Intelligent Investing #53 - Pam Sculthorp of Bodybliss

In this episode I talk with Pam Sculthorp of Bodybliss. Pam bought this business about 6 years ago and has been actively trying to grow and refine it. We talk about her experiences as a small business owner and her successes and challenges. This is a great episode for those wanting to know and learn more about what it is like running and managing a small business. 

Pam and I discuss:

• Challenges with supply chain disruptions
• Finding the right people to hire for her business in a small community
• Creating a culture of excellence within her organization
• How to retain great employees through incentives and benefits
• How some of the unemployment benefits and stimulus monies affected her workforce
• Her favorite thing as a business owner
• Things she wished she knew about being a business owner when she first started
• The products her business offers and their applications
• The challenges of being a business owner

Pamela Sculthorp
Owner of Bodybliss
https://bodyblissfactorydirect.com/

Use Code "INVEST25 " to get 25% your first order at Bodybliss

Bodybliss – with its headquarter in Sedona – is the dedicated leader in Organic Aromatherapy using only the highest, most efficacious quality ingredients to ensure best results for customers, clients and therapists alike.

Enjoy the Power of Natural Aromatherapy in more than 300 Face, Bath & Body Products –curated without compromise, used in all our treatments and available in our extensive retail section and through our online store.


Glenn Leest
Senior Investment Advisor
WT Wealth Management 
928-225-2474 

Thanks for joining us on Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest! Your go-to source for navigating the complex world of finance and becoming an intelligent investor. We appreciate your trust in us and your commitment to your own financial future.

Connect with Us:

Glenn Leest
Senior Investment Advisor
WT Wealth Management
Office Phone: (928) 225-2474 Office
Email: intelligentinvesting@wtwealthmanagement.com

 Website: https://www.wtwealthmanagement.com/team/glenn-leest
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intelligentinvestingwithglenn/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GlennLeestIntelligentInvesting/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@IntelligentInvestingGlennLeest?si=d6S0y14lghz0eaHa


**Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. 
Your feedback helps us provide you with more valuable content.

We'll be back with more insights into intelligent investing and how it relates to your world.
Stay informed and make those smart financial choices.
Until next time, this is Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest, helping you make your money work for you.
...

Transcript

Welcome to Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest In today's episode, we've got a special guest with us and we're going to talk about her experiences owning a business, some of the challenges she's faced over the pandemic and some of the successes. So stay tuned. It's going to be great episode.

All right. In the studio with me today is Pam Sculthorp. Pam, how are you today? I'm great. It's Friday. Do you like the music? Huh? ? I can turn it back up. Yeah. Really. Let's jam a little. Right? It's Friday. We're recording an episode here in the uh, Beaver Street office studio, and I invited Pam in today. Um, You're a small business owner out of Cottonwood, Arizona, and I thought it would be great to talk about some of the, Because we've, we've known each other for a couple years now and, uh, I've seen your business grow over a number of years.

And first introduce yourself. What kind of business do you do and, um, how long have you been doing that business? Well, I'm Pam Sculthorp , as you said. Own two businesses actually. One is a manufacturing business where we manufacture aromatherapy products. Okay. For high end destination spas. Ooh. So it's almost any product that you can use in a spa treatment.

And then we also own a store in Uptown Sedona that sells those products. Okay. Um, and your facility that you manufacture is based out of Cottonwood, Arizona. And you live in Flagstaff? I live in Flags. Staff. Been in Flagstaff for a while. And this was a newer venture for you in the last maybe five or six years, being a business owner?

Six years ago, yeah. Okay. Six years ago. Before that, what was your background in, because with, that's one thing we've talked. Off and on, but it's actually very interesting. So before you owned the, um, and the name of the company is Body Bliss. Body Bliss, um, check us out, , check us out. Um, before you did Body Bliss, which is the aroma therapy, uh, anything related to, uh, spas and therapeutics, um, like essential oils, lotions, creams, all sorts of cool stuff.

Before you did that, you were, what was your previous back? I spent 25 years in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, quite a bit different. , although quite a bit the same in that both are there to help people. And what, what made you get into owning a small business? Cause that was, was it just something you've always wanted to do or?

Nope. Glutton for punishment, , Um, I lived in a neighborhood in Flagstaff that had a lot of people that were small business owners. And when I was trying to figure out what to do next, um, but I was looking at corporate America because that was my experience. Mm-hmm. , uh, and so many of my friends were like, Do not go back to corporate America.

Yeah. You know, see if you can find a business. So I, I looked around, um, looked at a lot of different things and one of them was a was baby nursery stuff, which is, Why? Because I've never had kids. No. Um, I looked at a couple of BS actually and was really close to potentially buying a B&B. Okay. Bread bed and breakfast.

Okay. Yes. Um, and I hooked up with a gentleman who is, um, a business, I mean, uh, business broker basically. Okay. Cause I needed help understanding how to read the books and whether or not it was a good. Backed business. And, uh, he called me one day and he said, I think I found the perfect thing for you.

Okay, nice. Four months later it was mine,  So pretty quick. Um, no prior experience in that particular field? No. Um, now, now that it's been six years later, um, , you're kind of chuckling. Uh, great decision. Uh, do we have small business owner? I assume it's, it's a, it's a mixed bag. I would, uh, I I've been a small business owner for a long time and, uh, it's got its pros and its cons.

Mm-hmm. . Pro being that you can work really hard and see the fruits of your labor. Um, some of the challenging things is sometimes there's things outside of our control that we can't, A lot of things, There's a lot of things, especially in the last two years in your industry, there's quite a few things that happened that were beyond your control that you just couldn't account for.

Um, mainly the pandemic. Um, and that really. Put a lot of kinks in the ranch or, or kinks in the game plan for, for you guys because you guys were seeing, you know, phenomenal growth and then all of a sudden the pandemic hit and it was like, how do we pivot? How do we pivot? Yeah. There's probably, I'd assume, supply chain issues.

