PhorestFM Episode 340: Alec Neville on Knowing What You Bring, Who You Need on the Bus & How You Want to Grow

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Alec Neville: If you really have a great idea and you’re passionate about it, and you’ve done the research, right? You have to have done that research. I have lots of nephews and nieces. I don’t have grandchildren yet, but hopefully that’s coming. You know, y- there are plenty of people in my world who have, who are passionate about, about, you know, uh, popsicles.

Um, the step that’s missing is that they haven’t done the research on the popsicle market and decide they don’t know how big that market is and what it takes to freeze juice and get it in a box and get it on a truck and get it into a store. Right. Um, so you have to have done that piece. Um, but, but, you know, and this is, this is my free advice to anyone, anywhere in the world, in the business world.

The tri- the trifecta, the Holy Grail in business, is to get paid, right? You gotta get paid. If you, if you’re gonna work for a living, you gotta get paid. You gotta pay the rent. Yeah. You gotta have a car. You gotta have health insurance. So you gotta get paid, and the question is, can you get paid for something that you’re both good at and that you love?

[00:00:59] Season 10 Intro: We have an obligation to the industry that we serve, that we serve it in the right manner. Being a business owner ain’t for the weak. The expectations are just different. There’s always a way. When you’re born into something this special, you can’t help but fight for it.

[00:01:12] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Céad Míle Fáilte! One hundred thousand welcomes to the PhorestFM podcast, brought to you by Phorest Software. I’m your resident host, Alex Bélisle-Springer, and joining me today is Alec Neville. Most recently, he served as the CEO of Joanna Czech. Today, he advises founders, CEOs, boards, and investors on strategy, growth, leadership, capital planning, and value creation.

Beyond doubt, one of my favorite things about the hair, beauty, and aesthetics industry is the people who make it what it is.

A few episodes back, President of Intercoiffure America/Canada, Scott J. Buchanan of the Manhattan-based Scott J. Salons used the term the tapestry of beauty to describe how, and I quote, “Each of us bring a unique thread, and together we create the extraordinary tapestry that moves our community and industry forward.”

I’m reminded of this with every episode of the podcast we put together and release, but even more so when I meet people whose careers have taken them in plenty of directions before a spark drew them into this ever-growing tapestry. The industry welcomes people from every background, giving generously, asking in return for curiosity, care for clients, and a commitment to keep learning and adapting.

But by then, the spark has already turned into a fire, and with this realization, a sight into all the possibilities to leave a distinct mark, an invitation to draw from our individual journeys and experiences to build something that offers a lasting contribution to the people we serve. I can hear you think, “Right, but isn’t that the essence of starting a business, thinking about differentiation, sitting with the questions, what do I bring that someone else doesn’t, and why should that matter to the people I want to serve?”

In our last episode, Lou DiCola, Stacey Stefes, and Danielle Monise talked about stepping back to recognize the story a business is telling through its decisions, its progress, what it’s learned. This conversation takes us back to the beginning. How do our individual experiences shape the companies and initiatives we bring into the world or contribute to and the stories we ultimately share?

Alec Neville describes himself as a generalist. Most recently, he served as CEO of Joanna Czech, helping guide the strategic growth of a globally recognized luxury skincare brand. That role expanded his expertise in brand building, omni-channel operations, product development, and digital marketing. But his career started in geology, which led him into investment banking, where he worked with entrepreneurs, CEOs, and boards on everything from growth to refinancing and turnaround.

That experience ultimately led him to co-found a private equity firm, where he partnered with management teams to create long-term enterprise value. I think it’s fascinating how the job market often encourages people to specialize and how in contrast, being an entrepreneur requires you to be both versatile in skill set and a big-picture thinker.

So in the context of building a beauty business or growing one, maybe the distinctive perspective a generalist develops over time becomes the advantage said business might need at any certain point in its journey. That certainly seems to have been the case at Joanna Czech, bringing on Alec, and I suppose that’s the idea the episode rests on.

Through the lens of his experiences, we take an honest look at what happens when a business overextends itself, why it’s so important to get the right people on the bus in the right seats before you start driving, building desire versus building trust, as well as the relationship between both, and how to scale sustainably without losing sight of the cost of growth.

Alec may approach business by means of numbers, but as you’ll come to see, our discussion often comes back around to ground itself in people, conviction, and trust A quick note before we jump into it, though. Only a handful of episodes remain until our PhorestFM Season 10 finale, and to wrap it up, we’re bringing back one of last year’s favorites, the love letters to the industry and its people.

Here’s where you come in. Who in your community or network deserves their flowers, and what message would you share with them if you had the mic here on the podcast? Should you be interested in participating, and I hope you will be, the typeform that you’ll need to fill out will guide you through it all, as well as allow you to select your preferred way of going about your submission.

But I’ll give you the lowdown here. There’s three ways. First option, you can write your letter, send it in, and have it read and recorded by someone at Phorest. Second option, you can book some time to record it with me. This was a popular option last year, especially for those wanting to receive some feedback on their letters.

And finally, the third option, you can do both the writing and the recording on your end and upload the final product when prompted. The only thing I ask if you choose that option is to record without any music. The deadline for entries is November 15th, and the form to fill out is in the show notes along with last year’s edition of the episode so you have an idea of what we’re looking for.

I won’t lie, I teared up more than once putting the episode together in 2025, and I expect nothing less this year. No pressure. But all right, that’s the important announcement done. Of course, we always have a lot going on at Phorest, so the best way to keep up with it all is to follow us on social media if you don’t already.

On there, we share information on upcoming events, the likes of the Phorest Summit, but also our presence at industry events and trade shows, communicate general news and announcements, talk about feature releases, and, and, and the list goes on. But what I’ll end on is we have a lot of fun there, and we’d love for you to be a part of it with us.

Now, you’ve waited patiently enough. I’m really excited for you to hear this conversation. I hope you enjoy it. Alec, without further ado, thank you so much for joining me on PhorestFM. It’s a pleasure to chat to you today. 

[00:07:10] Alec Neville: Thanks for having me. I’m, I’m delighted to be here. It’s, uh, it’s an interesting, uh, interesting time for me, interesting time to be reflecting on what we’ve done, so this is fun.

[00:07:20] Alex Bélisle-Springer: I know. We’re gonna dive into that actually because I, I wanna explore a bit of your career because it spans so many different directions and I find that fascinating. Um, you started in geology, first of all. Uh, you moved into investment banking. You co-founded a private equity firm. You stepped into a luxury skincare business.

So w- you know, what was, I don’t know, maybe one or two of your favorite highlights if you can even, you know, dial it down to that, or something you’re maybe the most proud of? I don’t know. 

[00:07:53] Alec Neville: Uh, yeah, the way, uh, it, uh, I think the word to describe my career is peripatetic. It’s… I’ve, I’ve moved around a lot. Um, I, I don’t know.

I mean, uh, I got into geology for, you know, th- that was a million years ago, and I was a college student and didn’t really know what, what to major in, so I picked it because a couple of my friends were geology majors. Um, and I ended up really liking it and enjoying it. I spent a couple of years working as a geologist and quickly realized that that’s a pretty lonely, uh, profession.

Mm. Very science, science-directed, so the more you stay in, in that kind of a field, the more focused your field of study has to become. Mm. And, and I’m a generalist. I like looking at a lot of things. So, uh, I, I started to think about, okay, well, maybe I’m more interested in the business part of some of these industries like oil and gas and mining.

And so I, I went, went back to graduate school and, um, kinda headed off in that direction. That’s how I ended up in banking and ultimately private equity. Um, yeah, I think I’m most proud of just, you know, the businesses looking back that I’ve, that I’ve helped to start. Um, uh, the large- the, probably the most successful of which was a private equity fund in Dallas that was focused on oil and gas.

And, uh, you know, that was the culmination sort of later in my career and the culmination of a lot of this wandering and looking at things from different angles and, and coming up with, uh, an idea for a way to invest private equity in oil and gas that n- not any… R- really no one else was doing. 

[00:09:33] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. 

[00:09:33] Alec Neville: Um, and that allowed us, you know, b- th- that differentiator allowed us to raise money at a very difficult time.

We started fundraising in 2008 when the world was falling apart. Uh, anyways, we were, we, we got through that. We were successful raising a first fund and a second fund then. And then I realized it was, uh, it was yet again time for me to go do something different and, and, and I ended up joining forces with my wife, Joanna Czech, um, to help a business that I had helped her found, gosh, uh, three, four, five years earlier.

Mm. She has been in that business her whole life, so, uh, but it had started to, it, it had started to take on structure and, and size and was, was, uh, in need of some, you know, someone to make sure that things were getting done correctly and dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. Um- 

[00:10:28] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. How did that conversation come about for you to join, join forces with her?

[00:10:34] Alec Neville: Uh, you, you know, she, she kind of asked me. I was, I was, uh… After I left, uh, the private equity world, I spent about a year working on some projects on my own and, and frankly was kind of bored. Uh, and she said, “Why don’t you, why don’t you come help me? Because I don’t know what’s going on here, but this thing has taken off and, uh, we could use the help.”

[00:10:55] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like it’s, it’s worked out pretty well. Now you’re in the stage of your career, my understanding anyways, where you’re entering a new chapter once again. 

[00:11:05] Alec Neville: Yeah, I mean, I, I just turned 70 and, um, I, I- it’s a good time for me to, to exit the Joanna Czech, uh, experience for a couple of reasons.

The, the, the simplest of which is it’s not easy working with your spouse. 

[00:11:20] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Um- Mm. 

[00:11:20] Alec Neville: And, and we’ve gone through a, a couple of really significant cycles in the Joanna Czech business. We had, we had a lot of success early on- Mm … particularly through COVID with our, um, digital marketing website sales, and then several years of, uh, ha- realizing that we had gotten out over our skis.

Mm. We built up too much inventory. We, we had a kind of helter-skelter approach to things. Um, so we’ve, we’ve, we’ve kind of taken a lot of fairly painful steps to correct that. Uh, the business is now back on an even keel and, uh, growing more slowly but profitably. Right. And, and it’s clear now that the, that the, the most important thing for this business anyways, is that there’s a professional CEO, someone who really knows how to work with a founder like Joanna.

You know, one of the great things about working with a founder like Joanna is she has a million new ideas every minute. Mm. Um, and, and that’s great because newness is important in any business.

Um, it’s also challenging because most of those ideas are pro- probably not something you want to immediately change course and glom onto, but, but telling a founder that, “No, let’s, let’s not do that right this minute. Let’s focus on this. We, we have some core businesses that are doing really well. We need to focus on A, B, and C before we get to X, Y, and Z.” 

[00:12:48] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. 

[00:12:49] Alec Neville: Um, and, and, you know, one of the things I’ve learned in the process, it’s, it’s really been interesting and somewhat humbling, is I, I’m not a great, um, manager of people.

And- Right. Okay … and it’s really, really important, especially in a small business, well, I, I think in any size business, that, um, you know, the person at the top be good at managing people. Um, I’m a, you know, I’m a, I’m a people pleaser. I want everyone to like me. I’m, I, I don’t want, I don’t want any discord. Um, you know, that’s just my, my general character.

