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Behind East Texas pines, down a narrow road that seems to lead nowhere in
particular, Home & Garden Party has turned a 50-acre patch of woods into a
bustling corporate headquarters and distribution center that last year
topped $100 million in revenues for the first time.
The company has 400 employees at its Marshall, Texas, base who send some
7,000 boxes a day to 24,000 sales representatives throughout the country.
This year, Home & Garden Party joins The Times list of Top 100 privately
held companies in Northwest Louisiana and East Texas, jumping into the
Top 10 its first year on the list. The firm also showed the largest dollar increase in
revenues from the previous year.
Home & Garden Party started only six years ago with a desire by Steve and
Penny Carlile to run a business that would help a few people help
themselves. Since then, a few people turned into 24,000.
"This is about nurturing and training and helping people. We take a personal interest. We treat everyone as family and show that we care," said company president Penny Carlile, who writes some 500 cards a month to company workers.
Home & Garden Party depends on its independent distributors to sell candles,
pottery, framed prints and other home decor items. Customers are found
through home parties, in which sales reps invite friends to see a sampling
of products and make orders through its catalog.
"It seemed to us to be the type of business where integrity, honesty and
Christian values mattered," Penny Carlile said. "We did our best to learn
what distributors for other companies liked best and least about their
companies before we finalized our marketing plan."
That's why designers, as the sales representatives are called, can sell as
much or as little as they desire. The Carlisles learned distributors do not
like quotas or minimum sales levels and that's why there are none here.
There is no inventory to maintain. They are driven by their own motivation - and
many of them are very motivated. Top earners can win cruises and other
awards; they are recognized at national motivational rallies like the one
held last month in Indianapolis.
"Over the past six years we have paid out more than $100 million in
commissions and earnings to people in the field. Our payroll here is about
$11 million a year," Steve Carlile said.
Carlile is a partner in Camterra Resources, an oil and gas exploration firm
operated by his father and brother. Camterra is also new to the Top 100
list, having doubled its revenues last year to $22 million from the year before.
In 1990, Carlile sold another oil firm, Marshall Exploration, and two years
later used those funds to buy Casey Pottery, which had 12 employees. The
Carliles opened a large retail store in Longview and ran that for five years
before turning their full attention to Home & Garden Party. They still own
Casey Pottery, which now has 200 employees and manufactures products
strictly for Home & Garden Party.
The activity at Home & Garden Party includes new construction: two new
warehouses built this summer added another 200,000 square feet in storage
space and gave the business 10 buildings at a site where golf carts are
needed to cover all the territory.
A soft economy hasn't even dented sales, which more than tripled from $33
million to $108 million from 1999 to 2001. This year's projection: $150
million.
Penny Carlile says a business like Home & Garden Party can prosper during a
soft economy and can actually benefit those hit hardest by corporate
cutbacks. Some of their distributors are people who have been laid off by
other firms. The vast majority are women who use the business as a part-time
job, but there are a few who work at full speed, full time and make more
than $100,000 a year.
"Home & Garden Party has helped people keep their homes and has helped women
stay home with their children. We've had some send their kids through
college and set up trust funds for their grandkids," she said.
"One of the main things is it's given a lot of women self-confidence. It
helps people improve their lives and I love that."
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