So, um, trying to get in the raw materials to create the products became a challenge. What, what was, talk to me about the supply chain issues and how that impacted your business. Uh, well, first of all, I, we. We it, we weren't even that concerned about raw materials because a lot of our customers basically stopped ordering product.

Wow. Okay. So, you know, I mean, if you think about spa. Massages and not doing anything face to face or touching people or whatever. I mean, that, that took a nose dive pretty quick. Yeah. Um, so one of the things that we did just to kind of keep things going for a little while is we developed our own hand sanitizer.

Yep. So that, which is great. I've used it many, many times. I have one in my bag. They're great. Actually, we call it a rinse. Free hand wash. Rinse free hand wash, Yeah. . Because we're using a different type of alcohol, but it still works the same. Yeah. And actually, I was going to say, when I used it, I noticed it was not like your Purell type hand sanitizer very easy, or not as harsh, I should say.

So there's, the formulation was a lot more clean and not as many chemicals I noticed right off the bat. Well, and we added stuff to it that was softening to the skin. Mm. So it wasn't just purely drying. Which is a lot of the complaints that people have about those products. So the, a lot of the spas and massages just stopped, and that was one of your main lines of business.

So you had to pivot. You did a little bit of the hand water free rinse, rinse free, rinse free wash, rinse, free hand wash. Um, what about, so has there been any other impacts that have made it challenging for you as a business as far as supply chain issues? One was they stopped ordering as much, but then as things re started reopening and getting back into full swing, uh, was there challenges tend to restart the, the economic engine or if you will, in your business of, of getting orders back out and, and getting stuff back into people's, um, you know, back in their hands.

Right. Um, yeah. Quite a fit, quite a bit. And they, they, they have varied over time. In fact, we still see issues and it's, it's almost cyclical. Hmm. Okay. Um, Quite a few of, of our raw materials come from China. Okay. So you can only imagine that that was part of the issue as well. Yeah. Uh, since it, you know, Covid just started in China, so I mean, so many, um, just things were stopped.

People weren't shipping anything even in, within the United States. Yeah. Um, so that forced us to look at vendors in the United States. Um, and it's helped a little bit so that, you know, we're not so dependent on foreign. Companies to, to, to bring stuff in. Interesting. Okay. Um, but it's also been cyclical. I mean, so things like caps and bottles and stuff that we put our product in, you know, clearly wasn't happening for a while.

So we were scrounging to find anything. We changed our bottle colors. We changed cap colors. We had to go to some of our private label customers and say, We can't get this for you anymore. Are you okay with this color instead? That picked back up again and was okay, and then something else would drop off

And it's just, it's been weirdly cyclical. Um, So fortunately not everything all at the same time, but Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that one of the pivots you made was looking for more domestic suppliers of what you're, you know, for your materials or anything else you need to manufacture your product.

Uh, because if you're relying on things to come overseas from China, who knows if they have an outbreak and get locked down and their factory can't, or, you know, can't get the shipments out or something happens midway through. And those are things beyond your control. So, Kind of shifting more domestically, you may end up paying a little bit more, but hopefully have some more reliability as far as getting the goods and services.

Is that kind of what you've noticed or it's, it's just still been a mixed bag. Yeah. Okay. I mean, even, even in the United States, because there's other factors that have played a role in it. Um, transportation costs. Yeah. Let's talk about that. How, how has that impacted your business? It huge. I mean, it, it just between transportation costs and raw material costs.

Those have gone up, you know, 20, 40, 80% in some, some cases. Wow. Okay. Um, fortunately at the same time we have been working an awful lot on building efficiencies within our manufacturing system. So that's helped us, um, not have to necessarily replace everybody that might leave out of, you know, just student attrition or Yeah, whatever, as far as the workforce goes.

Okay. So that's helped us not have to raise our price. Hugely. I mean, we still have, Yeah, and we've had, we've had to do that. Um, but our customers are mostly high end destination spas and they fortunately have the clientele. That is okay. I mean, they've absorbed those price increases from us pretty well.

Okay. Yeah. And that, and that makes a, you make a good point there. Because of the type of business that you have, um, you can raise prices and to a certain extent, it's, it's going to be able to be absorbed because of the nature of the clientele. However, some businesses are not that fortunate. Some of them, you know, when they raise prices, it has an immediate effect on their, their bottom line and their customers just can't afford it.

Like they get priced out. Uh, we were actually just talking with someone earlier today who, um, they, they help operate a daycare center and with the prices going up to 1680 an hour for a minimum wage in Flagstaff, it's really. Put them in a pickle because they have to raise the prices to, you know, for the daycare.

And then when prices goes up, some people just get priced out of it where they said, Hey, it's no longer, uh, economically feasible for me to go work and drop my kid off at daycare. I'm better off just not working because it's, you know, the price. There's a certain price point where it just becomes not, it doesn't make sense anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the things, I mean, you asked about challenges, but that's actually one of the things, personnel and being able to keep. There's been a lot of challenges with respect to that. Never thought about it before with respect to, to childcare. Yeah. Um, but a lot of other factors, um, you know, we, one thing that we had talked about a while ago was, um, the stimulus checks.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And it was basically an incentive to not work. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that is, An issue that businesses have struggled with, especially businesses that, you know, maybe the starting wage isn't 30 or $40 an hour. If the starting wage is in that mid teens, you know, low twenties, that stimulus check all of a sudden becomes comparable.

Where. That person can stay home. It's higher. Yeah. It's, Well, yeah. In some cases it's higher. Yeah. Um, where they, you know, because people during the pandemic, they, people respond to financial incentives. Sure. And so if they look at it and say, I get paid more to not work and I was already kind of nervous about going in during the pandemic and being close proximity, I could see why people made that decision.

