We were lucky to catch up with Shannon Rhodes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shannon , thanks for joining us today. Have you ever had an amazing boss? What did you learn from them? Maybe you can share a story that illustrates the kind of boss they were or maybe you can share your thoughts on what you think made them an awesome person to work for?

I had a manager early in my career who was instrumental in my journey to becoming the leader that I am today. To protect this person’s privacy, let’s call her Ellen.

Ellen wasn’t just a manager, but a fantastic teacher. When we were making decisions on a regular basis, she didn’t just reference the company manuals. She didn’t just leave us on our own to figure things out. Instead, she actively taught me and my fellow colleagues; she made us think for ourselves when situations arose that we didn’t not know how to navigate. Ellen constantly prompted us to explain our reasoning when we did make a decision. And in turn, she would do the same. The respect she gave to us as her team was unprecedented to me at the time, particularly since I came from a very authoritarian family, where those in power were not to be questioned.

And one of Ellen’s greatest pieces of advice still sticks with me today. One day, I’d asked her why she was going above and beyond to teach us everything she knew. She replied, “if you’re not replaceable, you are not promotable”. I always thought this was an interesting take on management and upward trajectories within corporations. The usual story is that someone excludes others from knowing the intricacies of their work in order to maintain some sort of competitive advantage. But Ellen made me think differently!

Shannon , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a wife, mother, author and entrepreneur who has recently become an empty nester. The idea for Pure Rhodes came to me in a dream because I wanted to do more with my life and make a difference in others. In this dream was revealed a vision to create handmade bar soaps with a meditational prayer included with each bar. Pure Rhodes has since expanded into creating other non-toxic and clean beauty products while teaching others about the “Clean Beauty Movement”.

Pure Rhodes is committed to bringing our consumers safe and “clean” products for all of their beauty needs. On average, women are exposed daily to 168 chemical ingredients and men are exposed to 85 unique chemicals. This is a major concern when it comes to our health and longevity. Because of this, our children are repeatedly being exposed to known toxins which cause cancer, infertility and even death through the use of simple household products.

Our products are made w/o any of the known ingredients that will cause harm to you or your family’s health. Each of our products is labeled for 100% ingredient transparency to help you decide with confidence the self-care products best for your family.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Like many people, we started small. We focused on posting photos of our products on Facebook and Instagram. Our products were beautiful, so of course they needed to be displayed online! It was also comfortable for us to talk about the things we sell vs. who we were. Over time, as we got used to the vulnerability that posting on social media (and waiting for interactions!) required, we began to venture into different kinds of posts, particularly the ones that are more personal, descriptive of who we are as company owners. We created different pages as well, so that we could direct people clearly to the things they wanted to see–soap, life coaching, etc.

As for advice for those just starting out, I’d recommend very strongly that people start with what they have! Managing social media is something that certainly gets more comfortable with experience, and I remember when I started out, I was consistently comparing myself to the sophistication I saw in other posts/accounts. It was helpful for me to realize that starting somewhere was better than spending way too much time trying to create high-production advertisements…and slowly, we started to get a sense of what worked and what didn’t work through experience, which in my opinion is the best teacher. As we expanded, we did eventually hire a marketing consultant to make sure our total marketing and social media presence conveyed attributes of the company that we aspired to be. It was great having that outside critical perspective to analyze some of the work we’d done hodge-podge over the years.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Our team is small right now (mostly me, my co-owner, and a few family members who help when we need it). But we apply many of the same principles that we both learned in our corporate jobs, when we were required to work with teams 10x the size of what we have now. It’s good practice!

I think it is incredibly important to hire the right people. I know everyone says that, but it is true! I always think about how I can get people to apply their best skills in a way that helps our company grow, but also helps our people continue to hone their crafts. We also recognize that people have shifting motivations–we are not automatons and any given day, we can be given over to the tides of the day. It’s important to recognize humans are not machines and to give them the flexibility to address life issues, work when they are feeling the most creative, and to always be open to feedback. Without our people, we are truly nothing, so we want to make sure we enable them (and ourselves) to be collectively successful. At times, we’ve made decisions that are “bad” for business, but I think that kind of mindset is antiquated–the only thing bad for business is a burnt out, unhappy workforce interacting with our clients!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.purerhodes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/purerhodes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/PureRhodes/about/