Beauty brand consultant and QVC presenter Alison Young explains why taking advantage of every industry opportunity is best the way to grow your skills and knowledge

Career Path

How to make it as a…

1. Be open to all opportunities

“The only person who can limit your career is you. I went into beauty because I just couldn’t see what a university degree in history or geography would do for me after three years, but a beauty qualification can be used in so many different ways; the industry is so diverse. “I’ve been a salon therapist, celebrity facialist, worked for both professional and retail brands, developed products and treatments, been a lecturer and I’m on TV. But I didn’t have a goal, there wasn’t an obvious career path.”

2. It takes decades of experience

“To get where I am, I’ve done every role that there is in the industry and I haven’t just done it on a surface level, I’ve been right in there writing the manuals, designing treatments, training, developing and launching product lines, visiting the factories. It’s all that experience that you can then pass on as a brand consultant, whether I’m designing a facial for someone or consulting to take them from an amazing therapy brand to delivering commercially.

“It’s taken me decades – you can’t jump the gun and you can’t plan it, I just do whatever I do to the best of my ability at every stage and that opens doors and opportunities. It’s about going above and beyond in every situation.”

3. It’s about finding a USP

“Brands are always receptive because I don’t point out their problems, much like if I was with a client on the treatment couch. Consultancy isn’t about highlighting the negatives – normally the brand knows what its problems are; they’re not selling, or aren’t in enough doors, and so on.

“I tell them what their strengths are and find USPs they didn’t know they had. Often brands don’t know their own benefits and it takes someone on the outside with no agenda to see them. If I’m brought in for consultancy, I just want to maximise the brand, whatever it is, and make sure it’s working to its potential.”

4. Choose brands carefully

“If I think a brand is unethical I won’t work with them. It doesn’t tend to happen at the levels I’m working at now, but I’ve had situations in the past where I’ve been asked to design treatment manuals and training programmes, but the company wants me to just copy another brand. “I say to them, ‘I’ll create a unique story but I’m not telling you what another brand did’. I have to help brands understand where they are and where they can and can’t be.”

5. Everything comes back to the customer

“When I’m doing a product formulation, ultimately it’s for the customer, not for the marketing of the brand or the image. That customer might not want to buy a pot that’s more expensive than the product inside, whereas a different customer of another brand with the bigger marketing team and the money might, because they want that image. I come from the treatment room and I know what a product means to clients. It has to perform. The desired end result is always a satisfied customer.” PB

Alison Young’s newly created consultancy business is called Alison Young Consulting. She is known as The Beauty Knowledge on social media and on her website alisonyoungbeauty.com