The Candle Mistakes Quietly Killing Your Profit Margins

#054. Most candle businesses don’t struggle because the product is bad. They struggle because the systems behind the product are shaky. We’re answering listener-submitted questions that hit the real pressure points: candle safety testing, how to avoid costly mistakes, how to reduce cost per unit, how to stay consistent when you’re doing everything alone, and how to find wholesale accounts that actually respond.

We walk through our wick testing method step by step, including why we test three candles at a time, why every fragrance oil blend can change burn performance, and what “passing” really means when you’re trying to prevent overwicking and serious hazards. We also talk about documentation, four-hour burn increments, and how photos and notes help you make decisions you can repeat confidently across collections.

From there we get practical about candle business profitability. We break down landed cost, why shipping often hurts margins more than materials, and where you can trim packaging without hurting the customer experience. We share examples like swapping lids for dust covers, simplifying labels, and buying in bulk only after a product proves it can sell.

Finally, we share time blocking and a simple wholesale outreach workflow: build a list, personalize your hook, and write emails that focus on how the retailer makes money, not how much you love your candles. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a maker friend, and leave a review so we can keep putting out practical candle making and candle business content.

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Transcript

Listener Questions And Quick Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Today, we're covering topics that viewers have submitted questions on from everything from safety testing to reducing costs in their business, how they manage everything in their business, and finding new wholesale accounts. If we've not met before, I'm Sebastian Garzana. I'm the co-founder of Garza Beacon Candle Company. We have been in business just over four years now. We've done $2.7 million in revenue within our business. Also, we have about 170 wholesale accounts now. And we also run Candle Business Pro, an educational platform where you can find all types of resources. We have our candle making course, but we also have our mastering wholesale course and my favorite, our inner circle. That is our community of over 250 candle business brands. We all come together. We have weekly office hours. We have monthly workshops. Just a really great place to be if you're looking to scale your business. You can check out all those details in the notes below. But let's get into the first question today. So

