We recently connected with Erin Taylor and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Erin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
I (Erin) had a successful and thriving floral design business in California – we planned to moved to Oklahoma so Cliff could officially retire – things didn’t work out with the floral end, so we had to pivot and my efforts switched from florals to candles. We thought we would be the cute old couple at the Farmers Markets selling our candles on the weekends, but a higher power had a much bigger vision for us. Our candles became popular much quicker than we anticipated and production amped up quite a bit – so producing at home became a challenge – we found a space to move to that was MUCH larger than I had product to fill, or time to create enough to fill as I spent much of the first year we were here traveling back and forth between California fulfilling contracts that had been postponed. Out of necessity, we reached out to local artisans asking if any of them would like to display their hand crafted items in our shoppe with us. There were just two requirements. All items MUST be handcrafted and they needed to be local. We specifically sought out small, mom and pop shoppes like ours who wanted the retail exposure but weren’t large enough yet to be able to afford all the liabilities that go with it. We asked each artisan to contribute a nominal amount that would assist with our marketing budget. Our vision quickly became clear – to promote and help as many small businesses grow and succeed as we can! We found that the more we helped others, our business itself kept growing larger and larger. We started off with 6 artisans, and less than 3 months later our wholesale started taking off so we needed a second location specifically for production. Once we got going in this second location (also somewhat small) we found that the space would also work for small classes and private parties – our artisans were able to use it to host classes and share their knowledge continuing to build their businesses. As the calender booked up for the space, our wholesale business also exploded requiring alot of set up/tear down so we could share the space. We found ourselves looking for yet another location and one literally fell into our laps! Bigger than both spaces combined – it would be more rent than we’d ever paid but so much space! It was a scary leap, but we took it! We moved in one weekend, and have been able to increase our artisan count from 6 to 26! That’s 26 small businesses that now have their own shop within our shoppe! The bigger risk we take, the bigger the rewards have been. Our second year in business, our sales tripled. Later this year, we will be expanding to the other half of the building we are in now, which will enable us to not only welcome even MORE local artisans, but create areas where they can grow their business on the back end. Things like a photo studio for product photos, a shared computer with all the software needed to create marketing materials, an area to shoot videos, a meeting space if needed – we also have some of our Artisans who are volunteering their time to help in certain areas like book keeping, website design, commercial creation – all to help these other small businesses continue to grow their brands until they’re ready to go out on their own!
Erin, 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?
We are Cliff and Erin Taylor – we met at the Marine Corp Ball 32 years ago – we’ve coming up on our 29th Anniversary this year! We are a proud Veteran family, having raised 4 daughters along the way. We now have 4 incredible son in laws and 5 grandbabies that we can’t get enough of. Cliff hails from Michigan, and I from California. We came into the Candle / Artisan Mercantile – Business Empowerment process quite by chance. As previously mentioned, I (Erin) was in the floral industry from 2009-2020; I had built quite a following and had been published over 50 times -in print and online. When we planned our cross country move, we’d originally planned for me to continue my floral business. That sadly didn’t happen and we found ourselves having to pivot to still create an income stream after our move, so we changed focus from Floral Design to the Candle Industry. we’d played with it in the past – but we just poured all creative energy into this business. We have since created a very successful Candle Brand. What sets us apart from many other Candle Companies is our Artisan Mercantile!! Our Mercantile is 100% handcrafted items, all made locally. We have 26 local artisans that have their products in our Mercantile. When they bring their items in, we have them bring a BIG stack of business cards – we have their cards and contact information right there with the bulk of their products, so folks know who made it and who to contact with any questions. We do everything we can to empower these small businesses that are part of our brick and mortar – we don’t markup, markdown, take commission or anything like that. We don’t make a profit at all from them. We make sure that all of the business expenses are covered by OUR business. All artisans cover the amount of state tax collected and paid for their products – The nominal funds that they contribute each month are used to help with the advertising and marketing that we do. When they succeed, we cheer them on! We include everyone in every ad/post/social media boost / commercial that we do.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social Media was a very scary space for me – the mid 50’s, behind the scenes get it done, not comfortable having photos taken me, anyway. I learned that the best way to get the following started is to join groups that are about similar things to what you’re doing. Read everything and keep what works for you and leave the rest there. I started liking and commenting on many ‘competitors’ – always positive and uplifting. Always! Then I started posting pictures of my work – my hands would show, but that was it – sometimes I’d do a video and would talk – but that was tough too. I was my own worst critic! Finally one day I realized that what other people thought about what I wore, my hair, my weight – it didn’t matter. Or it shouldn’t matter. I wanted them to see my work and me doing it so they knew it was truly me doing it! Now, we make our own homegrown commercials and have been teaching others to do it to grow their brands too! We always start off with something funny like ‘yep, it’s the old folks again’ and talk to people as if we are talking to close friends. When you start doing livestreaming, it can get so disheartening to see just a few people watching your live – BUT when you realize that’s three or four new people who’ve never seen your product – that’s fantastic. The more you do, the more they’ll watch! Post one new thing every single day. When you’re comfortable, start doing a second post during the day. For us, the bottom line is that we believe in Community over Competition! Everyone can learn something from anyone – what makes you and your product unique? That’s easy – It’s YOU!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Oh my gosh – everything about The Crafty Candle Shoppe & Artisan Mercantile is ONE GIANT PIVOT! In 2018 when our granddaughter was born, we traveled to Bartlesville for the 3rd time – spent longer here and decided THIS was where we wanted to retire. We bought our home in 2019 and our kids lived in it for the year we were still finishing up commitments in California. January 31st 2020 my incredible husband had (& recovered from) a widow maker stroke. It concreted our desire to get moved and for me to get my floral business up and running so he could live a life he wanted – not working 24/7 to make it in California. March 2020 – we all know what happened then, and it became even more important to get the Floral Business locked in tight. Doing what all my mentors guided me to do, I reached out to the venues, the planners, the other florists, wedding groups – I introduced myself and shared my work. Told them I was so excited to get all settled and set up and would love to come meet with them – all the nice things. That fell flat and I was told the town is small and the business is locked up by 2 of the 4 florists in town. That there’d be no need for my services. Holy Cow – it was crazy! I couldn’t book a wedding, a meeting, not even a mockup! After a week of serious pouting, we talked through how we could Pivot and take the creativity from the floral design and make it work for Candles. Not just the basic candles, but food scented, shaped themed candles, wax melts – then in to Dessert Candles. We have taken this to a level of shipping 250-750 Dessert Candle units worldwide weekly! We are now building a legacy we can leave to our children/grandchildren to continue, sell or do with as they wish!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thecraftycandleshoppe.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/the_crafty_candle_shoppe
- Facebook: facebook.com/thecraftycandleshoppe
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-taylor-ba903b261/
- