September 17, 2025 • 34 mins
#018 and Part 8 of Build A Candle Business series.
**This special series is brought to you by ToAuto Wax Melters. Our listeners will get a special deal at checkout when they use this link. **
This week's episode recaps the 8-week journey of building a candle business from scratch, covering everything from setting foundations to overcoming roadblocks with the new brand "wthout."
• Setting your foundation with your "why" and identifying your first three products
• Choosing a memorable brand name and ensuring domain availability
• Finding your niche and target audience to create super fans
• Creating marketing foundations through email collection and social media
• Building a high-converting website with proper product descriptions
• Leveraging local marketing through collaborations and fundraisers
• Reaching new audiences through press releases and media outreach
• Facing production challenges with custom packaging and international suppliers
We use ToAuto wax melters in all three of our stores and highly recommend them. You can find a special discount link in our show notes below.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to my series on how to build a candle
business.
Today I am going to recap wherewe are, from week one to week
seven.
Today starts week eight in ourprocess.
So we have learned a lot.
We've grown a lot.
We have made a lot of progressin launching a brand new candle
business.
We've also faced a fewroadblocks that I want to talk
about as well.
So let's get into this.
We are going to recapeverything we've done.
(00:21):
I'm going to share someinsights and some tips with you.
I will share some freedownloads for you to go and grab
to help you out on your journeyas well.
So, whether you are a brand newto candle making or a candle
business, or you have been onthis journey for quite some time
, I think today is actuallygoing to hopefully give you some
insights and some actionablesteps for you to take right away
.
I'm Sebastian Garznett, theco-founder of Garznett Beacon
(00:42):
Candle Company and the founderof Candle Business Pro, where we
help makers go pro, and we areputting together this series
thanks to a partnership withTuato.
So Tuato wax melters I can'ttalk about them enough.
They are fantastic.
We use them in all three of ourstores.
We even have our tester onehere for when we're making
candles at home.
We just love them.
They actually provided us witha link for you to use If you
(01:04):
would like.
It is not an affiliate link.
We are not getting a commissionwhen you use this.
This is just an additionaldiscount for you and you can
find that in the show notesbelow.
So let's get into this.
So, week one that is where wereally started setting the
foundation for this new candlebusiness.
Now, if you're just nowstarting on this journey with us
, the name of our new brand isgoing to be called Without.
(01:30):
It's missing the I, so it'sWithout spelled W-T-H-O-U-T.
Depending on when you arewatching this, you may be able
to go and check us out atwithoutbrandcom.
That is where we'll be livingout on the internet as well as
on all the social media channels.
So, depending on if you'rewatching this the week it comes
out, or just a couple of weeksafter that, or possibly years in
the future or you may belistening to this on the podcast
(01:51):
you can go and check it out andsee where we are today.
We like to be very transparentand honest with our growth, with
our struggles, with what'sdoing well right now.
That's why we built the InnerCircle, which is our community
of just candle maker businessestogether.
Whether you are thinking aboutstarting a business or you are a
six-figure candle business, theInner Circle is a place for you
(02:12):
to connect with others.
So you can obviously find outmore about that out at
candlebusinessprocom or in theshow notes below.
All right, so week one, we setthe foundation.
For you to be able to set thefoundation, do a very, very
simple exercise write threesentences of why.
What's your why?
Why are you wanting to makecandles?
(02:32):
Are you why?
Are you wanting to turn thisinto a business?
Are you wanting to do it tosupplement your income?
You're just wanting a littleextra on the side.
Are you wanting to go full timeso that you can be a stay at
home parent?
Uh, with home parent with yourkids, to have more family time?
What's your why?
And your why does not have toline up with anyone else's.
So don't think about thereasons that I say I wanted to
(02:55):
do it or that the reason whyChad wanted to do it.
In fact, we run this businesstogether and our whys are
completely different of why wegot into this.
He wanted this to be a creativeoutlet.
I wanted this to be a business.
I wanted us to becomeself-employed, and that's what
we've done.
So we are no longer working foranother employer.
We're self-employed.
I hope to never wear suit pantsagain to an office to work.
(03:19):
We'll see if that's the case,but right now we're on a pretty
good trajectory to not have todo that.
So the other thing you're goingto want to do is list out your
first three products that you'regoing to make.
Are they going to be candles,room sprays, wax melts?
What's your first threeproducts going to be and who is
going to be that customer?
Who are you going to be serving?
(03:39):
That's going to be reallycritical is deciding who we're
serving.
We'll talk about that here injust another step.
So start with the foundation.
What's your why you want tomake candles?
This is the reason why you wantto make them and this is the
person that you want to makethem for.
So that's a very simplefoundation that you can start
with.
Pick a start date.
Pick a start date that you wantto start and really try to
(04:00):
commit to it.
You know I see a lot of makers.
They say that they've beenmaking for six months, a year,
two years, but they don't havethat product out there that
they're trying to sell.
Now, if you're just doing thisas a hobby, totally fine.
There's absolutely nothingwrong with making candles and
leaning into that artistic sideof doing this scent blending and
really enjoying that.
That's actually the passion ofChad's, of why he enjoys candle
(04:23):
making.
I like to sell candles.
That's what my position withinthe brand is is I want to sell
our products.
So think about what your startdate's going to be and really
try to commit to it.
And if you're going to make thisinto a business, you need to
keep some structure.
You have to have structure ofwhen you're going to start your
testing, when you think you'regoing to get through all of that
(04:44):
testing and when can yourealistically open up an online
store.
There's going to be otheropportunities, of course, for
you to sell We'll talk aboutthat in a moment as well but
just set that goal.
What we did is we set a goal.
We said you know what, we'regoing to turn this into a
business, and that was onNovember 19th of 2021.
And we went and registered ourname at the IRS, so we got our
(05:05):
EIN number.
We said we are officially goingto do this.
All right, let's dive into it.
That was on November 19th andwe set February 28th as our open
to store day.
So that gave us December, allof January, all of February and
a weekend in November so threemonths and we said we want to
have this entire business builtready to go.
(05:29):
Now.
We had been testing a couple ofmonths prior to that.
We were lost.
So much of it when we'rebeginning is what wax to use,
what oil to use, and thenpivoting so much and then taking
bad advice and following thewrong people on YouTube and you
(05:50):
know, oh, we were mixingdifferent waxes together because
we were having issues, when inreality, what it comes down to
is you need to focus on onething at a time, one variable at
a time.
It's exactly what I teach inour candle making course.
It's start with one wick, onevessel, one wax, one oil.
(06:11):
Then we can start to get it.
You know, start to have somefun.
Then we can start mixing twooils together and then we can
start doing wooden wick candlesor three wick candles.
Start with one wick, one wax,one vessel.
Master that you can start abusiness.
Our business operates and issuccessful literally based on
(06:32):
this candle, that we have madewell over six figures on this
one candle.
Now we have 78 candles, Ibelieve, that we sell online in
our shop, but it all, thefoundation, came around this one
candle.
This is in a jar that costsabout a buck, just a clear 10
ounce Libby jar candle.
One wick, one wax, a coupleoils because this one we do have
(06:56):
a blend in now, but that's howwe started our business At first
.
We were trying to do too much,so on November 19th 2021, we
said, ok, let's documenteverything, let's start taking
notes on everything, let's get aspreadsheet out.
And that is when everythingchanged.
