Monique Rodriguez of Mielle Organics: Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry

An Interview With Jilea Hemmings

Always deliver quality over quantity. I started Mielle Organics with one quality product and the delivery of a great experience. We sold our product like crazy because my focus was on the quality of our products rather than the quantity.

As a part of our series about “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Monique Rodriguez.

Monique Rodriguez is the CEO of Mielle Organics, a haircare and beauty line formulated with a unique proprietary blend of herbs, amino acids and minerals to support healthy hair, skin and nails, and immune system. MIELLE has been distributed in more than 87 countries and can be found in more than 100,000 stores across the U.S. in retailers such as Sally Beauty, Target, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

The backstory behind what brought me to choose beauty as a career is very personal to myself and my family. After the tragic loss of my son at birth, I realized that I was not living out my purpose and needed to make a change. By that time, I had worked almost eight years as a Registered Nurse, but deep down knew my passion had always been beauty. In an effort to heal, I began my natural hair care journey and shared it on social media. What began as an outlet to escape the day to day and talk about beauty and hair on social media, led to an online community. That community presented a demand that moved me to create my own products for purchase and led to the Mielle Organics that you know today. Today, Mielle Organics is a global and viral sensation, with orders in over 87 countries around the world.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

There have been many interesting experiences in my journey of entrepreneurship, but this on in particular stands out for me. Like most entrepreneurs in a new industry, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I knew I had a vision and had to navigate those obstacles as they came. We landed our first retail interview with Sally Beauty at their corporate headquarters and had no idea what to expect. Out children were pretty young at the time, so we had them with us. I’ve always that was interesting because kids don’t usually go to meetings such as this. The meeting was formal, however because of the buzz we had generated online about our products they wants to meet with us very quickly. So with our whole family present, we pitched our first retailer meeting and landed our first retailer in the same day. The rest is history.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

The tipping point where I started to really see success occurred about six months after the launch of my first influencer campaign. When the sales skyrocketed from our traditional projections, I knew we were on to something.

Influencer marketing is still a great way to market, however, it has changed a lot. I think some key takeaways that I’ve learned over the years are to make sure you align the right people with your brand values. Watch their engagement levels and how their audience responds to their conversations/content, not just follower count.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

First, I want to share that without God, I would not be in the position I am today. I give him credit daily. He has placed some great people in my life to help me not only grow Mielle Organics as a company but grow myself as a CEO, wife, mother and entrepreneur. I also credit my husband, Melvin Rodriguez. He leads the business and operations structure of Mielle Organics so that I can focus on the creative vision of our company. He is also amazing at the structure and relationship building aspect of our business as well. He is not only my better half but has been my number one supporter from the very beginning. It’s important to know that we did not get here alone though. I am blessed to have many mentors who have guided us along our journey of entrepreneurship. Mentors like Germaine Bolds-Leftridge and Richelieu Dennis, who were both very instrumental mentors who have helped us.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The global beauty industry today has grown to more than a half a trillion dollar business. Can you tell us about the innovations that you are bringing to the industry? How do you think that will help people?

We are always innovating according to the needs of our customers. It is our mission and passion at Mielle Organics to deliver hot, new and high quality products. Our product innovations often follow the conversation that our consumers are a buzz about. For example, in the past few years the benefits of rice water for hair growth has been a major topic of discussion. After researching the process, I realized that there was no consistent formulation available to provide consistent results and reduce the hours-long process associated with the new trend. Mielle’s answer to that identified need and consumer conversations resulted in the development of both our Rice Water and Rice Water w/ Aloe Collections. I can’t share too much about our upcoming product innovations, but I can share that they will maintain the high level of quality that our customers are familiar with.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the modern beauty industry?

3 things that excite me about the modern beauty industry include:

1. The evolution of diversity, inclusion and representation in the beauty space
2. The movement of men and women embracing their natural beauty
3. The influx of women entrepreneurship in embracing natural beauty and the increase of women coming in owning this space.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to improve the industry, what would you suggest?

Three things that concern me about the beauty space include:

1. The retail landscape’s shift to e-commerce platforms
2. The societal impact of the beauty space
3. How to combine luxury and sustainability due to cost.

Three things that I would implement to improve the industry include:

1. The development of more personalization in beauty
2. Providing more opportunities for small businesses in the beauty category
3. Improvement of the end user research stage

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share a few ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”?

Ideas I would share to help women feel beautiful include:

• Spend time on self care. This could involve doing anything that makes you feel beautiful like going to a salon to get your hair or your nails done.
• Learn to embrace how your beauty has been designed. There’s only one you in this world. Don’t downplay your greatness by trying to compare yourself to anyone else.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, Can you please share “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”. Please share a story or an example, for each.

To succeed in the beauty industry, you need to:

1. Understand your customer and their needs. In my experience, consumers tend to be very vocal about what they like and dislike.
2. Study current trends and stay up to date on educational tips in the beauty space.
3. Always deliver quality over quantity. I started Mielle Organics with one quality product and the delivery of a great experience. We sold our product like crazy because my focus was on the quality of our products rather than the quantity.
4. Make sure you are setting yourself apart from other brands.
5. Focus on building demand before going into retail. We entered the retail market because they reached out to us. The public demand of our product caught the attention of the right people at the right time.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

If I could inspire a movement it would center around the movement to “BE KIND.” I feel that there are a lot of people hurting in the world. Not only because of the pandemic but from everyday life. You never really know what someone is going through. So, just one intentional act of kindness no matter how big or small could make a difference in someone’s day. We need more kind people in the world.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

A life lesson that I have learned is that failure is not final. Every lesson is an opportunity to grow and improve in this continuous school that we call life. I learn something new everyday in an effort to maintain the spirit of humility needed for continuous growth. I have been blessed with a network of people whom can not only educate me in the areas that I may not be well versed in, but what I can collaborate with as well. I can honestly say that I am as successful as I am today because I am never afraid to admit that I don’t know something. I don’t let the fear of the unknown hold me back from speaking up to find the answer either. So my advice is to never stop learning.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow me on Instagram @exquisitemo. To learn more about Mielle Organics and my mentorship venture, The Secret Sauce to Success, visit below:

Mielle Organics

• Website: www.mielleorganics.com
• Instagram: @mielleorganics
• Facebook — @mielleorganicsllc
• LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/mielleorganics/

The Secret Sauce to Success

• Website: https://thesecretsauceretreat.com
• Instagram: @thesecretsaucetosuccess

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.