However, As a business, once you got back up and can start, you know, having more people in the work, you know, and you can start having doors open again. It, it becomes a challenge of how do you get those, how do you incentivize people to come back? Mm-hmm. . And that was one thing that you, you had noted that was a challenge, was how do we get people to come back now that the, you know, after the doors, you know, were back open.

How do you get the workers to come back in mm-hmm. , um, and compete with stimulus checks. That was a, a challenge I think a lot of businesses faced, uh, over the last couple of. It was. Um, and you know, in some respects it was fortunate because we didn't need to just open the doors and invite everybody out back at the same time.

Yeah. Um, because, you know, we, we didn't, we're still, I mean, right now after two years we're back up to pre covid levels, maybe even a little bit better than that. Okay. So it was a slow ramp up, so we didn't need to bring back all staff all at the same time. Um, when we furloughed folks, we actually. Some folks available.

Okay. Um, and so they were already incentivized to continue to stay working and they appreciated the fact that we recognized the service to the company, their value to what they provided to our bottom line. So that helped a lot. Um, in some cases it just took some convincing , you know, Please come back.

Yeah. Um, but, but what we've also hired a lot of new people. Hmm. So it's been a mixture. And I was thinking about that. Say for this example, the unemployment or stimulus checks, whatever it may be. Say the told amount they get is equivalent to $15 an hour, and there's a job that's paying 16 or $17 an hour if you're collecting the unemployment in the stimulus check.

Even though the job is paying fifteen or paying $17 an hour, that's only $2 more an hour than what you're getting now. So it has to actually be a substantial amount more than what you're getting. Or if those benefits stop because you know, that requires you to go out and work, you know, full time. Whereas, you know, the, those checks came in and there was no effort that had to be done.

So, I, I get why businesses struggled with that, you know, to, to attract people back because they had to go considerably higher than whatever those benefits were. Or once the benefits stopped and those individuals ran out and they needed to go back out to work. , I always, I've heard this before as hunger is a very motivating factor.

Factor. Yeah. Once people get hungry, they, they start wanting to work again. Yeah. Um, so I think that's been an issue that a lot. Businesses I've faced is getting people to come back and competing with that. And it doesn't just go away. Right. You know, immediately. Sometimes it's, there's a hangover effect of three or six months after those benefits stop to, you know, really have that individual exhaust, those, those, those funds, if you will.

Yeah. What have been some other challenges you've faced as a, uh, from a personnel perspective? So getting people back, Uh, what about retaining good people? What, how, how, how have you overcome that? And has that been a c. Um, hmm. Well, as, as you and I have discussed before, um, when I bought the business six years ago, um, one of my first hires has now turned out to be my business partner.

One of, I probably the best hire I've had in my career. Um, and she and I have been working really hard to get the right team in place. Um, there was, there was a lot of volatility in the staff when I first bought the company. Um, and it's taken. Until literally within the last year where we've actually gotten a team in place that we're comfortable with that doesn't seem to just come and go.

Hmm. Um, and part of that has been some of the things that we offer. So, um, when I bought the company there, I've actually had a 401K plan in place. Yeah. Which is interesting for a small business owner or small business to, to have that as an, um, as an option. Yeah. Um, We've searched every year, come, you know, this time of year, um, looking at health insurance and have had, you know, always say no.

Always say no. And last year we came across a new provider that's new to the state of Arizona, and it was affordable. Um, it was affordable for us as a company to partially pay. Gotcha. Okay. And it was also affordable for the staff, for whatever they needed to pick up on their end. Um, and it was so, you know, Because in the past we only had like one or two people who were interested.

Um, they also had had, um, minimal req requirements with respect to how many people needed to be involved. So that helped a lot. Yeah. Um, so probably half of our staff participate in that. So that's interesting that you mentioned that. Healthcare has been a challenge because you've wanted to offer it. You know, and it hasn't been, and I think that's maybe a misnomer is, oh well this business doesn't offer healthcare insurance.

It's like, well I'm sure they want to . It's just not feasible. Like if you as a business owner have to pay a thousand dollars per month for a benefit for one person, uh, I mean, that's a lot of extra money and who knows what it would be. May and healthcare costs are extremely high, much more than we. We think they are.

So, um, businesses that do offer it, just recognizing how much of a sacrifice they've probably had to make to be able to offer that to employees. Uh, having a healthcare plan has really been a, uh, an added bonus to attracting people. You said there's a retirement plan. What about some other things as far as culture and team building?

You said that there's a lot of volatility in the staff. What is something as a business owner you've done to help, um, create the right kind of culture? Create a team. Is going in the same direction. Cause it sounds like you bought the business and there was obviously an owner before. Um, and maybe at that point in time, um, I, I don't know what the culture was like, but it sounds like maybe it wasn't in U Unified when you, when you took it over that there's, you know, different directions going.

So, um, what are some of the things that you've noticed that you've been able to do that helps, um, create one vision and one direction for where you're going as a company? Well, part of it is, um, Who Jennifer and I are as people. Yeah. Um, the previous owner was the pure entrepreneurial spirit. Um, so very just driven by that, not necessarily systems oriented or whatever.

And I think that tends to attract more, um, Um, wildly, um, Yeah. You know, people think a whole lot broader. Yeah. Um, so when Jennifer or and I hire now, they're more in tune. I mean, we don't want to hire like, you know, mini me’s by any stretch of the imagination, but we hire people that just have a, a calmer demeanor.

Um, and, and we've, we've even changed how we go about, um, interviewing and hiring really? Okay. Because we've had. Yeah, that it, it's another impact that, I don't know whether it was covid related or just where we're located or even just timing. Um, but we've had people come in, hi, you know, hire them. They come into work one day and then they just don't show up after that.

Wow. I mean, it's been really interesting. Um, . And so now we, we actually do working interviews. So we have them come in for a day, half a day. Hmm. And just see if that fits right. Yeah. Um, and so we're not going through the process of actually hiring, doing all the paperwork associated with that or spending the time, you know, because it takes a lot of time to bring people up to speed with what we do.

