True success is about hanging on when everyone else lets go.
Karren Brady
Sometimes through adversity you find uniqueness – it’s not always money that will help you. Having the ability to find a way forward is key to being successful.
Deborah Mitchell
I TOLD some of Deborah Mitchell’s story in an earlier book (Find Your Dream Job), but that was merely the story of how she changed career and found the job of her dreams. What it didn’t tell was the story of her subsequent success as the director of her own company. Deborah epitomises a positive mindset and fully believes that through an optimistic outlook you can achieve whatever success you desire. She is living proof.
DREAM BUSINESS OWNER
Deborah Mitchell
Director, Heaven Health & Beauty Ltd, UK
JOURNEY
Drama student 
Founder of organic skincare company
Deborah has built a multimillion-pound beauty product empire. And she has won several prestigious awards, which have helped raise her profile in the UK and internationally. Indeed, her Heaven Bee Venom Mask, a “natural alternative to botox,” won a Women in Business Gold Stevie Award for best product. Heaven has taken the market by storm and enjoyed record growth of almost 300 percent in the past year.
And she started out with nothing more than £10 and a burning desire to transform the industry.
It all started as a kind of magical thinking. Deborah is an ordinary girl from Wolverhampton. She was meant to be taking a class in beauty therapy, but in fact she was staring out the window. She wasn’t day-dreaming, she was concentrating on a fully formed vision she had of herself running her own business, her own beauty salons.
She pursued that vision. Whilst still training as a beauty therapist, she started looking for work before the other students to get ahead of the game, giving herself the best chance possible of getting a job in a competitive field. She was hired at a local salon and gained invaluable experience.
After three years she moved to a salon in Wolverhampton. She acquired more experience and eventually left to pursue her grand masterplan of setting up a mobile business.
From the outset, Deborah looked for ways to expand her business and accumulate skills and experience. By investing in a box of nail extensions, she learnt to do nails, which brought in money to do other things.
Whilst it always sounds easy in hindsight, Deborah had plenty of hurdles. She split up from her first husband, but she didn’t give up; instead in the same week she opened her first shop in Shropshire.
“I’d set up in a health club, but I had so many clients that I needed new premises and a base to work from.”
Over time she built up a team of beauticians to cope with demand. Her reputation continued to grow by word of mouth and she opened a second shop, this time in central London.
A high street chain wanted to manufacture Deborah’s products in their factories, but such is her integrity and commitment to making pure, natural products, Deborah opted to remain independent. She went on to a take huge financial risk by buying her own factory and incurred major debt in the process. This was in order to ensure the production of beauty treatments that are genuinely organic and preservative-free. She is driven by a desire to spread healing of the skin, not sell out and jeopardise the quality of the product.
“The way I do business is always the same. It never changes. I never go after the money, I go after looking after people. I make sure the products fit the person in the right way. I don’t need to do it any other way. That is my life. That is my passion.”
In the past Deborah worried about cash flow and how to pay staff wages, but she doesn’t worry now.
“I’ve just signed a £100 million contract with China and we’re selling in Japan and America. Money’s not a problem anymore. My life’s great, actually. Whether I go up or down from this, I’m still doing what I want to do at the end of the day.”
Deborah now has 85 staff worldwide, so she is responsible for more wages.
“I’m still not really driven by money but I do have to make people’s wages. So in fact as my business grows the wheel gets bigger and there’s more to earn. I think that you get what you ask for – you just have to ask intelligently. You mustn’t doubt whatever it is you want, but you have to work out what you want.”
People help to promote Deborah’s business on her behalf by talking about the products. It helps, of course, that she is now the beauty therapist of choice for many A-list celebrities and members of the royal family. Deborah loves people and people love her.
“I don’t have to do Google ads. People just talk about the treatments because they like them and like the products. The clientele that I’ve got is all sorts of people. When you have a clientele they all talk to one another and to their friends. And in the royal echelons, they talk to everybody. They just happen to be lords and ladies, or Cheryl Cole and Sylvester Stallone! That’s what seems to happen. My clients are proud of it and they want to talk about it. They like the fact that the products are all organic.”
Major events include the opening of a flagship store in Taiwan as part of a distribution deal in the Far East, followed by a more recent contract in which Deborah’s products expect to sell in 2500 Heaven salons in China. As a result of these deals, Deborah has trained hundreds of British therapists to work in the new Chinese stores. Her success has been extraordinary.
“I can’t cope with the demand for everything I’ve got now. But I’ve got set rules about how I work and what I want to do. I want to carry on treating people. It’s something that’s really important to me. I did treatments all day yesterday without a break. And I’ll be working through to 7.30 tonight with no break. I’m booked up for a year, and really I would be booked up solid for ever if we opened bookings beyond the year!”
Deborah’s story is a great one, and truly inspiring to anyone hoping to set up a lucrative dream business.
What’s her secret? She would say it is a matter of self-belief. “I do believe that if I turn my hand to anything, I can be successful at it. It’s not just my knowledge and my experience. I know that if I choose to do it, it will happen and it will work. You make a choice – and a decision. You say, ‘I do want to do this, and I do really want to earn money at it.’ People have to make that statement.”
But, for me, Deborah’s additional secret is her authenticity and her integrity. She is totally committed to organic products and has refused to sell out that dream along the way. Furthermore, she is generous, connects with people and works extremely hard.
