Ep. 81 – Mollie Hughes – Sustainable Credibility

Interview with Mollie Hughes

[00:06:09] Mich Bondesio:

So Mollie, welcome to the Creating Cadence Podcast. I’m looking forward to having this conversation with you.

[00:06:14] Mollie Hughes:

Thank you so much for having me, Mich.

[00:06:16] Mich Bondesio:

Pleasure. So before we get started, some context for my listeners, we don’t personally know each other, but I was introduced to you by Kelly Berry, who I’ve known for several years, as we’re part of the same mastermind accountability group. Incidentally, she was also on the podcast in episode 50 where we spoke about accountability and futures thinking.

And when Kelly heard that my current podcast theme was focusing on sustainability-related topics, she thought you’d be a great person to speak to about the work that you are doing in helping to simplify sustainability for both businesses and consumers. And the service that your company provides is quite specialist and very interesting, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about that.

But first, I’d like to start with you. So Mollie, tell us more about where you find yourself in your present moment? What’s your current life and work context?

[00:06:59] Mollie Hughes:

So it’s interesting, to understand my current work life, it’s probably good to know what I did before, and I had spent my entire career in what we call kind of corporate America, often referred to as the grind. Fortunately, most of the time I worked for companies with relatively flexible work schedules and was able to find balance and, and real cadence, while my husband and I raised our three kids. But then once they went off to college, I started my own company with a co-founder. And that’s where really my work life balance got out of whack. And I really have to be very intentional about how I spend my

[00:07:36] Mich Bondesio:

Mm-hmm. So as part of the work that I do with Creating Cadence, that involves advocating for building foundational habits and practices that will support us in our life and work better. So I always ask my guests a little bit more about what their wellbeing and productivity tips and hacks are.

So have you found any particular regular practices or routines or rituals that are working for you in your current work context that help you to be more focused and support your wellness? And what are the specific challenges that you might experience sticking with them?

[00:08:05] Mollie Hughes:

Right. So this is something I struggle with as well as most everybody I know. So I think you are, you know, what you do is so, so important. You know, my dad had taught me to work smarter, not harder throughout my life, and I’ve always tried to do that, but once you become an entrepreneur, and it’s really just you and maybe one other person, it’s not so easy because everything is on you. And I know that you feel it as, as a business owner.

Everybody kind of thinks, okay, once you have your own business, you have total flexibility. You can do whatever you want whenever you want, but it’s almost the exact opposite because everything is on you, especially at the beginning, because you don’t have backups for things.

So, what I found to be most helpful is routine, especially at the beginning and end of every day. So at least I’m starting it with something that’s, you know, comfortable and ending with that same thing. So in my case, I start, every day I wake up, I try to wake up the same time, every day of the week, um, I go and I go to make coffee.

As that coffee is brewing, I drink a glass of water. Um, and then I go to the gym. It’s kind of my order every morning. At the end of the day, same kind of thing. You know, take the dog out, read for about 15 minutes and then go to bed and have some prayer. So, I really think that routine, at least in part of the day, is really, really important.

[00:09:34] Mich Bondesio:

Hundred percent agree. I think that, you know, as you say, as a business owner and entrepreneur, you don’t have regular hours in any way, shape or form. But if you can have regular rituals, like you’ve described, that help to maintain that level of consistency, they’re kind of the bookends to your day.

They help you open up and start that day and close things off again and kind of reset. I think they’re so important. So thank you for sharing that.

You have a really interesting background. You started your career in TV news journalism, and then you specialized in business law for your MBA. You’ve also held strategic sales leadership roles at organizations like Phillips and Teva, and as part of the work you do now, you’ve also been given a very impressive title over the Circularity Credibility Expert, which I love.

So what got you started on your journey into green marketing innovation and building Softly Solutions as a tech business?

[00:10:22] Mollie Hughes:

Yeah, so such an interesting story and there isn’t necessarily one point, but a lot of things that all kinda came together at the same time.

