6 Lessons on Leadership, Loyalty, and Lasting Change
Today is International Women’s Day, dedicated to celebrating those who have forged amazing paths, broken tough barriers, and spearheaded important change.
Today we highlight women who lead some of the amazing companies that use NetSuite — the leaders who turned their ideas into realities, built powerful communities, and created businesses that make the world a more inclusive place.?
The lessons they’ve taught us apply to businesses of any size and industry:
1. Build a community.?
In 2014, Monique Rodriguez launched an Instagram account to share hair care tips with other women. She enjoyed finding remedies that would help with various problems, such as scalp dryness, and began mixing hair treatments in her home blender and sharing the recipes with her followers. Eventually, fans inquired about buying the goods.?
Soon after, Monique founded Mielle Organics with her husband, Melvin. Its range of products, including shampoos and hair vitamins, is now stocked in more than 100,000 retail locations nationwide. Mielle’s Instagram account has nearly 1 million followers and is a top source of advice on handling textured hair.??
Mielle’s founders credit much of the company’s success to that Instagram account, a space built on trust where followers eagerly watch for new product launches.?
“When I was growing up, I didn’t have the opportunity to see women entrepreneurs who looked like me. I never thought that what I’ve been able to do was even attainable for me. So I want to change that narrative and show it can be done. You can be great, no matter your circumstances.” —Monique Rodriguez
Learn more about Mielle Organics’ success story .
2. Embrace innovation.
Gail Becker had a long and successful corporate career before quitting it all to start CAULIPOWER, a company serving better-for-you frozen meals with healthier ingredients like cauliflower and sweet potato. Since the beginning, Becker has sought to stand out while innovating in every aspect of the business, whether it be package design, go-to-market strategy, supply chain management, or hiring.?
For example, before designing CAULIPOWER’s pizza box, Becker took a walk through the frozen foods aisle and realized the best way to stand out in a sea of red competitors would be a green box complete with an eye-catching meme on the front.?
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Becker’s approach to hiring is also a novel one. She explains that her workforce consists of experienced employees with backgrounds in the “big food” industry along with inexperienced individuals looking to try something new — people she says wanted to “bet on themselves” and that she gladly bet on in return. Case in point: CAULIPOWER’s head of special projects was a hair stylist prior to joining the company!
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“Innovation isn’t something we reserve for food. Innovation has to exist in the lifeblood of the company.” —Gail Becker
Learn more about CAULIPOWER’s success story .
3. Prioritize kindness.
Little Words Project Founder and CEO Adriana Carrig is in the business of being kind. She started the company to encourage self-love, authenticity, and inclusivity with beaded bracelets that feature inspiring words and phrases.?
Little Words Project started in 2013 when Carrig ditched her plan of becoming a lawyer and started a business instead, inspired by her childhood experiences with getting bullied and wanting to help others feel less alone. She took $5,000 in savings, consulted some college friends for help with website building and graphic design, and began beading bracelets in her father’s garage. Within the first month of launch, she had doubled her investment and created a D2C brand with products that told a story. She had turned her own negative experiences with bullying into a business aimed at helping others prioritize positivity.?
Little Words Project has since forged partnerships with big names like the Women’s National Basketball Association and Nike while also valuing smaller partnerships that support its mission of leading with inclusivity and kindness. Carrig says she believes in “practicing what we preach,” which translates to customer care in the form of carefully designed packaging and responses to every customer message. The company also offers therapy sessions to employees on a regular basis, free of charge.
Carrig’s story is proof that building a brand around kindness can pay off.
“It started with girls and women, but now we see everyone wearing these bracelets. No matter who you are or how you identify, we want people to feel like they’ve got a friend in anyone they meet that wears a Little Words bracelet.” —Adriana Carrig
Learn more about Little Words Project’s success story .
4.? Double down on customer care.
Jess Kennedy was an attorney before co-founding Beeline with five others in 2020 as a way to humanize homebuying. The team seeks to give customers a digital experience in an “antiquated” industry using AI and machine learning.?
With Beeline , loan applicants need only to spend 15 minutes and complete five steps online to apply for a loan, with Beeline collecting applicants’ data, verifying it instantly, and determining loan eligibility quickly.?
Despite its digital foundation, Beeline has compassion and connection at its core. When customers apply for a loan, they are assigned a loan guide who stays with them for the duration of their loan process. Rather than get routed through a call center, customers communicate with their loan guides directly. Kennedy explains that per Beeline’s mission to “meet customers where they’re at,” customers can text, call, WhatsApp, Facebook message, or use “any other method of communication they want.” On the other hand, if they prefer a more hands-off approach, they can navigate the process on their own and simply ask for help if they need it.?
