MacAdams Finds Scent of Success in Second Career

Debbie MacAdams didn’t plan to launch a second career after more than a decade at home, raising her family.

But three years ago, the West Deptford resident launched herself as a consultant for Scentsy, a direct-sales company specializing in wickless candles, after getting one of the company’s wax warmers as a gift from a friend. It wasn’t something she expected to be a huge time investment–she was working as a school instructional aide at the same time–but thought it could be something she could do on the side.

“I just simply wanted some fun money,” she said.

After advancing through the first few sales levels in the initial days and weeks, though, she quickly realized it was something more than just a part-time gig, and began the transition to making it a true career.

Now, those three short years in, she’s already scored the company's sales excellence award, which just 300 people got this year. It puts her in the top one-quarter of 1 percent of Scentsy’s 100,000-plus consultants, a feat she said she’s been able to accomplish because of the relationships she’s built with her clientele.

“There are some wonderful relationships that come out of this–it’s not just about selling the product,” MacAdams said. “I don’t focus on the income. My focus is on helping people, not what it’s going to do for me.”

Those clients are the folks who host parties, where MacAdams takes to the road with an array of products, or sometimes drop by her home, which is a miniature Scentsy showroom.

Just inside the front door, a warmer coaxed the last bit of a fresh scent from a pool of warm wax; around the corner are shelves full of the company’s latest lines of warmers and waxes and other scent-related products.

MacAdams described the entire catalog breathlessly, her enthusiasm flowing like that warmed wax, as she went through styles and scents and the safety of the company’s line–something she said was a major selling point, after seeing neighbors lose their home to a fire sparked by an unattended candle.

And just as important as her belief in the product and the relationship with her customers is the support from her family, she said, and the knowledge that she can have her career and not worry about caring for her love ones.

“It gives me the flexibility and the freedom to take care of life when life needs me, and I still have my business,” she said.

She’s also been able to help others get involved as consultants, whether as a side job–perhaps an insurance policy against turbulent economic times–or as full-time devotees.

“It’s really about paying it forward in a number of ways,” she said. “No matter what happens with their corporate America job, they have this to fall back on.”

Now, with a team of consultants she’s helped recruit, she said she sees herself continuing on with the company, expanding and building on what she’s helping to create, day by day, going to house parties and working craft shows and introducing an ever-expanding circle to Scentsy.

“I’ve never thought for one day, ‘I don’t want to do this’ – never once,” she said. “It’s never like you’re going to work, it’s like you’re going to a friend’s house to party.”