Pippa Hallas: She was walking through the market in France one morning and she was observing the women who sold tomatoes and different fruits and she noticed that the skin on their hands was incredible because of the interaction they had with the fruit acids. I spend a week locked down with a hundred other CEOs who run businesses and it puts my brain on fire. If you're not curious and if you don't lean into learning new things, then you're going to get left behind.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Joanne Huey Miller catches up with Australian e commerce leaders to get all the insights, tips and lessons to keep you at the top of the e commerce game and of course, keep your customers adding to cart. Here's your host, Joanne Huey Miller.
Nathan Bush: You may have noticed that here at
Nathan Bush: Add to Cart we try our best to give airtime to a diverse range of voices in E comm and we've had a great run of women in leadership of late. Today that continues as I talk to the CEO of an Australian skincare brand with a heritage dating back to the birth of the modern beauty industry in the 1930s. Pippa Hallis is the great niece of the original founder of Ella Bashe and has been at the helm since 2010. With counters in David Jones and franchises in over 150 salons across Australia, Ella Bashet has an emphasis on individual skincare solutions and education. In this chat, Pippa shares the secrets to maintaining a legacy brand, how she executed the ultimate digital transformation and and why she chooses snow covered Boston for business inspiration every year. So thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Paclio, here's our conversation with Pippa Halas, CEO of Ella Bashet.
Nathan Bush: Well, Pippa, Ella Bashet is such a well loved, iconic Australian brand, but your great aunt actually launched it in 1936 in Paris, which I don't think a lot of people know. So I think a great place to start today is if you could tell us a little bit about that story and how it all began.
Pippa Hallas: Sure. Well, firstly, thanks for having me. I love telling the elevation story because it's my family story. So many people don't know that Ella was actually a person. They obviously know it's a brand and product. But Ella the person, she was born in 1900 and she lived till 1999 and she was an incredible woman, like way beyond her her years, very contemporary. She was a, she was an innovator. She was born in Czechoslovakia and she studied to be a cosmetic chemist or a pharmacist. And the reason she chose that was because she wanted to be a doctor like her older brother. But unfortunately, women. Women weren't allowed to be doctors back then. So her destiny, I guess, was set for her in terms of becoming a cosmetic chemist. She was a real scientist. She wasn't a marketing woman. She wasn't a salesperson. She had this big, long, beautiful gray hair when I met her, which was later in her life. And she was. She was happiest when she was in her lab feeling raw materials and make and formulating. She didn't suffer falls at all. And she moved to Paris after she graduated from university. And, you know, some of her. Her female friends were, you know, like the first human rights lawyer in Paris. And so there's. I don't know what happened back in the 1930s, but there was just this amazing moment when a lot of women started these amazing brands and careers. So I know that Helena Rubenstein was. Was there at the same time, and certainly Estee Lauder and, you know, Ella Bashe's uniqueness was certainly around the fact that she was a. An inventor. And I could sit here and tell you so many stories around the ingredients that she invented, but the one that comes to mind is fruit acids. And she. She was walking through the markets in France one morning, and she was serving women who sold tomatoes and different fruits, and she noticed that their. The skin on their hands was incredible because of the interaction they had with the fruit acids. So she took that and she used it in her formulations. And we all know today that that. That still exists in many, many brands around the world. So that's just a little bit about Ella and how the story began in Paris in the 1930s. Wow.
Nathan Bush: Those are some big shoes to fill.
Pippa Hallas: I know, totally. Right?
Nathan Bush: Some incredible lineage. Amazing. So it's almost 90 years old, right? Really?
Pippa Hallas: It's almost 90 years old. It's almost 90 years old. And it's 70 years old in Australia next year. So, yeah, it's definitely one of those. Those legacy brands that have to keep reinventing themselves.
Nathan Bush: Well, speaking of which, given its lifetime, that means that it's really gone through several recessions and financial crises. What do you think has actually helped it make it through those sort of tough periods?
Pippa Hallas: Look, I think it's pretty simple, really. I think it's the fact that the products work. Way back when Ella started the brand, she used to talk about the products as being prescriptions and not to make sure that we weren't promising Miracles and they actually worked on the skin. So I think we all know that a good business is built on repeat customers and I think our products just, you know, do that by themselves and we, we continually make sure that we are really invested in that R and D and quality formulation and, and you know, the ingredients to ensure, you know, people get results. So definitely products, definitely brand. We're so fortunate. Well, I'm so fortunate to be able to have the privilege of running the Alabashe brand here in Australia because everyone knows it, everyone knows it, everyone loves it. They may not know the humans behind it, but they certainly know the brand. So I think number one, products that work. Number two, brand awareness and trust and love. And number three, obviously that creates the loyalty.
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Nathan Bush: you mentioned reinvention earlier which we will get to shortly as well because I think that's such a huge part of maintaining a legacy brand. Obviously we've been talking a lot about recessions lately in the news. From what you've seen, how do you describe consumer sentiment and how has that sort of impacted the way that you guys are approaching business right now?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, it's a really relevant and great question. Look, I think to be honest, we all know that there's massive challenges. We all know. But equally I'm an optimist and I try and see the opportunities as much as the challenges. And so, so to stay focused on, on what you can control, I guess. And what we know in this brand is a few things. Number one, again going back to that customer loyalty. We know that we have three different segments of customers. If I can put, simplify it, put it into buckets. We have the baby boomers, we have the Gen X's and we have the millennials and we know that it's all over, you know, the media that the baby boomers are the ones who are the least affected by what's going on in the, you know, in the world right now. So for us, it's just to make sure we're really nurturing that. That customer, and they're the ones who will take us through, you know, the next. Well, I'm hoping, you know, 12 to 18 months when we can start to see some green shoots economically in, in this country and certainly interest rates coming off. I also think that I always remember the lipstick effect and you know, this really well from, from your background, and I really think there's truth in that. So people are very loyal to skincare, even outside the Alabasho brand, and women need to make themselves feel good, and we saw that during COVID as well. So I think it's just really sticking, sticking to your basics, doing your basics really well. And also also the North Star Star, you know, for us is. Is really around the value values that we have and, and the vision and the purpose of the brand. So just trying to, you know, stay really focused on those.
Nathan Bush: For people who don't know what the lipstick effect is, you take a second just to explain what it is and how it's impacted. Ella Bashet.
Pippa Hallas: Sure. So the lipstick index, or the lipstick effect was created by Lauder actually, in the Great depression in the 1930s, and it was a concept that was on the stock exchange, and it was. It was basically a really simple notion that when the economy is really tough and people can't go and buy a new car or a big ticket item, they just want to make themselves feel good, so they'll reach for that. You know, that lipstick and skin care is no different. They will reach for that. You know, we all know those moments at the end of the day, the beginning of the day, when we get into the bathroom, we're alone. Particularly if we've got young kids and, you know, we cleanse our face and we put our moisturizer on and it really sets us up for the day or the evening. So that's the notion of the lipstick effect, and it's one that will carry brands such as ours through these, these tough times. I just want to bring up a
Nathan Bush: point which you made before around nurturing your older customers. So one thing is, I find that really inspiring because a lot of people are always chasing the younger customers or new customers, so they lose focus of their core customers, especially if you're a heritage brand as well. I think a lot of brands get stuck in this cycle of constantly trying to chase the TikTok generation. So when you were describing your customer bases, the youngest ones are millennials. Right. So what are your thoughts on finding new customers and attracting new customers?
Pippa Hallas: We're no different to any other brand. We absolutely have to go out and make sure we reinvent ourselves and make sure we have new customers coming to the brand. And so we do that through our online channels as well as our in store channels. We do have a lot of young customers. We know they come to the brand for things, you know, more so for beauty. Whether it's, you know, everyone loves their eyebrows at the moment, so whether it's to get a great pair of brows, whether it's to get a tan, whether it's to have a micro, we do see the customers that come in that way. And in terms of communication channels, we also know you can't. We're way beyond an environment of mass media now. So it's really that one to one and it is just trialing those new channels and getting really good at building the community and relevance. Whether it's through how tos, we know that works really well for the younger generation and the older generation and education. So educating our clients has always been one of our strategic pillars. And I really don't think it's any different in store than it is in your social channels, but it's just around, it's about how you do it. And we all know that what TikTok has brought to the world and this, where we're at with AI, et cetera, is that it's a lot more personalized. So it's a lot more about user generated content. It's less about brands kind of going, hey, look at me and pushing out, you know, their stories they want to control. So it's about, it's about understanding these new channels and how to play in them.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I love what you're talking about in terms of education. Can you tell me about some of the ways that Ella Bashe focuses on education for its customers?