Yeah. Um, so, um, yeah, we have working interviews and that. I actually like that a lot because that weeds people out. Yeah. I mean, there's some people that come in and. Yeah. This isn't what I thought it was going to be, you know? See you later by. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I feel like a lot of. Even our educational system. You go in, you pick a degree and you study for, but you really don't know what it's like to be in the field until you actually go.

I feel like sometimes it'd be better served to say, Hey, you're thinking of doing this particular degree. Why don't you go in and you know, maybe you find that business that does that and just check it out, see if you like it. That's, I think that's why people change Degree has so many. I have never, I've done so many times done anything associated with my degree

Really? Okay. . Yeah, because my wife, when she went to college, she's like, Oh, I want to do you, uh, she's like, I want to be a neurosurgeon. Okay, well that's not going to work. I want to be sports medicine, uh, you know, science and that's not going to work. And then I'm going to be business administration. So there's a lot of people that like, do.

I think change their direction once they actually maybe get to start interning or see what it's like on the job. So a working interview gives them a chance to understand what the work is like, and then gives you, uh, at least a better feeling for how they're going to mesh, how they're going to actually operate, and how adaptable or not adaptable they're going to be.

Mm-hmm. . Um, so that's actually interesting. So working interviews, I like that a lot. Yeah. So it's worked. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, attracting people is expensive. Like finding people recruiting is an expensive, I've heard, I don't know how much you know about head hunters. Those are like professional recruiting agencies.

Those are what they call them. It sounds like a funny name. Oh no. I've been headhunt before, head hunted. Um, a lot of times those, those recruiting agencies, They go out and find the individual that a company is working for, you know, looking for, and then they get them connected and there's like a premium.

Like I remember one time years ago we had an accounting firm and we used a professional, um, you know, head hunting agency. And I, I want to say it was like someone we hired for the job. It was like, 10 grand. They ended up paying for this cost to find this person, and then they weren't even that great of a worker.

Anyways, they ended up leaving shortly thereafter. I was like, Why did we pay, Why did they pay so much money for this, this person that, you know, just anyway, it kind of interesting. So those fees have typically been like 20 or 30% of the annual salary that people get hired at. Wow. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

I got sucked into that for a little while. Yeah. Okay. , like on the, You were being the one recruiting. I was being, yes. I was being looked at, you know, Trying to be, you know, courted away from where I was. Hmm. Um, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Things change. Yeah. And, and, and those are typically for more higher level positions Yeah.

Where you're, where you're paying a hundred grand a year or more? Yeah. Um, at 15 and $16 an hour. You're not going to use that yet. No. But there's still a cost to go out and find and recruit and train that person. So you don't want to hire on three people and only have one stay. That's, that's an expensive way of doing business.

Well, if you can help it. Yeah. The biggest expense for us isn't so much, I mean, part of it is, is just the going out and finding people, but um, the biggest expense is the time we take the, we commit to training them. Yeah. Yeah. And if they're gone in six. Um, That's tough. Yeah. Uh, I'd, I'd, I'd spend more money to get people on board if they were the right person, because it takes in, in, in our business and what we do, we typically tell people that you're not going to feel comfortable.

Doing your daily work for a good nine months, it just takes that long. Yeah. To learn all the recipes, to see how we do stuff. We do such varied products, um, that it takes a while to come up to speed and when people will stick around for three months or six months and then they move on. Yeah. That's more expensive for us.

Yeah. Yeah. And I've dealt with that over the years with different interns. They're like, Oh, let me intern with you for a semester. I'm like, Wait, wait a minute. How's this going to help me? , this sounds like a great deal for you. Like I have, I have to take all my time and energy and teach you how to do things and then, you know, still pay you and then you know, I'm going to commit time to working with me afterwards.

So interns have been very tricky in that aspect because they, you know, unless there's like, Some sort of, uh, uh, division of the company that really can work with interns to give them specific work they can handle and, and, and really be advantageous. Sometimes that's a challenging equation. Um, but yeah, so the working interviews, uh, getting the right people to stay on board.

Um, incentivizing good people. What about culture and team building? Have you been able to, uh, shape and was there any culture when you came in? It sounds like there was this entrepreneurial spirit, which was great for big picture things, but down to brass tax, Maybe not as, you know. Well, it got him to where he got to, you know, to that point, um, I think one of the reasons that he ended up wanting to sell is because he realized.

More solid systems and processes needed to be done. Yeah. And that's just not how he, that's not how, how he thrived. That's not how he functioned. Um, but, um, well, several things. I mean, you know, we typically do a holiday party. Nice. Okay. Yeah. We do bonuses, um, year end bonuses. Um, and just recently we came off of an employee appreciation day where we brought everybody in, um, and we played games.

We. We experimented with different essential oil blends and it was just a fun day. Nice. Okay. And I got paid for it. Cool. Yeah. And I've kind of messed, uh, and I shouldn't say I, I've, I've, uh, started implementing those, try to do something similar where it's like, Hey, we have a day where it's really just big picture.

Like what do we need to plan? What do we need to work on? Um, I call them like our, our yearly, our annual marketing meetings. But I need to have more time  to do the fun part. Fun. Yeah, the fun times, right. Um, and I think that's important for building culture and building a team is you have to be intentional about spending time with the people that you work with.

Not just work at tasks, but you know, how many people have we worked with side by side and know nothing about them after five, 10 years of working with, I'm like, we don't even know who, like, yeah, I know your name, but you know, I don't know anything about you. Like, do you have brothers or sisters? You know, only child.

Like how does this work? Like, Yeah. So I think intentional team building is great because. Um, when people are satisfied and feel like their work is valued, that's when they're the most productive as far as employees go. That's what I've just noticed in companies. Oh, yeah. Um, that's when you, you know, your, your company can really thrive.

