Quitting was no option for Walton Wood Farm
Leslie Bradford-Scott fought the temptation to save jobs, investment
BAILIEBORO— Entrepreneur Leslie Bradford-Scott describes her gruelling trek to the top as “uphill, with bare feet in mud, pouring rain and a 50-pound sack on my back.”
That’s only slight hyperbole of how she got her fledgling business off the ground: driving around Ontario peddling 55-kilogram cases of bath salts.
Today, her five-year-old Bailieboro company, Walton Wood Farm, makes more than $2 million in annual revenue selling 80 different personal-care products for women, men and pets online and in 2,500 stores across North America.
Bradford-Scott, a high-school dropout with learning disabilities, has graduated from inexperienced industrialist to Peterborough County’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.
At age 54, she was also recently named to the “Fearless Over 50” list of women entrepreneurs on The Story Exchange website.
Her venture began unwittingly in her bathroom almost 20 years ago, when she was a stressed-out solo parent of two young girls.
“I would soak in the tub with music and candles and pretend I was somewhere else,” recalled Bradford-Scott.
In 2014, those respites inspired a recipe for bath salts, using a pinch of humour, a heaping spoonful of creativity and mixed in a KitchenAid in her laundry room.
With quirky names like “Week From Hell” and “Winter’s a B*tch,” and labels printed with little stories, the gift items were infused with personal meaning, she explains.
While they spawned a range of popular specialty products made from natural and sustainable ingredients, problems with financing, manufacturing and marketing threatened to sink her startup. Bradford-Scott was tempted to pull the plug, but balked at watching “a lot of money” go down the drain.
From an initial personal investment of $5,000 — supplemented by $112,000 from grants and a competition prize — Bradford-Scott had accumulated a debt load of $250,000.
Quitting, she adds, would have meant the loss of jobs for half a dozen loyal, hard-working employees who live near her home-based business in Bailieboro, about 25 minutes south of Peterborough.
But Bradford-Scott had learned how to survive. As her family’s sole breadwinner in 2001, she sold cars in London, Ont., making $24,000 the first year.
To keep boredom at bay between customers at the dealership, she wrote screenplays “one Post-it note at a time.”
After working her way up to finance manager, taking home $130,000 a year, she yearned for a more satisfying career. She also met her future husband, Peter Scott, a farmer and smallplane pilot.
In 2013, the couple’s need for income and funds to restore historic barns on their dilapidated rural property overlooking Rice Lake got BradfordScott’s creative juices flowing, and Walton Wood Farm was born the following year.
While she learned about starting a business from books, podcasts and mentors, she discovered “thousands of details” firsthand.
Getting products into retailers’ hands by showing up at their shops was validating. “They would start reading the labels and chuckling, and say ‘These are really cute,’ ” she recalled.
Hand cream was an instant hit at Peterborough’s The Edison Espresso & Pastry Bar when owner Lindsay Brock put it on the counter for customers to try.
“I started with one dozen, but they went so fast I placed another order right away,” said Brock, who also carries lip balm and men’s items.
Customers “love the humour and quality of the products,” she said.
Walton Wood’s founder still experiences growing pains.
“You’re always taking a lot of risk because the market changes, competitors come and go, customer preferences change … there’s no coasting,” she says, adding that money flows through your fingers like, well, bath water.
“I was just throwing it out there to see what would work,” said Bradford-Scott, citing early marketing campaigns on social media, podcasts, trade magazines and shows.
“You need about $550,000 in working capital at any given point,” she said.
Her products, manufactured in Ontario, Quebec and the U.S., are priced at “boutique level,” which translates to $15 for a lipbalm trio and $18 for hand and body lotion.
With $185,000 worth of restoration work completed by Cobourg-based Eli’s Construction, Bradford-Scott is ready to move her offices from the house to the barns.