Today we’d like to introduce you to Ginny Dickman-Lopez.
Ginny, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We’re two best friends from college – me and my best friend, Sarah.
One Christmas Sarah’s husband, an industrial mechanic, wanted homemade presents. He builds furniture, so she felt stumped by what she could bring to the table. Her first step was to reach out to her mom, a former biochemist with a background in homeopathic medicine and devotion to lifelong learning and not long after Achy Muscle Rub and Man Hands were born.
Once word got out, friends of friends with varying ailments came calling and one passion project at a time our product line was developed from Tension Balm (a migraine alternative to harsh medications) to Sweet Dreams Salve for better sleep to a great line of lip balms with Vitamin D to help prevent skin cancer and formulas started to fill notebooks.
As requests kept rolling in and more time and energy was being spent, Sarah called me (as my background is in business management) and asked my thoughts and together we decided it was time to take the next logical step and start a business. We naturally have clear roles as I manage the business and marketing side and she handles our production and product development side. We launched Sincerely Different with an elephant logo because amazingly elephants have wonderful skin and don’t get skin cancer. Everything about the products – from whipped hand creams that don’t leave hands feeling oily to bright fun colored labels with cheeky names like Grinning Grapefruit – is Sincerely Different.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road to success hasn’t always been a straight line – from balancing kids and life commitments to making time for local arts and crafts shows during the holidays – we’ve worked through lots of growing pains and challenges. One of my favorite challenges though is keeping up with demand. This last year we’ve been honored to be featured in a number of subscription boxes (Ecocentric Mom, TheraBox, Uplift Box, and BuddhiBox to name a few) and it’s exciting and challenging to juggle the deadlines and larger quantities. We look forward to more challenges as they give us opportunities to learn and grow.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sincerely Different story. Tell us more about the business.
Well at Sincerely Different, our mission is to delight folks and to promote natural health with products that are Sincerely Different – no chemicals, no junk, and more heart. Using only the best ingredients, each product is handcrafted by our small two-woman team in Granger, Indiana. All of our products are vegetarian and all natural with many organic ingredients (there are a handful of unique essential oils we use that we haven’t been able to source organically yet) and of course GMO-free. The only ingredient that does not make our products entirely vegan is that we do use beeswax (but only from happy bees of course).
We are known locally for natural alternatives that really work. I’d have to say that I am most proud that our company really helps people. A few years ago I was working a show that went late and when I got home and had gotten my 1-year-old to bed and was finally ready to head off to sleep myself (and get up and do it all again the next day) I received an email that reminded me exactly of why we do what we do. It came at just the right time (I opened it around 2 a.m.) and while we’ve never met this customer, it really touched my heart. I’ll let it speak for itself:
“I randomly decided and tried your sweet dreams salve…I am a 6 combat tour veteran and I don’t want to go into why but I have awful nightmares due to my time in the army and I don’t sleep more than maybe an hour or two a night on a good night…well I put the sweet dreams on my temples and for the first time in 11 years I have had not just one but three nights in a row of peaceful restful nightmare-free sleep. I don’t know what Sarah puts in there but she has made a bigger impact on my life than I will ever be able to express. Thank you thank you thank you.”
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I feel like our industry is growing and more and more people are looking for products that truly work and are truly health-full. The awareness around natural living and the benefits of essential oils is also increasing and encourages us to keep on keeping on.
Contact Info:
- Address: 51860 Sharon Court
Granger, Indiana 46530 - Website: www.sincerelydifferent.com
- Phone: (574)292-1727
- Email: sincerelydifferentllc@gmail.com
- Instagram: @sincerelydifferent
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/sincerelydifferent
- Twitter: @Sincerely_Diff
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