Okay. So, um, that's been great for, for, uh, team building. Um, and I want to, I want to touch too on, um, you talked about culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it, I want to say it's tough. It's not tough to incorporate something, but one, I, I actually brought a lot of the values from a previous company, um, that I worked.

Just things like teamwork, um, you know, being quality mind. Um, because teamwork, the thing that was interesting when I first bought the company, there was manufacturing. Mm-hmm. , and then there was office. Yeah. And. They didn't communicate unless they had to, or it was always, you know, there was some kind of rift between what was going on.

I'm imagining the show, the office where they have the upstairs with the ex or the, uh, the shirt and tie people in down below where they have the warehouse and they're like almost always at ends to it with each other. Oh yeah. Yeah. But it's the same company, same, same mission, same goal, but not a lot of teamwork.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's taken some time. Um, yeah, but it's, it's working. So, yeah. Nice. I want to take a quick break real quick. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about some of the things you wish you had known when you first, uh, became a business owner, some of your favorite parts of being a business owner, All that and more.

Stay tuned. We're going to take a quick break.

You are listening to Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest. If you want to give us a call, the number here is 9 2 8 2 2. 24 74, or you can email me at intelligent investing WT wealth management.com.

All right, we're back. We, um, we're talking about building culture, having the right vision, uh, the same vision I should say for, for a company and team. Um, what. Maybe what you wish you knew when you first got into being a business owner. If you could go back and talk to yourself five or six years ago before you bought the business, what would be something you would maybe want to impart with your, your, your, you at that time?

That's, that's kind of tough. Um, because I think, I think if I or somebody had told. How difficult it was going to be, how challenging it was going to be, all the bumps in the road. I, I fear I may not have taken this. Definitely. Right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, seriously. Yeah. Um, but you know, it's one of those things that once you jump in, you're there.

Yeah. Yeah. And you just have to keep, So I, you know, if anything else, just basically just keep at it. Yeah. Um, support, you know, and, and, and this is a truism across the board, big companies, whatever is surround yourself with. That you trust that you work with that, um, have different skill sets than you do that mesh well, um, because you can't do it all.

Mm-hmm, even as a small business owner, you can't do it all. Yeah. I've heard people say, Show me the top five people closest to you and I'll show your future. And I think that applies a business show. Show me your top five people within the organization and I'll show you where the organization's going to go and if they, if you don't have the right people on the right seat on the bus.

Um, I've seen that happen a lot. Is. Um, you, you know, someone's trying to wear all the different hats and I know what Glen's skills are and what my skill set is, but I also know where I'm not strong and I want to try and hire for those positions that, you know, can compliment and, you know, and be strong in that area as well.

So, you know, I, I. My, my philosophy is always find, you know, one or two things that you're really good at, one or two of your strengths and really grow those because your, your weaknesses might, may always just be weaknesses and you may just have to hire, you know, out in that area. But, um, I think you made a good point is, uh, you know, surrounding yourself with a good team of people that you can trust and rely on and that compliment what you do.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I mean, it's.  when you're, especially when you're buying, when you, Because I bought a business that was already existing. Yeah. So not building something from scratch. So you're, you're, um, you've taken on this group of people who had, um, an allegiance mm-hmm. , the, the original person who, who built the business.

Yep. And that was a little tough coming in. Um, but I, you know, one of the first things I told him was, I know nothing about essential oils. I don't know anything about aromatherapy. So, you know, I, I am not coming in here to make huge changes. Yeah. I'm here to learn from what, you know, to capitalize on the fact that you guys already know how to run this business and take it from there.

Um, I mean, it, it made no sense for me to come in and just wholesale, make changes. It just, it, you know, it made no sense. What about one of your, your favorite parts of being a business owner? What would you say is your favorite thing about being a small business owner? Hmm. Um, I was going to say part of it's freedom, but then you don't have a whole lot of freedom as a small business owner.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you get, you set the ground rules. Um, as in, you know, in corporate America, I think one of the things that frustrated me most was when decisions were made at some level that you didn't have access to. Mm. Um, and you had it, it made no sense, but it was just something that came and, you know, So you just had to do what you had to do.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's somewhat onerous, I guess, to be the one that's setting all the rules and everything, but at least you understand why. And I guess I've learned from that too, to try to try to help make sure that people understand why we're making the decisions that we're making. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a, like, you, you hit it right on the nail on the head.

It's, it's both a great thing and a, you know, challenging thing when you're the, the main, you know, driver of this, of this or the, the captain of the ship, you know, where you get to set the culture, set the rules, but also what are those, what is the culture? What are the rules? Um, And sometimes there's the, we have to give ourselves room for, we have to give ourselves grace, knowing that we're not always going to make the perfect decisions and be able to, you know, go back and say, Hey, we tried this.

It didn't work. Um, let's revamp it. Try a different route. And that's okay. I think. Um, I, I've seen in previous, uh, Instances where the leader was unwilling to admit something didn't work and they just kept going because they, you didn't want to say, Oh, this, this method didn't work. But I think true leadership, you know, you have to be vulnerable and have the humility to say, Hey, we tried a new thing.

It didn't work, and let's try something else. I mean, Edison tried to found what, like thousand different ways not to create the light bulb . And that's how he looked at it, is like, I found a bunch of different ways it didn't work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm struggling with that a little bit with a product that was.

After I brought the business and it's, um, it's, it's a facial line. We do mostly body products and. We didn't do a whole lot to try to sell it. And you know, of course I think it's a great line, so I don't want to give it up, but it really doesn't make sense to keep it. Um, so, so let's actually talk about all the different things, because I actually, that you guys offer, um, I just got done at the, uh, dermatologist, the micro needling on my face.

So my face is beat red. It's supposed to be for, it's supposed to rejuvenate my skin, but for two days. I look really red. So do you have something for my, like do you have a lotion or cream for my face? It's on fire right now. Um, but what kind of different, uh, products do you guys have there? Um, well again, it's mostly body, body products.

