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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy
[Ad]: Today's checkout features Kira McLeod Fink, head of Director Consumer at the Body Shop Australia. As we all know, the Body Shop is an iconic beauty brand known for its ethical roots and strawberry scented nostalgia. Kira shares with us how she moves this heritage beauty brand and transforms it at a speed that is uncomfortable but necessary. In this quick fire round of questions, Kira shares the beauty products that customers are absolutely obsessed with and the challenges that presents when it sells out, the podcast that keeps her inspired and the AI tool that she leans on daily to sharpen strategy and streamline thinking. Let's jump in.
Nathan Bush: Kira, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout. We had a great conversation back in our main episode about the transformation that you're doing at the Body Shop. An incredible, incredible time to be there. We Talked about your 3 month re platforming onto Shopify which is just absolutely incredible. Better than 14 days. That was originally the timeframe, but we're here to learn a little bit more about you. So five quick questions. Number one, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Kira Macleod-Finke: I'm gonna cheat on this one because it wasn't me. I didn't buy it. But so through Covid, you know we're all at board but my husband had a significant birthday and he bought himself a 400 kilo iron smoker which is in the backyard. And it's amazing and everybody loves it and I show photos of people and they're like, it's like a train. But the story behind that is they delivered it. They craned it into our front yard.
[Ad]: No.
Kira Macleod-Finke: So 400 kilos. It's massive and we needed it in the backyard, probably about 500 meters from where they craned it in. And so it sat in the front yard for a few weeks until we kind of, you know, got like four of the neighbors to help us drag it down the driveway. And it's not a. Like a smooth path anyway, so then it kind of stayed. We did. We moved it in stages, and eventually we worked out. We did all kinds of things. Like, you know, he was building these sort of skateboards for it. The wheels kept breaking because it was so heavy. And then we ended up. Somebody suggested, why don't you just do it? Like, the Egyptians moved the blocks for the pyramids and get some, like, some rollers.
Nathan Bush: So we thought you'd best to just get aliens to do something.
Kira Macleod-Finke: No, no aliens involved in the moving of the smoker, but PVC piping and me running around moving the pipes. So that's how we moved a 400 kilo smoker that we bought online from the front yard to the backyard.
Nathan Bush: Was it worth it?
Kira Macleod-Finke: Oh, yeah. No, the meat's good.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, which retailer has most inspired you recently?
Kira Macleod-Finke: So I was in a lift and I saw somebody carrying a bag, and I was like, that's a cool bag. You know, don't mind myself a handbag every once in a while. And it had a really, like. The handles were quite distinctive in the pattern, and I was like, I don't know exactly what that is. I did not ask the person what that bag was. But then I was on my little, you know, socials and flipping, and then I'm like, that's that bag. And it was sans beast. And then, you know, obviously I was like, is it sans beast or thorns? Beast? And obviously the, you know, Google hears me. And so I started getting more and more feeds because I paused on it and said the words out loud like, you know, there's no place like home. And I kept getting feeds for that. And, yeah, I just, like, you know, just kept going and they're on Shopify and happened to jump online. And, yeah, it was just too easy to buy a bag. And so you're like, well done, sons Beast. You know, like, good job. Yeah, good job.
Nathan Bush: How good? Well, at least you had the common decency to go away and Google it instead of trying to do, like, the sneaky lift Google lens image of it.
Kira Macleod-Finke: Yeah, yeah, I think you're. Yeah, I think I'm not that clever. That's the problem.
Nathan Bush: You got the result. You got the result. All right, number three, name a piece of tech that you or your business
Kira Macleod-Finke: couldn't live without the best physical piece of tech I ever bought with noise canceling headphones. And when you're doing, like, man, long haul flights and noise cancelling headphones are match made in heaven. So if you haven't got a pair, get some. But from a tech point of view. And my daughter will kill me because she's very anti AI.
Nathan Bush: But your daughter's anti AI?
Kira Macleod-Finke: Yeah, she's not into it. She's not into it. But Claude, which is one of the more quiet AIs you don't hear people talking about. But Claude and I, we're mates now and we. We hang out a lot. And, you know, I have a lot of going on in the brain. It helps me just kind of nut out an idea more often than not. So it's like, help me refine this concept. Help me, you know, make this actually make sense to anybody else other than me. And so I find that really useful in what I'm trying to do at the moment.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's cool. Do you have that for the whole team or is it just your personal.
Kira Macleod-Finke: No, it's just my secret.
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Kira Macleod-Finke: We're in a relationship. It's no sharing.
Nathan Bush: No one's coming near my Claude.
Kira Macleod-Finke: Yeah, no.
[Ad]: All right, number four, can you recommend
Nathan Bush: a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Kira Macleod-Finke: So you and I think have talked about how I got into the digital space, and obviously this podcast is. Was a key factor in that. So just a shout out for this podcast like it is, it is really good. You will learn everything you need to know. But I love Nudge as well. I think Nudge is a really cool. You know, it's like 20 minutes. Just like a thought provoker. They really explore different topics. You know, they were talking about the act of learning and how making mistakes actually gives you better knowledge a few weeks ago. And I just love that kind of, you know, there's little tidbits of little golden nuggets that you can get from podcasts like that. But I'm also a big book reader, so. And. And one of my favorite reads is the Heart of Business by Hubert Jolly. And it really is that combination of leading, you know, keeping a brand in your heart, but, you know, like the commercials in your head. And I think that that's. It's a great example of how to do that in big business.
[Ad]: It's a great, great recommendation.
Nathan Bush: Thank you. Last question I've got for you, Kira. What is your biggest challenge today?
Kira Macleod-Finke: One of the things that I love to be able to do is say yes to things.
Nathan Bush: Sorry for pressuring you into this.
Kira Macleod-Finke: And right now we're like kids in a candy store with a new app and we've just got so much to play with. And so right now the headspace is let everybody just play. So say yes to things because we're focused on making sure that the fundamentals are done in terms of the new platform. Conversion is our key metric, so we're driving that as hard as we can. But how do we play around with that so we know it's working? How do we play and add on and, you know, be as additive as we as we possibly can? So the biggest challenge is like, for me will be not today, but when do I start saying no to stuff? And I think that that's the thing that I've got, you know, kind of in the back of my mind. We're in Playtown right now, but I know what can happen when you don't rein that in eventually.
Nathan Bush: So, yeah, playtime stops when the ERP Re platform starts possibly.
Kira Macleod-Finke: Oh, we're in train. We're doing that now.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. Kira, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Kira Macleod-Finke: It's been my absolute pleasure. Thanks, Nathan.
[Ad]: To hear more from Kira, jump back into episode 520 where Kira shares how she led a high stakes three month Shopify re platform, restructured her entire D2C team and brought retail and digital together with a fresh new approach to customer experience. You don't want to miss that one.
