YouSaid · the spoken record

Roxanne Quimby

lines on the record: 67
first: 2019-02-18
most recent: 2019-02-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, I was born on July 11th, which is 711 So I have felt lucky for a long time. I mean, you certainly have to work hard, but when I look back at some of the critical events that were part of the destiny of this adventure, I certainly couldn't have pulled those off. That had to be luck or divine intervention. And there's been so many of those and the right people came to me at the right time. That has got to be luck”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't pay that much attention to it, I guess. I certainly notice it when I'm at Whole Foods and I walk by the Berts Bees display. Always catches my eye. But I think I've let it go, you know, in many ways. I just, it's something apart from me now.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I have both of my children each are working, so they have responsibility for distributing funds every year to grantees according to the mission that makes sense to them. So I do have help. And I'm pretty spontaneous about the way I distribute grants. I don't have a real formal system. I just, you know, either it rings true to me or it doesn't.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I feel that I was the more responsible party. For managing wealth, I could do the right thing with it. And I don't know whether Bert would have really used it very productively. He came from a family that had some wealth, and he chose not to use it He didn't do anything to help the community with the wealth that he did have. And I felt like that was something that I could do and have been doing.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In a certain way, yes. I was about to visit him and my girlfriend went up to visit him the afternoon before I was planning to go And she called me to let me know that she didn't think he was going to last much longer. So we sort of had a phone. Correspondence, and he did actually pass away later that day, so I did miss seeing him in person. But I just remember him, you know, at his prime.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh yeah, I have. I was in love with Bert. And we went through a lot of changes together. Had this child, Bert's bees together, raised it up. Off it went. Still feel very, very close to Bert. I think about him a lot. Was quite an inspiration to me, a muse.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had been living on the land up there for years, so I knew it. And with most beauty care companies, a lot of money that they generate goes into advertising. I've heard even that twenty five cents of every dollar goes into advertising, so we didn't have that expense because guerrilla marketing and grassroots marketing is not very expensive. No. And we had put all the money we needed to into growing the business that still had excess cash. And I felt like we needed to find a very solid investment. And so land seemed to be rock solid to me.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Meantime, you were really starting to become passionate about conserving and preserving land starting in Maine. And you have given away a huge amount of your money by buying land in Maine and all over the country and giving it to... Federal government to Maine and other state agencies to develop parks. How did that sort of start to become your passion”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't live too differently. I have more freedom now than I did when I had no money. In a certain sense, I had a lot of freedom then also because I had nothing to lose.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, it was something that became somewhat routine after a while. Going to Big Box and drugstore chains didn't seem very exciting or creative to me, but it was clearly the next step. So I felt like it was time to turn it over to the professionals. And I just felt very constrained. I felt very disconnected from what originally was an inspiration for me.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We spent a lot of time focused on the consumer. So they would try the product, then they would want to go to the store and get a full size product, and they would ask for it. And if a customer asks for a product, that's a great sign. If your store ran out, the customer came back for more. It wasn't there. They would ask, hey, where's the bird's bees? So that kind of a pulling strategy from the consumer really helped a lot with growth. And there was a tipping point where it seemed that everybody knew about it. Went from nobody knowing about it to everybody knowing about it. And I'm not exactly sure what that tipping point was, but it took on a life of its own.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it was sort of a personal transgression that was very hurtful to me. And it kind of popped the bubble in a way. I took a lot of inspiration from Bert and his lifestyle and his authenticity and his independence. And I found him to be quite admirable. So, after the breakup, I lost a lot of inspiration.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well at one point before we left Maine we decided to pay ourselves thirty six thousand dollars a year. I didn't spend a lot of money. I didn't need a lot of money.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that it had to do with authenticity and Bert, but it also had to do with gender exploitation that the beauty products were I think they were known for. And as a woman who could never measure up. To this glamorous image that one found in mainstream cosmetics and beauty products that, you know, I felt like I don't want to do that to women. So we're going to put a picture of a guy that everybody is going to feel. More beautiful then.