Um, and so lotions, uh, massage lotions, massage oils, um, pelts, which is the, like an herbal thing that's wrapped up in a, wrapped up really tight in a linen bag or something like that, that's used to. Massage away knots and stuff. Interesting. You usually warm those up and then the, the aroma that comes out of what's in there, um, helps also with the aroma therapy aspect of it.

Wow. Okay. So sugar scrubs and salt scrubs. Um, we have, we do have, within our body product line, we have a couple of different facial serums, um, some masks that you can use for your face. Nice. Okay. Uh, we had somebody actually develop a full facial line for us. It was literally soup to nuts if you were going in to have a a, a facial treatment and a spa.

It was, it was everything that you could use and that, um, good products, but just they're not selling well. Mm. Um, but we also, so we have a whole line of, of amenity products. So the shampoo, conditioner, body wash lotion that you get in your hotel room. Nice. Um, and, um, We have a, a line we call pocket therapies, which is little two ounce products are even smaller that you can throw in a gym bag or throw in your purse.

You can carry it on a plane. Um, yeah. And what are those, those two ounce bottles? What's in them? Um, . So we have several things. Um, they're, we have pillow miss or shower sprays that are in those. We have little, um, sticks that look a lot like a deodorant. But we have four of those. And I'll not of course be going to be able to tell you what each one of those are, but um, uh, one's for sleep one is for.

Sore muscles. Um, so there's, there's different ways to do that. And it's nice, I mean, you know, we've, we've had people basically, you know, say that they take the sleep stick on a plane with them. It's small enough to go on the plane in your check, you know, in your, in your just carry on luggage and you know, you just put a little on your pulse points, you know, on your temples or whatever, and it helps sleep.

And it's because a lot of people have trouble sleeping on. Yeah, go figure. Yeah. Yeah. I've got the, um, I'm trying to think what I had today in my, my diffuser in my office. I usually have, what did I have today? Um, frankincense is what I had in there today. Mm-hmm. . So I need to get some more from home. I, I, I've been just doing frankincense every day, the last two weeks.

Yeah. Cause I ran out of everything else. So you broaden your horizon. Oh, there's, there's plenty at the house. I've got lots. I just keep forgetting so. The essential oils part of it, from my understanding, uh, can be used in lotions and massage. Some of them, individuals put in the diffuser. Some people, if they're, um, A certain gray can actually consume them in water.

Like you can put them in water and drink them. Um, I don't know that all of them make sense to that. I think only like a few of them are consumable by humans, but those are all, or put in the, the bath water. So if you do like a, a soak and you wanted it to be relaxing, you can put the lavender. If you want it to be uplifting, you could do the eucalyptus, which some of the, the gyms and stuff do the eucalyptus spray.

Mm-hmm. , it's like that really potent, almost like a minty smell, like, kind of opens up the lung so that, So a lot of the essential oils are much more prevalent than you may think. They're, There are a lot of stuff right now there. Well, and there's a, there's a science out there. Um, not that we've, well, not that I'm aware that any of my customers use, but.

Where, um, office buildings is like lawyers, offices, things like that, or even, um, grocery stores or super, you know, supermarket kind of things where they actually will pump. Essential oils and aromatherapy in through the Oh yeah. The heating and, and ventilation systems. A hundred percent. And, and I, I, I, I believe that not to go down conspiracy theory.

No, no, no, no, no. There's, there's, there's actual because Okay, so you go to the massage therapy office, right. And or the spa. And what do they always have playing in the background? Calm music, water, it sounds, they sometimes we'll have the water running or like a waterfall sound fall. Mm-hmm. , you go in there and it smells nice.

Mm-hmm. . And so that, that's the, the diffuser, the Roma therapy that they've got going on. Um, in certain sense, you know. Okay. So if we're at wondering. You know, do corporations. It was absolutely Disneyland. When you walk into a certain area of the park, it smells like vanilla. They do that. They, they spray stuff into the air to give it a certain scent.

Mm-hmm. . Right. And so I do believe that scents can have a huge impact in this. And I think we've all. Realize that when you smell something, all of a sudden your brain takes you back to a memory 15 years ago. Cause it's made that connection. So, Oh yeah. So some of those sense, I believe it in, in, what is it, Vegas, that they pump a ton of oxygen into their hotels.

That way you sleep better so they can go out and gamble more. I mean, there's science behind all of this. I mean, so it would make sense that they grocery stores and say, hey, or places, just say, Hey, this, this particular scent gives people more of a calm and they're more relaxed and they're going to go walk slower.

And if they walk slower, they'll be in the store longer and they're going to buy more. Right. Or. Peppermint or something that in that uplifting, that brings up something, um, that, you know, uh, something that you're going to eat. Hmm. I mean, yeah, if it's reminiscent of some food or something that you've eaten.

So yeah, there's a lot of different ways, but to go back to how it's used in the essential oils, um, just within. Our business and with the background that I have, we, I don't encourage people to take anything orally. Yeah. Okay. Um, as soon as we do that, the FDA starts taking a look at whether or not Gotcha.

It's considered a cosmetic versus a drug. Okay. Yeah. And so that's, that's what I was kind of wondering too, cause I've heard of that. A lot of them will say like, not for human consumption. Mm-hmm. , and some of them say like commercial grade, therapeutic grade. And so I was like wondering why they say that in a, Well see we're, we're actually in the process of re redoing all of our artwork to take away anything that can possibly be construed as a drug.

Hmm. Um, and therapeutic. Is there. Yeah. Um, and it's a shame because there are a lot of very beneficial therapeutic uses for essential oils. Yeah. But, um, the FDA is what it is. I mean, it's, it is what it is. Yeah. I mean, we're small enough and they've got enough on their plate that you wouldn't think that they'd go after aromatherapy companies.

