This week we’re talking with Alicia Sable-Hunt, RN, MBA, who is the Founder and President of Sable’s Foods (www.SablesFoods.com). She has created a unique niche business within the Nutritional Bars and Supplements space. Here’s her story:

1. Tell us about your business:

   Sable’s Foods is a line of Nutritional Empowerment Bars® designed for the cancer community by the cancer community.

   Developed with the input of nutritionists, cancer specialists, and most importantly, with patients themselves, I have created a line of bars that are baked like a brownie, bursting with flavor and offer a nutritional value enjoyed by the cancer community, athletes and everyone else in search of Nutritional Empowerment!

2. Why did you start this business?

   Sable’s Foods Nutritional Empowerment Bars were born from firsthand knowledge developed over many years caring for cancer patients. As a long-serving oncology nurse, I understood the immense struggle of those fighting cancer and what I term cancer’s “nutritional challenge”—the crucial need for proper nutrition during treatment coupled with the loss of appetite and digestive issues that often prevent patients from receiving the nourishment they need. Discontent with patients’ lack of flavorful yet nutritionally balanced options, I felt compelled to direct my experience and empathy toward a solution. I knew that cancer patients needed foods that would meet their specific nutritional requirements while offering flavors and textures that would taste great and be easy to eat. I also wanted to offer them something portable, as I strongly believe that patients should be able to thrive while continuing with their daily lives during treatment and recovery. Championing this cause, in 2006, I stepped into my kitchen and began baking up a solution.

3. What is your background?

   I am a Registered Nurse with a master’s degree in business administration. My commitment to the cancer community stems from over 15 years working as a bedside oncology nurse, clinical research nurse, manager of a leading orphan-cancer consortium, and consultant to disease-specific non-profit organizations.

4. What skills did you need to acquire for your new endeavor?

   My expertise lies with the cancer population not in food production. The first thing I needed to do, was to identify my strengths and weaknesses then hire consultants to fill the voids. That level of self-reflection is paramount. The second skill set necessary for success is the ability to identify, engage and manage vendors. Due to the nature of my target market, it was necessary to engage experts in the field of food products, nutrition, nutritional supplements, etc. It is time consuming yet critical to set forth clear deliverables, create budgets and manage every step of your vendor relationships. Without this level of oversight, you are at risk of spending too much money and not obtaining the results you need.

5. Biggest challenges?

   I think the biggest challenge I face as a start-up company is building brand awareness. The sheer amount of money and time required to build a brand in the food product industry is enormous. Especially, in my case as my product is designed for the cancer community. While my market is expanding to include athletes, busy moms and dads, teenagers and other medical conditions, my brand activities center around the cancer community.

   Due to the nature of cancer, we all know someone that has been touched by the disease. Therefore, everyone should know that my product exists; however, my consumer is a sub-sector of “everyone”. Building brand recognition within the food product industry and the cancer community has been a challenge as it is for any start-up company.

6. What have you learned and advice to others:

   I knew that starting my own company would difficult. I even knew it would be very difficult. I didn’t know it would be so lonely. I am a one woman show responsible for every aspect of the business even in my outsourced model. The all consuming responsibility of the day to day activities of the business as well as managing the expectations of customers, investors, vendors, and my own expectations is very difficult. Burnout is a very real part of an entrepreneur’s pathway. Simply finding time for you and allowing yourself to the take the time, is critical to remain motivated, creative and effective.

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This Cottage Industries article features a company called “Mama’s Goodies, ”which produces Iranian-inspired artisan nut butter brittles in unique flavors including sesame, which is traditional in Iran, and almond, another Iranian flavor. They also produce the brittles in cashew, pecan and macadamia – coconut flavors. Their story is a good one to share around the holidays because they are Iranian immigrants who are living the American dream as entrepreneurs by starting their own family business.

Here is their story:

In 1979, Rohy Khorshidian, her husband and their four young daughters fled Iran for a better life in the United States. They left behind all of their personal belongings but retained the things deeply rooted in their heritage. One of those things was Rohy’s old-world family recipe for nut butter brittles.

In the early years as new immigrants, Rohy strived to help her family adjust to their new life. One thing she did to “make her feel at home” was to work in the kitchen making her nut brittles that she had become known for in Iran. She began with the traditional flavors of sesame and almond. Before long, Rohy was recognized throughout the community for her nut brittles, often taking them to family gatherings and giving them to neighbors as gifts. When she was invited to an event, the host would often call and say, “Don’t bring anything except your nut brittle”.

Her daughter Kathy saw her mother’s gift as an opportunity. As a former businesswoman turned stay-home-mom, Kathy decided to market her mother’s brittles, but also to teach her young children the importance of following their dreams. Kathy lost her husband to a sudden illness when her children were only 9 and 5 years old. Today, her son, Ryan, is 14 and her daughter Dana is 10 years old. She wanted to show her own children the importance of pursuing your passion, moving forward and feeding the entrepreneurial spirit. And thus, in 2008, Mama’s Goodies was born.

