lewis (00:47):
Oh my
Amy Maree Campbell (00:48):
God,
Danielle Lewis (00:49):
I'm tired. Just hearing that. Don't worry, I'm tired. That's for sure. And when you say salon, do you mean beauty or hair or
Amy Maree Campbell (00:58):
Both? So it's 10 staff, beauty and hair. It does spray tanning obviously. Spray tanning is my thing. Makeup's my thing too. I'm not a beauty therapist by trade, but decided to open a salon nine years ago that basically was a one shop shop that did everything. So it's just everything wrapped into one that little, or not a little space, it's 400 square meters. So it's huge. And then obviously my passion is spray tanning and tanning and just nailing a natural tan. So that's how that all bundled up together. The two were kind of hand in hand.
Danielle Lewis (01:35):
I love it. So then were you into spray tanning when you opened and were like, then I'll bring on the people to kind of cover the rest?
Amy Maree Campbell (01:44):
Yes. So spray tanning I've been doing for 18 years. So I had a freelance business for nine years before I decided let's not do, I had a home studio, I had mobile. I've been contracted to Channel nine for 10 years now. So I do all of their kind of onscreen talent. I'm doing Love Island next week with all the contestants in my, which is exciting. So yeah, so that's how it all happened. I was like, you know what? I want to just have a place where it was kind of my dream place where everyone can get everything done in one spot and you don't have to drive from place to place.
Danielle Lewis (02:22):
I love it. It sounds like heaven. I'd like to come now. I'm in desperate need of a turn. I'm looking at myself on video all day going, what is going on here? I
Amy Maree Campbell (02:32):
Think every girl feels like that. Oh my gosh. Literally weekly. Weekly feel like I know. We just feel so tired. We're our own worst critic. I feel like every single client that comes in is like, oh my god, I feel terrible. And we're like, you don't look
Danielle Lewis (02:46):
Terrible. So how did you go from freelance spray tanning to now being responsible for a giant space and heaps of staff? What was that leap like?
Amy Maree Campbell (03:02):
It was hard. Not going to joke. It was actually hard. I think I liked doing things big and I have big ambitions. I've always been one of those people that don't do things in halves and not on purpose. It just happens like that. I just sort of get an idea in my head and that's what I want to do and I run with it and it's really hard to stop and it has had its fair share of challenges like all business I guess, but you only know what you know. And I didn't really think about that. I only knew one sort of part of that. I had never actually worked in a salon before, so that was challenging to go from never working in a salon, only had a home studio and done mobile to then looking after staff and doing rosters and looking after beauty therapists and hairdressers when I'm not a beauty therapist or a hairdresser. So I leaned heavily on his staff members though it's been relying on other people.
Danielle Lewis (04:01):
And it's interesting because I was literally having a conversation with someone earlier today that that's actually really tough finding amazing people have, did it always work out? Were they always magical people
Amy Maree Campbell (04:15):
Or it
Danielle Lewis (04:16):
Affected
Amy Maree Campbell (04:16):
A way? Definitely not. Definitely not always been magical people. That is probably the biggest challenge is staff. I think staff is always going to be everybody's challenge because everybody operates differently and works differently and thinks differently. And it's about learning how to get into other people's head and what's pushing their buttons or making them work. It's really interesting how people function and some people are driven for different reasons and some people want flexibility and some people want a million hours a week and it's just kind of really, and then you've got the issue of hoping that everybody then gets along. So it's a lot of people managing. So it is probably part of the reason why I love the tanning business now, like island vibes because that is way easier to just be easier. It's easier because it is still just me and contractors. So it's basically I use people as I need them and then I try and do everything I can myself where I can and I've got a lot more control and I think that's what I love about it. It's like got that bit of control where I don't need to rely on other people and if it's a contractor that's not working, I just happily move them on and just get someone else. And I think that's just an easier system at the moment with young children to just find those reliable people and get them to work for you as much as you need them.