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had a great artist. He lives up here in Maine, and he did a woodcut portrait of Bert. And we started putting that on the package a few years into the program. And that was a very conscious decision to use Bert's face because I was, I guess, a little resentful of the way women were used. To market. Products And I saw some of the big cosmetics lines really exploiting the image of women and defining them through the advertising and packaging in a way that did not respect their full depth. So it was important for me not to follow that lead.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were doing a kind of a grassroots marketing. We would make little sample products and we were giving those away to people. We also had catalogs that were almost like a current day blog. It would be our products, but it would also talk a little bit about the company. I told stories about Bert and his dog. And some ingredient stories so people would follow the story. So that was kind of a thread that they would follow.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, it certainly wasn't a very sophisticated operation, and it wasn't a state-of-the-art factory. But it was doable. We used a lot of used equipment. We were making one of our products in a big mixer that Duke had in its cafeteria for mashed potatoes. And we had a bath salt that we were making in a cement mixer. So, you know, we hobbled it together.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So our expenses went way down. We were able to hire people who were trained in the industry and who had experience in that industry to come in and help ramp up production and computerize our office billings. There were just a lot more people down there that were trained to do those kinds of things.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The location was very difficult working in the extreme northeast corner of the country. Getting more centralized was important for bringing raw materials in and getting finished goods out. So North Carolina was much better situated in terms of being halfway between Maine and Florida and a direct shot out to the west coast on I-40. The geography was excellent. There were other cosmetic companies in the area. Revlon was about 15 miles away. The body shop was about thirty or forty miles away and there were a lot of pharmaceutical companies that use a lot of the same glass jars and caps and that sort of thing.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not that much, no, I can be. I have to be, but again, just going back to my artist true self, artists usually work alone. They're very comfortable, you know, writers and painters. And I like that myself.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a big sign over the production floor that said, look out, Elizabeth Arden. You know, I really felt like. If Elizabeth could do it, so could we.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I did. Yeah Suddenly, money became so important, not for what it would buy, but just because it was critical to the operation of the business. Keeping track of it. And there I was keeping track of the cash flow money in, money out, paying bills, sending bills. It was sort of a simple version of capitalism, which I had rejected years ago”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think because it wasn't scalable. And the skincare products, which were basically blending and filling, it was a very simple. Manufacturing process that could easily be scaled. And we were making handmade candles so to go to an automated system just required a lot more time, machinery and space and investment that I didn't feel would have the same return. So we dropped the candles.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“While we were making other products that were basically the same formula, we were making a furniture polish, which was wax and oil, and the boot food basically was wax and oil. And lip balm is basically wax and oil. And we put a couple of amenities in it like vitamin E and peppermint oil. But it was very clear that people were more interested in buying products for their skin and their lips and their face than they were buying products for their furniture and shoes. Sure. Sure. So once that became clear, we phased out of all of the other polishes that we were trying to sell and started focusing on skin. And we eventually stopped making candles as well.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was moving pretty quickly and we were every day was another problem that just had to be solved on the fly. Without enough resources or time because we were in a hurry trying to fill orders. So I didn't have a lot of time to think that I wasn't expecting this or I just kind of had a tiger by the tail. And I was hanging on for dear life.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But he was a prickly kind of guy. You know, he wasn't all warm and fuzzy. So, people, including myself, gave him kind of a wide berth. We divided up the work. He would collect all the overdue bills, you know, overdue accounts receivables. And he was a fixer when things broke down or needed maintenance. He was always willing to do that. And I was a very hands-on with the product development and getting the product made and shipped. So we had different roles.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that he probably wasn't as happy about it as I was. He had no use for any changes to his lifestyle. He didn't have children, for one thing.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It spilled all over the floor. Five gallons of the greasiest, smelliest, most horrible stuff. All over the floor. That was a pretty big plus the waist. I mean, we were selling it and couldn't bend.