From flight attendant to big name in beauty, Sylvie Hutchings, creator of SCOUT Cosmetics, has had a career that is marked by success. Starting the natural mineral makeup and organic skincare range with her husband Guy, Sylvie Hutchings is known for her beauty industry prowess and the quality of her products and business.
Rescu. caught up with Sylvie Hutchings to find out her top tips on how to be successful in beauty, and the biggest lessons she has learned from her career.
RESCU: We know you weren’t always in the beauty industry! Tell us a little about your life before Scout Cosmetics…
Sylvie Hutchings: I was lucky enough to join Ansett Airlines as flight attendant in the 1980s. It was a wonderful experience and I travelled the world and had a fantastic time. Grooming and appearance was extremely important and I learnt a lot about the plethora of makeup and skincare brands on offer – what worked and what didn’t.
During this period I studied natural therapies and began to develop the ideas, philosophy and formulations that would form the future basis of the SCOUT Cosmetics brand.
Following starting a family, I decided to launch my own company and the SCOUT Cosmetics brand was born.
RESCU: Did you have an ‘aha’ moment when you realised Scout Cosmetics really could work as a successful business?
Sylvie Hutchings:Not an ‘aha’ moment exactly because building a business is a journey involving many steps forward and challenges along the way.
In hindsight, two things come to mind that made me realise SCOUT would be a sustainable success.
Firstly, some smart business and beauty industry people encouraged me from the beginning and this made me quite determined.
Secondly, I really felt some real momentum when I was sitting in a meeting with a successful and well-recognised distribution company and they were impressed with my brand. This was a buzz.
RESCU: Did you have to overcome any significant challenges when starting up?
Sylvie Hutchings: Absolutely, really anyone starting a business faces challenges and at the time they appear significant. Then when you move through the issue and look back and say to yourself ‘so-what’ it was not such a big deal. In fact some challenges give you invaluable experience that is really important later. It is what I call ‘part of your apprenticeship’.
Not having come from the beauty industry, I really had to get to grips with the subtleties of that world really quickly. It is a great industry and like most sectors going through immense change, there are many opportunities if you want to put the work and capital in. I had no illusions about the need to learn fast.
On a personal level, I had to reconcile the amount of time I spend on the business with the time I spend with my three boys. But I realized very quickly, that I was not alone in this and all families face some kind of juggling of family life, career and education. I do not have any more or less time than my peers and if I can stay organized, it all seems to work.
RESCU: What are the non-negotiables when it comes to sourcing new products for the brand:
Sylvie Hutchings: All SCOUT products must be:
- Consistent with our ‘healthier choice’ criteria without any compromise in efficacy or performance. A product must be effective in looking after your skin, enhancing your natural beauty and a delight to use;
- Formulated by experts and manufactured to the required Australian and international standards;
- Made from the highest quality certified organic and natural ingredients by top manufacturers who are “organic certified” with the relevant certifiers;
- Not subject to testing on animals
RESCU: What does the average day in the life of Sylvie look like?
Sylvie Hutchings: A typical day for me is to get up around 6.30 am and, unless I am travelling or have an early meeting, I start getting the kids off to school.
At work, customers come first and so any issues related to product orders and service delivery are my first focus.
Meetings, phone calls, dealing with any distribution issues or product enquires takes up the morning. I am usually out for at least one appointment but with today’s technology, I find I am working pretty much most of the time. On a good day, a lot can be done between appointments with clients or presentations to prospective clients.
I try to take a few moments around middle of the day to practice mindful meditation or spend time outside. This can be for only 15 minutes or so which I can easily schedule that into my day and makes a difference.
RESCU: How do you juggle your work life and family life? We know your life partner is also your business partner — does this ever make it hard to put boundaries around work and home life?
Sylvie Hutchings: I would more describe Guy as a mentor more than a business partner. He has his own interests and is a busy person, so his involvement with SCOUT is fairly high level. Often our paths do not cross during the day but it is great to know I have someone to bounce off or talk to about things.
The times we are both at home, I have separate offices within the house so we can go off into our own domains. I often pop into Guy’s office with a cup of tea to just have a chat and I think we both really enjoy being able to do that.
If possible, grab some time on a Friday evening and catch up over a glass of wine.
When we are out on the weekend we try not to talk business and just immerse ourselves into our boys lives. It is not always possible because often the best ideas come up on the weekend.
RESCU: Can you share three of your most monumental career highlights to date?
Sylvie Hutchings:It is a great question because business is a journey of many small steps which together produce milestones along the way.
The first one would definitely be seeing our very first SCOUT product range. It can take up to 18 months to formulate, design and get a product or range to market and after all the hard work to finally see the end result was fantastic.
The next one would have to be seeing SCOUT products in stores and salons. We all love to have our efforts recognized and when professionals in an extremely competitive industry like what you do it is a great feeling. It was a while ago now but the first time I was so excited I had to take pictures.
The third and most personal was the launch of our 5 free nail polish range which has been very well received.
I was undergoing chemotherapy for Non-hodgkins Lymphoma in early 2013, which while pretty tough was effective and I am now in remission.
I kept myself busy on good days and worked on the nail polish range. I really respect the fact that everyone’s experience of the stages of cancer diagnosis and treatment are very personal and different. I can laugh about it now but people talk about getting ‘chemo-brain’ and I realized writing down my creative thoughts and just carrying on was a very good idea.
This experience taught me many lessons. It really is amazing how resilient we all can be when we need to step up.
RESCU: And any career regrets?
Sylvie Hutchings: I’m not really big on regrets. I really love what I do now and it just keeps getting better.
I sometimes wish I had started the SCOUT brand earlier but the ‘planets’ were not really in line.
RESCU: Do you have any advice for women wanting to start up their own business?
Sylvie Hutchings: I am often asked this question and I think the biggest thing is that you must have the passion to do whatever it is that you have chosen to do. Few businesses are overnight successes and it is the passion that will sustain you and keep you going when things get tough.
Business is complex but a good business should be relatively simple. If you cannot explain what you do in a 2 minute ‘elevator conversation’ go back to the drawing board.
Have a realistic business plan and review and update it regularly.
Learn to delegate. Especially if your creative ideas run ahead of your scope for implementation. Like mine do!!
Create boundaries from the beginning – work out what is important to you, how to implement work/life balance. Talk is easy but actions speak louder. Try to schedule your work time around family time and commitments the majority of the time.
Ask for help from other mothers and your friends. This may be moral support, someone to listen to, picking up kids or taking them to school/sport). It is natural to be generous and OK to ask for help.
On a final note. Don’t take No for an answer. Sometimes you have to be the squeaky wheel.
RESCU: What’s next for Scout Cosmetics? Any career goals you’re still hoping to tick off?
Sylvie Hutchings: I would really love to see SCOUT as a global brand but see many opportunities in Australia. First I want SCOUT to be known as a trusted brand that delivers for our consumers and business partners across Australia.
We will build out our Unisex organic skincare range in 2014 and introduce more colours to our nail polish and makeup ranges.
For more on Sylvie Hutchings and SCOUT Cosmetics, visit: scoutcosmetics.com