I had never planned on being a business owner. It’s something, um, that came up really when I was getting my MBA. So getting the MBA had to you know, put together a capstone project about an imaginary business that we were gonna start.

And, um, then realised that maybe that business could have some traction. So, so really that’s how my entrepreneurial, you know, like start began. But a couple things that kinda led to that decision, was one of them is I had climbed Mount Rainier. Decided I needed a challenge in my life. So I was going to climb a mountain, which was something that I had never done before, and it’s one of the most glaciated mountains in North America.

When I went up there, it was beautiful. It was pristine, it was clean. Everything that you bring up, that mountain comes down. There was not a speck of garbage or waste anywhere.

After I got back, I was talking to other mountaineers and they were showing me some of their pictures of, of their climbs including, Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro.

And, what I saw was garbage everywhere. It wasn’t pretty, it was not at all what I had seen. In fact, it was awful. Maybe the climb was, was challenging, but you know, what you were looking at once you got there was not good, or at least on the way. So I really started researching, you know, what made it different, this mountain, different than other ones.

And it really came down to the rules that we had specifically for that mountain in the United States that other countries didn’t have. And that’s one thing that led me to starting our company, which focuses on sustainability regulations.

[00:12:13] Mich Bondesio:

That’s so interesting, that there are rules and regulations around the reserves and around treading softly, and I’m presuming that’s where the name of your company came from in terms of Softly Solutions.

[00:12:23] Mollie Hughes:

It sure does, tread softly on our world, such as don’t leave a big footprint, you know, do things the right way.

[00:12:31] Mich Bondesio:

Mm-hmm. I love that. That’s brilliant.

So one of the core themes of Creating Cadence is about how we build better, rhythm, pace, and flow in our work, and our life, and our businesses, so we can keep it moving forwards and thrive despite the challenges or uncertainties we face. So I’d like to ask you two questions relating to this, and the first is about you and your team, and the second relates to your customers.

So first, what’s your business approach when it comes to supporting your team. So that they can be their best selves at work and to help encourage a more flexible rhythm in your work lives?

[00:13:02] Mollie Hughes:

Mm-hmm. You know, the biggest thing that my co-founder Kathy, and I really stress with the people that we work with is prioritisation.

There’s always going to be more things on your plate. And that’s really how a good business runs. You don’t want to run out with of things, right? So they’re always, you always have to be working on that next thing, but understanding that it’s okay to have a to-do list.

It’s okay to have one that’s longer, than what you can get done in any day, week, or month is okay.

It’s always going to be there, but it’s prioritising and feeling good that you’re gonna make the most impact that you can every day that you are working. So, so that’s one thing we really work with, you know, our employees and those that we work with to do, is to figure out how to prioritise and how to ask the right questions to know what’s most important.

Another thing is we do, we do offer a lot of flexibility. You know, we have people that have young children that we work with. Some of them are, you know, in a time when they’re maybe even taking care of their parents, in that stage of life. And they need flexibility. And I think the world that we live in now, um, there’s no reason that people can’t work remotely.

I was really, really fortunate to be able to work remote most of my life. And when Covid hit and people were saying, oh, I just can’t , you know, work out of the house, I thought, okay, this is something I’ve always done. So I felt like I was able to, to help people kind of get through that and talk through it and say, okay, you know, you have to have your spot that you’re working.

You have to have your priorities. And once you do that, those other distractions will go away.

[00:14:44] Mich Bondesio:

That’s a really good point because working for yourself and working on your own does require a different degree of discipline because you’re not necessarily in an office space with someone else’s overseeing what you’re doing. And so it does require a skill set that you have to develop. And it sounds like you were way ahead of the curve in terms of that and, and able to help your team, which is great.

Just a quick question. Do you use any particular tech tools to help support your prioritisation and how you manage your projects and how you get through your tasks?

