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.

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.”