In 2008, Alicia Grande started Grande Cosmetics with a single product, GrandeLASH-MD, and a vision that every woman should feel glamourous every day. Today, she’s expanded the product line and they now carry over 40 products that not only help you to have longer, more luscious and youthful looking lashes – but also plumper looking lips, bolder brows, & fuller looking hair! Providing dual functioning ‘cosmetics with benefits’ is what Grande is all about. Alicia’s humble beginnings started at the kitchen table and her shipping department was in her garage! Today, she is proud to say that they have grown into a complete beauty brand, with a corporate headquarters and separate shipping facility, guaranteeing their customers only the finest products available. Alicia has dedicated herself to providing women with products that empower them, helping them to enhance their own natural beauty!
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“when my older child was eight and my younger one was five I really had to hit the road hard. I went to around 40 different tradeshows a year, all B2B, hair, estheticians and also beauticians and I was really working on a bootstrap budget. Every time I would go I would have to sell and make a profit and cover all of my expenses and be very frugal and then that money would go back into the business. So after a year and half in I started seeing that that I was able to actually take some capital out and have some earnings for myself but it took a while and it was quite exhausting and I missed a lot of things”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action Book by Simon SinekFavourite Quote:
“I choose happy” Alicia Grande
Recommended Online Resources:
- Cosmetic Executive Women – is an international organization of 10,000 individual members representing a cross section of beauty and related businesses.
- LinkedIn – is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs.
- Facebook, Inc. is an American online social media and social networking service company based in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.
- Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, Inc. It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 exclusively on iOS.
- ICMAD – Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors – Educating, advocating, and serving entrepreneurial brands in the cosmetic & personal care industry locally and globally.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“do something that is in your lane that makes sense to you and where it’s authentic and you are really passionate about it. Because if you are selling something or making something is completely out of the realm of what you represent as a person it’s not going to really make sense to the world. And I think that’s why I have also been successful because I make products that I am really passionate about, that I want for myself as well. And I put 110% in, all in”…[Listen for More]
More About Alicia Grande:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” Babe Ruth, American professional baseball player
Other Quotes From the Chat with Alicia Grande:
- “I am always wound up and ready to go”
- “if I would have went straight to the dog and pony show, tradeshow, face-to-face, that would have saved me a good six months in Grande Cosmetics”
- “reaching out to organisations that are inside the business type can be very helpful”
- “I believe in really having a vision and trying to see clearly. It’s almost like that tunnel vision when you understand that you need to do all of this hard work to get from A to B, and then from B to C”
- “being able to roll with things is so important. And not just in business but in personal… Take things a little lighter.”
- “Just be focused and don’t let anything get in your way, try not to. You have to keep just hammering at it all of the time”
- “you really always have to back something up with the reason why because assuming people know, they don’t, there always needs to be further explanation and that is the ‘why’”
- “I do believe that that personal touch is still important”
- “I could be on the negative train, or I could be on the positive train. And I choose happy”
- “really being aware of what people are saying on social media, that’s very important”
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