Episode 290: Changing the world of perfumery with Jessica Tate and Jade McAndrew of Lore Perfumery
Lore Perfumery is a beautiful and inclusive perfume brand that aims to make the perfume shopping experience fun and engaging for everyone. In this episode, Fiona interviews Jess and Jade, founders of Lore Perfumery. They share their journey from coworkers to business partners, how they run their businesses during the pandemic and so much more. Tune in!
Lore Perfumery is hosting its International Fragrance Day event Tuesday 21st March. Instore and Online. A day to celebrate what they love the most, fragrance! Free gifts and discounts store wide.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
How they came up with the idea to co-own Lore Perfumery and what it is
The playful and inclusive approach they take to their business
The importance of offering personalized customer service
The emotional and nostalgic impact of scents on people
Passion for fragrance and how it developed
Importance of post-purchase advocacy in a marketing campaign
Challenges of juggling motherhood and running a business
Pros and cons of having a flexible work schedule
Tools & Resources
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
“We say that we're the yin to each other's yang. We're both completely different, even the way we started. I was the behind-the-scenes inventory gal and Jess was on the floor with the fragrances gal. We both had our own areas. Now we're working on the business and not in the business. It was great because we didn't fight over what to do.”
“We both had our own areas and we both did it well and we rolled with it. We go with our gut feeling, to be honest. We both haven't had training in what to do and I don't think you can plan this thing. Even when you're talking about planning, it's great that we can roll with it and go with the flow because a lot of big businesses can't do that. We're like, “Let's do this today,” and start going with it.”
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Welcome to episode 290 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. This is an interview with two of the funniest and loveliest people I have met in small business and it's my absolute pleasure to invite them to the podcast. I say to them all the time, “You guys could have your own TV show. You're hilarious and funny.” I hope they start a podcast soon, they want to, and I can't wait for that to happen because they'd be incredible. They're incredible storytellers and a delight to chat with.
Before I get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record this podcast and get to chat with people like our guests, and that is the Woiwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that we have been getting a few messages, emails, and DMs about the Marketing For Your Small Business course and coaching program that is on. The course and coaching program is a nine-week live coaching program that only happens twice a year. We are in that program so it's not open at the moment. It will be open later this 2023. However, you can buy the Marketing For Your Small Business course at any time and you can upgrade to the coaching component. It's cheaper if you do it that way.
If you want to grab that, you can go to MarketingForYourSmallBusiness.com and you'll see all the information about the course. If you want to upgrade, you'll be sent an email when that opens so you can upgrade. We often have people who have had the course and worked through it and they upgrade and do the coaching every single year so that they can have a refresher on their marketing. If you're interested, check out MarketingForYourSmallBusiness.com. Let's get into our interview episode.
Sometimes I get to meet people on a consult call before they start coaching and other times, I turn up to the first session. We send people a questionnaire and everything else. I know a little bit about people before we start chatting. Often, I'm turning up to session one and we are meeting each other for the first time over Zoom and that's exactly what happened with our guests, the beautiful Jade and Jessica from Lore Perfumery.
Jade and Jessica are a delight to work with, they are open, eager, and funny. They're those people that are funny without even meaning to be funny. They're naturally vivacious, lively, curious, and super creative. They have a passion for all things sent and perfume, which is a good thing because they are the founders of Lore Perfumery. People may well know that it is in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy here in Melbourne.
Lore Perfumery has changed over the years and when the duo took it over a few years ago, they vowed that they would make it special, beautiful, and inclusive. They would make perfume and shop for perfume something fun. In some places, shopping for perfume can feel maybe a little pretentious or scary. Sometimes you'll go up to those perfume counters and you feel like you're obligated to buy and you also feel like you should know the names of things. People talk about different scents or whatever and you can't understand what they're saying, it's not in layman's terms.
Lore Perfumery is there to educate people about perfume and different brands but also to make them excited and engaged with what they're doing and to not just think, “I'm buying a perfume as a gift,” for whoever in their life. When they come into Lore Perfumery, it’s knowing that the people that work there are going to do their absolute best to find the perfect match for that gift. Even the name in itself, Lore, comes from the idea of storytelling and how important telling stories and sharing information is to the whole team at Lore, and in particular, Jess and Jade.
In this episode, we talk about what it's like to work with somebody that you go from being coworkers to partners in a business, what it's been like to run this throughout the pandemic, and what was that like. Plus, they've both had COVID babies in that time. Also, what it’s like to change in the new juggle of parenting plus a business, which many of us understand.
We also talk about how they find all these cool and interesting perfume brands and how they decide what to stock and what to get rid of and what's coming in and what should be important for people to know. It's a lovely conversation, I'm excited to bring it to you. Here is my interview with the wonderfully vivacious and creative duo, Jess and Jade of Lore Perfumery.