And so we were testing onething, and when it didn't work,
it failed.
We knew what to change.
That's exactly what we teach inour course.
(07:18):
If you've gone through that,you know that, and if you
haven't, you're welcome to checkthat out as well at
kennelbusinessprocom.
All right, so we're setting thefoundation and then in week two
of this week of this seriesexcuse me we talked about our
name and our brand basics.
If you don't have a brand nameyet, that's fine.
Start with.
Let's brainstorm 20 names soyou can use chat, gpt or AI to
help you if you want, but makesure that this is personal.
(07:41):
I see a lot of names like WildWicks or Highly Scented or
things that just aren't personal, right, but you also want to be
careful not to go too personal.
You know, s&c Candles probablyisn't going to resonate with
anyone.
If I was going to use myinitial and Chad's initials S&CC
(08:03):
candles, or it could have beenlike CG candles, which would
have been Chad Garzen's candlesbecause he is the one that
started this.
So you can definitely getpersonal, but you want to make
sure that it's not so personalthat your customers aren't going
to I don't want to say notrelate to it, but they're not
going to understand.
It almost seems like I don'twant it to be too homemade, if
(08:25):
that makes sense.
I don't want to just have aSebastian's Candles and expect
the world to relate to that.
So something that I would thinkabout as you're building that
out.
So pick, you know, 20 names andthen try to narrow that on down
to three or so.
Go out to the USPTO's websitejust to make sure that it's
going to be available.
You don't necessarily have totrademark it right away, but you
(08:47):
want to go ahead and at leastdo a search to make sure it's
going to be available.
That's what we had a issue withwith our new brand.
Our new brand, with Out, wasalready taken as far as that
domain was taken.
Now the brand itself wasn't.
So check USPTO's website to seeif the trademark has been taken
and then go to whatever domainpurchasing site you're going to
use.
We love Squarespace.
(09:08):
You can get it at GoDaddycom,you can get it at Wixcom, you
can get them anywhere.
We use Squarespace for all ofour websites to make sure what
you're going to want isavailable.
And if it's not available, areyou going to be able to use
something very similar?
That's going to be okay.
You can certainly add oncandles, take off candles, right
.
Our website is GarznetBeaconcom.
If that would have for somereason have been taken, we could
(09:30):
have doneGarznetBeaconCandlescom right If
we wanted to go that direction.
So you want to make sure thatit is available.
Our new brand, withoutcom, eventhough we're spelling it
differently and uniquely,without the I.
That's not available If someoneelse already owns it.
It's some type of old blog.
I'm going to try my best to buyit from them at some point, but
right now it's not available.
(09:51):
So our website is going to bewithoutbrandcom.
It fits for the vibe that we'regoing with, because we are
going to be more of a lifestyletype of brand with this new
endeavor.
All right, so that was in weektwo with this new endeavor.
All right, so that was in weektwo.
Week three was all about yourniche and your target audience,
and this is super, super crucial.
This is how you set yourselfapart from others and how you
(10:14):
grow a business and how you havewhat is going to become super
fans.
You only need 100 super fans,100 people that love your
product, that is going to buyall the candles that you come
out with and is going torecommend you to other people
and at come Christmas time,they're going to be shopping
(10:36):
with you.
We have what we call super fansthat have spent five, six,
$7,000 with us and we've beenopen for about three years, and
so we have what we likeinternally.
We have like VIP tiers ofpeople that we always want to
stay in contact with.
We send them some bonus stuffas surprises occasionally, and
(10:58):
then we also check in with themwhen they haven't purchased with
us in a few months.
If three months have gone byand someone from our super fan
list hasn't purchased from us.
I'm going to send them apersonal message hey, is
everything okay?
Is there anything we can do foryou?
Sometimes they have lifechanges and we want to be able
to support them because theyhave been supporting us.
We want to make sure that we'rereaching out to those super
(11:20):
fans.
You need a hundred people thatlove your business and will
spend a thousand dollars a yearwith you to make a hundred,000 a
year.
That's it.
That's all you need.
Find a hundred people that loveyour candles.
Now we do a lot of businessonline.
We do a lot of business withour walk-in customers, but I
tell you what the majority ofour super fans we met out doing
(11:47):
markets.
They shopped with us at amarket and then at the next
market, they saw us again.
We had a conversation.
We talked about the previouscandles that they purchased.
They buy from us again.
They recommend us to otherpeople.
A lot of our super fans camefrom when we were doing markets.
So having that interaction inperson with someone is a
fantastic and easy way to startbuilding a loyal following.
(12:11):
Online.
You can do it, but it takes alittle bit more.
Your candles have to just be atthat next level, which I'm sure
your candles can get to.
But when you are working withsomeone directly and selling to
someone directly and they canhear your story, they can hear
your why that?
Why are you out here on aSaturday in these high
temperatures?
You know selling candles whyare you doing this?
When you can share that storywith someone, they go on that
(12:34):
journey with you.
So doing markets is a fantasticway.
It doesn't mean you have to.
Some people don't want to domarkets or are in a location
that they just don't havemarkets.
That's fine.
You can always sell other ways,but that is an easy way for you
to kind of jumpstart thosesuper fans that I discussed.
So you want to have that niche.
You want to have that targetaudience.
(12:55):
You want to pick a specificlane to kind of stay in.
Whether you want to makecandles for stay-at-home moms
that are super busy they arerunning around like crazy
getting the kids to practice,picking up from school, taking
them to all theirextracurricular activities you
can target them.
You can live in South Floridaand you are making candles in
(13:18):
your niche just specifically fora nautical theme, for people
that love being on boats, and soyour brand is built around that
.
You know exactly who you'retrying to sell to.
You can make a theme or a nichearound metaphysical Whether you
enjoy the metaphysical space.
(13:38):
You can make a business aroundsports.
You can build a whole brandaround just sports-themed
candles, right.
If you're selling a sportsthemed candle to your audience,
sure you might be turning away areally big audience as well
that just wouldn't be interestedin that.
But those people that areinterested are going to be
(14:01):
really interested in becauseyou're going to be talking to
them.
For instance, if you make amason jar candle that has some
twine and a hang tag around itand you are putting your scents
are very home inspired or likethe gourmand sense.
Like, say, you have a mason jarcandle that says apple pie and
(14:22):
you are doing an entirefarmhouse cottage theme, that's
going to fit in a farmhousecottage theme type of gift shop
or home decor location.
It's not going to fit at acontemporary, modern type of
shop, right.
But that's okay because thepeople that are shopping where
you're wanting that candle to beare going to love that candle.
(14:45):
So pick a niche but also havethat person in mind.
Go and shop where they shop.
Figure out what they'respending on candles.
You might find out that thepeople that are buying that
candle that you're wanting tomake are only spending $10, $12,
$15 for a candle.
So you got to figure out canyou make a candle and sell it at
that price and still make aprofit if you're going to make
(15:07):
this into a business?
If not, you may need to switchyour niche.
You may need to find adifferent avenue to go down.
If you are in a location whereyou, if your niche that you want
to get into is like ultraluxury, high end, you're selling
75, $100 starting point for acandle, that's great, do it.
(15:27):
But who's your customer?
How are you going to sell tothem?
The way you build a website outfor that customer and the way
you build out a website for thatfarmhouse cottage or that
metaphysical customer is goingto be way different.
So that's why you want to havea niche, and then you want to
have a target audience andreally dive into who that is.