So it’s, uh, you know, I’m not the right person for that, and neither is Joanna. Joanna’s a great leader, particularly because she’s so passionate about what she does. Um, it just bleeds out w- anyone who meets her is like, “Oh my God, I wanna, I wanna do what she’s doing.” But, but that doesn’t mean you’re a good manager of people. That just means you’re a good leader. 

[00:13:39] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. 

[00:13:39] Alec Neville: So both of us have come to realize that, that, that we, we both need someone external to come in, and, and what we, we call a… Somebody has to be the hammer. 

[00:13:51] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Right. 

[00:13:51] Alec Neville: Somebody has to hit, hit nails on the head once in a while and say, um, and say, “No, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna do this,” and rather than remind you, “We agreed two weeks ago that we were gonna do this, and have you done it?” And, and follow through, and accountability, and, and holding people to, to it. 

[00:14:06] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. You know. Which is so important. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So with, with this change and, and, and you then moving away from, from the, uh, Joanna Czech chapter, you’re leaning towards more of like a consultancy role, I guess?

Or, uh, is that, is that the, the course you’re- Yeah … taking? Yeah? 

[00:14:24] Alec Neville: Yeah. I, you know, when I look back on my career, I’ve, I’ve actually worked quite a lot over the years with startups. I’ve, I worked with a dotcom startup back in 2000 as CFO. I’ve worked with small, uh, gas companies starting up. I started up a private equity fund.

So, so the… And, and that’s what really, I think, is, is what I enjoy most, is- Mm … is starting things. When ideas come together, that, that intersection between what I referred to earlier, someone like Joanna, who has a million new ideas a minute, that energy meeting the real world. Okay, how do we execute on this?

How do we take these ideas and make them into something that produces revenue? Um, and, and yeah, that, that makes money, right? At the end of the day, you gotta make money. 

[00:15:13] Alex Bélisle-Springer: I, I’m, I’m hearing, obviously, you’re, you’re super passionate about, like, building and helping startups build. But even within that, i- is there something more compelling to you between, say, imagining what could exist, the build itself, like being in the nitty-gritty, or, or getting other people to see what you see, and what is it that you’re wishing to help other founders and dream makers bring into the world?

[00:15:38] Alec Neville: Yeah, I mean, I, I think starting with the last question first, um, some of the mo- most important lessons I’ve learned about starting businesses I’ve learned by making mistakes, doing it the wrong way. So if nothing- … if nothing else, I can maybe help some, help founders avoid some of those decisions. That, that energy that drives the desire to start a business.

It’s a very chaotic form of energy. Um, and, and I think it’s really helpful to have some, some extra eyes, ears, and years saying, “Okay, let’s, let’s unpack that. Let’s play that out. If we do this, this, and this, what’s that gonna look like versus if we do this, this, and this, what’s that gonna look like?” Mm. And, and what do you think, what is really the priority?

And then let’s focus on that. Let’s get one thing done and then get a second thing done. And, uh, you know, it’s as simple as when we were first opening, uh, Joanna Czech, uh, in Dallas, you know, how do you get the phone hooked up? W- well, who’s gonna call and hook up the internet? W- who’s gonna be responsible?

And- Yeah … and you know, that, that comes back to the, one of the core principles I think of managing people, is just making sure that all of these little tasks, or not so little tasks, someone’s accountable. Someone is, someone owns it and is gonna follow through, report back, “This is done. This is how we did it. This is the password. This is the login. This is where it’s…” I, you know, I wrote it on a p- sticky note and stuck it in the refrigerator. 

[00:17:09] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah, yeah.

[00:17:10] Alec Neville: I’ve become a, I’ve become a real believer that that’s a, that’s a very, very important and l- skill set. And, and you know, I think that’s the other thing about, um, startup situations.

It, it tends to be more than… You know, it’s usually a group of people, right? Mm. And the really interesting thing is sorting through, okay, who in this group has which personality, which character sets, um, and is g- likely to be good at which things? Um, you know, for example, I come from the banking world, so to me the numbers are very important.

Well, it’s a… So what kind of person is gonna make sure that the numbers are done properly? 

[00:17:48] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Right. 

[00:17:48] Alec Neville: Someone who would atten- You know, you’re looking for attention to detail, and you’re looking for, you know, practical skills like very good at Excel, knows the accounting rules- Has done bookkeeping before, um, that kind of thing.

[00:18:03] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. So when, when you look at a business today, say, like, you were going to have to pick between two or three businesses to work with, as startups, let’s say, um, what, what would you notice first? What drives you to working with a business more than another? 

[00:18:22] Alec Neville: Yeah. So, you know, my, my business background really started after graduate school.

I went into the banking world and learned to be a business analyst. And, and you, you know, it’s num- the, the banking approach is to start with the numbers and learn what, what do the numbers tell you about the business? But, but- Y- it, uh, that’s… What am I trying to say? There, there are different approaches to sort of how to come to understand a business.

Mm. The one I happened to learn is a numbers-based business, but it doesn’t have to be numbers-based. It’s just one approach. But, you know, the idea is what is it that makes a company successful in, in… W- so so first of all, what industry are you in? How big is the industry? How big is the market? Does your, does your idea fit, or does it open up some new space in that?

Um, how are you gonna, how are you gonna get from start to the first dollar of sales, and then, then first million dollars in sales, and onward and upward? 

[00:19:25] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:19:25] Alec Neville: Um, so it’s, it’s a, it’s a sort of more thoughtful analysis of, look, every idea fits into some marketplace, some industry somewhere. What are the, what are the, what are the rules of that, of that industry, of that marketplace?

