10 reasons why every R&D person should listen to Trinny Woodall

Reflections on one of my favourite conversations at the British Beauty Council’s Beauty Industry Day.

It’s been a week since the British Beauty Council Beauty Industry Day, and one of the conversations I’ve kept thinking about was the discussion between Trinny Woodall and Sarah Jossel.

I’ve spent much of my career working in R&D, developing products by understanding people’s needs, exploring the science behind those needs and translating what we learn into products and product stories that perform better in real life. So I always find it interesting to hear how successful founders think about product development, particularly when they have such a close relationship with their consumers.

What I loved about Trinny’s conversation was how naturally she connected consumer understanding, product quality, business strategy and commercial performance. She spoke about the realities of building a beauty business, including the difficult decisions, the mistakes businesses can make and the importance of staying connected to the people buying your products.

There was plenty in her talk that I think R&D teams, including those working in much larger organisations, could learn from.

Here are my 10 takeaways.

1. Develop products for repeat purchase, not just the first sale

One of the most interesting things Trinny shared was that her business targets a 70% contribution from repeat customers and 30% from trial. For anyone developing consumer products, that is a super useful way of thinking about where growth comes from.

So much attention in innovation is focused on the launch: the proposition, the claims, the packaging, the campaign and the initial sales figures. All of these are important, particularly when trying to attract new consumers. But the longer-term commercial value of a product depends heavily on what happens after someone buys it.

Does it deliver the benefit they expected? Is it enjoyable and convenient to use? Is the sensory experience coherent and engaging? Does it perform consistently? Is there a reason to choose it again? Will they recommend it to their best friends?

Trinny spoke about the importance of customer lifetime value, and for R&D, this means understanding the product attributes that influence continued use, not simply those that make a concept attractive before purchase. A compelling claim will encourage trial, but a product that fails to deliver the expected experience makes the next purchase impossible.

2. Stop “protecting” your products from your consumers

I particularly enjoyed Trinny’s observation that product developers can become very protective of their work, wanting to keep an idea safe until it is perfect, and we see this dynamic through our work at Untapped Innovation a lot.

And we can all relate. When you’ve invested months understanding a new technology, developing formulations and refining prototypes, it’s understandable that you want to show people something you’re proud of. But the risk is that we spend too long improving a product against our own assumptions before finding out whether those improvements are even noticeable or important to a consumer.

Trinny’s advice was to get products in front of people much earlier, and I would add that the purpose of early testing is not necessarily to establish whether consumers like the finished product. It’s to understand whether you’re solving the right problem and whether the proposed solution is moving in the right direction (before significant investment kicks in).

A rough prototype can be incredibly useful if it allows someone to experience a particular benefit, compare different approaches or reveal something unexpected about their needs. We don’t need to wait until every detail is resolved to learn something valuable.

3. Prove there is a real customer (beyond friends and family)

Another point that resonated was Trinny’s insistence on establishing whether there is even a real customer for a product, rather than relying on encouragement from friends and family or workplace colleagues. This is especially relevant for founders, but the underlying issue applies to large businesses too.

It is surprisingly easy for teams to become enthusiastic about an idea because the people closest to its development are enthusiastic. Yet familiarity with a product, knowledge of the technology and personal investment in its success can all influence how we evaluate it.

The more important question is whether people who have NO connection to the business recognise the problem, value the proposed benefit and would consider changing their behaviour to obtain it. Going even further, we need to understand not only whether a consumer likes an idea, but what they are currently using, why they choose it, what they find frustrating and what improvement would justify switching over to what we are developing.

4. Consumer trust needs to be earned, and independent evidence is extremely helpful

Trinny spoke about wanting consumers to trust her, and the importance of third-party awards in building that credibility. I thought this was particularly interesting because beauty consumers are faced with an overwhelming number of products making increasingly similar claims.

Awards and independent recognition can help people distinguish between products and provide reassurance that the claims being made have some external credibility. For R&D, this reinforces the importance of developing products with benefits that can be easily demonstrated and visibly substantiated. We need to understand what evidence is required to support the promise, which measures are most relevant and whether the product delivers a difference that consumers can recognise.

There is also an important relationship between trust and repeat purchase, as independent recognition may help persuade someone to try a product, but their own experience will influence whether that trust continues. A product that consistently delivers what it promises gives consumers a reason to remain confident in their choice.

5. Don’t blind consumers with science

This was probably one of my favourite points from the conversation.

Trinny spoke about how many beauty products are competing for the same attention, and the importance of explaining complicated ingredients in a cohesive, benefit-led way rather than overwhelming consumers with technical information. And anyone who knows our team at Untapped Innovation knows we cannot agree more.

There is enormous value in the scientific work behind a good product, but consumers shouldn’t have to overly educate themselves the technical detail to recognise why it might be useful to them. Too often, businesses communicate a collection of ingredient facts, features, mechanisms and efficacy measures without connecting them into a clear explanation of the benefit.

The challenge is to understand the science deeply enough to make it highly relevant. What is the problem we’re solving? Why do existing products struggle to address it? How does our formulation or technology work differently? And what improvement should the consumer expect to experience?