[00:15:11] Mollie Hughes:

So not a lot of tools. Um, I do use Notion from time to time, but the biggest thing I do is, is really block out times to go through emails.

Because that’s really what bogs us down so much. So I will actually, you know, set a timer. The first thing I actually, the first thing I do when I sit down at my desk every day is actually set alarms on my clock as to when I have certain meetings that I have to be on so I don’t miss anything.

Um, and, and I don’t only do it on my computer because I want to be able to have that flexibility to take my phone and go off and do other things and be able to come back to it. But really to block out times, okay, first thing in the morning, I’m gonna go through these emails. I’m not gonna look at ’em again till noon, unless there’s something really important that I am looking for or waiting for, And the same thing in the middle of the afternoon.

[00:16:06] Mich Bondesio:

Yeah, those are great. I mean, time blocking really helps and especially around emails ’cause we, if we have that inbox open all the time, we get into this situation Cal Newport calls it the ‘hyperactive hive mind’ where we are then firefighting. We’re in our inbox and it’s really hard to do the other deep focus work that we need.

So I think that’s great that you follow that particular routine.

So the second question I wanted to ask you around creating cadence and kind of building forward momentum is with your customers. So your customer base straddles both business and consumer sectors, and how do you help both of those customer bases to build or maintain momentum in what do they do, based on the service that you offer?

[00:16:43] Mollie Hughes:

Right. So, so just to give you a couple stats, um, 70% of shoppers say that the sustainability claim on a product impacts what they’re gonna buy. So they’re looking at labels. They’re looking at is it environmentally friendly, is it organic, gluten-free, whatever they’re looking for. So there’s a lot of label readers when it comes to buying products.

However, what we found is that 50% of product claims are actually considered misleading or unfounded.

[00:17:18] Mich Bondesio:

Wow, that is huge.

[00:17:20] Mollie Hughes:

It’s huge. It’s sad too. And so really it’s getting to the point that shoppers or consumers like us don’t know what to trust. Because a lot of times there aren’t standards, so when you see that something’s organic, what does it actually mean?

Or, um, you know, free of PFAS, that’s a, a big one of, you know, certain chemicals. Well, it’s probably not free of this chemical because PFAS is in everything, but what are, what are like detectable levels. So I think people are just not believing what they’re seeing.

So what we found out is not only do the consumers need help with these labels and finding products that they’re looking to buy that have been vetted. But businesses, they’re not meaning always to, to mislead you, they’re just trying to compete. They’re trying to get their word out there.

So we also help businesses on the other hand with, you know, what are the rules regarding this? How do you communicate the good things that you’re doing, whether it be environmentally friendly, recyclable, organic, which in turn helps everybody. It helps a shopper. So, so that’s really kind of what we do. And, it does build momentum because, you know, we’re empowering the businesses to be able to help the consumers.

[00:18:36] Mich Bondesio:

I think that’s great. And I mean, just to clarify a bit more about what you’re doing, you’re helping businesses to avoid greenwashing, to be more compliant. You’re helping give them a competitive edge, and as you said, there’s a massive demand from consumers for more sustainable, environmentally-friendly, green products, but they don’t know who to trust.

And, because the market is so competitive, you know, if you get bad reviews, you lose business. So I think what you’re doing is really important, but I think it’s very often something that’s overlooked. And it has been, I mean, I don’t know about the States, but in the UK, where I’m based, very often it has been overlooked.

But we have a lot of new Green Claims Directive legislation coming through from the EU and in the UK as well. So these are things that businesses are gonna have to pay more attention to.

[00:19:19] Mollie Hughes:

They are and, and you’re exactly right. And just kind of think, if you’re a company that sells throughout the world. There are different rules in the UK compared to even the EU’s directives compared to, you know, Australia, you know, selling into Asia in the United States. Being able to juggle and kind of figure that out and how you can put that on your label. It’s different everywhere. So that’s really where we come in to help simplify that process.