(15:47):
So what I like to do is createa customer profile.
Just think of it.
Give your person a name.
If you watch the, if you go backinto week three, I actually
tell you exactly who mycustomers are for the new brand
I have Camille.
She lives in Brooklyn.
She is only shopping at herlocal bodegas.
Her price point is going to bearound $30 to $35 for a candle.
(16:09):
She will do a lot of onlineshopping but she likes to
support those other up andcoming places.
She is anti-Target Walmart.
She doesn't shop at those typeof big box places, but she will
shop online.
So you break it all down andthen everything you do within
your brand it has that oneperson in mind.
(16:30):
So when I write an email, Iwant to make sure that the
communication that I'm havingwith within those emails or
within the social media istalking to that person.
You want to make sure thatyou're using the tones.
You want to make sure you'reusing the color schemes You're
(16:51):
also you want to make sureyou're using the right fonts
that are going to connect withpeople.
There are some websites thatare like streetwear.
That's very bold, in-your-faceblock lettering.
That's great for streetwear.
But if you are wearing, ifyou're going to a formal event,
you wouldn't be wearingstreetwear.
You'd be wearing, you know, asequined dress or a black tie
affair, right?
So that's just kind of anexample of how it would work
within, like the clothing space.
(17:12):
All right.
So in week four we talked aboutsome marketing foundations.
One of the things I wouldrecommend doing is, once you
sign up for Shopify again, Ihighly recommend Shopify over
any other platform.
We do talk about Shopify versusEtsy, but when you do get your
Shopify store, I highlyrecommend go ahead and putting
up a password protected page,even if you haven't built it out
yet.
Totally fine, but go ahead andput that password protected page
(17:35):
up and start collecting emailson it so that you can start
promoting on your social mediaand letting people know it's
coming and then they can goahead and hop onto your email
list so that you can keep theminformed as you go through this
launch.
It's going to be reallycritical to put in the marketing
efforts of taking your brandnew people that are going to
(17:57):
start following you and takethem on the journey with you.
We had a really successfulweekend when we first started
our business.
It was about a $3,000 weekendlike over three days Friday,
saturday, sunday, maybe a littlebit into Monday.
It was like $3,000 of onlinesales.
It was fantastic.
The people that bought from uswere people that had gone on the
journey for a couple of months.
(18:18):
It wasn't someone brand newthat hadn't heard that we were
starting a candle business andthey just were eager to get
their wallet out.
That's not who is going to buyfrom you.
It's going to be people thatyou take on the journey with you
.
So as soon as you have a namefor your business, go ahead and
get the social media handles andgo ahead and just put up a
cover image of what your logodoes.
You can just create a veryinexpensive or a free logo on
(18:43):
Canva and then just go ahead andthrow it out on social media.
And then everything you do withyour business when you order
supplies and then the suppliesarrive, take a photo of that,
post it.
Let people know.
My supplies arrived, I'm goingto start testing.
You know, oh, this smells sogood.
Oh, you know, I'm mixing theseoils together.
Whatever you're making, let yourcustomers learn from you so
(19:06):
that they know where you'regoing on this journey.
Just showing up one day andsaying, oh hey, by the way, I
started a candle business.
Come support me.
Here's my website.
It's too impersonal, even ifit's your closest friends and
family, too impersonal and toolike just throwing it at them.
Don't do that.
Let them go on the journey withyou.
You're not trying to sell themanything because you don't have
anything to sell.
(19:27):
You're just showing them thebehind the scenes.
Show a lot of your struggles aswell.
Show your vulnerability.
Show how vulnerable you can beas you're growing this out.
Show them the mistakes, themishaps, the spills, the
struggles, the late night.
Show all of that to people,because then whenever you get
through that, those hurdles, uh,they're really going to want to
(19:48):
support you even more.
Uh, so that's what I recommend,starting off as a foundation,
is letting people go on thatjourney with you.
In week five, we discussed thedifferent sales channels.
So we discussed, uh, shopify.
We discussed, uh, etsy.
Um, we discussed some of thewholesale, such as getting on
fair and doing that as wellDepends on who your customer is.
(20:08):
If you're trying to be bougie,over-the-top luxury Etsy, which
is more focused on smallbusiness, homemade, handcrafted
that might not align.
I would certainly try anythingout on Etsy.
I don't think that it hurts totry.
You might find that somethingthat you don't think is going to
work on Etsy will actually justblow up and do fantastic right
(20:30):
and go viral.
We talked about in that episodein week five about the fees
associated with Etsy and alsowith Shopify.
Some people have complainedabout the Etsy fees but in
reality, like you'll have towatch the video to see the
breakdown because it's sominimal compared to what
advertising and social media isgoing to cost you, not only just
(20:53):
in time and resources, but alsolike to actually run ads.
Also, shopify Shopify isfantastic.
I just recommended a bit ago.
You've got it.
You know, you got to have aShopify store.
It's the gold standard when itcomes to e-commerce.
But you also have to sendpeople to that to buy from you.
Etsy has a community ofshoppers millions that are on
(21:15):
Etsy every single day lookingfor something.
So you want to be that productfor them.
But Shopify it's not going tohave customers going to your
store on their own organicallywhen you first start.
It's going to be from yousharing and directing people to
that website.
Now, over time, based on howyou build out your website, the
keywords, as it's SEO optimized,will start pulling through on
(21:38):
Google being all the othersearch engines if you do that
properly.
So I talk about that a littlebit as well.
In week five, week six, wetalked about a high converting
website and the 10 things thatyour website must have, from
different trust badges toproduct descriptions.
In week six we really honed inon all 10 of those things that
(22:00):
we're going to have on ourwebsite.
In fact, in week six, in thatepisode, there is a download for
you so you can actually have achecklist in front of you.
It's completely free.
You can get that in the shownotes of the week six video,
this checklist of all the thingsthat you should have on your
website.
So go check that out.
I'm not going to run throughall of those right now, but it's
a great tool to have with youas you're building out your
(22:22):
website.
That will really help yourconversion.
So it's one thing to get peopleto your website, but it's a
whole nother thing to actuallyget them to get their credit
card out and complete thattransaction fully.
And then last week all right,last week we talked about all
the marketing stuff that we canstart doing right now with local
first, which is going to beyour friends, your family, your
(22:44):
coworkers, having them go onthat journey with us collecting
emails.
We want to start collectingemails right now.
It's going to be your friends,your family, your coworkers,
having them go on that journeywith us collecting emails.
We want to start collectingemails right now.
It's going to be.
When you look back in a coupleof years you're going to be like
, oh, I have X, hundreds orthousands of emails and I
wouldn't have got these if Iwouldn't have started on day one
.
You want to start today gettingemail addresses from people
because you might switchwebsites, you might switch
(23:05):
platforms, you might switchbusiness direction, you might
get shut down by Instagram orFacebook because of something
wonky and the algorithm killsyour online store.
Or you may be doing well onEtsy but then, all of a sudden,
your sales drop.
You want to have it with emailaddresses to connect with and to
take wherever you go, and somake sure that you're starting
(23:25):
to get email addresses right onday one.
Do social media with a purpose.
There's going to be so manydifferent options.
You can do Facebook, instagram,TikTok, snapchat, pinterest,
blue Sky, twitter.
That became X.
There's so many of them outthere.
Right In the week seven episode, I give you my four content
pillars and I say to pick twoplatforms For us.