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, sure. So I guess education is essential to our philosophy. It's all around, no two skins are alike. So it's very much around understanding skin, the biology and the functionality. Functionality of the skin first and your skin and learning what your skin loves. So there's absolutely no point in using, you know, what your best friend uses or your cousin uses because it won't be right for your skin or it may not be right for your skin. So we definitely put the skin first and we, we try and impart our knowledge of the skin out to every customer, you know, whether it's online or, or in store that we meet. We also use, you know, a diagnostic process to really understand what's going on in the skin and the oil flow and the pigmentation and all those things we love so much and then put a solution to that. So I think certainly in today's world we talked about relevance before. It's making sure we take that education that we do so naturally when we have a skin therapist and a customer and that human to human contact you get in real life and making sure we can convert that to an online experience and I guess gifting our education to people through all the different channels. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: So in terms of what Ella Bashe is working on right now, what are some of your goals at the moment and what are you focused on?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, great questions. So I think for us we get really excited about a few things. One is obviously product and treatment innovation. So that is, that's what drives the business. That what, you know, I guess treats the skin. So we have a pipeline of new products. We just launched a new, I guess, ageless beauty pro age. I hate using that word, anti aging because I think women are so different today. They absolutely don't want to talk about the fact that they need to anti age. I think what I love is that we're starting to see so many older women, you know, being our aspiration in these community in, you know, in brand campaigns or around the world. I think I just, I would love to see that notion of anti aging being, being removed from our language. But what we do know is that when the skin ages, we need to treat it differently because different things are going on in the skin. So we've just launched a new Spirulina's range with a whole lot of fantastic superpowers in there and also a treatment. So every single innovation we have, except for obviously sun and tan, we always do a beautiful facial treatment with us. And I don't have enough facial treatments and every time I have one, I'm reminded how incredibly important it is for particularly women, you know, just to take that hour and have beautiful ingredients infused in their, in their skin, have the, you know, the wonderful therapist hands on them and then some technology as well, whether it's led, micro, ipl, you name it. So that's what we're excited about. We're also excited about education. And I think in terms of education, it's a hybrid model. Again, it's about how we educate people on and offline, both the end consumer, our diploma students or our therapists in store. And also Brand and communication. I mean, you know, we, we know that whilst there's so many challenges in the world, where the opportunity exists is really around digital transformation. So doesn't matter whether it's how we educate, how we learn, how we buy, how we communicate, it's. That's the exciting part.
Nathan Bush: But I don't think many people know that Alabashe actually has its own educational institution. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, of course. So the Alabashe business I describe as being cradle to grave or womb to tomb, and it's really Ella for life. So many people start their journey with Ella Bashe in our academy or our college and they come in mainly as young girls, but we, we do have a few gentlemen as well and they do a lot of their theory online these days. And then they'll do their practical either with us in Sydney or in Melbourne or Brisbane, and then they'll graduate with a diploma of beauty therapy. So that enables them to go and work in so many different professions these days. Which is, which is wonderful.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Just before we go on to the next question, I just wanted to make a comment about your thoughts on women and the language around aging in terms of beauty products. I really love all those comments you made there. I actually went to the World Retail Congress earlier this year and I saw a presentation by the outgoing CEO of the Body Shop and they actually underwent quite a transformation themselves and changed a lot of the language around their products. They once had a product called Drops of Youth and this idea of celebrating youth and as opposed to, you know, aging beautifully and embracing aging, that was something that they wanted to do away with. So they actually changed all those products and it was actually their best selling product as well. So they changed it to the Edelweiss range and they took their customers on that journey with them as well. Because I think it's quite stressful and it's quite a risk to change your bestselling product's name, but I think their customers really embraced that and really celebrated that change with them. So I like you, I'm a big fan of seeing beauty brands embracing older customers as well. I just think it's such a. It's such a missed opportunity, really, for.
Pippa Hallas: It is amazing. It is. I think you're right. I think when I think about the beauty landscape, you know, particularly over the last 10 to 15 years, I think there's the rise of the fast food of beauty and, you know, I think we've probably talked about this over the years and it puts a lot of negative pressure on all different female age groups. And it's certainly, it's certainly come up through the rise of social media and, and you know, the pressure that puts on, particularly women and also men to think they have to look like someone else to be confident in their own skin. And so I think any opportunity that brands like the Body Shop, who I have so much respect for and actually was going to talk about a neat erotic later in our chat, what they've done is take a stance against some of the things that erode people's self confidence and try and empower people through some of the changes they're making, which is awesome. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: I think as well off the back of that too, the sort of imagery that brands show and the models that they show really impacts the way that their customers view themselves as well.
