The Blog

Instead of YOUR TURN this week, we’re featuring our first interview for our new Women in Business blog feature. We’ll be taking the second Wednesday of each month to highlight a woman in business. This week, we’re speaking with Fabienne Christenson, of Possets Perfume. You probably saw her article Six Ways to Appreciate Scent, in our September issue. Be sure to read to the end of the post, though, because there’s a VERY SPECIAL GIVEAWAY.

Please tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I was born and raised in Washington D.C., and my parents had a farm in Calvert County in Southern Maryland. In a way, my life is divided into town and country smells. The town smells include things like my mother’s very fine perfume, Bandit. She was partial to great perfumes and traveled to Paris at least once a year and would bring back fragrances which were the tout de monde at the time. I like to repeat the story my mother told me about my birth: before she went into the delivery room, my mother splashed herself liberally with the most fashionable perfume of the time, Bandit by Robert Piguet. The first breath or earthly air I took in was redolent with Bandit.

My father was a surgeon, but he loved the country life and growing vegetables in our garden. I grew up with the scent of fresh melons and tomatoes warmed from the sun, a variety of roses and flowers blooming during their time in the year, and the fragrances of the various seasons as they slid one into the other.

And a bit about your company, Possets?

Possets was actually formed in about 1992 as an aromatheraputic company. I really wanted to be a perfumer but I didn’t know how, so I got as close to it as I could. The company was named after an archaic English word for a sweet sop or treat. I liked the sound of the word.

The original possets were sold in 5ml bottles for the oil blends, and 1 oz dropper bottles for the alcohol based blends. They could have been found on the second floor of Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky and were fairly popular. It was an informal sole proprietorship at the time, and lasted for about two years. When I started to make perfume, I wanted to revive the name and now it’s my formal trademark.

From the beginning I wanted to have two distinct Possets products: Classics which were made with modern perfuming materials, and Naturals which were made with 100% genuine natural ingredients.

I also wanted an art historical bent to it as I have studied a lot of art history and that has become part of my persona. I wanted to do perfume my way, not “as it must be done to be proper”, or according to other people’s taste. I think that too much modern perfume is astringent, aggressive, and muddled. I go through a lot of pain to make perfume which is pretty, agreeable and yet interesting.

How did you become a perfumer, and how did you decide to turn perfuming into a business?

I decided that I wanted to be a perfumer early on. I told my mother when I was 6 or 7 that that was what I wanted to do with my life and she informed me that it was impossible! I had to be French, born into a perfuming family, had to be trained, had to be taken under the wing of a “real” perfumer…oh, the list went on. I was crestfallen and ended up trying it in the ‘90’s as the aromatherapist but then, after I had tried and succeeded to make perfume to my taste, I finally became…a perfumer.

Turning perfume into a business was the easy part. I am an MBA and did a lot of study about being an entrepreneur while in graduate school. I am also pretty accomplished as a practical computer person (with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, XHTML and a host of other things) so e-commerce was the obvious choice for me. I decided to start my business on the air when I bought www.possets.com as my URL, and made up the first website.

I had worked in heavy industry manufacturing jet engines at General Electric Aircraft Engine Group, and had my undergraduate degree in manufacturing (Operations Management) from the University of Maryland so putting things together in the most efficient and effective way is not magic to me. I was only looking for a job in a field which would take all of the creativity and energy I had to offer. One of my biggest problems was that creativity is really not a great thing in regular commerce so you have to “stuff it”. They need people who carry out other people’s ideas and don’t try to impose their own on the enterprise. In my job, Possets can take all of the creative ideas I can throw at it and beg for more; to me it doesn’t get any better than that. At last I made a place where I can do what I am best at with impunity.

Do you have a staff, or are you the sole employee as well as the owner of your company?

I do have a staff, and they are all contract workers at the moment. One of the biggest mistakes I see among entrepreneurs is when they get a bit of business and hire everyone they know. Then money gets tight and layoffs or cutbacks have to happen and everyone suffers. I don’t want to do that. As my business grows the contract workers will become permanent employees, but that is down the road. I am being prudent with Possets so it will be around and prospering decades from now.

What’s a typical day for you?

Wake up, get coffee, hit the computer. I check my e-mail and see if there are any customers who need help. There is always someone whose parcel has gone astray, their bottles leaked, they want to change their order and the like. I take care of those first and look at the orders, print out the receipts and start getting labels out of PayPal so I can pack and ship.

Packing and shipping is the number one daily activity for me now. I enjoy it and all of the modern conveniences have made it a piece of cake.

In addition to that, I do my business-y things like inputting invoices, checking inventory levels, purchasing ingredients, paying rent and the like. Then I start creating next season’s Possets. As I go through my day, I will get several good ideas for new blends. I write those down wherever I am and save them for when I go to the studio to mix. I mix anywhere from once to three times a week, depending on what is needed. I also get to do the labels, restock my retailers, come up with the artwork on the site and the general theme for the next season. The day doesn’t order itself, I get to say what the order of doing is, but the number one priority is packing and shipping.