(23:49):
Currently, we do Facebook andInstagram.
That's where our customersmostly are.
For our new brand, I think it'sgoing to be more of an
Instagram, possibly TikTok.
So that's something that eitherwe are going to have to learn
or we are going to have to makesure someone on our team knows
that additional platform in andout so that we can connect with
(24:09):
our customer there.
But only pick a couple of them.
Don't spread yourself too thintrying to start with your social
media.
You can always pivot and youcan always start posting in
other places.
I've seen some really, reallybig brands, a couple of the
brands that we follow.
There's a brand calledVoicemail.
Absolutely love them, I lovetheir messaging, I love their
mission and they've got, youknow, a few million followers on
(24:33):
Instagram and I always lookfirst on Facebook for a lot of
things and they have, like Ithink it was like four or 5,000
followers.
Big difference four or 5,000followers on Facebook and
millions on Instagram.
They know where their customeris, so that's where they put
their energy and that works forthem just fine.
So think about it that way.
I'm not going to just go outand start posting on Pinterest
(24:54):
unless I know my customer isthere, but they definitely would
be there.
We can only do so much, right?
There's only so many hours inthe day and we're trying to run
a business.
So make sure that you'remaximizing your time on just a
couple platforms.
When you start and give it 100%, collaborate Collaborations are
fantastic.
When you start and give it ahundred percent, collaborate
Collaborations are fantasticwhen you're first starting out.
(25:15):
If you're making candles, talkto a soap maker.
That's a simple, simple way ofcollaborating.
If you go to a hair salon or abarber that would be happy to
have you make a custom candlethat they can sell while they
have people in their seat,that's a fantastic way of
collaborating right.
They're going to feel specialby you creating a special candle
(25:36):
for them and then they can sellit for you right there in the
chair when they have someone inthe chair.
So that's an easy collaborationthat you can do.
You're going to also be able tocollaborate within areas of
your community.
We do and we still do.
But what really helped us whenwe started was doing fundraisers
.
Doing fundraisers for an animalshelter massive way to get that
(25:59):
email list to be growing,because you are going to promote
that.
You are going to give 25percent of proceeds back to the
let's say, the Humane Societyand then that local community
society is going to take yourflyer that you created, send it
out to their email list, promoteit on their social media.
They're going to send salesyour direction and then you're
(26:21):
giving them a portion of thoseproceeds.
So it's a win-win and it's areally easy way, especially when
you're starting to get brandnew eyes on your brand.
It worked wonders for us, andnow, in three years, we've
donated over $75,000 toorganizations.
Us and now, in three years,we've donated over $75,000 to
organizations, and sure, that'sgreat for all those
organizations, but it's also,remember, we're running a
business here and that's alsobeen great for us because we're
(26:43):
making money as well and we'restarting to build up even more
of those super fans that we wantto operate our business with.
So it is definitely a win-win.
I would definitely look at doingfundraisers in your community.
As far as other things that youcan do, as far as marketing,
right now on your website, makesure you're telling a story.
I talked about those 10 thingson your website, but one of
those that are really importantis to tell your story.
(27:05):
Have a photo of yourself, ofyour family, of your why, why
are you doing this business, andthen, lastly, you can also look
at starting to do some press.
So when we first started, weemailed all the news stations.
We also emailed the newspaper,the magazines, the radio,
everything.
This is what we're doing for abrand new candle business and,
(27:27):
if you position it correctly andwhat we did is, we did it as a
press release and in fact, ifyou're inside of the inner
circle, I have a whole workshopon how we do press releases.
The same exact format got usinto Oprah, daily, parade
Magazine, yahoo News, all ofthose and that's from us writing
a press release that'sintriguing enough for someone to
(27:48):
want to do an article about you.
So one easy way of doing thatis by creating a themed candle
around an activity in your townor your city.
Here in Holland Michigan we havewhat's called tulip time every
single May for two weeks thetulips are grown.
They come in from the actualHolland, the Netherlands, come
(28:08):
here to Holland Michigan,they're planted and they grow,
and for in two weeks in May ispeak time.
Hundreds of thousands ofvisitors come to our small town
or small city and visit.
We created a tulip themedcandle and two weeks prior to
the festival, email all thesenews stations, the radio, the
(28:29):
newspaper.
We landed front page on thenewspaper with this product.
It was small businesses cashingin on two of time type of
article, right?
Or looking forward to a um,busy two of time season, right?
Uh, so that was kind of whatthe headline was like.
And then the news literallycame into our house, into our
room, that we were makingcandles in, uh, which was our
(28:51):
bedroom, that we had turned intoour candle making studio in the
house and interviewed us rightthere.
Like we didn't have stores, wejust had our online store.
So you don't need to have abrick and mortar store to get
recognized or looked at by themedia, so don't think that you
do.
And then in Oprah Daily, wesent a press release over to
(29:12):
them and other magazines,basically talking about how we
do give back around a certaincause, and they wanted to run an
article on that.
So those are some ways it'scompletely free to do all of
that.
Again, inside of the innercircle, you can go and watch.
We have a workshop there foryou as well.
This has been an exciting sevena week so far.
(29:34):
Now let's talk about a couple ofthings that kind of has held us
back.
Uh, we have our.
We ordered custom vessels.
We ordered perfume bottles.
We're going to get into theperfume space with this new
brand as well.
Uh, we have custom packagingcoming.
Uh, so a couple of the hiccupsthe samples, production they are
all coming from over from china.
Um, took probably two weekslonger than we hoped, from when
(29:57):
we said, yes, create a sample.
Here's the template.
We thought we were going to get, that they were going to have a
sample and show us images ofthat within like a week to seven
days, and it's taken about twoweeks.
Uh, the samples are made.
They look fantastic and theyare being mailed to us now.
So next week we will have thoseto show you, we'll have the
vessel, we will have the perfumebottle, we will have a two box
(30:20):
for the candle vessel and thenwe're going to have a box for
the perfumes as well.
Now here's another hiccup fromthe images that they sent to us.
They acknowledged this whenthey sent it and they said hey,
the perfume box color isn'tquite right, so it looks like
it's a little darker, and theimage is at least.
It's a little darker and itlooks just fine.
(30:44):
But if you're going to compareit next to the candle box and
it's supposed to be the samePantone color they're going to
be different.
So, seeing these in person,I'll know that.
They said they reassured usthat they'll be totally fine
when they run the fullproduction.
So I want to speed this up andmove quickly.
So I said, fine, send me thisstuff.
We're going to look at thequality, we're going to make
sure everything is right as faras the safety aspect goes, and
(31:08):
then we'll go to an order.
And then, of course, they'llhave to make sure that the
coloring is right, or we justwouldn't accept that order.
So that stuff is all on its wayhere, super excited to share
that with you all as it comes.
Don't hesitate to again followthe journey at
canopbusinessprocom.
I am doing a weekly updatethere, as well, as well as on
the YouTube channel and ourpodcast that you can find on any
(31:30):
of your podcast players.
In fact, if you are enjoyingthis, I would love it if you
wouldn't mind giving us a ratingand review.
On Spotify, you can do that, aswell as on Apple podcast.
That would help us outtremendously and allow us just
to keep on doing these episodes.
Shout out again to Tuato forsponsoring this series.
(31:52):
Shout out again to Tuato forsponsoring this series.
