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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Ask Bob Scocozzo to name the capital of Slovakia and he nails it with Bratislava.</p><p>Scocozzo credits a Greek restaurateur in Saudi Arabia with introducing him to a new market in the central European country for the line of Mia Bella candles made by Scent-Sations Inc. on George Avenue in the city&#8217;s Parsons section.</p><p>Confused? Don&#8217;t be, Scocozzo&#8217;s all over the map by design as the privately owned company expands to far flung locales.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re in Korea. We&#8217;re in Saudi Arabia. We&#8217;re in Slovakia. We have pallets going to Spain,&#8221; said Scocozzo, 66, Scent-Sations chief executive officer. Australia and Taiwan beckon.</p><p>The company&#8217;s been able to burn the candle at both ends, here and abroad, and generate sales in the millions of dollars through its established network-marketing operation in the United States and with the introduction of brick-and-mortar stores overseas.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to take me another year-and-a-half to build this international market. But when I do, we&#8217;re going to be big,&#8221; said Scocozzo.</p><p><strong>Well-documented story</strong></p><p>The story of Scent-Sations has been well documented. Scocozzo and his business partner, Charlie Umphred, teamed up with Carmen Milazzo in 2002 to manufacture and sell an all-natural wax, triple-scented, clean-burning candle. They started small, grew incrementally and moved into their 28,000-square-foot building in 2004. Their signature line, named after Scocozzo&#8217;s 21-year-old daughter Mia Bella, found a niche in the $3 billion to $4 billion a year industry dominated by Yankee Candle, one of the more than 100 brand-name products owned by Jarden Corp., a Fortune 500 company. Jarden and Newell Rubbermaid agreed to a merger that is expected to close this month.</p><p>Scocozzo said Scent-Sations is settled in the United States, its primary focus. He doesn&#8217;t see the overseas market overtaking domestic sales.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;ll ever happen because we&#8217;re too big here,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But it will let us expand into brick and mortar along with home parties and fundraising and all the different aspects that we do. It&#8217;s just a whole &#8216;nother market for us that we didn&#8217;t think we&#8217;d be able to do.&#8221;</p><p>Scocozzo attributed the entry into the new markets to the Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance, an economic development agency in Pittston Township.</p><p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve been incredible for us,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We are now in about seven countries, because of them.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Following a plan</strong></p><p>Scocozzo is following a plan of the small fish, Mia Bella, following the big fish, Yankee, and isn&#8217;t afraid of getting swallowed up in the pursuit.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like Burger King and McDonald&#8217;s. If there&#8217;s a Burger King, you&#8217;re going to find a McDonald&#8217;s real close by,&#8221; he confided, revealing his strategy. &#8220;I want to be right next to Yankee because I believe that my candle is all-natural wax and theirs isn&#8217;t. I believe I triple-scent my candles and they don&#8217;t. And my price points are as good as theirs and my jar is a little bit bigger than theirs.&#8221;</p><p>The hard part is getting customers to switch; but once they try his, they stick with it, he said.</p><p>He&#8217;s realistic in his goals and doesn&#8217;t want to take on Yankee. He&#8217;s happy with a small fraction of their market.</p><p>&#8220;Now here&#8217;s a stat for you. A million seconds on your watch equals 13 days. A billion seconds is 33 years. That&#8217;s the difference between a little million dollar company and a billion dollar company,&#8221; Scocozzo explained.</p><p>How much is enough? More than a million but less than a billion.</p><p>&#8220;If I can grab 1 percent of that, I&#8217;m a $10 million company here in Wilkes-Barre, PA, selling around the world, employing people here,&#8221; Scocozzo calculated.</p><p><strong>Selling candles in Saudi Arabia</strong></p><p>From Riyahd, Saudi Arabia, restaurant owner Kosta Theodossiou is doing his part.</p><p>As a Mia Bella licensee, he&#8217;s been selling the candles in the capital city&#8217;s Western compounds that attract between 500 and 1,000 people.</p><p>&#8220;Everybody comes back. Everybody is impressed with the way we display the products,&#8221; Theodossiou said while speaking with Scocozzo over his iPhone&#8217;s Facetime app. He, too, was impressed with Scocozzo and his company.