Monthly Archives: February 2012

The Scentsy Company Business Success Story

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A group of about forty women were delighted to hear an entrepreneur success story at a recent “Women In Business,” luncheon in Layton, Utah. Two women who seemed like your next door neighbors, spoke about how they created a product that is now being sold by over 35,000 business consultants in the United States and bringing in revenues over $100 million annually.

Kara Egan and her sister-in-law Colette Gunnell, shared their story of creating a simple product that would bring many people pleasure. They created a wickless candle that was warmed by a low wattage light bulb. With many different scents for people they decided to name their company “Scentsy.”

Kara and her family were struggling financially because of her husband’s health problems. After watching an Oprah show on Millionaire Moms, Kara became determined that there must be something she could do to help her family. If regular people like the people she saw on the Oprah show can create products, then why couldn’t she do that too?

After watching a neighbor melt some of her old scented candles in an old potpourri burner, Kara got the idea to create scented flameless candles. She got on the phone with her sister-in-law and asked her if she would go into business with her. Colette said, YES!

Building your own company from scratch is not without challenges, but these two women conquered them with their determination and ingenuity. One important strategy they used was to make sure they knew about all the products currently available that were similar to theirs. They surveyed the market place and purchased any products that were similar to theirs. Repeatedly testing existing products and then creating a new product seemed to be the correct formula for their eventual success.

After manufacturing the products on their own and developing enough product for people to purchase, they started selling at local trade shows. It was at one of these trade shows that they met Orville Thompson and his wife Heidi. During one of the breaks at the long convention, Heidi took some of Scentsy bars home to share with her family. Her family and friends enjoyed them so much and that got Heidi’s husband’s attention.

Orville pictured this product becoming very popular. Kara and Colette allowed Orville to help them take their business to the next level. It was the contact that they made with Orville Thompson that began the transformation of their business from a local business to a nationwide business.

Orville and Heidi Thompson bought the entire company from Kara and Colette, who are now Scentsy consultants, on May 1, 2004. They decided to market the flameless candles through direct marketing which opened up a new team of sales people. The Scentsy products are manufactured in Meridian, Idaho where there are over 500 employees.

The two mothers, Kara and Colette, that created Scentsy are heroes to many women who strive to build successful businesses. Their determination, creativity and desire paid off for them as well has thousands of other Scentsy consultants. An entrepreneur’s dream come true. Congratulations!

Coping Things for Business and Learn How To Save Money by Switching to a Paperless Office

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If you are looking for best business solution, it is now possible to deal with document management solution. Well, a document management system (DMS) is a computer system or set of computer programs used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. You can see lots of business or companies are now using this system to manage their documents well and do not take timely manner in searching or storing files on their cabinet through printed sheets or papers.

This document management system is giving us the chance to promote a paperless office which can help us in saving money for files printed and other stuffs that you need to store on your file cabinets. All the things that you need like documents or data can be stored using the computer system and it is helping you to manage or track your needed documents in an instant way.

We are lucky to be familiar with different business management solutions today and it is giving us the chance to eliminate timely manner of doing business. You can take off worries about tons of papers to search on when you are about to find something. Now, you can just use document scanner or even search the files your need with the help of your computer system.

Standard Normal Probability Distributions With Microsoft Excel

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Traditionally, to find the standard normal probability distribution, you must convert the normal random variable x to the standard normal distribution using the z-value formula, and then find the area under the standard normal distribution function below z. The normal probability distribution functions described earlier in this chapter shortens this process. The Standard Normal Probability Distribution has a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.

NORMSDIST

If you already have a z value, or if you’ve used the z-value formula STANDARDIZE described below to find a z-value, you can use the NORMSDIST function to find the probability that a random variable x is below z standard deviations from the mean. The NORMSDIST function uses the following syntax:

=NORMSDIST (z-value)

For example, if you create furniture that needs to fit people of various heights and know that the average American adult is 5’8″ tall, and the heights are normally distributed around this mean with a standard deviation of 4″, you can find the probability that one of your customers is less than 6’2″.

To use this function, you must first convert the data to the standard normal distribution as described below under “STANDARDIZE.” Doing so returns a z value of 1.5, meaning that 6’2″ is 1.5 standard deviations above the mean. When you enter 1.5 as the z-value parameter of the NORMSDIST function, the function returns the value 0.9331.

If you want to find the probability that a person is greater than 6’2″ tall, you just subtract this value from 1. If you want to find the probability that a person is between 5’4″ and 6′, you must make a few calculations. The probability that a person is less than 6′ tall is 0.8413. This means that the probability that a person is between the mean (5’8″) and 6′ is .3413 (because the probability that a person is less than 5’8″ is 0.5). Likewise, the probability that a person is between 5’4″ and 5’8″ is .34134474. Add these together to get 0.6826.

NORMSINV

If instead of having a value and needing to find the probability that a random variable falls below it, you know the probability for the range into which a random variable must fall and need to find the value defining this range, you can use the NORMSINV function.

To use the NORMSINV function, just enter the probability (between 0 and 1, of course) and the function returns the z-value below which the probability area you entered falls. If you choose a probability less than 0.5, the function returns a negative z-value. If you enter a probability greater than 0.5, the function returns a positive z-value. The NORMSINV function uses the following syntax:

=NORMSINV (probability)

STANDARDIZE

Traditionally, to answer probability questions about a normal distribution, you first convert the distribution to the standard normal distribution. The standard normal distribution has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 1. To convert to the standard normal distribution, you find a z value using the STANDARDIZE function in Excel. The STANDARDIZE function uses the following syntax:

=STANDARDIZE(x, mean, standard deviation)

For example, if you have a product that costs an average of $6,000 to produce and a standard deviation of $800, what percentage of the items should you expect to cost more than $6,600?

To find out, enter the function as follows:

=STANDARDIZE (6600,6000,800)

The function returns the value .75. You can then use the NORMSDIST function to find the probability or area under the curve between 0 and .75.

The z-value tells you how far (in terms of the number of standard deviations) an individual observation is from the mean. It therefore also allows you to determine whether an observation

is an outlier (unusually large or small) and therefore suspect. Z-values of less than –3 or greater than +3 are generally treated as outliers and call for closer inspection.