Importantly, this thinking should begin during development, because understanding the benefit we want to communicate can also help determine the product performance we need to create and measure through the R&D pipeline process.

6. Leadership needs to stay connected inside the “head of the dragon”

Trinny used a memorable analogy about leadership being at the head of a dragon while the organisation stretches out behind it. As businesses grow, the distance between the people setting the strategy and those making day-to-day decisions can become considerable.

And I thought her distinction between intuition and instinct was particularly useful. Intuition can be informed by experience, consumer understanding and accumulated knowledge. Instinctive reactions, particularly under pressure, can sometimes be driven by fear.

In product development, a leadership team may have a clear view of the consumer opportunity and the reason a product needs to exist, but unless that understanding is shared throughout the organisation, individual teams can make perfectly reasonable decisions that gradually move the product away from its original purpose.

Strong leadership needs to provide a clear direction and ensure that the reasoning behind it is understood by the people responsible for delivery. For R&D, that means understanding the consumer and commercial strategy behind the technical brief, rather than working only from a set of ambiguous specifications.

7. Everyone making product decisions needs to know who the consumer is

Closely connected to the dragon analogy was Trinny’s point about middle management. As organisations grow, people can become increasingly absorbed in operational priorities, processes and internal reporting. All of these activities are necessary, but they can gradually displace the consumer from everyday decision-making.

Teams may begin with rich consumer research and a clear opportunity, but as the project progresses, the discussion becomes dominated by cost targets, technical feasibility, timelines, stage gates and manufacturing requirements, all legitimate constraints, but they also need to be calibrated by a shared understanding of the consumer experience we are trying to create.

When everyone understands the consumer needs, decisions about formulation, packaging, claims and cost can be made with much greater clarity. The consumer must remain highly visible throughout development, not simply appear in the research report at the beginning and the validation study at the end.

8. Understand how financial pressure is changing purchasing behaviour

Trinny was very open about how challenging the beauty market is at the moment. She discussed the impact of recessionary pressures and reduced disposable income, including the way sales can become increasingly concentrated around the beginning of the month.

I thought this was a particularly useful reminder that understanding consumers means understanding the different circumstances in which they make purchasing decisions, as a consumer may still value a product, but their willingness or ability to purchase it can change significantly depending on their financial situation.

For beauty businesses, this creates questions about price, pack size, product longevity, usage frequency and the benefits consumers consider worth paying for. For R&D, it reinforces the importance of understanding which product attributes are must-haves and which are delightful differentiators, and if a consumer is being more selective, the product needs to deliver a benefit that justifies its place in their routine and their budget.

This doesn’t necessarily mean making everything cheaper. It means understanding what people are prepared to prioritise and ensuring that the product delivers against those priorities, with differentiation that is led by their needs (not the nearest competition).

9. Retail is difficult, but it remains one of our richest sources of consumer understanding

Trinny also reflected on the challenges facing physical retail, while recognising how important stores remain in bringing businesses close to their consumers. She referenced developments such as the relationship between M&S and Sephora as examples of interesting opportunities emerging in retail.

I found this encouraging because retail environments offer something that can be difficult to replicate through dashboards and sales data alone: the opportunity to observe how people discover products, compare alternatives, ask questions and make decisions, and the language consumers use when asking for advice can reveal important unmet needs.

There is an opportunity for R&D teams to spend more time learning from these environments, alongside in-context consumer research and product testing. Retail colleagues often have a very practical understanding of the difficulties consumers experience, and their observations can be valuable when identifying opportunities for product improvement.

10. The industry needs to collaborate more, particularly if we want more female-led businesses to succeed

One of the more sobering points from Trinny’s talk was her reference to the continuing difficulty female-led businesses face in securing investment, with around 2% of funding going to female-founded businesses. It is a striking imbalance where women represent such an important proportion of consumers, founders and product innovators.

Access to capital is only one part of the challenge, but it has consequences for the ability of businesses to invest in product development, build teams, scale manufacturing and compete effectively, and events such as British Beauty Industry Day create opportunities for businesses to share experience, learn from one another and build relationships that might not otherwise develop.

There is also considerable potential for non-competing businesses to collaborate more closely, sharing knowledge and practical experience where it makes sense. For smaller beauty businesses, access to specialist R&D, manufacturing, regulatory and commercial expertise can make an enormous difference when navigating the decisions involved in growth. The more effectively we connect these capabilities, the better placed we are to support ambitious founders and develop commercially successful businesses.

What I took away

A week on, what has stayed with me most is how clearly Trinny connected the quality of the product to the long-term performance of the business. Her focus on repeat purchase and customer lifetime value provides a useful commercial perspective for everyone involved in product development.

It also reinforces something I have seen repeatedly throughout my career: the strongest product development decisions come from understanding consumers deeply, translating that understanding into specific product requirements and continuing to learn as the product develops.

The businesses that do this well give themselves a better chance of creating products that people genuinely want to try, enjoy using and choose to buy again. And when the market is challenging, those decisions become even more important.

Round of applause to Trinny Woodall , Sarah Jossel and the British Beauty Council for such an interesting and thought-provoking conversation.

I’d be interested to hear which of Trinny’s observations particularly resonated with other people working in beauty and product innovation.