She knew she had always loved taking long baths to soothe her nerves, and felt this was a “problem” she could solve for other stressed-out women. So she decided to make bath salts and give them funny names, making bath products with catchy names like ‘Me Time,’ ‘Week From Hell,’ ‘Dear Mom’ and ‘Winter’s a B*tch.” Along the way, she and her “later in life” love story with husband, Peter Scott, kicked off with buying a dilapidated farm near the shores of a lake, about an hour drive from Toronto. Later, this tenacious woman leveraged her background selling cars to hit the road and sell her own products. She left the car business in 2009. Now, Leslie’s company, based on her farm in Ontario, Canada, has six full-time employees, uses the help of seven factories and her initial “big reach” goal was to sell $100,000 a year. Today she takes in more than $2 million in annual revenue. There are no harmful chemicals or toxins in any of the products, and Leslie does not get involved in animal testing. In fact, the cruelty-free Walton Wood Farm’s mascot is a fake pig named Walton. “I am a high school dropout with learning disabilities, who failed pretty much every year of school,” Leslie exclusively told Parade.com. “I want others to know that if I can learn it late in life using all of my experiences as a mom,” she explained, “then it is never too late for anybody to find their passion to embark on their second act.” Tell me the history that led you to your current success. My husband Peter, a pilot, and I bought the farm in 2013 and with 140 acres it was too small to live off the land. The beautiful barns were built in 1852 and we knew we needed to fix and restore them because we believe in our agricultural history and wanted to make sure it was preserved for future generations. I also needed a business that was going to solve a specific problem. My whole time as a single mom I worked 100 percent on commission, and if I didn’t sell a car, we didn’t have money. So, my vacation was heading into the bathroom for a bath with bath salts, candles and music. I did this twice a week to get through the rough times. I knew that other women have a lot of stress, so I thought what do you buy your girlfriend who just got fired or has husband troubles, so she can de-stress? And that was my concept. I started in my laundry room with a Kitchen Aid mixer and starting experimenting with five bottles at a time. The kitchen was the lab, and within six months the entire first floor of our house was a factory and a warehouse. I was a stay-at-home mom walking my girls to the bus and every morning. When my daughters were 7 and 12, my husband left and everything changed. I worked as a finance manager for 10 years working double shifts, six days a week. So, your experience as a mom and caretaker can be put to good use. Running a household is similar to running a business because you are wearing so many hats. You are juggling all of the time and you are under a lot of pressure and stress and you care about your baby, and then your business can become like your baby. Once my kids were out of the house, I took all of that extra energy and put it toward a new adventure. This Second Act can certainly come later in life? Absolutely, I was 49 years old when I started my company. A lot of people said I was too old. They were questioning what I was doing. But I felt that people are living longer and there is so much information out there like all the podcasts. There is really nothing I couldn’t find on the internet to help me along. So, what is your major message? Even if you are young or an older person with loads of responsibilities and you absolutely cannot take those risks now, you can say to yourself, “It’s OK, this is what I’m doing right now. I’m going to put my dream over here and wait until it’s safe for my family for me to take more risks. And in the meantime, I’m going to do things that I’m interested in.” I did that all the time. I enjoyed writing, and I taught myself the art of screenwriting. And I entered competitions. I couldn’t act on it, but I could pursue it on a secondary level and learn. I had hoped to make a career out of it, but I learned how hard it was to sell a screenplay. My 12 years of that wasn’t wasted because when I did eventually start my company, I used all of my writing skills to write really fantastic copy for the products, and it’s the product labels that sell the product. The fun, humorous labels jump off the shelf and make an emotional connection, and that is what my company’s success has been based on. I just kept writing and I didn’t care if I’m 70 years old before something happens with my writing because I love it and want to do it anyway. Tell me about your products. They are free from harsh ingredients such as SLS, parabens and phthalate, and are vegetarian/vegan-friendly and gluten-free. I like to think of them as the perfect gift of body care for the holidays, birthdays and special occasions and to pamper yourself and friends. They are fun to give, something you need, use and feel good about. And one size fits all. If I had met you several years ago before you started the farm and the products, could you have predicted taking your entrepreneurial spirit and creating a very successful business? I would have said, “I am going to do something that I am interested in and that I hope will become something meaningful to myself and others one day. But I honestly don’t know how this is going to work out.” I knew I was going to take a step forward and just keep taking a step forward until it fails and I have to take a step back or it succeeds and I did not know what success looked like. I had no idea what I could do with this business. What were the ingredients that led you to millions of dollars in sales? Having no background in business or sales, other than car sales, I figured out how to master the wholesale gift business. I was just listening and learning each step I took. I first started out knocking on doors at retailers, going up Main Streets in Canada and the U.S. asking if they would buy my pounds and pounds of bath salts. That’s all I knew at the time. And they would ask if I was going to be at an upcoming trade show. I learned about wholesale gift industry trade shows. I started researching it and I did the shows in Toronto and Atlanta and suddenly I was selling across the U.S. and Canada. I had my 10 by 10 booth and stood there talking to retailers all day and that was the next big leap for me. Within a year I was able to get my product in Nordstrom for the holidays and that created some awareness, too, and that came from a hotel trade show. What do you say to women who have a similar dream, but worry about the financial risks while caring for a family? Despite the awareness of shared responsibility in the household what happens is that women still carry the load of caregiving. And there are so many single moms out there, and all of these women are focused on just putting food on the table and doing what they can for their children. And that does not involve risk. And they know that when it comes to high-risk occupations, you can lose your shirt. While we are grinding it being moms and taking care of our families, we put our dreams on hold. A lot of women have a second act, so when the kids are grown we bring to the table a lot of accumulative wisdom and a sense of confidence that we’ve earned over the years. And a lot of that has to do with raising our kids. It’s okay to take a step back if you are not in the position to take that leap. I’m going to build a future one brick at a time and defer the rest for the future. For another inspiring founders story, read Teenage Entrepreneur Shares Vital Life Lessons: “Follow Your Passion, Work Hard, and Always Believe in Yourself!