We have relied on Tuato andtheir products immensely
throughout our business and wehighly recommend if you're
needing a wax melter, if youneed a thermal printer.
You may not even know that theymade those.
They do, and you can use thatlink in the show notes below for
an additional discount atcheckout.
Again, it is not an affiliatelink, it is just a link that
(32:12):
they are providing for you.
If you have any questions, Iwould love for you to drop them
in the comments below.
Until next time, have afantastic rest of your day and
enjoy your week.
Welcome back to my series on how to build a candle
business.
Today I am going to recap wherewe are, from week one to week
seven.
Today starts week eight in ourprocess.
So we have learned a lot.
We've grown a lot.
We have made a lot of progressin launching a brand new candle
business.
We've also faced a fewroadblocks that I want to talk
about as well.
So let's get into this.
We are going to recapeverything we've done.
(00:21):
I'm going to share someinsights and some tips with you.
I will share some freedownloads for you to go and grab
to help you out on your journeyas well.
So, whether you are a brand newto candle making or a candle
business, or you have been onthis journey for quite some time
, I think today is actuallygoing to hopefully give you some
insights and some actionablesteps for you to take right away
.
I'm Sebastian Garznett, theco-founder of Garznett Beacon
(00:42):
Candle Company and the founderof Candle Business Pro, where we
help makers go pro, and we areputting together this series
thanks to a partnership withTuato.
So Tuato wax melters I can'ttalk about them enough.
They are fantastic.
We use them in all three of ourstores.
We even have our tester onehere for when we're making
candles at home.
We just love them.
They actually provided us witha link for you to use If you
(01:04):
would like.
It is not an affiliate link.
We are not getting a commissionwhen you use this.
This is just an additionaldiscount for you and you can
find that in the show notesbelow.
So let's get into this.
So, week one that is where wereally started setting the
foundation for this new candlebusiness.
Now, if you're just nowstarting on this journey with us
, the name of our new brand isgoing to be called Without.
(01:30):
It's missing the I, so it'sWithout spelled W-T-H-O-U-T.
Depending on when you arewatching this, you may be able
to go and check us out atwithoutbrandcom.
That is where we'll be livingout on the internet as well as
on all the social media channels.
So, depending on if you'rewatching this the week it comes
out, or just a couple of weeksafter that, or possibly years in
the future or you may belistening to this on the podcast
(01:51):
you can go and check it out andsee where we are today.
We like to be very transparentand honest with our growth, with
our struggles, with what'sdoing well right now.
That's why we built the InnerCircle, which is our community
of just candle maker businessestogether.
Whether you are thinking aboutstarting a business or you are a
six-figure candle business, theInner Circle is a place for you
(02:12):
to connect with others.
So you can obviously find outmore about that out at
candlebusinessprocom or in theshow notes below.
All right, so week one, we setthe foundation.
For you to be able to set thefoundation, do a very, very
simple exercise write threesentences of why.
What's your why?
Why are you wanting to makecandles?
(02:32):
Are you why?
Are you wanting to turn thisinto a business?
Are you wanting to do it tosupplement your income?
You're just wanting a littleextra on the side.
Are you wanting to go full timeso that you can be a stay at
home parent?
Uh, with home parent with yourkids, to have more family time?
What's your why?
And your why does not have toline up with anyone else's.
So don't think about thereasons that I say I wanted to
(02:55):
do it or that the reason whyChad wanted to do it.
In fact, we run this businesstogether and our whys are
completely different of why wegot into this.
He wanted this to be a creativeoutlet.
I wanted this to be a business.
I wanted us to becomeself-employed, and that's what
we've done.
So we are no longer working foranother employer.
We're self-employed.
I hope to never wear suit pantsagain to an office to work.
(03:19):
We'll see if that's the case,but right now we're on a pretty
good trajectory to not have todo that.
So the other thing you're goingto want to do is list out your
first three products that you'regoing to make.
Are they going to be candles,room sprays, wax melts?
What's your first threeproducts going to be and who is
going to be that customer?
Who are you going to be serving?
(03:39):
That's going to be reallycritical is deciding who we're
serving.
We'll talk about that here injust another step.
So start with the foundation.
What's your why you want tomake candles?
This is the reason why you wantto make them and this is the
person that you want to makethem for.
So that's a very simplefoundation that you can start
with.
Pick a start date.
Pick a start date that you wantto start and really try to
(04:00):
commit to it.
You know I see a lot of makers.
They say that they've beenmaking for six months, a year,
two years, but they don't havethat product out there that
they're trying to sell.
Now, if you're just doing thisas a hobby, totally fine.
There's absolutely nothingwrong with making candles and
leaning into that artistic sideof doing this scent blending and
really enjoying that.
That's actually the passion ofChad's, of why he enjoys candle
(04:23):
making.
I like to sell candles.
That's what my position withinthe brand is is I want to sell
our products.
So think about what your startdate's going to be and really
try to commit to it.
And if you're going to make thisinto a business, you need to
keep some structure.
You have to have structure ofwhen you're going to start your
testing, when you think you'regoing to get through all of that
(04:44):
testing and when can yourealistically open up an online
store.
There's going to be otheropportunities, of course, for
you to sell We'll talk aboutthat in a moment as well but
just set that goal.
What we did is we set a goal.
We said you know what, we'regoing to turn this into a
business, and that was onNovember 19th of 2021.
And we went and registered ourname at the IRS, so we got our
(05:05):
EIN number.
We said we are officially goingto do this.
All right, let's dive into it.
That was on November 19th andwe set February 28th as our open
to store day.
So that gave us December, allof January, all of February and
a weekend in November so threemonths and we said we want to
have this entire business builtready to go.
(05:29):
Now.
We had been testing a couple ofmonths prior to that.
We were lost.
So much of it when we'rebeginning is what wax to use,
what oil to use, and thenpivoting so much and then taking
bad advice and following thewrong people on YouTube and you
(05:50):
know, oh, we were mixingdifferent waxes together because
we were having issues, when inreality, what it comes down to
is you need to focus on onething at a time, one variable at
a time.
It's exactly what I teach inour candle making course.
It's start with one wick, onevessel, one wax, one oil.
(06:11):
Then we can start to get it.
You know, start to have somefun.
Then we can start mixing twooils together and then we can
start doing wooden wick candlesor three wick candles.
Start with one wick, one wax,one vessel.
Master that you can start abusiness.
Our business operates and issuccessful literally based on
(06:32):
this candle, that we have madewell over six figures on this
one candle.
Now we have 78 candles, Ibelieve, that we sell online in
our shop, but it all, thefoundation, came around this one
candle.
This is in a jar that costsabout a buck, just a clear 10
ounce Libby jar candle.
One wick, one wax, a coupleoils because this one we do have
(06:56):
a blend in now, but that's howwe started our business At first
.
We were trying to do too much,so on November 19th 2021, we
said, ok, let's documenteverything, let's start taking
notes on everything, let's get aspreadsheet out.
And that is when everythingchanged.
And so we were testing onething, and when it didn't work,
it failed.
We knew what to change.
That's exactly what we teach inour course.
(07:18):
If you've gone through that,you know that, and if you
haven't, you're welcome to checkthat out as well at
kennelbusinessprocom.
All right, so we're setting thefoundation and then in week two
of this week of this seriesexcuse me we talked about our
name and our brand basics.
If you don't have a brand nameyet, that's fine.
Start with.