Danielle Lewis (05:44):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I remember, oh God, so five years ago, that was kind of the height of my agency business and was everyone was. So this is pre covid 20, everyone in the same room. Hectic, hectic, hectic. Basically my job was just like therapist, but I thought that's what you had to do. And I know every business is different, but it was really almost that was the measure of success, how many people you had. I love that you've just said about the product-based business where you can have this freelancer contractor model because that is what I'm all about now. How do I test people on projects
Amy Maree Campbell (06:26):
And
Danielle Lewis (06:26):
Then scale them up and down as the business is scaling up
Amy Maree Campbell (06:30):
And down. And I think it's taken me a lot time to get to that, to realize that I don't have to have a million staff to be like, this is working.
(06:41):
You can still have an amazing, incredible business model without having, I can still have an amazing business model still at home for as long as possible. I'm still working out of my garage and I want to stay in my garage as long as I can. I want to stay there till the death of it. I have a 400 square meter salon and all that comes with that with rental agreements and lease bonds and all over the top commercial energy and whatever comes with it. I'm like, it's so much easier to just be in my garage, pick and pack at night, can put my kids to bed, pack orders at my own leisure, not have to leave my house and go there. So I'm hanging onto, and I know some big brands that have done this and they've done it for a long time and worked from home. And I listen to a lot of podcasts and that's one bit of advice that I've just sort of taken and gone. Don't leave until you have to.
Danielle Lewis (07:41):
Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because, and I think it's easy to say the grass is greener. I always talk about this having an agency and a membership style business and core style business, I go, oh, I wish I had a product business where I'm like, all of them have their own process.
Amy Maree Campbell (07:59):
Yeah, that's right. The issues arise with all of them.
Danielle Lewis (08:02):
Totally. And it's interesting because if you moved out of the garage and into a three PL or something like that, then you'd be dealing with margin issues, all that kind of stuff. So I think it's smart. Do as much as you can for as long as
Amy Maree Campbell (08:15):
Feel
Danielle Lewis (08:17):
Exactly or until you're over it or until you, I want to do something over here now, so let somebody else take over that part. Exactly. The choice.
Amy Maree Campbell (08:25):
Yes, exactly. That's the plan.
Danielle Lewis (08:28):
Oh, I love it so much. So how did you go about developing a product? I mean obviously you've been a spray tanner for so long, so you get the industry, but I'm sure actually developing a product is a mission
Amy Maree Campbell (08:41):
In, so it was hard. And so over the 18 years of doing the actual tanning, I was approached by multiple companies to do just private labels, which is literally for those that dunno what private label is where you just buy a ready-made product that I guess a company just has these clean skins and then you just put your brand on it. And I always said, I don't want to just have a brand that's already a brand out there. I want to make sure that it's my brand and I've got my input. So I knew all the things I wanted in product and I knew all the things I didn't want. So it was about finding a chemist, a cosmetic formulator that could work with me. And the first one that I found was through a project manager. So it was a project management style and it didn't work.
(09:33):
All my timelines, everything was just so slow because I couldn't talk direct to the chemist and everything wasn't getting through to me. And the conversations that we were having were not understood through the project manager didn't understand all the terminology, and in the end I left them and cut my losses and lost all the money that I'd put into that. But I had to make that decision because I was like, you know what? I was eight or nine months in and I was like, it's just not working. Then I found another couple of formulators that I basically met with and then had to just out, I had to just sort of work out who I wanted to start trialing and then do some trials of sampling products that they had done previously. And then from there doing, giving my input key ingredients that were needed and then basically going from there. So it was long
Danielle Lewis (10:27):
And expensive.
Amy Maree Campbell (10:28):
Yeah, long expensive. And then it's just not as simple as saying, I want to make a product and then here it is like spray tanning and tanning. You've got to put the product on your body, so you've got to formulate it, then put the product on your body, then wear it for a week and see how it comes off and then make all the notes of the things that worked, the things that didn't work, and then go back to the drawing board, make the changes, and then wait for it to be made again and the sample made sent to you. So it was just such a long, long process. It was just, yeah, it just went forever. And I'm still formulating products now and people are like, oh my god, when are you bringing out a tannic syndrome? When are you bringing out this? And I'm like, there are so many things in the works, but everything takes so long. I'm such a perfectionist. If something's not perfect, it's like tweak and back to the start again and then tweak or the color's not right or I wanted a particular ingredient and it's not a high enough percentage and then it's not just trialing it on me, then it's trialing it on other skin types and seeing it on other skin tones and what's working. So it is just a slow long and I'm an impatient person, but I just can't speed it up. It is what it is and I just have to roll with it.
