Episode 008 - Ginger King

Get ready for an insightful interview with Ginger King, the award-winning cosmetic chemist who has been instrumental in helping beauty professionals bring their beauty brand ideas to life, from concept to launch.

On the Model the Master podcast, Christin explores Ginger's remarkable journey in the beauty industry, including her expertise in formulation and her ability to guide her clients through every step of the process. Discover the hallmarks of Ginger's success and get inspired to take your own entrepreneurial journey to new heights!

Transcript

Christin G. Gutierrez (00:00):

Welcome to Model the Master Podcast, brought to you by Increpreneur, where we believe the fastest path to personal and professional growth is to model those who have gone before us. I'm your host, Christin  Gutierrez. Ginger King is an award-winning cosmetic chemist and the founder of Grace's Kingdom Beauty, a cosmetic product development firm in New Jersey, specializing in helping you to create your beauty brand from Concept two launch. She's on a mission to impact 1 million people's appearances through Purpose-built brands by 2027. Welcome to the show, Ginger.

Ginger King (00:31):

Happy to be here.

Christin G. Gutierrez (00:33):

Awesome. So, wow. I mean, you are an award-winning cosmetic chemist. How did you get into creating beauty brands?

Ginger King (00:43):

Okay, initially I wanted to become a makeup artist because I saw the difference with people having makeup and versus not having makeup. And this is actually a personal story. I came to America when I was 16, and that was the first time I actually played with makeup. And then one day I went to a restaurant without makeup, I've been awarded and the next day I went to the same restaurant. I was treated like a VIP, and the only difference was I had makeup on. So I thought, wow, makeup is really like a magician. So even at my college, I was like, I want to be in, I want to become a makeup artist because I see how it turns in ugly duckling into a swan. However, because I'm Asian, when the cosmetology school calls me, my family says, oh, no, no, no, no, there's no such person. That's Ginger King here, because they discouraged me from going to cosmetology school. They expect me to, if not getting a PhD, at least a master's degree because that's the Asian cultural expectation. So I'm fine, I will learn how to make cosmetics. So I majored in chemistry.

Christin G. Gutierrez (02:07):

Wow, that's a pretty big major. Yep. So you go from wanting to apply makeup to learning how to create makeup. That's amazing. All right. So your brand, I've been seeing you all over the place. Tell me a little bit about what it is that you're doing to help other beauty professionals.

Ginger King (02:34):

I have been in the beauty industry for close to 30 years, and I have been into every single sector, including working at the beauty counter when I am going to college to realize my makeup artist dream. So I do have the overall experience in retail, in art research and development, in manufacturing, in raw material sales, product development, and marketing. So in the past 10 years, I have been helping people to create their own beauty brand from concept to launch, including formulation. So they can either have a second source of income or live legacy. That's what I've been doing as a consultant. So my target market is really beauty professionals, like dermatologists, salon owners, or even makeup artists. I do skincare, hair care, and also color cosmetics. But in 2020, I also launched my own brand. The reason is I have a lot of people asking me, Ginger, you've been helping me to build my own brand.

(03:41):

How about you also help me after I launch the brand? Because after launch is actually more critical than just having your brand and product. If people don't know you, people don't follow you. So I say, okay, then I need to have my own brand so I can walk the talk to show people the ropes. And just so happened in March, in 2019, March 1st, I was with my personal mentor, the Shark Tank at the event, and he took out a lip balm used it in front of me. I was like, if there's something so close to him that's in his pocket on his lips, it has to be mine. So I went ahead and created a beauty brand, and that's also  to show people that I can also help them after they launch their brand with me.

Christin G. Gutierrez (04:38):

Wow. That is very, very ingenuitive. I love that. I love that. So did Damon ever try your line?

Ginger King (04:51):

Yes, of course he gets it free.

Christin G. Gutierrez (04:57):

I'm sure he loves you. Yeah. Well that's amazing. That is amazing. So tell me about how you built your brand out of fan love.

