Mayella ® Organics: Inspired by their love of Nature and holistic health, Mother & daughter team Robyn Carrington & Amanda Parker co-founded Mayella Organics over 12years ago. Formulating a range of wholefood nutrition, natural skincare and herbal teas and building together an ethical brand that features quality, efficacy and purity has been a rewarding journey they thrive on.
One of their mantra’s Nourish to Flourish promotes their focus on encouraging self-care on a daily basis.
Robyn & Amanda share the same values and goals on quality, sustainability, purity and efficacy with the entire range and brand based on the bountiful gifts of Mother Nature. Cultures and communities have been farming and using plants medicinally and as food for millenia, with a historical knowledge and a deep respect for their properties. Blending the bounty of Mother Nature’s pantry with the science that supports the outcomes, is the alchemy of Mayella products.
Family health and wellbeing was one of the dominant motivators in founding Mayella and to get serious about their combined abilities in the early days. This step was in response to Amanda’s children experiencing childhood allergies and skin sensitivities to some foods and also many of the personal care products available on the market. She was often sharing blends she had made herself for the family with others to support their needs.
Conversations with friends and other parents about the challenges they felt highlighted the gray area and lack of guidance many parents felt in knowing how to make what they felt confident in to be good choices around diet, skincare, health issues and supporting young growing bodies. Conversations also circled around keeping up themselves as parents, in feeling well and energetic with the busyness that is family and work life.
Not being able to easily source some of the quality supplements or skincare that would support clients or their own family led Robyn and Amanda to the epiphany moment where they literally turned and said to each other: “Why don’t we put all our knowledge into creating a range of honestly good products”. This then became the next step in being able to better support family & clients as well as the wider community in building the family business that is Mayella, now with a dedicated customer base and worldwide distribution. That sounds easy but in reality it required a lot of work creating a structure, sharing what we knew past the trust we had with clients and local community. Plus learning a whole lot of new skills in online marketing, media, SEO and website development. Fortunately we have never lost the love of doing what we love. There is also the distinct advantage of being in an industry that revolves around health, wellness, cutting edge science and advanced techniques in all things plant science to sustain oneself – Nourish to Flourish!
Australian made is globally highly respected and valued for quality and the clean environment that makes Australia uniquely desirable. Amanda’s young children and Robyn’s grandchildren have always been an integral part of the business, sitting at the heart of everything driving Mayella. In celebration of our 10year anniversary we co-created with artisan Daria DiCelli an animation that reflected our relationship in working with Mother Nature and manufacturing of our brand. We wanted to express what was in our hearts and the alchemy that is Mayella. Amanda’s children Joel & Sophie feature – Sophie Mayella is the namesake of our brand as chosen by Grandma. As does our 9year strong relationship with brand ambassador, international actress, Jessica Green feature with her beloved parrot Pepito. It’s the little things that make the whole adventure feel so blessed, even on the crazy days we manage a laugh.
Robyn’s entrepreneurial background in business and the luxury spa industry gave her a deep understanding in the value of self-care and restoration as a foundation ethic to Mayella. She is both an intellectual and the “wind beneath the wings” of Mayella, an intrinsic part of the company structures and evolution. She communicated the desire for the luxury feel to come through in the way people enjoyed our products, everyday. Creating home spa and self care routines with Mayella.
CoFounder Amanda is a practicing Aesthetician and Holistic Therapist for over 33 years now. Working one on one together with her clients, as part of treatments to care for skin, injury or aching muscles, athletes and training programs, PTSD, stress, fertility and pregnancy, menopause and so on would involve talking about what foods, supplements, herbal teas, exercises etc would benefit their wellbeing and help them reach their skin, mental, emotional & physical health goals. In her clinical process and treatments, it has always been about finding the inside and out balance, a healthy relationship with the gut / skin axis and mental /emotional bodies in creating abundant health and energy to heal and thrive. Mayella embraces all of these aspects of what it means to live your best life, with a holistic approach to the inner and outer balance required to enjoy good health and vitality.
The challenges the business/ market is facing: A personal challenge we constantly face is one of patience. Being patient in the process of creation, the actualization of a business direction or releasing of new products for example can sometimes be trying as we are in the creative stage of a concept or new product but it is always worth the challenge to stay in the passion as we “patiently” follow the process and achieve the goal and is always reflected in better outcomes!
In the early days, scaling from the client / practitioner communication in a clinical environment and maintaining the personal level of communication, trust, integrity that is held in that space to a wider community that is global has been a learning curve and is constantly challenging. Gaining certification as palm oil free and being blessed with several international awards that reflect the quality and efficacy of our products is one avenue in which we have been able to communicate our brand to consumers.
