A conversation with Lisa Scott on taking advice, trusting her judgement and building a business that looked different from the plan.
Lisa Scott imagined her fashion and beauty businesses sharing one building. They ended up in separate locations, each suited to a different clientele. That early change opens a conversation about whose advice to take, when to hold firm, and what experience teaches you to question.
What looked different once you began building your first businesses?
The idea, the imagination and what I had written on paper were completely different from what actually took shape.
Once you start connecting with people, they give you different outlooks. You talk to other professionals, you begin implementing things, and the ideas grow.
I imagined having fashion and beauty all in one building. In fact, I had one business in one area and the other somewhere else. It worked well because there were customers specifically for each area. I had overlooked that slightly. I was thinking one building would be easier for me, but having them separate generated more money.
What did someone else help you see about those locations?
The fashion business was in a prominent area. It was easy for people to get to, with high-quality shops around it. That gave it visibility and access to a larger market.
Beauty was different. The setting was calmer and quieter, which was great for that business.
Someone was showing me a completely different picture, and I had to weigh up my picture and theirs. I could still do what I wanted to do, but I could do it better because of that perspective.
“ I could still do what I wanted to do, but I could do it better because of that perspective.”
— Lisa Scott
Were there times when you heard the advice and still said no?
Yes. There were things I remained firmly attached to because my intuition told me otherwise.
In beauty, there were always new products and machines coming onto the market. Some would be popular and then disappear quite quickly. It could become very costly.
People would tell me I should buy more machines or offer this or that. I held my ground on buying the equipment. Instead, I contracted people who had the machines to come in and provide treatments for my clients. I looked for other alternatives.
But some of that demand was coming from your clients. How did you decide what deserved a response?
You have to listen to your clients, especially when the same requests keep coming up.
There is always pressure within the industry to buy the latest thing. You have to stop and ask yourself: is it worthwhile? Are there other alternatives?
For me, repeated requests from clients carried weight. If thirteen or fifteen people were asking for a particular treatment, I would look at bringing it in. That gave me a basis for weighing up the cost and the outgoings.
Bringing someone in still meant trusting them with your clients. How did you judge their work?
Through recommendations, word of mouth within the industry and interviews. I also had trusted colleagues who could judge how good someone was at what they did. I had people around me whose judgement I could draw on.
Had you always been comfortable listening to other people?
No. I used to not listen to many people. That was something I had to learn over time.
Making mistakes was part of it. A close member of my family also gave me a push. They said it was good to hear other people’s points of view, regardless of whether I went with them. To leave myself open to new ideas and understandings.
It didn’t come easily to me.
Did listening make decisions easier?
At times, it made them very difficult. Different opinions could pull me in different directions.
I was working across two industries. Beauty moved more slowly than fashion. Fashion was fast, and that pace threw me off at times.
I had to learn from those experiences and become more aware of my own weaknesses. There were things I tackled and things I didn’t. What I learned was that the things I didn’t deal with could come back later. Eventually, I still had to face them.
So how did you become less pulled around by it all?
By learning what served the business and what didn’t, and becoming more in tune with myself. The choices became slightly easier and less chaotic.
But there were still times when the chaos seeped in and I lost my thread. Life was moving much faster for me then than it is now. I have more time now to think.
There were times when I didn’t question things, and afterwards I wished I had. I made mistakes and rectified them as best I could at the time. For me, that awareness became a strength.