We recently connected with Rhonda Daniels and have shared our conversation below.

Rhonda, appreciate you joining us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

April 2024 marks four years since the ideation of Natural Radiant Life began. At that time, it didn’t have a name, just a concept. Our first two years in business, we tried to be all things to all people. What we later realized is, we are our ideal customer and we should have been more targeted in our approach. In trying to be all things, our first two years in business were slower, in my opinion, than they would have been if we were more focused, targeted and intentional in our marketing messages.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Chicago native who attended Florida A&M University earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and then earned my MBA with a Finance and Marketing concentration from Pennsylvania State University. While at FAMU I became a member of the Beta Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

I spent many years in the corporate arena where I gained significant startup, growth management, and entrepreneurial experience having successfully launched several companies and led corporate sales, business development, marketing, and operations.

Now, as CEO of Natural Radiant Life, a vegan, clean, and organic skincare company that harnesses the power of 100% whole-food ingredients to create waterless formulas for Women of Color, I get to live out my dream once again by owning the own business and working with two good friends, my co-founders LaKesha Gage-Woodard, and Sherry D. Fields.

Natural Radiant Life was born out of the collision of preparation and opportunity. I as laid off in January in 2020 and decided to use this “setback” as a sign to take the leap of faith and do something I’d always wanted to do – own my own business. The product line was created for women to want to fight the signs of aging, like me, but want to do it without harsh chemicals. It is from this deep desire that company was formed. Our products are designed to help nourish, heal and transform the skin.

I am particularly proud of the work we’ve done to educate women on the importance of reading labels and understanding what is in the products they put on their bodies and the glowing reviews we get from our customers.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When Natural Radiant Life was launched in September 2020, we began as a D2C business with an affiliate model. We were confident that customers would want to share their affiliate link and make a little money for doing so. We conducted trainings, and created incentives to make it work for the affiliates. After the year and a half, we realized the model was not working. Not only that, our packaging was not up to par if we wanted to be on retail shelves. We conferred with our marketing agency and after careful discussion, decided we needed to “relaunch” Natural Radiant Life in the fall of 2022. This relaunch took three months and essentially brought the business to a bit of a halt. However, three months later, armed with a new logo, new packaging, new target market with clear messages, new customer loyalty program and a new website, we launched the “new” Natural Radiant Life. The process was not easy and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, but the customer response and subsequent sales spike made it all worth it.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I am a firm believer in utilizing owned channels such as email and sms to build brand loyalty. At Natural Radiant Life, we’ve built out robust email and sms marketing to stay in touch with our customers. We focus on product education, skincare knowledge as well as promotions and sales. We have a customer loyalty program that rewards our top customers and we use email/sms to bring special promotions to them that are not available to the general audience. Additionally, we use our customers to help us generate UGC by offering free product in exchange for photos, reviews and the ability to use their images in our marketing collateral. Our local customers are often used for focus groups and/or photo shoots. All of these actions help to endear our customers to the brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.naturalradiantlife.com
• Instagram: @naturalradiantlife
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalradiantlife

Image Credits
Paul Hairlson Photography