“What It Takes To Build A Beauty Brand” with Ginger King of Grace Kingdom Beauty

Jonathan (0s):
Well, welcome back to Radio Entrepreneurs. I’m Jonathan Freedman and our next guest is Ginger King CEO of Grace Kingdom Beauty. Welcome to Radio Entrepreneurs. Now I was saying before we got on the air, ginger, you’re a fascinating, I’m, I’m odd by the background that you have your a multi degree advanced degree holder. And so, so you obviously spent a lot of time in, in, in education and learning about the industry from the other side, with the composition and what goes into things. Tell us a little bit about your educational background and how you got into the beauty business.

Ginger (41s):
Okay. My educational background, I actually have several similar degrees, like including a master’s in chemistry and MBA in marketing and over 30 other professional certifications from green card though in Damon, John from the shark tank. And how I got into beauty was because I’m Asian. It’s very important that I have multiple degrees. You know, academic excellence is looked highly upon by when I came to America, I was 16. I wanted to be a makeup artist, but because of my culture is like, no, you have to go to college. If not a PhD, at least get a master’s degree. So I was like, fine. I’ll learn how to make beauty products because that’s what I love.

Ginger (1m 23s):
And this is how I ended up in the beauty industry. So I love beauty since day one.

Jonathan (1m 29s):
So you develop a understanding of the core of creating product, but you went into a business that was really about helping other entrepreneurs develop their concepts and, and bring them to market, perhaps marrying your, your marketing background. Tell us about your, your, your business. Grace kingdom, beauty

Ginger (1m 50s):
<inaudible> as a consulting company, I help people to build their own beauty brand from concept to launch, including formulations. So I can do a turnkey. So if you want to have your own beauty bread, I’m the person to talk to. I do everything within the beauty space. And last year in 2020, I also launched my own brand fan love beauty. The reason why I’m doing this is because for two reasons, one is a lot of people ask me. So what happened after I launched the brand? Can you also help me? So to walk, the talk had decided to do my own breads. I can show you how to do it because obviously people know, I know how to do formulations from concept to launch and secondary are the reason why I have been love.

Ginger (2m 33s):
Beauty is because this is a very different type of beauty bread. It’s I create beauty products for people who inspire, educate, or entertain the society as a gift back. For example, the inspiration actually came from my celebrity, crush them and John of shark tank. There was one time he was using a lip balm in front of me before he go on stage to talk. And I was like, if it’s something that’s so close to him, that’s in his, on his lips. It has to be not to be my, because I’m a cosmetic chemist. So I developed this the best ever vegan lip balm. That’s the healthiest ever. And it’s free of your conventional petrol, atom or beeswax.

Ginger (3m 15s):
I guarantee you, I challenge you if you do, it was lip balm, take out your lip balm. You’re going to find these three to me, quote unquote, undesirable ingredients. So why did I give you is ingredients that full of superfoods, an ingredient that is clinically proven to boost hydration by up to 6000% and why I chose lip balm because lip balm is so critical. No matter if you’re a man woman, P older people or younger people, everybody can use lip balm, lip balm is the only beauty product that can be ingested. So the choice is critical.

Jonathan (3m 53s):
Hmm. And it’s interesting that you say it’s the only beauty cut product that can be ingested yet. Most of the products on the market have things that you probably can’t pronounce in them. And do you really want to address those products? So you’ve come up with a fully natural, a vegan. So if, if I’m stuck on a desert island and using my lip balm and I get hungry, I can eat it as well.

Ginger (4m 15s):
I don’t, I don’t say that, you know, for legal reasons, but every single ingredient in there, other animal.

Jonathan (4m 22s):
So tell us a little bit about the, let’s go back to the consulting piece. You’ve worked with companies who you’ve helped them develop their formulation. What is the range of people coming to you? Have they stood in their kitchen, cooking up concoctions and applying it to themselves? Or is it sometimes people that have a concept, but don’t know anything about the chemistry of how to create it? Or is it people that, that have developed some sort of formulation used it amongst their family and friends, and now they want to commercialize it? I would imagine. It’s you you’ve seen all of it.

Ginger (4m 55s):
All right. I see all of them, but I can tell you the best lines, otherwise food. No, they are. Why, why are they doing this so they can keep going forward. The first phone calls with them, I usually ask them, what is your why? Because if you don’t know your why the first three years is going to be very tough, building a brand is not easy. You need to have those consistency. You have to have the persistence and have a very strong why in order to do this.