Pippa Hallas: Right.
Nathan Bush: So especially when it comes to social media. So I love seeing older women, older people celebrated across different brands and I'd love to see more of that, really 100%.
Pippa Hallas: And I think this is where I'm really excited about the next generation because I think they're so for sustainability, diversity, transparency and we'll see some really exciting things happen over the next few years. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Well, on that note, obviously skincare skyrocketed during COVID where a few years out of lockdowns. Now, in your opinion, how has the skin care landscape evolved since then?
Pippa Hallas: It's really interesting, isn't it? So I think I've been in skincare long enough to see trends come and go. And what we saw in Covid across so many different categories was because, you know, a lot of consumers had a lot of extra, extra money in their bank accounts that in 2023, I think people are, are going back to those brands that they love, they trust and they know will get them the results. I don't think we're seeing as much switching and trialing as we do in, you know, in the good times, I guess. But it's really interesting when you look at skincare ingredients. You know, we, we still see such a big demand for things like hyaluronic acid, which has been around forever in a day. But it's just, you know, the way we, we're able to use it in products. So we've just launched a booster serum treatment serum, which has got hyaluronic in it. And it's, that's not the new bit, it's the technology and how you hold the composition of the formula together and the molecules, I guess, and how to make sure it actually goes into the skin so if I think about ingredients, I get really excited about Australian ingredients. I get really excited about things like cannabis oil. It might sound a bit out there, but it shouldn't be. These days. It has amazing effects on inflammation and, you know, we're hearing more and more and more about the, the wonderful things that it's doing for people's health. So we can get off some of a lot of these pharmaceuticals, but it's also such a great ingredient to use in skin care for the same reason. So I think, I think we're going to see a lot more of that in the future as the regulations start lifting. And also some of the wonderful ingredients we've got here in Australia.
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Nathan Bush: Now, you mentioned before digital transformation. I remember when I was at Inside Retail, I interviewed you in April 2020, which was a very interesting time.
Pippa Hallas: And I thought, crazy.
Nathan Bush: I thought, and I was really impressed because firstly, not many retailers would be up for chatting with us at the time, which is fair enough because obviously, you know, that was only a few short weeks after that cliff happened in March. But I remember when I spoke to you, Ella Bache had just underwent a major, major digital transformation a few years later. We talk a lot about pivot. It's, you know, pivoting and it's sort of an overused word now. But I remember at that point in time, you were actually one of the first people I spoke to who genuinely had made a massive 180 degree turn in their business in just a short period of time. So I remember you guys, as soon as the salons had closed, you unveiled the virtual salons, which took 10 days to create. It was so impressive at the time and I really loved your very optimistic outlook on how to handle the next few months. What were some of the e commerce lessons that you gathered during that time and how have they sort of impacted the way that Ella Bashet approaches online now.
Pippa Hallas: It's a great question. So I still physically feel that moment in my body. It's such a crazy time, wasn't it? And I think what we've taken out of that time is that pivoting's not over. There's so much change going on in this world right now that you have to be able to run a business into the unknown and continue to change. I think one of the things where the most proud about during that time was when we basically took the notion of, you know, our salons were closed, our stores were closed, the government closed them down. So we had all these thousands of therapists with amazing knowledge basically sitting at home. So we trained them to be able to step out of their stores and their salons and to be able to educate people and connect with people on social media. And that turned into our influencer strategy that still exists today. So for the Alabashe brand, people love to hear from our therapists. They love to hear from our therapists because they've got the expertise and they can, you know, again, going back to the education and learning new things about their skin, that works a lot better for this brand than, you know, us kind of, you know, taking the celebrity content approach. So that was. That was the first thing. Second thing I learned was running a digital business is very different in many ways to running a human in store business. And I think we all know in retail that everyone talks about on Omnichannel now, but you certainly need to approach the customer and the customer journey slightly differently. So they're really the two things and then, and then how to run a business just got to have your hands on the wheel still and you got to keep pivoting.
Nathan Bush: I really loved how you said that you had all these amazing beauty therapists at home and you took those team members and upskilled them so that they became more digital savvy. And I think that this idea of in store staff learning the online part of the business, and vice versa, was such an amazing opportunity for businesses through Covid and the education and the upskilling that took place. I mean, the lessons that you learned, like, I can imagine, you know, if you're someone who, you know, shop floor staff and you can take all those insights that you learned from the shop floor and transfer those to online, but then also understand what online customers are going through.
