Episode 15: The Secret Behind Hiring

0:08Hello everyone and welcome to another solo episode of Pretty Busy. Now as always I will always start with what's keeping me pretty and what's keeping me busy. This week's shout out for pretty is something that I got gifted months and months ago but only just started using this week and I'm obsessed with them. They're the YSL Love Shine Plumping Lip Oil. I didn't want to get that wrong because I was just going to tell you there was a lip gloss. And what's keeping me busy, particularly at the moment, is hiring. And that has what has really inspired today's episode, because hiring in your business, it doesn't matter how far along you are, whether you're starting a business, whether you're five years in, six years in like myself, it definitely gets easier, but it still continues to be one of the most challenging and intimidating things you can do in your business so I wanted to do a little episode on what I'd kind of do differently if I was building my team again I want to take you through the full odd news structure because the way in which we structure the odd news team now is so much better than before I just want to take you through some wins and mistakes that I've made in hiring.

1:24So let's dive into it. So like I said, I feel like hiring is definitely one of the hardest things you would do in your business and you are going to make mistakes. And I think especially when you are a founder-led brand, that adds like a whole new intimidating layer to it because I always say hiring is like dating sometimes it just doesn't work out and there's no real scandal in that it is just maybe your business isn't right for that person or that person isn't right for that your business and what I've learned over the years is to really kind of like recognize that sooner I genuinely feel like I've had such a positive experience hiring and even the mistakes I have made I think the one thing you learn in hiring is you just never make the same mistake again.

2:15So yeah, let's dive into it. So what does the odd news team actually look like? What is the full odd news structure? There is, there's around 60 people on the team, which is really crazy to go to bed at night and think about that there's like 60 people on my team. And the way in which it is structured out is we have our marketing team and within our marketing team now marketing is the biggest beast in the business so I want to roughly say that easily is about 40 % of the people within the business one thing I really should do another episode on is just how many areas of marketing there really is and when we implemented our brand director this year and I kind of said I said we've got this marketing team and she said to me well marketing is some is a word that means everything and then it therefore means nothing and that really stuck with me and what I see a lot at the moment a lot of people think marketing is just social media and you know you're a marketing expert if you're a social media expert and that is just not the case because most marketing experts have been in the field for like 10 to 20 years and they specialize in channels that we probably don't even know about.

3:36I think we're talking more about meta ads and we're talking more about email marketing but there are just so many streams to marketing. So within marketing we have a digital team and they run our paid ads, they run our website, they run all of our e-com imagery, they're looking at all different types of metrics across sites such as conversion sessions to site you know how many people are returning versus how many people are new customers they're really just like breaking down how many people are visiting who are visiting and who are the most quality of a customer and we also have a crm team so they're dealing with kind of email marketing and really kind of marketing to new customers and getting people to sign up to our mailing list and really just monetizing and monetizing that mailing list we have paid ad specialists I think digital and CRM cover the most but within that team that is where the most part of what news is and I've always had that even when the team hasn't been at 60 I feel like the marketing team have always just been that bigger team because there is so many kind of streams to marketing and then we have our product team so within product you have buying merch and design this particular team has always been the leanest in the business now this is because in the grand scheme of things we just don't release a lot of product we're definitely kind of ramping that up now i think a lot of people can see that but still when you compare us to other brands when you're looking at not even just your classic fast fashion brands but brands I'm really enjoyed at the moment such as Massimo Duty and Coz they are still seeing so many options every single week we just don't do that so that team is particularly light and I feel like that was a team I was most precious with because I had come from buying myself so I felt like I just knew buyers and I didn't really know too much about merch and design so they were like really intimidating hires for me but classically we have our buyers we have our merchandisers and we now have a designer in the team which is so amazing honestly because up until literally this year I've kind of just been like designing a concept in all the collections as odd muse was growing that really wasn't working because i was missing deadlines left right and center and what was actually happening as odd muse was growing is we was being onboarded by all these amazing wholesale partners now when you're on board with a wholesale partner you actually need to be even more organized because you need to be like showing your collections nearly up to a year before they go live so it really just wasn't working and now I work with a designer and that is just amazing and I'm very excited for that team to grow into you know a bridal designer maybe a knitwear designer I think the design team is one team that I'm very very excited to grow and a merchandiser we need a merchandiser so bad my buyers have been super women for the last five years and what we are working out now is we're not just an e-commerce brand.