We used to call it bases of competition. What does it, what does it take to be competitive? If your, if your business is being a podcaster, right? There are lots of people doing podcasts. There are lots of people- Yep … who are, wanna give d- advertising dollars to podcasters. Why does one podcast succeed and another doesn’t?

H- you know, how, how long should the podcast be? How many guests should you have per week? That there, there are things you need to sort of look around, do a little research, um, and make sure you understand how other people are doing it. And then think about your approach, and, um, it doesn’t have to, it doesn’t have to be the same as everybody else.

In fact, being different is a good thing. 

[00:20:24] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:20:24] Alec Neville: But, but that, but that doesn’t mean that, you know, if you’re in the business of making automobiles, you still have to put the tires on the bottom. 

[00:20:31] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. You have to have an understanding of, of what’s going around you to, to know, A, what’s working, and maybe B, know what you wanna do differently and how you wanna leave a mark, right?

[00:20:44] Alec Neville: Right. 

[00:20:45] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Right. Yeah. The- Mm … the beauty business industry, through the past 10 years of hosting these conversations, I’ve found has surprised more than one person who’s stepped into it. You know, whose career didn’t necessarily start in it. Was there anything about the industry that surprised you as you moved into your role as CEO of Joanna Czech?

[00:21:08] Alec Neville: Y- yeah, I mean, there, there were, there were plenty of surprises and, and- Mm-hmm … you know, not to beat a dead horse, but, but just to sort of compare and contrast, I came from an industry, whether you call it banking and finance or, um, you know, extracted industries, oil and gas mining, that are very l- linear, engineering-based, science-based.

Uh, there’s always an equation. There’s always a set of, of, um, axioms that define how, how things work in that world. Um, so the And, and there’s almost no marketing, advertising, and sales expense, right? If you produce a barrel of oil, it- people wanna buy it. You don’t have to go out and advertise. You don’t have to stand on the corner with a sign going, “Hey,” right?

So, so you don’t spend any time thinking about what is my product? Why would someone buy my product? How do I differentiate my product from, from the rest of the world? Mm. There’s no differentiating. Oil or gas has certain chemical and physical characteristics, and, and it is what it is. And, and so, uh, I joked, y- you know, early on when I was joining Joanna that, that this, this world of beauty was, as a whole, an entirely new world for me.

Um, and, and, and I think the I, I had some appreciation for it, but there’s no question that it took a while for it to sink in how important marketing, advertising, and sales is to any consumer packaged good, but beauty in particular because as I … This, this quote is, is famous in the industry. I think it’s attributed mostly to Charles Revson, but it said, “We’re not selling a product. We’re selling hope.”

So you’re, you’re really trying to, to capture that, that emotion in the consumer that this product is gonna change my beauty- Yeah … make me more beautiful. Um- Mm-hmm … and, and that’s so, so hard to define, impossible to define. So unlike the world I came from where everything was defined, you’re not…

I’m now operating in a world where nothing is defined, um, other than there are some rules about what you can claim and can’t claim. But, but within- Right … you know, that, that, that’s sort of the only set of rules. So it, it, that was a, that was a, continues to be for me, uh, one of the surprises just how important this, these three things are, and they’re three things that by definition y- you don’t know if you’re doing it right until you are, right?

When you ask people, “If I spend this money on this marketing activity, is it, how much was my sales gonna increase?” And they go, “Uh, I don’t know. I can’t tell you that.” And that’s- … that’s very difficult for a, for a, you know, methodical pencil pusher like me to, to wrap my head around. 

[00:23:55] Alex Bélisle-Springer: I think you put the finger on something that is worth diving into, and I, I know we discussed this by email as we were planning this episode.

Th- the, the idea and the relationship between trust and desire, and I wonder, is there one that needs to be built before the other? Do you need to build them in tandem? How does that work? And what’s, I guess, what’s the best way of going about it all? Because in the mindset of differentiating yourself, you do need both for your business to grow.

[00:24:28] Alec Neville: Yeah. I, I think it’s a fascinating subject, particularly in consumer packaged goods and beauty because actually I think it is saturated. I don’t think there’s any question that, you know, that we have too many skincare brands, too many haircare brands. S- but that doesn’t mean that a new idea can’t take ho- hold and, and do very well.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so between trust and desire, I mean, I guess it, it’s really tricky. So in a, in an industry where marketing and advertising can make or break you, you could create a product that no one trusts. Now, at the beginning it’s no one, no one trusts it or distrusts it ’cause they don’t know about it, but you could, you can build products that just have a lot of z- z- zhuzh, I guess is the word people use.

They’re, they’re splashy, that have- Right … have a, have an effect, whether it’s… It could be purely visual, right? It could be just the marketing imagery that you’re using. It is possible to create a product and, and launch on that kind of, uh, that kind of, uh, splash, uh, and do well. Um, I guess, m- you know, I’m a l- I’m sort of old school, so I, my, my my sense is that that, that kind of approach, um…

The, the question that comes up is, is it, is it gonna be a long-term endeavour? Is, is this first product gonna lead to a second product, to a third, and is this thing gonna grow for years and years, or is this a flash in the pan? Mm. And, um, and, and, you know, the reality is, uh, particularly since I come from the private capital world, there’s an enormous amount, you know, billions of dollars of private capital spooled up and waiting for the next beauty idea.

