Tamara Loehr is a globally recognized entrepreneur, mum of two young girls, wife and artist (former songwriter and forever painting).
Tamara started her first business at the age of 19 years old after graduating from university with a Bachelor of Visual Arts. This marketing agency is still in operation and services national and international clients, as well as the businesses she owns under her investment company.
Tamara and her agency specialized in online sales which lead her to become a sort-after expert on the topic. Tamara travels internationally speaking on the topic of how to grow businesses online, as well as sharing her experience in growing wellness brands from under $1M to over $10M without capital.
Her ‘sweat equity’ model saw swift success, leading to her winning a range of global awards including a Gold Stevie® Awards for Women in Business for ‘Fast Growing Company of the in 2016.
Tamara’s focus is now on ethical brands in Beauty and Wellness space. All her brands follow a strict mandate; Vegan, Cruelty-free, clean, female founded, sustainable and impactful. All products have giving embedded as a cost of goods, generating impacts to United Nations Sustainability Goals.
Tamara has since delved into the world of Community Channel Marketing (CCM) which aims to disrupt the Multi-level Marketing (MLM)/direct selling industry. Her online channel ‘Beusail’ is designed to promote ethical brands, whilst developing the next wave of female entrepreneurs.
Tamara’s legacy is to contribute 10M Buy1Give1 impacts per annum. As a subscriber to the ‘profit and purpose’ philosophy, Tamara passionately believes business will change the world’s problems, not government. She also acknowledges that this is no longer isolated to billionaire entrepreneurs but businesses of any size.
Originally a member of The Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO), Tamara was the first president in Queensland to take the role in under three years as a member. With her business focus and interests now being in America, Tamara is now a proud member of Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) in the Hollywood chapter.
AUTHOR OF #1 AMAZON NEW RELEASE
Balance is BS. How to have a Work. Life. Blend: Tamara Loehr’s book is a focused on the 42% of women in America who are now the breadwinners. know balance doesn’t work. Tamara has figured out a new solution after 20+ years as a global entrepreneur. How to ditch expectations, uphold your values and embrace a work-life blend.
Tamara’s book calls bullshit on ‘balance’ and presents a better way: it gives women permission to blend their work and personal lives together without getting burnt out. Every chapter is supported by practical exercises readers can complete to identify their values, align their energies with what matters to them most, set expectations with key people in their lives and map out the life they actually want.
Where did the idea for Beusail come from?
Tamara Loehr: After 25 years in business having scaled and exited companies in the wellness and beauty space, I was wanting to do two things:
– increase the number of female entrepreneurs
– find ways to use business as a force for good.
I was honoured to be accepted into the Entrepreneurs Masters Program (Birthing of Giants) where I could focus on the strategy to achieve this. My mentor, Jeff Hoffman suggested it will be something simple and easily within my reach. Then it dawned on me … my mission was simple:
take back 1% of the industry (beauty and wellness) that women support and make it ethical and impactful. All consumers need to do is SWItCH to ethical female founded brands that give back.
The will in-turn create and support 10,000+ female entrepreneurs and create 10M impacts to the United Nations Sustainability Goals per year.
Beusail, a Gaelic word meaning moral, of good deed and intent, is a beauty and wellness online store that’s 100% ethical and impactful. All our products are Vegan, Cruelty-free certified, female-founded, indie (NOT produced in China) and give back. Every product has giving embedded, giving to the United Nations Sustainability Goals. Collectively our purchasing power can make a positive impact on the world and support female startups in the process.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
Tamara Loehr: My day is blended, as my book suggests. I work from home and focus on my family. I have an open.
I normally travel and during that time I concentrate on my business.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Tamara Loehr: It has to start with passion and purpose. I always start with the end in mind and work back from that. Defining the why is the most important first step, including the core values of the company. This is our compass. Business is complicated with loads of distractions. We do our best to avoid this and stay focused by always coming back to these foundations to navigate our decisions and directions.
What’s one trend that excites you?
Tamara Loehr: The rise of conscious consumerism excites me as it is well overdue. For years I have been speaking about business as a force for good and how governments will not fix the world’s problems, business will. I feel the recent events have made people stop, reassess what they are consuming and where it comes from, this, coupled with a heightened awareness of heath and wellbeing, makes my vision seem more possible.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Tamara Loehr: My whole-hearted believe that change doesn’t happen in isolation. It is a tribe that makes magic and creates a movement. This includes your team, your partners, your customers and your raving fans. Taking this view enables you to empower others to step into their space of greatness so you can focus on high-level strategy. This is productivity at it’s best when you can wake up every day with one problem to solve: how do I make this vision a reality.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Tamara Loehr: So many to mention …. Take off the mask: creativity is not a disadvantage over academic, its a gift. Address on the lessons sooner, sit in the shit and move on swiftly. Don’t except everyone to get it when you are not an average thinker. Acknowledge the wins and pause to enjoy the moment. Reflect more so that those lessons served do not show up again to repeat themselves.
Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Tamara Loehr: Entrepreneurs don’t chase money. They strive for positive change. It disappoints me how ‘rich’ and successful people are perceived, particularly in Australia. They are seen as elite, greedy and lacing morals. I agree that I have seen my share of unethical ‘grey haired’ old-school CEOs and PEs, but not all are like that. Te next way are certainly a different breed. I am so proud of my EO, EMP and YPO community and what they stand for and how they show up every day.
There are also badly behaved employees, partners and citizens. That doesn’t mean they are all like that. Same goes with entrepreneurs. In fact, I find them to be the most generous, compassionate and passionate people I have ever met.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Tamara Loehr: Fail quickly, Communicate with vulnerability, Show up, Pay it forward, Lead with Passion and Purpose.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?
Tamara Loehr: I always have a mentoring and stay connected with my network. It’s important to always be the ‘small fish’ in a big pond. They challenge you, question you, expand you and accelerate you.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
Tamara Loehr: There’s no such thing as failure but lessons so I will speak to my biggest and most raw LESSON. I exited a company to the highest bidder. I wanted out. My business partner was unethical and MIA. I could not see a future for myself there and was grateful for the growth I had in that chapter.
So I sold out and intended to stay there for my earn out but was confronted with one of my deal-breakers: giving. The new owners removed \Buy1Give1 even though we made almost $2M profit the year prior. This is a non-negotiable so I had no choice but to leave. Little did I know what would unfold….
The culture and performance was underpinned by me, which meant the company didn’t do well post my exit.
This is the first lesson: set your business up to thrive long after you are gone.
Secondly, PE are never wrong. In fact, they have ‘ways’ to pin failed ventures on others so they can continue to raise capital. One thing they do (which I learnt afterwards) is called the “Death by 3′: Death by reputation, Death by media, Death by threat.
I got the first two. Perhaps they spared the last due to being a female but you can imagine how horrific that is for anyone who has a family. First they sued me for fraud, which was $100+K worth of expenses that were claimed as business which they said weren’t. Putting this into perspective, we turned over almost $14M per annum. This wasn’t a concern to me as all these expenses (travel, business memberships, p, ersonal assistant, etc) were all disclosed in due-diligence when they bought the company. Furthermore, I had written authorisation for all these expenses from my ex-business partner. So I didn’t give it another though. My take was they were throwing their toys around due to behaving badly.
Unaware to me, this is just Step 1 towards Step 2: ‘death by media’. This is where they use this law suit to destroy your reputation in the media. Lesson to me: check what media they are in bed with. But for someone like me who was a country girl with the same approach to business, it had its desired effect. I was heartbroken and I nearly quit. After all, why is it up to me to battle the “badly behaved grey haired men” when I could retire and focus on my family?
The lessons in this were:
1. Money is not one of my core values so don’t settle for this to get out of something even if you earned it. Settle it the right way for less.
2. Don’t assume your track record will stand up to bad press: people love gossip and moments like these make some people feel better about their inability to take action themselves. Do things for yourself and the greater good, not for affirmation.
3. Your true friends and ambassadors will show themselves in these times. What’s devastating is who doesn’t show up. But then there is surprise in those who do. Funnily enough, the ones that got me through it were ‘grey haired old men’. They went out of their way to tell me repeatedly that I am their ‘chosen one’ and cannot quit They assured me this new layer of tough skin will serve me well in future battles to come. The battles that count. I am so grateful to my mentors and fellow EOers/YPOers for their support. The lesson was, find your tribe and turn to them in these times.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Tamara Loehr: Ideas are everywhere. Timing is everything.
You don’t need a good idea, you need good timing.
PICK PICASSOS!
If you see an idea that has great timing, collaborate.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
Tamara Loehr: A course for my children to learn entrepreneurship. Schools teach them how to be employees and like I said, we need more entrepreneurs in the world.
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?
Tamara Loehr: Monday! Email is the most unproductive invention of our times. Monday is a project management system that keeps us all connected and ontrack. We spread across most continents so we need to keep things moving.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
Tamara Loehr: Mine of course! Ha, Ha. Seriously, Verne Harnish is one of my lecturers at EMP and his books are my business bibles. I’m a creative so I need a blueprint to follow. Scaling up is a key factor for how I get brands from under $500K to over $10M in 2 years.
What is your favorite quote?
Tamara Loehr: I like quotes from people I have spent quality time with, so I’m going with Warren Rustand:
You are not a success at business if you fail at home.
Key Learnings:
Tamara Loehr:
• It’s not about PR, it’s about taking time out to reflect and share.
• Experience sharing (not advice) is the best way to learn
• You don’t know what you don’t know: find a mentor and have a thirst for learning
• Your network is your net worth
• Define your values, be driven by passion and purpose and don’t waiver from this.
Originally published on Ideamensch.com