But there have been some that basically, Have said things like they will cure diseases, and that's just . There's not the science necessarily to back that up, but there is a lot of science to even back up some of the benefits that you get. Um, I mean, one of the, a lot of our products, um, one of the things that we put in, in is something called aika.

Mm-hmm. , Um, reduced inflammation is mechanical and it's all for inflammation to help reduce pain. And it works that way. Magnesium is another thing. We have a whole product line that is magnesium based and that's also really good for sore muscles. Yeah, it's a relaxant and it helps relax. Cause I take, I usually take like magnesium at night and it helps like, you know, calm the muscles kind of relax you.

Epson salt, which is what you like. Sometimes people will put it in their bath to soak in. That is magnesium. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so that's just topical magnesium. So yeah, magnesium is both a vitamin that you can take, but also sometimes comes in creams and lotions and mm-hmm. , uh, Epson salts, but y yeah. So. It's interesting, we, we mentioned that, you know, a lot of these things can be helpful, but we have to be careful about whether or not we say they can, you can't say they cure anything because they're like, Okay, these are not FDA approved, but some of them can be beneficial to do your own research and figure out what's best with you.

But those sorts of things. But anyway, it's kind of interesting talking about that. Um, what about like, um, we were mentioning kind of, uh, magnesium. What kind of magnesium products do you guys. Um, we have, it's, it's called Ocean Dew. Okay. Um, and we have a lotion. We have a spray, um, a gel. A salt scrub. Mm-hmm. . Um, we also have a bath salt.

Okay. And I've got to be missing something if all had given me a magnesium spray when I came to see you guys, uh, factory one time. And then we, my daughter always has like these growing paints. She's always running around and doing handstands and flipping all over the place. She's like seven. And then she's like, Ah, my knees hurt.

And then so, You rub a little bit of the magnesium spray on the sore muscles, it helps just relax them to help recover mm-hmm. . And so all of a sudden it's like, Oh, um, my muscles aren't as, you know, tight anymore. They're not, you know. Yeah. It's, it helps. Yeah. My, my niece experience that we, we periodically give free gifts when people place an order online and she got a free gift of the magnesium spray, and it was when she was pregnant and her husband would massage it into her back mm-hmm.

and it helped her sleep at night. Yeah. No, I, That makes sense. For all those of us that I, I'm a big fan of. Um, I, I try to go at least a couple times a month to do the massage therapy, to see the chiropractor, to work on my mental health. You know, these are all things that are important. And, and I've learned this as, as business has gone on, and my job is very stressful.

Put it that way. People are calling me, Oh, Glen, what's going on in the market? You know, We're down. Did you recommend this thing? Oh God, geez. Yeah. So, so stress management is important. So a lot of these products that you're mentioning are great for that. Um, if you're an athlete, And you're really active and you want to continue to stay active.

Some of those magnesium soaks and, and those lotions can really help, uh, you recover, you know, at least just not make you super tight tip you will mm-hmm. . Um, so yeah, those are, those are great things. Um, what about, um, do you guys do any kind of CBD products? Um, we actually, yeah, we, we put together a whole line of cbd.

And, and I think CBD gets a bad rap because everyone thinks immediately thc, but cbd, it's going to make me hot.  Yeah. Has, I mean, they sell CBD at, uh, Sprouts. So I'll tell, I'll put it that way. Yeah. It's, it's not, you're not going to take CBD or rub CBD lotion on you and, uh, you know, not last off to the moon. That's not how it works.

It doesn't, it's not the mystery that it was five years ago. Yeah. But CBD really helps with a lot of inflammatory. And helps with calming. So there's a lot of different things that CBD helps with. That's just what I've read. But maybe you, what, what do you know about CBD and what kind of products do you guys have in that regard?

Well, um, it, it, we, well, first of all, all of our products are full spectrum. We use full spectrum cbd. Um, and that requires that the THC level is 0.3% or lower. Okay. When you get the raw material in, um, The amount of CBD that we put in any product is usually maybe only 1%. Okay? So we test out, we actually test to make sure that, you know, is the CBD level high enough, is what we're saying that's, is in that bottle.

And we're also testing to make sure that there's no THC that's detectable. So, so the, the THC aspect of that shouldn't ever be a problem, but anybody. Is, you know, flies a plane or you know, has issues or drives a bus or something like that. I would never recommend that they take it because that's just a risk.

That's, you know, that's not worth them taking. But that, so with that, you know, we have massage oils. Mm-hmm. , uh, scented and unscented. Um, the magnesium product that we have without, We also, because it's such a great product, we actually added CBD to the magnesium product, and CBD is really great for reducing inflammation.

So if they have it in a lotion, um, which is one of my favorite products, you know, is the CBD in the lotion because, You know, a lot of times when I was, I've taken a little bit of a break from the gym, but before that I was just like hitting the gym all the time. I was getting strong and jacked and people were saying, Dude, what are you doing,

And so I was really active. I was taking it to the gym. What's your goal? Uh, to lift a house, but, but one of the things that I was doing, and I'm getting older too, so I would do the C B D lotion on the joints. So like my, my elbows and my shoulders. I do the right before I work out and I'd have no pain.

Like I wouldn't have any movements, pain and movement issues. Um, you know that, so that CBD lotion's great. We actually have one. Um, you know, my wife, when her feet hurt, it's like a CBD lotion uses to rub the feet. And it's amazing. It really helps kind of knock down the inflammation, the pain, and it's really soothing.

So, um, that's what the lotions. Um, but then was there a CBD that is, um, Is it just lotion or is there any other Uh, so we have a lotion. Okay. That's just a lotion. Um, we also have something called joint formula, and it is specific to, so we, a lot of times when people come into the store, they'll ask about things and it, I typically separate things from soft tissue versus joint.