Jonathan (5m 23s):
And the why is, is, is, you know, there’s a big difference between the Y conceptually and the Y executionally because we, at the end of the day, in order to be a business, you have to convince other people as to why, why you, why your product. And it seems to me, it’s a, like a lot of industry segments. It’s a segment that is very crowded today. And so is the why, and articulating that. Why a big piece of how you guide your clients to separate themselves from the noise. So to speak from the pack

Ginger (5m 57s):
Branding, because branding is the way of differentiate you from the pack, because let’s put my lip balm as an example, a lip balm is a lip. Balm is a lip balm, but how are you going to differentiate yours? And my lip balm is actually the first ever stage bound for lips as designed for speakers. Because as you know, you are doing podcasts. We, we talk a lot. I mean, our lips get dry. And once our lips get dry women, I smoke talk as smoothly as we’d like and show it can drink the water. But a lot of times we don’t have the time to go to the bathroom. And now, especially if you guys go out on the stage, or even when you’re sitting in a conference room in the whole day, it’s going to the bathroom.

Ginger (6m 38s):
You have to wait in line forever. So what is the easiest way for you to hydrate your lips as a lip balm

Jonathan (6m 45s):
Now? So, well, that makes perfect sense. So it’s something that people need and can use. And so that’s a, a great example. Now, what, what, what are some of the challenges you see companies going from concept to commercialization of their products? Is it, is it is the beauty industry guided by a lot of regulatory issues or less so today?

Ginger (7m 11s):
Yeah, a lot of the regulatory issues. And there are a lot of cell regulation. People are going for clean beauty and vegan beauty, clean, clean beauty is actually not regulated by the government. It’s people are taking upon themselves. So I don’t advise anybody. If you want to be in the beauty business, don’t do it DIY, because you don’t know how you don’t know. You really need to work with a professional since day one. This is gonna help you to save you time, money, and all of your resources.

Jonathan (7m 41s):
Okay. So you guide them through some of the regulatory pieces and, and a product approval process.

Ginger (7m 47s):
Yes. Yes. I do everything in the beauty industry. I’ve been around for twenty-five years in the space.

Jonathan (7m 54s):
So for our budding entrepreneurs in the beauty industry, what’s a realistic timeframe from conceptual to execution, to selling product in the market.

Ginger (8m 4s):
I like to say it’s like having a baby. So it’s nine months. And the first trimester is really doing other counselor development, doing prototyping. The second trimester is you doing other testing because you need to do stability testing, micro challenge testing, consumer testing. The third trimester is doing palace scale up and also doing some PR work. So from concept to launch, it’s really nine months. And of course, if you want to have a preemie, you UK, you’re taking your own risk.

Jonathan (8m 34s):
That’s a great analogy, I guess. So tell us, you know, when a company gets the scale and, and, you know, scale means different things to different people, but I, how, w what is the point at which a company is going from, you know, a solo entrepreneur manufacturing product there, you know, non-commercial environment to time to have some sort of a scale. I, is it defined in units? Is it defined in sales volume? Is it defined in, you know, cause I guess it’s different depending on the product category, but, but I guess my, my question is, you know, no different than if you’re, you know, come up with a great formulation of brownies.

Jonathan (9m 17s):
At what point do you decide, okay, I can’t do this anymore. 24 7 in my home kitchen, you need to be in a commercial environment.

Ginger (9m 26s):
Well, actually I suggest you to be in a commercial environment in statewide because whatever you can produce in the home HGN may not be able to scale because of the difference is in manufacturing. All let’s begin with an ending. My Eva have, you are not going to a retailer today. You need to know what are you a perspective retailer. You want to go in because it’s affect your price point. So you really need to think all the way through the distribution. Where are you going to take your bread in three to five years from now, instead of just step-by-step and also how you do it online for e-commerce as a space for testing your concept, because you need to have proof of concept that you can get investors.

Ginger (10m 12s):
Then it can take you all the way, but only you will like business plan on your branding side. You must know where are you going to be selling your products at a price point? Can you afford

Jonathan (10m 24s):
Excellent. So it sounds like you are the one stop shop the Maven in terms of anybody that wants to launch a beauty brand and, and be successful at it. Our guests has been ginger king CEO of grace kingdom. Beauty. It’s been a pleasure. Tell us about a fan love, beauty, and where people can find your products. If they want to buy it. Excellent. Then you can go there and place a place orders for the most wonderful lip balm on the planet.

Ginger (10m 49s):
Yes.

Jonathan (10m 52s):
Excellent. Well, it’s been a real pleasure. If people want to reach you specifically to talk about their brands and, and how to launch a product, we already know where they can buy your product, but if they want to talk about your consulting services and how you can guide them, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

Ginger (11m 9s):
My Instagram, the beauty shock, ginger, the beauty shack, ginger DME,

Jonathan (11m 15s):
The beauty shop, beauty

Ginger (11m 16s):
Shop ginger.

Jonathan (11m 18s):
And do we get a taste of Damon along the way too? Is he come with the package or not quite That’s good enough? Well, you know, that’s a, that’s a wonderful endorsement that, and I would imagine your product is flying off the shelf, so to speak. So we wish you best of continued luck, ginger, and it’s been a pleasure having you on radio entrepreneurs And we’ll be right back with another guest on radio entrepreneurs.