Not Just Candle Talk

Transforming Challenges into Candle Business Triumphs

• Not Just Candle Talk

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Unlock the secrets to thriving in the candle business with our latest episode of Not Just Candle Talk! Curious about how you can transform setbacks into stepping stones for growth? You're in the right place. This week, we're equipping you with actionable strategies to boost your confidence as a small business owner in the ever-competitive candle market. From mastering quality control and effective production methods to honing your financial management and marketing research skills, we've got your back. And let's not forget about finding that unique niche and staying ahead of trends to ensure your brand remains relevant and competitive.

As we gear up for the festive season, we're thrilled to share our insights on preparing for the holidays in 2024. Discover our personal tips and tricks to make this holiday season your most successful yet. Plus, we’re bringing you an exclusive guest who will share their invaluable holiday preparation stories and tips. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration to help you shine brighter in your candle business. Tune in and get ready to light up your holiday season with confidence and flair!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Not Just Candle Talk, the podcast where we illuminate the path to success in the candle business. On today's episode, it's all about building confidence as a small business owner and competing with the big name companies. We're going to do a brief overview of the topics. It's going to challenges, taking risk, achieving goals right, and it can also help in decision-making, inspiring your team adapt to changes in the world of business, turning obstacles into opportunities and in embracing possibilities. So self-confidence is vital and I want to touch on one of the methods that I use for being confident in what I do.

Speaker 1:

Um, and I've learned this over the years. It wasn't like automatic For me, but I learned that Change. Two things I learned that change is inevitable and you can't Be afraid of it. It's going to happen. Um, and Understanding that All setbacks Are not failures. All setbacks can be a learning, a road to learning why that happened and turning that into an opportunity helped me over the years to overcome any bumps in my confidence that I had before up until now. And another thing with self-confidence, maybe it's three things now. Maybe it's three things now Learning. Never, never, never. Stop learning. You will be amazed Of everything, how much your confidence will boost the more you know, right, I'm not saying that you're going to be the ace. You know the ace of everything, but the more you learn, the confident you are and comfortable comfortability. Confidence lead to comfortability, right? So I just want to touch on how that those things help me and possibly can help the next small business owner, because self-confidence is it is the driving force to whether your small businesses will stand or fall for a short period or long period of time. Um, so just be mindful of uh, of those things, um courses. Those things will also help in staying confident over the test of time of your business.

Speaker 1:

So now I want to touch into running a small business, establishing your brand in today's market and I think a lot of people have to understand that you have to have an operational strategy. What I mean by that is quality control, getting high quality materials, effective production methods to stay relevant. You have to have those things, or try to implement those things in your business. That is another confidence booster. Once you know that you have good materials, that's a confidence booster because you're satisfied and you know that your customers will be satisfied with quality materials, right Quality products, the outcome of the product that you make. I said that all around. I went all around that, but that's what I was getting at.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that will help with boosting confidence is time management Having a deadline, having a goal of when you want to get one project done or started, end it and move on to the next project. Time management is vital and it also, like I said, can help with self-confidence, because who wants to lag? Who wants to lag in getting things done as a small business owner? There's no. There's no lagging Getting things done as a small business owner. There's no lagging. You have to, it's almost a must To have some type of time management strategy In what you're doing. And Once you get it down, it's not a learned, it can be a learned behavior, but once you get it down, you'll be amazed and see how that helps with you, your confidence for yourself and your team, knowing that you can go from A to Z in a timely fashion, so to speak.

Speaker 1:

Financial management is another one. Budgeting, knowing your budget, tracking your expenses, tracking your profits All of that, marketing and sales, how to do research All of those things Will do two things. One, that's another confidence booster, because you know small business owners no one's you know, teaching you a lot of this stuff. So once you learn it, you could teach another person in your company, on your team, right? Knowing how to do these things is essential how to market, how to look at your sales, knowing where your sales are from the beginning of the year to the end of the year or vice versa, the beginning of the year to the end of the year or vice versa Um, those things are crucial to um confidence and establishing yourself with these big, uh, big brand, um, big brands out there.

Speaker 1:

Um, you have an idea of what, the sense of what they have to go through and you're right there with them and you can understand them more, better. And I'm not necessarily want to compete With a big brand, but you want to find your. You want to find your niche To where you're not actually competing, but you are trying to find that little gap that they may have that you and your team can get in, squeeze in and start building your own community of customers. Right, because you know they don't big names, they don't have all the answers, not all the time. So that's when the small businesses come in and say, hey, but we found this out. Sustainability, we're right there with you and you know those types of things will help build confidence too, finding those little gaps in marketing trends, what's trending right now. If you stay on top of those things, that could be your end to how the companies are running and you take that little, small piece for yourself and for your team, right, and that's also a confidence builder.

Speaker 1:

And you want to have a business where your craftsmanship is stellar right, if you're making something, uh, or having it made for you, you want to make sure that, um, those things are again, high quality, um can be done in a timely fashion and sustainable, because that's where we at Everything. You know, this world right now is 2024. If you're not talking about sustainability, you're lagging almost right. Right? Everybody want the natural, eco-friendly products. You know the things. That's clean, so to speak. So you know those types of things. You have to implement that in your craftsmanship, in your, in your brand, some type of way to stay relevant. Right, because we all, we all that's that's what it's about. We all want to stay relevant in some type of way.

Speaker 1:

I just wanted to touch on self-confidence, trying to ease your way into big brands. I just you know I had to. I wanted to say my piece about them, because we, as a candle business, we struggle with the same. We struggle with the same things. Right, like everything that I just said, it's a process. I've went through it, I'm going through it, I will not stop going through it. Right, you can't. You can't stop going through it. And we're just, we're no different. You know, we trying to get our little little spot in the, in the market as well, and to do those things. We have to have the, have the conversation about it. You know, um, and have the, um, the mindset that it can be done. So I just wanted to come on and and and just share my thoughts about, uh, confidence, cause I have a lot of people that ask me hey, how do you stay confident? How do you keep going all the time? You've been doing this for a minute now. How do you keep doing it? And I just want to touch on it and maybe it enlightens someone, inspires someone to go out and do the same thing, or at least get the brain working in that direction. Yeah, um, so, uh, hopefully I did my just do.

Speaker 1:

I want to touch on a couple of books that I have that um, that might help as well. Um, it's called. The one of them is called the lean startup by Eric uh Rice. I hope I said the last name right, eric Rice. Uh, another book is, um, the new philosophy of success by Carol Dweck. Um, if you want to, you know, try to find those two books. They might help with, uh, self-confidence and navigating the small business world, if you have you. We also have an e-book about a success story about a company that a sustainable company. It's just a short story, inspirational story. We just made an e-book. Inspirational story. We just made an ebook and it's called the Journey to Sustainability.

Speaker 1:

I believe it's a link in this episode I will put. If it's not, I will put the link of it in the book, I mean in the podcast episode. And those are just you know references, and those are just you know references. Like I said, keep learning, keep, keep your mind always occupied and on positive things, and in due time the success will show itself in one way or another. So that's all the time I have now. Hope you enjoyed this podcast.

Speaker 1:

For the next, stay tuned. For the next episode, it's going to be about what are you doing to get ready for the holiday season. I repeat, the next episode will be what are you doing for the upcoming holiday season 2024? For um, stay ready, stay ready, stay ready. Um, hopefully you know we can. Um, we're going to, we're going to disclose, actually we're going to disclose what we're doing for for the holiday months and, uh, I hope I can find someone to come on. Hopefully I don't know somebody else can come on and share their story as well. We'll see, but until then, thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in. Bye.