- This week on <strong><em><a href="http://www.blackenterprise.com/tv-shows/black-enterprise-business-report/">Black Enterprise Business Report</a></em></strong> I sit down with Power Player <strong>Lisa Price</strong>, the founder of the popular beauty brand <strong>Carol’s Daughter</strong>. Evolving from a small home-based business to a multimillion dollar company, Price built her company from the ground up. Along the way the savvy businesswoman learned a few secrets to success that she shared with me and I decided to pay it forward. <em>—Caroline V. Clarke</em>
- <strong>HAVE A SINCERE & COHESIVE TEAM </strong><br><br> “The saying, ‘It takes a village’ is something that I live every single day. And having a team that really believes in the brand, really understands me—we sit at the table together as a family and work on this together—is what carries that vision forward and makes it less difficult. It’s more challenging when everybody at the table has a different agenda.”
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- <strong>DON’T BE AFRAID</strong><br><br> “I used to worry a lot and I still do because there’s just so much that’s nerve-racking and unknown and success is not a guarantee. You know, this is a business and we’re in a volatile economy and anything can happen. I’ve watched other people who were in business before me not be in business anymore and it’s frightening. I’ve found that I can’t make those fears go away, but I can not dwell on them and not allow myself to be afraid of the unknown. I’ve also learned to not be afraid of taking a risk. I’m more afraid of what might happen if I don’t do something than what’s going to happen if I do.”
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- <strong>ADJUST WHEN NEEDED </strong><br><br> “We slowed down our plan to open more independent stores in favor of pursuing partnerships that didn’t deplete the cash flow as much. We explored the partnership with <strong>Home Shopping Network</strong> further and more aggressively than originally planned because it required less cash on our end. The result was fantastic. We were the No. 3 beauty brand on HSN after being on the network for about three years. I never expected that.”
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- <strong>POSITIVE THINKING IS NO REPLACEMENT FOR GETTING BUSY </strong><br><br> “It’s good to be a positive thinker and to put forth positive energy, but you have to take an active role in how things form and play out and not be afraid of it.”
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- <strong>CHECK THAT BIG EGO</strong><br><br> “When you’re an entrepreneur and you’re the person who’s deciding to do the brand and you’re making the decisions and maybe you even named the brand after yourself—you know, I <em>am</em> Carol’s Daughter—there’s some ego in doing all that. And you can get to a point where you feel like no one else knows as much as you do. So you don’t want to listen to anybody else’s opinions or ideas. You have to guard against that. It’s important to be able to hold up that mirror—or have someone else around to hold it up for you—and say, what are you doing? Where is this decision coming from? Maybe you need input from somewhere else.”
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- <strong>WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE TO DO-OVER, DO BETTER </strong><br><br> “I declared personal bankruptcy when I was very young, before I started this business, and I can’t say that I’d want to go through it again, but at least I know that I could survive it if I had to. It taught me that it’s okay to mess up because you can recover. A lot of times, you think when you mess up that’s it and you don’t get another shot, you don’t get a do-over. It may be more difficult, but you can get a do-over. And when you do, you’ll do better. I don’t like some of the mistakes that I’ve made, but I don’t know how else I would have learned the lessons they taught me.”
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- <strong>BONUS: WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS: TWIRL!</strong><br><br> “My boys are 15 and 14 but my daughter, Becca, is just five, so there’s a big break between them. This business has grown literally alongside my children. My boys would be in the kitchen with me when they were small and I was mixing products and sometimes, they’d disrupt the workflow, which would just remind me that you can work hard but you need to also stop and have fun. Nowadays, my daughter likes to just twirl, you know, just twirl for no reason. She starts to dance and I watch her and get caught up in it and realize that sometimes, you just have to twirl!”
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- <strong><em>For more of Lisa Price’s intimate conversation with Caroline Clarke about her journey with Carol’s Daughter and what lies ahead for her and the company, watch the Black Enterprise Business Report on Sunday, Feb, 12 on TVONE. Visit <a href="http://www.blackenterprise.com/tv-shows/black-enterprise-business-report/">www.blackenterprise.com/bebr</a> to check your local listings for times. </em></strong>
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