Tag Archives: Scentsy Family

A Family Adventure For A Family Business

Family Business Australia Adventure

Today is a packing day – washing clothes, buying last minute supplies and snacks, downloading games and movies on the various tablets to be distributed to our kids for the plane ride.  On Saturday, our entire family (all 5 of us), and Meghann’s dad, are heading on a “family adventure” to Australia that is the result of our “family business”.

Our Scentsy business truly is a “family business”, and it has been that way since we started it in 2009. There have been thousands of hours that have been “spent together” while we built this family business together, and everyone has played a role.  It hasn’t been just me and Meghann, our kids have been there every step of the way.  Whether it was helping to organize orders, or just being patient while Mom and Dad travelled to meetings around North America, or their understanding of our “work from home” requirements (as well as their embracing of our flexibility).

Family Business Australia Adventure

So because they have been such an integral part of this family business, we want to share the adventures that the business brings into our life with them.

The Australia component of our business is our latest adventure.  When Scentsy announced last summer that it was opening in Australia we got really excited.  My grandma is from Australia and my Dad was born shortly after they moved to Canada.  I also have relatives in Australia that I’ve never met before.  Australia was also a place that just “felt right” to Meg and I – who knows why?  We were just interested in the culture and the people.

So when the announcement happened we immediately became committed to the idea of building a business in Australia.

But how in the world were we going to do that from Canada?  

Well – we’ve learned in our life that if there is a will then there HAS to be a way.  So we got creative.  We used our social media networks to advertise that Scentsy was opening in Australia and we asked people that we knew if they had friends there who would be interested in the business.  We reached out to our “offline” networks as well and talked to as many people as we could about the Australia opportunity and continually asked people if they knew anyone in Australia who would be interested in building a business similar to the type of business that we had built in Canada.

We were relentless and it worked!  Pretty soon we had several people who were interested in joining Scentsy as Independent Consultants on our team.  We then spread the enthusiasm to our team and encouraged them to engage the same strategies that were working for us.  They started to recruit people in Australia as well.  We had a lot of momentum, and many people through our large Canadian network who had recruited other people in Australia.

So we decided to invest even further, and in the fall of 2013 Meghann went over to Australia and held opportunity meetings in many cities throughout the country.

kangaroo OZ

This was an amazing success, and she met and connected with many genuine, wonderful and enthusiastic people who have since become Scentsy Independent Consultants and now have businesses that are ON FIRE with growth.  We were able to meet many of these new consultants when they came over to St. Louis for our recent Scentsy Family Reunion 2014.

Australia Family Business Adventure

Now the “Australian Component” of our business includes almost 500 Independent Consultants in our group who we have incredible empowering relationships with.  At this point we’ve probably had over 100 “late night or early morning” Skype or GoToMeeting visits with these team members (because of the time zone differences) but every minute has been worth it.  They are some of the most genuine, believing, enthusiastic entrepreneurs we’ve ever met.  It is a blessing to be associated with them.

So now we are going to see them on an Australian Family Business Adventure!  Let me tell you where we are going!

We fly on Saturday to Los Angeles where we will catch the red eye to Sydney.  From Sydney we will head north to Cairns.  This the “vacation” portion of the trip (mixed in with a little business).  We will see things like the Great Barrier Reef:

Family Business Great Barrier Reef

Green Island

Green Island Family Business

Tablelands

Tablelands Family Business

We’re also going to have several team meetings and meet with our various team members and their families.

Then from Cairns we head to Brisbane where we will be staying at Bribie Island.

Bribie Island Family Business

And we may check out the famous Steve Irwin Zoo as well!

Australia Zoo Family Business

From Brisbane we drive to the Gold Coast for Scentsy Family Reunion Australia 2014!  It is going to be amazing.  We can’t wait.

AUSFR

Stay tuned for more stories of our adventures from Australia, and if this perks your interest at all, you can also create these types of adventures for yourself.