Danielle Lewis (11:43):
But I think it's amazing because for two reasons. One, you want to believe in what you're selling, but the other thing is repeat customers if not a great product, if it's not a great experience,
Amy Maree Campbell (11:57):
People just want to come back. Exactly, exactly. And I've had such a great response that I think that I really tried to simplify it, that tanning can be so complicated and as a tanner in salon, when you've got hundreds of different variations and base colors and percentages and then leave it on for this long, leave it on for this long, I really wanted you to simplify it. So at present it's just two colors. It's literally light. It's a light super express, which is 20 minutes to, you can leave it up to four hours if you want, and then it's an ultra dark, which is a dark to ultra dark, which is one to four hours. So it's just simple. Let's not overcomplicate it. Let's not have a green base, a violet base, a blue base, a red base. We can throw all these bases in, but at present we will bring more colors out. But at present, this is sort of hitting the mark on majority of people. So there's no need to have all these little majority, 95% of people, these two colors are working.
Danielle Lewis (13:00):
Yeah, wow. It's really interesting because you're right, it's such an important decision to make about a product as well. You could do a thousand different variations of things, but then you're right. If you cater for 95% of people, then the other 900 products just cater for the 5%. That's
Amy Maree Campbell (13:19):
Exactly huge investment. It's not really worth it. That's exactly right. So I'm just sort of as the feelers are out, I'm working out what people are interested in, what's missing, what is getting asked for most. And then from there I'll just slowly drop products as they need it based on what the demand is rather than just hitting everybody with a thousand products and like you said, getting stuck with a product inventory issue and have a million things in my garage that I do not need.
Danielle Lewis (13:50):
Exactly. And so how have you gone about first early sales of the product? What was your strategy to get the word out
Amy Maree Campbell (13:58):
There? So basically we, through the salon, we did a trial to market last year. So we did a whole 12 trial to market trial to market before we did the actual launch. So the launch was early this year, but we got it on maybe, I think we got it on more than 600 bodies last year. Paid not free. So that was paid, clients came in, purchased, used it, and then from there we got a PR company, which I spent an absolute bomb on, and then a marketing company, which I spent a bomb on. And then we paid for meta advertising. We got a pre-launch database, and then we did a launch in a Bondi salon, we did a takeover, we brought in influencers, we did an influencer mailer to 50 influencers. So I did a lot of costly things at the start. Yeah, it was very expensive, but it did get it kind of far and wide.
Danielle Lewis (14:57):
And
Amy Maree Campbell (14:57):
Then I just pulled back and got rid of marketing. I've taken on the Facebook ads myself, so I've just learned the Facebook advertising, still learning. I feel like every day I'm like, oh my God, I don't even know what's going on. But I've just taken it on myself and learned the backend, how to do the ads, how to do the mid funnel, how to do the top funnel, and just basically doing the creatives. I have a videographer that I meet with once or twice a month and we do video edits and then he does green screens with me. He does all the edits, I don't need to think about it. And so that's kind of just gained traction and that's where the sales have come from. We've also got over, I think there's about 30 salons that have the actual product in salons selling and also professional product on bodies. And then I'm just literally still sourcing salons constantly every week, sending samples out, seeing who's interested and then going from there.
Danielle Lewis (15:53):
I love it. I mean, it's a cool approach. Doing that huge big bang, getting that real excitement, getting that FOMO database, building followers, building, and then kind of going, okay, now I'll take it from here. I think it's actually a really good approach and I feel like people do it actually the opposite way. Normally
Amy Maree Campbell (16:11):
They do. Yes, they do. And I just really wanted to go out with a bang rather than a really slow growth. So I was like, let's just hit it hard and then we know that this amount of money is going to be spent and then we're going to have to stop and then basically pull back. But I knew, I mean in terms of PR and stuff, I have a lot of contacts and so I've actually reached out to a lot of people I know personally and got a little bit of traction here and there in some newspapers and some professional beauty magazine. And there's been some articles just through one of my mom's group mom's works at our media and she got me, she didn't get me, it wasn't an article, but she just got a full page. It looked like a paid ad and it was free.
