5 minute read
BRANDING BEAUTY WITH HEATHER MARIANNA
BRANDINGBeauty
Beauty maven and CEO powerhouse, Heather Marianna stands as a model for the goods she has offered for almost a decade- serially successful given the sales growth of her businesses and more youthful than her age would suggest given how often she applies her own products. She has simple advice for those looking to conquer the business world like she has with her brands, Beauty Kitchen and Marianna Naturals, “Don’t make excuses, find a way to be successful.”
No matter the circumstance or climate, Marianna is a woman that will make it happen.
“Your life is in your hands, make the most of every minute and opportunity” she professes, a mantra she’s lived by manically from an early age.
Take the empire she’s constructed from poised beginnings that include launching her own staffing agency and a dog accessory boutique complete with Ferrari dog beds for sale. Her proclivity for the luxurious has shaped her lust for quality where she manifested her fortunes from there through discipline and hard work.
“I’ve always had the work ethic and drive, to me I had no other choice but to make something of myself.”
In 2012, her new calling flourished into a magnanimous vision: 100% natural skin care and cosmetics without the use of chemical preservatives. Before the craze of healthy living caught fire, I’m talking the pre-Keto and Vegan wave, Marianna had foresight to create and distribute beauty products that were non-toxic, healthy, animal cruelty-free, and organic. Her next challenge? Delivering on that mission she strongly believed in. This required her to get into a lab for over a year perfecting product until she could offer the right blend of healthy and treatable. From her vantage point, this is the two step process to owning a successful business: building something you believe in and doing something you love.
From there, she notes a solid go to market strategy entails, “Pushing it onto friends, family, and anybody that will listen. Get the word out!” And that she did, while showcasing DIY Beauty content she amassed a viral fan following on social media, primarily on YouTube where she totaled 500K+ views per video in that first year. With an audience in tow, she opened her first warehouse, assembled environmental-friendly packaging, connected with celebrities in and out of the beauty industry, and scaled her product line.
Today, Beauty Kitchen is valued at $10M, Marianna Naturals is publicly traded in Canada, she has agreements with the likes of Walmart, Best Buy, and 3,000 other retailers who carry over 50 Beauty Kitchen products, her line has been a staple at all the award shows from The Emmys and Oscars to The Golden Globes, and she’s even opened her own store in Boulder City. Don’t look now but Marianna is also in the works to be featured in her very own TV show. What can’t she do?
She modestly recognizes how she made it so far in under a decade based on ongoing support, “I couldn’t do this without my staff, in particular my operations manager, my social media team, all the warehouse workers, and Manfolk PR working on big contracts in LA. Hiring a loyal team you can trust is everything.”
Her ascension didn’t come without adversity along the way however, but Marianna has taken the punches and retaliated with calculated counterattacks. Take for example the pandemic where she saw a dip in orders, but cashed in while doing her part: she worked quickly to add a new SKU to her website, 100% organic hand sanitizer, which revived sales growth. Marianna has always embodied knowing when to shift gears and accelerate when an opportunity presents itself. Currently she sees one in the container space where she has fallen victim to shipping shortages leaving her without containers for her line. Instead of bemoaning the lack of packaging hampering sales, she’s getting in the game and working to become a container wholesaler so she and other businesses can ensure better predictability. Smart, right?
Well, what does the future hold for Heather Marianna now that she has multi-million dollar beauty brands, cult following, and scale?
“I’ve grown so much as a person and an owner of businesses. Now is my time to give back.”
In an effort to champion like-minded, fellow female operators, Marianna has developed educational online beauty sales workshops. Her Build Your Brand program coaches brand owners through business hacks consisting of weekly calls to help, “Develop their brands, skip the nonsense I went through, and go straight to the top”. Marianna has already instructed a lengthy list of prolific startups like Stai Bella Cosmetics, Hacked By Nature, Yaaganix by Candice Rice, Sugar Me, Krissy D Skincare, Smooth Skin Firming, Xotic Envy, Kiki Mamma Co, Needle Me and now, she’s even mentoring one of the youngest skincare bosses, 12 year old Sudlzli CEO, Ayzli. The angle? “I want to help all female entrepreneurs find success!” A product of her products, a businesswoman mastermind from her masterful business experience, and a philanthropic mentor, Heather Marianna is not slowing down because she really doesn’t believe in a finish line. Her next venture is aimed at acquiring similar female-led brands to help them on their journey of not making excuses and just being successful, and thanks to her brands’ quality creams, she looks ageless doing it.
— By Tyler Robertson
“Both Heather and I have been instrumental in building the brand. She laid the template and framework of the company ten years ago when she founded Beauty Kitchen. Together, we have developed new products and branding that have steered Marianna Naturals in a slightly different direction shaping the company for what it is today,” says Joel DeBellefeuille; Co-Founder, President & CEO of Marianna Naturals.
“We are die-hard, non-stop workers that are constantly thinking of key strategies that can help move the company forward all the time. Heather and I have some great things in store. There could be a brick-and-mortar play, some overseas expansion, some big-box retailers. People will be happy with what we have planned; let’s put it that way.”
