No one, who has ever followed a dream, has taken a direct, unobstructed path and
arrived at his or her destination effortlessly and on time. Following a dream is
not a direct highway but a bumpy road full of twists and turns
and occasional roadblocks. The journey requires modifications and adjustments in
both thought and action, not just once, but over and over.
Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop, used creativity to overcome challenges
that would have stopped the
vast majority of new business owners. She broke
just about every rule in the book when she started The Body Shop and she's still
breaking the rules today. Of course, such irreverence has its consequences. In Anita's
case, the consequences read like this: The Body Shop now has more than 1,500 stores
throughout the world, is worth over $500 million, and has influenced the products
and marketing of all its chief competitors. And those are just the consequences
in the business arena. The Body Shop is also a powerfully effective vehicle for
social and environmental awareness and change; as far as Anita is concerned, that
is the most important consequence of all.
From the moment in 1976 when Anita first conceived the idea of opening a shop to
sell naturally based cosmetics, she was thinking in a most unbusinesslike manner.
Most entrepreneurs set out to establish a company with growth potential that will
make them wealthy someday. Anita was just looking for a way to feed herself and
her two children, while her husband, also a maverick, was away on a two-year adventure,
riding a horse from Argentina to New York.
Her first challenge was to find a cosmetics manufacturer to produce her products.
No one she approached had ever heard of jojoba oil or aloe vera gel, and they all
thought that cocoa butter had something to do with chocolate. Although she didn't
realize it at the time, Anita had discovered a market just about to explode: young
female consumers who would prefer their cosmetics to be produced in a cruelty-free
and environmentally responsible manner. When manufacturers failed to have the same
foresight, Anita found a small herbalist who could do the work she required.
Since Anita was not the typical entrepreneur, she saw no drawbacks in starting her
company with almost no capital. To save money, she bottled her cosmetics in the
same inexpensive plastic containers hospitals use for urine samples, encouraging
her customers to bring the containers back for refills. Because Anita couldn't afford
to have labels printed, she and some friends hand printed every one. Her packaging
couldn't have turned out better if she'd planned it that way. With the improvised
packaging, her product now had the same natural, earthy image as the cosmetics themselves.
Anita opened the first branch of The Body Shop in her hometown of Brighton, England.
When she first opened, neighboring proprietors made bets on how long the store would
last. Less amused were the owners of local funeral parlors who insisted she change
the shop's name. No one, they complained, would hire a funeral director located
near a place called "The Body Shop." She stuck to her guns and the name stayed.
The first store was only minimally successful. Nevertheless, Anita decided to move
ahead with a second one. The bank questioned the wisdom of her plan and refused
a loan. So she found a friend of a friend who was willing to lend her the equivalent
of $6,400 in exchange for 50 percent ownership of The Body Shop. Today that person
is worth $140 million. Signing over half of her business was the only real mistake
Anita ever made. But it wasn't the only decision that looked like a mistake. Here
are three more:
• She has never advertised even when she opened shops in the United States.
People told her it was suicide to enter a new market without massive advertising
support.
• She doesn't sell in any outlet other than The Body Shop stores. (Some of
her Asian stores are the only exception and are located within department stores.)
• She resolved early on that her shops would be a catalyst for change, not
just in the business world, but in the world at large.