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Jade and Jess, welcome to the podcast.
Hi.
I'm excited to have you guys on. You guys should have your own TV show. You're funny, hilarious, and wonderful. How are you guys feeling about life right now?
We're feeling good, feeling positive, and optimistic. This has gone quickly. It's taken off and we've been speaking to people in business and out and everyone's feeling the same. We can't believe it's almost mid-Feb 2023. It's gone so fast and we've done so much. Even when we keep looking back, we're like, “Oh my God.” We only started back to work, we've got all these people in new positions, and we're hiring. It's been a whirlwind where we haven't had a second to breathe and do our own work because we've been setting everything up post-Christmas and making sure everyone's in the right spots.
We’ve bitten off more than we can chew you could say.
Speaking of work, you said you're doing so much and everything's like, “We're already doing so much and the year has barely started.” What is your work? Tell us all about your amazing small business, Lore Perfumery. You guys are the co-owners and you’re doing many incredible things there. What is Lore? How did you come up with the name? What does Lore mean? How did you get into the business?
We'll give you a short rundown. I'm Jade.
I’m Jess.
We’re the co-owners of Lore Perfumery. We both worked for the previous business that was in the place at our stores at moment. There was chatter of our boss selling and moving on and we got talking over a pub meal and we were like, “Do we want to approach her? Let's see where it takes us.”
I remember even you were telling me about it because you were like, “I've got this idea.” I was like, “You should talk to some of the other girls in the business because it would be great to work with someone else in the business.” I went home and the next day, I'm like, “Jade, I want to do it.”
We knew what we could do with the business. It had been there for decades. We were like, “Let's do it.” We're a niche perfumery, we specialize in niche fragrances. We stock over 700 fragrances from around the world. That's our store.
We specialize in the experience. Even when we worked for the previous business, we knew that we had something special and we did something different. We had an inclusive, approachable, fun, and playful way with the fragrance that wasn't being done. It was almost like a secret business that nobody got to know what was happening. We came into it with the kids. At the time, we felt like little kids even though we were both in our 30s. We were treated like that by a few people in the industry. We would wear backpacks to showings and stuff like that.
Once we got into it, we realized that we offered a point of difference. The store has become a bit of both me and Jade and who we are style-wise as people. There's a playful cheekiness around it, which has been represented by all the staff that we have. We have the most amazing team who helps us do it. Lore, of course, is the art of storytelling. We tell stories.
One of the things we love about fragrance, especially niche fragrances, is that every fragrance has a story and that's why people come to us. They want to hear all of the amazing stories from all of the fragrances, the brands, the inspiration, and the list of our brand name. For Anyone who's named a business or a baby, the list is never-ending. It was hard to land on one. When we first said lore, we're like, “Oh.” We originally went down in a fairy tale angle and that eventually evolved into more of the playfulness that we have now. That’s Lore, that’s us.
You mentioned before that Lore Perfumery has a lot of the two of you in it. You guys are such a wonderful mix together, and that comes out in your content, the storytelling, but also the fun and the playfulness. That's not always common in small businesses. Sometimes people can put up a big block when it comes to social media and who they present on social media is different from who they are behind the scenes. You guys have seemed to seamlessly be exactly who you are on social media and in your content as to how you are as well. You're fun, playful, cheeky, and all these things.
Did you sit down when you started the business and think, “How are we going to present this online?” You've got quite a big social media following, with emails, and with your website. Did you sit down and hash that out and be like, “How do we bring that personality online?” Did it happen organically? It's something people struggle with. I've talked to people all the time and they're like, “I come across so stiff and vanilla on social media but I'm a fun person.” You guys seem to have done it naturally. How did that happen?
We did no planning. We did little to no planning in general when we started. We had a few comments like, ”You're playing the cute angle. That's good to go against the big guys.” We're like, “No, we're not playing the cute angle. This is who we are.” To be honest, we were both nervous about getting in front of the camera, especially with videos. Doing a selfie here and a photo is fine. Once we were talking, we were both nervous.
It's evolved over time. Our first videos probably would've been a little bit like, “Let's read off of the cue cards.” Now, we're like, “People love us for who we are.” Of course, we're going to feel silly at times but we roll with it. We say that we're the yin to each other's yang. We're both completely different, even the way we started. I was the behind-the-scenes inventory gal and Jess was on the floor with the fragrances gal. We both had our own areas.
Now, we're working on the business and not in the business. It was great because we didn't fight over what to do. We both had our own areas and we both did it well and we rolled with it. We go with our gut feeling, to be honest. We both haven't had training in what to do and I don't think you can plan this thing. Even when you're talking about planning, it's great that we can roll with it and go with the flow because a lot of big businesses can't do that. We're like, “Let's do this today,” and start going with it. That’s who we are.
