The Indie Experience
September 17, 2007
A Publication of The Indie Beauty Network
ISSN 1530-9630 | Volume 8, Issue 37
To subscribe, click here
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1. Meet IBN's New & Renewing Members!
2. New At the Blog: A Contest Is Reborn!
3. Today On Indie Business Radio: Work It Girl!!
4. Indie Candy: Ghislaine Berube: Casco Bay Gardens,
LLC
Indie Beauty Ritual: Honey Egg Facial
1. Meet IBN's New & Renewing Members
Welcome
Renewing Members!
GDCSpa.com | Emily Caswell | Maine
* Member Since June 2006; GCDSpa.com combines fruit and
flower essential oils, fragrances, and flavors with sugars, sea salts,
moisturizing oils and butters to create spa products that smell great and
feel wonderful! Our handmade sugar scrubs, bath salts, and other products
will help to pamper your loved ones (and yourself) with natural ingredients
that are good for the skin. Say a special thank you with our personalized
lip balms, decorated for all occasions.
Welcome New Members!
Masque Apothecary | Shari Lohner | Missouri
* Clay-based facial masks that can be customized for any skin type.
SATIRA | Satira Giammarino | New York
* We offer a fine line of Bath and Beauty products. At SATIRA, we put
quality first.
Rubber Ducky Soap Co. | Kelly Smith | California
* Handmade skincare products created from natural ingredients.
Pure Light Candle Co. | John Erikson | Virginia
* Pure Light Candle Company, a natural hand poured alternative. We
are a Richmond, Virginia based family owned candle maker that crafts each
candle by hand from setting the 100% cotton wicks, mixing and test burning
each fragrance, pouring each soy candle and making the subtle labeling.
New
Workshop!
Aromatherapy Insight Cards For Intuitive Aromatherapy!
IBN member SunRose Aromatics is sponsoring this workshop with Jennifer Jeffires, ND, on Saturday, October 6 and the SunRose studio in New York. Learn the subtle uses of essential oils, including how to use them to balance chakras and develop a sense of intuitive aromatherapy, which can translate into increased benefits for your clients, your products and your life! For more information and to register, click here.
Learn more about Indie members and their exciting products, services and activities by visiting their websites through our Online Member Directory. You can search for your favorite Indie by state/country, business name, keyword or alphabetical listings.
2. New At the Blog: A Contest Is Reborn!
Blogs
of special interest to the Indie Beauty community:
You
Have Not Because You Ask Not: sometimes all you have to do is ask
Broadcast
Your Brand: a look at how Internet radio can enhance your business
Mow,
Edge and Blow: a simple and unique, yet effective, way to look at
business growth
Indie
See, Indie Do: get some simple new ideas for your business in this post
Take
Your Pics: the importance of good product photos
3. Today on Indie Business Radio: Work It Girl!!
Indie Business Radio offers practical advice and workable strategies to achievement-oriented, independent entrepreneurs who are trading in the traditional corporate ladder to enjoy life and business on their own terms. Enjoy downloads and audio streams of recent shows at this link.
This
Week's Show: Work it Girl!
Guests:
Authors Pamela McBride and Lorraine Morris Cole, authors of the new book Work
It Girl!, share what they learned from successful professional sisters,
and empower all of us to act on their examples.
How To Enjoy the Show: To join live, log onto Indie Business Radio 1:00pm EST. Email your questions to info@indiebusinessradio.com.
Upcoming Shows:
September 24: IBN's own Dawn Fitch of Pooka
Pure & Simple: shares tips from her new book and how to achieve in
the indie beauty business and in life (confirmed)
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4. Indie Candy: Ghislaine Berube: Casco Bay Gardens, LLC
"When the cat's away, the mouse will play." Perhaps no group of women knows that better than those of us who have been left alone in a kitchen with a bowl, beeswax, fragrance oil, olive oil and left over baby food jars. But while some of us find a hobby, others are captivated by the drive to generate income. And so it was with 61-year old Ghislaine Berube of South Portland, Maine, who founded Casco Bay Gardens, LLC after finding that the joys of consuming chocolate and tabloid magazines all day could only last so long.
