0:00:02 Amanda Stassen: Welcome to purpose Power brand, a podcast for leaders and brands transforming business into a force for good. I’m Amanda Stassen, business and brand strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of BIZU Innovation Group. I’m speaking with leaders who are proving that not only does purpose drive profit, but the future of our world depends on it. If you want to grow your business, increase your brand loyalty, and not get left behind in the ever changing marketplace, this podcast is for you.

0:00:27 Amanda Stassen: Today I’m speaking with Noora Sharab, CEO and co-founder of Sitti Soap, a conscious lifestyle brand and social enterprise committed to the self reliance of refugee and displaced communities. Hello, Noora, and welcome to the Purpose Power brand podcast. Thanks so much for joining me today.

0:00:43 Noora Sharrab: Hi, Amanda. Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure to be on this podcast.

0:00:49 Amanda Stassen: Thank you. Listen, I’m excited to get into the Sitti story, but before that, I really want to hear a little bit about your story and in particular, the purpose that powers the work that you’re now doing at Sitti. Start by sharing with me one word that best describes what purpose powers you, and maybe a little bit how this inspires the work you’re doing today.

0:01:13 Noora Sharrab: I think if I can think of a word, the first thing that pops in my head is always hope. Because hope is essentially what drives us towards a better. It’s that light at the end of the tunnel. It’s knowing that there’s an opportunity that is left unturned. It’s knowing that that challenge or that problem is waiting for a solution to be put on the table to essentially change the way it is, and that it’s an opportunity to not settle. So hope for me is this element of there’s more than not settling for just like, what’s there. It’s really just about what future do we want to create for ourselves.

0:01:58 Amanda Stassen: I love that. Hope is actually one of my favorite, favorite words. It’s one of the most powerful words, I think, because it helps us to keep an open mind, and you need an open mind to do things like be innovative. And it goes hand in hand with optimism and believing that there can be a better way. So I love that. Regarding, I was reading your bio, and you’ve been working with refugees for over 15 years or so. You went to school for political science.

0:02:29 Amanda Stassen: You specialized in refugee and forced migration studies. You’ve co founded an NGO that provides higher education scholarships. You’ve worked for even many years with the United nations. Tell me a little bit about that. What drew you to working with refugees?

0:02:48 Noora Sharrab: Yeah. So for me personally, my experience started, I guess, in general, I’m a daughter of immigrants. I’ve had the privilege of living in Canada and growing up here. I know that from what I hear from my parents, they’ve had their own share of struggle of building their life from scratch. My parents’family were refugees into Cairo, lived there their whole life. And then they kind of started moving as part of the diaspora from country to country.

0:03:18 Noora Sharrab: And we came to Canada in 1992. And so I was quite little back then. I don’t think I understood really my identity as such. And it wasn’t until, I think, I was in university and I want to jump to my master’s where I decided to specialize in identity politics. And one of my professors actually encouraged me to take a trip to Jordan to really understand. I was working on my thesis around refugee identity.

0:03:47 Noora Sharrab: And so it was the first time I traveled to Jordan on my own to go to a refugee camp and live with one of the host families. And that’s kind of really where I started getting into the refugee space. As a daughter of immigrants, I don’t think I understood. I had my own challenges, but I don’t think I understood the privilege I lived in being a Palestinian that was living in the diaspora and then now seeing Palestinians just like me living in a refugee camp and growing up first, 2nd, 3rd generation refugees and not realizing the privilege that I lived in, but also not realizing that this was their entire life and they had no other way out. And that kind of, for me, was this pivotal point of there’s more here than just a camp, and there’s more here than just problems that I’m witnessing. It almost became this sense of responsibility, like, what are you going to do with this information?

0:04:43 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:04:44 Noora Sharrab: And it’s something that, it’s kind of like once you know about something, you can’t unknow it, you can’t unsee it. You feel this sense of responsibility, like, I have to take this and now really use it for the positive. How are we going to look at these problems that these communities are facing and how are you utilizing that to better them and to better the community at large? And that’s why I come back to hope, because for me, I had to see the hope in what I, when I interacted with these communities, I had to see the hope that was kind of underlying at the base of basically the communities I was engaged in.

