by Carol K. McCarthy –
What do you feel is the biggest strength of our company right now?
Direct sales as an industry is going through rapid changes. Direct sales of 10 years ago is not the same as direct sales today. Style Dots has this amazing ability to fit into the current climate and needs of sales representatives within these new parameters.
Let me give you an example. The covid pandemic created a greater culture of work-from-home professionals like there has never been before in our country.
So we have this vast group of people that need to work via webinars and meetings that are online. This means that these workers need to look good at least from the waist up! Well, here comes Style Dots with our incredible and beautiful product line that is budget friendly but makes you look good!
We are also online ourselves. We have a QVC type of episode on Facebook Live every Tuesday night and the audience on that just keeps growing. In addition to that we have other online videos like Fashion Fridays with Talia and Live at Lunch with our designer Claire Bentley. So in this world that demands media we have an amazing amount of media to meet the need. All of this is in addition to what our Boutique Partners do as they do their own FB Lives, online Socials, YouTube, TikTok, and so on.
Meanwhile, we still have plenty of Boutique Partners conducting the more traditional in-home socials and vendor events.
We really are a modern age direct selling company.
As a modern direct sales company, Style Dots uses various social media platforms to share our products, fashion tips and do fun events and giveaways!
What goal do you have for the company?
Gina and I would like to reach the masses with our message. And by “our message” I mean company-wide including our Boutique Partners, our staff at the warehouse and at our office. Our message is “there is more.” No matter your age, no matter your stage, no matter your situation you can have more and you can be more. You can have that better life, you can have more friends, you can make a difference in this world.
We do these things through our training programs like War on Debt, Spiritual Life class, Oh, the places, etc. We also foster a real sense of family through our online groups, our webinars, our meetings, our trips, our teams and on it goes. And we all have hearts to give and make a real difference through our philanthropic endeavors both domestically with the I Pour Life organization that helps Foster Youth and with our overseas orphanage in Haiti.
Style Dots has training for the whole person including Debt Warrior Class and the intense “Oh, the Places You’ll Go training. As a way to give back, Style Dots has partnered with these two fine charities; I Pour Life and Wholehearted Home.
What have been some of the challenges you faced launching Style Dots?
The challenges with Style Dots the company have been ridiculous at times. We even have vendors and outside professionals that shake their heads and say things like, “Wow. We have never had that happen before.” Now that statement is kind of a joke around here. Gina and I just reassure them that it will work out alright as we have been through it enough times.
We have had the banks freeze our money because we were making so much money when we first started they thought we surely were doing something illegal. We have had the Black Friday charges get charged twice through no fault of our own. There was a hiccup at Visa and Mastercard so that was a mess we had to clean up. We have had our products stuck at customs more times than we can count. One of our delivery trucks full of products for the new catalog caught fire and burned to the ground. There are so many things they don’t tell you about when you start a business I could go on and on. Gina and I and our entire company just shake our heads and laugh or cry a little and then keep going.