Candle Safety Testing And Wick Sizing

SPEAKER_00 1:04

the first question comes from Kevin Bovani. What are the main safety tests that you do on your candles and what would automatically fail the safety test? Great question. We do cover this in our candle making course, but let me kind of break it down how we do this. So we will always start our testing with three candles at a time. We always test three at a time. We're going to start with the recommended wick size based on the size of the vessel that you're using. There's going to be a recommended wick. You can get this from your supplier. There's a lot of different wick guides out there. Ideally, you're going to end up making your own wick guide. That's what you're going to want to do because it's going to be based on the wax that you use and then the wick line that you use. For us in our 464 candles, those are the ones that are made with golden brands, soy 464. That's about 85% of our candles. The rest of our candles we do with a like a luxury coconut soy wax, right? So for our 464 golden brands, for example, we like to use CD wicks. That is a line of wicks that we have found works great with that. So we will test the recommended size. So if I have this candle here, this is going to be a 2.7, this is actually a three-inch, a three-inch uh diameter on this uh candle. The recommended wick, most likely on this, is gonna say like a CD16, right? Just as an example. So if the recommended wick size is a CD16 for this, I'm gonna test three candles at a time. I'm gonna test that CD16. I'm also gonna test one size up and one size down. Now I know that may sound like we are potentially wasting wax, but here's the key. If I test this and it fails and I need to adjust up or I need to adjust down, we now have to wait through that curing process and then all of those tests. And on a candle size like this, this is a 10-ounce candle. This for us is going to be 14 different burns, right? Of four-hour increments. That's how long this candle is going to last at a minimum. Uh, so there's gonna be a lot of testing. And if I'm only doing one test a day, say, then it's gonna take me a couple weeks to get through all of that testing. So if it fails after I get done with all of that testing, then I need to go back and start all over again. That's just a lot of time. We're talking months of getting uh testing down. So we are gonna test three candles at a time, the recommended size, one up, one down. And we're going, that's going to adjust based on just longevity in this business, right? Because we might realize that depending on what the scent combination, because the scent combination is the oil that you're putting into your wax. That is what affects the wick size, is the the oil that's burning with that wax. So when I test this and this passes as a CD16 wick, for example, that doesn't mean that every candle I pour in this vessel is a CD16. In fact, you're you want to test every single scent blend that you do. For our classic line of candles, that's where I pulled this from. Our classic line of candles, there's 10 different scents uh that we blended together. Of those 10 different candles, we have four different size wicks because some oils are going to burn hotter, some are going to burn cooler. So you just have to understand that you have to test every single scent combination that you come up with for your collections uh to put out into the world. And so I always do three the recommended size, one up and one down. As you get more comfortable, as they're making more, you might end up reducing that testing down to two sizes of, oh, you know what? This is a citrus. The citrus actually burn a little hotter for me. So instead of doing a CD 16 and then a CD 14 and 18, I'm just gonna do the CD 16 and 18. Or I might say, oh, these are always 18s and sometimes they go up to the 20. So I'm gonna do the CD uh 18 and 20, right? That's just a complete example for you, but always starting with three, that's what we teach in our course. That's what we show you examples of. And the other reason why we are going to test three at a time is because if I just spent two weeks testing this CD 16 wick or whatever wicks you're using, and it fails, I have to go and start testing all over again. And I have to go through a couple weeks of that testing. It's gonna be hard because the testing from past to fail, the difference is so small that it's hard to remember back. Oh, you know, on the seventh test, what did that one candle do? And even if you are what we teach is to make sure at every four-hour increment when you're done testing, that you are taking photos, you're taking video of every single thing together. So you see the exact differences. It's hard to remember back, or even just looking at those images if you're not doing it all at one time. That just has saved us a ton. And it also made us feel confident. And that goes back to your question of well, what's the main safety testing that we're doing? We're doing it because we want to feel confident in our candle, that we have the exact right size wick, that we are not overwaking this because that's when it becomes a hazard. It becomes a hazard of catching fire, or it's also a hazard of blowing up your vessel. And those are obviously the things that we don't want to do. So, testing together that makes us feel confident documenting all of our tests, four-hour increments. We do, we write out wick size, um, the percentage of the oil. We also will uh document the size of the wick, size of the vessel. Um, and then we will do the multiple tests all at once. So we have a visual representation of what that would be. So hopefully that answers the question there for you, Kevin.

