Whew! I am safely ensconced back home after a wild weekend at IBN Regulatory Bootcamp. I rolled into Charlotte on Friday night just in time for dinner with some of my favorite beauty entrepreneurs. We had a fabulous time together! They enjoyed generous + gorgeous margaritas while I nursed a sweet tea. I know, right? I had spent several near-sleepless nights putting the finishing touches on my curriculum and I feared that a single cocktail would either have me: a) drooling on the table or b) asleep at the table. Neither of which is very attractive, so sweet tea for me please!

Saturday was the big event! Indies flew in from Maryland, Florida and New York to join others from across the Carolinas for 8 hours of rapid-fire instruction on GMP and federal regulatory compliance for personal care manufacturers. While I freely acknowledge that regulatory compliance discussions are often as much fun as a needle in the eye, dare I say we had a fabulous time? The energy in that meeting room was palpable and dozens and dozens (and dozens- I was stunned!) of entrepreneurs joined us from around the US via a live call-in option. Those virtual attendees surrendered their computer screens to me so that I could take control and push them through 395 slides (!) of information. Throw in 98 pictures of my Bella Lucce staff and facility and 64 pages of handouts and I’m certain you can appreciate my amazement that we made it through every last morsel of instruction in just 8 hours. Along the way, I fielded dozens of great questions from attendees.  We generally paused for brief 5-15 minute breaks every 60-90 minutes so that Donna Maria Coles Johnson could wipe down my forehead, squirt hot tea down my throat and slap my cheeks a few times (a la Muhammed Ali). It was quite the event! The feedback has been astounding and humbling:

“I have been to a ton of workshops in my day. This Bootcamp was BY FAR the BEST! Rich and informative content AND a real HOW TO!!! I have my plan and I’m off to GMP my biz!”

“Fabulous seminar! It was SO MUCH EASIER than trying to extract the information from the FDA website. It wasn’t overwhelming at all, chock full yes, but very doable. So glad you covered all the material in one day.”

“Thank you so much for the GMP (Get More Mimosas-please) Class. I can’t tell you how invaluable it was…”

“It was great. I thought I already knew a lot about business but this was so much more! The organization part of it was amazing.”

“The amount of information you gave us today was insane!! #priceless. You guys are such a blessing to me!”

“Incredible day of learning today.”

Your words touched my heart and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to share the day with each of you!

Donna Maria and I have fielded lots of requests over the last 36 hours to either host the class again or make the digital capture widely available. We’re percolating on a plan and will keep you posted. Until then, I can’t wait to see the domino effect this class has on GMP compliance amongst indies. I know it’s a lot of work, but I have every faith that you gals can do it.  Onward an upward! xo