0:05:26 Amanda Stassen: And it’s interesting, many of us see the problems in the world, and yet to make that leap from somebody needs to do something about this to we really need to do something about this to I need to do something about this, that’s a really big leap and evolution. From what I understand, your work initially started as a not for profit, but then you moved and you switched gears to eventually starting Sitti soap, and it’s a for profit organization.

0:05:59 Amanda Stassen: Maybe tell me a little bit about that evolution.

0:06:01 Noora Sharrab:

0:06:02 Amanda Stassen: How did you get from, somebody needs to do something about this, this is a problem to I’m going to do something about it, so I’m going to do a not for profit, and then I’m going to actually change that to a for profit. What was the evolution there?

0:06:15 Noora Sharrab: So I actually never sat there and wrote a business plan that I was going to start Sitti. I think I always say that I feel like it was handed to us, like me and my co founders. It was something that we were already really involved in the refugee community. We were running projects and programs, and we had scholarships that were ongoing. And it just so happened, actually, in one of the refugee camps that hopes for women in education, which is my nonprofit in Jordan, was working in one of the camps called Jerash, which know in the Jerash city in Jordan, there were a group of women that were actually trained by the italian embassy on cold press olive oil soap making.

0:06:52 Amanda Stassen: Okay.

0:06:53 Noora Sharrab: And as, as are many of the international development agencies that come into refugee communities or development communities. They run workshops and trainings and how to become an entrepreneur and how to become a skills based worker. And then they train them, they finish the workshop, and then they leave. And then you have a bunch of people with skills that they don’t know how to use in the real world.

0:07:17 Noora Sharrab: And what really ended up happening was that I was approached by one of our co-founders right now, Sophia. And she had come to me with a box of olive oil soap. And mind you, it did not look the prettiest. It was kind of tacky. And I was like, okay, what do you want me to do with this? And I remember she was like, can you help us sell this soap? And I’m like, I’m not in the soap business. Like, I don’t even know how to know how to make soap.

0:07:42 Noora Sharrab: And at the same time, our other co-founder, Jacqueline Sophia, was also, she was a Fulbright student in Jordan, and she was also working closely in the Jerash community. And simultaneously, she was also working to help some women that took the training kind of get these soaps out to market because the women were making pennies on the dollar. They didn’t have access to market. They didn’t know how to market it. They were losing money more than trying to make money, trying to sell the soap. And it was kind of this dilemma.

0:08:13 Noora Sharrab: And so when we got together, we realized that this wasn’t about the soap. This was really about this point for these women that they wanted to move away from charity. They wanted to create economic opportunities for themselves, to essentially feed their families and put food on the table. I always tell people the soap isn’t like an innovative new idea that wasn’t around for a while. Soap is soap, right? Everybody uses soap.

0:08:38 Noora Sharrab: It was really about, how do we create economical social enterprise solutions, in the camp where, especially running a nonprofit focused on higher education, what we saw is, yes, fantastic when women were finally able to graduate and put a degree up on that wall. But that wasn’t the be it for all, they had to then, now, okay, now that I got my degree, I need to get a job. So unemployment was also this issue of, now that we’ve helped empower women and young girls into education, now we have to help mentor them and guide them into bringing, essentially becoming self reliant through employment.

0:09:18 Noora Sharrab: And so Sitti almost kind of was this other pivotal side of saying, how can we create employment solutions for refugees that have particular skill sets but don’t know how to access a global market? Where do we come in? And that’s essentially the evolution of Sitti. It wasn’t so much that we sat there as a nonprofit thinking we should build a social enterprise. It wasn’t like that. I would say it was almost something like, here’s a problem, solve it. And I guess our entrepreneurial hat was on, and we were like, okay, well, we need to do something about this. We need to create and navigate,

0:09:52 Noora Sharrab: and essentially, me and my co founders, when we came together, we realized, okay, this is a pivotal point that we have to focus on. And the reason that we ended up switching it to a for profit was also a lot of it was legality. Like, at the time, we never thought of it as a means to make money. It was more like, in order to export and start producing and put labeling and getting on the shelf, we couldn’t act as a nonprofit. We had to act as a for profit in those realms.