Everything that we’ve done with our business, including the international expansion, can be duplicated if you are willing to work hard, be creative, and stick to a long term focus,  Click here to learn more 

 

 

The Scentsy Family – A Tribute To An Ethos Of Giving

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Scentsy Family Reunion 2014 is now complete, and it was a huge success.

Consultants were educated, inspired and are now collectively heading home motivated and ready to build their businesses, achieve unique dreams, and write their own empowering stories.

Scentsy Inspire Flag, Ryan and Meghann Clements
Scentsy Inspire Flag, Ryan and Meghann Clements

Scentsy is an organization that is unique.  Having worked with many large organizations, prior to our joining Scentsy in 2009, we had never experienced the collective power of belief and mutual goodwill that we have experienced by being part of the Scentsy Family.

It is remarkable – this organization cares more about creating stories of empowerment for their consultants than it does the “bottom line” and making money.

That seems like a unusual claim doesn’t it?  In fact, many people would consider such a claim to be fundamentally impossible – isn’t the purpose of a corporation to make money?  If a business didn’t care about money wouldn’t they go out of business?

Let me restate my point:

Scentsy, as an organization, cares more about creating empowering stories for their consultants than they do about making money. 

But here is the incredible thing – by focusing on adding value in the lives of others, and creating empowering stories for each and every consultant, the money has followed, probably more so than anyone could have ever expected.

Thompson-Family-close-up

This ethos – of caring more about others than about yourself – is fundamental to the culture of Scentsy because it has been taught, and continually acted upon,  by Scentsy owners Orville and Heidi Thompson.  Through their example they have created a culture of generosity, an ethos of giving, that trickles down to company employees who consistently go the extra mile to make the experience of each Scentsy consultant a positive, fun and empowering one.

joal curtis

Everything in Scentsy is directed at enhancing the experience of the consultant.

Think about it:  Scentsy as an organization spends millions – I repeat millions – of dollars annually on things designed to enhance the experience, and enjoyment of their consultants.  Things like free incentive vacations –that we have personally been the benefactor of many times.  These are expenditures that they don’t have to make, and frankly expenditures that decrease the owners “bottom line”.

Never in my life, prior to joining Scentsy, had I worked for a single organization who spent on the scale that Scentsy spends to enhance the experience of those in their community.

Scentsy Family Reunion 2014 was filled with examples:

A private concert by Sara Bareilles:

sara bareilles

A private concert by Train:

train

A private show by Jim Gaffigan, and many other examples of entertainment and inspiring speakers, whose sole purpose was to enhance the experience of Scentsy Consultants, at the cost of Scentsy corporate.

Even the top award for Scentsy consultants, an award that we were very honoured to receive last year, is based on giving.

The Shining Star Award isn’t awarded to the consultants who make the most money, or recruit the most people. Unlike other direct sales companies who parade around the stage showing larger than life pay cheques, Scentsy honors those who “give” the most.  Not those who “take” the most.  Their top honour is awarded to the people who best serve.  It is awarded to the consultants who show the best examples of giving, and it is a peer nominated award.

shining star

The people who run Scentsy, and the consultants that comprise its sales force have tapped into something special – something that not everyone gets to experience in life – the power of a positive community.  A community where there is a consistent and intentional effort, on everyone’s behalf, to help others succeed.  A culture where the dominant mindset is that “a rising tide will lift all ships”.

In a day when corporate greed is commonplace –  where we often cynically joke about the lies that we hear from government, regardless of their place on the ideological spectrum, it is refreshing, and reassuring, to be part of an organization that truly values people.  Who understands that the greatest asset, for long term profit, is people, and that the prospects, and profits, of a company are entirely dependent on the empowerment of those who work for it.

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We are proud to be Scentsy Independent Consultants.  We are proud to be associated with an organization that wants it’s members to have legacies and write empowering stories of their own.  We are proud to call, as friends, Scentsy owners Heidi and Orville Thompson, who believe that each consultant’s personal story, and legacy, is as important as theirs, and who treat each and every consultant with respect, and who make everyone feel, even the brand new consultants, like they are the most valued company asset.

Well done Scentsy!  Well done!