"Entrepreneurs never stop learning."
Ginger King has been passionately creating beauty products from concept to launch for more than twenty years. She is well versed in innovative concepts, creative product formulation, advanced technology applications, ergonomic package development, and impactful competitive analysis. Ginger has developed thousands of products from hair care to skincare, and sun cares to color cosmetics. Her claim to fame products include the revolutionary first to market Joico ICE SPIKER, water-resistant hair glue, Freeze 24.7 Ice Shield, SPF 15 face wash, and Avon
Advance Techniques Color Protection series. Her Avon True Color Eye shadow and Daring Definition Mousse Mascara have also been selected as the finalists for CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women). Ginger holds several patents in cosmetic formulations.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce yourself to our readers. They want to know you, some of the background story to bring some context to your interview.
Ginger King: I am an award-winning cosmetic chemist with over 25 years of experience in every single aspect of beauty from retail to product development, marketing, manufacturing, and sales. I have a 360 view of the beauty industry. I also have served as the breakthrough beauty award judge for Allure magazine since 2017 and BrainTrust for New Beauty magazine since 2020. I can help you to build your own beauty brand from concept to launch. In 2020, I also launched my own brand so I can walk the talk and help you after you launch your brand.
You are a successful entrepreneur, so we’d like your view point, do you believe entrepreneurs are born or made? Explain.
Ginger King: Entrepreneurs are made because you can be born hungry but if you do not know how to get the food to continue feeding yourself, you will just depend on others to feed you. Entrepreneurs know how to break through barriers and create opportunities for themselves. Entrepreneurs never stop learning. If you are born with the skills, you will not care to learn.
If you were asked to describe yourself as an entrepreneur in a few words, what would you say?
Ginger King: Courageous. Creative. Committed. I take my vitamin C’s daily.
Tell us about what your company does and how did it change over the years?
Ginger King: Grace Kingdom Beauty is a consulting company where I help people to build their own beauty business from concept to launch. Over the years, I have expanded my services to include brand audits, press spokesperson, brainstorming sessions, new business development and become more of a one-stop shop to serve my clients in beauty.
Thank you for all that. Now for the main focus of this interview. With close to 11.000 new businesses registered daily in the US, what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business?
Ginger King: Success is not overnight. Make sure you have a strong support system and belief in yourself. You will need to be very focused on your goals and hitting your targets. Have a list of WHY you are doing this because when you meet struggle, your list of WHY can be the north star guiding you. For me, my north star is I want to be an example for my family and also make my mentor Daymond John proud of my accomplishments.
Did you make any wrong assumptions before starting a business that you ended up paying dearly for?
Ginger King: As an entrepreneur, I don’t know what I don’t know so I tend to rely on pros giving me their opinions instead of trusting my guts. I did not know what questions to ask or how to vet out people who wants to work with me. For my website alone, I changed 5 times because I trusted the agency. Later I learned, you will never hire someone who is better than you as there is a belief lid and operational lid. If people know more than you, they will not work for you. So, training myself daily has become paramount.
Yes, it is taxing on my time and effort but in the long run, I know how to sniff people out better if they are legit or not. Being an entrepreneur in the early days, you will have to pay for your mistakes but is also considered as learning. When you lose, do not lose the lesson.
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what advice would you give yourself and why? Explain
Ginger King: Don’t get investments too soon. A lot of times people think you need money to make money and having an investor or investors can help propel your business to the next level. Before my consulting business, I partnered with a friend and we had an investor. We blew away the investment faster than anything else because we did not have the financial intelligence and we ended up closing that business.
This is why I am still bootstrapping taking affordable steps in my consulting and the new brand business. Exercise the power of broke. Creativity follows commitment. Use what you got and don’t seek for investors until you absolutely have to and have the numbers to show there will be a profit for the investor as they are not paying your tuition.
What is the worst advice you received regarding running a business and what lesson would you like others to learn from your experience?