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember five gallons of a product we called boot food, which was a liquid combination of melted beeswax, neats foot oil and”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were learning a lot. Neither one of us had been involved in running and managing a business. So everything was trial and error, a lot of experimentation, a lot of fails. We went to the school of hard knocks.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After school, you know, he would pay the bills and he would do the payroll and he would make the deposit. And the day he had to make the deposit walk up to the bank, he would wear a suit. It was very important. Maintain our dignity at the bank. So he was our accountant. I would say he was more of a bookkeeper, but it's very serious and focused and responsible.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we had to start buying it. We had fifty hives, which was fine for a few years, and then we didn't produce enough ourselves, so we ended up buying other people's beeswax.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, he had kind of a stencil that he had painted onto every beehive that said Bert's bees because the bees were all over the countryside. You know, you couldn't keep them too close together. So we would have maybe 10 hives in a bee yard and maybe 10, 5, 10 miles away, there would be another bee yard with five or ten hives of bees. And on the hives he would stencil his name. So eventually it became Bert's bees.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Started to hire people slowly some of the local ladies would come in and give us a hand, but we were still in a building that was not really a place you'd want to have employees work.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The owner or one of his buying team. Must have come across us at a show somewhere, and he ordered our little teddy bear candle. It was a little molded candle in the shape of a teddy bear with a plaid bowtie under his chin. And he sold hundreds of them.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't remember exactly how our sales went in the 80s, but we were growing every year. My original goal was twenty thousand dollars in sales. And then when that goal was achieved, then I set another goal of a million dollars in sales. Wow. By the time my kids graduated from high school.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think I would say that. It was pretty exciting because I was maintaining my independence, using my sense of aesthetics and Making enough money to live on.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's simple. I don't know if it's easy. We had many disasters, but it is a simple process. You just heat it up and the beeswax separates from the honey and floats on top.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have a hot knife. And you uncap it with the hot knife. And the beeswax that was capping the honeycomb becomes Available to do whatever you want with it.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They have glands on their abdomen just like we have saliva glands showing. So their glands produce flat discs of beeswax, which they then build into their honeycomb.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, when you extract the honey out of the honeycomb, it's capped over with beeswax. The bees kind of cap it. So it doesn't drain out. So you have to uncap it, and you're cutting off the beeswax cappings. So that's your beeswax.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, not that good. I remember a really good show at the local junior high where it was $200 was the take of the day. That was a lot of money to me.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we did our best, I would say. We tried to make the packaging really cute that people would want to buy it. And honey is a pretty pure product. You don't have to. Sell it too much. Most people think of it as being very pure, no additives from nature. So we didn't have to really push that too much. I think we called it pure main honey.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Little squeezy shares. Refilled those up. Those were 12 ounces of honey instead of twelve pounds. Which is how he sold it.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, after the summer where I apprenticed with him, I suggested that we could package the honey in nicer containers and sell it at craft fairs. Little labels on them”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, actually tending to the bees. Okay. So I followed him around for a summer as an apprentice and did a lot of the heavy work hauling supers of honey around, extracting. I learned all about the bees and I got to work with Bert.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, oh, I was very attracted to him. He was kind of an inspiration for how one could live very independently and with their own unique set of rules. I was very inspired by his lifestyle.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was waitressing one night or two nights a week, and he used to stop in to use the payphone there. He didn't have a phone. And he lived the same way, no phone, no electricity. In a little tiny cabin that he had hauled over to his property. It was a turkey coop. Was quite proud of it In very, very. Eccentric hermit type of fellow.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I did meet him personally when he picked me up hitchhiking because I didn't have a car at the time. So I got to meet him, but I think I was vaguely aware of him just because he was one of the fixtures in the area.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, he looked like an old rabbi in a way. He had a long gray beard and long gray curly hair. And he was a bachelor and sold honey on the side of the road off the back of his pickup truck.”
2019-02-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT