Scrapbook consultant finds more customers

By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer

Creative Memories

• Kathleen Davenport, consultant
• Type of business: Direct sales of scrapbook materials
• Location: Makakilo
• Started: 1996
• How business changed after 9/11: Stopped approaching clients for two weeks, then found greater interest by customers in her products.

Kathleen Davenport helps people organize their jumbled boxes of family photos into appealing scrapbooks. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the demand for her services has been on the rise.

Kathleen Davenport, an independent consultant who helps sell scrapbook supplies, says her services are more in demand now. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Creative Memories, based in St. Cloud, Minn., uses an army of independent representatives, called "consultants," to sell scrapbooks, pens, adhesives and other products of the picture-preserving craft to customers in their homes or in the representatives' homes. Davenport receives a commission on her sales and on the sales of others she recruits to sell Creative Memories' products.

Davenport, a former intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force, has been with Creative Memories for more than five years. At first it was largely a hobby as she pursued her military career. She turned to it as a full-time occupation in 1998, when she chose early retirement during an Air Force downsizing. Since then she has seen a steady improvement in her sales and those of the about 26 consultants she has recruited. Her own sales in August were about $3,000.

Working out of the Makakilo home she shares with her husband and two daughters, ages 8 and 10, Davenport spreads her scrapbook story through church groups, women's organizations and military spouses. She also offers classes to customers who need help with books they have started.

To generate sales, Davenport relies almost entirely on word-of-mouth, although she also has one-line listings in the O'ahu White Pages and Yellow Pages.

For two weeks after the attacks, Davenport said, she didn't approach her customers because she didn't want them to think she was using the catastrophe to help sell scrapbooks. In the last week of September, however, she started getting calls from steady customers, asking when she was holding her next class, and in early October she decided to start up her sales and classes again.

Since the attacks, Davenport said, the response of audiences to her sales talk has changed dramatically. Before Sept. 11, she said, prospective customers would nod in agreement as she spoke, but without great conviction. Now, she said, "They totally get it."

Davenport also has seen a sharp increase in the number of people wanting to become Creative Memories consultants. Before the attacks, she said, she signed up about one new consultant a month. In October, she took on four new consultants and this month three more signed up in one weekend. Davenport's own sales in October were $2,500 — a slight decline from August levels largely because of sales going to the new recruits, she said.

Hawai'i's thousands of post-Sept. 11 layoffs could be one reason for the increased interest: One new consultant told Davenport that she and her husband had just lost their jobs. But Davenport also believes the new recruits see that a scrapbook business has the potential to bring in income and to help others organize their visual memories.

At a time when many businesses are suffering, Davenport said she believes scrapbook sales will continue to be strong, because what she and her fellow consultants have to offer is comfort at a difficult time.

"People are realizing how fragile life is and how it can change in an instant," she said. "And their stories could be forgotten if they haven't taken the time to put them down and share them with their families."