When you said before, “We’re the yin to each other's yang,” I do feel like you guys should have a radio show or something, you're funny. This is coming across a little bit in this session but what I wanted to ask is I love to hear from people that are in business with a friend. How has it changed your relationship? You were already working together, you already had a friendship. Jess, when you said, “I'm interested, Jade. Let's do this.” Did you then think about the fact that you could be the yin to each other's yang or has that evolved? Also, have there been any challenges that have come up as friends in business?
We weren't friends. We were work colleagues.
We liked each other.
We got along well with each other. We both ended up working quite closely with each other despite the fact that I was in storage and Jade was in the office. We ended up killing it.
It’s only through Lore that we've become close friends. With anyone in business, I would assume there are times when you have tears. We have a lot of tears in the office but I always end up laughing. That sounds creepy. We always hug and make up pretty quickly. When things have bottled up over time and we've word vomited each other, we're like, “Let's move along now.”
I feel like there haven't been that many. There's one time that I can remember when we both left and felt a bit off about the day and we both messaged each other that night. We're quite in tune with each other and we'll be like, “Are you okay?” Of course, there are conversations you have to have and that's with family, friends, or anyone. We’re like, “Let's get it out,” and we kiss and make up at the end.
We've gotten good at communication.
I can't see there ever being anything coming up that we can't resolve. Jade is intuitive and so she'll often poke at me and is like, “What's going on? I can tell something's up. Tell me.”
I try until I get the juice.
Now, we're on a level where we're also close friends as well as partners. It's taken our relationship to another level.
It's coming across even in this chat. I've had the pleasure of chatting with you previously about this. One of the things that you are both super passionate about is perfume, scents, and niche fragrances. A big part of people choosing a perfume, if they're going into a shop, is the sales element of it and somebody chatting through, “Did you know it's got hints of these or it's got that?” How do you take that in-store experience, which you guys do so well?
You are sharing a lot of it on social media as well but how do you put that into an online eCommerce store where you can put a lot of texts and videos but it's not going to be the same as someone physically standing with you and going through scent? This is something a lot of people, particularly with the pandemic, they've had to move online, and they're like, “How do we take that experience that we're known for in a physical location and translate it online?” What have you done and how's it going? Do you have any advice for other people reading?
Until they smell a vision, we keep saying there's no way to experience fragrance unless you're in person. Yes, our in-store fragrance consultations are amazing. We would you say so ourselves. A few things that we tried to do is we created The Lore Promise. If you purchase a fragrance online, you get the option to receive a little sample along with the fragrance so that you can smell that first and experience it. If you don't like it, send it back and it returns there.
We also have put a lot into our content. We've created the How it Wears and Lore loves and Jess does the majority of those. The way you speak about fragrance is amazing and we try to put our take on every fragrance. We have over 700 fragrances and we put our personal spin on how it wears on the skin, and how it wears on all of us. We love it. Do we love the story? Do we love the notes? Do we love how the notes all mingle together or whatever? It's taking that in-store experience and putting it into words.
During the lockdown, we made the most of our time and we got our team to help with it as well because it's a lot of fragrance to write. Everyone experiences fragrance so differently. We have our spiel on the fragrance, then the notes, and the perfumer. Anything that you'd be like, “I love rose,” or, “I love everything by Olivia and I want to find out what she does.” You can search for that. We introduce the Lore Loves and How it Wears section to each fragrance description.
Our Lore Loves comes from a personal place and it's us putting maybe like, “This takes me to summer holidays.” With How it Wears, during the lockdown, I had the team helping me with this, and I would collect it into how we all experience the fragrance. How it wears on my skin might not be the same as everyone else's. What we put on our website might be completely different because you all have unique skin. We gave as much information as we could.
Of course, we were lucky. Before COVID, it was serendipitous that we launched our custom sample packs because they went wild over the lockdown. Much to our excitement, Jade and I were the only ones working. We converted our entire shop into a warehouse where we were hand-filling custom sample packs.
In the middle of the pandemic, we would never have thought we were the only one trudging through Brunswick Street to make sample packs with zero people on the street.
It was the best way to be able to give that store experience to customers. People were calling us, emailing us, and saying, “I like this and this.” we'd send them a few suggestions of what fragrances we think they'd like and then they got to choose four fragrances to sample in a custom sample pack so they get a little bar that they can try at home.
Custom sample packs have been huge for us because people still aren't traveling as much as they used t, or people want the convenience of having recommendations and then being able to try them at home as well. That's also how we translated our store experience to the website and we're still working on it. We've got many big plans for our website this 2023 to make it more user-friendly, a little bit more us, and engaging as well.
