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When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Jill Blashack Strahan started Tastefully Simple Inc. in her investor’s shed in Alexandria and has built it into a $139 million direct sales company 13 years later. The company sells gourmet food products at home taste-testing parties via independent consultants who serve as party hosts. She outlines a year-old shift in her business model that is boosting growth again.
“Things are really rocking and rolling. We ended 2007 at $139 million in revenue. We exceeded our goal, up by 11 percent from last year. We have 27,000 consultants today.
There’s a lot of reasons around that growth. We introduced a year before that, August of 2006, a shift in our business model, to having products shipped directly to customers.
We used to do inventory parties, and hosts would bring the inventory, and people at the parties would buy it and carry their purchases home. But over time our consultants weren’t interested in carrying inventory. We were slowing down.
It took about three years to make the shift. First I wanted to be sure it wouldn’t impact sales. And we were working on heavy infrastructure changes, in warehouse infrastructure and technology, because they’d have to ship 12 to 15 orders after each party, with this new model.
We knew that many of our consultants were used to carrying inventory, and I was married to that idea. What happened that escalated sales, after we switched models, was consultants were making more money, they were able to host more parties.
Many people think being I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a risk-taker. But I’m a cautious risk-taker. What started to shift me was asking questions, because I didn’t have direct sales experience, and I haven’t been a CEO before.
I thought emotionally, don’t mess with our consultants and mis-brand the experience of the party. I started talking to our top people. It was hearing and listening and asking more.
The company is almost 13 years old. One thing I think is key to success is, we call it the “dream it, believe it, work it” philosophy. That’s in retrospect; that’s what we call it now. I had a dream, and I didn?t know exactly what it looked like, but I believed it. Someday, I thought I’d like to be like the Pampered Chef. I believed it.
It was built one independent consultant, one program at a time, one by one by one. I kept it simple so it didn’t overwhelm us.
About the time I thought I was going to break through was 1998. We were just about to hit $1 million in sales and 100 sales people. We were moving out of the shed, next door to Joani’s house [Joani Nielson, her business partner and now COO]. She provided the shed rent-free as part of her investment. It was very low-risk to start a business that way. We packed orders on a pool table. I didn’t take a salary. I only made money if I was doing parties.
In 1998 things started to break through, then in 1998 my husband died. That was a major setback, and my youngest brother had died. My son was five years old and I thought, how can I do this? I just chose to think about Tastefully Simple, and I just learned how to control my thoughts. When I felt this overwhelming feeling, a night or two after the funeral I thought, how can I raise Zach and do the company? I thought, do I just give it up? But I thought, it’s just about to break through.
I had to look at each day, each moment. It was an emotional and psychological discipline, to get through.
In the early years, we grew fast but 100 percent growth on nothing is still nothing. We were stuck on 188 percent growth for several years in a row. Once you start adding 188 percent growth on 100 people, then on 1,000 and so on, if you open your mind and your heart, you’ll find the answers.
It so fits with my farm background. There are many things that impacted me as a farm girl. People who are raised on farms typically have strong work ethics. People say, why Alexandria? First of all, it’s home, and it’s beautiful, and the people are incredible.
You have to be willing to put out that effort. As I look back on my childhood, I realize my sense of value was how hard you were working. You’re used to working morning to night. You’re used to not taking vacations.
My philosophy, “dream it, believe it, work it”. It seems a little woo-woo! I absolutely believe it. I have hundreds of examples that show it’s true. From 1996-1997, for almost a year I did not recruit one person. My goal was in the business plan, that I’d be an $11 million company. That was based on a certain number of salespeople.
I realized what had happened was, I was meeting with people, I was working it. All along I still had the dream. But I didn’t believe it anymore. I realized I hadn’t recruited anybody. If you’re not getting something, you have to ask, what’s stopping me? As I broke it down, I had started to believe that people can’t make money in this business.
Eventually, I went to a conference. I just renewed myself. I realized I had stopped believing. I came away, and I had set a recruiting goal, I would recruit 8 people by the end of the year, and this was in August, and I did it in six weeks. What changed? It was the exact same product line. The only thing that changed was me.
Our goal is to do $151 million this year, and have 28,000 consultants. We’re doing more with the same.
This sounds so bad but nothing keeps me up at night. I’m not a big worrier. Just one of my top strengths is connectedness, that spiritual piece, saying that everything happens for a reason. That is my saving grace. If you’ve done everything you can it will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
-As told to Beth Ewen
[contact]
Jill Blashack Strahan,
Tastefully Simple Inc.:
320.763.0695;
www.tastefullysimple.com
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