We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gloria Van Wort a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Gloria , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

Initially it was just me. I was doing everything. Sourcing, producing, packaging, deliveries, markets, emails, accounting, all of it. Then I realized that if I wanted to expand, I’d need some help. My first staff member actually fell right into my lap. I was holding a candle making class at Fratelli in Westboro (I’ve been doing them a few times a month at Fratelli for the last 2 years), and one of the attendees mentioned that if I was ever looking to hire someone, she’d love to help. At the time, I wasn’t ready for it, but when spring came and I saw how busy things were becoming, I reached out to her.

I met with her for a coffee. We chatted for about 15 minutes and I realized she’d be a great fit. I’m not a conventional “boss”. I’m a firm believer that you can teach almost anyone pretty much anything, so previous experience didn’t really matter. As dumb as it may sound, I hire based on the person’s vibe. If I can get along with you and like your vibe, you’re hired. All I really care about is that you need to be social. Working a booth at a market is a sales job, so you need to be social in order to get people to come up to the booth and to be able to explain the benefits of our products to them.

I’m also a huge proponent of women, so we’re an all-female team. I call us The Glorified Girlies. I want to break the stigma that women can’t work together and collaborate.

So once I had her trained, I decided to bring on another team member, and then another. Those two have since left due to family obligations, but they’ve both said they want to come back eventually. So I then hired another staff member that was a friend of my 2nd staff member, and I’m in the process of hiring 3 more staff.

To hire the last three, I put a post up on instagram saying that I was hiring and giving the details, and the response was overwhelming. The power of social media is insane!

Gloria , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Glorified By Society is a female owned and operated Canadian home and body care company. We hand make candles, car air fresheners, room sprays, diffuser oils, perfumes, and a hair oil.

All of our products are phthalate and paraben free (those are the nasty cancer causing and hormone disrupting chemicals). They’re also vegan, cruelty-free, and pet safe. All of our packaging is reusable, and recyclable. Protecting you, your home, and the environment is so important to us.

I know a lot of women are going fragrance free because of the hormone disrupting and cancer causing agents in most scented products. I LOVE scented products, but wanted to discover a safer way to have them in your home and on your body.

People are also learning now that scented products can be toxic for animals, and with two little doggies at home, that’s important to me too.

I wanted to show people that you don’t have to go completely scent free to stay safe. My mom is a cancer survivor and I have endometriosis and have struggled with infertility, so I understand the importance of avoiding products that can cause women harm.

I realized how toxic the scented products I was using in my home were, and at the time, I couldn’t find any products that were less harmful, so I decided to create them!

We educate people on the benefits of using safe scents every single day, and for that, I’m incredibly proud. Women are finally starting to see that mass produced scented products can be harmful, and I’m grateful that we’re starting to turn that tide.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn being so trusting with other business owners that do the same thing as me.

I still believe in community over competition, but there’s a caveat to it now.

Community over competition – until you copy. Then you’re cut.

There’s enough room for everyone because we’re all so unique in our offerings and personalities. I am a HUGE proponent of women owning businesses and supporting each other. I buy things from my competitors all the time. I love seeing women succeed. I love telling women how I got started, and encouraging them that they can do it too. Because I truly believe that if I can start a business, anyone can.

That being said, outright copying your peers is just really shady to me.

I’ve had several business owners see the things that I do in my business, and see the success I’ve achieved, and outright copy those things and start doing them in their businesses.

There’s a line I always have to go back to and remind myself of from the movie Jerry Maguire: “It’s not called show friends. It’s called show business.”

I don’t consider myself to be in competition with anyone because I’m the special sauce in my own business, but having a peer steal your idea just sort of makes you realize that you can’t trust everyone.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Ha this is a good one that I love to share.

When I first started candle making, I was using beeswax. I adore beeswax, but it’s notoriously difficult to work with.

I realized that there was a gap in the candle market: nobody was making beeswax candles in jars, so I decided to change that! (Not realizing there’s a reason for it)

So off I go testing my scented beeswax candles with wooden wicks in amber jars. Candle making is literally science for those of you that don’t know, so a TON of testing has to go into it.

I noticed that I was having issues with my candles burning properly, so I decided to stop into my supplier’s warehouse and pick her brain a bit.

I told her my candles weren’t burning properly, and that there was a lot of hang up on the side of the jar. So she says “Well there’s your first problem. Beeswax doesn’t like to be put in jars. It needs a lot of oxygen in order to melt properly. That’s why you rarely see beeswax candles in jars.” Oh.

Then she says “And if you’re using fragrance, beeswax hates that. it’ll clog your wick.” Oh…again.

“And speaking of wicks, what kind are you using” she says. To which I reply “wooden wicks”, and she says, well there’s your third issue. Beeswax is too viscous for a wooden wick so you’re clogging your wick with not only the fragrance, but the wax itself.” Oh… for the third time.

So I left there still completely undeterred for whatever reason, and with the bright idea that I would mix soy wax with the beeswax to make it a bit thinner. Not realizing that I’d have to do math along with science every time I had to make a batch of candles.

The soy-beeswax concoction worked though, and I decided to start selling my candles. I thought of the adorable name “Afterglo” for my company, and launched. After a few months, I had a couple of people tell me that their candle still wouldn’t burn properly. I decided maybe it was time to listen to my supplier and ditch the beeswax, so I started testing a pre-made blend of soy wax and coconut wax and it was beautiful. The wax was soft, the burn was consistent, the smell was incredible, and I hadn’t had any candles not burn properly.

I was going to just switch all of my wax over to the coconut soy blend once the batch I had made of the beeswax finished selling.

And then I was scrolling on Instagram one day and noticed that an adult store in Montreal had the same name as me, Afterglo. So I decided to go look on the trademark website so I could file one, and sure enough, they had already trademarked it.

I was like, okay well I guess it’s time for a total rebrand since I’m switching the wax anyways. So I shut down for 2 months and regrouped and rebranded and Glorified By Society was launched on August 2nd, 2022. The rest is history!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://glorifiedbysociety.com
• Instagram: @glorifiedbysociety

Image Credits

Personal Photo – Maggie Ikemiya
Product Shots – 99 The Agency