There are many good tips there. I can imagine you guys going up and down Brunswick Street and being like, “There's no one here, it's like an apocalypse, but we're going to make these samples of perfume and send them all out to people.” Also, people get a variety of like, “What do I like?” It's such a wonderful thing that people don't do enough. I have another client who is in luxury linen and they send out samples of different linen colors and different sheets. It's such a big thing that we miss.
It goes back to the old-school way of beautiful customer service, which is missing a lot of the time. You guys are passionate about scent. We have had great discussions about scent. The scent is one of the last things that you lose when you are dying, which I know sounds awful but people need to talk about this stuff more. People can smell something and go, “I'm taken instantly back to sixteen years ago when this particular thing happened,” or summer.
I always think of certain scents that you take, “When I went to Canada when I was 18 and when I went to New York for the first time.” It's emotive. How did you get so passionate about it? Were you always passionate? Did you fall into this industry and then you got more passionate? You guys are passionate. If you bumped into somebody in a coffee shop and they said, “What are you wearing?” You'd be like, “Let me tell you.” They'd be there for ages learning. What is it that keeps you passionate and how'd you get into it?
We're both in the beauty industry prior to more. Being at Lore. Once you start learning about all the fragrances and experiencing them, your nose starts to get better and you can differentiate different notes. You become like your own little fragrance expert. It's hard not to get passionate about it. We're passionate about the business side of things as well and we love that. We've got many ideas that we're super excited about. Our actual passion for fragrance came from being in the store and from working with all of these amazing fragrances, learning their stories, and then also passing that knowledge on to our customers and our team. You can't be passionate about it once you get into it.
Watching people go through the journey for the first time.
We love when people are new to niche fragrances. As Jess said before, it can be quite sturdy. We're like, “We can give you all of our information and knowledge. Let's start from the beginning. This is exciting.” We want to stay with them for hours and go through it all. It's amazing to see all of that happen. In-store, people have cried, they have smelled a fragrance and have cried to us because it's reminding them of their past.
For me, I smell Jasmine and I'm taken straight back to my Nana's house when I'm 6 playing with my sister. It's the closest thing to time travel, we always say that. You smell something and you're like, “This is reminding me of something.” It can even be something bad. Everyone smells things differently. This is amazing. We've gotten into the science behind scent a lot more as we've been able to work a bit more on the business and not so much on the business. We have a little bit more time to get into it.
As Jess said, it's hard to not be passionate about it[.We both have babies and Lore is our first baby, we say it all the time. We love Lore. When you say people mention it on the street, I've had many times when people are like, “What are you wearing?” I went to a skin clinic and they emailed me and said, “Sorry, this is weird and creepy but, all of us, you left a waft through our clinic. We need to know what you're wearing.”
It's pretty awesome when you have that connection with the customer. I've been stopped on Brunswick Street, I'm leaving, and I'm exhausted, I'm like, “I've got to get home to my toddler.” I've been stopped and being like, “You don't understand, this fragrance is me now. It's an extension of me. You don't understand what you did when you introduced it to me.”
Sometimes it's a little bit overwhelming because people have such strong feelings about it. It's amazing at the same time. I'm grateful that we get to introduce people to fragrances because it does become an extension of themselves unlike anything else, unlike clothes, unlike cars, or unlike your house. It becomes a part of you. It's something that people associate with you. It is an important yet also an often overlooked element.
I could talk about this all day. Much of what you said hit home. I wear a particular perfume most of the time that my mom bought before she passed away. I wore it to smell like, “It's like mom.” I wore her perfume for a while and then I bought another bottle. It's interesting because then one of my in-laws started wearing that perfume and I'm like, “No.” My memory is associated with that scent. It's such a unique thing.
Even coming out to my office in my own house, when I put the perfume on, I feel like, “That's it, you're ready now.” When you have friends, it’s like, “I love how you always smell like this.” It's nice. You had mentioned at the start that you have over 700 brands and there are many niche perfumers and different fragrance companies that people would've never heard of. Firstly, how do you even find them? How do you decide, “This is what people will want.”
Also, how do you decide to say, “This isn't working for a brand as a retailer.” A lot of people read this podcast about having a gift store or a bookshop or they sell different things from makers. Sometimes saying no is difficult, especially if you've got a good relationship with them. Maybe something worked for a few years and now it's not working so well. How do you decide who to take on and who to say no to?
