Aroma Retail with Mike Hewitt, Director of Marketing feature 95 of Together Talks

KLS
Jan 16, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Apr 14

"Together Talks" feature 95: Aroma Retail presented by KLS, freight company

Some Background on Aroma Retail

Today's edition of "Together Talks" campaign, KLS had the opportunity to interview Aroma Retail and Mike Hewitt, Director of Marketing. Aroma Retail is a home and business scenting company based in Las Vegas, well-known for its collection of signature resort scents and unique fragrance libraries. A certified woman-owned company, every scent is available with aroma diffusion machines, room sprays, linen sprays, reed diffusers, and hand-poured candles.

Scent Your Space today at AromaRetail.com.

Start over, bet on yourself

Aroma Retail began in 2017, founded by Cristina and Jim Reding. Both had previously worked in separate industries prior to starting their company. Jim brought a background in creating customized scents for hotels in the Las Vegas area. His knowledge and expertise gave him the opportunity to bring the products he had created to the retail side. When formulating the company both Co-Founders knew they wanted retail in the name to make it clear to consumers exactly how to find these incredible scents. Both took a huge leap by leaving their steady careers to start back at square one and build a brand new company. They ultimately believed in their top class products and the culture they envisioned they would create.

Aroma Retail was the first in the industry to produce pure grade fragrance model accessible at the retail level. Their products can and are pumped into air vents or homes without any chemicals being released. Remarkably the products are even safe for pets as well. As the company started to experience success, Cristina and Jim remained true to their mission and reinvested as much as they could back into the company. Overall the company has seen great success. They now have over 11 unique products in total including the commercial pro size, home size, and travel size. In the last three years the company has also tripled in size with more big things on the way!

Pure, non-harmful

With 11 products in total now, Mike explained to us how the company competes with many industries. But despite what industry they are serving, their commitment to excellence does not waver. Currently they are developing a plug-in product that will provide their signature scents and be completely chemical free, unlike what many homeowners currently use. Mike continued that while their price point will be higher than what is currently on the market they are bringing longer-lasting and purer smells that are safe for adults, children, and pets.

Mike said how many people associate smell to great memories, often those memories happen on vacation. Their catalogue of scents available plus the ability to create a signature customizable scent gives them freedom to truly bring an incredible reaction every time someone walks into a home or commercial setting. Already supplying many large hotels and businesses, their transition to the retail model provided a simple pitch for consumers, "Buying from the best".

While most struggled during Covid, Aroma Retail actually saw a huge boost. Mike said that when many businesses had to shut down or change their operations they realized the contracts they were under with their current supplier. It limited their ability to get help or relief while not operating, and still being forced to pay monthly. Aroma Retail saw the opportunity to give the people what they wanted and came up with the NO contract option for their commercial accounts, but what Mike believes is their greatest strength, their customer care team. "I believe our team is the best in the industry. They are knowledgeable, quick response times, and most importantly get to the resolution and implement it for our clients."

Mike shared a cool story of when he was on vacation in Curacao. While he was there he stayed at a little Airbnb and they were using the Aroma Retail products. He thought how cool it was he was in this little part of the world and their products were being used regularly. Side note, Aroma Retail ships worldwide!

Mike's switch

Prior to joining Aroma Retail, Mike served as a marketing director for a liquor distributor. He enjoyed that each day brought something a little different. Rarely was their redundancy in his daily duties. Then Covid hit and like many industries his felt the sting associated with many things shutting down. Mike said there wasn't much available due to everyone cutting back, laying off, or transitioning to work from home. Surprisingly though when he connected with Aroma Retail he saw they were flourishing. He realized it wasn't an opportunity he could pass up.

Joining a company that was rising was very exciting for Mike. He said that the fact that he has his hand in everything is what he appreciates most about his time there. Mike participates in everything from design, labeling, packaging, to production, and the care department team. Being included in everything contributes to the synergy of the company.

Mike said the biggest impact they have seen is their commitment to preparing for growth. As they continue to grow and expand it could be easy to get lost in the work and allow certain aspects to suffer, but with Aroma Retail they plan for growth before they reach growth. As they hit milestones, which have been aplenty with the tripling over the last three years, the team sits back and appreciates when they reach a new height. Leadership is always vocal about how important every team member is and the support they give allows the company to continue to produce, which lives up to the company motto, "be grateful". With leadership creating a collaborative culture, their focus on being organized, prepared, and on the same page creates any possible missteps. Mike explained that there are times where things still go wrong or not as planned, but rather than a detriment it is simply a lesson. The individual, team, or company will use it as a lesson and realize that while that is a dead end, there is something out there that will become an opportunity.

Sheer enthusiasm

Mike believes the biggest challenge has been educating consumers of the impact of their products. On top of being chemically free, the actual scent they can provide still shocks people to this day. Mike said whether at a convention or when consumers walk into their "smelly bar", they are amazed at just how incredible these scents can be. Add in the fact that all fragrances are pure grade and green certified and the product speaks for itself.

In a couple short months, Aroma Retail will be debuting a Super Bowl Commercial on the west coast market. Mike said shooting it was a ton of fun and they are excited to display it and see the feedback they receive. Black Friday was a huge success for them in 2023 and they hope to continue to build off that momentum with their SB commercial. As for the next phase of the company, Mike shared that the ultimate realization is a machine in each household. That would be the epitome of success for Aroma Retail.

Elevating their goals

When we asked Mike what has been the most rewarding part of the company's growth, he told us the new industries they have penetrated the last few years. He shared that they have made a strong push into pet stores, clinics, vets, etc. due to being completely pet safe and providing a more pleasant smell helps too! They also have created relationships with large stadiums. Lambeau Field was the most recent. Mike told us that the stadium recently underwent a large renovation for the front entrance and Aroma Retail is providing a signature scent to be dispersed for all of the patrons entering and leaving the stadium.

The other big progress for the company was getting into big box stores. They are actively on Sam's Club's. This was the next big step for Aroma Retail and Mike and the team believes it will only propel them into more opportunities. Aroma Retail will also be at the Inspired Home Show convention in Chicago in March officially debuting their Scent Machine - Smart 101 that is accompanied now by their new mobile app.

Piece of Advice

The conversation with Mike ended with him sharing his piece of advice.

"The biggest game changer I've found in the past couple of years is organization. Especially for my marketing role, there are so many concurrent projects, we joke that marketing is the chaos room. We first implemented it here at Aroma Retail, really creating and then building our EOS System to improve our processes. But with developing that, I've been able to take certain things and apply those methods to my personal life as well."

Interested in purchasing from Aroma Retail, use our coupon code below!

KLS15 ---> 15% OFF their entire catalog

In Closing

KLS wants to thank Mike Hewitt, Director of Marketing, of Aroma Retail for today's "Together Talks" feature. Keep up to date with Aroma Retail by following their blog on their website, check it out here. Follow along for the Aroma Retail journey with their social handles below!