7:02Like we said, we've got wholesale partners, we have stores, we have warehouses, we have a UK and US warehouse now. So when we place that order of stock, it is now very different to what it used to be. We used to place kind of like one order, put it all online and all these different people all over the world would just buy from that stock pot now we actually have to be super strategic with where we are placing this stock and making sure we have enough to facilitate the US growth that we want to do we have enough to facilitate our EU launch we have enough in the stores and that makes the job 10 times harder so we're now on board in a bit of a merch team which is super super exciting and also with odd news we replan a lot of our styles so you know the goal whenever we put any product out is that this product is going to live on site for years and years to come and you see that with your cap sleeve you see that with your square neck midi repen is a whole other ball game for merchandisers as well and making sure we constantly are maximizing the opportunity so your merchandisers really make sure you have a strategic amount of stock to sell and there's no missed opportunities so that's kind of like a product team and then we move into like an ops team which is our freight our wholesale logistics customer service the importing of the product and the customer service of the business is two huge jobs and then also there's loads of different logistical business things that go through that team we've got a retail team so obviously who manages our wholesale partnerships and our wholesale sales but also the stores uh you know the stores are businesses within themselves they constantly need replan we're you know always hiring in the stores we're always looking at how we can improve the stores but also use the stores as this kind of like events and invite and marketing environment but the one team that kind of sits across all of this is our leadership team So this is how this is kind of like separate to the teams, but this is how we structure the teams.

9:16So last year, I was predominantly running the business with managers. So we had a manager in buying, we had a manager in marketing, we had a manager in operations. And what I was realizing is I wasn't actually able to, you know, give them enough experience to grow in their roles. And it was just the time to bring in kind of experts in this field, because the one thing you're going to do when you're young and launching a business and hiring a team is hire loads of people the same age as you. And I always say, I genuinely think back in 2020, I found the best 22 year old girls. And the next era for that was hiring people that have been in the industry for a little bit longer that understand not only what they're doing, but also the levels and leadership.

10:09So we started introducing head of levels. So we now have a head of digital, which who runs the whole marketing team. So that's something that I introduced in 2025. And then as I was going into this year, and I think this is a big lesson with hiring. Don't just hire to what you need right now and hiring to your overwhelm, hire to where you see the business going next year. so I love I love to at the end of each year say like what is the next step for my team and I just saw such a benefit through hiring head offs because I feel like the girls that have been with me for a very long time learned so much from them and I feel like I learned so much from them so I kind of just wanted to take it a level up and that's when directors really come into the scene and a lot of people will say to me why haven't you got a CEO yet why why haven't you done a c-suite yet but I'm really enjoying just taking it slow so I started with managers I put in head ops and I do this all slowly and consciously for my team I want it to be as beneficial for them as it is for the business so 2026 really started with the director levels and that's when we got our managing director who actually runs retail finance buying like all the kind of operations like the logistical part and then we have our brand director who really kind of like leads marketing there's certainly some crossovers when it comes to product and retail and stuff like that and we all really work together as a senior leadership team but I think and I've mentioned this before in Pretty Busy that really changed the game for me because I felt like not only was I learning a lot but I just felt like so much was handled and when you're meeting with director level people you really start having conversations about what the next five to ten years started will look like and I think that's what I enjoyed the most because when you start a business you can barely look into next week and I want everyone to know that that's very very normal it creates the best reactive founders but there's something that about when I got into like my fifth sixth year of hiring when I'm having conversations with directors there's something very interesting about actually thinking about the longevity of your business and it's even more interesting for your team and it just means that everyone's together on the same goal because that's one thing that I felt like as my team grew I didn't really get a handle on like I was super super lucky while my business was so small me and my team even when there was like 20 of us we wasn't really having like strategy days or or development meetings or anything like future but we all just knew and I think as your business grows you can't really expect that to just continue throughout the team your communication has to be very intentional so yeah I think that's very important there is a lot of things that I've got wrong with building my team and I think the biggest thing for me has been leadership I've really struggled with leadership I am a devout people pleaser I always think I'm ruining someone's day when I give them the tiniest bit of feedback and that's what I've loved learning the most off of people and that's what I've loved implementing managers and leaders to really do because I also recognize that sometimes feedback from the woman that owns the business or the founder does feel a bit harsher and I always wanted to be an environment where things just feel constructive and for the business and not necessarily too personal so I think leadership is something that I really really struggled with one of my biggest regrets over the last couple of years really has been waiting to get those directors in and get these head offs in to really lead like I wish I would have put more time into growing that skill set and I really never set out to be a leader or even a manager and I just really, it makes me feel, I'm not even gonna say I don't like it because I love Odd Muse and I love everyone at Odd Muse.

14:24I just find it so intimidating and I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a good leader. So yeah, I just really wish that in the first couple of years of Odd Muse, even before I started a team, that I don't know, I just put a bit more time into how I could grow as a leader. I went straight into being a leader. I don't have 10 years corporate experience. I've never had experience with loads of different managers that can teach me about leadership. So I think if I had my time again, I would definitely just put a bit more time into whatever resources could have made me feel more comfortable and grow as a leader.