0:10:21 Noora Sharrab: And that was kind of the shift. I wouldn’t say the shift. Like you said, it was the evolution of it. I mean, Hope continues to run as a nonprofit, but Sitti really branched out to kind of find its way through alternative ways to creating self reliance in the community.

0:10:37 Amanda Stassen: Yeah. And it’s interesting, on the topic of charity versus commerce, there’s been a lot of discussion over the last number of years just about how philanthropy itself needs to understand and perhaps even rethink its origins, its mindset that really has been entrenched in what people are describing as colonial thinking. What’s your perspective on this? How would you describe this? And why would you say that commerce is the way forward?

0:11:16 Noora Sharrab: I think as private, the private sector needs to get more involved in philanthropy because it’s almost this responsibility to act and making, let’s say, ethical procurement decisions or working between this realm, between 1ft in the nonprofit and 1ft in the for profits. You know, for profits will make commitments toward, for example, ESG goals. But a lot of the times, they don’t know how to move towards that pathway in terms of what do we need to actually strategically do to change the way we do business, to then serve the community more.

0:11:56 Noora Sharrab: I do believe that private has a responsibility to serve. It’s not enough to rely on government. It’s not enough to rely on philanthropy, let’s say, to help achieve some of the world’s biggest problems. It’s where big corporate companies with big leverage opportunities that can actually come in to do that. Right. And recently, actually, we had a very interesting collaboration. I think back when me and you spoke a few months ago, it had yet to be published, and I was telling you, by the time this podcast comes out, we probably would have had it out.

0:12:31 Noora Sharrab: But essentially, we did a really wonderful collaboration with beauty brand L’Occitane in the Middle east. And what was really beautiful about this collaboration was it was working with an existing lifestyle brand that is known to be a for profit company, a for profit beauty company to partner with a social enterprise, I would say a small social enterprise of our size, to say we have a commitment to making and wanting to do impact, and we will make a conscious decision to work with you to help implement some of our goals through our partnership. And so it wasn’t about, like, we want to just throw a bunch of money at you and we’re done. Because I think that’s something that’s also changing in the landscape of impact. It’s not moving away from this CSR.

0:13:20 Noora Sharrab: Oh, I have a $10,000 budget, here you go, I made a hefty donation, and I’m good for the rest of the year. And more about how can we involve the social impact goals that we have more strategically so that they’re more involved in our day to day and we can help support them and really watch their growth. And so when we partnered with L’Occitane, it wasn’t just here’s a bunch of money and we’ll promote that we did it. It was, how can we engage the local community, give you employment opportunities through procurement. So we curated and produced products exclusively for L’Occitane to be used for a Ramadan campaign that launched in 2023. And so they really were able to use a lot of their marketing collateral and a lot of their existing resources to push out and communicate this collaboration in such a beautiful way.

0:14:16 Noora Sharrab: And I remember when we were first in the brainstorming side of this project, we were thinking it’s not just about the products that they’re producing, it’s about storytelling the products themselves. Because if we were just going to throw, whether it’s a tote bag or it’s some loofahs or whatever the product is, the customer needs to really understand what makes this different, what makes this unique. Why should I care about this more than just your stereotypical mass manufactured product that’s on the shelf? And so what was really, really important about this collaboration is we really invested and took the time to tell the stories, to actually bring full production, like videography production, into coming to the camp, speaking to the refugees that were receiving employment as a result of this campaign, and allow the consumer to really understand basically where their money is going. And I think that’s really important.

