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Meet April LeFlore of LeFlore World in Gwinnett

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Today we’d like to introduce you to April LeFlore.

April, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My journey began many years ago when I was a full-time college student at Albany State University while working a part time job at Krystal’s. My grandmother had a saying, “every job will lead to a new beginning”.

In other words, you should treat it as a stepping stone. One day while working the drive through at Krystal’s, one of our customers drove through and she had a catalog laying in her passenger seat. I asked her where she got the catalog from and she explained that she sold the products. This of course peeked my curiosity so I asked if I could have a copy of the catalog. She said yes, and asked for my phone number. I have always had a love for beautiful home décor and candles. This catalog had both. After speaking with her, I decided the most affordable way to purchase these beautiful items would be by hosting a party for her in my house. Never did I imagine this would change my life and ultimately begin my journey in directs sales. I agreed to host an in-home party to display and sale these products to earn points so to acquire the items I personally liked. I ended up with a great party because I decided to take outside orders at my college and at work for the guests that could not attend. We only had $200 in sales from the party, but the outside orders added about $900 to my party total. What made me work so hard was the fact all those sales counted for double points. With over $2000 in host credits, I could purchase almost anything I wanted. For many years my friends and family would re-order their candles from me. During my senior year of college, I married Ronnie LeFlore and he was a U.S Marine stationed in California and we relocated from Georgia to California. It did not take me long once relocating to California with my husband to know that I wanted to pursue my business aspirations. I put off starting it right away and took a position in Human Resources for Calloway Golf. This was the changing point of my career. After starting my career in Human Resources, it gave me the confidence and money to invest in my first entrepreneurial business. I meet a wonderful lady and she told me I could have my own business with Home & Interior gifts for a small startup cost. This was the perfect opportunity for me because I loved their products as a customer so I knew it would be easy for me to sell it. For the next 20 years I worked several different direct sales companies in California as well as Georgia.

In 2010, I went back to college at Ashford University and acquired a Masters of Art degree in Organizational Management with a Specialization in Human Resources Management. While working full time as an Human Resources Supervisor for a company in Lithonia, Ga. I maintained a 3.79 GPA. After completing my MA in 2011, I started looking at different direct sale businesses to work with again. I did inevitably find a new company to partner with and was very successful. In 2015 that direct sales company decided to close their doors. By this time, I was running my business full time and loving it. However, I did not let it stop me. My husband was running a business from home and I decided this might be an option for me. I actually loved working from home and running my own call center. In 2016 I decided this would be a great company to have. It would allow individuals to work from home. This was the start of LeFlore Business Sales & Services LLC. We were running our gift shoppe out of Unique Treasures under EDDA and decided to change it to LeFlore World and run everything under one company with different divisions. Our business continues to grow and I am very thankful to our customers, as well as, our corporate accounts that trust us with their business. We believe if we put God first he will continue send blessing our way.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
For the most part I have taken my time to build this business. There’s always a challenge in finding corporate accounts which is a sizable portion of our monthly revenue. I would have to say, that was one of our biggest obstacles.

LeFlore World – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
LeFlore Business Sales & Services is all about servicing while building relationships.

Here at LeFlore business, I make sure all of our divisions are set to operate daily. I also work our small gift shop at least 40 hours a week to make sure I am there to personally build relationships and meet new people. Most of our customers come to our gift shop and shop from our massive fragrance collection which comes from four of the most popular candle companies in the industry. Our fragrance collection is our number one product in our gift shop and is continuously growing. LeFlore World Business wants its customers to feel as though our gift shop offers that rare and unique gift, personal attention. We want each customer to feel like V.I.Ps. In 2017 we opened an online store, lefloreworld.com, which can accommodate both our corporate accounts and individual customers by offering different departments such as apparel, Choices by Violet, Second Chances, medical scrubs, home décor, and specialty items. Our Apparel and Medical scrub divisions offer our corporate accounts a one stop shop. LeFlore Business is very passionate about making certain that at the end of the day our product is a perfect fit for our customers. Although we are a small business, we try to offer more than just one service. With this, LeFlore Business is different than other businesses because we offer different varieties of fundraisers options, independent contractor positions through our at home call center division and a unique gift shop. This is what keeps us going day by day.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I define success by ensuring our clients and customers are happy with our service as well as our products. Our criteria for success is to create loyal and returning customers and clients.

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Image Credit:
April LeFlore

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