Ginger King (05:06):

Well, when anyone wants to build a brand, of course you need to understand your why, because if you don't have your why, it's very hard to sustain. So I always think you really need to hone into your why. And fan love is because I have such admiration for them, and John, it's been over a decade. So I want to give him the very best. And this was the reason why. I mean, if you look at the landscape of lip balms, yeah, it can be 99 cents or it can be like $30, but all of the lip balms out there. I guarantee you, I give you a challenge. If you use your lip balm, you take it out. I guarantee you there's three ingredients. Identify either one of them or even all three of them. It's Petroleum, Lanolin and Bees wax. Okay. And what's wrong with this?

(06:06):

Petrolatum, unless it's a certain kind, can have impurities because it's from petroleum and lip balm is something that you put on your lip. It could be ingested. So it's not so much as a desirable ingredient. Lanolin is from sheep oil, it's the oil grease. So you can actually have allergic reactions to it. There are documents about that. So it's not that desirable either. Now you say what's wrong with bees wax? It's natural, isn't it? Sure, it is natural, but where do you get the bees wax from? You get it from the beehives where bees live. So how do you like your house to be messed up for human vanity? So it's not so cool. And this is the reason why I don't have those ingredients. Instead, what I have is super foods like coconut, avocado and mango and asparagus, which is proven to show exponentially increased hydration over 28 days. So you have immediate and also long-term benefits, and that's all packaged in one lip balm. 

Christin G. Gutierrez (07:27):

Well, I love that because there's a lot of people out there who are vegan or whole food plant-based and they don't want the products they use to have animal products in it. Or animal testing. So I'm assuming that since your products are vegan and don't have any animal products in it, you don't test it on animals either, right?

Ginger King (07:50):

No. Cruelty Free.

Christin G. Gutierrez (07:54):

Cruelty free. That's great. All right. So these people that you're working with, these beauty professionals, what are you seeing are their greatest struggles and what do you have that you could recommend that they do to overcome those struggles?

Ginger King (08:08):

There is something like, you know you know, and you know you don't know and you don't know what you don't know. And the biggest struggle I have seen them is they don't know what they don’t know. Because they have never gone through this path. And if you don't have a mentor to guide them, yes, eventually they can get there, but what they are doing is they waste a lot of time and money.

Christin G. Gutierrez (08:33):

I see that often. You can make your own mistakes and learn from them, and it can be very expensive and time consuming. And some people actually give up because those mistakes were just too painful for them. And they figure, well, business must not be for me because I made this mistake. And/Or you could learn from people's mistakes. You could model the masters, which is exactly the reason why I created this podcast - so that you could learn what didn't work for other people and what mistakes they made. And you can also learn what did work so that you can eliminate that learning curve and having to make those mistakes yourself. It’s great to learn from your mistakes, but it's so much better to learn from other people's mistakes.

Ginger King (09:19):

Correct. And this is also why when people come to me, the first thing I want them to do is a one hour consultation. And I do charge that call because you don't pay, you don’t attention. And what I go through in that call is I give you all the things that you must know as basic as your website name. I had the customer come to me and he's like, I have everything down on my website register, and all I need to do is get a product from you. So I said, what's your website name? He told me, and it's a “dot net”. I was like, how come you didn't get a .com? He said, well, because somebody else already got it. So I just get the “.net” and I went to look at this somebody else and that somebody else is also a beauty brand. What are you doing? You’re putting money on the table?

Christin G. Gutierrez (10:11):

Yeah, he's going to lose all that business to the other .com.

Ginger King (10:15):

So as simple as that, people usually don't think about, and people don't even learn this from a cosmetic degree actually. So my foundational call is really to make sure you don't make this kind of common mistake.

Christin G. Gutierrez (10:30):

Yeah, that's amazing. And a lot of people do make that mistake or they choose domains that are hard to spell or you can't really understand what it is you're saying whenever you speak it out loud or use a lot of numbers and you don't know, is it like the number version of it or the spelled out number version of it? Yeah. That's really great that you're giving them that guidance because left up to their own devices, a lot of people will make those mistakes and they'll be painful lessons. So you're helping them prevent them from making those lessons.

Ginger King (11:04):

Alright. Another example is I also ask them, make sure you secure all of your social media in the same word. And for that one, in my FanLoveBeauty, I actually was able to secure all of their FanLoveBeauty except Instagram because Instagram was the hardest one to secure. So for the first six months, I have been using official FanLoveBeauty until I got my name register trademarked. It takes about six months for registration, so I use my registered trademark. I went to Instagram, I said, “Hey, this is my intellectual property.”  So they push up the holder of FanLoveBeauty to me. So actually I have all the social media all the same. Now it becomes the power of trademark.

Christin G. Gutierrez (11:51):

It's very important. Very important. And a lot of people don't realize that if you don't trademark your name, somebody else can come along and do it and then you're out.

Ginger King (12:02):

So once again, this is not something a cosmetic chemist will tell you, but I'm not sure you have all the fundamentals. Right? Because you know what good is it? If I give you an amazing product, you cannot sell or you cannot attract people to come to you.

Christin G. Gutierrez (12:17):

Exactly. I mean, you'd still make money, but I love that you care about them. It's not that you want to sell your service, it's that you want them to be successful too, and you have the right frame of mind for that. You have the right outlook for that because a lot of people will do things for selfish motivations only. They just want to make money and they'll have success. But the people who really care about their clients, you can tell, you can feel that. And those people tend to be much more successful.

Ginger King (12:52):

Yeah.

Christin G. Gutierrez (12:53):

Yeah, definitely. So what's your greatest tip technique or strategy for achieving success?

Ginger King (13:01):

Show up. The number one tip is to show up. You need to show up for yourself, show up for your family, show up for your business, and show up for people who support you and how business is all about people. And I'm actually currently interviewing people to join my team and I have over 300 people apply and I have booked about 30 interviews. Do you know how many people did not show up for the interview? It's over. No. Yeah. So if you don't even show up, what are you saying to the world? You already give up.

Christin G. Gutierrez (13:36):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I love that. I think that a lot of people won't even show up for themselves, let alone an interview. They just don't even show up for themselves. They'll spend all of their time dreaming, but they won't take that next step and that next step is what turns dreaming into a reality. So I love that it’s your number one technique or strategy for achieving success because it's so important. You have to show up. Absolutely. Absolutely. So how can people get in contact with you? Let's say our listeners, they actually want to start a beauty brand. How can they get in contact with you?

Ginger King (14:18):

The easiest way is probably through Instagram. My Instagram handle is the Beauty Shark Ginger, because from my Instagram, you can email me there and they have many others like the link tree and whatever is in there. So just follow the Beauty Shark Ginger on Instagram and you can reach me there.

Christin G. Gutierrez (14:39):

Amazing. That's amazing. So maybe one of our listeners is listening today and they're saying, you know what? I want to start a business. I'm just so scared. I just don't know what to do next. How do I show up? What would be your suggestion for them?

Ginger King (14:58):

I would suggest they do the one hour call with me. So I will coach them through, I will kind of show them the ropes. I mean, not everybody who went through the one hour call with me became my clients just because then they realize they cannot afford to be in their business. But I mean, I always say in the call, today, whether you work with me or not, the knowledge is there for you to help you no matter what business you are going into, no matter who you are going to work with. It is a value to you.

Christin G. Gutierrez (15:30):

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with us today on Model The Master. Before you go, I just have one last question. Would you rather never create another makeup product again or never wear makeup again?

Ginger King (15:49):

Wow. It’s a hard one. Yeah. I'll probably say I'll take the first choice because I mean, not wearing makeup is weird.

Christin G. Gutierrez (16:06):

Oh, that's funny. All right, well, I love that answer. I knew that would be a hard one for you. 

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