Industry News

Stories in this section:
Southwestern Company: Building Character for 150 Years
DeVos Campaign Heads Into the Home Stretch
Direct Selling in Russia
High Tech/High Touch Universe
Young Company Focus: Aihu
Industry with Heart: AtHome America

Unplugging from Stress:
Soothing Products and Education Help
Us Relax in Today's Tense World
by Deanne Lachner

Ann Walker knows more than a thing or two about stress; during her 31 years as an occupational therapist-and her years working with burn patients, the mentally ill, and the chronically fatigued-she saw a need for relief and she has worked tirelessly to fill it. Her patients seemed to echo the same sentiment time and time again: "I'm burning the candle at both ends. I'm trying to carry on a household; I'm trying to be a wife, a mother. I'm trying to carry on a career, and I'm exhausted." Ann answered their pleas for help when she began to develop Aihu's (pronounced "eye-who") anti-stress line of products almost four years ago. From skin care to aromatherapy, the perpetually stressed now have realistic and workable solutions to deal with life's challenges.

Cell Phones and Computers from Morning to Night

Ann noticed that in today's workplaces, the stress has only grown worse. As one works with a computer, the static posture depletes the oxygen in his or her system, leading to the development of symptoms indicating chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel and other sorts of cumulative trauma issues. Ann says of her customers, "They are plugged in from the time they get up in the morning; they've got their laptops and cell phones with them all day until they go to bed at night. There doesn't seem to be any time that they're unplugging and relaxing their central nervous system or their musculo-skeletal system." How can stress actually damage one's health? Ann offers the following explanation: "Mainly what I see happening, especially in women, is that they carry a lot of stress in their neck and shoulder area, and I think that's happening because of sitting in a static posture at work all day. They're not getting the blood flow and they're not feeding their cells and muscles with oxygen. So the muscles fatigue more quickly, and as they get tight, they start to develop toxins in that area; that's where they develop trigger points."

The key to solving many of these issues, Ann emphasizes, is to educate consumers about the damage stress can cause to their bodies. She teaches them that if they "compromise their immune systems, specific conditions develop." Consultants who sell Aihu's product line conduct "Home Retreats"-which are actually more educational events than parties-to "teach about [the effects of] stress to both men and women, but especially women, because they are the ones experiencing and developing those conditions more often than men." Chronically stressed customers can learn how to take time for themselves, and the importance of taking time to de-stress their lives.

During a Home Retreat, clients are asked questions such as "How many of you struggle with neck and shoulder issues? What's causing that? How can you be proactive and make sure that that doesn't happen to you anymore?" And then the fun part-sampling some of the Aihu products that can help keep them relaxed and keep oxygen moving in the neck and shoulder area, so they aren't dealing with the by-products of stress by the end of the week, then collapsing with fatigue and compromising their immune systems.

From Bathtubs to Dental Chairs

The Aihu product line is "very proactive, very preventative." During development, Ann met with a chemist (she still works with many chemists today), and they developed a line that Ann wanted to be especially strong in organic ingredients. "We use 100 percent organic ingredients in about 75 percent of our products, and the other 25 percent of our products have less than 1/10 of 1 percent preservatives in them to maintain product integrity and shelf stability," she says. "We went with an organic ingredient; I felt very strongly about having olive oil as the base to all of our creams, because of the experience I'd had in the burn unit, seeing what it did for skin integrity, regeneration and elasticity. All of our facial products and the entire skin care line are very strongly olive oil- and organic-based, for that reason."

Ann has compiled her products into "treatment teams." She is ready to combat stress with an army of solutions. "Now, when someone comes up to me and says, 'Oh, my neck and shoulders are just killing me,' then I can recommend a treatment team," she says. "I tell them, 'First of all, let's look at a good dehydrating bath salt. When you get into hot water, it expands your muscles so that you can increase circulation, and then the salt-we use a sea salt and an Epsom salt-dehydrates you. It immediately begins to pull all of those toxins out of your system through perspiration and dehydration. Then, when you get out of the tub, we have a massage gel that penetrates into the neck and shoulders, and that's pure, organic, therapeutic grade and essential-oil based, and it penetrates into your muscle bellies and helps them relax.' The third step to the treatment regimen is to encourage customers to heat up a spa wrap, designed to be long enough to totally encase their neck and shoulder muscles, so that they have another 45 minutes of constant heat over that area, which increases circulation."

She continues, "We wanted to educate women and men in taking adequate time to care for themselves by drawing a hot bath, maybe once every three nights, and lighting their aromatherapy candles." For those who consider aromatherapy to be an extravagance or a silly luxury, Ann has a quick and emphatic response: "Having been an occupational therapist, I really understand the importance of aromatherapy. Aromatherapy has therapeutic value. We're finding that a lot of the hospitals in the area are starting to use peppermint, for example, both before and after surgery to keep the patients from getting nauseous."

One particularly tense situation, for some, is the dreaded visit to the dentist. And for those who work in dental offices, stress is a daily part of their lives, too! Ann knew this and she took action: Aihu carries a line of products to help both patients and employees at the dentist office.