And, and a lot of that capital actually wants a business plan that goes from zero to a million in, in 90 seconds, um, because that, that, that scaling is what creates value. Um, and I’m being a little unfair, I think, probably, but you know, in theory anyways, y- you could create a product that just had a lot of pla- splash- And for whatever reason was able to gain shelf space in the, in the, you know, the, the channel of your choice and get to, you know, 100 million in sales- Yeah

uh, quicker than anyone thinks, um, without having first built the, the trust part. So that’s one approach, right? You can, you can do it that way, and I think there’s capital out there that would help you do it. Um, and, uh, at, but, but you just have to be honest with yourself that what I’m doing here, I- my goal, my business goal here is to scale really quickly.

[00:27:23] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. 

[00:27:23] Alec Neville: That’s my objective. And that there, there are a whole host of operational, um, considerations to make sure you understand, that you’ve done your research, you understand the market you’re going into and what it takes, uh, operationally to, to be able to produce that many SKUs and get them shipped on time to the right door at the right time.

[00:27:46] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:27:47] Alec Neville: Um, anyways, n- now I’ll come back to my answer to the question is I would much rather have a product I trust. I would much rather work with a product that has efficacy, uh, a, a great story, and, and the ability to start from a place of trust, be able to go to customers and, and look, maybe you need, maybe you need to pay to, to do the claims testing because what you wanna say is, “This product will make your blank blanker.”

Um, and if that’s- Mm … you know, if that’s, again, back to the research and what’s important in, in your segment, um, maybe, maybe, maybe it is important to spend money on claims testing so that you could say right on your marketing copy, you know, make those kind of claims. But, um, because what, what interests me is, is, you know, does this product actually work?

Is this… Are we helping people? Um- Yeah … are we just playing off their vanity? Um, and I, you know, one of the things that surprises me about my wife is how passionate she is about skincare, skin wellness, and how she has b- she has been her whole life and she will be until the day she dies. She just, she just loves talking about skin.

It’s, it’s a- Mm … it’s a passion for her, always has been. And, and so I would rather work with a product and a founder that has that kind of emotional commitment, um, because I think it just makes it easier then to build the desire. If you start from the trust, the desire will come. Right. If you start with the desire, it’s not to say you couldn’t add trust, but I guess I’m just more comfortable when I…

If, if people come to me and are asking for help, you know, thinking about how to start their business, scale their business, raise capital for their business, um, a- a- you know, at my age, I’m not interested in working for 20 people at one time. I want to be very thoughtful and careful about who I work with, and I, I’m gonna look for people who have a real emotional commitment and something about their product that is really compelling.

[00:29:47] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I get that. Um, and, and I think — even beyond, ’cause we have a lot of, um, hair, beauty clinic owners also listening to the show, but I think that even beyond a product, say, line or, or whatever it is, this also rings true in a service-based business in this industry, I think.

[00:30:13] Alec Neville: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, th- you know, spa- spas are an interesting, an interesting, um, you know, subset of, of, of the beauty business. In fact you know, because I’ve done it enough times, when you talk to capital providers about beauty businesses, they very often fall into one of two camps. They’re only interested in products, SKUs, and what retail channels are you in and how many doors are you in, or they’re only interested in the four-wall brick-and-mortar locations where the service actually takes place, and they’re, they’re concerned with, you know, how many appointments, how many…

what sales per square foot, and, and a different set of, uh, metrics. Um- 

[00:30:54] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah … 

[00:30:54] Alec Neville: It’s always been kind of an interesting conversation because at Joanna Czech, we do both. Um, we sell other people’s product, we sell our own product, and we have, we have spas where we perform services and sell those products.

And, and people tend to be like, “Well, I like the s- I like the spas, but I don’t like the product,” or, “I like the product, but I don’t like the spas. I don’t, I…” A- a- and look, uh, you know, honestly, there’s something to be said for making your own life easier first. And, and, and one of the things w- partly because of Joanna’s energy, we do a lot of different things, right?

We have, we have four-wall brick-and-mortar. We have three locations. We have our own skincare line, and we sell other people’s skincare lines. That’s a, that’s a lot of balls to juggle.

[00:31:35] Alex Bélisle-Springer: How do you juggle them all? 

[00:31:37] Alec Neville: Uh, well, uh, look, I mean, uh, it, it’s a good question, and the answer is sometimes we did it really well and our sales grew, you know, faster than we could’ve imagined, and then we realized that we had a lot of balls in the air and we had to simplify things.

So, so the, the short answer is we, we got out over our skis. We, we did too much. And we still have the same three businesses. We have spas. We have our own product. And we sell other people’s products. The, one of the biggest changes, the biggest surprises, I guess, when I think back on what we did at Joanna Czech, is, um, we realized that we had to be much more careful and considerate about how many of the other people’s products we sold.

And it- Oh … and it comes back, it comes back to that what’s, what’s authentic? Why, why are you doing this in the first place? And in our case, the answer is Joanna’s always felt strongly, I mean, pound the table strongly, that no one skincare line is gonna address every condition of every person on the planet.

So that she feels like her job as an esthetician is to try all these other products, pick the ones that really work, and, and then be passionate about those products and, and flow her own products in to fill in the differences that she finds, the spaces that she finds. So, you know, at one point in time post-COVID, we, we realized we had I wanna say 60 or 70 different brands on our website and over 500 SKUs. And we were doing a terrible job of merchandising and inventory management, et cetera, et cetera. I mentioned some of the trouble we got into. 

[00:33:20] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:33:20] Alec Neville: That was a big part of it, and it took us, it took us the better part of, uh, 18 months to first of all identify that we had too many of these things.

Second of all, design a strategy. What, how many of them should we have based on this, this Joanna’s core belief that there are certain products that are really important? And for example, vitamin A. Vitamin A is one of the cornerstones of skincare. There are a lot of vitamin A pro- products out there.

