We recently connected with Briar Rose and have shared our conversation below.

Briar, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

Social media has been the backdrop of our company, as we have used it to not only share local events we attend but also to connect with our customer base. We at Cressa Candles opted out of outsourcing a management team for our socials due to the fact it separated us from our clientele and is not something we personally think needs to be within our budget at this current time. We mildly deliberated the option due to receiving emails from multiple social media accountants wanting to help improve the quality of the accounts. What we found from the observations they sent was the lack of aesthetically pleasing content, or so their emails said. What we did with that information was to ignore them and to go out and ask our frequently returning and new customers what they would prefer to see on our socials, as well as what they thought would bring in new customers. This gave birth to posts consisting of fragments of our storyline, melted wax asmr, packaging of our product, questionnaires for the viewers and so much more. Sharing the successes and frustrations of running the business gave our social media presence new life. We highly recommend if you are capable of handling the social media accounts on your own to do so. Find your niche, share, and don’t forget to not give up. If you find yourself in a spot your going stagnant or you are finding it difficult to work a social media account for your company don’t hesitate to ask your clients or customers what they would like to see from your company for the account. Another piece of advice from one business to another when handling social media accounts record videos and save them in drafts as well as photos. make sure they are set and ready to post with any commentary and music where you can. This will help keep things going when you don’t have the time to make fresh posts. we all get busy from time to time and it can be difficult making sure you post as regularly as possible. Saving the content into the drafts gives you something to share without having to worry about taking the time you may not have to make new content. Set a schedule specifically for content making. We personally have a week out of the month where we record and take photos of products and save them to the drafts so when we get too busy with events we have something to share with our base. If you choose to opt for a social media manager investigate them. Its a job for you that you pay them for. Be sure they are te right fit nad are capable of representing your company the way you wish it to be presented.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Boy where to start, we have come a long way from where we were last year. Let’s see, we started out as two random people being pushed together by a mutual friend who saw the potential we had if we worked together. We met and lost several friends and coworkers (vendors like us) along the way. Found our niche. Experienced depression and stress at its worst. Hit a few financial rough spots. Moved homes from one location to another. MMM, this is all a bit vague, my apologies let’s start with the last time we spoke.

Last time we spoke Michael and I were both working jobs to support Cressa Candles, figuring out which wicks work, had 11 scents and were discovering cosplay, vending events, and growth within ourselves thanks to the education provided by managing Cressa. Today, almost a year later, Micahel and I are moving from being at events as often and focusing more on the website and social media presence of Cressa, while managing our own businesses. Michael is the proud owner and designer of Graphic by Jones, a graphic design t-shirt company that can be found on Etsy. I am working on starting a cuddling company called Snuggle Bunnies Incorporated with Mars, who is a co-founder and a close friend of mine. We are just about ready to bring this much-needed form of genuine human contact to the public and cannot wait to help those that are in need of physical human comfort here in Memphis.

While branching off and creating other companies Michael and I got to work on bringing more from Cressa to life. We started writing a book to go along with our original 11 scents, the second draft of this can be found for reading pleasure on our website. We moved from IAM over to Black Lodge: Video Rental at 405 N Clevland where you can purchase our wax melts, candles of various sizes, Skull candles, tea light candles, and our first artistic prints. We created our seasonal collection to be brought to the public again next year as we are adding to the collection. This year you will be able to purchase three of the amazing scents, Fairgrounds, Peppermint Bliss, and Yuletide. We have branched into the more kinky side of things and created a Sensual Collection. This collection is designed for Wax Play and has the option to add moisturizers to the candle itself for a more skin-healthy play, we also provide a newsletter-type leaflet of what wax play is, how to play safely, consent, clean up, aftercare and details about the candles that were customized for each order. We will be bringing forth Cressa Gardens on the website. This section of the website is a mix of odds and ends such as photography, art, and our novelty products for customers to purchase online if they found us outside of a Black Lodge Event. There is so much more in the works we cannot wait to bring to our customers and we hope the new additions make them smile.

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

Ooof that’s..uh..yeah…yeah, I can. So about mid-fall last year I got hit with a very deep depression. During that time I couldn’t function, I couldn’t leave my room, I could barely even get out of bed. My life and my business suffered greatly because of it. My family and friends helped to bring me back to this reality and rebuilding from there has not been easy. I’ve almost given up several times business-wise to the dismay of Michael, who cheered me on and took on a lot of the responsibility of delegating tasks and most of the workload until I was ready to manage Cressa and my life as a whole again. During this time I learned I cannot in fact do it all without actual help. I am a superwoman but I am not in fact Superwoman. This led to me fully sharing Cressa’s responsibilities between Michael and myself, rather than one of us having full control of one aspect or another of the company we both share the workload. I’ve taken more time from events and vending opportunities to spend that time with my children and discover what my true happiness is. The massive depression spell is one of the many reasons we have chosen to move to do more online sales and less in-person sales. At least until we can find a building of our own to call home. We will still do events but those events will be limited and posted to our website in the newsletter.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

This story is both amusing and one of my more outrageous moments. I had spent the day with the kids at the park before taking them to their dad. Once he picked them up I headed back up to the park to hang out with the then situationship, who then invited me over for dinner. I had grabbed my laptop and a few other odds and ends as I was working on trying to breathe new life into Briar and The Rose, a failed attempt at an esoteric shop. While at the house the situationship started dinner and asked if I had worked any on my book. Side note I still have not added another chapter to that book. I told him no and asked what he was meaning by the question to which he informed me i was not the only author he knew. In walks in Michael was a bit put back by me being in the dining room as he was not made aware that company would be over. Michael went to the garage to smoke a cigarette and I sat at the table to boot up my laptop and begin working on the book. The situation ship told me Michael’s name and that he was a bit awkward with new people. Michael walked back in and I rather rudely in tone asked, “Can you read?”. The insulted look and defensive response of Yes I received is one of our favorite memories. We wound up spending the night comparing notes to both of our stories and sharing bits of them with each other. So yeah that is how we became friends.      

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cressacandles.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cressacandles/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cressacandles
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@cressacandles

Image Credits
credits of images and art work goes to Briar Rose and Michael