Scentsy-literally the sweet smell of success This Idaho company is one of the fastest-growing in the country

By Dusty Parnell | Idaho Statesman

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It’s nearly impossible to start a story about this Meridian-based company without talking about the sweet smell of success.

A mere six years ago, self-described pitchman Orville Thompson and his wife Heidi were just trying to eke out any sort of living they could.

“Heidi and I have been serial entrepreneurs as long as we’ve been together,” Orville said.

And finally, something happened. They went from near bankruptcy and enlisting family members to help them for no pay—manufacturing and shipping a simple wickless candle product—to a company that made $178 million in 2009. In a three-year period, Scentsy experienced a whipping 8,000 percent growth.

This year, Inc. Magazine rated Scentsy as the 19th fastest—growing company in America. And although the company is only in the U.S and Canada, it is already done of the top party planner companies in the world.

“And we’re growing,” Heidi said

The company has been in Canada for barely a year.

“It’s growing faster in Canada than it did in the U.S.,” she said.

“The companies we used to use for our aspirations are now coming to us for help,” Orville said. Direct selling done right has a powerful ability to crate wealth.”

Truly humble beginnings

It sounds cliché, but the meteoric rise truly came from humble beginnings—in this case, a 40-foot old, metal shipping container that sat on the family sheet farm, complete with mice.

Even before that, they were nearly at the end of all their finances. They were $700,000 in debt after Orville’s investment in a car wax infomercial. It was clear that car wax wasn’t going to take them anywhere they wanted to go.

The credit cards were maxed out, there was no cash, Dad had mortgaged his ho me, and Orville described themselves as “economic lepers.” he felt after his string of mistakes and bad luck a that he’d lost all respect, and he wondered if he’d wasted his life on these ventures.

In March 2004, Orville set up a booth at a Salt Lake City home show to sell video game controllers. Head to persuade the promoter not to cash the check for his booth rent until after the event.

That’s when Kara Egan and Colette Gunnell, a couple of women who had created the beginnings of the Scentsy product line just a few months before. They wound up trading products, and Orville took the flameless candles home to Heidi. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d brought something home to show his wife with an idea towards marketing the idea.

“it was the first time he brought something home that I didn’t throw into the ‘no thanks’ pile.” Heidi said.

Building the Idea

Of course, building Scentsy was not easy. In the beginning, Orville worked closely with the two women who had created the product, and he helped them contain the costs of their little business, making it possible for him to purchase products for resale at a reasonable cost.

After a few weeks, the women asked Orville and Heidi to purchase the company. It was a good solution for all there families.

At that time, while pondering business model, the new owners scraped up enough money to send Orville to a Direct Selling Association meeting in Utah.

“He came home from that meeting and said. ‘We’re going to direct sell,’” Heidi said.

The home party model, like Pampered Chef, Avon or Tupperware, had been around for a long time, and it seemed like the best way to grow a business out of nothing.

They would become a party planner business and sign up consultants to move the products.

“This is the way we have to do,” Orville said. “If we help people to accomplish their goals, the our goals will be taken care of, too/”

Little did they know.

Macaroni and Cheese

With five kids, now ages 8 though 16, those first years of day and night work in a metal box in the filed were not easy.

One year, they found a New Year’s resolution written by their oldest daughter: “Find a way to get rid of Scentsy.”

“It was three years of kids eating macaroni and cheese,” Orville said.

“And a lot of free help,” Heidi added

”If we’d had to pay people, we would’ve never been able to do it,” Orville said. “That’s what you do when you have to bootstrap.”

“My Mom is actually a consultant after working at Scentsy for free for two years,” Heidi said. “She finally said ‘I’m on the wrong end.’ She’s now one of our tip Superstar consultant.”

Other family members work for the business now, too, and their daughter has definitely come around to appreciate the hard work they had put into the project

Stewards of Scentsyness

They’ve also been lucky that the direct selling model is recession resistant.

“We feel blessed that we’re growing at all, right now,” Orville said.

They may not be growing at the quintuple rate they were before the recession, but even today’s double growth isn’t bad when you’re looking $65 million in 2008 to $178 million in 2009.

And to think that at one point they were jealously looking at other companies’ ad dreaming of 600 consultants selling their product.

Orville no longer looks at those companies and wishes to be like them.

“Wait a second—we’ve accomplished thing no other company in history has accomplished,” he said

“We’re at 75,000 consultants, which is just amazing,” Heidi said. “And the sales. It blows me away.”

The strength of the business they’ve created is now in the quality of their consultants in the family atmosphere they’ve been able to create in the company.

“We’re making sure Scentsy is good, satisfying employment, and along the way, we can help people.” Orville said. “Now, it’s about making sure we’re helping others do what they love. We’re stewards of what has been created. Its’ not something we own, it’s something that seems bigger than all of us.”

By the way, remember the two women who created Scentsy?

“They’re some of the best consultants we have,” Orville said.

More to Come

Now with 6 fragrances and 80 warmers, the company’s future is bright. They’ve just launched a couple new products, along with collegiate warmers.

And don’t think for a moment that they’ve reached all their goals.

“We still have a lot to accomplish,” Heidi said.

“We want to take Scentsy international.”

“There are six countries we are diligently looking at, and we’re hoping that sometime in 2011 we’ll be able to expand,” Orville said.

And to think Scentsy can traces its beginnings back to a field that smelled more like sheep than the exotic smells that now fill their warehouses. It’s almost something that’s hard to grasp.

“Are we lucky?”

Orville asked. “Are we special? Are we the tip of the iceberg of something new?”

Well?

“All of the above,” Heidi shrugged.