Saying no is when I bow out, that's Jade’s job. If we have to part with a brand, especially if the people that we're working with are beautiful, it's hard. At the end of the day, it's business, and we do have to make tough calls. It doesn't necessarily mean that the brand is now bad. Our customers have evolved and they've moved on to new things. What is lovely about our story is that it's forever changing and getting new brands and new products. Our customers come in to find something new, something for us to show them.
We don't have a set way of finding these brands. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Jess and I usually follow our gut. We'll find something, even if it's one product, I'm like, “We love this. We love their brand voice. We love their packaging.” We blind ordered a full range of Room1015. In 2022, Cherry Punk was our best-selling fragrance. We sold so much of that fragrance, we couldn't believe it. We blindly ordered that and imported it from Europe, not even selling one fragrance, which most people would say is quite silly of us.
We did that with our previous best-seller.
If we're both on the same page, if we're both as enthusiastic about it as each other, we know it's a done deal.
We follow our gut. I wish we had more of a professional way to tell people.
Going back to when we have to say no to brands, Jade is the one who does it. We're always respectful and we make sure that nothing is passed on to the customer or anything like that. We're transparent as well. We're not going to lie and be like, “We got this instead,” or something like that. We're going to be like, “It stopped selling for us. We love you and we love your brand but we've got to be honest, we can't keep stocking it if it's not selling.” We do always try hard before discontinuing anything. We're never willy-nilly like that. I would do that but Jade is not like that. I throw things out at the drop of a hat but Jade is always like, “Let's try before we get rid of it, Jess.”
I'll have a look at what's happening with the team.
If the testers might be a bit funky, I'm like, “let's buy all new testers. Let's reinvigorate the brand for a while.” Let's give all of the staff a free tester so they can wear it outside the store and live in it.” Sometimes it works. There are 700 fragrances in our store. People walk in and they're like, “This is overwhelming. Something that Jess and I have always said from the beginning is we're not a sales store. We don't train ourselves in sales. They're training customer service.
As part of our Lore values, people come into our store and it's like they're entering our home. We treat everyone with respect. We show them what we love and that's usually what sells. I don't work on the floor that often, pretty much not at all at the moment, but when I'm on the floor, I'm like, “I love this. You need to have it.” That's what sells when I'm not even in the store practising that customer service. I'm like, “This is the best thing I've ever used.” They're like, “I'll take two.” They come in and they know that we're loving.
I love this. You are humble in terms of the way that you market and do such a good job. One of the things that you've done well that goes to all the things you've been talking about from the sample packs through to showing people different things that they may not have heard of and different brands is your 12 Days of Spritzmas, which was a Christmas campaign at the end of 2022. You've run it previously as well.
I bought that and I have to say it was beautifully packaged all the little vials of all the different brands and so much effort and time had gone into making sure that every time you pulled a new perfume out, there was a lot of information, and there's a QR code to get more information. You had a whole video series. There was so much involved in that. Can you talk us through how you came up with that campaign and then what it means for your customers and the business? It's not necessarily something you would expect but I found it good and I was telling everyone and people were like, “Have you been sponsored?” I'm like, “No.”
Thank you.
It's good. I still have it.
I don't remember how we came up with that. We were like, “There are no perfume advent calendars. This is stupid. It's the perfect thing to have an advent calendar. How much better than Jockey is this?” Spritzmas came to us. All of our ideas are usually us bouncing off each other at the last minute as well.
The last minute usually works well for us.
3:00 AM ideas. We’re half asleep writing notes to remember to tell the other person. It would've been an evolution from COVID and doing the custom sample packs. We also did an around-the-world series during COVID and it was handmade. Our team was perfecting it. We probably start flinching when we hear 12 days of Switzmas because it was a lot of work but we're starting it now. In 2022, the classic Jade and Jess, we leave things to the last minute. I was like, “Let's go on the notes of what they did last year and hope it works out.” Jade got back to complete chaos. That was awesome and everyone loved it. Every time we do something, we pull it apart and try to find a way to make it perfect the next time. That's customer feedback, feedback from our friends, our feedback, and our staff feedback. We have all these amazing ideas, our ideas of marketing. We could fill a whole encyclopedia with our ideas. It's having the time. This 2023, we're excited because we have the right people in the right positions to help us have the time to work on these.
We need woman's power to help us do it.
Also, to give us the space to be able to be like, “We've wanted to do this for three years. How do we make this the best thing ever?” We have wanted to create that sensory experience that people can experience at home because not everyone lives in Fitzroy or within eight kilometres of Fitzroy.
I don't even live far from Fitzroy but I don't have time to go to the store. I'm busy.
It's trying to get Lore to everybody and experience our fragrances. With our custom sample parts, we had spritz. When we say that we were quite shocked at how it all went down during COVID when we were hand spritz in thousands and thousands of vials and all of our team as well were delivering stock for them to hand spritz for us.
