We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aston LaFon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Aston, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?

Pitch less and ask more questions. In sales, its fairly easy to bombard your customers with features, benefits and technical details that make your product the best thing ever but, it’s far more powerful to ask your customers questions that when answered, will reveal your product as the solution they didn’t even know they needed.

Be yourself because, nobody does you…like you. I often find that sales people are full of energy, charismatic & fun and then completely adopt a far less interesting persona in front of customers. I find it best to encourage teammates to feel self assured about being their genuine selves at all times, and customers will find that to feel far more genuine and trustworthy.

Aston, 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?

Since 2014, I’ve been the Co-Founder and VP of Brand & Sales for a men’s grooming brand called 18.21 Man Made. 18.21 is a top shelf brand that empowers barbers, stylists and men alike through professional grade grooming products and lifestyle wisdom.

I’ve helped grow some great brands in the pro-beauty business but I’m best known for being one of the founders of 18.21 Man Made. As the Co-Founder and VP of Brand & Sales for 18.21, I’m responsible for establishing and achieving the sales & marketing goals of the business.

Prior to 18.21, I worked on the sales & brand side of the pro-beauty business for nearly 25 years. Over the years, I’ve branded, created, distributed or imported brands such as Enjoy, Lakme, Reverie, Verb and more.

I’ve earned a reputation within the pro-beauty industry as someone that can be relied upon to help create, grow or nourish brands and for being a strong creative with a knack for designing things that will stand out from the crowd.

I’m continually looking for voids and thinking about uncommon solutions to fill those voids. And all of my ideas can’t be good so I tend to draw inspiration from anything and anyone.

With 18.21, it was my wife Kaja Gybasova that said “you’re a dude, you should make dude stuff” and she was so right. Digging deeper into the men’s grooming landscape revealed a strong opportunity for innovation and a market that was eagerly awaiting something to support their finer tastes & aspirations.

I’m so proud of our team for creating and growing a brand that empowers others to feel confident and self-assured. I love our customers, they’ve fueled our passion, our growth and have kept the dream alive. A customer once told me that he met the love of his life because, she sniffed his 18.21 Sweet Tobacco scent and had to say hello. Is there anything better than that?

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?

Every year we exhibit at a beauty trade show called Cosmoprof North America in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s always a great show and we usually establish several key customers with every exhibition.

A few years back, the show organizers setup a “speed dating” style session whereas, our brand would get a few minutes to quickly pitch a mix of distributors and retailers. One if which, was Ulta.

When the Ulta buyers dropped in to meet with us, their initial reaction was “oh, this is a Mens brand, we don’t need that at the moment” but, we completely ignored that comment, gave them a friendly greeting, asked who they were and to tell us a bit about their business. Which, I don’t think they hear very often.

I asked a few more questions and learned more about what worked really well Ulta, what might not be working and what voids may exist that could lead to growth opportunities.

We then offered a quick pitch of our top shelf mens grooming goods for the aspiring gentleman, talked about what made them special, why customers love them, how they are both ownable and giftable, how they would fit in to their assortment and called out that there isn’t a nationwide retailer that really owns the premium men’s grooming space.

We asked Ulta if they had a strong brand like 18.21, could they become that premium mens grooming destination?

We had a genuine interest in learning more about their business, uncovered a growth opportunity and presented our brand as the ideal partner to help support that growth.

They are now our top retail customer and we are super grateful for that!

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My colleagues would probably say that I’m an enabling leader that unifies the team around common goals, strives to inspire others through my actions and empowers others to be themselves and do their best.

As a career philosophy, I believe in being honest, genuine, gracious, nurturing and enabling. I’m never complacent, always learning and try to continually improve.

Successes and failures will happen and I encourage the team to take pride on their achievements and when things don’t work out, take comfort in knowing that you gave it your best effort, learn from the experience and move forward. I try really hard to not spend too much time looking back because, what’s done is done and I’m far more interested in what’s next.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.1821manmade.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/1821manmade
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/1821manmade
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/1821manmade
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/1821manmade

Image Credits
Kelsey Lawrence