It's Worth the Extra Expense, Time and Effort

On occasion I’m asked if it really is worth the extra expense, time and effort it takes to make our all-natural products. Especially when we could easily cut corners, save money and pump out product faster if we went the synthetic/chemical route. There is so much value in what we do, value in not only in the careful craftsmanship and hand-selected all-natural ingredients, but even more important, value in our customer’s experience.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Nothing makes my job more rewarding than stories from our fans. They’re a valued reminder that the way we do things is the right way. It warms my heart to read your testimonials and it’s even better when I am able to meet people face-to-face and hear their stories. Our own Todd Anderson suffered from severe Atopic Dermatitis and was on heavy doses of steroids with little improvement before he started using our complete line of products (see Todd’s story in our past blogs). 

Recently, Sherrie shared her experience with us and it is no surprise to me that our products did help her. For more than 15 years we have been providing products to Emerson hospital in Boston who use them on their radiation patients. Our natural alternatives to harsh chemicals work. But Sherrie says it better than I ever could:

Dear Absolutely Natural, 

I have been using your lotions and body oils for several years and have been very pleased with them. Recently, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo radiation therapy. I had to have 33 treatments and they told me that after the first 10-15 treatments I would start experiencing skin damage similar to a very severe sunburn.  

The doctor gave me a couple of different radiation lotions to try and told me to use them and decide which one worked the best for me. After looking at them, I decided to start with the Absolutely Natural Restorative Body lotion, and supplemented it with the Organic Beauty Oil a few times a week. I figured if the symptoms got too bad I could switch to one of the radiation lotions at that point. 

After a couple of weeks in my skin was still looking really good and my doctor asked me which type of lotion I had chosen. I told him about Absolutely Natural and he said that it was working great and to stick with it! By the end of treatment, my skin was fairly red and irritated, I have been finished about a week now and all of the redness has turned to tan! I have believed that Absolutely Natural was a good product for several years, but now I am convinced that it is a great product!!  

Thanks for making such good lotions and oils! 

Sincerely,
Sherrie

Thanks Sherrie for making the effort to reach out and share your story with us. I means so much to my team and I to hear it. 

Best regards,

Charley

Absolutely Natural's Factory Fresh Retail Store

On the heels of our successful Absolutely Natural store in Kauai, we are bringing a touch of Aloha to Melbourne Florida with the grand opening of our Factory Fresh store.  Our “in house” designer (and my wife!), Kelly Richards, has helped us put together our latest venture.

Our visitors can now enjoy a cup of Kona coffee while perusing our entire line of products which include suncare, personal care, facial systems and spa products.  Some people would expect a factory store to have last year’s “models”, out of date inventory or close outs, but our store features products freshly manufactured at our facility and presented by our knowledgeable sales personnel.

And, that is another advantage of visiting our location as our staff can evaluate your skin type before recommending what product will most benefit you in the sun, for your beauty regimen and as your daily use products in the bath and shower.  Not really clear about the differences among lotions, butters crèmes and oils?  We will educate you.

The store will also occasionally feature products we have developed for resorts all over the world for their private label lines.  

Featured in the store:

·         Suncare

·         Personal Care

·         Spa Products

·         Facials System

·         Organic

·         Other specialty products 

So plan to visit us soon at 644 Atlantis Road in Melbourne Florida.  Call 321-728-7191 for further information or visit us on line at www.absolutely-natural.com

Best regards,

Charley

We want to welcome a new employee to our ranks....

... Lindsey Barber will be joining us on June 6th.

This is a bit tongue in cheek as Lindsey has been with us for six years, but when she reports to work on the above mentioned date, it will be her first day as Mrs. Brian Barber. Lindsey was married on May 28th and my wife and I were honored to be among the attendees.

A lot of you know Lindsey well and you have quite possibly talked to her. She has been the backbone of our customer service department since 2005 starting out as a 17 year old high school senior in the mail order department. In the years that followed, she excelled at that position all the while attending college full time and earning her AA.

