Always give it your all and hope for positive results.
That philosophy helped Sylvia Walker go from a booth at One Spark 2013 to a store and spa at the Jacksonville Landing.
Now, it’s taken her to a nationally televised reality show, with stops in between at Sam’s Clubs in Florida and Georgia.
“I always think ‘why not?’ because you just never know,” said Walker.
She will be featured with her Natural As I Wanna Be organic skin care products on the April 30 episode of “Hatched” on The CW Television Network.
The show airs on all CW stations, which puts it in the top 212 television markets in the U.S., said David Hall, creative services director at WCWJ TV-17, the local affiliate.
“Hatched” is similar to “Shark Tank” in that contestants present products to a panel of judges who might invest in the business.
But “Hatched” focuses on women and minority entrepreneurs who already have a product on the market.
The show is in its first season. Walker will be the only contestant on Episode 22.
“It’s always great when someone from Jacksonville makes it on a CW show,” Hall said, referring to Yoanna House and Whitney Thompson, who won their respective seasons of “America’s Next Top Model” on the network.
Walker’s appearance on the show got started when a potential One Spark 2015 exhibitor came to her store at the Landing looking for a place to set up his exhibit.
As they talked, he told her about a casting call for a television show that turned out to be “Hatched.”
Walker did some research, then registered on the casting website.
“I didn’t hear anything for six weeks, but then a guy called me from Los Angeles and said I was a finalist,” said Walker.
In July, she and her husband flew to California for five days of taping on a soundstage in Studio City, where she showed her Karite 3-in-1 Shaving Cream to the panel.
“As far as I know, it’s the only organic shaving cream on the market,” Walker said.
That’s the basis of her skin care products. All are formulated with natural ingredients and no chemical preservatives or dyes.
Walker’s products carry the “USDA Organic” symbol, indicating they are formulated and manufactured in compliance with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organic standards.
Another chance meeting in 2013 put Walker on the way to Sam’s Club when the manager of the Beach Boulevard retail warehouse was making sales call at the Landing hoping to recruit small businesses as members.
“I told him if he’d let me do a presentation of my products at his store and put me in touch with Sam’s buyers, I’d buy a membership,” said Walker.
He did and she did and Walker has since shown her products at Sam’s Club stores in Jacksonville, Orlando, Daytona and Naples.
She also set up her display in Savannah and plans to expand further this year to Hilton Head, S.C.
“I’m on the road to a Sam’s at least two weeks a month,” she said. “I set up Thursday morning and sell on consignment until the store closes Sunday. Then I pack it up and come home.”
Walker’s new goal is to expand the marketing of her products by being featured on the Sam’s Club products website.
As she looks back on the four-year process from a One Spark booth to national television, Walker realizes it has been a long journey, but one that probably was made better because it didn’t happen overnight.
“If it had happened faster, I might have missed something I really needed to know,” she said.
Walker is bound by a nondisclosure agreement and can’t talk about what happened on “Hatched” until the episode airs.
But if all she gets out of the experience is 30 minutes with a national audience, it will have been worth the effort.
“I couldn’t buy exposure like this,” she said.
Walker’s episode will air at 11:30 a.m. April 30 on WCWJ TV-17.
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