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HBN Success Spotlight on
Christine Lewis of Body Wisdom West
June 21, 2004 Member
Success Spotlights are one of the benefits of HBN membership. To learn more
about this and other HBN member benefits, click here. Introduction
To Body Wisdom West
Christine Lewis of Body
Wisdom West
has
been a member of HBN since September 2002. Before starting
Body Wisdom West, located in
Riverside, California,
Christine was a massage therapist and reflexologist.
She has been able to continue both careers as complements to her cosmetics
business which manufactures a variety of products from lotions, sugar scrubs, bath salts, lip balms and
perfume pots, to body, room and linen sprays.A
Phoenix Rising
Christine started building
her beauty business after a serious neck injury temporarily prevented her
from pursuing her massage and reflexology practice. She started
playing around in the kitchen with ideas of making scrubs and formulas for
body wraps similar to what she had used during the time of her employment at
a spa.
Very soon after that, she met a woman who had been manufacturing
beauty products for over a decade. She
taught Christine how to make emulsions and introduced her to Donna
Maria’s book, “Making Aromatherapy Creams and Lotions” (Storey Books,
2000), and Christine was off
and running!
To
start her business, Christine sold some of the horses she owned. While she
does not currently have any full time employees, she hires people on an
"as needed" basis from time to time. She occasionally
enjoys using a personal
assistant to run errands, help out around the house and answer the business
phone on production days. She also sometimes uses a small staff to take care
of invoicing and inventory. While not an employee, Kim Baron of Fallen Muse
WebWorks (who Christine met through HBN) designed Christine's website and
now hosts and maintains it. A friend took the product photos at the site.
Christine says that her accountant is one of the most crucial people in her
business. "I couldn’t live without an accountant!
Just getting the paperwork together gives me anxiety attacks, so I
leave the rest up to her," says Christine.
The Joys & Pains Of Small Business
Ownership
According to Christine, the toughest part of
running Body Wisdom West is mental. Says Christine, "it's
sometimes difficult to keep my
spirits up when I feel tired or feel that things aren’t working out the
way I want them to. I frequently wish I had a partner just to bounce ideas
off of or to whine to once in a while!
" The down times are offset by the fun
Christine has dealing directly with her customers and making use of the
product feedback she gets from them. "Even
negative feedback is welcome since it helps me to learn about people’s
desires and improve the products," says Christine.
Christine's best selling product are her facial cream.
Christine believes this is because people (especially in southern California
where she lives) are becoming increasingly more aware to how the environment
(most notably the sun) affects the skin. "Most
of us want to keep a healthful and youthful appearance for as long as
possible and when they found out about the ingredients in my cream
(antioxidants and a natural sunscreen), they want to try it. Many people
stick with it almost exclusively after giving it a try.
Christine
would like to expand her
product line overseas someday. She is also investigating providing home
party demonstrations. "Ultimately, I’d like to get to have most of my
product manufactured for me so I can work on the fun stuff exclusively"
says Christine.
Christine's Advice To New Beauty Businesses
Christine's
advice to new businesses is simple. "Be
incredibly patient and don’t give up your day job unless and until you
have enough money in the bank for yourself and the business for a good two
years."
Benefits of HBN Membership
"While
I know HBN has many great ways to connect with other members, I
haven’t yet begun to explore most of them. In the meantime, I've been
taking advantage of dM as a great source of emotional support."
Christine
and Body Wisdom West can be contacted
at reflex_11@hotmail.com
and through their website.
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