NO MORE 9 – 5 FOR ME! WE’RE MIA BELLA LIFESTYLING IT BABY!

Bill and I started with this Incredible company www.scents4success.net 3 years ago now, and my how our business and the company have evolved!

When we started I was still working a day JOB full time for a local utility company. I was on “Special Projects” and was paid very well for what I did, but when I became a distributor I became more and more aware of the opportunities that were passing us by everyday that I drove to and from work and couldn’t stop to introduce our products to many perfect businesses along the way. This was a huge frustration for me and blessedly it wasn’t long before I was able to relieve that frustration by walking away from my day JOB to become a full time business owner! And I LOVE it! http://www.kellene.scent-team.com/opportunity.php

When I left the day job I began to re-evaluate how we were going to approach marketing our business. I began by approaching some of those people and businesses that I didn’t have the opportunity to approach before. These first action steps developed into a focus that became a “Lifestyle” method rather than designating just certain times and places to work our business. I found that simply scheduling a certain place (s) to go to that day or certain times to work this business wasn’t enough. There were still too many opportunities that were never realized by limiting myself like that. So I began to take my business with me everywhere I went.

I use to carry a basket of jar candles with me, and in certain situations still do, but now I carry a business bag/purse. It is my portable “trunk” and is a portable business office. I had been looking for a while for a bag that I would be able to combine my purse and my portable business, because I figured since my purse was use to having everything up to, and sometimes including, the household plumbing in it I might as well make it productive and carry my business with me, and I do.

The reality is that it isn’t much heavier than just my purse use to be. ( Like I said, just about everything found it’s way into my purse so it wasn’t light. When one of the family pets came up missing the consensus was….look in mom’s purse! Not really, but you get the idea.)

It is actually an expandable computer bag. I have my initials on the front of it, and it has 3 sections. The first section is “my purse”, and contains my wallet, glasses, keys, ect. (minus the family pet or kitchen plumbing). The second section has foam inserts designed for a laptop but for my purposes they are perfect for the jar candles. The foam keeps them snug and from clacking against each other. As I sell, or gift a jar candle I simply separate them by placing them on opposite sides of the foam inserts.

The third section has three expandable file pockets that is perfect for organizing the different flyers, promotional materials, fundraiser portfolios, ect and also has individual pockets for the CD’s, catalogs, brochures, and business cards, pen holder pockets. The outside of the bag has a large front pocket to hold up to a dozen of the “Possibility Votive Sets”. Keeping them here makes them a finger touch away and available at a moment’s notice, when there is an occasion to smile and give a Mia Bella thank you to someone.

My life-styling bag carries up to 4 jar candles comfortably, many possibility votive sets (these are the seeds of our business and we plant them everywhere), Body Bar samples http://www.kellene.scent-team.com/bathandbody.php ( made by making curls from a Body Bar with a simple potato peeler and putting the curls in an organza bag), business CD’s , business cards (magnet and regular), catalogs, brochures(Spanish and Business), fundraiser flyers and portfolios http://www.kellene.scent-team.com/fundraising.php, tear off flyers, ect. it is my business made portable and every day before I leave the house I reload it with anything that needs replacing.

I’m always prepared. Everywhere I go. You might think it would be heavy with all of that product in it, and honestly it is, ….when I first start out. But I don’t intend to carry those products very far into the day. The whole idea is to take advantage of Mia Bella opportunities when they present themselves, and trust me when I say they are EVERYWHERE!

Everywhere I go as I go about my day of meetings, shopping, court dates, the bank, Petsmart, ect. my bag becomes lighter and lighter. If it doesn’t, I’m not life-styling to full potential. My bag doesn’t stay heavy long, and while it is I simply look at it as an upper body workout.

If I have a particularly busy day scheduled with meetings for Savanah, or my Aunt, I will sometimes try to schedule a quick pit stop in the middle of it at the house so that I can reload because I breeze through a half dozen “possibility sets” and four jar candles with no problem. It’s all about the mindset, I leave the house thinking of all of the wonderful people that are going to come into my life that day that I am going to have a reason to say a Mia Bella thank you. That’s an exciting thought to start the day with and it puts it out there like a wave that precedes you wherever you go!

My days in many ways are even busier than they were when I was working the day JOB. Savanah came of legal age last year, and even though she is still in high school, and I am her mother, I had to legally become her guardian. I also became legal guardian of my Aunt by marriage when my Uncle passed last year making no provision for her. She has advanced Alzheimer’s and requires 24 hour care and supervision. I love her dearly, so when her family in PA made it clear they didn’t want the responsibility there was no question about what I would do.

It has been a struggle with legal issues and liquidating and preserving her estate for her continued care in the lifestyle that I believe she deserves, ect. and very time consuming. We are also making the most of the time we have in Savanah’s senior year this year to set new long term precedents for vocational opportunities and alternatives, (in large part using this business as an example) not only for her, but to set the precedent for all the young physically and mentally challenged adults that will come up through the high school system in the years to come.

It is a new revolution for these young adults and our Company’s business opportunity is leading the way like a beacon! I am very proud of this, and our company. But all of this, and the resulting time constraints if I were not life-styling our business would have severely limited the growth of our business. Instead, through life-styling it is flourishing and growing in abundance!