Pippa Hallas: I just think it's a much more
Nathan Bush: holistic approach to catering for your customers 100%.
Pippa Hallas: And I think also what I loved about the COVID experience for all of us was. We had to let people go of this idea of perfection and just be really human. And I think. I hope that we have held on to that and in the way we interact with our customers and the way we run our businesses and interact with each other in the workplace, I really hope we've. We've let go of that idea of corporate and perfection and. And just. Just be human. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Well, speaking of being human, how would you say that that whole period of time has impacted you personally and the way that you view leadership?
Pippa Hallas: That's a really good question. And I think if I reflect on it, I. I think what I've taken out of it is that we live in a really complex world right now. And I think leading a business and leading a team, you have to be okay with the going back to the unknown. Like, it's not like it was 10 years ago, where you'd have a plan, you'd set and forget it. Even the hybrid working model, we're still trying to, you know, work all that out. Right. I think the only concept that we can be okay with is. Is change. And we're still trying to work it all out. And I speak to so many CEOs, and you have to be resilient, and you. You have to be human, because the next generation is not going to put up with anything. But. And, you know, we work on a hybrid model here. Some days it works, some days it's. It doesn't work. And. And we're still. We're still trying to work it all out. So we just got to keep. Keep trying to build that plane and fly it at the same time. I. I actually read the other day that Zoom actually making their. Their workforce go back to work, which made me.
Nathan Bush: That says a lot, doesn't it?
Pippa Hallas: There's a lot. I was like, they're still trying to work it out as well. And they were the brand of the COVID Times. Amazing. I know.
Nathan Bush: I know you're really passionate about female entrepreneurs, and you even wrote your own book, Bold Moves, which showcases some of your favorite women in business. Can you tell me about some of your favorite female heroes and what you've learned from them?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, 100%. It's really interesting you raised the Body Shop before, because when I left university and I went to England and I got so inspired by Anita Rodick, who is obviously the founder of the Body Shop. And I was trying to think about female entrepreneurs, obviously, besides El Bashe herself. And I think the one that I still look up to so much is Anita. And I think there's so many reasons why. I think it's, you know, on a personal level, she just was so authentic and. And was trying to drive a movement. Right. She was disruptive. She was trying to drive a movement. She was changing the paradigm in which we completely operate skincare businesses. And she established, you know, this amazing brand, body shop, and. And built an amazing business and. And tried to run a business that was much more about. That was not just about profit, it was about purpose. And so I think she's still someone I really. That really resonates with me.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I think as well back then, too, the idea of leading a business that had activism at its core and purpose as well was quite revolutionary.
Pippa Hallas: Totally revolutionary. Totally revolutionary. So, yeah, she's definitely the one that came to mind.
Nathan Bush: What would you say that process of writing this book was like for you as an entrepreneur?
Pippa Hallas: The process itself was amazing because I actually wrote about the Alabashe story, but I. I interviewed a lot of Australian women that I have a lot of respect for. And, you know, they're women that I'm fortunate enough to have worked with or around the brands during my time, such as Lane Beachley and Jessica Watson, even people like Tracy Spicer. And what I got out of writing the book was these women are so generous with their time and their stories and their openness. And it was, you know, it was a real connection of amazing females that I loved.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I really appreciate when you meet other entrepreneurs and they're quite vulnerable with you, and it just makes you feel less alone. This is community that's being formed around education and learning from each other as well. I think there's so much that we can learn with, you know, in terms of embracing our imperfections and being honest
Pippa Hallas: with where we're at, for sure. And I think we're, you know, I quite often talk. Talk about this with my female friends who run businesses. And I think we're so fortunate in this generation that we can lean into that, because I think a lot of women who have come before us in the business world had to kind of be more like men. And I think women, this is really. It's really where we are able to lean into our female traits, which is wonderful.
