We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alex Bell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alex below.

Alex, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

I think in the Bath, Body and Cosmetic industry, the big brands really miss out on creativity and empowerment. When I started my brand it really was a space of creativity at first and I started to see the impact and the opportunities available to educate not just my customers, but customers everywhere. Giving them the tools and the knowledge to not only know what products they are consuming, but how those products impact communities on a global scale.

I had a customer tell me recently, that through the work we do here at archer+alex and what we call our Brat Pack – they have been able to make better decisions about the brands and products they are inviting into their homes, ultimately bettering their family unit. This also helped them to uncover this entire network of local businesses and creators and bringing their support from national chains or “big business” back to their community and invest in the development of their community.

I think that’s where the real mistake of Corporate America is, they forget about the community. It’s a missed opportunity and hopefully one we small businesses can start to bridge that gap in greater numbers.

Alex, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Absolutely! So my name is Alex Bell, I’m currently residing in Lawrence, Kansas and I’m the owner and lead maker at archer+alex.

My brand is pioneering sustainable bath, body and home products, but doing it through the lens of Mindfully Made. Never Boring.

I’m really proud of being a brand that produces products to be of zero to minimal waste – with all of our products being minimally packaged with recyclable components or by creating unique products to remove bulky packaging – much like my Solid Sugar Scrubs and others.

But outside of the product, I want to empower customers to make wise decisions about the products they are consuming, their impact on their and their communities’ well being and by using social media to create spaces where folks feel seen, safe, and heard – “holding space” for folks to decompress from the world around us.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When I started marketing archer+alex I created a brand that I thought consumers would want. Something that I felt mass markets would connect with and I really turned away from what my gut was saying to turn up the volume and make some noise.

My first three collections were a testament to that line of thinking. It wasn’t until I experienced some major burn out with my brand and the course of the marketing that I decided to trust my gut. Take a leap of faith and slowly start adding my “flavor,” my point of view, that uhhhhh uhhhhh to the brand that I started meeting the folks I was trying to connect with. I started seeing the opportunities that I had on my goal boards. For your business nerds out there, KPIs I had set for myself started being achievable.

Then I launched my collection “The Lonely Hearts Club” and that campaign, that collection changed my life forever. I found my community, my brat pack, and it’s been a marathon ever since.

Take a risk. Build trust. Keep it simple. Have a hook. Show your differentiator.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

So I started creating soap in 2019, it started as a YouTube rabbit hole and after that first batch I was hooked. Every product created at archer+alex is manufactured or as I say batched in house. As I have started to expand my product line everything comes in as a raw material and gets transformed into the end product.

One of the biggest lessons I learned, especially as a small maker, was to start small. Always try your idea at a small scale before you lose your head at a batch going wrong. My YouTube has been a portfolio of my too much gene taking over and getting ahead of my skis and having a batch of soap or a bath bomb literally hand my stick blender to me.

It’s easy to get excited and want to do the big batch or the big push, but start small. Make tweaks while you’re spending cents – to avoid making mistakes while you’re spending dollars.

If you’re in the bath and body or cosmetic industry – another wise lesson is don’t be afraid of an off the shelf component. With a cutting machine, a too much gene, and a vision all things are possible. Custom tooling is out of reach for a lot of us, but add a little razzle dazzle in your own way and your customers are going to love it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://archeralex.shop
• Instagram: @archeralex.shop
• Facebook: @archeralex.shop
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@archeralex-shop/
• Other: TikTok: @archeralex.shop

Image Credits
Alex Bell (archer+alex)