[00:19:49] Mich Bondesio:

Great. Well, tell me a bit more about your services specifically.

[00:19:51] Mollie Hughes:

Mm-hmm. So we have developed what’s called a Green Claim Navigator. And what it is, is a company can go in there and say, Hey, I wanna make this claim about my product. So they will pick from about 75 different claims. So a claim would be, I wanna say that my product’s recyclable, let’s say, or biodegradable.

So they pick that claim, they pick the sector that they sell in, like what industry do they sell into. And it could be packaging, it could be beauty and personal care, whatever it may be. And then the geography in which they sell. And all of a sudden it will populate immediately, all of this information you need to know about making that claim in that industry, in that geography.

So what rules and regulations do you need to know about? What are some resources that could possibly help you validate that claim? Because, really validating it is, is key. Um, what are your competitors saying? What other competitors are making that biodegradable claim? And also I think one other thing that you kind of alluded to, um, is what kind of trouble can I get into if I don’t follow these rules?

Greenwashing lawsuits in the United States have skyrocketed and it’s really consumer driven. People are saying, Hey, we don’t trust this and we are going to, you know, pull a class action lawsuit and file it against your company. So nobody wants that kind of publicity.

So that’s what we help companies avoid.

[00:21:21] Mich Bondesio:

Fantastic. And um, just for my listeners I’ll provide links to these resources that are on your website. I also know you do a webinar series spotlighting the use of sustainability certifications. So I’ll include a link to that as well ’cause there’s loads of helpful resources on your website.

Thank you. So Mollie, final question. This relates to life lessons and the wisdom that they can offer us. What words of advice or key takeaways can you share with my listeners based on your experience of life and work so far?

[00:21:49] Mollie Hughes:

You know, I always love this question because I just feel like you’re the expert and you should be like, telling me what I need to do. But for, for what’s worked, so far, and believe me, I have so much further to go, but it’s really comes back to that prioritisation. Really prioritise what’s important in your life.

You know, the big reason most of us work is because we need money to live. So a lot of us will say, well, I’m prioritise, I prioritise my family, and I prioritise having fun. Well, you know, the bottom line is we still need to make a living. So it doesn’t mean no work, all play, it means being intentional about how you spend your time.

So my advice would be prioritising and be being very intentional about those 24 hours that we’re given in each day.

[00:22:37] Mich Bondesio:

I love that. I think that it’s really important as being part of a conscious consumer as well, is that you are more intentional, not just in terms of how you shop, but also how you live your life. And as you say, you know, time, those 24 hours, how we use them can make all the difference. That’s wonderful.

Thank you so much. So as we end off, let us know where we, people can find you online.

[00:22:57] Mollie Hughes:

Yeah, we would love to talk to any businesses out there, consumers also, we would love to talk to you as well. We have a website. It is softly solutions, softly S-O-F-T-L-Y solutions.com. And there’s a ‘contact us’, button on there so you can certainly reach out at any time.

[00:23:15] Mich Bondesio:

That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for your time, Mollie. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you and learning more about what you do.

[00:23:20] Mollie Hughes:

Mich, you’re, you’re amazing. Keep doing what you’re doing. Thank you so much.

[00:23:24] Mich Bondesio:

Thank you.

I really admire Mollie’s simple work and life philosophy around defining your priorities. When you’re clear on those, it can definitely remove a lot of friction.

She also made an astute observation about us always having more on our plate than we can accomplish, and I find her simple reframe really helpful.

That suggestion of shifting from seeing an overflowing to-do list as a stressful thing, to appreciating that always having more things to do, not only keeps things interesting, but it helps us to maintain our momentum, and it can give our work more purpose and meaning too.

So I’ll be back in a few weeks with the next episode, which is an interview with Lara Harrison of Superstar PAs, where we talk about flexible working and flexible business models.

Until then, keep moving forwards with courage, curiosity, and cadence.