Amateur with Ambition: Learn how to get your sales off the ground

Starting a small business doesn’t have to be a pain, there’s bound to be bumps in the road, but this won’t stop you from creating great products and making and living by doing what you love. Whether you’re completely new to candle making or you’re thinking about expanding into a small business, knowing exactly what you need is crucial. There are many components to getting your business off the ground and even more to keep it established. Starting out a new venture can seem daunting, but with the right resources and knowledge, you’ll soon be bringing home the bacon. 

Getting the basics right

Before you start thinking about your branding, price list and profit margins there are some basics you need to nail before getting started. Understanding the importance of health and safety amongst the candle industry is super important. Getting to grips with your CLP’s is one of the most important things to get right. For anything you create for sale, you’ll need to make sure the fragrance blend you use has its own SDS which in turn will be used to create a CLP compliant label for your product.

Next up, you need to ensure that customers can easily find your details. By law, customers have the right to know who they’re buying their products from, therefore you must be able to provide your business name, legal ownership name and an address where legal documents can be sent. This is required on items such as receipts, invoices, orders and emails and should always be visible and easy to find.

Last but certainly not least is business insurance. An absolute necessity for anyone who is selling their products to the public. Craft insurance is in place to cover your business against any unforeseen circumstances so its vital that you are covered before selling. 

Trying your hand at social media

One of the best ways that you can boost your business is through the power of social media. Its free, easy to use and is at your complete disposal. However, it's important to understand a few things about advertising your products on social media before you dive in.  First and foremost, you need to understand your audience, who you plan to target and how you’ll both achieve this and measure the impact. Second up, nailing your content. Ensuring you share relevant and inspiring posts will help your audience to connect with and trust your brand. Alongside the content you share its important to get the creative aspects right. Ensure you use high quality and exciting imagery to capture your audience’s attention. Once your content is live and out there, don’t abandon it, reply to comments, connect with others and remember to post regularly to ensure you can breed a healthy social media platform for your customers to engage with.

Go live online

Depending on your individual situation, it may be worth shopping around for a website to host your products if orders are becoming overwhelming and you’re looking for an easier and more reliant way to track your customer's activity. Alternatively, you could spend some time setting up a free website online to act as a landing page to direct customers to your social media platforms and to generally give them some information about your brand, prices and how they can order from you. 

Selling somewhere else

If you didn’t know already, there are a whole host of online shops where you can sell your products. Whether its Etsy or Depop, have a look around at what shops would best suit your products. Most of these platforms only charge a small handling fee for hosting your products and make the selling process a lot easier as they tend to offer services such as buyer protection and often give your customers multiple options when it comes to paying.

At Supplies for Candles we love to see our customers grow their businesses. That’s why we’ve launched Candle College, a hub that’s here for you and your business, giving you tips, ideas and inspiration to keep your candles creative and client base growing. Drop by our customer stories forum and share your small business goals and achievements with the rest of the Supplies for Candles community.