0:15:13 Noora Sharrab: And when we talk about commerce and we talk about social entrepreneurship and commerce, it’s really about what makes my product really unique next to your average product that may have not had a life cycle that has created social economic impact halfway across the world or even in our own backyards.

0:15:34 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, and I just want to hover on that for a second because you’ve brought it up, and I want to make sure that we take a second to sort of define it. Sitti’s business model is a social enterprise. And at the very basic level, a social enterprise is a type of business that has a specific social objective, that’s part of its primary purpose. But I would love for you to take us a little bit deeper. How would you explain the difference between a social enterprise business and a traditional business?

0:16:08 Amanda Stassen: Maybe give some examples.

0:16:10 Noora Sharrab: I think for us, at the end of the day, it’s about our triple bottom line. So it’s not enough that we maximize our profit because we secured the lowest in resources. It’s really about, are we keeping in mind the environment, are we keeping in mind the community that we’re working with? And are we keeping in mind, obviously, is this going to make money, is this scalable, is this going to grow? And when we ask ourselves these questions,

0:16:35 Noora Sharrab: it also is whether it’s sourcing from a local farmer and paying ethically, or it’s working with our workers and making sure that we adhere to fair trade practices, or it’s ensuring that our packaging is sustainable or plastic free. It’s asking very specific key questions in the process of how we operate our business to ensure that we are fulfilling the mission that we’re saying that we’re going to do and that we’re also transparent and authentic to our customers.

0:17:06 Noora Sharrab: I can’t say that I’m a social enterprise supporting refugees, but then I’m nickeling and diming with the very refugees I’m trying to support and trying to make the best buck in the game because, oh, I made a really good deal and I’m able to save a couple of $1,000 through this transaction. And so we’ve had opportunities where we’ll make, let’s say, tote bags as an example, and we’ll source them locally and they’re made locally and they’re a lot more expensive than your average tote bag. And we’ve had conversations with customers that are like, why is it so expensive? I’m like, because we’re not sourcing them at like a dollar on Alibaba with some mass manufactured company that lord knows how it’s made.

0:17:47 Noora Sharrab: We’re really about ensuring that the person that’s curating this or making this was paid ethically, that there was a process in order, and that we are held accountable to that. I think this is where what I said earlier about private companies have a responsibility when procuring is, are you asking the right questions when you are, let’s say, working with a vendor or procuring or tendering, because these small changes that you make internally can have a big impact on the local or external community that you’re working with. Right?

0:18:19 Noora Sharrab: Whether it’s saying we’re going to work with women owned businesses or BIPOC businesses, what you’re saying is I’m reinvesting my dollar into a circular economy that I know is going to benefit particular communities, or we’re ensuring that certain people are protected through our community. I’m going to spend that money anyways. Would I rather, let’s say, whether it’s corporate gifting, so I can say I have a budget every year for corporate gifting for my team, I’m just going to give everybody a $20 Amazon card or $100 Amazon card, instead saying, I’m going to consciously procure from a local women owned BIPOC business that’s going to do gifts for me that I’m going to help benefit.

0:19:02 Noora Sharrab: There’s a very different decision making process that companies or entrepreneurs or owners are making when they’re deciding how their money is going to be allocated. Are we asking those questions in the process of doing business, or is it just about where can I save the maximum amount of my dollar and what’s the cheapest I can get? It might not be the best, it might not even support the community, but it’s like the cheapest I can get that can go the long way. So I think those are the questions that we need to be.

0:19:36 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, I really like that. I like that one of the defining factors between a social enterprise business and a traditional business is the questions that they ask. And in the traditional business model, it’s how can I get it cheap and how can I get the most money on the resale of it? And so this idea of driving after maximum profit without real understanding of the impact that you’re having on your employees, on society, on the supply chain, on the planet, all of those things, and it’s almost turning a blind eye. And a lot of businesses are now, as we know, with ESG and a number of other platforms, people are taking a closer look at these things and trying to rethink how can they do it. And it’s obviously a lot harder with more established multinational organizations, on one hand because their machine is already moving in a particular direction. So an increase of $0.01

0:20:43 Amanda Stassen: across the volumes that they’re buying makes a huge. Significant.