Joanna happens to think that this one product, um, is, is the best vitamin A. So one of the things we talked about internally when we were designing the Joanna Czech skincare line is, no, we’re not gonna design a vitamin A product because it’s already been done. There’s a, the, the best product in the world is already out there.

Right. So why recreate the wheel? There are other spaces in the skincare spectrum where there are holes that need to be filled. Vitamin A isn’t one of them. So, so we, we had to be very thoughtful about, okay- If we’re gonna, we’re gonna carry a vitamin A product, we’re gonna carry one product, one company, uh, because w- because this is the best.

And Joanna’s been deal- working with this company for her entire career. She knows the founder. And, and that’s very typical, again, of, of her sort of commitment and passions. Most of the skincare lines that we carry. So anyways, um, I’m getting ahead of this. We went from 60 brands to basically five. 

[00:34:40] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Oh my God. That’s a huge reduction …

[00:34:41] Alec Neville: Yeah. Huge reduction and, and, you know, it was, it was, it was painful. 

[00:34:48] Alex Bélisle-Springer: I can imagine … 

[00:34:49] Alec Neville: We had a lot of- you know, a lot of, a lot of vendors, l- lot of vendors with whom we had become close friends and really loved their product, and Joanna had that personal relationship with the founder.

And we just had to say to them, “I’m so sorry, we just can’t carry your product anymore because we just can’t carry that many products, and, and we have to be disciplined and we have to get from 60 to about five.” And those five brands we now work with, you know, daily. We, uh, you know, and we’re, and we’re exploring new ways to do the fulfilment and, and, um, it’s, it, it’s a really, it’s a partnership.

It’s more… We’re not just acting as a retailer and buying something for a dollar and selling it for $2. 

[00:35:27] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:35:28] Alec Neville: You know, we- we’re, we’re better at communicating with those brands about, “You’re one of five brands on our website for the following reasons. Um, you know, this is what we’re gonna, this is the kind of marketing we’re gonna do talking about your brand. This is the kind of marketing we’re gonna do talking about our brand.”

‘Cause, ’cause in that situation, there’s a tension. They’re worried that we’re not gonna pay attention to their brand or we’re only gonna pay attention to our own brand. 

[00:35:49] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:35:49] Alec Neville: But, um, yeah, so I, I’ve, I’ve kinda lost my way here, but, but you’re right.

I mean, from 60 to five, it took us, it’s basically took, took us two years to really realize we had a problem, understand w- what the solution to the problem was, and then execute on that problem. And, um, and that execution piece comes back all the way to the beginning of our conversation. Um, we were fortunate to, you know, have some people by that time who were good hammers, who could say, “Oh, okay, for the next six months, team, we are eliminating brands,” means talking to the vendor, taking things off the website, making whatever- 

[00:36:27] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah.

[00:36:27] Alec Neville: Um, changes we have to do the nav and customer experience to, to deal with all that. Um, but a big project. Uh, now, and our- Huge … and, and, and it had financial impact that was positive. We cut our inventory by, in half, so that frees up a lot of cash. 

[00:36:43] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:36:43] Alec Neville: But, um, yeah, but, but, but hard, you know, difficult. Heavy lifting.

[00:36:49] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah, yeah. Heavy lifting and, and I’m sure a lot of hard conversations too, you know? If, if it’s people that you appreciate and you’ve been working with for a long time, it never gets easier to have that conversation about, like, “Hey, listen, we just can’t carry it anymore,” you know? 

[00:37:04] Alec Neville: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:37:05] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Um- Yeah … yeah, I, that’s fascinating, though, and, and two years of a project.

I mean, when you look back, it’s… I’m, I’m sure there were, there were moments that you were able to, like, celebrate some milestones within that, within that process, but when you’re in it, I can imagine how challenging it can be to see the end of the tunnel of such a thing. 

[00:37:28] Alec Neville: Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, and, and imagine you’re the digital marketing manager for Joanna Czech, and you have to… You’re already, you have a paid advertising campaign and that you have to worry about. You have the normal daily operational glitches of a website on a Shopify back end that you have to ride out. Why isn’t this, why isn’t this image in the right place?

Mm. Why this click isn’t working. Um, and, and then, you know, somebody’s coming in and saying, “Okay, you know, I need these products off the website. When is that gonna happen?” Well, you know, it was gonna happen yesterday but there were some brush fires. And so, um, it, it, you know, you ha- it, it asks a lot, uh, of a team.

Mm-hmm. And, and again, that’s so important that you have someone at the top who’s, who’s good at keeping people accountable, holding their feet to the fire, but doing it in a really positive way. 

[00:38:21] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. How… I’m curious, I’m curious because we’ve talked a lot about how that was managed internally, but how did that land with customers coming to the spa or buying products off their website and, like, seeing over time this, uh, reduction in brands, or, you know, like…

And we talked about desire and trust, so, like, was there something in there that you had to manage very intentionally, and how did you do that? 

[00:38:52] Alec Neville: Yeah, I mean, um, you know, most customers, uh, not most customers. There are a lot of customers on any website who, who don’t really care about the story. They’re just they just wanna click. They just wanna complete a transaction. They’re, they know exact- exactly what they’re after. They know what SKU they want. And, and they suddenly come to your website and they don’t see it, and, and we get a nasty email, customer service saying, “What,” you know, “Where’s this product?” Um, so w- we do have to be sort of thoughtful about how we respond to that and, and be true to what we’ve told ourselves, which is that our goal as a seller of skincare products is not to offer you the world.

