Photo: Courtesy of Jamie Kern Lima
It’s not easy to cope with rejection. No matter how many times you hear “no,” it never gets any easier to swallow. But learning how to deal with and overcome rejection is essential if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur. And nobody knows this better than IT Cosmetics founder Jamie Kern Lima. Before the ubiquitous beauty brand became the household name that it is today, Jamie pitched IT Cosmetics to retailers for three years (!) before she got a “yes.”
And it’s safe to say her persistence has paid off. Today, IT Cosmetics has over 1,000 employees and is one of the largest makeup brands in the country, not to mention one of the top-selling brands at Sephora, ULTA, and QVC. And Jamie has been named on the 2020 Forbes Richest Self-Made Women list, Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs, and WWD’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Beauty. Essentially, her success is a testament to why you should never take “no” for an answer.
In this episode of WorkParty, host Jaclyn Johnson sits down with Jamie to chat about how she cultivated confidence in the face of rejection, overcame self-doubt, and built a veritable beauty empire.
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On launching IT Cosmetics…
“I knew nobody in the beauty industry, and I knew nothing about how to start and scale a makeup company.”
“My husband and I wrote the business plan for IT Cosmetics on our honeymoon flight. Got back, quit our jobs, and dove all in.”
On facing rejection…
“The first three years of the brand were really hard.”
“I would send products to Sephora, Ulta, QVC, and the department stores and every single one of them said ‘no.’”
“I couldn’t afford to pay myself for the first three years and we got down to under $1,000 in our personal and business bank account.”
On IT Cosmetics becoming the #1 luxury makeup brand in the U.S.…
“This company that I created in my living room with close to no money is now larger than all of those brands that I used to save my Denny’s tip money to buy.”
On tuning out the noise…
“There is so much noise all around us, from our own self-doubt and our own inner critic to other people’s opinions.”
“The dial of the volume is so loud that we don’t know how to hear our own gut anymore and we second guess it.”
On coping with the “no’s”…
“Our humanness wants to take it personally when someone tells us that we’re not the right fit or your vision isn’t going to work.”
“No matter what kind of rejection I got, I made the decision not to take it personally.”
On believing in yourself…
“Learning to believe in yourself and trust yourself are the only ways to become the person you’re born to be.”
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