Bill takes our “Possibility sets” with him to work, and when he does an appraisal and sees there are candles in the house, he asks if they have ever burned one of our candles http://www.kellene.scent-team.com/candles.php. The answer is no, or they would have them sitting around, so he says “my wife sells these candles and everyone loves them, I think I have a few samples of them in the truck, I’ll give you one before I leave and you can try it and let her know what you think” This benefits his appraisal business in a positive way, and we usually have a new customer, or prospect.

When he is going to a rural area for a land appraisal he will save our mailings and mail them at the local post office there to introduce our candles to that local post office. The post office employees in these small rural areas know everyone! He partners with me in life-styling our business as he works his regular appraisal job.

Last Christmas I took a case of candles and packaged them with seasonal tissue paper and ribbon and tied one of our candle business cards, and Bills’ appraisal cards to each one then had Bill take them to a major real estate office he had been trying to get his foot in the door with for a while and put them on everyone’s desks.

It was an investment that has paid for itself a hundred times over in the $thousands of dollars worth of appraisals that this company now almost exclusively sends to Bill and, we have an entire office of new customers now, the girls call me when they need a new candle and I load up their orders and a case of candles besides in a large Rattan Basket I have and when I go in there, I go with the mindset that it is only going to be heavy going in because coming out it will be an empty basket, and it is, and I usually have a few more orders besides!

Now Bill’s boss has me make up a case of candles like this periodically for one of the other guys to beef up their business too. He pays me $20.00 a candle for them, I package them up and Bill takes them in. The appraisal business can really slow down when interest rates go up and right now the other guys are experiencing a slow down, but it is all Bill can do to keep up with the orders that the girls send him every week. The other guys want a piece of this action! Lol

My attorney (for my Aunt and Savanah’s issues) is also one of our best customers. She has a HUGE network and her, and her partner love candles. As usual I gifted her and her staff with a candle after she helped me with my guardianship case of Savanah and my Aunt, and that $11.00 investment has paid for itself over and over, now word is spreading in her circle, and between her office, Bill’s boss, and ONE of our real estate offices, we sold 4 cases of candles just to them alone last week. Be willing to invest a jar candle in the right place every now and then as part of a sincere thank you, you will be amazed at the return on your investment.

We advertise every day. Bill has a truck window decal, that was in September’s newsletter. We have had customers and distributor sign ups from this. Everywhere we go we are advertising our business even if we are parked in the grocery store parking lot we are advertising without thinking about it. I also WEAR our fragrances. This is advertisement and a conversation opener. Put your day jewelry in a dish with a favorite votive fragrance and it will temporarily absorb it. As you wear your jewelry you are a walking smell and sale. People notice and love our fragrances!

I volunteer with our products for craft workshops now at the state day care facility for young adults with mental and physical disabilities near us, once a month. I have a blast with these very dear and special people and the smiles on their faces with what they can do with our products is tremendously rewarding for me.

Also, doing workshops with the seniors of our community in the life guidance care home that my Aunt lives in is equally rewarding for the same reason.

We have a unique product that is so much more than a candle! Find a group or organization that shares your passion for something and then volunteer to do a workshop for them. Watch the levels of payoffs for you personally and for your business with a group that shares your passion.

It’s a GREAT way to spread your business into your community! If like me, it becomes a regular part of your life, tell the group you can do a fundraiser to provide the money to pay for the workshop supplies. That fundraiser means income, new customers, community involvement, ..…see how a positive like this spreads out like a wave before you?!

Literally everywhere I go and everything I do I am prepared to present our candles and the business opportunity to someone, and I gage that by the opportunities that present themselves to smile and say thank you to someone for something, anything. Then…..”do you like candles? Here, take this votive and try it (possibility set). If you like candles I think you will LOVE this!” Everyone I have introduced to these candles have been blown away. “I’ll give you a call in a couple of days to see what you think. I’m really looking forward to your input.” I only use certain votive fragrances for this kind of promoting for maximum impact.

We also grate down Peach/Papaya and attach fragrance samples on EVERYTHING before it leaves the house. Whether catalogs, business cards, flyers, ect. Nothing sells our candles like they sell themselves and we give them EVERY opportunity to do that.

I give everyone the option of being our customer or distributor. Either way is fine with us but we present both options if they are excited about the candles. Service repairmen coming to the house, horse shoer, doctor, attorney, teacher, mechanic, florist, telemarketers ( I love telemarketers and look forward to their calls because I look at these as prospects for our business and work them like leads, and have recruited some of them!) social workers, the hairdresser at the care community where my Aunt lives, literally anyone you come in to contact with in the course of your day.

And if you are home all day and don’t have an opportunity to get out as often, no worries, if you make a list of the people that come to YOU at your home in the course of a day or evening you will be amazed at how many that adds up to.

The postman, school bus drivers, the pizza delivery person, your UPS person, the meter reader, the trash pick up guys, the gardener, the neighbors…It is all about the MINDSET and putting out the thought like a positive wave in front of you each day, that you are going to share our company experience with everyone you have reason to be thankful for. Including your trash collectors. Think about it. And watch how that positive wave carries your business to a new level of abundance!

We are so grateful for this business every single day, and the freedom it has given me to be there for the loved ones in my life that have so needed me there. The blessings are huge and limitless, share them in the course of YOUR lifestyle and watch your business grow and grow!

Kellene VanDorn
Double Diamond Team Leader
www.ourcandleclub.com