Candle Making Resources You Can Trust

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Next question here is from Corrine. Karine's question is what are some really good candle making books? Good question. A lot of people are always looking for educational resources. It's one of the reasons why we started Candle Business Pro. We have a lot of uh free resources out there, and then we have some paid resources out there as well if you want to go really deep. But we have a blog with well over 75 articles out there that you completely free to go through all of that. We also have our candle supplies uh list. It's a checklist of every supply that we use inside of our business and all the of the uh suppliers that we use. You can download that in the show notes below. We also now have created a trusted uh supplier directory. It's got over 125 different uh suppliers across the US and Canada in it. And then it also lists who we trust personally to use inside of our business. You can check that out. Again, it's completely free. You can get that in the menu at candlebusinesspro.com. But to answer your question about candle making books, here's the thing. We started our business four years ago. So five years ago, we were diving in and we were looking around for resources. And to be honest with you, the books that we found out there were written by people that aren't actually running a candle business that we don't have the trust that they're doing what we that we're wanting to do or that we were wanting to do at the time or making safe candles. There's no trust factor there. And in this world, I mean, you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening to this podcast, and you have lots of other options out there as well. So I appreciate you being here, but there's so many resources out there, especially now uh in the day and age of AI, that people are just pumping out ebooks that they are having their AI bot right for them. And there's a lot of misinformation in there. I've checked a couple of these out to see what are people teaching in these books. And it's actually pretty scary, some of these ebooks and resources that people are putting out there. So I would honestly, instead of looking for a book to teach you how to make your candles, I would go to someone that you trust, whether that's us, your candle business pro, and go through our candle making course, or find another person on uh, say, YouTube that is going to actually show you their process. And you can also make sure you have that trust and that rapport with that person. There's several others out here that I do definitely trust in this space uh that have been around for a while. But someone that just kind of came on the scene per se doesn't mean new makers aren't doing it well. There's a ton of fabulous makers out there at all different stages. But I would really look to video podcasts, something where you can trust someone a little bit more and then go and see if they have a business. You know, especially the candle making side is one thing. But on the candle business side, people are putting out resources and they don't actually have a business, or they never ran a business, or they had a business and then it went out of business, right? And it doesn't mean that they didn't have a successful business at one time and now it's just not there. But you just have to be able to establish trust with people. We're in a day and age now with AI that trust is the biggest um currency. It's what means the most these days. So I would stay away from an e-book that AI writes. I checked AI. I've said, hey, tell me how to make candles. And some of the stuff that it gives me is pretty scary. So just be cautious of people that are reselling that. So to answer your question, uh instead of a book, I would go towards a candle making course where you have hands-on in our course, not to continue to promote it, but I am going to tell you this inside of our course, we actually work with you. You actually submit your assignments and homework over to us, myself, and Chad, and you have lifetime access to us. So anything candle making related, you send us an email, you DM us, uh, you connect with us or the team, and we help you out. So that would be a resource or someone that's if if you are going to pay for a resource, make sure someone that you trust. Besides that, I would just go to YouTube and watch people's videos, see if you trust them versus buying an e-book. Ebooks, I just wouldn't, I wouldn't do um any books on candle making. Unless you're doing there, are some book writers that the books have been out for say five, 10 years, and they're more on the artistic side. There's some of those that I have seen that teach that that that art of a specific type of um, you know, the the pillar candles or the ones that they paint on. The the def the decorative candles there. But again, nowadays you can just go to YouTube and usually find someone that can help you out with that. Uh so hopefully that helps you out. Hopefully that gives you an answer. Uh, find someone that you can trust. That's ultimately uh what's going to do best for you.

