We were lucky to catch up with Saundra Murray recently and have shared our conversation below.

Saundra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

I believe family owned businesses are the back bone to most industries. With family I feel as though there is or at least should be a sense of loyalty, knowing you’re building for the future generations to come encourages the long-term thinking needed for growth and success in your business. During hard times due to that strong personal bond most families tend to stick together and show that determination needed to continue running a successful business. In a family business I believe you tend to be more committed to the success of the business and more passionate about what the business stands for.

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?

My business was initially started by my mother. She suffered with eczema all of her life, when she realized everything that had been prescribed for usage by her doctor didn’t’t actually work for her she began her research into natural ingredients for black skin and eczema. She quickly saw a change in her skin and decided to teach me how to properly create it as well. Her recipes quickly became all we used in our household and family members were asking for more and more. One day my mother told me to take some of those products to school and sell them, of course I was scared because who would really buy something created in someone’s house. I began taking the products to school and my mother said to me “you can keep the money for everything you sell”. I soon became eager to go to school everyday and sell the products, to my surprise the products were a hit! My mother and I would make body butters from scratch each evening for me to take to school. I began my freshman year in college where I studied chemistry, as the time went on I realized how much I was actually invested in skin care myself. My mother again challenged me to sell our recipes on my college campus. It became so easy for me to sell the products because of how much I grew to love skin care and helping people with skin care issues. When I returned home for break this is when she finally came up with the idea for me to start a legitimate business. As my love for skin care grew I began looking into what products were actually on the market that was targeted for black skin, when I came to the realization that we really had no products specifically for us, my mother and I decided to go back to the drawing board and research how to create soaps, we looked into what ingredients would work and what we should stay away from. We now own a business that specializes in the creation of natural soaps, shower gels, body scrubs, oils, and of course our infamous body butters that we started out with. Our products were created to help ease eczema flare-ups, heed dry skin, help with sebum control in oily skin, help with hyperpigmentation and of course provide beautiful scents for those who just love to feel good about themselves. I think what sets us apart from others is our motivation for excellent customer experience with every person who trusts us in making a purchase. Our main goal is to always be honest and fair. Also, we never sell anything we wouldn’t use ourselves. All of our batches are tested in house on multiple skin types to ensure safety for anyone who may come in contact with our products.
What I am most proud of is taking the initial step and trusting my mother with the idea for me to start selling our recipes. Without her there would have been that push to go outside of my comfort zone, start a business and I would have never had the opportunity to be here today sharing our experience with you guys today.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What I believe helped with building my reputation was marketing the products as I used them myself. I believe this is what made my customers know that I was serious about how well the products actually worked because I used them faithfully myself! The scents from our body butters were bold and lasted all day which I always marketed and could prove by wearing the products when I was in school first selling them from my lunchbox. I gained their trust by offering full refunds if my customers were not completely satisfied or believed what I marketed that specific product to do didn’t actually happen for them. My mother and I always took note of what our customers concerns were whether it be adding something special for them in the batch they were purchasing, customizing scents for special occasions, and even giving testers to ensure they would would fall in love with the product before committing to a large order.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

I actually met my cofounder/business partner when she gave birth to me! Now of course I had no idea she would be a cofounder or a business partner when I initially met her however, I couldn’t be any happier with who she is. I wouldn’t have known how passionate I was about skin care and running businesses at all had it not been for my mother pushing me off the edge and reminding me every step of the way that she would be right there to catch me if I fell.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.renewbysaundra.com
• Instagram: @renewbysaundra