Chow Mallon: Starting a beautiful business from your own kitchen

Chow Mallon (Jo Malone), a child, never enjoyed much of a favorable condition. Having dyslexia she grew up in a troubled family and dropped out at the age of 14. But Malone, 50 years old, has her own talent: great ambition, and most importantly, she has a keen sense of smell and imagination. From his kitchen, Malone developed exotic fragrances, as well as skincare and toiletries, including Wild Fig & Cassis Cologne, nutmeg & Ginger Bath oil. She has made it a global brand worth hundreds of millions of of dollars before selling her name to the beauty giant, Estée Lauder, who cannot see the brand's business in the company's documents. After battling breast cancer, Malone came back with her new company, Jo loves. I grew up in Kent, England, and my home was in what Americans call low-income housing. My father was an architect, my mother worked in Revlon and then transferred to a professional skin care company. Dad was a gambler, and when he wasn't home, I was the backbone of my family. So my childhood life was very difficult. When I was 14 years old, my mother had a nervous breakdown. Father is not at home, and his sister is only 9 years old. I dropped out of home to take care of my mother and raise my sister. Two years later, my mother's condition improved, so I moved to London at the age of 16 to live with some well-meaning relatives and friends. I worked in a small flower shop until my mother had a relapse. There was a time when I was traveling back and forth between Kent and London to support my family. In people's life, sometimes sit down and slowly choose their favorite development path is simply wishful thinking. When I met my husband Gary, I felt it was time to think about our husband and wife's affairs. I married at the age of 21, when my mother's condition was more stable. So I learned how to make creams with a book about beauty, just like mom used to. I started making beauty and found I was gifted at it. One important reason for my success is dyslexia, which makes me think differently about things. I feel the color from the smell. I can turn what I see into fragrance. I can test 60 to 80 kinds of perfumes and learn about their taste bands. When female customers come to me for beauty, I will give them a small bottle of nutmeg & Ginger Bath Oil as a thank you. Everyone is put down on this gift. Around 1990, I packed the kitchen with hundreds of bottles of bath oil orders for Christmas. I was exhausted with exhaustion. I made a day of beauty, the next production will be busy until midnight, and 7 days a week there is no rest. The husband, who acted as a building investigator, saw the opportunity. "We should open a shop next year," he said. "Gary resigned a few years later, and we've seen a lot of places to open the shop." I don't like those places. When I walked through 154th Walton Street, Chelsea,There is a voice in my heart that echoes: here. "There's gravel all over the place, but I feel the choice is right." For retailers, intuition is crucial. When you abandon your intuition, you make mistakes. Our store opened in October 1994 and now Stella McCartney, J. Crew and Carolina Herrera have opened shops in the area. Many people say that choosing to open a store at that time was a bad decision, because we were in a recession and we were small in size. We are faced with difficulties, not to mention the enormous financial difficulties we face. One months after the opening, some VIPs came to my store on November 5, the day of my birthday. I was at home making bath oil, so I told my husband: Don't fill the oil too full. "(The heat will swell, so be sure to reserve a space for just in case.) But he felt that if full, customers would think their money was worth it. That night, the bath oil was placed below the shelf light, and we suddenly heard a loud bang, like "1812 Overture." All the corks flew out and we had to close the door for health and safety reasons. Bath oil is flowing everywhere. I use a hairdryer in the shop to blow all the shelves. I haven't been talking to my husband for days. I find it difficult to trust others because my brand has long been a one-man one. Because this brand is named after my name, so this product for me is full of personalized color. Even if I am ranked second, I will be very upset. From the first day I opened the door, I got the attention of the famous media, the British fashion magazine and the FT. Our business is getting more and more prosperous. I took part in an Oprah interview, and after the show, shoppers almost broke the threshold. It was like a dream. In the first year of business, Bergdorf Goodman of New York contacted us to open our first store in a department store. Soon the store's turnover reached 1 million dollars. We immediately established a new retail partnership with Neiman Marcus and Saks. I don't even remember the written strategy we made. We make money much faster than we spend, which is the ideal for everyone. We continue to shop in places where the market demand is strong. To create this demand in New York, I visited 50 people I knew locally, including several models and several pop stars. I sent 10 gifts to each of them and asked them to give them away as a gift to entertain the guests. We didn't have a marketing team at the time. 4 months before the opening of the New York branch, we gave our friends 200 empty Zou Mar shopping bags, please take them on the street. This approach has a magical impact. We saw our packaging a few months before the product debuted. We opened a second store in London and Harold department store. Our business is flourishing. We received manyBusiness cooperation invitation. People want to invest or buy franchise stores, but I declined. As the business progresses towards success, I begin to look for business partners who can work together for life. Just then, Lauder (Leonard Lauder, the CEO of Lauder) came to my store and we had lunch together. I liked him. He is a great retailer and I know it is most reassuring to give him the company. So I sold Zou Mar to him in 1999. We went on to start the store and I always thought I would go on. But one morning in 2003, I found a lump in my chest during the shower. I was diagnosed with a malignant tumor. I called Evelyn Lloyd (Evelyn Lauder) and said, "Never forget, let's go, Kuzhongzuoyue." This sentence deeply touched me. I flew to New York for a year of chemo, and then I had surgery and I was running a store there. I had a 4-year-old son, so I was very worried about the recurrence of cancer. One day, I was standing in a store on Madison Avenue, determined that I would just be with my family. I feel like I'm not going to bring anyone a miracle. So I quit in 2006. I wake up every day to think of the fragrance, but I can not do anything. We signed a 5-year closure agreement. So I decided to make a TV show for BBC One called "Dream of Business" (High Street Dreams) to help other entrepreneurs start their own careers. One day, we recorded the show in the garden, and when we bottled the chili sauce I suddenly had a feeling that it was time to make my own fragrance again. My 5-year contract expired in 2011 and the lawyer told me to start. I'm still Chow Mallon, so what's the name of the new company? I don't think anyone can look at the fragrance like I do. For me, this is my passion for the whole industry. Zou Mar was 30 years ago when I started my business. Our new name Jo loves is today's me. In fact, I made more mistakes in my second venture than I did the first time. I was in a hurry to get back, and I started a temporary shop in the wrong place. I did not wait for the packaging to launch the product, and our advertising is not enough. I underestimated the negative impact of people not knowing Jo loves's identity. They didn't know I had left Zou Mar. In October 2013, I worked in the London flower shop in Elizabeth Street, where I had been working many years ago, to run Jo loves shop. I feel like I'm reborn, and I'm aware that this is rebirth. I am proud of being able to walk all the way, I overcame the hardships of life, overcame cancer, and made success in retailing. For God's gift to me, I vowed, and I do not want to let my life have regrets. I am ready to take risks and devote my life's energies to creating new things. I will never start a new cosmetics company. This is my contribution to the world.