unknown 12:25

All right.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So the next question here is from Dana. Dana's question is how can I reduce my cost per unit in my candle to make more profit? All right, so let's start with breaking down your cost. So cost for your candle is going to be vessel, wax, wick, warning sticker, label, if you have a lid, the oil that is going into this, the packaging that you are potentially providing for your uh candle, say you're putting it in a box, things like that. Uh, and then also your your what you're packing up and sending out for that unboxing experience, right? This is for online sales. If you are selling in person, you also have your tissue paper, you also have your bag that you're presenting it in, things like that. You're also gonna have your candle care cards, all of that. But just speaking about the candle itself, it's pretty hard when we're first starting out to reduce our costs because we're not buying in levels to really get a discount. Now, most of our suppliers, when you are buying, say, your vessels, and say your vessel is $2, just throwing a number out there. If your vessel is $2, once you buy, say, five cases of these, and the case is usually 12. So once you buy five cases, so you're buying 60 of these uh vessels, that $2 generally you'll start to see a discount. That $2 might go down to $1.90. And then if you buy five more cases, it's gonna go down to $1.80. So you're reducing it

Lowering Cost Per Candle For Profit

SPEAKER_00 13:55

some, but not a ton to make a big impact, unfortunately. What I would recommend uh doing is looking at some of the things that you're doing inside of your candle that you might not need. For instance, this lid, this lid cost me about $1.40 now. When we first started our business, we just had a dust cover on here that cost me about a nickel. So I can remove this lid and use a dust cover and save well over $1.30 for every single candle I make. That's gonna be a big difference. Um, your wax. When you buy your wax, you're you're not going to necessarily get a discount on the wax. The more you buy, it's gonna go down incrementally. But what saves the most money when you are trying to reduce your costs on your product is going to be minimize how many orders you place. You have to minimize how many orders you place because all of this stuff is heavy, it's big, it's bulky. So much of our cost of goods is shipping. Is to get the product to us. It's the heavy boxes of wax, it's the bulky boxes of the vessels. Uh the oils, those are relatively less expensive as far as shipping goes per unit. But the shipping is what is going to crush us all the most. So minimize how many times you place orders. Now I know this is tough because all the suppliers that we love are coming out with things and we want to try them, right? But just think that bottle of oil now that's $35, $40, that used to be in the mid-20s, and it's gone up quite a bit over the last couple of years. And so now it's in the 40s. Then you tack on another $10 of shipping to get that one pound of oil. Now your bottle of oil is $45, $50, and that's landed at you. Uh that that's your landed cost. So say, say it's $48 uh on average to land one bottle of oil. That's the bottle of oil plus the shipping to you, and you're using one ounce of oil in your candle. That's $3 a candle just in oil. Okay. So we've got to reduce the price. And shipping is the way that we have found works the most because the more you add into your cart, the bigger your order. At some point, that shipping usually will level off. For example, candle science, right? They have a tiered pricing of their shipping based on the price of your order, the amount of your order. So at some point, I believe it's over $400 or $500 is free shipping, right? So what we do in our business is if we get close to where shipping prices are going to be reduced or maybe even free, we will add a little bit more into our cart. Most other suppliers, I know Lark, they're fantastic for all of their oils, and I believe over $180 free shipping. So if I'm at $150 and I've got $20, $25 in shipping, it makes sense to add another bottle in there and get that and take advantage of the free shipping. So several suppliers have a shipping discount at a certain threshold. So only order your supplies when you actually hit that threshold. That's what I personally would recommend doing. The other ways you can reduce, of course, is minimize packaging. You do not need a lid on your candle. The reason why we have lids on our candles now is for stability and structure because we sell our candles a little bit on Amazon. And we all know how Amazon delivers our packages to our door. They get 10 feet and then they toss it, right? They get close to your door, they toss it, and then on to the next house. So for structure, we wanted to start putting lids on there. If we aren't on Amazon, these lids are going away. We, in fact, we pulled our customers. We sent a survey out to our customers, and well, well over 80% of the people said they do not want a lid, that it was a waste. What's it used for? Why don't why do we need it? We don't need it. Um, keep it. And so when and we have people that come into our retail stores, buy our candles and say, Oh, I actually don't need this. Do you mind just recycling it? And we'll leave it there for us in the store and just take the candle. So people do not want lids. Uh, unless you're trying to sell something that's more elevated, right? More high-end, or that term luxury that I hate in the candle space. If you're selling a $75, $100 candle, a lot of that value, that perceived value that we put into things like that goes into the packaging, right? When you buy a Tiffany bracelet or a Tiffany ring at, you know, at the at the jewelry store. Uh if you go into Tiffany, I mean Tiffany's brand is built around the blue box, right? That's what it's built around. It's not not the jewelry as much as it is the box, right? That's that's just or the like the Louis Vuitton, that oranges brown box that all their products come into or come in. I mean, people love that stuff just as much as the product itself. So depending on your brand, you might not be able to reduce some of those uh packaging features that are perceived as value. But this