In the 12 Days of Spirtzmas, we have gone to our suppliers and have been like, “We've sold out. This is how much we're doing. These are our numbers. What can you give us? This is the biggest marketing campaign for Lore for the year.” We have amazing suppliers and we work with amazing brands and they love all of our ideas. They've been giving us completed samples for this product, which is much better. Obviously, the brands have machines that do it. Keep an eye out for this 2023, it’s going to be even bigger and better than ever.
I can't believe 2022 was our second only. If you saw the difference from year 1 to year 2, it is phenomenal how far it's come in one year. It's exciting what will happen this 2023. Even having brand founders do videos for us about their fragrances was cool and generous of them to give their time as well as the fragrance for it. We were wrapped up with that. I'm excited for 2023. We got cool and new things going on in there.
I can't wait. I'll be ordering one. That goes to the point when you said about videos. That's also an element of this campaign that I feel like people miss, that post-purchase advocacy part. After people bought it, they could open up one of the advent calendar boxes, find the perfume, and then receive a video as well about it.
Often, people will spend all this money on a campaign to sell a handbag or sell something and then there's no aftercare, there's no follow-up like how to clean the handbag or how to look after it or, “Did you know that if move this or that?” You guys are doing such a good job. I'm going to put you on the spot because you're both mums and you both have children. How have you juggled it?
This is an annoying question that women get asked but I also try and make sure that for every man who comes on with a toddler or a young child, I ask. Every time they're like, “You're the first person who's asked me.” I'm like, “Really?” Women get asked this every single time. People want to know how have you managed it. How do you manage it as a founder of a big company and this retail store and online store with young children?
It's challenging. I was pregnant during lockdowns when Jade and I were slapping it. I'd yell her at every day and I'm like, “Go home. You're eight and a half months pregnant.”
All the smells as well.
Thank God that didn't affect me. There was only one fragrance in the store that every time one of our staff members will put it on, I'm like, “I'm going to vomit. Could you please? That's the one fragrance, stop wearing it.” We were also training up staff at that time because I was like, “I'm leaving.” We had a bit of a transition with the staff. I had three staff members starting and I was like, “I've got to train these staff before I go on maternity leave.”
Jade took the reigns while I was on leave and then we switched while she was on mat leave. The challenge is coming back to work. I spent most of 2022 while Jade was on mat leave also juggling a child who had started daycare and was sick every other week. Therefore, I also was sick every other week. That was super fun and we had a great team to hold up the store and everything else while we were away.
I was away and Jade was on mat leave. That was fortunate. Jade and I have both done the same thing where we and our partners have both gone part-time to share parenting. We're grateful that our partners have set up to do that because a lot don't and it's awesome. I'm still three days a week and my partner works three days a week.
We'll eventually look into daycare even though I'm scared from all of the experiences with my friends getting sick and everything. I've had a lot of it, I thought, “You work for yourself. It's going to be so easy. It's flexible.” Yes, it is. We do have that flexibility of being like, “He's sick. I need to go home.” It's great that Jess and I both had babies that are a year apart from the 1st of April to the 12th of April. It wasn't part of Lore’s plan.
We're fortunate we found the warehouse and it's close to where we both live so we can duck out and help or be home with our babies if they're sick or whatever. That also comes with the price. You never switch off. I jump on my emails when we put Alfie to sleep where my partner will watch YouTube or something and I'm on my emails for a couple of hours. I'm like, “There’s so much to do.” Whilst we're not working full-time at the moment, we are putting in full-time hours.
There have been days when we can't switch off when we're on our days with our babies like not working. We're playing with them on the floor whilst on a conference call with Jess or something has happened and we need to talk about it. There are pros and cons to everything. I'm pretty proud of us for what we've done. I don't have any family here. All of my family is in interstate as well and I know you've got your mom but they're still half an hour away. It's not like you've got in-house help or something. We both were like, “This is hard,”, especially with babies who don't sleep.
I was blessed.
Still, there's been nights. It's been good that we're both in the same season of life so we can have compassion for each other because it would be hard if I didn't have kids. As much as I was compassionate and could hear my friends' stories about having kids, I didn't understand it until I was in the thick of it. It would be hard if one of us was still working full-time, “Business is everything. This is my first baby and only baby.”
Whereas the other one is like, “Sorry, daycare just called, I have to go pick him up,” or, “He's been rushed to the hospital. I got to go.” We're fortunate that we're both in the same position right now. As we do say, we spent the first five years of this business pretty much doing 60-hour weeks. We're like, “We bloody deserve some part-time weeks.”
