We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cory Rindskopf a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cory , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
We are a sweet + pink candle bar. I started this business in 2015 as a DIY studio to connect with my community through creativity. We offered classes on everything from Candle Pouring, Floral Arranging and everything in between! In 2020 I need to transition my business to something that I could do on a smaller scale so we transformed our space into a candle bar so that we could host small groups in a safe setting. During this time, I was also dealing with infertility and along my journey into why this was happening, I was introduced to how toxic candles can be and how they can be hormone disruptors and neuro toxins. It was in that moment that I knew that I would not make a product that could add to my struggles AND do harm my friends and community. So we sat out to create the cleanest and prettiest candles and home goods that we could possible make! We sell our Pretty + Clean goods on our website across the US, but some people say that our secret sauce is our workshops! Each year we host thousands of women during our candle classes where we have them pick out a gorgeous container from our candle bar that acts as decor in their homes, and then fill it with the most amazing, clean custom candle. Our proprietary process and skilled Scentristas help our attendees choose the perfect scents combinations from our over 200+ clean scents while having the best time with their friends! For me, knowing that my community is being educated on the dangers of harmful chemicals in some of the big brand name candles, while making something beautiful and having the best time with their friends, is the best feeling!!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
After college I took a job in Finance and spent 7 years in a drab grey cubical staring at a computer screen. When my dad was diagnosed with a glioblastoma( a terminal brain tumor) I found myself turning towards creating and crafting to help with my anxiety and grief. It was during this period of time that I found that I also needed my community more and more. And if I was needing these things, I felt like others were too! So I left that cubical and created that most welcoming and brightest (pink) space to host my friends and community doing something creative! If there was a craft I knew how to make, I would teach it around our family style craft table…and if I couldn’t teach it, I invited other creatives from all over Charlotte to come and teach their skills inside the pink studio! Then when the world stood still fro a couple of years, I took our most popular class that we taught ( candle making) and started educating my community on having clean products in our homes for our own health and the health of our family. Over the last 8 years we have connected friends new and old over something creative in our workshop space and our candles have been burnt in homes all of the US! While my business has taken on different iterations over the years, we have stayed true to my goal of having a community driven business that focuses on creativity and connection! I am so proud of watching friends new and old sit across from each other in our pink studio while they are creating something that they are proud of and finding connections with people that they might not have met it it weren’t for our little space!
Have you ever had to pivot?
Since I was a teenager, I have considered myself a hustler! I grew up with river guide for a dad and a mom who was a special education teacher in a tiny little southern town in the middle of nowhere. My mom always joked that she didn’t know where I came from with my love of….lets say finer things! SO from an early age, if there was something that I wanted, I would figure out how to work hard to get it. If it meant working 5 different jobs during the summer, I would do it. During college, I sold Real Estate for a land development company all over the southeast which wasn’t the norm in my college group of friends but it allowed me to have the disposable income that I needed to get through college. When I was looking to leave my steady job and start this business, my husband and I decided that we would start small and I would build as we grew. I have always been really proud that we started this business without a business loans or debt. My business gets facelifts and new products when I can afford it based on what we have been able to bring through the door and building my brand around community and creativity. When covid hit and no one was gathering together, I knew I had to get creative in order to pay my rent at the pink studio. I was hell bent on not letting my doors close so I whipped out my sewing machine, ordered pretty fabrics and taught myself how to make masks. For months I sewed and sewed and sewed, making masks for my community. they were bright and fun, and they helped provide a timely service for my people and keep my business alive when we weren’t able to sit around the craft table. Then when masks weren’t something that were as needed but we still weren’t getting out and about that much, I started offering Balloon Installs as a side gig to help create pretty things for my community. I am sure there were some people that were wondering what the heck I was up to but these were all things that helped keep me afloat during a time when I watched so many of my small business friends shutter their doors. For the last 24 months we have been able to exist solely on our growing candle and clean home scents business without the added stress of trying to scrape together other gigs to pay our bills. And that is a wonderful thing to see as we are growing and able to consistently fill the seats around our table while we create candles! Staying flexible in my methods as a business while keeping my main mission at heart has been something that has allowed me to still be standing! Since the inception of my business, we have had several iterations and I think that is all part of growing with your business! That is something that can be hard for some businesses to wrap their heads around when times get tough or they find something in their current model not working!
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Building my social media has been a labor of love for me! I get 90% of my business from social media and I don’t have a particularly large account. But what I do have is an account of very engaged clients. When I am active on instagram, my calendar fills up, and vise versa, I take a break…so does my activity! Early on I decided that my social media needed to be made up of people that were in my targeted demographic since the lion share of my business comes from our in person workshops. So following the generic advice from most social media account managers to grow grow grow your follower count, just didn’t make sense for me! Someone once told me that you may feel like you have a small account but if you had a day when all 3 thousand of your followers walked through your door, you would be overwhelmed! And that stuck with me. Finding ways to engage with MY community on social media has always been my main objective. For my particular business, building my social where I am makes the most sense for me…one day I hopefully will have a larger reach but having a solid foundation is what is going to get me there. The other thing that I have made a huge focus of on my account is Stories. This is where my people hang out with most and I show up as only I can show up! I have shared everything from my fertility journey, to being a new mother, our pretty candles, to small business tips and everything in between. I often hear that when people meet me that they already feel like they know me because I am the same person on social that I am when you meet me – Sometimes I am too loud, sometimes my hair is too big, sometimes my accent is too country, sometimes my lips are too bright….I don’t spam my account with things I don’t believe in or try to force an agenda on anyone. Just like I wouldn’t in real life. Being who I AM is a huge driver for me on the gram. I make sure that my brand represents my mission always. Supportive, Community, Small Business Focused, Family driven, Creative, Pretty, Connective, Candles…not just one product that I sell. I also tell my friends that I use instagram as my very own diary! I want to be able to look back and see the events that I was helping with, how I was growing my business at the time (yes balloons and masks are on there!), the people that sat around our table, the way I was feeling. All the things, not just the canned “It’s FriYAY” posts that feel so silly after a point. And that has helped me stay motived to continue to be present on social. So write out what it is that you want to accomplish on social media. think past numbers and really think about how you are going to show up and what you have staying power to focus on! Social media is a long game!!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bellsboxcollective.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bellsboxcollective?igsh=MXN4M3VuaW9uYWM1eQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bellsboxcollective/
Image Credits
Lauren Shelby Photography