How did you start your business and what was the inspiration for it?
My husband, Jim, had an out of state client who wanted "face time" with him for two years. I was thrilled that while he tended to his business for two years, I would enjoy eating bonbons and reading People magazine. All that idle time made me happy for about two weeks. I guess, we "entrepreneurs” don’t “idle” well.
Personal care has always been a hobby of mine so I started dabbling in earnest when Jim was away. He teases me that I'm making up for not having had a chemistry set as a child. This is my first business, started in 2000. Before that, I worked as a computer programmer in my husband's business.
Do you make your products yourself?
Yes. I make everything myself. It may sound daunting to those not in the ‘business,” but organization is the key.
If you know you’re going to turn your work space upside down to make 100 lip
balms, heck, you might as well make a thousand.
How many products are in your line?
I have 10 products in my line. I try to introduce two new items each year
-- though if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. My best selling products are the Lobsterman's CoolKiss, Lobsterman's Balm and Lobsterman’s Silicone Balm. The customers love the skin feel, purity and instant soothing
qualities of each. The Lobsterman's Balm is one of my first products. Made
with almond oil, shea butter, beeswax, cocoa butter, Vitamin E and essential
oils, it's perfect for, well, lobstermen. Landlubbers all over love it too!
Who helps make your business successful?
My husband is my biggest helper. He doesn’t pour lip balm or lotion but really steps up when I have an administrative crisis. He’s a software developer and systems analyst so when the label printer is kicking up (which is most of the time), he sets up the print jobs. Today, he’s doing my taxes. He’s put all my formulas in Excel sheets where I only need to change the number of units I want to make and all ingredients are re-calculated. He designed a spreadsheet that tells me the cost, to the penny, for a lip balm. If it weren’t for him, my whole life would be on “Post-It” notes.
I also use a gifted graphic designer, Jessica Simmons (jessica@jessicasimmons.com; no website). She is responsible for “the look” of my labels, brochures and website. She always has such unique ideas. As entrepreneurs, we have to accept that we just can’t do everything well, and there are times when you need to call in “the big guns” This is not inexpensive but it is definitely an investment that’s paying off now.
Tell me about the theme of your business and your fantastic website, with all of its clever nautical-themed navigation tools?
The site is Jessica Simmons' brainchild . We do get a lot of positive feedback so I hope my customers like it because they’re going to be seeing it for a while! My Maine theme came from my homesickness when I was out of state for a while with my husband on business. I would put myself to sleep at night thinking of ways to devise a “hook” for my products. I know that there’s a certain ‘romance’ about Maine and the ocean so I played with possible product names, company names, etc.
My company name, Casco Bay Gardens, is more cumbersome than I now like. It doesn’t really convey what I or my products do, but since the company is now incorporated under that name, I’m living with it. All the products are trademarked and start with "Lobsterman’s", so I have continuity that way. Casco Bay just doesn't really fit in. I’ll probably come up with a solution at some point -- ah, creativity! I believe it’s imperative to have a “hook” or theme in order to make your products to stand out, especially in the online age where you can so easily search for items of specific interest and get tons of leads. Having a hook really helps with sales. Customers will buy more than one product as gifts because they like the look, or the look implies that the quality is the same for the entire line.
How does your family and non-business responsibilities impact your ability to run Casco Bay?
I have three daughters and seven grandchildren, and I adore every single one of them.
There's no one in my home and work space except for Jim and me so I have the
luxury of being absolutely self-centered. My hat is off to the parents who juggle kids, busy households,
business and families. Those are the heroes! Hang in there women, your time’s coming! I aim to live my life as stress free as possible so I try to be regimented but
flexible. I try to plan ahead and keep stock on hand.
How do you market your products?
I market my products at trade shows on the east coast. I stopped doing craft fairs because the money I brought in didn’t compensate for the set up work I had to do. I did a "regular" craft show this weekend because the promoters assured me that there is an anticipated attendance of 250,000 and they set up my booth with pipe and drape. I have a list of clients who receive periodic “is it time to re-order” brochures and I use a professional sales person who gets a percentage of sales. This is not lucrative for me, but it does spread the word about the products. g a member of the family.