We’re not Amazon. We’re not Ulta. We’re not Sephora. We’re very specific, we’re very curated, and we s- carry a certain small set of products for very specific reasons and, and, and communicate that from the PDP page to our email, blog, to other things and, and just, you know, tell the same story, be consistent. You know, people have to hear things, what, five to seven times before they really, it sinks in. So. 

[00:40:00] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. 

[00:40:00] Alec Neville: Um, yeah. 

[00:40:02] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Looking to what your next chapter is in, in terms of consultancy, is there something you’re excited about or maybe, like, a type of business that you’re excited to work with or hoping to work with? Is there something that’s like, that would be kind of like a North Star? 

[00:40:29] Alec Neville: Uh, that’s a great question. I, I hadn’t thought about it. I, I think my, my sort of gut, gut answer without having thought about it much is it’s r- to me, it’s really more important the people. Um, if you’re passionate about an idea, I don’t care if it’s, uh, you know, how to produce synthetic oil or how to produce color makeup or how to produce automobile tires.

It if you have, if you really have a great idea and you’re passionate about it, and you’ve done the research, right? You have to have done that research. There- it’s very easy to be passionate. I have, I have lots of nephews and nieces. I don’t have grandchildren yet, but hopefully that’s coming. Um- … you know, y- there are plenty of people in my world who have, who are passionate about, about, you know, uh, popsicles.

Um, the step that’s missing is that they haven’t done the research on the popsicle market and decide they don’t know how big that market is and what it takes to freeze juice and get it in a box and get it on a truck and get it into a store. Um- Right … so you have to have done that piece. Um, but, but you know, people who, people who are just really passionate about their idea…

I mean, I, I tell my wife all the time, she doesn’t know how lucky she is. Um- Mm … you know, my career, I jumped all around looking for that North Star, and I’ve never found it. Joanna found her North Star when she was 19 years old, and, and sh- and it’s never, she has never deviated from it. It’s, it, it’s, it sometimes pisses me off, frankly.

Um- … a- and I try to tell her, you know, I’m trying to tell her, “You don’t know how lucky you are.” The, the, I… And this is, this is my free advice to anyone anywhere in the world, in the business world. The tri- the trifecta, the Holy Grail in business, is to get paid, right? You gotta get paid. If you’re, if you’re gonna work for a living, you gotta get paid.

You gotta pay the rent. Yeah. You gotta have a car. You gotta have health insurance. So you gotta get paid, and the question is, can you get paid for something that you’re both good at and that you love? Mm. And they’re not, they don’t go hand in hand, and, and you have to, you don’t have to look any further than the legal profession or the accounting profession to see a world where lots of people get paid, get paid good money- Mm

to do something they’re good at, but they don’t love it. You know, the- Yeah … the level of sort of moral, uh, uh, not moral, but um, um, you know, spiritual satisfaction in the, in the legal and accounting world is very low, that y- y- there, there are surveys done all the time, and lawyers and accountants are- Oh, yeah.

[00:43:01] Alex Bélisle-Springer: I mean, my uncle’s one of them for sure. We’ve, we were talking about that just this year, he and I. Yeah. 

[00:43:06] Alec Neville: Right. Famous for you can make good money, you can be really good at it, but there’s nothing that stirs the senses about ticking and tying numbers and debits and credits and torts and, and, uh, and lawsuits.

[00:43:19] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah. It, for, for someone who’s maybe listening who’s in the, the early stages of building something new, whether that’s like, you know, a brick-and-mortar business, um, in the hair and beauty industry, or it’s a product business, um, and may be wondering, you know, am I doing… am I building something that looks right on paper or something that will actually work in the market?

Obviously the, the, the first action is doing that research, but is there a first question that you’d encourage them to sit with? 

[00:43:54] Alec Neville: Yeah. Can you write a business plan? That you can go to ChatGPT or Google and download literally thousands of templates for a business plan. Pick three that, pick, you know, pick one that tickles your fancy. Can you fill in the first page of a business plan? Have you thought that will help guide you towards, have you thought through the process? 

[00:44:17] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. 

[00:44:17] Alec Neville: Um, I, I, and, and, and I think you said, you know, put, put on paper. I think, you know, again, I’m old school. It’s really important to write stuff down. If you can’t write down your business plan, if it’s in your head, one of the great red flags in the business is if you ask someone about something, they say, “Oh yeah, it’s in my head.”

You’ve gotta be able to, you’ve gotta be able to elucidate. You’ve gotta be able to, to, to speak your business plan to someone on the street. You know, we talk about the elevator pitch. Do, could you describe your idea in 30 seconds on an elevator, that kind of thing. Um, but force yourself to put pen to paper and, and, you know, start to write a business plan.

Start to organize your ideas and, and, and kind of test yourself, uh, whether you’ve, you’ve thought things through. 

[00:45:03] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. Well, Alec, thank you so much. Is there anything that you wish I would have asked that you would like to chat through before, before we come to a close? 

[00:45:14] Alec Neville: Uh, n- no, I, I, I think just, you know, the high points from my point of view are, um, uh, uh, people are the most important- 

[00:45:24] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Like getting the right people on the bus and managing them well?

[00:45:27] Alec Neville: Yeah. And, and one of the things that we did wrong, and I think a lot of founders do wrong, is you hire whoever’s, uh, convenient, easy, handy. It tends to be friends and family, and that’s not a great approach. So be thoughtful about the people you hire. Hire really slowly and fire quickly.

Hmm. Hire people. Take six months hiring someone, and make it very clear to them on day one that at the end of 30 days you’re gonna reevaluate, because personalities are what they are and you, you, you… No amount of resume reading and, um, and screening can sort through everything. So you, you, you know you have, you have to give yourself that pop of… And, and, and at the end of 30 days, if, if the, the boxes aren’t being ticked, is this the right person doing the right job, and do they have the capacity to do it? If those boxes… If you don’t get a yes to all three, you’ve gotta, gotta bite the bullet and say, “Sorry, this is just not working. We’re gonna start over.”

And then, you know, again, because I come from a numbers background, I really… It’s kinda my Rosetta Stone. But regardless of what stage your business is, you should have… You should just know in your gut kind of what y- what your profit level is, what your cash flow is.

If you’re taking in $10 in revenue, you have to have a sense. You don’t have to do it on an accounting basis. It doesn’t have to be GAAP. But as an owner, you have to have a sense of I’m doing this and it’s profitable, and it’s gonna… This is how much money’s gonna land in my bank account. A real sort of no-nonsense just feeling about, okay. And, you know, look, in, in starting businesses, you, you have to spend a lot of money. You have to spend money to hook up the phone; you have to spend money to lease space; you have to hire people; you put them on a payroll. It’s all expensive. So make sure you always have a sense in your mind of are these, are the costs adding up, are the costs in line with, um, what we’re actually gonna sell?

[00:47:34] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. Actually, this prompts me one last question, maybe. Is there a point, and if so, what is that point, where the pursuit of growth can start to undermine the thing that people trusted you with in the first place? 

[00:47:52] Alec Neville: Oh, sure. I mean, I think that’s a pretty common problem. Uh, you know, the, the, the, the market, and very often your investors, uh, may push you to grow.

Grow, grow, grow. I, I spent some time in the early, in 2000 in, um, the dotcom era, or the beginning- Mm … of, of the internet age and digital commerce. Yeah. And, and the entire dotcom boom was an exercise in deficit spending. W- we the, we the investment community will throw money at you. Just grow. Grow quickly.

And we had, we had a graph internally that we joked about after the fact. You know, it was a, it was a classic up and then down pyramid graph- Mm … and it could represent our hiring, it could represent our, the amount of, uh, funding we were taking in, it could re- re- represent our revenue forecast. And, and the upside was, you know, the investors saying, “Grow faster. Do it faster.”

And the, uh, the downside of this, this chart was, “What the hell were you thinking?” You know, so the… Don’t… Just because someone is telling you to grow doesn’t mean they’re gonna support you when the growth plan doesn’t work. So you know, to thy own self be true, you know? If, if, again, back to that just, you just have to have a sense.

You don’t have to be a numbers person, but you have to have a sense of, okay, yeah, I could get to 100 million in sales, but it’s gonna cost me; I have to invest 200 million. 

[00:49:26] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Mm. 

[00:49:28] Alec Neville: Okay, how am I gonna get a return on that 200 when I’m only getting… when I’m only bringing in 100 in sales? Well, the answer is, okay, that 100 then obviously has to go to 500.

So there’s a lot of very successful companies that have, you know, been unicorns and done amazing exit multiples, um, by, by funding growth, um, at a deficit, right? If you’re growing really fast, if you’re opening your doors, you’re hiring people, you’re loading trucks, you’re gonna have a lot of expense, and, and your expenses will almost certainly exceed your revenue.

But again, make sure you know. You don’t have to have a profitable balance of P&L today, but make sure you understand the inflexion point. Yes, I’m gonna spend more than I’m making for some period of time. Know exactly precisely when that crossover happens and, and be willing to tell yourself at least as you look in the mirror, “Yeah, I can get there. I can get there.” 

[00:50:28] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Alec, this has been fascinating. Thank you so much for bringing me in and bringing everyone listening in to all these different chapters of your career, your experiences. There’s so much for people to relate to in there, and I hope that it’s helpful for people listening who are in the midst of building something.

For people who might wanna reach out to you, have a conversation, where can they do that? How can they find you online? 

[00:50:57] Alec Neville: Yeah, and then I’m, I’m on LinkedIn. Uh, I don’t, I don’t have the, the, uh, link handy, but it’s Alec Neville, uh, on LinkedIn. 

[00:51:05] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Yeah, I’ll link it in the show notes. Great. That’s per- yeah, that’s perfect. Thank you. LinkedIn is the, the number one place then. Great. 

[00:51:10] Alec Neville: Yeah. Yep, absolutely. 

[00:51:11] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Thank you so much for this. 

[00:51:13] Alec Neville: All right. Well, thank you. I, I appreciate it. It’s been an interesting conversation. It gives me an opportunity to sort of tell the world w- what I’m thinking about, and if you need help with your business, I’m happy to talk.

The first phone call is always free. 

[00:51:24] Alex Bélisle-Springer: Huge thank yous to Alec, but also you, for tuning in. This podcast simply wouldn’t exist without your continued support and all that you bring to it, you know, whether that be through your shares, your comments, your encouragement, and just your willingness to explore what’s next for our industry.

We’re nearing the end of season 10, I mentioned this at the start, and the busy season’s right around the corner, so if you don’t wanna miss a drop, make sure you follow the show. If you’d like to give additional support to the show, the most impactful thing you can do is leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

It helps us grow beyond PhorestFM’s current audience and reach. I know it’s easy to say, but trust me, it really does make a difference. And to explore and shape what’s next, we need as many voices in the conversation as possible, not just as guests, also including every single person listening too. Oh, and if you are still listening, maybe you can answer this in the poll on Spotify.

What does your particular perspective make possible for the people you serve? Until next time, le keyla toma jig fas. Together, We Grow.

Related links

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