(16:53):
She just got it in who magazine. So it is just been a little bit of who do I know? Who can I, and I think you've got to just take the fear out of that. You've got to not care, not care, but you've got to just not be afraid of rejection ask. And if someone says no, then it doesn't matter. It's not, it totally doesn't matter. Ask the next person, ask again and ask again. So LinkedIn's my best friend and I'm messaging people constantly and people ignore me all the time and I'm like, oh, water off a duck's back. It doesn't matter. If you don't want to do anything, that's fine. I'll just keep asking. Same as salons, it's the more nervous you get and the more you hold back. It's like you're only holding yourself back on your brand back. It's like get out there getting people's inboxes, just literally be everywhere and ask everyone. And if you throw things far and wide enough, you'll get traction somewhere.
Danielle Lewis (17:50):
It's so true. And it's always surprising as well. You might email someone today, they ignore you, but then they start seeing your brand everywhere and it's like six months later they finally reply. And so it's like the investment is worth it.
Amy Maree Campbell (18:04):
It is. And you don't know what you're asking early on. That then comes back later and I mean, we sent mailers out to people that I just still, now there's people I'm waiting on that I haven't heard back anything from and I'm just like, oh, either they hate it or they're just going to randomly pop up in summer and be like, oh my God, I love your product. And so it, I've already had people popping up, girls that used it that were influencers that I thought, oh, I'm never going to hear from them. And the next minute they're messaging me saying, this is my favorite brand now. I love it. So it's just one of those things that not everything is instant. It's some things take months or sometimes years to come back or people are sitting back and watching, they're watching, watching to see what's going on.
(18:49):
I've had some really big retailers I touch base early on with who said, some replied and said, look, we'll just watch. We will talk to it later in the year and we'll see how you're going. But the funny thing is, is that my direction has changed. Then the retailers I thought I wanted at the start, I'm now like, oh no, I don't want them anymore. I'm pivoting and changing directions, so I'm all now as I learn and you grow, I want to work smarter, not harder. So I'm like, I want to work with retailers, not the ones that are going to sting every piece of margin out of me. If I can get a retailer that's going to be a bit more better for my profile and look good for the brand and not sting every dollar, I'm going to move in those directions.
Danielle Lewis (19:35):
Absolutely. And I love how this isn't just one strategy. I find it really interesting. Some people are like, oh yeah, I tried that. It didn't work, tried that, do work, try. And I'm like, no, you've got to actually do everything, be everywhere all at once. You've mentioned wholesale, you've mentioned pr, you've mentioned influencers, ads, gifting. You are and you haven't gone, oh, we did that and then stopped. It's like this is all on all
Amy Maree Campbell (20:00):
The time. It's literally all on. And it's just like every little thing is, there's so many moving parts and I think that's the time consuming thing in business is that there's so many moving parts and you just need them constantly moving and as soon you can't stop, it all has to be going at the same time. And also networking and doing things. I've contracted to Channel nine for 10 years as their spray tan, and now I have my own brand when they've come to me and said, can you do this? The tanning last year, they came to me and said, can you do Love Island? I said, yes, I can. As long as I can use my product, which isn't launched yet. They made me test it to market first to see what it looked like then agreed. They've then rebooked me this year, which is next, but it's just about all the little placements.
(20:50):
Now I've got home products, so I'm making sure that I'm taking the home product to gift the Love Island contestants, which I didn't have that last year, but this year I'm like, well, no one knows who you are yet. But eventually they will. And that could be a product placement that's in the villa because they could take it into the villa to top up. So it's just about all these little bits and it's like no missed opportunities. I've missed a million opportunities over the years, even like this year. So now I'm very conscious of every little thing that could be an opportunity that could lead to something else or going to an event that might be a networking event, but you might meet one person that actually then connects you to something that becomes something you just don't know where the next little lead is. They're everywhere.
Danielle Lewis (21:37):
And I also love that idea of just who cares if it's just one person? I feel like we always, everyone wants to go viral, everyone wants to, the business takes off and we're all billionaires tomorrow,
Amy Maree Campbell (21:51):
But
Danielle Lewis (21:51):
Sometimes it is that just the next one, just the next one, just the next one. Not putting your foot
Amy Maree Campbell (21:56):
In front of one foot in front of the other is what gets you there. That's all you can do is just keep progressing and eventually hope that it gets you to the places that you're trying to get to.