0:20:46 Noora Sharrab: Exactly. Huge. Right.

0:20:47 Amanda Stassen: So for them to change the trajectory of their ship, it’s going to take a lot more versus the startups that are now coming into being that are far more nimble and able to ask these questions right at the inception, it’s a really great way to think about it.

0:21:07 Noora Sharrab: I think it’s really interesting because as you’re talking, one thing that crosses my mind is what companies don’t realize is the long term impact. I think a lot of the times when we run companies, we are looking for quick, short term things that I can visually see and invest.

0:21:24 Amanda Stassen: Fiscal year return.

0:21:25 Noora Sharrab: Yeah, exactly. But investing, let’s say, in refugee self reliance, as an example, is really also looking at the multiple stakeholders that stand at bay. So you’re talking about host countries, you’re talking about the refugees themselves that will no longer need aid support from external companies or organizations, and then are going to become financially independent to start contributing to the very economy that they live in.

0:21:52 Noora Sharrab: It’s talking about other stakeholders that will have positive impact to then report to their own stakeholders. So it’s the brands that procure from ethical social enterprise companies that can now say, in my impact reporting, this is the positive change that we were able to make as a result of this collaboration. I think with impact or social entrepreneurship, it’s really looking, taking a few steps back and looking at the wider core and impact. And the reason I say that is, I’ll give you a reference.

0:22:31 Noora Sharrab: When Covid hit, me and my co founder were asking the question, does it really matter that we’re there, should we just shut down the company? Are we actually making a difference in the lives of these people? And I think when you’re working in social entrepreneurship in general, or particularly in vulnerable spaces, it’s making sure that you’re doing more good than harm. I think that’s a very kind of underlying thing. But also asking is what we’re doing really, does it matter?

0:22:59 Noora Sharrab: Should we actually be investing or putting all our effort into this? Because sometimes you don’t see the result right away. You don’t know if you’re, are we actually doing change? Like, yeah, we might be creating some jobs, but from a larger perspective, should we continue to do what we’re doing essentially.

0:23:17 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:23:19 Noora Sharrab: And when we did our impact report, we saw that we were creating direct contribution to 34 households. And we’re like, it may not be a massive number to some corporations, but it’s also 34 homes that are impacted if we were to, let’s say, shut our doors. And I think it’s these questions that we ask ourselves. What is the long term impact that we’re making? What are some of the touch points that we’re having as a social enterprise when we’re working with our community based partners? Why does it matter? And I think that’s a question we always ask ourselves, is, why does this matter?

0:23:58 Noora Sharrab: Why should we partner? What are we giving them that they normally wouldn’t have if we weren’t there? And it’s through these questions that we are holding ourselves accountable. I would like to say, like, we try to hold ourselves accountable as much as possible with asking the questions that may not always be the ones we want to hear.

0:24:19 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, no, absolutely. And a lot of people really have been thinking about, what is the purpose? What is the purpose of this business? What is the reason why we exist? And we’re always challenging who we work with, that there’s a deeper question, even beyond purpose. And that deeper question is, who. Who are you doing this for? Because if there isn’t a person or a cause that you’re trying to serve or something that you want to make a difference in, then the why you exist doesn’t really matter.

0:25:01 Amanda Stassen: It’s the who fundamentally, who are you trying to help? Why are you trying to help them? That kind of thing. That’s really what keeps you motivated in those times where things aren’t going so well. There are 34 households that are depending on you. They’re depending on having that assurance that you’re going to be coming back to them and you are making a difference in their lives. So it’s super critical. Super critical.