I noticed that you’re an LLC. Can you tell us why you chose to go that route? (Small business owners don’t always have to formalize their corporations.)

Yes, you don’t have to be an LLC to be in business, but it adds a level of security to your enterprise and presents you as a more serious business person if you have some form of incorporation. In Ohio it is quick and cheap to become an LLC, it is more involved and a good deal more expensive in other areas of the country like California (I know that because my brother in law is a lawyer in California and he was astounded at how simple it was in the Buckeye State). For an investment of about $200, you can’t afford not to.

As a woman in business, do you feel that you face any particular challenges?

In my present position, I don’t. I prepared for this though and that made all of the difference. I didn’t borrow any money to start, I don’t really have a storefront to maintain, I am very frugal in my equipment needs and don’t owe anyone anything so I am not hamstrung by the borrowing or credit system. I am in a woman’s field for the first time and I feel pretty confident there as there isn’t an Old Boys’ Network to fight and get patronized by (if you are lucky). I have had to fire a few male professionals because they didn’t take me seriously or overcharged me and though that I would pay them. It is good to be the queen. I have found that most of my professionals are women just because they do a great job for me and take me seriously.

You’re a supporter of the O’Bryonville Animal Rescue (OAR); do you feel that business owners are obligated to give something back to their communities, or is this just a personal cause?

I believe that supporting charities is an individual choice. I don’t like to put the burden of pro bono work on anyone if you are a business person. Professionals are different, they have a tradition of doing work for the common good or contributing a share of their gains to charity.

You’ve said, on the Possets website that you work to make sure you use ingredients that are not tested on animals. Is animal testing as prevalent in the perfume industry as a whole as it is in the rest of the cosmetics/beauty industry?

I can’t answer that question for sure. The perfume industry is notoriously secretive about everything. I have gone through as much research as I know how to find out who is a good guy in the business and buy from them.

What advice would you give to other women wanting to start their own businesses?

First, sell something that people want. Sounds obvious, but it is the number one reason for business failure. Your idea might sound charming but it might not appeal to enough people to make a going concern. Be honest with yourself about the fitness of your product. Are personalized purses really going to pay the bills? Is opening a store with items All Things Pink going to be a hit? Do other women really want you to do their shopping for them? Go for what you can sell, anything else would make a great hobby.

Learn the computer. Saying, “Oh, I ‘m computer illiterate” isn’t cute and quaint; it makes people think you are too lazy to learn (or not bright enough). Most of your customers will want to shop with you over the internet, give them the chance. E-mail allows you to communicate with them instantly, they expect it. Websites makes it easy for them to pay you, they are not impressed if you insist on a “paper check” in the mail.

Don’t spend your start up money stupidly. I am sure you want pretty clothes to present yourself nicely to visitors, first class furniture in your office would impress, and a general presentation of prosperity does look great, but be frugal and spend your money on the gritty things first. And be spare with the trappings of wealth. I know a lot of people who wasted too much of their venture capital on things like: a platoon of employees dancing attendance, expensive clothes and equipment, fancy cars, and consultants. Don’t be seduced. Get cozy with the top of the bottom of the line, don’t go for the TOL. Your money will go farther and carry you with it.

What goals do you have for the future of Possets? How about for your own future?

I want Possets to be a household word. I want my company to be renowned for high quality and great prices and the pinnacle of creativity. That’s a tall order but, what better do I have to do all day long? I am working on that all the time. I would love to see a physical outlet for Possets in places like New Orleans and Paris and Quebec. I have a soft spot for the French and their perfume culture. But then again, I would like to see Possets in Spain and Mexico, Japan, Australia, and other outlets around the world. I am sort of an internationally friendly entrepreneur, doing my bit to get the whole world smelling great one client at a time. I want Possets to grow in a prudent way, not to outstrip itself but steadily be able to weather the shocks that commerce hands you and advance each year; sometimes by leaps and bounds and sometimes just by baby steps.

As for my own future, I just want to live a well considered and good life. I am very lucky to have a great marriage to a brilliant and fabulous man, Gordon, and I have a precious family which amuses and enamors me. So, personally I want to keep up what I have, live in good health, and enjoy it all. One day I might write a book on fragrance or commerce but that is down the road.

Fabienne Christenson is the founder and head perfumer for Possets Perfume, which features seasonal scents which rotate with the time of year, a separate selection of 100% natural perfumes (including seasonal naturals), sample packs for classics and naturals, a forum, a blog, a podcast, and you can sign up for a newsletter, too. Possets is physically located in Cincinnati, OH. Fabienene can be reached by emailing info@possets.com.

GIVEAWAY Fabienne has graciously agreed to give away gift certificates to three ALL THINGS GIRL readers. The first three people to comment on this post will be given a code they can email to Fabienne, in exchange for $10 to spend at Possets. (Enough for a bottle of a Classic scent, or a Classic sample pack.)

Posted by Melissa in ATG Giveaways, Women in Business |

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under ATG Giveaways, Women in Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.