My career has not followed a straight line. It has zigzagged across industries and functions and continents. One of the bigger jumps was from industrial manufacturing to beauty retail. From Emerson Electric, a global industrial automation company, to Ulta Beauty, the largest beauty retailer in the United States.
On the surface, the two could not look more different. Emerson makes equipment that runs factories. Big machines. Control systems. Supply chains that stretch across continents. Ulta sells lipstick and skincare and salon services. And now, its customer might find her next favorite product on TikTok at midnight. From far enough away, the two look like completely different worlds.
But what I learned was that I wasn't starting over. I was just translating.
The problems, and the frameworks were the same. Even the politics of getting different teams to agree and align. The tension between what the spreadsheet says and what the people in the system actually need. All of it transferred.
What changed was the vocabulary.
My work across both industries taught me three lessons. Not from a textbook but from the work I've actually done with real teams. The kind of tradeoffs you only see up close. Big revenue is not always big profit. The customer wants the real expert, not the script. And when something doesn't fit, no amount of effort makes it fit.
Lesson 1: Big Revenue Is Not Big Profit
In a B2B business that sells big custom deals, the biggest deal on paper can sometimes be the worst deal for profit. The custom work, the extra engineering, the pressure of "this is a strategic account" all add cost. The top line looks great. The bottom line tells a different story.
The fix isn't to be tougher about which deals to chase. The fix is to look at each deal piece by piece. Some parts of a deal actually make money. Other parts quietly lose money. Once you can see the difference, you can say yes to the parts that work and stop saying yes to the parts that don't.
That thinking has to live in how the sales team picks deals. Not in a slide deck. I built a tool to make that real. What made it work was who helped build it. Field sales. Finance. Engineering. Without those voices in the room, a tool like that ends up on a shelf and nothing changes.
The same problem shows up in beauty retail. Same problem, different look. In the beauty services business, the temptation is to chase the top line. More offerings. More categories. More floor space. But not every category actually makes money once you add up the staffing, the space, the training, and all the moving parts. Some look great on the revenue line and quietly lose money everywhere else.
The lesson is the same in both worlds. Look at profit, not just revenue. Say yes carefully. Build the tools with the people who use them. The product was different but the solution was the same.
Lesson 2: The Customer Wants the Real Expert, Not the Script
Customers can always tell when they're talking to someone reciting a script versus someone who actually knows the product. Maybe it's the engineer. Maybe it's the product manager. Maybe it's a trained beauty advisor who has used the product herself. Whoever it is, the closer the customer gets to that person, the better the conversation. The further away, the more rehearsed it feels, and the less it lands.
In B2B sales, the default is to lean on the sales team to do all the talking. Sometimes it works better to put the product experts in front of customers too. These are the people who built the product and know it inside out. They can talk about it better than anyone else. The customer hears the real story instead of a sales translation. The bonus is internal. Sales and product working together builds trust no team-building exercise can fake.
In a beauty store, this looks like the advisor behind the counter. The one who has been trained on the product, has tried it and has formed her own opinion of it. When she can talk about the product as herself, the whole experience changes and trust comes in. The customer can always tell.
The takeaway is the same in both worlds. If you want the customer to hear from the real expert, you have to invest in the real expert. Train them. Give them dedicated time and dedicated roles. Don't lean on marketing to do all the talking. The customer is asking for the real thing.
Lesson 3: When Something Doesn't Fit, Stop Forcing It
Some opportunities just don't fit the business you've built. The hard part is seeing that early enough to do something about it.
In industrial sales, this shows up as a deal where the customer wants something so custom that delivering it would require a different company entirely. The operating model can't bend that far without losing money on every unit. The right answer is to walk away and put the energy somewhere the model actually works.
In retail, this shows up in beauty services. Some categories need real commitment to work. Maybe a dedicated person or a dedicated space or maybe enhanced training. Trying to squeeze them in between everything else is not a softer version of doing it right. It's a quieter version of doing it wrong.
And different beauty services come with different experience needs. The technical side of the service is almost beside the point. What matters is the experience around it. For some services, guests want quick. Walk in. Get it done. Walk out. For others, they want time and quiet and privacy. A premium experience that doesn't rush. The store format has to match the experience the service needs. A premium private experience inside a busy open floor rarely adds up financially. Not without serious money behind the build.
The hard part isn't figuring out which things don't fit. The hard part is actually stopping them. Most companies struggle with this. There's always a pull to give it more time. Especially when you've already invested in design and training and rollout. But continuing something that isn't working is the real waste. Stopping is what makes the next investment possible.
The strategic answer is to name the ceiling and move the resources somewhere else. Not to try harder inside a structure that can't deliver. That's true on a factory floor. It's true in a salon chair. The format sets the limit.
The Vocabulary Changes. The Work Doesn't.
Between industries, the toolkit travels even when the language doesn't.
A tool that looks at manufacturing deals for profit can look at beauty services for profit. The work of getting field teams in different regions to agree is the same work as getting field teams in different stores to agree. The conviction it takes to say "this deal doesn't fit our model" in a room full of people who want to say yes is the same conviction it takes to say "this category doesn't fit our format" in a room that's just as reluctant to hear it.
The deeper lesson isn't really about manufacturing and beauty. It's about cross industry thinking. When you move between industries, the surface drops away and you see what actually runs the place. Margin discipline. Customer engagement. Format fit. The people side of every transformation. These show up everywhere.
When I joined the retail industry, I thought I was starting over. Now I know. Everything I'd learned did transfer.
When I joined the retail industry, I thought I was starting over. I asked myself if my old experience even counted. Now I know. Everything I'd learned did transfer. And it will keep transferring, into whatever comes next.
If You've Crossed Industries
If you've made a jump that looked crazy from the outside, I have one question for you.
What translated that surprised you?
I'd bet the answer is almost everything. The language changed. The logos changed. The problems you were solving didn't. The human stuff didn't either.
Cross industry experience is the sharpest lens you can carry.