15:02Whether that's books, whether that's a course, whether that's, I don't know, a therapist or a life coach. I just wish I'd done a bit more for leadership. So I think that's one big bit of advice. You might feel totally comfortable managing, but if you're not, I would really put some time into it. Coca-Cola. For the big. For the small. The short. And the tall. Peacemakers. Risk takers. For the optimists. Pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola for everyone pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you that I think I would have hired more experience earlier I definitely think everyone in the early odd news years can vouch for just being in a position where we just felt a little bit out of our depths and we didn't know what to do my immediate one I think of is last year when you know the tariffs come into play and I'd realized that I'd lived my you know whole existence as odd muse not really looking into what is actually going on in the world and how that affects us because I was just running one warehouse from the UK and then all of a sudden I'm actually having to look into politics and and all these different stuff I've had my head in the sand for the longest time and how that affects my business and you know I actually ended up having three months last year where my New York store was completely empty because I just didn't know whether to trigger shipments or not and I was holding shipments in China I wasn't sending them to the US I just signed a permanent lease in New York and I think if I would have had that experience in the business it's not even I would have known what to do I would have spent the whole year before planning for that there were so many businesses that were very prepared for the tariffs and what that meant whether that meant importing loads of stock like a year or two's worth of stock into the US before these come into play like everyone had enough warning to prepare but I just wasn't putting that experience or knowledge into the business so I think hiring experience as soon as I can rather than kind of like assistance I'd really try and find that healthy balance and I think that goes to my next point I'd hire to where we are going not just where we are another one is I think I would make interviews harder a little bit sooner so I used to kind of like give anyone the job and just kind of go off like a bit of a vibe check which I believe is important to an extent I then kind of feel like I went the and complete other way and would hire to kind of like where they've worked before and their portfolio and just things they said in in the interview and not necessarily how would you gel into my team how are you going to fit into the odd muse culture so I think again a healthy balance between that you want someone that has all the experience that you want but also fits into your culture that's super super important and it actually does take a bit more digging it takes more than one conversation so the biggest example for this is social hire for like the creative social side of odd muse has hands down been the hardest thing to hire for now I think a lot of people just know me and Sophie as like the odd muse social people but a lot of what we do is more kind of like the fun kind of chaotic side of it we never went into kind of like a brand building an aesthetic creative build out that's been the hardest one for me to hire because that's something that I'm so precious about I've been running the odd news Instagram for six years now and it's always just been this channel that just we always say inspires and entertains people we've never like posted for the sake of it we don't like to go too product heavy and it's just so important to the business and I think social is just the hardest one to hire for because it is so different some brands are social led some brands just need their socials to be a really beautiful catalogue and also a lot of people get into socials and then thrive and go freelance and want to diversify across accounts like it is a very hard role to hire for and the thing is with creative and social is you have to keep up momentum it's not just like you have one good shoot you have to have like good shoots all the time and you have to just keep it constantly going so this time with hiring that person because I was like I really just want to land that real creative leader in odd muse because I want to work with someone that's one thing I've learned about myself in hiring as well like I don't love to do things individually like I love collaborating and I've always kind of like led the creative campaigns individually with this next hire instead of we done the task we done the first stage interview we done the second stage task and then we actually just invited to go out for a glass of wine that to me I feel like we've really landed the perfect person for the creative side of odd news and it made me so confident going into the hire because that is only hiring the business where I've had like one too many people and I just want to get it right in this sixth year so yeah sometimes hiring and the process can look a little bit unique to what that role is so don't think it's like a one-size-fits-all with how you hire but I think definitely making the interview process a little bit harder.

20:56I was so scared of tasks for so long because I just saw so many horror stories on TikTok of people who have done a task and not got the job and then made a horrible video. And that honestly, that's just where your mind goes when you are running a found lead brand. It might sound incredibly silly, but that's just where your mind goes because there is just a lot of people creating scandals. But I've kind of reintroduced task within reason I never like go crazy I never ask people to do a full strategy but just something to show me what they can do especially when it's a creative role and then you know if you just want to know that last little vibe check a coffee or even a glass of wine another one is I would actually take references a lot more seriously I think it's actually really really important to speak to a previous employer that's something that we literally never started doing until this year and I really don't know why I would also onboard people properly which sounds so silly but early founders are going to know that we hire to our overwhelm so by the time these people come in it's just very rush rush rush here's what we need to do now when people start we have like a welcome pack we take them through the brand book we take them through the strategy if they are kind kind of more of a manager level hire or a senior leadership level hire.