In 2008, she was promoted and took over the bookkeeping duties as well as many other functions. She still supervised the mail order room and was instrumental in new product development as well. And, she worked on her bachelor’s degree at the University of Central Florida which she attained in December of 2010.

Lindsey is now the Vice President for Absolutely Natural, Inc. and has been a key player in the growth AN has realized since 2008. Typical of Lindsey, a full time, very demanding job is not enough of a challenge for her and she is entering a master’s program this fall.

Actually, many of you have seen her and may not have known it. Lindsey graces the cover of our facials brochure and is also featured on collateral material at our stores in Kauai.

All of us at Absolutely Natural want to congratulate Lindsey and Brian and wish them health, happiness and prosperity during a long and fruitful marriage.

Best regards,

Charley

Our Amazing Fans & Friends

It is a rare thing to find a company that can truly inspire people and even more rare to have such accessibility to these same people. Every day, Charley personally answers the phones along with the rest of his staff. They answer emails, pop onto Facebook and welcome visitors to their Melbourne, Florida location. But what makes this most significant? They listen.

Absolutely Natural is the company they are today, in part, because of the impressive vision, passion and personality of Charley and his staff. But, what inspire them every day are their fans and friends who share their experiences, ideas and accolades. I can still remember one of my first meetings with them. They handed me a full stack of printed testimonials and were able to recite numerous stories by heart. They know life-long clients by name and can tell you details about their families and careers. No joke.

It is this same group of people, their fans and friends, who are now showing their support for such a great cause, raising nearly $900 as of today! In helping sea turtles survive, we help other sea creatures as well. This recent push to have our friends and fans show their support on Facebook has been inspiring to us and we’re so close to reaching our goal and then some.

I wanted to reach out and say thank you for making it all possible. You are a critical part of what makes Absolutely Natural such an amazing company. We are looking forward to more fun projects to come, but for now… thank you and ONWARD!

Absolutely Natural and Facebook? But Why?

Many of you may have noticed that we’ve been reaching out to our fans a lot on Facebook lately. While we know not everyone wants a Facebook account, we know there are over 500 million people throughout the world on there, and we figure a good slice of our fans are among those 500 million.

Why do we like Facebook?
Facebook gives us an opportunity to interact with our fans in a way that email and blogs haven’t been able to do. We get to include our fans in some of our day-to-day decisions, helping us decide on a new fragrance, suggesting new products and more!

Let’s face it, we’re a small, but growing company and we love how it feels so much like a family. We want to include our fans in that family, and no matter how far you live from our offices in Melbourne, Florida, it feels like you’re right here with us.

What is Fan Friday?
For a limited time (until May 1st) we’re offering Facebook fan specials. These are only available for a handful of hours across as many lunch hours as possible each Friday. Again, because we’re a small company, and we’re only on-site for so many hours ourselves, we run these specials from 11 am to 4:00 pm EST.

It’s our way to say thank you for supporting us and sharing how much you enjoy Absolutely Natural with your friends and family.

We hope that you’ll enjoy spending time with us online, swing on by and say hello won’t ya?
Our Facebook Page

Alternative Uses...

Throughout the years, I have heard from many customers who are innovative in their use of our products. Ever think of using our Pure Aloe with tea tree oil as a hair pomade? One of our salesmen in Hawaii has been doing this for years!

Our famous Rosehip Aloe has many uses and most prevalently as a shaving lotion. I've tried it and it does provide a great shave. Wash your face (I'm talking to men, of course) with our Facial Cleanser or Shower Gel and rinse with warm water. Lay the Rosehip Aloe on and let it soak on your face for about a minute. Then shave as you normally would. Expect an unbelievable close and comfortable shave and soft, smooth skin.

One of the more interesting alternative uses came from one of our long time female customers who uses our Tattoo Stay Nu serum as an under eye serum at night. She swears that it works much better than her old $75/oz crème.