Thank you for being so open and honest and all of that about it. It's hard. I was laughing when you were saying the daycare and being sick forever because you are. I kept muting myself to cough because I feel like instead of saying, “I've got a bit of a cold,” I should just say, “I have kids.” I have a cold every second week. You've got everyone back. For instance, we had summer holidays, put them back to school, instant germ fest, and you're like “Ahh.”
We’ve been around that.
Surely, it needs to be robust enough after a year.
Once they get to primary school then it's strong. My eldest son never gets sick but my youngest one is a constant turnover. I love also that you said, “We're both in the same season.” It would be difficult. There are lots of people that read this who aren't parents and they may have chosen not to be parents or whatever their lifestyle is that they've chosen or not chosen. It is hard to understand if you are not a parent the stress and the lack of time that you have to yourself and all the other things.
Sometimes when I’ve had to try not to do as much as I can anymore. My children are older. I've had to do a phone call on a day off and you're like, “Please be on time because I have got them down and I have this one window.” If people are late and you're like, “Don't be late. I have 9 minutes and they're going to be asleep.” I get it.
You guys have talked a lot about your relationship and how that's helped. You've talked about these supportive partners as well. It's amazing that both of you have got great supportive partners. It’s such a good idea that you both go part-time. What else has helped you with this business? Have you had any documentaries that you watch? Are there any books that you both read? Are there any podcasts or any resources or people that you think they have helped and that got us off on the right track?
We do have your book.
That's been great. It's the first time we've ever had someone that we've invested in who has given us advice and different perspective and some guidance. Most of the time, we are running the Lore and we're trusting our gut and hoping it is the right thing.
We feel great after we have our sessions with you. We're doing everything right.
Thank you.
I have stuck about ten books on my bedside table but I don't have the energy to read anything. I have about an hour. Once I go to sleep at night, after I've gotten home from work, I need to decompress. My brain needs to not work. I listen to podcasts but I've started listening to different kinds of podcasts. I'm listening to a lot of perfume review podcasts, which I find helpful as well.
It’s inspiring. That's what we should be doing as well, product research. We're both on Instagram. We're saying this but it's pretty awesome that we're in this day and age where you can find many inspiring people online. Yes, social media has its cons, 100%. It's not the best thing ever.
It's great as well.
It's great to find people not in business or in business, people that inspire us in many ways. I'm the same as you. I do have a lot of books that I don't have the time to read. My spare time is put on Lore. Going on mat leave, you're like, “There's so much catching up I need to do.” Whenever I have a spare second I'm jumping on my computer and I'm doing work. I would love to get back into a bit more me time.
There’s no one I can say besides you at the moment. We take inspiration. We find advice and motivation from many different areas, even if it is completely unrelated to Lore. We’re constantly doing that, “I have this screenshot to show you.” Whether it's marketing, business, or finance, there are many, Especially things that we're not trained in, I’m like, “We need to learn a lot more about this.” It's definitely on the cards for us to do a little bit more development there as well.
I love that. Don't beat yourself up about the books. I have a massive stack of books and it seems to get taller and my husband's like, “That is going to fall over. Why don't you put some away?” I'm like, “No because I don't know which one I feel like reading today.” I then end up looking at maps or looking at something else online at night when I should be reading. What are you both proud of from your journey in business so far?
Our team, the space we've created, and the culture we've created sum it all up. I'm also proud of how far we've come. Through running a business, we've hatched a lot of self-development. We've done it well. It's a continuous process but we have developed a lot of people from doing this business. We've developed our confidence a lot. It's always that imposter syndrome as well that we often get but it's happening a little bit less these days and we're backing ourselves more to trusting ourselves.
As we said earlier, we feel we're the little girls in a room full of business people. We had our best year ever in 2022. We're one of few businesses that are saying that at the moment and that's bloody amazing. We're proud that we've done that whilst raising babies that are under two and a team of almost ten. We put in the hard work and it’s showing now, we're getting the results.
We love Lore. When you invited us on this podcast, we were like, “We could talk about Lore forever.” As we said, it's our first baby. We love everything we've created and were super proud of us as women in business and working moms in business.
We've had a lot of challenges that we've overcome. A lot of those challenges we've kept to ourselves and haven't spoken about so not many people know about them but we have overcome them in a graceful way, which I'm proud of.
I love this. I love that you're standing in it and owning it and being like, “We are business people.”
You have to do things that are outside of your comfort zone and that's the scariest thing. We got to do it.
On that note, what is next for you guys? What is next for Lore Perfumery? Also, if people are reading this, where can they connect with you? Where are the best channels?
Instagram.
What is next? We're going to do TikTok. We've been saying that. We're like, “We're doing it.”
It's the Millennial thing. I can't do it.
Get on TikTok, we're the same. This 2023, it's like, “Yep, TikTok.” The handle, is it @LorePerfumery?
