Chapter 5: My Life In Business – First Visit to Ohio (2007)

My life as Co-Founder of Thirty-One

20 chapters from my 20 years

Including never before shared stories

Year five brought a crazy journey with moving the business two times and hitting record sales numbers. In January of 2007 we moved the business to a space that was triple the size of the last one. Not much of a stretch when our first office space was 2400 square feet. This felt like such a big move for us and it was a lot of work since we did it all ourselves. No hired help here. Just our small team working day and night. The new space was a rundown warehouse and office space of about 7500 sf. We had a group of our top sales consultants come town for an advisory meeting. We proudly showed off the new space before even moving in and during the tour came across a dead rat that got kicked out of sight before any of our visitors spotted it.

We filled the bigger warehouse space quickly and creatively. We were seeing higher than projected sales numbers and while that’s great for the business it brought challenges with fulfilling orders and having enough inventory on hand. Little did we know the new warehouse and office space wouldn’t be nearly big enough. We packed ourselves into that space and did whatever it took to keep things moving smoothly through a little luck and a lot of faith.

By March we were exceeding our sales plan by 50% and keeping enough inventory in stock and offering an exclusive product assortment was feeling like a necessary for us to continue to build the brand. Since we had been using vendors that we did not have exclusivity agreements with, we were at a point where we needed to make a change. In early April we made our first trip to Columbus, Ohio which was an eight hour drive (in the days of MapQuest directions, no less). A quick three day trip to meet a new product vendor would end up shifting the entire direction of the business for the good.

In June I was excited to make my first trip to California to attend a Direct Sales Association (DSA) annual meeting. My husband, Jason, joined me for part of the trip and we loved sight seeing in a rented red mustang convertible. Our visit to San Diego included a drive to Los Angeles where we got to see Harbor Island, Coronado Island, San Clemente, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Rodeo Drive, Malibu, Brentwood, Sunset Blvd and the Hollywood sign. One of the big reasons to attend DSA meetings is to make connections. At this event in 2007 we met someone who would end up helping create the party plan software system that would be the backbone for the company for years to come. We also had dinner with the Scentsy owners who were very early in the building of their business just like us.

By July we were starting to see some bumps in the road with backordered products as our product vendors were struggling to keep up with our needs. Our new vendor partnership formed a few months back was still in the works but those new products were not available for us to sell yet. I was personally missing out on special times with my young kids and feeling some regrets over those missed moments. I was thrilled we were able to bring on a few more employees and hoped this meant I could spend more time with my family.

August brought a busy first weekend with our National Conference event, the fall catalog finally finished, and our first tractor trailer size delivery of products for our fall season. We were fortunate to get some warehouse shelves from a local Lowe’s store but they were meant for a warehouse with a much higher ceiling than the one we were in. We got creative and cut the shelves in half with a Sawzall. As we put the shelves up and placed the inventory in the warehouse, we ran out of space almost immediately.

Less than nine months after moving into this warehouse space we started looking for a much bigger space. By late August we had found the new space and started moving the business (again). Funny thing about those shelves that we cut in half was that the new space had the high ceilings meant for the original size of the shelves. We were now in our fourth business location and it was only year five. The new 20,000 square foot warehouse space seemed so big that we'd never fill it up. And it came with a forklift that no one knew how to operate. My sister was one of our employees at the time and jumped right into getting certified and became our expert without hesitation.

September and October were busy months and we were hitting record numbers. I was still handling the inventory reporting and buying but really hoped to hire someone to handle it full time soon. We had a popular custom product during this time called “Painted Kids”. Originally created by a local artist, she painted cute “kids” according the customer’s specifications on the bag of their choice. They were offered in a variety of outfits, hair styles, and facial expressions then added the child’s name or a family name. By the time our busy season arrived she could not keep up with the demand for the orders. We didn’t want to turn down orders, so we took on the task of trying to recreate the vision of the artist and paint the “kids” ourselves.

We had close to 1500 bags to paint and a group of mildly talented folks willing to work all hours to get it done. We made templates out of acrylic and put our best effort into finishing the bags to the customers expectations. The drying time was what slowed us down the most. We had bags with wet paint on them all over the place. Even more, we had the bright idea to offer a two-sided option so there could be more “kids” painted on the bags. So once one side was painted and dry, we flipped it over and continued finishing the other size. When someone made a mistake the entire process had to start over. The whole process was just a crazy adventure in doing whatever it takes to get the work done. We just couldn’t keep up with the demand and eventually made a printed version if the “kids” and offered them with even more customization options. I wish I knew how much we sold in the “painted kids” phase the business as it would probably rank as one of the poorest profit margins ever.

November was a record sales month with it being our first time exceeding $1M in sales in a single month. I reflected in my journal during the week of Christmas that some of us worked 100 in a week and our husbands stepped in to help where we stayed until 2am multiple nights. What seems crazy to me now when I look back on those days is that they were both challenging and rewarding. They were infuriating and exceptional. They made me want to cry because I was missing special moments with my kids but I also knew I was doing the right thing for my family.