Today, Mama’s Goodies produces five unique flavors of nut butter brittles –and Rohy and Kathy are always there to taste and approve each batch to insure they have that old-world, homemade quality. Rohy still makes her own batches every week, which she continues to share with friends and family.

The skills that she needed to acquire to start the business were to learn the ins and outs of the food industry, learn how to market a food item, but most importantly, learn how to deal with many walks of people.

Their biggest challenge has been to Brand the company name in this economy when many retailers are not adding on new vendors AND downsizing their current inventory.

Kathy has learned that there is nothing that is easy in life, but if you love what you do and have a true passion for it you will succeed no matter what the economy is doing or the odds whether the odds are stacked against you in a food industry. She says that she loves to cite Confucius’ phrase “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life”. She is living proof of that phrase!

To order from Kathy and Rohy, visit www.mamasgoodies.com.

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Save 15% When You Spend $75 or More.
Use Promo Code 19377.

Guest Authored By Alicia Rockmore and Sarah Welch.

Here’s a scenario: you come home from work to find a “past due” cable bill in the mailbox. You could have sworn that you had paid it two weeks ago, but your checkbook says otherwise. Still hoping you just forgot to enter the payment in your checkbook register, you rummage around your kitchen, home office, purse … and everywhere else you have little piles of mail stashed. Sure enough, you find the original bill, unopened, under a pile of clutter. Sound familiar? You are not alone. Many people who have problems paying bills on time aren’t necessarily cash strapped, but rather, just need to get more organized financially. We’ve got a few tips to make the dreaded chore easier for you that will save you hours and stress wrinkles.

Alicia on “Why it’s crucial”
“Late payments can harm your credit score, and ultimately make you appear riskier than you might otherwise to lenders and even auto insurers. That can cost you money, or worse, compromise your ability to get a loan when you really need one. Worse, many credit card companies have instituted severe rate hikes – often to levels above 30% APR – for customers who have missed a payment on any of their accounts. Not that credit card companies are making it easier to pay on time. In addition to strict hour deadlines, bills are now mailed closer to the due date, leaving customers with one week less to submit payment than a decade ago. So you must be vigilant.”

Sarah on “Establishing a bill routine”
Paying bills may be the last thing you feel like doing after a busy day. However, without a routine for organizing your bills, it’s just too easy to miss payments. Your routine doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, you only need to establish a designated day and time each week to pay bills. Pick a spot where you feel comfortable and make it your permanent bill paying perch. I pay my bills every Monday evening while sitting at the kitchen table. On that night I get a “free pass” from the dishes so it’s easier to get over my tendency to procrastinate. I like the kitchen table because I still get to interact with my family – I’m not locked away in another room, suffering through the chore.

Once you have picked a day and time for bill paying, follow these simple steps for organizing the process:

1. Go Electronic
   
   Computers can practically do everything for us these days, including bill paying. You can automatically pay bills every month by setting up electronic bill paying with your bank. All you have to do is enter in the information of who to pay and when, and with a quick confirmation your bank will write a check and deduct money from your account every month. This is so simple that in 2005, 24% of bills were paid electronically. So jump on the bandwagon and you will never have a late bill again!

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Save 15% When You
Spend $75 or More.
Use Promo Code 19377.

Many people want to work from home, especially moms that want to be readily available for their children; but they just don’t know where to start. Just like any other job search, you will need to put in some time and effort, but once you do, you’ll be happy to find that there are a lot of work at home opportunities out there.
Here are three tips to get you started with your work at home job search:

1. Search Major Career Job Sites. Start by searching the major career sites like Career Builder and Monster using the terms: “work at home”, “work from home”, “home based”, “remote”, “virtual”, “telecommute”, and “telework”. Because companies are trying to save money in this tough economy more and more businesses are hiring people to work from home.

   Just for fun I’ve searched on Career Builder for “home based” positions, and I’ve come up with many pages of results. Yes, you’ll need to take the time to scavenge through these, but the opportunities are there for the taking.

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Here is an excerpt from an interview we did with Rhonda Sparks, founder of UV skinz. Rubbingnickels.com is looking for home-based business owners to share their business start-up experiences with us for our Cottage Industries feature. Please contact us from our home page if you have a story you’d like to share. We hope you learn from and enjoy her story.

1. Give us your elevator pitch:
   UV Skinz manufactures UV protective swim shirts and clothing for the entire family (sizes 6m to 4XL) and make it a top priority to provide the most fun, fashionable and affordable sun protection around! Most people don’t realize that over 1.3 million cases of skin cancer will be diagnosed this year; 1 in 5 Americans. Or that one severe sunburn as a child more than doubles the risk of getting skin cancer as an adult. We want to help change these statistics by raising awareness about the need for proper sun protection.

2. Why did you start this business?
   My husband was diagnosed with malignant melanoma at the young age of 27 and we lost him to the disease five years later. Once Darren was diagnosed with skin cancer, we became ultra aware of sun protection and made sure to keep our three young boys protected the best way we could. We soon realized that we needed to come up with something lightweight and breathable so that kids and adults alike would feel comfortable wearing shirts all day long in the sun.

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