0:25:27 Amanda Stassen: So I just want to just get just a little bit more practical in terms of the operation of Sitti for a second. And you guys have been in operation for eight years now, which is a tremendous feat. Congratulations for that. But let’s go backwards in time for a minute on that startup journey to where you are today. You’ve talked about the idea of the soap actually was part of what was there. So you basically used what was in your hand to solve a problem.

0:26:01 Amanda Stassen: But let’s talk about sort of the startup nature of it. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs who see a problem, they want to start moving forward in it. But I want to just speak some encouragement, like, did you have a nest egg of investment that you had for the first batch? How did you get to your first sale? Take us, maybe share a couple of those big growth milestones from startup to where you are today.

0:26:25 Noora Sharrab: Yeah, no, I did not come from money. And I think we were using whatever scrap that we had. Actually, when we first first launched, I leveraged the local community in Jordan to actually build our very own women program center, which was our first soap workshop. So when we started with the women, we identified, like, they were making soaps from recycled juice boxes, like, they did not have molds, they did not have a safe, clean, sanitized space to make soap, let alone be able to package and do all that. And so we recognized that there was obviously a gap. The women had a skill set, but they didn’t have the infrastructure, let’s say, to run this manufacturing facility per se.

0:27:10 Noora Sharrab: And so immediately we said, okay, we’re going to actually build a soap company, or at least to start the idea of just selling soap, we need a place to make the soap, right? That was the first, very first step. And so we started with crowdfunding. We started with identifying a company that saw - so it was one of the telecom companies in Jordan that actually offered us a small sponsorship. But then also we built this mini vision plan for the women’s center that we wanted. And what’s really beautiful is that because we already leverage partnerships through my nonprofit, because we already kind of had a reputation of doing projects on the ground.

0:27:49 Noora Sharrab: I remember knocking on businesses doors because we identified, okay, now we have a space. We need to cover rent for a year. We need to revamp the space. You’re working out of a refugee camp, so it’s not necessarily the cleanest. So we had to renovate it from scratch. But I’m like, this is $100,000 enterprise renovation project that there’s no way I had money for. And so we started leveraging corporate intake donations, because not everything comes in the form of money.

0:28:16 Noora Sharrab: It can come through other forms. Some people are like, I want to help you. I might not be able to give you $5,000, but I will give you a bucket of paint that you can use for your center. And so I started leveraging those kind of corporate intake donations to rebuild the center from scratch. And I knocked on the doors from paint companies to ceramic companies to architectural industrial companies that I was like, can you make this station for us for free and really give them the vision of what we wanted and say, we’re trying to serve the community, this is what we had. And I remember walking into a ceramic store, and I was like, we need to renovate the washrooms. And he’s like, listen, I have a bunch of things in my warehouse that are out of stock and out of collection, and maybe the tiles don’t all match the same color, but if you want to take them, you’re free to take them. And I was like, I got it. Thank you so much.

0:29:09 Noora Sharrab: So it’s not always going to be maybe, like, the perfect interior design that I wanted, but it was a little bit of patchwork that really did a good job to get us off of our feet and allow us to save a lot of money, and bootstrap initially in that. And then what was really important for us as well was because our mission from the very beginning was creating self-reliance for the women, it was also ensuring that they had some salary that we would set aside for them on a monthly basis that they can rely on.

0:29:44 Noora Sharrab: Whether we started selling or we didn’t start selling, that they could just, we kind of told them, all you have to worry about is making the soap. We’ll worry about the marketing, the sales. But at least we fundraise before we got started, about eight month’s worth of salary before. So that was really important for us because it allowed us to get - I mean, with any business, it’s going to take a few months. You’re not going to open shop and start having the floodgates coming in unless you’re a celebrity of some sort. But it took a little bit of time to get it out. And ironically, around that same time, I had relocated, because I had, at the time, moved to Jordan, but then I relocated back to Toronto.

0:30:25 Noora Sharrab: And it was during that time where we had just built our center, and then I moved back to Canada. And then it was like, okay, bring the products with me. And then it was just you know, you try everything from your average farmers market to grabbing your products in a suitcase and going store to store and trying to get them to sell it for you. So I think initially, it was really about setting ourselves with a little bit of buffer time to give ourselves a breather.