22:20They'll spend a lot of time with me or another director in those first few weeks. That was something that we just wasn't thinking to do too much before. Another thing is I'd give people more ownership earlier. Now delegating is 100 % one of the hardest things you'll do in your business. But again, that goes back to really wanting to, if I had my time again, kind of grow as a leader and look into how I could have developed that skill set early on because being able to delegate is one of the number one strengths of being a leader. I'd also deal with the wrong hire faster. It's not happened too much but I feel like when you have a gut instinct like I said earlier in the episode hiring is like dating if it doesn't feel right it's just much easier to address it there and then and it's the same if you're an employer if you're an employee sorry if you kind of are feeling that gut feeling with a company and you really feel like you've kind of give it your all moving on and addressing that quite quickly is actually the best thing for both parties and then I think I'm going to close this episode out with with just some first hires that I would make, because that's a number one question for me is, you know, you need to start growing your team.

23:46Where do you start? Starting is the hardest thing. It's terrifying. I promise you it continues to be terrifying. So you just need to kind of dive in with that. I think the first hire that I would hire, and this is what I did back in the day, was kind of like an operation slash founder assistant. Now, this isn't a classic PA. This is someone who is just an amazing generalist and I would really one thing I really don't regret in the early years is I was so open with people that were interviewing with me that I was a startup and this was not necessarily you know a set role where you're in a department and you're just doing this all day and I actually think that's really exciting but I'd always be very very open that every day is going to be different and some days are going to feel a little bit like oh I'm literally sending marketing emails out today while I'm doing customer service but it's kind of mirroring what the founder is doing and any early founders know that you're wearing all these hats and so I'd start with a founder assistant I think back in the day I called it brand support assistant but same same the second hire I would get is social and content because as a founder you're going to get whisked away in so many things but keeping that momentum up on social I think is very important especially today.

25:04Hire three I'd look at like product development and production so someone who can really just work with you on what products come in in the future constantly looking at what the next six months of product looks like but also actually organizing that samples and stuff with your suppliers again this was a really mixed role early years so this one person would be creating the CADs but also getting the samples in and putting the orders in and organizing the shipment. I'd get someone for your website so I set up my odd news site on Shopify myself but I definitely didn't maintain it and it was nice to get someone in quite early on to just maintain that.

25:44The next one is definitely finance so I think you need to get yourself an accountant from literally day one and but once you can develop into a finance role I think that's really important just even if it's just a bookkeeper and then the next one I would do kind of like a brand marketing manager again constantly looking at the next six months of marketing but making sure you're really educating people about your brand and not just your product and that's one thing odd news were very still remain very hot on we want to be a brand with personality not just product and then an ops person. I think as soon as you can like take that ops away from the actual product development, you're gonna find that the product can expand into something more creative with more organization behind it.

26:31And the ops can kind of just flow in the background with customer service taken care of. And that's kind of where I'd start. But I think I also wanna end the episode with a bit of a hiring hack that actually Stephen's team showed me, or it might've been Marissa from Perfect Ted, she showed me this, but it's a platform called juice box now this is basically like a chat gbt for people and this is really going to blow your mind guys but you can basically put in there that you want to hire i don't know a social media manager that lives in london that works in fashion that has over five years experience uh maybe has experience with in design or illustrator and not just kind of like your classic platforms and it will literally scale the whole of LinkedIn, Instagram, everything and it will shortlist you loads of different people that you can reach out to and we've made some really successful hires through that and I think as an employee that really teaches you to keep up with your LinkedIn because a lot of brands are really hiring from LinkedIn but they're also using platforms such as Juicebox but Juicebox has been literally amazing and even for like future hires that I've got coming up so we're maybe looking at getting a commercial director I've already been like shortlisting like my dream people from all these different companies and I just think that's been a real game changer for hiring so that's my little tip of the day oh I guess I can leave you with a little bit of homework and this is something that I used to do back in the day now before I had the means to hire you know the higher level more experienced people that I wanted to or maybe just the more broader assistance in marketing before kind of when my team was like really lean I would have a notion workbook and I would save down any job descriptions that I'd see on LinkedIn that companies I want to grow to be like were hiring for and I would literally copy and paste and just save it down for one day like having your future team and the job descriptions written down I think is really game-changing I also think it kind of manifests your dream team so I think that's your homework for the week what is kind of like your dream hires your dream kind of like structure whether that's building out a huge marketing team or an amazing product team or wherever you think you should start and whatever leaders and executives and assistants that you feel like you need in your team I think it would be really good to kind of like map out your fantasy team let's say I think that pretty much covers everything I've got to say in hiring but of course I'll answer any questions below and I will see you in the next episode of Pretty Busy.