For me, we have two products that are by far the most versatile in our line. Our Pure Aloe can be used on insect bites, for shaving irritation, sunburn, kitchen burns and is actually used at Emerson Hospital on radiation patients. I know a lot of our customers keep bottle at home, work and on the boat.

The king of versatility is our Organic Oil. It is an excellent hydrator, great massage oil, and superb bath oil. It is chock full of antioxidants, free radical scavengers, and ant-aging compounds. You can use it as a body oil, under the eyes at night and it is great for a deep conditioning hair treatment. We also have heard from some women who use it as a leave in conditioner as well.

We want to hear from you! What interesting ways have you used our fabulous Absolutely Natural?

True Testimonials...

Before I founded Absolutely Natural in 1992, I spent 20 years selling and distributing other, nationally recognized brands of suncare – brands you would be familiar with. In all those years, I only got a handful of people writing to relay to us how much they liked the product. They wouldn’t fill a shoe box.

The above fact makes what has happened with Absolutely Natural even more remarkable. Throughout the last two decades, we have received thousands of positive letters from our happy clients extolling the merits of our products.

They often start like this, “Every time I use the Rosehip Aloe it reminds me of Maui (or Mexico, or the Caribbean, or any other of our worldwide destinations).” We have hundreds of those.

You Saved My Vacation
I really appreciate the ones where we have helped people. “You saved my vacation” is a frequent theme where someone got too much sun and our aloes saved the day. I got one from a women who started, “We were 10 minutes from leaving for the hospital when we talked to your skin care consultant.” We’ve had others who have shared with us that they were “never able to enjoy the outdoors until finding Absolutely Natural.”

We have drawers full of letters from people who have improved their skin, their hair and their love life because of our all-natural cosmetic formulas. “My husband and I feel like we’re back in Cancun every time we use the Organic Oil. We trade back rubs several times a week now.” This was one happy woman!

Dear Charley, I have tears in my eyes as I write this…
My favorite one started like this, “Dear Charley, I have tears in my eyes as I write this …” It was about her daughter who had such terrible acne that she was severely depressed and basically sat in her room avoiding contact with the outside world. She actually had trouble attending school. We worked with her step by step with our incredible facials products. She started seeing improvement within days - and sticking to the program made a significant improvement on her complexion. The letter went on, “… thanks to you and your products, my daughter is a new person. Happy, outgoing and successful. You have a friend and customer for life.” That was two years ago and she still talks to us frequently.

I love hearing from our customers and the favorite part of my day is reading our testimonials. Keep them coming!

Best regards,

Charley

Customer Service: A Lost Art?

Customer service has become a luxury as of late in a world where so many of our interactions are digital and automated.The last time I tried to contact my local cable company to update my service I spent a frustrating afternoon attempting to get through their phone system to a human being. Once I did, I was immediately cut off before finishing my sentence and transferred over to yet another automated system. That is not service. And all too often, even the day-to-day human interactions are less than stellar. A cashier hands me my change, I say "Thank you." and they say "No problem." Where's their gratitude for my business? Shouldn't they be thanking me? How would handling my business be a problem for them?

That said, here at Absolutely Natural, we appreciate each and every one of our supporters. We constantly receive rave reviews from our customers for the way we handle orders, shipping, disputes and the way we treat our clients and do business.

Our phone system does have one of those automated mail box features, but we chose purposely not to use it. From 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. EST the phone is answered by a human. Yes, a human. The rest of the time it is an old fashioned answering machine extolling you to leave a message; the message is then returned by a human. Yes, human - one of us here at the main office. You get personal, one-on-one interaction with the very same people who develop the products you use. Who else can say that?

Beyond our daily personal interactions with our customers, we ship products the same day we get an order (next day if we get it after 3pm). We make sure you get all you ask for and take full responsibility for any problems ... even when it's not our fault.

I could go on and on but for 18 years we have had a simple philosophy ... we service our customers! Want to know more. Call us; I might even answer the phone and we'll answer all of your questions and take care of all of your needs.

Best regards,
Charley