WHO IS COLLEEN GARICA ( AKA CLEVER COLLEEN)?

I recently had the opportunity to represent Clever Container to an audience learning about opportunities that offer flexibility with a house full of kids!  Here's what I said:

I would be delighted to tell you a bit about myself and how I came to find Clever Container.  Many (too many!) years ago, I did work in corporate America - commuting to downtown Chicago daily and trying to juggle that with raising a growing family.  It honestly was something I enjoyed, although I found it difficult to keep up.  As I became pregnant with our third child, I left my full-time position and worked many other part-time positions, trying to find a good fit for me and my family.  Prior to Clever Container, I dabbled here and there in direct sales (I sold Tupperware briefly and I sold Avon for a couple of years).  Neither one of those two direct sales positions was anything that I thought I could turn into a career.  I was constantly on the lookout for that perfect opportunity to find a business that I could do around my family's needs while still feeling like a financially contributing member.  As such, I would spend time on the internet, browsing job boards and other sites to learn of other opportunities that would afford me the flexibility while still challenging me.  While checking out the different direct sales possibilities, I was at the DSA's website and found Clever Container.  I am so blessed to have happened upon that information!  In contacting Clever Container, I was communicating back and forth with Karen for months, honestly.  She'll tell you that I wasn't easily convinced.  I was confident that this was an awesome opportunity.  I loved the idea and I was thrilled with the potential for growth that I saw.  What I wasn't sure of, however, was whether or not I could grow my own successful home business with the incredibly busy circumstances of my life.

My situation is not unique, as I understand it, many of today's mothers are also in the position of finding themselves also helping to care for their aging parents.  My mother is in poor health and is living with me and I am caring for her in addition to raising our six children.  I think that I have the best husband in the world, as he didn't even hesitate when I asked him about selling our home and moving into my mother's home (which we've purchased) ten years ago.  Additionally, as a conservative Christian couple, my husband and I did not like the idea of subjecting our children to the shaky values of the Chicago public school system, and we have struggled back and forth between sending them to a wonderful local Christian school and having me homeschool them.  Currently, I am homeschooling three of them, while my teenager attends South Side Baptist School for his high school years.  (The two youngest haven't officially started 'school')

Clever Container has provided an incredible opportunity for me as I joined the company in December of 2008.  I had my launch show in January of 2009, and true to Chicago's winters, it was an extremely cold (I want to say 17 below), snowy evening and I had a much smaller turnout than I had expected or hoped for.  Not allowing that to deter my plans, I held a relaunch a short time later, and that got my business rolling.  Even given my extremely busy personal life, I have found the time that I am able to spend on my Clever Container business hugely rewarding!  The Clever Container family is incredible!  Karen and Jennifer are two of the friendliest and most intelligent business women I have ever met.  The job that they have done in taking this company from the idea stage to the tremendous company that it is continues to be astound me!  I was happy when I joined Clever Container, but have been continually surprised and pleased as they manage to continue to take it to the next level.

The best perk of my Clever Container business is being able to learn, right alongside my customers, all kinds of neat, efficient ways to add order and organize the different areas of my home.  Not only does Clever Container provide thorough training in which you learn all types of organizing practices, but it is inevitable to learn neat tips and tricks while holding the demonstrations.  I always seem to have some wonderful woman in attendance at my class/show that will suggest another incredible solution or application for a product I'm showing.  What a blessing!  Given my family size and the amount of "stuff" that comes with them, having the ability to learn better ways to add order to my life is an invaluable bonus, not to mention that I am able to obtain the great product solutions that Clever Container sells at a nice discounted price (sometimes free!)  It has been a win-win all around.

Even though I am only working my business part-time (honestly, very part-time), I still have been successful in meeting and even exceeding the goals I have set out to achieve.  I have grown a team of incredible ladies that range in age from young to "mature" and that range in their experience level from having zero direct sales experience all the way up to having close to 20 years of direct sales and team leading experience!  I desire to continue to grow my business on every front, and as time allows, I intend to increase my own personal monthly sales, continue to learn and grow as a team leader (new to me, but loving it!), and continue to assist the other ladies that have been fortunate enough to have found the Clever Container business for themselves to also grow their own successful businesses!  

Clever Container is an incredible ground floor opportunity still.  The number of consultants, though consistently growing, is still low enough that anyone joining our family will, undoubtedly, be amongst the first Clever Consultants in their city or state!  The opportunities to hold shows and attend vendor fairs is wide open as there is no other direct sales company like us!  We are the only DSA approved company selling organizational products!  Who doesn't need to get organized?