We were lucky to catch up with Shaniqua Scott recently and have shared our conversation below.
Shaniqua, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?
I’m my own hero. Growing up, I never had it easy in life. Unfortunately, I did not always have my parents neither, so I feel like I’m my own hero. I survived a lot, especially at a young age. I will say my parents have taught me not to follow in their footsteps. The lesson I’ve learned is to not make the same mistake twice. Sometimes I can be hardheaded, but I’m also the type of person that likes to take chances and risk so I feel like is it really a lesson learned if you haven’t tried it?
Shaniqua, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As crazy as this sound, I never even had the thought of myself selling candles. One of my close friends brought me a candle kit just for the fun of it, it’s just something I wanted. I like try new things so I started making candles for myself. Then April 2024 I was approached by one of my old colleagues, he runs an expo every year. We were just having casual conversation and he asked me was there anything that I do and I told him no not really. However the more we talked, he discovered that I make candles, but I don’t sell them. Pretty much he told me to make some kennels and offered for me to sell them at the expo to see how it will turn out. Next thing you know I’ve just been making moves attending events. I had my first candle workshop. It’s just been a very amazing experience. I make everything handmade for my candles using only soy wax and real flowers. I even have picked my flowers ! I also make hand sanitizer. I make the hand sanitizers from an aloe plant or aloe gel. I recently started to make soap, they will be coming soon so stay tuned! When it comes to my customers, I try to give them exactly what they want which is why I do custom orders, just in case you do not want one of my signature scents. I am willing to find the right scent for you. A quote that my grandfather always says to me is “ Sleeping is for dead people.” I stick by the quote because it reminds me that I need to keep going, keep growing and grinding because the hustle doesn’t stop, hard work is going to pay off soon enough! I’m very proud of myself for sticking through this being a entrepreneur. I have a lot of emotions, but I’m still learning and figuring a lot of things out. I’m glad I just didn’t give up or anything like that, not that I was, but I know people who stopped doing the things that they love. I just enjoy making candles, and making things to please other people . I’m also proud of my dedication and the time and effort that I put into this. I love how I’m putting myself out there. The fact that I took a candle course really shows that I’m trying to go through with this. I’m the type of person where I won’t do something, if I really don’t wanna do it.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Unfortunately I’m not really big on posting on social media, but I realized with having a business you need to be consistent and have content to post. Therefore I post every day even if it’s the same video, I tried to keep social media interactive. I like the fact that now on social media you can schedule videos. I have a strategy where I’ll make a long video and cut that video into five mini videos. This allows me to have a bunch of content so it’s honestly about being consistent. It’s also good if you have people that interact with you. Posting consistently, interacting with your followers, sharing post and commenting on post makes social media low-key a part-time job
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Funding my own business, well, I spent my own personal money. I used to put it in my budget with my bills. Now that I gained candle money supplies
once I started going to events and making little bit of money. This allowed me to create a business account, using that money to fund my business.
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Shaniqua Scott