Danielle Lewis (22:07):
Yeah. Oh my God, I love that so much. What do you think has been the biggest challenge of a product-based business versus the retail salon
Amy Maree Campbell (22:16):
Environment? I mean, for me it's initial orders. Having those initial orders. Obviously we have minimum order quantities, but knowing when to place your second drop. I have a product that's coming out, it's a merch product, so it's not actually a tanning because we also do some merchandise to do with holidays because island vibes, everything's holiday. We've got towels and bits and bobs, but we've got some really cool bottle. They have drink bottles that you take on your holiday with you. And we have a few colorways and it's about knowing, I just don't know what color's going to sell. And it's kind of like knowing, trying to work that out. And I ask around family friends, staff members, what color, and everyone's kind of different. So it is about trying to work out that happy medium where you order enough stock that you want to get the sales, but you don't want to sell out and go, oh my God, I could have ordered hundreds more.
(23:13):
Or you go the other way and you order hundreds and you get stuck with stock. And that's probably the hardest bit is knowing your quantities and storing everything. So it's like storage for all your bottles and your bits and bobs. I mean, all my bottles and everything that the tan goes into, I buy all the components separately. I buy the bottle, I buy the lid, I buy the pump, I buy the label. So everything is from someone. They're all from different people. And then they all come to me and then they're all in boxes labeled. So it's just logistics is a huge part of a brand. It's not as well some brands, some brands obviously come in one piece, but others it's just, it can be a bit of a logistical nightmare.
Danielle Lewis (23:57):
Do you label it yourself or do you get all the components and your chemist, was that,
Amy Maree Campbell (24:04):
Sorry, that was the idea was that my chemist would do it, but my chemist label maker, it couldn't work on my labels. So I then the first drop had to be hand labeled by my chemist team did it, thank God not me. And then the second drop was done by the actual company that I buy the bottles from. We just then sent the bottles back to them and the labels back to them, and then they labeled them. So it's just like a three pl, you pay your 3 cents or your 4 cents per label to get relabeled. So it's just all these little moving parts and then freight back and forth, and then freight getting it back to the chemist. So it's just everything moving around to get it. You've got to know, you've got to be organized.
Danielle Lewis (24:49):
Yeah, totally. It's funny, I had an e-commerce brand during Covid hand sanitizer, obviously, and I hand labeled thousands
Amy Maree Campbell (25:02):
Of, it's wild. It
Danielle Lewis (25:03):
Was hell. It's
Amy Maree Campbell (25:06):
Crazy. Yeah, it's so crazy. And I'm so anal, so I'm just like, oh my God. If it's not the right, it's not perfectly straight, it becomes freaks me out. Oh my God, I
Danielle Lewis (25:16):
Love it so much. Okay, you are amazing. Let's wrap this podcast on one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your, gosh, many years in business, multiple businesses, what would be one last piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Amy Maree Campbell (25:34):
Just to surround yourself with other people in business? So it's kind of like, and just don't just take, give, I try and give to other business owners. I don't want to always be like, oh my God, can you tell me this? And can you tell me that? I try and give information to others so that I can, it's a two way street and get things in return. But often if you find people, they may have been in a situation before you that you've come to a roadblock and they've got an answer for you. So it's surround yourself with other business people because you just never know who is sitting next to you or on a call or on a zoom call or in one of these group sessions that might've already hit this roadblock that you've got and they have a really simple answer for you. And then I really believe in give and take. So it's like give as much information to others. Don't safeguard anything. Give all your information to others to help 'em out.
Danielle Lewis (26:29):
I love it and I could not agree more. Amy, you are incredible. Thank you so much.
Amy Maree Campbell (26:36):
Thanks for having me.
Danielle Lewis (26:37):
Oh, anytime. Anytime. It's been so good to hear your story and journey and nuggets of wisdom. I know everyone would've gotten a lot of value out of that. So thank you.
Amy Maree Campbell (26:45):
Amazing. Thanks Dan.
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