Anastasia Soare: Blending Artistry and Strategy in the Beauty Industry
Anastasia Soare, founder & CEO of Anastasia Beverly Hills, is a visionary in the beauty industry. Starting from a modest salon room, she built one of the fastest-growing brands in beauty, renowned for its exceptional brow and color products. Her background in art and architecture inspired her patented Golden Ratio Eyebrow Shaping Method, which transformed beauty standards worldwide. Anastasia’s career shows how she built her revolutionary brand by combining a big new idea with thoughtful, highly detailed business strategy.
Key Insights from Nancy’s Conversation with Anastasia
As a guest on the Makers Mindset podcast, Anastasia shared her wisdom about customer acquisition, being smart about expansion, the two things you really need from your team, and why you should bake agility into your planning. Here are some key takeaways:
1. Know Your Customer Acquisition Costs
Understanding what it takes to acquire each customer is so important in the consumer packaged goods industry — especially if your brand doesn’t have a large pre-existing audience. You need to balance organic and paid strategies to reach and engage your customers.
“Customer acquisition is so expensive now. Social media isn’t inexpensive anymore. You have to pay every way. It’s all pay to play now.”
Takeaway: Building your audience is going to cost you money. Spend time thinking out your customer acquisition spending strategy so you’re spending that money as efficiently as you can.
2. Expand Cautiously
Expanding your distribution too quickly can lead to operational challenges and setbacks — including having to buy back unsold inventory.
“If you expand when you are not ready enough, there are several problems. You need to have the awareness before you expand that you will sell those products, because if you don’t, you have to take them back.”
Takeaway: Make sure you have sufficient customer demand before you put more products on the shelves. Focus on the product: Does it meet customer expectations? Are your sales targets achievable?
3. Make the Most of Your Team’s Talent
Surround yourself with exceptional talent and do two things. First: Create an environment where diverse opinions are not only heard but actively sought out. That way, you’ll find the decisions that are truly best for the business. Second: Prioritize being adaptable and ready to pivot so that your business stays agile.
“I always consult the people that I work with. I want to hear everybody’s opinion because everybody will have a different way of seeing things. Everybody is a customer and then we’ll make a decision that is the best for the business. Not that I think my decision is the best.”
Takeaway: Build your team so that everyone values adaptability and seeks out diverse viewpoints — starting with yourself.
4. Bake Agility into Your Operations
Being flexible and open to change is crucial for success. You need to stay responsive to changing conditions and be ready to move decisively.
“You have to be open to change; if plan A doesn’t work, you should already have plan B ready. Let’s change it, let’s scale, let’s move quickly. It’s very important you stop before the ship goes in the wrong direction.”
Takeaway: Keep your decision-making and planning processes streamlined and adaptable — even as you seek out your team’s expertise. Plan in advance for several scenarios so you can change your strategy quickly when you need to.
Anastasia Soare pays equal attention to big innovation and the tiny details that are both crucial for success. She combined a profound understanding of the beauty industry with observations from the world of art to launch something truly new. Then, she led her company to industry dominance by combining agility with strategy — and above all, a dedication to great products. This is the magic that lets great leaders adapt and evolve while always resonating deeply with their audience.
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