0:30:54 Noora Sharrab: And I’ll be honest, I didn’t quit my day job from day one. It was years in before I did that. And I think whether you’re a social entrepreneur, you’re just a tech entrepreneur, whatever it is, you got to give yourself buffer so that you have capacity to float a little bit before. And I think that was the important thing that helped us, at least in the beginning phase.

0:31:21 Amanda Stassen: Yeah. And it’s encouraging to hear because it’s not an overnight thing. I mean, this is eight years in the making, where you now have enough awareness and engagement that you’ve drawn the attention of L’Occitane. Right. This is now the traction and the momentum that you’ve built over these eight years. Would you say that there were any initiatives that you say worked really well in those early days for gaining that awareness and trial?

0:31:57 Noora Sharrab: I would just say collaboration was really, really key for us. So finding opportunities to partner as much as possible with organizations, with companies, really putting yourself out there, I think communication was really key. I remember the first time I walked by Holt Renfrew’s H project. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, Amanda, but I remember walking by. It was like a new Holt’s that just opened in Square One mall, like, back a few years back.

0:32:26 Noora Sharrab: And I remember I walked by and I was like, wait a minute, we need to be like, we need to be on the shelf. And you said something earlier in the podcast, which is like believing - Seeing yourself there is really critical to help you get there. And I remember walking by that shelf and saying, Sitti basically is just like any other company on the shelf. We need to be there. And I went home that day, and I went to the contact us, which is really fun, because people always ask me, how’d you get into Holt? And I was like, I just emailed them, and they’re like huh? I went on their website. I went on their contact us, and I sent them this whole letter, and I’m like, this is who we are, and I’d love to send you guys samples. And I really think our company belongs on the shelf. I didn’t have a contact.

0:33:11 Noora Sharrab: I didn’t have an in. And they got back to me a couple of weeks later, and I was like, I had to reread that email, like, five times. I was like, did they actually respond to me? And I sent them samples, and within a couple of months, we were working on getting products on the shelf, which was really really beautiful because it really talks about, you have to believe, and you have to really see yourself there before it happens.

0:33:35 Noora Sharrab: And if you don’t, and it’s this kind of this imposter syndrome of like, oh, do I really know why not? Why can’t you be just like any other? Why is it okay that some people are selling a $50 bar of soap when I can barely get my soap at this? It’s really believing that your product deserves to be, whether it’s at that price point, on that shelf, in that partnership, and if you don’t see it, it kind of diminishes your ability to really push that forward. And so I get asked, like, oh, how’d you get into Whole Foods? I saw myself on that shelf.

0:34:17 Noora Sharrab: I knew that we deserve to be on that shelf. And so I think that’s a big one. Maybe it’s, like a manifestation thing.

0:34:27 Amanda Stassen: You know, it’s Disney, Walt Disney called his team imagineers, and I think that there’s power in being able to imagine the possibilities. And this goes back to your purpose word of hope. Imagining the possibilities is that door that opens that enables you to then actually make it happen. But if you can’t see it, it’ll never come into being. Like, you actually have to see it in your mind to create it.

0:35:00 Amanda Stassen: We could just keep talking. Noora, it’s been awesome spending this time with you and learning more about the brand Sitti, and I almost feel like we’ve done this a little bit. So maybe if you want to, almost encapsulate. But as an entrepreneur, you’re leading a purpose driven brand and business. And I would love for you to leave our listeners with two practical tips that would help them to purpose power their business for that impact and that growth.

0:35:29 Amanda Stassen: You’ve shared a whole bunch already, but are there two that you just want to bring home right now.

0:35:35 Noora Sharrab: I think the first one is it’s going to be hard. Like if you’re planning on running enterprise purpose led business, it’s not always going to be a silver platter handed to you. You’re going to have to justify why it matters. I think sometimes we lose focus even as consumers or even as companies, like why we’re doing what we’re doing. And I think it’s realigning yourself and understanding why it matters.