Um, if it's soft tissue, I tend more to go with the magnesium products. If it's joint related, I go to the joint formula and it's got Arika and Turk in it, which are both really good for inflammation. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, turmeric. Yeah. Yeah. So we have the joint formula with and without cbd and one of my favorite products, um, is actually our, in our crystal infused roll on.

Not only is there CBD in there, but the scents that are in there as well. It's a great little thing. It, you know, we, people have used it in the factory when they have headaches, they just roll a little bit on their temples or in their back of the back of their neck and it helps headaches go away, which is really nice.

Yeah, I think I've got one of those in my car. It's like a, uh, Essential oil and it's like a roller, and I'm trying to remember what the actual one is, but it's like specifically formulated for like tension headaches. So focus focused relief. Yeah. Okay. Yep. That's what it is. Yeah. Um, and so you like, yeah, you can rub it on like the back of your neck or your temples and really helps, uh, relieve that.

And so the C B D um, products are great. Uh, they can go on your website. Uh, how do, if people want to look at what you guys have to offer, how do. Um, getting in contact or, or do you just do business only or do you, do you have re you have retail, right? We have retail. Okay. So, um, the bulk of our business is wholesale.

In fact, um, half of our business is actually a private label for a lot of high end, um, just destination spas and customers. So that's half of our business where we actually may manufacture. Product for them under their name. Um, but for Body Bliss, if you go to www.bodybliss.com, um, you'll see all the products that we have available via retail.

Okay. Um, if you are interested, if people are out there and, and interested from a whole wholesale perspective, because we, if we have a fair number of individual therapists that have their own small businesses mm-hmm um, that have wholesale accounts, because our, our wholesale buy-in is not that high. Yeah. The, the, we have.

Low buy-ins to start with. Um, yeah, sometimes those places you can become a wholesaler as long as you order 70 or $80 a month. You know, sometimes those thresholds are Yeah, it's a little, it's a little bit more than that. Yeah. I've, I've seen that in other places. I, I have no idea what your guys are, but it's not like you have to do $10,000 a month to be a wholesaler.

No. Okay. No. Um, but if you're interested in wholesale, then you just send an email. You can go onto the website and actually, um, put your information in there, or you can send an email to. Body bliss.com. And then you have a storefront you mentioned as well. Save the factory, your manufacturer, send it out to um, wholesalers that, you know, use it as their own product.

You also sell it retail. Um, what about your storefront? You have also have a storefront in Sedona, correct? Uptown Sedona Sonoma Plaza. Okay. By and see us if you're in Sedona. Um, So yeah, half of that, well, a little less than half of that store is the Body Blues products. Okay. Um, the original owners of that store were into, um, gemstones and crystals.

Yep. And the healing energy of those products. So there's quite a bit of, of rocks and stones and Yeah. I think I got some like necklaces and rings from my, my daughters when I went there last time to see this shop and, uh, yeah. I need to get some more. I think that was like a couple years ago, so I'm sure they're ready for some more.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, great. Well, thanks for coming in, joining us today. Um, been a great, uh, been a pleasure talking with you about businesses. Um, any, any last things you want to add in or thoughts about being a business owner? You talked about some of the struggles, some of the successes, uh, specifically about your business, what you do.

Um, anything else you want to, uh, impart before we sign off? Well, if you're going to do it, jump in for being a BOS business owner. Okay. Well, I mean, seriously. Yeah. I mean, there's no, you don't tiptoe into something like that because you, once you commit, you, you must commit. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no plan B because plan A is going to work, right?

Yeah.  well, well, yeah. I mean, yeah. If you're into the whole spiritual side of things, you know, we throw that stuff, throw stuff out at the universe all the time. Yeah. And quite often it comes. Just the way we want it to, to come back , which is helpful. Nice. Um, but again, just believe in it. Yeah. Um, stick with it because again, once you jump in, On those worst days, you still have to stay with it.

Mm-hmm.  and, and ultimately the reward is there for doing that. And I think if you're, if anyone's looking at doing a business, uh, starting a small business, committing five years to that business is almost a, a minimum amount of time that you need to commit to working hard to really see it flourish as much as, Cause people think, oh, business owners, they're all wealthy.

If they, if they've done well, it is because they've been doing it well for 10 or 15 years. It wasn't like an overnight success. It's just a constant, you know, Hey, I got to go in every day, work hard, you know, because people, you know, look to the owner at, for leadership, and if the owner's not there, not leading the company and not showing them how it's done, it's, you know, the workers may lack confidence and, you know, lack conviction to, you know, follow through with the vision of the company.

So it's, it's just, it's a lot of work. I'll put it that way, as a, as a business owner. It is, but it's also, . I mean, one of the things that I was looking for in trying to find something to do is to be around people. Yeah. Um, you know, I I, I, I would not flourish in an environment where I was sitting in a room by myself not, not interacting with people.

So, um, so that's, I mean, even when it's tough, it's just like, well, don't go every day. And it's like, but that's, that's why I do what I do. Yeah. Is to have that interaction with. .Um, and I'll, I'll maybe leave you with a little bit of a joke and an analogy, right? Because years ago I used to do a lot of fishing out of San Diego.

And had talked, um, quite often about buying a boat and talking to boat owners. They always say that the two happiest days in a boat owner's life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Yeah. I'm kind of thinking that might be the same thing, being a business owner. Um, but, but we'll see.

We'll see. We'll see. Well, Pam, I really appreciate you coming in today. You're welcome back anytime. It was great just talking to you about, Experience as being a business owner, what your business does. Uh, I find all that stuff very interesting, and I use a lot of your products too. They're great. So, uh, check out Pam Sculthorp's, business www.bodybliss.com.

Thank you, Glenn. Thanks ma'am

Hey, thanks for checking out Intelligent Investing today. If you want to give us a call, the number here is 928-225-2474. Or you can email me at Intelligentinvesting@wtwealthmanagement.com.