Let's brainstorm 20 names soyou can use chat, gpt or AI to
help you if you want, but makesure that this is personal.
(07:41):
I see a lot of names like WildWicks or Highly Scented or
things that just aren't personal, right, but you also want to be
careful not to go too personal.
You know, s&c Candles probablyisn't going to resonate with
anyone.
If I was going to use myinitial and Chad's initials S&CC
(08:03):
candles, or it could have beenlike CG candles, which would
have been Chad Garzen's candlesbecause he is the one that
started this.
So you can definitely getpersonal, but you want to make
sure that it's not so personalthat your customers aren't going
to I don't want to say notrelate to it, but they're not
going to understand.
It almost seems like I don'twant it to be too homemade, if
(08:25):
that makes sense.
I don't want to just have aSebastian's Candles and expect
the world to relate to that.
So something that I would thinkabout as you're building that
out.
So pick, you know, 20 names andthen try to narrow that on down
to three or so.
Go out to the USPTO's websitejust to make sure that it's
going to be available.
You don't necessarily have totrademark it right away, but you
(08:47):
want to go ahead and at leastdo a search to make sure it's
going to be available.
That's what we had a issue withwith our new brand.
Our new brand, with Out, wasalready taken as far as that
domain was taken.
Now the brand itself wasn't.
So check USPTO's website to seeif the trademark has been taken
and then go to whatever domainpurchasing site you're going to
use.
We love Squarespace.
(09:08):
You can get it at GoDaddycom,you can get it at Wixcom, you
can get them anywhere.
We use Squarespace for all ofour websites to make sure what
you're going to want isavailable.
And if it's not available, areyou going to be able to use
something very similar?
That's going to be okay.
You can certainly add oncandles, take off candles, right
.
Our website is GarznetBeaconcom.
If that would have for somereason have been taken, we could
(09:30):
have doneGarznetBeaconCandlescom right If
we wanted to go that direction.
So you want to make sure thatit is available.
Our new brand, withoutcom, eventhough we're spelling it
differently and uniquely,without the I.
That's not available If someoneelse already owns it.
It's some type of old blog.
I'm going to try my best to buyit from them at some point, but
right now it's not available.
(09:51):
So our website is going to bewithoutbrandcom.
It fits for the vibe that we'regoing with, because we are
going to be more of a lifestyletype of brand with this new
endeavor.
All right, so that was in weektwo with this new endeavor.
All right, so that was in weektwo.
Week three was all about yourniche and your target audience,
and this is super, super crucial.
This is how you set yourselfapart from others and how you
(10:14):
grow a business and how you havewhat is going to become super
fans.
You only need 100 super fans,100 people that love your
product, that is going to buyall the candles that you come
out with and is going torecommend you to other people
and at come Christmas time,they're going to be shopping
(10:36):
with you.
We have what we call super fansthat have spent five, six,
$7,000 with us and we've beenopen for about three years, and
so we have what we likeinternally.
We have like VIP tiers ofpeople that we always want to
stay in contact with.
We send them some bonus stuffas surprises occasionally, and
(10:58):
then we also check in with themwhen they haven't purchased with
us in a few months.
If three months have gone byand someone from our super fan
list hasn't purchased from us.
I'm going to send them apersonal message hey, is
everything okay?
Is there anything we can do foryou?
Sometimes they have lifechanges and we want to be able
to support them because theyhave been supporting us.
We want to make sure that we'rereaching out to those super
(11:20):
fans.
You need a hundred people thatlove your business and will
spend a thousand dollars a yearwith you to make a hundred,000 a
year.
That's it.
That's all you need.
Find a hundred people that loveyour candles.
Now we do a lot of businessonline.
We do a lot of business withour walk-in customers, but I
tell you what the majority ofour super fans we met out doing
(11:47):
markets.
They shopped with us at amarket and then at the next
market, they saw us again.
We had a conversation.
We talked about the previouscandles that they purchased.
They buy from us again.
They recommend us to otherpeople.
A lot of our super fans camefrom when we were doing markets.
So having that interaction inperson with someone is a
fantastic and easy way to startbuilding a loyal following.
(12:11):
Online.
You can do it, but it takes alittle bit more.
Your candles have to just be atthat next level, which I'm sure
your candles can get to.
But when you are working withsomeone directly and selling to
someone directly and they canhear your story, they can hear
your why that?
Why are you out here on aSaturday in these high
temperatures?
You know selling candles whyare you doing this?
When you can share that storywith someone, they go on that
(12:34):
journey with you.
So doing markets is a fantasticway.
It doesn't mean you have to.
Some people don't want to domarkets or are in a location
that they just don't havemarkets.
That's fine.
You can always sell other ways,but that is an easy way for you
to kind of jumpstart thosesuper fans that I discussed.
So you want to have that niche.
You want to have that targetaudience.
(12:55):
You want to pick a specificlane to kind of stay in.
Whether you want to makecandles for stay-at-home moms
that are super busy they arerunning around like crazy
getting the kids to practice,picking up from school, taking
them to all theirextracurricular activities you
can target them.
You can live in South Floridaand you are making candles in
(13:18):
your niche just specifically fora nautical theme, for people
that love being on boats, and soyour brand is built around that
.
You know exactly who you'retrying to sell to.
You can make a theme or a nichearound metaphysical Whether you
enjoy the metaphysical space.
(13:38):
You can make a business aroundsports.
You can build a whole brandaround just sports-themed
candles, right.
If you're selling a sportsthemed candle to your audience,
sure you might be turning away areally big audience as well
that just wouldn't be interestedin that.
But those people that areinterested are going to be
(14:01):
really interested in becauseyou're going to be talking to
them.
For instance, if you make amason jar candle that has some
twine and a hang tag around itand you are putting your scents
are very home inspired or likethe gourmand sense.
Like, say, you have a mason jarcandle that says apple pie and
(14:22):
you are doing an entirefarmhouse cottage theme, that's
going to fit in a farmhousecottage theme type of gift shop
or home decor location.
It's not going to fit at acontemporary, modern type of
shop, right.
But that's okay because thepeople that are shopping where
you're wanting that candle to beare going to love that candle.
(14:45):
So pick a niche but also havethat person in mind.
Go and shop where they shop.
Figure out what they'respending on candles.
You might find out that thepeople that are buying that
candle that you're wanting tomake are only spending $10, $12,
$15 for a candle.
So you got to figure out canyou make a candle and sell it at
that price and still make aprofit if you're going to make
(15:07):
this into a business?
If not, you may need to switchyour niche.
You may need to find adifferent avenue to go down.
If you are in a location whereyou, if your niche that you want
to get into is like ultraluxury, high end, you're selling
75, $100 starting point for acandle, that's great, do it.
(15:27):
But who's your customer?
How are you going to sell tothem?
The way you build a website outfor that customer and the way
you build out a website for thatfarmhouse cottage or that
metaphysical customer is goingto be way different.
So that's why you want to havea niche, and then you want to
have a target audience andreally dive into who that is.
(15:47):
So what I like to do is createa customer profile.
Just think of it.
Give your person a name.
If you watch the, if you go backinto week three, I actually
tell you exactly who mycustomers are for the new brand
I have Camille.
She lives in Brooklyn.
She is only shopping at herlocal bodegas.
Her price point is going to bearound $30 to $35 for a candle.
(16:09):
She will do a lot of onlineshopping but she likes to
support those other up andcoming places.