is a $26 candle of mine, and people aren't looking at this lid as adding more value uh to this candle. So that's uh another area that you can reduce. Another, the last one that I'll give you here uh on this Dana is labels. So in your brand, you can have labels that are different for every single cent of candles that you do, but you don't have to. You can do, we have we do our candle of the month every single month in our business. Uh, we drop it on the first Friday every month. It's but we have a subscription box around it. For that candle, the label that we use is just our logo. It's a square logo, it's a one and a half inch by one and a half inch, or no, excuse me, that's a two inch by two inch um label that is just our uh icon and our word mark underneath it, right? So we can use that over and over again every single month. So it is not specific to that scent. And then we we put our scent on the warning sticker on the bottom. So every month we have this batch of candles we put out. They all have the exact same label on there. And you can do that for your entire collection. You do not need to have individual labels for every single cent. You can have the same vessel, you can have uh a differentiator of being uh the vessel color, but having the same label. Having the same label saves a ton of money because we buy those little two-inch square labels for seven cents, I think, and we get these professionally printed. And we will buy them by the thousand. You know, we used to start at like 250 and then we went to 500, and now we're buying these by two, four, six thousand labels at a time to just to last us for quite some time. And then that reduces the price. Because if you buy less than a hundred of this label right here that I have printed, here if you buy less than a hundred of this, you're spending probably 75 cents. 75 cents. If you buy more than 100, it's gonna reduce it down like 50. You buy more than 200 of them, it's gonna reduce it down to like 35, 40 cents. With labels getting them professionally printed, it's the more you buy, the less expensive it is. Um, and it drops significantly. But one of the issues we did, uh, I've told this horror story a few times. We launched this entire collection of candles that we were gonna have like a hundred different versions of this one candle. They all had uh nice inspirational sayings on them and things. That line that we did pretty much busted, but we had invested in so much we spent over $3,500 just on these labels because we had to get them at a reasonable cost per label. Now we went all in with it. The line ended up not doing well at all. So we ended up losing a significant amount of money just on the labels themselves. So uh we won't do that again. We will, if we come out with a new collection, we will end up spending more on those labels if they're unique to that candle. And then once we know that candle is doing well, then we will start buying them in more bulk. But you can just buy a branded logo label. Um, and that will save you quite a bit. Another thing to think about um when it comes to label is not having a label at all. There's so many nice vessels out there that we are investing in that the it might not need a label on it, right? And in fact, a lot of these vessels can't really put a label on there because they have a textured exterior of the of the glass, and then you wouldn't want to put a label on. We put big labels on these so that it covers up any potential wet spots behind there that we might have. Um, but and it just fits for the size of glass. But um, you know, if you don't want to invest in labels right now, that's totally okay. Uh, get a vessel that's frosted or colored to where you wouldn't be able to see any of the what we call flaws, um, which really aren't a big deal, anyways. Um, hopefully that helps you out there on some ideas of reducing costs. The last one I actually that does come to mind to me is when it comes to oils, oil prices drop significantly as you buy those in bulk. And what you can do is if you love an oil, you can actually get it produced in even bigger amounts. Some of our blends that we do, that we sell a lot of, like this one here, we actually, this is a combination of a couple different oils from different suppliers. Um, we sell so much of that candle that we now have a fragrance house that actually just do these for us in 15 pound jugs. And those 15 pound jugs reduce the price significantly over buying all the individual jugs from the different suppliers and then blending it ourselves that way. It also reduces a lot of time too. But we got to get to that point in our business to where we can buy that. So I know. And I am very mindful that that will take some time to get there. Next question here is from Sarifa Marie. Sarifa's question is how do I maintain progress within my business while doing everything on my own? Completely understand. I am fortunate enough that it's been me and Chad in this business together for quite some time. So this was his idea, this was his hobby that we turned it into a business. So there have been two of us, and we've been able to kind of conquer and divide, especially when we first started out before we had our stores, before we had a team. It was he managed the production, the creativity, the designs, he uh the fragrance designs, because all of ours are blended. Uh, they're not just uh reports, which was nothing wrong with that, but it was just part of the hobby. It was what he enjoyed doing was uh creating sense. So he handles that side. And then I do the business side. I do the Shopify store, I do the um advertising, I do the marketing, I do the ads on Facebook. Um we both do stuff inside of Canva. So we we've been able to conquer and divide, right? When you're doing this on your own, it's going to be a little bit harder than that, of course, just because it's it's less less hands, right? Less hands doing things, less eyes on things. But from the people that are in our inner circle that are uh doing this on their own, and the majority of people are, what I think has worked most mostly has worked for just about everyone is to really get into a time block structure. It's something that was super popular 20 years ago. Every workplace was talking about time blocking and doing things in

