Rethink Retail
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TIARA Sells by Teaching Buyers, Not Pitching
Zuly Matallana's brand has the kind of unpaid advocacy most founders spend years chasing: a Dragon's Den investor who still posts about the product, a Good Morning America feature, a celebrity's on-camera endorsement. None of it replaced the sales work. Matallana, Founder of TIARA, still sends samples to buyers herself. She still works trade show floors. She still cold-emails retailers with no guarantee anyone opens the message. TIARA was founded after Matallana lost her grandmother and aunt to breast cancer, a disease that affects roughly one in eight women in their lifetime. She decided the deodorant industry had never been forced to answer for its ingredient lists, and built a brand around that gap. On this episode of Global Lens, she joins Senior Retail Analyst Lavina Suthenthiran to discuss what moves product once advocacy is already in place. INSIDE THE EPISODE: Recognition opens the door; it doesn't walk through it for you Most founders treat advocacy as the finish line. Matallana treats it as a foot in the door. No matter the promotion, none of it replaces the trade show booth where she explains, ingredient by ingredient, why her formula is different. Credibility gets built one educated buyer at a time Matallana's sales pitch isn't the product. It's the ingredient list. She shows buyers exactly what's wrong with the deodorants already on their shelves, then makes the case for what should replace them. The founder is the advocate no one can outsource Not every brand puts its founder in the room, but TIARA does. Matallana stands in front of strangers to explain why an ingredient matters herself. It's slower than hiring it out, and it's why she's staying the face of the brand as it scales. Listen above for Matallana's take on why most personal care products were never formulated for women's bodies, and her early steps toward selling beyond North America.
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