Ann explains how she got involved in the dentistry field. "My father was a dentist, and I had a brother and a brother-in-law in dentistry. If dental practices can encourage a more calm and tranquil dental environment and encourage patient relaxation and diversion from dental anxiety, I think you'd see more patients comfortable and wanting to come in for procedures."

At first, Ann's ideas for dental offices were not taken seriously. "The first year [the dental catalog companies] looked at us like, 'What is that? No way!' But one catalog, Patterson Dental, took a chance on us, and they called our line Spa Dentistry Products." At dental expos, Ann first experienced the same rejection, but "now they're calling us and asking us if we will be there. It's just totally turned around, and Spa Dentistry has become such a big thing that Patterson has called, and they're doubling their order with us!" Aihu is now in three major dental catalogs, a result of Ann and her consultants' work in educating dental practitioners on the importance of providing "a soothing, tranquil environment and an atmosphere where patients want to come."

A seemingly unrelated product, Aihu's "Mule" (a product that can be warmed and applied to the feet or hands-after a pedicure, for example-that will bake the oil into the skin, accelerating the effects of Aihu's soothing, healing products) turns out to be a surprisingly good fit for a dental office that hopes to relax its patients. "We've found that's one of the hottest products with the dental group, because by putting the hot Mule on patients' hands, instead of clenching the dental chair, they sit quietly and still," Ann says. Children especially seem to enjoy the Mule. "I just spoke with a dentist who deals with a lot of pediatric patients with cerebral palsy and autism, and the dentist said that when she puts the Mules on these little children, they're very quiet and they sit very still. We think it's because of the Mules' weight and heat.and there's a light scent of Bulgarian lavender that comes out of the Mules."

And those stressed-out dental assistants? They've become some of Aihu's most successful users.and consultants!

The Direct Selling Avenue to Stress Relief

Luckily for Ann, at the time she began her business, she knew people from both Creative Memories and Tastefully Simple, two very successful direct selling companies. She spent time with each, learning the ropes of the business and taking notes. Today, Ann and her son Tom, Vice President of Operations, who Ann says is "basically the backbone of this whole company," run the company. To keep Tom current in industry trends and operations, Ann says, "I just send him to every DSA seminar that I can get him to, and the two of us go to the Annual Meeting. It has been a wealth of information; it's like DSA is our lifeline. When we're this small, we rely on people who have that kind of experience, and they've been wonderfully, fabulously open and sharing. We probably could not have made it as far as we have if we didn't have the DSA there for us."

Keeping it in the family, Ann's son, Joe, does the company's IT support-designing their Web site (www.aihu.net) and engineering software to support the business-and Ann's husband, Dan, runs both the finance and the HR departments. Says son Tom, "They are very integral parts to the success of our company."

When Aihu began, Ann was its only consultant. Now, almost four years later, there are 200 consultants. "I started out alone for the first month, and I was booked solid every night," she says. "I realized that if I could sell these products like this and represent them, and that if I'm booked solid because people want that retreat in the evening, then other women could do it, too. So I started recruiting women; that first year we had seven, plus me. Then we grew from there-now we're up to 200; we're in twelve states. Aihu has just continued to grow and double; we're hoping we'll be up to 400, then pretty soon, 1,200."

Ann is proud to say that she has a lot of well-educated, ambitious consultants. "Interestingly enough, most of our consultants come from the healthcare field; probably the majority of our consultants are nurses," she says. "We have massage therapists who are very healthcare focused. We have mostly women, most of them of baby boomer age, and they're attracted to healing skin care lines and anti-stress products. We're getting a lot of 30- to 40-year-old women now, who are in mainstream careers and who are starting to feel a lot of stress symptoms. They're really interested in the line. I feel very strongly that we have to empower women to respect their divine rights: to live a strong and productive life and to know peace in their own mind, body, and spirit."

Aihu's Big Plans for the Future

A new 20,000-square-foot warehouse, a unique concept of hotel parties and "ladies' night out" events, corporate educational presentations.Aihu is not slowing down anytime soon. Aihu's focus is moving more and more toward the education side of stress management, and Ann hopes to share her message with everyone. "I'll be putting together several of my modules for training and we're going to start moving in that direction, because that's really where I feel like the education has to be. We're talking about balance and having more stress management in your life at home and at work," she says.

Ann already provides trained speakers for specialized workshops for large corporations. She can offer education regarding injury management and stress reduction for employees of these companies. She now finds that Aihu is moving rapidly as the demand for education continues. "Because of my healthcare background, I'm leaning more toward the educational direction," she says. "Fortunately, the majority of our consultants are coming in with those interests; they're really into the education and how they can make a difference in women's and men's lives. Every product we carry is going to make a difference in someone's life as far as stress or wellness. We don't put out products that are only for fun; we bring candles that are for aromatherapy. We decide what scents we want to use to help relax; everything is very carefully considered as an anti-stress piece of our mission. Our healing skin care products are part of the package. We work very hard at putting treatment regimens together, so everything pulls together into a nice treatment package."

From skincare to aromatherapy to Home Retreats and corporate stress management education, Aihu is living up to the meaning of its name: "To cherish and protect."