She is anti-Target Walmart.
She doesn't shop at those typeof big box places, but she will
shop online.
So you break it all down andthen everything you do within
your brand it has that oneperson in mind.
(16:30):
So when I write an email, Iwant to make sure that the
communication that I'm havingwith within those emails or
within the social media istalking to that person.
You want to make sure thatyou're using the tones.
You want to make sure you'reusing the color schemes You're
(16:51):
also you want to make sureyou're using the right fonts
that are going to connect withpeople.
There are some websites thatare like streetwear.
That's very bold, in-your-faceblock lettering.
That's great for streetwear.
But if you are wearing, ifyou're going to a formal event,
you wouldn't be wearingstreetwear.
You'd be wearing, you know, asequined dress or a black tie
affair, right?
So that's just kind of anexample of how it would work
within, like the clothing space.
(17:12):
All right.
So in week four we talked aboutsome marketing foundations.
One of the things I wouldrecommend doing is, once you
sign up for Shopify again, Ihighly recommend Shopify over
any other platform.
We do talk about Shopify versusEtsy, but when you do get your
Shopify store, I highlyrecommend go ahead and putting
up a password protected page,even if you haven't built it out
yet.
Totally fine, but go ahead andput that password protected page
(17:35):
up and start collecting emailson it so that you can start
promoting on your social mediaand letting people know it's
coming and then they can goahead and hop onto your email
list so that you can keep theminformed as you go through this
launch.
It's going to be reallycritical to put in the marketing
efforts of taking your brandnew people that are going to
(17:57):
start following you and takethem on the journey with you.
We had a really successfulweekend when we first started
our business.
It was about a $3,000 weekendlike over three days Friday,
saturday, sunday, maybe a littlebit into Monday.
It was like $3,000 of onlinesales.
It was fantastic.
The people that bought from uswere people that had gone on the
journey for a couple of months.
(18:18):
It wasn't someone brand newthat hadn't heard that we were
starting a candle business andthey just were eager to get
their wallet out.
That's not who is going to buyfrom you.
It's going to be people thatyou take on the journey with you
.
So as soon as you have a namefor your business, go ahead and
get the social media handles andgo ahead and just put up a
cover image of what your logodoes.
You can just create a veryinexpensive or a free logo on
(18:43):
Canva and then just go ahead andthrow it out on social media.
And then everything you do withyour business when you order
supplies and then the suppliesarrive, take a photo of that,
post it.
Let people know.
My supplies arrived, I'm goingto start testing.
You know, oh, this smells sogood.
Oh, you know, I'm mixing theseoils together.
Whatever you're making, let yourcustomers learn from you so
(19:06):
that they know where you'regoing on this journey.
Just showing up one day andsaying, oh hey, by the way, I
started a candle business.
Come support me.
Here's my website.
It's too impersonal, even ifit's your closest friends and
family, too impersonal and toolike just throwing it at them.
Don't do that.
Let them go on the journey withyou.
You're not trying to sell themanything because you don't have
anything to sell.
(19:27):
You're just showing them thebehind the scenes.
Show a lot of your struggles aswell.
Show your vulnerability.
Show how vulnerable you can beas you're growing this out.
Show them the mistakes, themishaps, the spills, the
struggles, the late night.
Show all of that to people,because then whenever you get
through that, those hurdles, uh,they're really going to want to
(19:48):
support you even more.
Uh, so that's what I recommend,starting off as a foundation,
is letting people go on thatjourney with you.
In week five, we discussed thedifferent sales channels.
So we discussed, uh, shopify.
We discussed, uh, etsy.
Um, we discussed some of thewholesale, such as getting on
fair and doing that as wellDepends on who your customer is.
(20:08):
If you're trying to be bougie,over-the-top luxury Etsy, which
is more focused on smallbusiness, homemade, handcrafted
that might not align.
I would certainly try anythingout on Etsy.
I don't think that it hurts totry.
You might find that somethingthat you don't think is going to
work on Etsy will actually justblow up and do fantastic right
(20:30):
and go viral.
We talked about in that episodein week five about the fees
associated with Etsy and alsowith Shopify.
Some people have complainedabout the Etsy fees but in
reality, like you'll have towatch the video to see the
breakdown because it's sominimal compared to what
advertising and social media isgoing to cost you, not only just
(20:53):
in time and resources, but alsolike to actually run ads.
Also, shopify Shopify isfantastic.
I just recommended a bit ago.
You've got it.
You know, you got to have aShopify store.
It's the gold standard when itcomes to e-commerce.
But you also have to sendpeople to that to buy from you.
Etsy has a community ofshoppers millions that are on
(21:15):
Etsy every single day lookingfor something.
So you want to be that productfor them.
But Shopify it's not going tohave customers going to your
store on their own organicallywhen you first start.
It's going to be from yousharing and directing people to
that website.
Now, over time, based on howyou build out your website, the
keywords, as it's SEO optimized,will start pulling through on
(21:38):
Google being all the othersearch engines if you do that
properly.
So I talk about that a littlebit as well.
In week five, week six, wetalked about a high converting
website and the 10 things thatyour website must have, from
different trust badges toproduct descriptions.
In week six we really honed inon all 10 of those things that
(22:00):
we're going to have on ourwebsite.
In fact, in week six, in thatepisode, there is a download for
you so you can actually have achecklist in front of you.
It's completely free.
You can get that in the shownotes of the week six video,
this checklist of all the thingsthat you should have on your
website.
So go check that out.
I'm not going to run throughall of those right now, but it's
a great tool to have with youas you're building out your
(22:22):
website.
That will really help yourconversion.
So it's one thing to get peopleto your website, but it's a
whole nother thing to actuallyget them to get their credit
card out and complete thattransaction fully.
And then last week all right,last week we talked about all
the marketing stuff that we canstart doing right now with local
first, which is going to beyour friends, your family, your
(22:44):
coworkers, having them go onthat journey with us collecting
emails.
We want to start collectingemails right now.
It's going to be your friends,your family, your coworkers,
having them go on that journeywith us collecting emails.
We want to start collectingemails right now.
It's going to be.
When you look back in a coupleof years you're going to be like
, oh, I have X, hundreds orthousands of emails and I
wouldn't have got these if Iwouldn't have started on day one
.
You want to start today gettingemail addresses from people
because you might switchwebsites, you might switch
(23:05):
platforms, you might switchbusiness direction, you might
get shut down by Instagram orFacebook because of something
wonky and the algorithm killsyour online store.
Or you may be doing well onEtsy but then, all of a sudden,
your sales drop.
You want to have it with emailaddresses to connect with and to
take wherever you go, and somake sure that you're starting
(23:25):
to get email addresses right onday one.
Do social media with a purpose.
There's going to be so manydifferent options.
You can do Facebook, instagram,TikTok, snapchat, pinterest,
blue Sky, twitter.
That became X.
There's so many of them outthere.
Right In the week seven episode, I give you my four content
pillars and I say to pick twoplatforms For us.
(23:49):
Currently, we do Facebook andInstagram.
That's where our customersmostly are.
For our new brand, I think it'sgoing to be more of an
Instagram, possibly TikTok.
So that's something that eitherwe are going to have to learn
or we are going to have to makesure someone on our team knows
that additional platform in andout so that we can connect with
(24:09):
our customer there.
But only pick a couple of them.
Don't spread yourself too thintrying to start with your social
media.