Time Blocking When You Work Alone

SPEAKER_00 24:57

segments. We bring it back out. I do it myself. My calendar is all time blocked. So especially when we first started in our business. So I do all the wholesale for our business, the wholesale outreach to different um businesses to hopefully get them to carry our candles. And so I time block it. So this is how it works for me. And I'll give you my wholesale business side as an example, but hopefully you'll be able to take that and and do it in other areas of your candle business. But for my wholesale, uh, it's Mondays. Monday night, uh and this is of course while we still had our nine to five jobs. This is before we were doing this completely full time. When we had our nine to five jobs, I get off of work, we got to have family time, we have to have dinner. Um, we're sitting on the couch Monday night. That was wholesale night. So while we're watching some kind of brainless TV, while some one of our trashy shows or our reality shows or whatever that we love to do, I have my laptop open and I am looking for different opportunities. I'm looking for different boutiques that I can reach out to. So and I'm blocking this so that so I'm doing one thing every single time I'm doing a block of time. So from say seven to nine o'clock every Monday is whole cell time. So that first Monday, I am going through searching the internet, searching stores locally, and then I would go to regional, then I would go to statewide, and then I do it nationally. I do it basically city by city, is how I personally do it. And I will go through and pull up every uh potential retailer that I want to get my candles in, right? So I'm going with we we go in we go into more about how I do my wholesale in my wholesale course or in other videos. But so I I block off that time. So when I am doing my Monday night, that first Monday night, it is just looking for potential stores. I have my spreadsheet pulled up. I'm just doing that. I'm not reaching out, I'm not writing those emails, I'm not following up, I'm not doing any of that. I am just collecting that list. I'm collecting that list of contact information. The store's name, uh, the contact person or the boutique owner, email address, their website. And then what I like to do is in my emails, I always send something that's relatable to them so that we have a connection. So it doesn't seem like it's just a completely cold email. So that's my spreadsheet. So I complete my spreadsheet line by line. On that Monday night for two hours, I'll probably be able to gather up 25 to 40 boutiques. So I have them all listed out, right? And then I don't work on wholesale again until I have my wholesale block of time. Unless this is like a Saturday I had free or I got off of work early on my nine to five and I could get back into it. So I wasn't scheduled to do anything else on that particular topic until that time block came again. So that following Monday comes, seven to nine o'clock, it's wholesale time. Okay, I already have my list of 40 retailers to reach out to. Now I'm crafting and firing off those emails. So I'm emailing all 40 of those on that Monday. The next Monday comes, it's wholesale time again. I am now following up with those um those retailers again. And so that's how I do a lot of our business. So I will block certain time and days and the family, Chad, the dogs. They don't know, but they we have, hey, this is my time. I've got to do this. So depending on who your support system is, if you if you have a family and they take a lot of your time, energy, effort, I totally understand that. Have that conversation of, hey, I need to get my business off the ground. This is what I'm going to need. Can I dedicate 30 minutes on Wednesday, an hour on Thursday, two hours first thing in the morning on Saturday? Find those times in your schedule that you can really work on your business. Once you have those times kind of blocked off, decide what you're going to do in each and every one of those time segments so that that time doesn't come. You think, okay, I have a half hour. What am I going to do? Because you're going to spend a half hour thinking about what you're going to do. Start small, especially when you are starting this and you've got another full-time job, you've got family, you got other commitments. Start small. Don't try to do everything at once. Just work on getting your products marketable. Your products come to market. So you need to get your photography done. You need to get a website built. You need to get your initial collection down. Once you have all of that done and settled, then move on to the next phase. I'm going to start doing markets or the next phase. I'm going to start doing a wholesale, one thing at a time, because I see so many makers that end up, they've got a website, they're on all different social media platforms. They're doing markets. Uh, they've they're doing wholesale outreach. They're trying to get into different locations. And we go back and it's like, oh, like, your photography is really poor, right? And I don't mean that it harshly. Like I hate, I'm not a good photographer at all, but I know what my weaknesses are. And so that's how I'm going to figure out how to outsource it or do a trade with someone, right? But you're doing all of this work and effort, reaching out to all of these stores on wholesale. You've built out what looks like a beautiful structured website. You're posting so much on social media, you're doing all of these things, but the images and the photos that you're putting out there just aren't warranting the prices that they're trying to get on their products, right? So start with doing one thing. Once you get it to where you're comfortable with it, uh, once you know, yeah, like these candles, all right, that looks good. I can market it, I can put it on the world. Okay, great. Do it one thing at a time. I'm gonna get my website because we all know we got to get a website done. Do that first because you're gonna be able to send your traffic there, then start working on the next phase of your business. But time blocking has worked really well for us. If you're in the inner circle, I actually have my time block um resource sheet. It's a worksheet under resources that you can grab in there. Um, it's what I've been using way before my Kindle business. Before I was using like sophisticated online calendars, I have my time block sheet. Uh, and it just kind of helps to, for me, I like doing pen to paper on a lot of things, and and that's what helped me out a little bit. All right, we are on to our last question. And this is from uh a business page of Be Lit Creations, and they're asking, how do you find wholesale accounts? Okay, actually, I just started answering this question in the last question. So uh I teach all of this in our mastering wholesale course, but let me just kind of give you an overall example of what I do. I sit down, I collect an entire list of boutiques that match my niche and who my target audience would be. I collect that information, I put it onto a spreadsheet. I also am going to collect the um either the shop owner or if it's a bigger store, they may have like a marketing department or a buyer department. But generally it's going who we're trying to get our candles into. It's usually gonna be the owner or the store manager that's going to handle that. I look for their email address, whether on their website, on their social media, I put that on the spreadsheet. I also put something that's relatable to them because here's the key when it comes to wholesale. When I send an email out to someone, they're gonna assume that it's just an email that they get every single day. I get emails every single day in my candle style from other people wanting to carry their products in my store. Perfumes, soaps, stickers, t-shirts, all kinds of people are emailing us. When I get an email that doesn't seem personal at all, they're not, they're not addressing, they're not anything about my business. They're not saying, hey, I visited your store or hey, I love your candles. They're not saying anything. They're just saying, this is who I am. I am this person, I am this person, I do this. Those emails, I delete them right away. Because it's not about when we're doing wholesale, it's not about us. When I do wholesale, it's not about my candle. It's about