Nathan Bush: So you mentioned before that education is really important to you, but also as an entrepreneur. So can you tell me how that sort of led the way that you run your teams and how you approach your own career?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, sure. So it also goes back to the fact that the world is just simply changing every day. And if you're not curious. And curious is one of our values. And if you don't lean into learning, new things are going to get left behind. So some of the ways that I do it and, you know, try and set it up for my team. Firstly, another benefit of COVID was we had to learn from our, through our screens, right? So no longer do we have to get on a plane and go to trade shows and conferences and all these things, you know, people used to do. We can simply just sit on the couch and, and read articles from all around the world on our mobile phone, which is fantastic. And sometimes it is only, you know, five minutes a day that that gives you that those insights that can change, change the way you think about things on a more formal level. One of the things I have done for the last six years is I've had the privilege of going to Harvard every January. And it's a big effort. I have to read, I have to read 35 case studies and then I spend a week locked down with a hundred other CEOs who run businesses. And it puts my brain on fire. And most people think I'm crazy, but I think you have to be slightly crazy to run a business. But what that does that's in January. It's the middle of summer here. Most people are lying on the beach and having time off, but where, you know, we're in Boston, 10 foot of snow and reading case studies. So that, that's how I set my year up. And then I get super inspired and come back and drive my team bananas. I did not know that about you.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, tell me. Okay, you go to Harvard in January. How long does this go for? What's involved? What do you learn?
Pippa Hallas: Yeah, so basically it's a week that you live on in the business school in Harvard. And it's obviously when Harvard business students are on holidays, so they take in all these, you know, older executives and we get to live there on campus for a week. And what it involves is you prepare. Harvard's all about case study learning. So you read 35 case studies and answer questions before you get on the plane. And those case studies are all the latest learnings in different parts of the business. So it might be around data, it might be around AI, it might be around leading a new generation of people, it might be around. But you know, finance, it covers a whole different range of topics and they're real business stories. So, for example, we talked about COVID before. When we went back to Harvard after Covid, we had the sea. We did a case study on the cruise industry. So you'll remember the Ruby Princess that was stuck in Sydney Harbour. So we did a case study on, you know, this business and how the CEO operated this massive cruise industry business around the world in that time. And she was there, she was sitting in the audience and she, she heard us, I guess, dissect and put this case study back together and put our opinions on, you know, 100 CEOs. They're quite, they're quite loud and, you know, opinionated. And then she got up at the end and, and really told her story. So they're the types of opportunities and real life case studies that we get to learn from, which are, which are incredible.
Nathan Bush: Oh, wow, that sounds insane. I'm just thinking, as well as your months leading up to it as well. So you would have gone through like Friday, that whole sales period going into Christmas, all of that, and then you just take yourself off to Harvard in the middle of winter in Boston. Wow. Yeah, that's very impressive.
Pippa Hallas: Hardcore. It is hardcore. It is hardcore. But I guess, you know, and then in all seriousness, how I bring that back to my team. So one of the things we've done for the last two years is we have brought a Harvard professor to our team. So I got together with five other Australian CEOs and we invited a Harvard professor to do a week's lecture or case study to our teams here in Australia over zoom from Harvard. So that enabled them to also understand what we learn every year and also share in the knowledge. Which again, wouldn't have happened before the pandemic, right?
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. I think it's so hard finding the time to work on the business rather than just in the business. I know it's a cliche, but carving out, you know, time, especially when you're a busy CEO, it's so tough. So I really admire your motivation around, you know, finding the time for you and your staff as well. It's incredible.
Pippa Hallas: Yeah. Thank you.
Nathan Bush: Well, Pippa, thank you so much for joining me today. Just before we go, what is the best way for people to get in touch with you if they would like to chat more?
Pippa Hallas: So they can email me, they can just email me. It's Pippa P I Double p a la Bashe.com and I'd be happy for everyone to reach out.
Nathan Bush: Pippa, thank you so much.
Pippa Hallas: Thanks so much, Jo. It's awesome.
Nathan Bush: I always love hearing about how great iconic brands like Ella Bashet have survived so many years in business and how they continue to evolve. Here are just a few lessons I Learned from Pippa today.
Nathan Bush: 1.
Nathan Bush: It's important to stay human. We're all striving for perfection, but really, in business, it's admirable but not exactly realistic. Most of the time, humans are not perfect and understanding the quirks and foibles of our staff and customers is a more authentic way of operating.
Pippa Hallas: 2.
Nathan Bush: Get used to change. When salons were forced to close during COVID Ella Bashe had thousands of therapists sitting at home doing nothing. So they changed trained them to connect and educate customers on social media. This has formed the basis for the hugely successful influencer strategy today. And lastly, and probably my favorite, commit to seeking inspiration. For the last six years, Pippa has swapped the Aussie summer for a Boston winter and attended the YPO Harvard President's Program. It's a big commitment requiring a lot of preparation, but the lessons and knowledge she takes away makes it worthwhile.
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