0:36:00 Noora Sharrab: And so there are going to be extremely hard days where you’re going to want to throw in the towel, and it’s about having that greater mission and vision that will allow you to come back to base and kind of follow your pathway. So that’s, number one, is get ready for the hard days. I always say this to any entrepreneur, it’s not all positive LinkedIn posts and social media announcements.

0:36:22 Amanda Stassen: LinkedIn posts. Yeah, no, you’re right.

0:36:25 Noora Sharrab: I go on there and I was like, holy, everybody is celebrating a win. I need a win. And it’s being able to how do you navigate with this? Whether it’s this fear of missing out or this sense of I’m not good enough, it’s really about understanding the pathway that you’re on, the big vision that you’re trying to achieve, and whether it’s the little changes that you’re making or the big changes that you’re making. But, like, safe, steadfast, because it’s not something that will happen overnight. And if it does, fantastic. But most people, it takes a little bit of time.

0:36:56 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:36:57 Noora Sharrab: And the second part is you’re not in this alone. We don’t work in bubbles, we don’t work in silos. It’s really important to find synergy with other like minded, whether it’s entrepreneurs, whether it’s companies, whether it’s stakeholders, maybe it’s investors, find the community that’s going to help drive you towards achieving your mission. It might be an accelerator program, it might be an incubator, it might be a certain club that you’re associated to. But sometimes you have to remember that, because as entrepreneurs, and this is very copy paste of, oh, it’s a very lonely world, but it is, because a lot of the times you’re sitting there trying to think outside the box, trying to be innovative, trying to compete with those LinkedIn posts, and it’s like, how do I differentiate myself? How do I create a wow factor? And it’s really like, you are not doing this alone.

0:37:49 Noora Sharrab: If you come together with other, whether it’s organizations or brands or whatever it is depending on your industry, finding that partnership, that collaboration can help you get farther with them than you were alone. And that’s something I found with us, is that whenever we had an opportunity to partner or to create a co branded experience or to elevate someone else through that process, we found that it allowed us to expand and it allowed us to do things more than what we normally could with our own resources.

0:38:22 Amanda Stassen: I love that. What a tremendous encouragement. I just love that. Thank you so much for sharing those nuggets. So where can people find and connect with you and learn more about Sitti soap? What’s your website handle so they can.

0:38:37 Noora Sharrab: Go to sittisoap.com, sittisoap and I think if you’re looking for conscious gifting solutions, if you’re looking for your next corporate gift, if you’re looking for brand partnerships, it’s definitely something up our alleyway. Or if you’re looking for good damn bar of soap that’s super clean. It’s all handmade cold press. We really put the time to invest in the products that we made that serve our community.

0:39:09 Noora Sharrab: And I didn’t mention this, but actually Sitti means my grandmother in Arabic. And I always ask myself like, is this grandma approved? Would grandma approve this? Because it’s really about coming back to our traditions and how we can serve and use resources and materials that are good for our planet, are good for people, and are good for the community that we invest in.

0:39:37 Amanda Stassen: I love that. Noora, thank you so much for sharing your story and your learnings. And thank you for all you’re doing in and through Sitti soap to make the world better for all.

0:39:48 Noora Sharrab: Thank you so much Amanda for giving us the space to share our story.

0:39:54 Amanda Stassen: Hey, thanks for listening to the Purpose Power brand podcast. I’m Amanda Stassen. If you liked what you heard, be sure to share and subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We’d also love to hear what resonated with you. Or if you have a guest suggestion, drop us a line at info@bizu.co. Special thanks to Mark Salam for original music and lead podcasting for production. Lastly, if you’re ready to purpose power your brand to grow, win and impact at scale, let’s talk.

0:40:19 Amanda Stassen: Visit www.bizu.co. That’s wwww.bizu.co. Bye for now.