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When Stephanie Stober and her husband co-founded FlaxUSA in 2001, they averaged one order a week. Before they could expand their venture, which they launched from the farm on which their family had grown flax since 1901, they not only had to generate interest in their new business. They also had to educate consumers about the health benefits of flax seed, which was then relatively unknown, but has since become celebrated as an excellent source of protein, fiber and omega-3, which relieves stress, PMS and menopause. They got the word out, and then some. Today, they earn annual revenues of $4 million, and their products are available at Costco and Sam’s Club stores across the country.

Stober attributes her success to the fact that she and her family members truly believe in flax seed’s potential to significantly improve people’s health and well being. In the early days, Stephanie was tireless in her dedication to attending trade shows and searching out any other venues where she might convert new customers. And she poured any profits she made from these early sales right back into the product.

Because she was not a natural public speaker and had to work to become a more confident salesperson, Stephanie hopes her story will encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to challenge their abilities. Her own inspiration came from her mother, who was widowed three months before Stephanie’s birth and generated income to raise her nine children on the family’s farm with entrepreneurial ventures that ranged from butchering chickens to baking cakes. Stephanie also learned a great deal as a Mary Kay beauty consultant, honing her sales skills and earning herself a pink car, before going on to sell exotic animals. Having built a successful business around a product that was once unknown, launched from a farm located six miles from the nearest town, which has a population of 100, Stephanie is the first to attest that anything is possible.

What we learned from Stephanie: “So many people are unhappy in their jobs, but they don’t think they can do something [about it]. I’m in the middle of nowhere, and when they always say, ‘Location, location, location,’ I say, ‘No, if you have a desire in your heart and a belief in something that you can do, you can do it.’ Our company has grown phenomenally, from one phone call a week to major markets.”

Like Mother, Like Daughter

“I’m the youngest of nine children, and my dad passed away three months before I was born, so mom was left to raise us kids, each a year apart. And, mom, she remarried when I was two, but she always did things to make an income, whether it was butchering chickens, making memorial wreathes, having a greenhouse, planting a garden, making cakes. She always created something to make an income, so she would have something for us kids, and that must have instilled in me [the idea], ‘You can always do something.’ I tear up when I think about it.”

A Desert Island Food

“[The interest in flax] kind of started during Y2K, when people were concerned about what they were going to eat when the times were tough; when they were thinking their computers were going to shut down, and there’d be no food or anything. And flax… is one of your most perfect, healthy foods, it’s easy to store, and it lasts a long time… One doctor said, if he was on a desert island, the one food he would take would be flax seed… Y2K never happened, but people right now are concerned again about the economy, and food, and it’s an affordable product, and it definitely has a lot of health benefits”

Creating Educated Consumers

“Ten years ago, I would hand out samples and it was like, ‘Flax? What’s flax?’ Nobody knew the health benefits of it. I even traveled to California, and to home and garden shows, and went all over educating people, not just here in North Dakota. Education is a key part of it; just to let them know what the health benefits are, and to let them taste it, smell it, see it, experience it with the five senses. That’s what helped build the business.”

Building a Business, One Sale at a Time

“We started out, just selling at [trade] shows. We’d take the profit from there and reinvest back into the product. You do it wholesale, and then you’ve got your retail price, so you do have some margin to work with, and so, we did that. And there were times the show wasn’t good, or it was a lean time. And there were times where I would sell $10,000 at a show, retail, so I had some nice money to work with. We started slow. This has been ten years going, and the momentum just kept building.”

Only the Self-Motivated Need Apply

“It’s tough, because you have to be prepared to do everything yourself. You don’t have an 8-to-5 job, where you go there, you punch a clock, and someone tells you what to do. You have to do everything yourself, from label development, to media, to getting the sales… So, in a sense, maybe not everyone can do that, because you do have to be very self-motivated.”

Dare to Follow Your Dream

“People who are out there, and are self-motivated, and they have a dream, I would tell them to pursue that dream. There’s going to be a lot of struggles along the way, but what I learned is that, if you try, and it doesn’t succeed, you’re not a failure. But you’ll never know [what you can do] unless you try. That’s what I [learned] through Mary Kay, is that I never knew unless I tried. And, if it didn’t work, it wasn’t the end of the world. So many people need to realize that, so they can go forth.”

Ask and You Shall Receive

“Probably being in Mary Kay was in one of my big motivators and teaching things because, before that, I wasn’t a public speaker. I was kind nervous of people. So going into Mary Kay was a big thing for me, and getting the education there, and just the marketing tools [and learning to] be forward and ask people. You had to ask for your bookings, and you had to ask for sales. All of that was a big part of moving me forward.”

Families Who Work Together

“When you have an employer, you might confront them and say, ‘Okay, is this done?’ Whereas, with a family member, it’s a little harder to do that because you are family; just communicating like you should, and separating the two, [can be difficult]. We work together all day long, and so we’re together all day long, and it’s mainly business that you have to, 8-to-5, but it doesn’t end at 5.”

Communication Is Key

“We have conference calls where we can just air things out, because sometimes it’s hard, sometimes you just overlook things… Probably the biggest thing is we think one person is doing it, and the other person thinks the other one is doing it, because we all put on so many roles. So just communicating, okay, ‘Who’s doing this?’ Communication is a big part of it. And sometimes that doesn’t get done, and that does lead to things not getting done, or frustration, so probably the key thing there is to keep the communication open.”

This Featured Lady was profiled by Sarah Tomlinson, a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California.

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