How to Build a Global Brand

CBC Stories talks to an entrepreneur who made it big in the highly competitive beauty industry.

Mark Woolley is the founder and International Creative Director of leading British hair brand Electric. The business comprises award-winning salons, an ethical products line, a global education offer, a photographic and film studio, a shared workspace for leading creatives in central London, and a farm and headquarters right here in the Sussex countryside.

Here, he talks about his business journey

Tell us a bit about you and your story

Every time I say this, I shudder a little bit. I’ve now been a hairdresser for thirty-one years and I think, every time I say it, I think I’m old. I started when I was sixteen and grew up in the north of England, in a little town in north Yorkshire. I started with a national company and they were called Saks. I started with those guys and, basically, Saks was two guys who had been quite prominent hairdressers in London. They had both worked with Sassoon and that, and carved out a big following. They ended up back in their native northeast and, when I joined them, they had about eight salons that were in all the prominent towns and cities in the northeast. It was great – it was a lot of like-minded creative people. 

I always credit those guys. They just set me off on the right foot. Hairdressing is a brilliant skill; it’s creativity and the business side of it is quite simple to operate. It was just a lot of fun.

It was an industry that I found by chance. It found me in the last year of school. I have enjoyed the credit and the business elements of it. 

Like Toni and Guy, Saks were one of the early pioneers of franchising so they allowed people to have their own business and they were training people from a young age to be able to operate a business. When I look back, I think that was a really clever thing. I learned my craft with them; I opened my first salon with them. I moved to London with them because I had this burning desire to live in London. 

When I moved from the north down to London, I was nineteen and I opened my first salon with them when I was twenty-one. It was a great journey. They taught me well. I’ve always enjoyed the hairdressing and I still do a lot of that now. I see it as something to enjoy even though it is business as well. It is the same sort of thing that someone would get from doing the garden or playing golf.

Did you always envisage from a young age that you would one day run your own business and where does that drive and determination come from?

I was listening to, it might have been a podcast, somebody talk about the influences people have in life. For some people it’s school teachers and for some people, who play a sport, it’s the coach of the football team that has a huge influence on their life. I’ve listened to a lot of people tell those experiences and I’ve read a lot biographies as well. My favorite books to read are biographies. I think one of my influences was when I was growing up. My dad worked in IT, he was in middle management of a company, and my mum worked at a school. We had a fairly humble life. We had one holiday a year and lived in a very normal house. Our nextdoor neighbours were friends with my parents. The guy was running his own business and he had a BMW. They seemed to be able to go on holiday whenever they wanted, and I remember thinking that must be what you had to do to get that stuff; you must have to have your own business.

Every now and again someone would say ‘I own my own business’ and ‘I’m doing this’, so one of my goals from being at school was that I would like to own my own business. I wasn’t academic but I was really into art. I liked art, music and I liked sports – but they weren’t academic subjects. In the subconscious, hairdressing presented itself as a creative, fun business to be involved in. There were all these young people who seemed to own their own businesses and I thought that might be for me. It sounds so silly when you say it like that, but I think they were the touchpoints. 

Dennis and Malcolm, who started Saks, and Steve, the fella that runs it now, were all instrumental. It was in an era when you felt you had to work hard for things. People were looking to get mentored whereas everybody now has a mentor. I felt lucky to learn from those guys.

How have you managed to stand out and become such a globally recognised brand?

How did Saks turn into Electric? Because it was a successful franchise model, it became a very good proposition for people to own a franchise so people started owning them who weren’t from the industry and stuff like that. I just felt that the creativity died a little bit and it had become a business.

When I moved to London my then girlfriend was studying fashion at Central St Martins and today she’s the global creative director of Agent Provocateur. We’ve known each other since we were about fifteen and we still work together sometimes. She moved to London and I was there as a hairdresser, knocking around with some of these people. Eventually, people would say ‘Can you come and do the hair shoot for me?’ I was eighteen at this point so I’d say ‘Of course’. 

I became very good friends with one of the founders of Toni ad Guy, Anthony Mascolo. He was one of the people I looked up to in hairdressing. I met him by chance on a ski trip. We are still very good friends now and we’ve worked on a lot of projects together over the years. I would say to him: ‘I’m going to do a shoot tomorrow for David Comer.’ He’d say: ‘How on Earth are you doing that?’

It was one of those things. I was in the circle, I’d met a few people.

Anthony started teaching me how to do hair on shoots. Then I’d do more session work. Eventually, a lady came to me, Joy Goodman, who ran an agency and asked if I’d be interested in any red carpet stuff. The next thing, I had an agent. That started my separation from Saks.

I felt my Saks salon in Brighton was a bit different from all the other Saks. It was creative. We had this atmosphere that felt electric. When somebody came into our salon, there was great music playing and we were doing great hair. We kept talking about this atmosphere. I bought myself out of my Saks contract and they couldn’t kick me out of my salon because I owned it, but it left me without a London salon. This would have been 2005 or 2006. It took about 18 months and shop became available on Marylebone High Street.

I knew the area and Saks were in Convent Garden and it wasn’t that far from there. It opened in 2007. I did a lot of brand ambassador work for L’Oreal and became very friendly with one of the chemists based in Paris. He then went to work for Estee Lauder and moved back to London. We’d been working on a formula for a styling cream that would evaporate. The head buyer at Harvey Nichols asked if we could get some other products around this styling cream. It took two years to get four products and we launched them exclusively at Harvey Nichols. It led to us opening two salons.

What has been your biggest challenge during your journey? Tell us about how the past two years have impacted the business

Covid is the obvious answer, but some types of businesses flourished. It did affect us. I don’t think there is anybody who didn’t have to restructure their business a little bit. It cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds, no question.

Some salons fell into rate grant territory, which was brilliant, and we had furlough. I do salute our government for that. Some of our salons, where the rates were too high to get a grant, we had to take out a Bounce Back loan for. With covid, everyone had to take on a bit of debt and manage the expectations of staff. Some came back and said they didn’t want to do it anymore.

What does ‘success’ look like to you?

Success is taking one of those goals that you’ve set and seeing it come to fruition.

What one piece of advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?

Stick with it and never give up.

Who has been your biggest inspiration throughout your journey and why?

Probably Anthony Mascolo who, funnily enough, was our rival. A brilliant all-round creative.

Could you recommend a business book or podcast for our listeners?

Tune into the County Business Talks Podcast

This is a small extract from a lengthy podcast interview. The full podcast can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/YYEgwpEAFWg