Yep. We're going to start our own podcast this 2023. We've been saying it for years and we've put it out there so now we have to do it. We’re growing our website and fine-tuning it. One of our reasons for moving upstairs with the store and having our new warehouse office space, which is something else we're proud of, is turning upstairs into an event space. It's exciting. There are lots of things happening.
We want to focus on what we're doing and then perfect everything that we're doing this 2023.
I was also going to say that we do emails that go out generally about twice a week and that's a great way of connecting with us as well. We have a sign-up on the homepage of our website, which is LorePerfumery.com.au. We put so much love, time, and effort into our emails and they've got a little bit of us in them. We talk about products but we talk about all sorts of things in there.
They're not sales.
They're more about education. If anyone loves fragrance, sign up for them. We promise they will be awesome.
Also, I can't believe we're going to forget about this but our biggest time of the year is coming up, International Fragrance Day, it's the 21st of March. We love International Fragrance Day. We make such a big about it at Lore. This 2023, it’s only on a Tuesday, which is a bit annoying because the weekend day is a lot more fun. Head to our website and our socials to find out more because we're going to start promoting it soon. 21st of March and we always have a free, amazing goodie for the day, and it's all about our love for fragrance.
Amazing. I love that. Also, I didn't even ask you a question about this but I should have. You guys do fragrance consults. If anyone is reading who has a wedding coming up or something big or a milestone birthday and they want to have a beautiful fragrance for it, book in for a consult. You can find all of that on your website, LorePerfumery.com.au. Thank you so much for coming on, I appreciate it. I know you guys are so busy. It is Valentine's Day and I'm guessing that's a pretty busy time of the year for you. Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
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How nice are Jess and Jade? Honestly, they're the type of people that you'd want to equally be seated next to you on a plane because they make the whole experience fun and interesting and have the best conversations. Also, be the type of people that you want to talk to when you're going in to buy something because you know that they're going to give you the legit real information. They're passionate about what they want to do. The way that they're building their business and changing the narrative when it comes to selecting things like fragrance or skincare.
If you want to connect with Lore Perfumery, you can go over to Instagram, @LorePerfumery. You can also check out all of their amazing things over at LorePerfumery.com.au and you can shop there if you're not within the area of Fitzroy. If you are coming to Melbourne, make sure that you check out Lore Perfumery in its entirety in their store, which is based at 313 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Of course, if you are getting married or you need to have a perfume consultation for something else, feel free to email them at Fitzroy@LorePerfumery.com.au or you can email Hello@LorePerfumery.com.au.
I'd love to know what you took away from that. What stood out to you? What impacted you? For me, there were many things as there always are but I'm going to talk about two in particular. The first is that I love that they talked about, “Our people are trained in customer service and customer experience rather than sales.” I love the differentiation that they made, that we are there to serve the customer, to educate the customer, and to help the customer make an informed decision. Ideally and hopefully, that's with them.
If it's not, that's great too because that person is now informed and educated and maybe a bit more passionate about perfume and fragrance. I love that they brought that home, it's about the customer experience overall. Maybe they don't buy that particular day, maybe they walk out of the store after a great experience, but maybe in three months they have three different gifts to buy so they go back to the store and you've got three sales out of that one conversation as opposed to being so salesy.
We've all been in situations where we've been in a store and you can tell that they're desperate to make the sale rather than they genuinely care about this product and they care about you being excited about this product too. I love it so much. The other thing I love and it comes through into so much of their content and passion is the idea of storytelling, after all, they called it Lore Perfumery and the art of storytelling and the art of taking something like a fragrance and bringing it to life through storytelling.
I love also that they talked about their fascination with scent and with the science of that and with all the things that come with scent and fragrance. To them, it's not just a product, it is many more things. We all know it. As I spoke about, you can smell something and instantly be taken back to a particular time in your life. My sister bought her daughter a particular fragrance that my sister and I used to wear when we were younger and I hadn't smelt it for a long time. I smelled it and instantly I was back in high school. It was just instant. I love that they talk about the power of that.
We don't necessarily walk into a shop and see a bottle of perfume and think about all those other things that encompass a scent and things like memory, warmth, and all the delights of family and closeness and togetherness or your first date or whatever it is. There are many parts that come with the idea of scent. I love that they bring that out through their storytelling and through their interesting campaigns and ideas.
If you would like to connect with them, I'm sure they'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. You can do that over on Instagram, @LorePerfumery, or you can email them, Hello@LorePerfumery.com.au. I would love to know what you took away from this so you can always email us, Hello@MyDailyBusinessCoach.com or you can find us on Instagram or TikTok. Thanks so much for reading. I'll see you next episode.
