We were lucky to catch up with D’Shawn Russell recently and have shared our conversation below.

D’Shawn , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Choose your partners carefully and trust your gut. I made very bad decisions by going against what I thought I should do and listening to “experts”. I lost a ton of money by hiring a fancy firm to run my Facebook Ads. Their results were on par with my own except I didn’t lose thousands of dollars per month paying them.

I also lost money by paying a fancy firm out of NYC to do my social media. I do it myself now using Buffer to schedule, my free pics, and recipes & memes from Pinterest. A custom collab with a celebrity cost me almost $10,000 in time, inventory and design fees. I still get pissed when I look at those containers… but it is a reminder to trust my gut. If a mistake has to be made, do it early and cheaply. I’m glad I made those mistakes while small and it wasn’t too disastrous.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Southern Elegance Candle Company is owned and operated by D’Shawn Russell. I am the embodiment of upbringing in a small North Carolina town; I spent summers picking fresh fruit, swimming in the ocean, going to church with my grandma, and catching lightning bugs in the evening. As a military spouse, CEO, mother, educator, and passionate candle maker and designer, I am constantly working to create new products, and give back to southern communities.

Southern Elegance Candle Co., a Southern roots-inspired and developed candle company that seeks to instill the timeless nostalgia and heart-warming feelings of growing up in the south, is redefining what it truly means to be a southern company.

Although the heart of what the company does is steeped in southern traditions, Southern Elegance products are for anyone who wants their personal space to feel comforting and inviting. Our customers come from all walks of life, their hope is that with each purchase customers are reminded to see the good in others and celebrate the things we all have in common – no matter where we’re from.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I started Southern Elegance right after my son was born as a hobby. Initially, I made a bunch of random bath and body products in addition to the candles. When I decided to get serious, I looked at everything and decided to just focus on one product and chose candles because they had the potential to be the most profitable. I chose a niche that I could speak authentically about. My ideal customer was easy to identify because it was basically me. (But, don’t use that as a marketing strategy. It just happened to work in this case) I was born and raised in the South. I LOVE living here and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I created a company around all the things that I love to do.

I was working in education at the time and I absolutely hated it. One day walked into work and quit my job to make candle-making a full-time career. I had absolutely no background in sales, manufacturing, marketing or anything business-related. I basically had no clue as to how it was going to work or if this was even a viable plan. Everything was a learning curve, and I spent hours learning a new skill and then implementing it.

With very limited resources, (basically no money) I went to the school of Google and Youtube. I took some online classes on Branding and Wholesaling. I hired a business coach and I literally hit the streets selling. For the first year, I would sell my candles at any Church function, fair, festival, school bazaar… I did not care. I sold candles outside in the middle of the summer and the dead of winter. I also sold on any and every online platform that would accept me. Etsy, Amazon, Faire, Modalyst, Houzz, etc. All the money I made went back into building the brand, I was lucky to have a husband to pay the bills but it was tight financially. When I finally felt comfortable I approached stores to carry my products. And we slowly built a base of stores to sustain the company.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Below are all the things I WISH I had done when I first started. I am only recently able to see how all this fits together.

Social Media: Use your social media platforms to drive traffic to your website. Make your posts engaging and relevant to your community. BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY through social media. Facebook groups, Facebook business pages, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Make sure people know what you do and what you SELL. Don’t be afraid to sell… don’t beat people over the head with constantly trying to sell them stuff, that gets old… but provide information and entertainment and then ask for the sale. Always eventually ask for a sale. Remind people of what you are selling and give them a reason to buy it. If you don’t have time to post every day, use a scheduler like Buffer.

Capture emails: Once you engage your customers, capture an email so that you have a direct link to them. My one regret is that I didn’t get emails at the festivals. Literally, thousands of people slipped through my fingers. Have some type of pop-up. I used spin the wheel for almost a year and now we recently changed back to a regular pop-up. Run contests and giveaways… always engage in some type of activity that is capturing emails.

Email Marketing; Once you get those emails… send out emails. My first emails were terrible. I eventually got better. And now I have someone that designs and sends them weekly. Stay in contact with your people and continue to provide relevant content. We used Mailchimp but recently switched to Klaviyo.

Paid ads (google, FB, Instagram): This is the hardest part. I took classes and I know I will never be as good as a professional. I know the basics and can run a decent campaign. Yes, I lost money in the beginning. But, I learned what worked and who to target based on the losses. I’ve hired firms that lost just as much of my money as I did, so I don’t feel bad. Ads are hit or miss. But, I know enough now to know if a campaign is profitable and I know the right questions to ask any firm that may be running my ads.

Retarget: You know how those ads follow you after going to a site? It works. Do it a lot.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.secandleco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/secandleco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southernelegancecandle
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQXpP0mba4s7FRm_Nvn3fzg