Feature Writer Karen Crowder – Reaching for the Stars: Experiences of a Scentsy Consultant at an ACB Convention
One of the highlights of attending an ACB convention is going to see the exhibit hall. In 2012, the ACB convention ran from July 6 through the 14 at the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. The vast exhibit hall on the third floor was open from Saturday afternoon until one o’clock on Thursday. Attendees never know what surprises await, but with a supplied Braille and print list of exhibits, people easily mill around and gravitate toward the sound of computer equipment, music boxes, talking items, and, in this case, fragrances.
It was March of this year when Linda Stewart and her family decided to travel to Louisville and display their products at the convention. Linda was apprehensive at first, asking herself, “As a blind scents consultant, how can I keep track of orders and also display the products?” This would be her first time having a booth at a convention.
By June, the family had devised an efficient system. As Rod, her sighted husband, read the wax scent squares, she put abbreviated Braille labels on the eighty fragrances. She also put Braille labels on hand sanitizers, lotions, and room sprays to make them accessible for both Linda and her blind customers visiting her exhibit.
They set up on Saturday, putting testers with wax squares with brailed abbreviations and jars on their three foot case. On Saturday and Sunday, Karen, Linda’s daughter, worked with her filling out orders and packaging them for shipment. From Monday through Thursday, her husband Rod and Kelly, her other daughter, took over filling out and packaging numerous orders as they kept coming in. Each customer normally spent fifteen minutes at the booth as she described the fragrances.
During my interview, Linda smiled telling me, “You could smell the fragrances everywhere and everyone knew where we were in the hall.” She felt a sense of confidence, never getting tired even after long six to eight hour days at the booth. “Energy bars and juice and water helped. There was only one two hour lull during the entire 32 hours I was there,” she said.
When asked what qualities you have to have to be a Scentsy consultant, Linda said that you must first like talking to people and have an easy going personality, along with the patience to deal with customer questions. A love and knowledge of fragrance helps, which Linda has always had. I could tell by her enthusiasm and warm personality that this is her dream job.
If you want to know more about Scentsy, either go to www.scentsy.com or her website www.safecandlesky.com. If you go to her online store or her party both links are screen reader friendly. You can call her cell phone at 1-859-321-5577.