Health & Beauty is an extremely competitive market led by big budget corporations with huge marketing budgets. We choose not to compete in that arena, but stay with our roots as a family business -think small fish swimming in a big sea. Small fish tend to swim in a school and we have always appreciated our community. We have learnt that the value of community and like – minded networks in business with reaching our customers and also building a team of extended professionals around us holds longevity and is also a lot of fun!
As a global operator, we cannot go past the challenge of the past few years in operation as countries have had to work on macro & micro levels through so much. Global logistics and increased costs with shipping has been a constant challenge across both bulk movement of ingredients and customer orders.
We have been extremely grateful for the depth of our relationships with suppliers, trading partners and our customers. Because of these relationships we are now facing the challenge of staying true to our roots as we work to scale up our infrastructures to support the growth we have mapped out.
The opportunities the business / market is facing: One of the many silver linings of the disruption, health crisis and unprecedented times the world has been facing these last few years, has been an increase by the general population in awareness of their health and personal wellness. This movement to better self-care and a health focus in a day-to-day wellness sense has become a much more familiar friend for the general population, which is incredibly exciting. We have been so happy to see a growth past the usual percentage of motivated people wanting to find and be choosing as first preference eco, sustainable, natural, toxic chemical free, organic, pure and clean ingredients and health supporting products over the more processed, cheaper and commercial products. The conscious consumer. We see there has been an expansion of awareness by people in seeing the value of investing in clean beauty skincare, nutrient rich health food supplements and the direct reward that comes with this = better health and a realisation that health and wellness is real and achievable by what you choose to do daily. Even finding it’s not time consuming or hard to do – it’s even fun, sensory, delicious and creative.
So to support this growing healthy self-awareness, we have continued to increase our focus and adapt to help educate people new to daily health essentials such as herbal teas and using a blender, making smoothies and smoothie bowls at home. As well as educating in the simple things such as the importance of your home skincare routine, to see that this can be a dedicated time out or enjoyed as a self-love meditation. We enjoy helping people to connect with calm through their own TLC routines and embrace sensory de-stress rituals. EBooks, e-newsletters and our blogs are an intrinsic part of that education and support system. Being there for people and helping them to connect with healthy self-care amongst the pandemic and out the other side has become a louder part of our business. And kind of brings us back full circle more strongly to our roots as a practitioner, our clinical healthcare therapies and the personal service aspect we enjoy but on a global community level.
There is still a long way to go, but we see an opportunity for our business to do more good by reaching deeper into the market that is emerging from the pandemic in support of raising the general populations awareness around what is in their power to do daily that will bring them better health, happiness, wellbeing. And providing honestly good products to support. We’re passionate about this and continue to inspire and grow our community with the values we hold close to our hearts. It is so rewarding to see people embracing what we have to share and seeing how our products help them to thrive in their busy lives. Glowing skin, abundant health and true wellness is a holistic practice and one we feel everyone deserves to experience.
Advice to others about business: Stay true to you! Be authentic in your goals and purpose. It is difficult in today’s fast paced world not to be swept up into the rollercoaster ride of constantly “doing better” or “doing what they’re doing, it looks successful ” in an effort to be successful or simply fit the dominant market mold. One of the hardest things to be mindful of in business is to remember why you started, to acknowledge yourself each day, acknowledge the wins no matter how small, recognize how far you’ve come, and that even on the average days you are on the road of being where you want to be.
It is a delicate balance of staying in your own lane and there is power in learning from each other in business and having a community or network of colleagues, mentors, advisors & creative people around you to support & inspire mentally and emotionally, build strong foundations and stay on track – this is gold as a business owner.
A valuable skill learnt on our journey from the early days is how to delegate -you simply can’t do everything yourself! Burnout and adrenal fatigue follows the 24/7 ride that is a family business if some level of balance isn’t embraced early on. Having a young family in the early days of growing Mayella was sometimes conflicting when deadlines and school events clashed. Family first written into our office culture was both a stabilizer and empowering to remaining true to ourselves. This rippled out to the extended team as well which created loyalty and a positive workplace, extended team as family culture.
Having confidence in your team and an ability to positively communicate what goes on in your head as a creative and a team leader is an integral part of what makes a business successful. Maintaining a respectful open door and clear avenues of communication support transparent outcomes and satisfying team outcomes. Those days where you kick a goal together as a team is so satisfying!
A long time mentor shared with us in the early days a tool of creating a calendar with both short and long-term goals. This has been such a fantastic tool to work alongside over the years, enabling a step-by-step process to maintain momentum and stay focused on the things that matter.
Finally, believe in yourself and don’t be afraid to ask questions!
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