For Kennedy, customer service is best served with a touch of humanity and understanding, along with transparency and clear communication.?
“It’s easy: empathy. We’re all customers in some way … and I think that giving a great customer experience from our side looks like remembering how we want to feel when we’re on the other end of that, being the customer.” —Jess Kennedy
Learn more about Beeline’s success story .
5. Dive into data.
Andrea Lisbona is the CEO and founder of Touchland, a company built on the belief that everyday acts of personal care should be enjoyable and luxurious. The brand sells “beauty-forward,” stylishly packaged hand sanitizers designed to hydrate while leaving hands soft and smelling great. With sales channels including B2B, B2C, and wholesale, Touchland sells more than 10 of its Power Mist sanitizers every minute and has garnered social media shoutouts from celebrities like Kris Jenner and Naomi Campbell.?
Touchland has prioritized data analysis since the beginning, per Lisbona’s belief that the ability to mine insights from business data creates a competitive advantage. After its first six months of B2C sales in the United States, Touchland analyzed its data and captivated retailers’ attention with one particular metric: average order value (AOV). While AOV market standards are 1.5-2x unit MSRP, Touchland’s AOV was $60+, with items selling at $10 per unit. The metric showed retailers that customers were buying six or seven units at a time, and it helped convince more of them to buy in.?
Touchland fueled its need for data — and need to scale quickly — by adopting one system to run the entire business.?
“When any startup that was like Touchland a few years ago comes to me asking, ‘Should I implement NetSuite?’ I'm like, ‘You should have done it yesterday.’ It's the best thing you can do because if you're a fast-growing brand, you have to be able to manage your business and get real-time information with a simple click.” —Andrea Lisbona
Learn more about Touchland’s success story .
6. Implement technology.
These leaders have individual strengths and stories that they used to build resilient businesses. However, they share at least one commonality: They all value technology as a tool for business growth. And — you guessed it — that technology is NetSuite.
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Each leader has used ERP to amp up her business’s specific strength. Whether it’s growing and nurturing a loyal community, using innovative practices to grow, creating a culture of kindness, or dissecting data to drive sales, NetSuite can support.?
Here are a few NetSuite products these leaders use to run their businesses:?
NetSuite Connector allows you to set up data-mapping between NetSuite and your ecommerce storefronts; point of sale (POS) systems; online marketplaces; and third-party logistics providers like Amazon, Shopify, eBay, and more.?
NetSuite Demand Planning helps improve forecast accuracy, optimize inventory, and efficiently manage cash flow. Businesses use the solution to more accurately predict future inventory needs based on historical demand, seasonality, open opportunities, sales forecasts, and other metrics. It helps ensure you have the right items on hand to fill orders without having overstock sitting idle on warehouse shelves.? Read more on how NetSuite Demand Planning can help enhance your supply chain management operations below in our “NetSuite Tip of the Week!”
NetSuite OneWorld lets your company manage multiple subsidiaries, business units, and legal entities — domestically or internationally — from a single solution. Used in 217 countries and territories, NetSuite One World supports 27 languages and 190 currencies while giving businesses real-time visibility across local, regional, and headquarters levels. It also helps businesses adjust for currency, taxation, and legal compliance differences.
Learn how to turn NetSuite data into easy-to-read charts and pivot tables and become a wiz at SuiteAnalytics Workbooks.
Ronin Gallery is a second-generation family business. After running on QuickBooks, Magento, and paper ledgers, Ronin Gallery is using NetSuite ERP, CRM and Advanced Customer Support to “fast-track” growth.
These ten trends are shifting the way AP departments are processing and paying vendor bills.
Simplified Supply Chain Management: NetSuite Demand Planning
?Does your business need to optimize stock levels and fine-tune supply chain management?
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As described above, NetSuite Demand Planning helps you predict future inventory needs based on historical demand, seasonality, sales forecasting, and other metrics. Use NetSuite Demand Planning tools to easily pinpoint when to reorder items and in what quantities.
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To calculate item demand:
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The list of items that appears is filtered to show only items for the selected location that are time-phased replenishment items.
To learn more about NetSuite Demand Planning and related features, visit the NetSuite Learning Center .? Visit Customer Learning Cloud Support (LCS) to learn more about the LCS Company Pass.
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Chartered Accountant at G.Satapathy and Company, Chartered Accountants
1 年Thanks for sharing
We love to see our incredible founder and these other amazing women there! ????
We love to see our founder there! ????