Ginger King: Hire a PR agency. I do agree money follows attention and there is nothing better than publicity. For the previous business, we hired a PR retainer and ending up changing 4 times. None of them gave us good exposure or they had a wrong representation of what the brand is about. No one is better than YOURSELF as a spokesperson. You have a message and you want to make an impact. Do it authentically yourself.
In your opinion, how has COVID-19 changed what entrepreneurs should assume before starting a business? What hasn’t changed?
Ginger King: There is a school of thought that when you start a business, you should not have a plan B as if you do, you are not committed. Covid has shown us that resilience and adaptability are equally important. Pivot is the biggest word in this pandemic. Be ready to change. What has not changed is the entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, I have more consulting clients than in previous years as people come to realize, they no longer can rely on corporations and they need to start their own business. The entrepreneurial fire did not die in spite of Covid.
What is a common myth about entrepreneurship that aspiring entrepreneurs and would-be business owners believe in? What advice would you give them?
Ginger King: A common myth for people who want to be their own boss is they do not have to answer to anyone and they have time freedom. The reality is instead of working 9-5, you are working 24/7 when you are your own boss. Instead of answering to one boss, everyone is your boss as you want to get money from them in exchange for your service or goods. Before you taste the sweetness of financial freedom to do whatever you want, you actually have to put in 10X efforts, time, and resources in order to get where you want to be. Having the right mindset and dedication will be the first step. Every success takes 15 years. Make sure you are ready for it.
What traits, qualities, and assumptions do you believe are most important to have before starting a business?
Ginger King: You have to have courage, commitment, consistency, persistence, and no matter what it takes attitudes. It takes discipline to train yourself daily on learning every aspect of the business. If you rely on others in the beginning, you will get lost. Learn things on your own and when you have mastered things, then you can hire people to delegate tasks to them. You do not hire people to solve your problems. You hire people to delegate things you know but you don’t want to do or not impacting the bottom line but need to be done. You are the business and be prepared to grind
How can aspiring leaders prepare themselves for the future challenges of entrepreneurship? Are there any books, websites, or even movies to learn from?
Ginger King: There are so many books, podcasts, youtube interviews people can learn from. My personal mentor is Shark Tank’s Daymond John who taught me the business fundamentals as well as relationships. All his books are highly recommended such as The Power of Broke, Rise3, and Grind, Power Shift. I am also mentored by Undercover Billionaire Grant Cardone who taught me sales and marketing and the concept of money, how to make, keep and invest. His book 10X, Be Obsessed or Be Average, Sold or Be Sold is highly recommended.
You have shared quite a bit of your wisdom and our readers thank you for your generosity but would also love to know: If you could choose any job other than being an entrepreneur, what would it be?
Ginger King: An entrepreneur is a “LABEL” not necessarily a position. So for not being an entrepreneur usually means working for others in a company which simply does not make sense because if you are spending time and effort, you might as well work for yourself. While entrepreneurs are made, it is hard for entrepreneurs to be “un-made”. Once you are an entrepreneur, you are an entrepreneur for life. The corporate paycheck is a drug for you to forget about your dreams which I believe everyone has their dreams to pursue to live their fullest potential. Why would I want the corporate drug? Yes tempting at times but deep down, once you are an entrepreneur, you are one for life. Engraved!
Thank you so much for your time, I believe I speak for all of our readers when I say that this has been incredibly insightful. We do have one more question: If you could add anyone to Mount Rushmore, but not a politician, who would it be; why?
Ginger King: Daymond John of Shark Tank. He is the people’s shark and I have never seen someone at his status being so humble, down to earth, caring, and always willing to share his knowledge and often for free. His mission is to inspire and educate people and breed more entrepreneurs. He was crown the ambassador for global entrepreneurship from ex-President Obama. Daymond John does not play politics yet his true entrepreneurial background and authenticity as a human being are beyond words. He even distilled down what is a shark. S is set a goal. H is homework, do your homework, A is amour, love what you do. R is remember you are a brand. K is keep swimming. These are really the essence of being an entrepreneur.
Larry Yatch, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Ginger King for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Ginger King or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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