She admits to being competitive. She describes herself as a leader but sees herself as a collective leader. “I want my family and my team to be swept along with me. I need to have lots of people around and to pull them along.” She is the sole director of her company and doesn’t want to share that role because she can’t stand people telling her what to do. That has been the case from birth!
“Social networks are really good. The clue is in the word ‘social.’ I do it to be social with my mates and thank people for buying the products. But I do get lots of business from it because I engage.”
Copying by rival manufacturers has been a problem. When her formulas were stolen one time, she thought she was ruined. But her response was to remake the products into a far superior bestseller. Copycat products are just a part of the challenge of running a successful business. “I try to think there are no setbacks in life, just ways of teaching me things.”
Deborah says that juggling family is also amongst her biggest challenges. “You do have to make your commitments to your work and almost book an appointment with relatives to see them, and that is hard.”
“One of my biggest successes is being awarded a fellowship from the college where I used to be called ‘Debbie Dumb Blonde.’ That feels good!”
“Actually, I don’t think I am successful – yet. But meeting people’s requirements is my business and it will be successful because the people I employ care about people.”
Deborah’s Secrets
TO DREAM BUSINESS SUCCESS
1 Focus on what you want to achieve. Ask yourself what you’re prepared to sacrifice and how much effort you’re prepared to put in. Write it down.
2 When you have your list of what you want, find people to help you achieve each individual thing.
3 If you haven’t got a particular skill set, get someone in to give you that skill set.
4 Sometimes you need to choose people on gut instinct. Two years ago a Chinese company and a Taiwanese company were vying for the distribution of my products. The Taiwanese offered to buy £1.37 million of products and give me the money up front. But I turned them down as I didn’t feel right about it. I went with the little baby Chinese distributor. And now I’ve got a £10 million deal with them. They’re aiming to open 2500 stores in China. In Japan, the store in Tokyo has attracted the Chelsea Flower Show 2012 gold medal winner Ishihara Kazuyuki to design the garden in it.
5 I’m invited to lots of things but I can’t do it all. So I work out which is the best one to go to. Everyone tries to grab every ball – but you don’t need to. Be selective.
Being your own boss is great. You choose the hours, take time off when you want to, and every bit of labour you put in is 100 percent for the benefit of you and your business. Well, that’s the theory anyway.
Yes, you choose the hours, so why are you working 14-hour days, seven days a week? Can you remember the last time you gave yourself a weekend off, let alone a proper break? Lunchtimes become a distant memory, you forget what your children and partner look like and the dog runs away when you get home.
Instead of the designer-label-clad, suntanned god or goddess of commerce you thought you were going to be, a grey, tired, anxious-faced ghost looks back at you in the bathroom mirror. Sleep has become allergic to you as you worry about what’s still to be done each night and you are beginning to resent holidays because it takes you away from work.
Your waistline looks like the stuff they roll out at Pizza Express and you haven’t time to collect your thoughts or your dry cleaning, let alone visit a gym in months. What’s going on?
Don’t think it won’t happen to you. I know one business woman who took her BlackBerry into the delivery room in order to catch up with emails whilst in labour!
It is a sad fact that we can morph into the boss of our worst nightmares; running our own businesses can reduce us to an out-of-shape, overworked bore who talks of nothing else except sales predictions and profit margins.
In order to keep our businesses fresh, alive and healthy, we must be too. If your business hits the buffers, or you’re stuck on a plateau where you don’t seem to be able to break out of a profit rut, you need to step back and rethink.
Taking time out can seem like a goofing-off guilt trip rather than a brain-clearing investment. We all need to rethink what we are doing in our businesses occasionally and this can be a time to up your training, investigate new options or merely be curious about what else is ‘out there.’
Here are some ideas to ensure that all-essential work-life balance, which should keep both you and your business vital and energised.
• Set up healthy daily habits – go for a morning walk or run, eat fresh organic produce, drink lots of water, take regular breaks, know when to switch off.
• Create a realistic working day, say 9–6 or 10–7, and stick to it.
• Have non-screen time – shut down the PC, laptop or iPad and stop checking emails on your smartphone at least two hours before bed to allow you to properly unwind.
• Build in NNT time (Non-Negotiable Time) in your diary where you go for a massage, see friends, visit galleries, practise yoga or just stare at a wall.
• Have white space in your diary at least once a week to think, plan and be creative.
• Hire a coach to motivate, inspire, challenge and support you regularly.
• Ensure your office is designed to help you work at your best – up-to-date technology, ergonomic chair, pleasant environment, everything working.
• Have treats to look forward to each day – meals with loved ones, a book at bedtime, a lovely bath, a glass of good wine, an absorbing hobby.
• Learn to meditate – it’s a simple technique, and it lowers blood pressure and helps you unwind and refocus.
• What do you need to help sustain and support you, and help you be at your best? Make a list and action it.
• What toxic habits do you need to zap – e.g. drinking too much caffeine/alcohol, junk food, sugary foods, over-promising, not planning, not being punctual – what needs to change, and how will you do it?
• What support network do you need – IT, secretarial, admin, etc?
• If you could change three unproductive things that aren’t working for you, what would they be?
• Are you being busy or productive? How can you streamline your business and free up more time?
• Consider passive income. How can you make money without being present?
• What could seriously and dramatically improve your working day?
Be warned – running on empty and burnout are common side-effects of running your own business. It is 100 percent your own responsibility to take care of your health and well-being to ensure you are at your best at all times. Having your own business should be about having greater freedom and choice and not about being chained to your desk and working around the clock. Put yourself on the top of your care list each day and the rest will follow.