Finding Wholesale Accounts That Convert

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how I can make you the boutique money. It's not about how great my candle is. It's how am I going to make you money because that's what they're in the business for. They're in the retail environment to make money. And so it's not about me and my candle. So that's one thing. So I always, when I'm researching the what I call it, scraping the internet for information of who I'm going to reach out to, I always have a call for something that's relatable. Whether that is uh I go to their Instagram and I see, oh, they just released these brand new tea towels. So I'm going to put that in my column so that when I send them that email, I'm going to put in that relatability factor. Hey, I absolutely love those brand new tea towels that you started carrying with the lemons on there. I'm sure they're going to be popular this time of season. Something like that. So they know when they first read that email, the first line is, oh, this is someone that actually knows my business, right? That doesn't mean I'm a daily shopper of your business or I've even been in your store because where I'm doing outreach to isn't even in my state, right? But I'm putting in the effort to find something relatable that's going to capture them. That's like they're up the hook, right? That gets them to actually read my email. And once they read my email, my email needs to be about them, not about me, not about my candles. It's about them and how my products is going to make them money because my products, their customer is going to love. Not that they're going to love it. The store manager, that um, or that boutique owner, they don't care about love. They're not selling products that they love. They're selling products that their customers love. And they might not always be their customer, right? So it's not a, oh, you're gonna love my candles. They might hate candles, but they sell candles because they do well in their store. Keep that in mind. They're in the business of making money and selling products. So we need to give them an angle where we're promising them that they're going to make money on our products. Hopefully that helps you out a little bit. I go locally first because the local angle of doing wholesale is the easiest. Then I go to regional and then I'll go statewide. All of that is still pretty easy, in my, in my opinion, uh, to do wholesale because of the relatability factor. You can be entirely across the state, but in my email, I can say, hey, these are Michigan-made candles made right here in uh in the state. And people like to carry locally made stuff. Then I can go to Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and say, hey, these are made in the Midwest, right? Or these are made here on the East Coast or the West Coast, depending on where you're at, right? And then nationally, I can say, hey, these are made in the US, right? So that is just a way of an angle of relatability when you're not actually really close with the shop. So hopefully, again, this has helped you all out in some angle with your business here today. Submit your questions in the comments below. Come inside our Facebook group, ask questions there. If this video has helped you out whatsoever, I would love a like and subscribe. That is a huge way of just saying thank you. And it allows us to continue to put out content for you. A simple like and subscribe. Also, if you have a comment, I would love it. Whether it's a positive one, whether it's something that you want us to answer on an upcoming episode, putting a comment here on YouTube is fantastic. Or if you would do a review on our podcast, whether on Apple, Spotify, or any platform that you're listening on, that would help us out tremendously. Again, thank you so much for being here. Have a fantastic week.