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ESSENCE
$100,000+You Can Make It
From Home
How everyday Women are Doing
it |
L. Trena Woodson says
she was born to sell. As a kid In the fifties, she
hawked lemonade and candy. In the seventies her
travels as a flight attendant turned into buying
trips. Friends back home snapped up her Italian
bags and Greek jewelry, then turned into her sales
force as their friends became customers. In the
eighties she bought and sold real estate. Then she
opened an ice-cream parlor, SCOOPS DELIGHT,
in
1990. She liquidated that business but kept the
name and launched a promotional and marketing company
that provides T-shirts, mugs, and other premiums as well
as special event planning to businesses, civic groups
and social organizations. |
|
L Trena Woodson
President & Founder
SCOOPS
Promotional and Marketing
PHILADELPHIA | | Now
she’s scooping up revenues of up to $500,000 annually Woodson
was introduced to the promotions biz by a family friend.
She started attending association meetings to solicit
contracts in 1993 and “hit pay dirt.” A hookup with
Philadelphia recreation department led to a $5,000 order of
T-shirts
 |
for summer campers.
Another early customer was the Mid-west-based Mercy
Health Plan, which ordered $258,000 worth of pens, water
bottles and other promotional items. Woodson
grossed $458,000 in 1994, her first full year in
business. Her initial investment?
Nada. Customer pay up front, and her suppliers
extend her a line of credit. Eleven years out, she
has installed a high-tech home office and a conference
room in her six-bedroom Tudor home, but she loves being
able to handle business in the bathtub or on the
beach. | SUCCESS
STRATEGY: Excellent customer service is the key to
repeat business, which is why “Trena’s going to take care of
you,” she says. “It’s easy to get a contract. But
you don’t have a customer until that person calls you with
another order and says, “I need it yesterday” I follow
through on contracts from A to
Z.” | | |
