By Melissa Grant
Celeste Robertson knows plenty about running a successful business.
The Geelong mum is the founder of natural beauty, skincare and lifestyle product retailer Natural Supply Co, which stocks over 80 brands and ships orders all over the world.
While Celeste built her beauty and lifestyle empire from the ground up, she says attending last year’s Small Business Festival changed how she was running her business.
Now Celeste is encouraging other Geelong business owners and entrepreneurs to check out this year’s Small Business Festival, which will bring more than 50 events to the region during August.
“The festival offers invaluable resources for small businesses like mine where you don’t have budget for training or one-on-one tips from experts and it’s local, rather than having to go to Melbourne or Sydney,” she said.
“It’s great to spend a day with other small business people in Geelong and learn what they are doing.”
Celeste said attending last year’s festival convinced her to set-up a chat function on her website. She also learnt valuable tips about measuring marketing and gained a better understanding of Google Analytics.
This year, she’s looking forward to discovering more ways to add value for her customers.
“I’m going to an event around customer value journeys because even though we’re online, I want the experience of shopping with us to be as personal as possible,” she said.
Celeste, who has a long career in the beauty industry, founded Natural Supply Co with her best friend Catherine in 2014.
She said the business idea came about after Catherine, who has MS, was researching natural products.
“She was looking up toxic-free nail polishes. She said ‘would you start up a business with me selling toxic free nail polishes online?’
“I said ‘it’s too niche. What if we just do a website selling natural products in general?’”
Natural Supply Co ships “natural and luxurious” products all around the world, including the US, New Zealand and Asia, and has a strong online presence, including more than Instagram 20,000 followers.
Catherine has left the business, which Celeste now runs out of her Highton home with the help of Sarah Scott.
Celeste said she loved the flexibility of working from home, but said it would be extremely difficult to attend a business event in Melbourne as she has a two-year-old son.
That’s another reason she said it was important for Geelong locals support the Small Business Festival.
“When you have kids you can’t get to Melbourne for a 9am session, but you can get somewhere in Geelong at 9am or 9.30am,” she said.
“It’s absolutely worth checking out the program. There are workshops, networking sessions, tips for managing expansion – there is something for every size business.
“I want people to support events like this because if they don’t then they won’t keep happening.”
To discover what events are being held in Geelong during August, visit the Small Business Festival website