</p><p>&#8220;The were extremely professional in getting back to me in no time and that showed the level of professionalism on their side,&#8221; Theodossiou said.</p><p>The name of the candle and the &#8220;positive vibe&#8221; it created attracted him and spread to his customers. &#8220;These are happy products. They smell good. They look good. They keep all the negative vibe away,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Theodossiou is also the licensee for Slovakia and is investing in a store in the nation&#8217;s capital.</p><p>&#8220;The guy in Bratislava has a Yankee store that&#8217;s 10 times (the size of) this room,&#8221; Scocozzo said of his office. &#8220;Guess where we&#8217;re going? Right next to him.&#8221;</p><p>The competitors are neighbors in the United Kingdom, where Mia Bella has four stores. Scocozzo said it appears the competition is taking notice. &#8220;We started doing a lot of personalized candles and they just started doing it. They do watch us, I think,&#8221; he said.</p><p><strong>Not for sale</strong></p><p>The maker of Mia Bella has been on other companies&#8217; watch lists.</p><p>&#8220;We had two people offer to buy us. We had two offers to take over our company and move it out of here,&#8221; Scocozzo said.</p><p>But he&#8217;s committed to his roots.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m local. My partners are local. We&#8217;re born and raised here, you know, our children grew up here. Our family and friends work here,&#8221; Scocozzo said. His son, Michael, works on the production floor.</p><p>Being part of a conglomerate doesn&#8217;t appeal to Scocozzo.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s about money, but it&#8217;s not about money,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;re not a zillion dollar company with seven million employees and everybody&#8217;s punching by the minute. It doesn&#8217;t work like that for us. It&#8217;s not going to change.&#8221;</p><p>If somebody needs to take time off to handle personal or family business, they can, Scocozzo said. He can fill in for them. &#8220;I do it all,&#8221; he said.</p><p>&#8220;And I talk to every distributor on the phone, thousands of them. And because I want to let them know that it&#8217;s not just sitting in a big office. I&#8217;m in the field, too. I roll up my sleeves every day like everybody else. And that&#8217;s what you need to do to be successful,&#8221; he said.</p><p>What you see is what you get, from his hands-on-approach to his ultra accessibility .</p><p>&#8220;I like to treat people the way I was treated when I was a distributor for a company. I wanted to be treated like I was special,&#8221; Scocozzo said. &#8220;You know how many times a day people call me and go, &#8216;I can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;m talking to the CEO of this company?&#8217; I go, &#8216;Hey man, I put my pants on just like you.&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>He&#8217;s bought into his product, too.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll give you this, I&#8217;m a candle addict now,&#8221; Scocozzo said. &#8220;I walk in the house, first thing I do is light a candle and it burns &#8216;til I&#8217;m going to bed.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Bob Scocozzo, CEO of Scent-Sations Inc., gets out of the office and onto the production floor of the Wilkes-Barre-based company that makes Mia Bella candles sold throughout the United States and in a growing list of countries around the globe. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/web1_TTL042416NEPAMiabella1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bob Scocozzo, CEO of Scent-Sations Inc., gets out of the office and onto the production floor of the Wilkes-Barre-based company that makes Mia Bella candles sold throughout the United States and in a growing list of countries around the globe. </caption0><photoCredit0>Clark Van Orden | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/web1_TTL042416NEPAMiabella2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Joining his son, Michael, rear, Bob Scocozzo, CEO of Scent-Sations Inc., affixes labels to Mia Bella candles, named after his daughter, at the company&#8217;s production facility on George Avenue, Wilkes-Barre. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/web1_TTL042416NEPAMiabella2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Joining his son, Michael, rear, Bob Scocozzo, CEO of Scent-Sations Inc., affixes labels to Mia Bella candles, named after his daughter, at the company&#8217;s production facility on George Avenue, Wilkes-Barre. </caption1><photoCredit1>Clark Van Orden | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Parent company Scent-Sations based in Wilkes-Barre</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Mia Bella candles, manufactured in Wilkes-Barre, offer fragrances all over the world