What are the best things about doing what you do?
My favorite part is working alone in my ‘jamies" on Monday night since I spent the day shopping because I didn’t feel like working on Monday morning.
Also, autonomy. I get to decide what product to develop, when and how to market, also, I have the autonomy to decide which bill to pay in February when cash flow is at its worst. You win some, you lose some.
What are the biggest challenges and how do you overcome them?
My biggest challenge is that I’m non-confrontational. I like to ‘make nice”. It’s not always possible in business and I can rise to the occasion when I need to but there are days when I wish I had an “enforcer”. Another challenge is that I don’t have a lot of people to bounce off concerns and new ideas on. dM was very helpful when someone was misappropriating my logo. I e-mailed her asking for suggestions and she promptly answered with encouragement and suggestions; the one that made the most sense was consulting an attorney. This is the way I went, with success. One does learn about networking, and other resources out of necessity.
What are your annual gross revenues? You may describe it in terms of increased annual revenues from last year to this.
My sales seem to increase modestly but steadily around 15%. My big problem is that I am not a good salesperson, I love to hang out in the lab where I really get my jollies but if I have to "pound the pavement", it's like a fate worse than death. There is a good buzz going about the products and I'm getting good press, for which I'm grateful, but I'm not really good at follow through. I guess that the business is growing as fast as I can handle now. Not that I don't want to be the next
Aveda, please understand. This year I'm really going to sit down and re-evaluate my direction; get my act in gear. I've just got to figure out how to get fresh input. I'm not taking a salary yet, everything I make goes back into the company. The most important part of starting and growing a business is having the nerve and the energy to put yourself out there. Nobody has more knowledge or enthusiasm about your product than the owner has. That is the bottom line!
What business book have you enjoyed that has helped you in business, and why?
Crafts Market Place, edited by Argie Manolis is for the beginner, but still is a good resource. It's unpretentious and covers the basis of business; vendors, craft shows, wholesale shows, finance, etc. Of course, Allured Publishing's Resource Library is chock full of cosmetic chemistry books with the latest buzz on ingredients. I find Preservatives for Cosmetics” by David Steinberg invaluable.
What are you doing when you're not working Casco Bay Gardens?
Jim built me a cabin in the woods so I like to go there and read. I know it's nice that he built me a cabin but I really think he did it so he could spend thousands of dollars on many tools. It is totally away from work and I can’t check my e-mail in the middle of the night if I'm there. Even though I was leery of starting a new hobby (look at what happened last time I did that!), I do like to work with stained glass. It keeps my fingers busy and I can work 10 minutes at a time and still make beautiful things. I also do volunteer work for a museum and a hospital.
Why do you love being Indie?
I love being Indie because I’m the star of the show.
This is Indie Candy, so if you were a brand of candy, what would
you be and why?
PayDay, because if I keep going, someday I may actually have one.
Learn more about Casco Bay Gardens and stock pile some of Ghislaine's products for dry winter skin at her website.
Best & Success!!
Donna Maria
Editor, The Indie Experience
The Indie Beauty Network | www.indiebeauty.com
Copyright (c) 2000 - 2007 by The Indie Beauty Network (IBN) and Donna Maria. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized distribution or reproduction is prohibited. IBN does not necessarily endorse any product, event or ideology featured in The Handmade Beauty Connection (HBC) or on IBN's website. All information is provided on an "as is" basis and no express or implied warranties are given. Any use of the information contained in the HBC or on IBN's web site, including recipes, is solely at your own risk. IBN and Donna Maria disclaim any liability in connection with the use of all recipes, products reviewed and other information. Except for sponsorships, HBC refuses compensation from companies to feature or mention their names or products. Opinions expressed in any Product Review are personally those of the reviewer and do not represent the views of IBN, Donna Maria (unless she is the reviewer) or any other person or company.