You can always pivot and youcan always start posting in
other places.
I've seen some really, reallybig brands, a couple of the
brands that we follow.
There's a brand calledVoicemail.
Absolutely love them, I lovetheir messaging, I love their
mission and they've got, youknow, a few million followers on
(24:33):
Instagram and I always lookfirst on Facebook for a lot of
things and they have, like Ithink it was like four or 5,000
followers.
Big difference four or 5,000followers on Facebook and
millions on Instagram.
They know where their customeris, so that's where they put
their energy and that works forthem just fine.
So think about it that way.
I'm not going to just go outand start posting on Pinterest
(24:54):
unless I know my customer isthere, but they definitely would
be there.
We can only do so much, right?
There's only so many hours inthe day and we're trying to run
a business.
So make sure that you'remaximizing your time on just a
couple platforms.
When you start and give it 100%, collaborate Collaborations are
fantastic.
When you start and give it ahundred percent, collaborate
Collaborations are fantasticwhen you're first starting out.
(25:15):
If you're making candles, talkto a soap maker.
That's a simple, simple way ofcollaborating.
If you go to a hair salon or abarber that would be happy to
have you make a custom candlethat they can sell while they
have people in their seat,that's a fantastic way of
collaborating right.
They're going to feel specialby you creating a special candle
(25:36):
for them and then they can sellit for you right there in the
chair when they have someone inthe chair.
So that's an easy collaborationthat you can do.
You're going to also be able tocollaborate within areas of
your community.
We do and we still do.
But what really helped us whenwe started was doing fundraisers
.
Doing fundraisers for an animalshelter massive way to get that
(25:59):
email list to be growing,because you are going to promote
that.
You are going to give 25percent of proceeds back to the
let's say, the Humane Societyand then that local community
society is going to take yourflyer that you created, send it
out to their email list, promoteit on their social media.
They're going to send salesyour direction and then you're
(26:21):
giving them a portion of thoseproceeds.
So it's a win-win and it's areally easy way, especially when
you're starting to get brandnew eyes on your brand.
It worked wonders for us, andnow, in three years, we've
donated over $75,000 toorganizations.
Us and now, in three years,we've donated over $75,000 to
organizations, and sure, that'sgreat for all those
organizations, but it's also,remember, we're running a
business here and that's alsobeen great for us because we're
(26:43):
making money as well and we'restarting to build up even more
of those super fans that we wantto operate our business with.
So it is definitely a win-win.
I would definitely look at doingfundraisers in your community.
As far as other things that youcan do, as far as marketing,
right now on your website, makesure you're telling a story.
I talked about those 10 thingson your website, but one of
those that are really importantis to tell your story.
(27:05):
Have a photo of yourself, ofyour family, of your why, why
are you doing this business, andthen, lastly, you can also look
at starting to do some press.
So when we first started, weemailed all the news stations.
We also emailed the newspaper,the magazines, the radio,
everything.
This is what we're doing for abrand new candle business and,
(27:27):
if you position it correctly andwhat we did is, we did it as a
press release and in fact, ifyou're inside of the inner
circle, I have a whole workshopon how we do press releases.
The same exact format got usinto Oprah, daily, parade
Magazine, yahoo News, all ofthose and that's from us writing
a press release that'sintriguing enough for someone to
(27:48):
want to do an article about you.
So one easy way of doing thatis by creating a themed candle
around an activity in your townor your city.
Here in Holland Michigan we havewhat's called tulip time every
single May for two weeks thetulips are grown.
They come in from the actualHolland, the Netherlands, come
(28:08):
here to Holland Michigan,they're planted and they grow,
and for in two weeks in May ispeak time.
Hundreds of thousands ofvisitors come to our small town
or small city and visit.
We created a tulip themedcandle and two weeks prior to
the festival, email all thesenews stations, the radio, the
(28:29):
newspaper.
We landed front page on thenewspaper with this product.
It was small businesses cashingin on two of time type of
article, right?
Or looking forward to a um,busy two of time season, right?
Uh, so that was kind of whatthe headline was like.
And then the news literallycame into our house, into our
room, that we were makingcandles in, uh, which was our
(28:51):
bedroom, that we had turned intoour candle making studio in the
house and interviewed us rightthere.
Like we didn't have stores, wejust had our online store.
So you don't need to have abrick and mortar store to get
recognized or looked at by themedia, so don't think that you
do.
And then in Oprah Daily, wesent a press release over to
(29:12):
them and other magazines,basically talking about how we
do give back around a certaincause, and they wanted to run an
article on that.
So those are some ways it'scompletely free to do all of
that.
Again, inside of the innercircle, you can go and watch.
We have a workshop there foryou as well.
This has been an exciting sevena week so far.
(29:34):
Now let's talk about a couple ofthings that kind of has held us
back.
Uh, we have our.
We ordered custom vessels.
We ordered perfume bottles.
We're going to get into theperfume space with this new
brand as well.
Uh, we have custom packagingcoming.
Uh, so a couple of the hiccupsthe samples, production they are
all coming from over from china.
Um, took probably two weekslonger than we hoped, from when
(29:57):
we said, yes, create a sample.
Here's the template.
We thought we were going to get, that they were going to have a
sample and show us images ofthat within like a week to seven
days, and it's taken about twoweeks.
Uh, the samples are made.
They look fantastic and theyare being mailed to us now.
So next week we will have thoseto show you, we'll have the
vessel, we will have the perfumebottle, we will have a two box
(30:20):
for the candle vessel and thenwe're going to have a box for
the perfumes as well.
Now here's another hiccup fromthe images that they sent to us.
They acknowledged this whenthey sent it and they said hey,
the perfume box color isn'tquite right, so it looks like
it's a little darker, and theimage is at least.
It's a little darker and itlooks just fine.
(30:44):
But if you're going to compareit next to the candle box and
it's supposed to be the samePantone color they're going to
be different.
So, seeing these in person,I'll know that.
They said they reassured usthat they'll be totally fine
when they run the fullproduction.
So I want to speed this up andmove quickly.
So I said, fine, send me thisstuff.
We're going to look at thequality, we're going to make
sure everything is right as faras the safety aspect goes, and
(31:08):
then we'll go to an order.
And then, of course, they'llhave to make sure that the
coloring is right, or we justwouldn't accept that order.
So that stuff is all on its wayhere, super excited to share
that with you all as it comes.
Don't hesitate to again followthe journey at
canopbusinessprocom.
I am doing a weekly updatethere, as well, as well as on
the YouTube channel and ourpodcast that you can find on any
(31:30):
of your podcast players.
In fact, if you are enjoyingthis, I would love it if you
wouldn't mind giving us a ratingand review.
On Spotify, you can do that, aswell as on Apple podcast.
That would help us outtremendously and allow us just
to keep on doing these episodes.
Shout out again to Tuato forsponsoring this series.
(31:52):
Shout out again to Tuato forsponsoring this series.
We have relied on Tuato andtheir products immensely
throughout our business and wehighly recommend if you're
needing a wax melter, if youneed a thermal printer.
You may not even know that theymade those.
They do, and you can use thatlink in the show notes below for
an additional discount atcheckout.
Again, it is not an affiliatelink, it is just a link that
(32:12):
they are providing for you.
If you have any questions, Iwould love for you to drop them
in the comments below.
Until next time, have afantastic rest of your day and
enjoy your week.
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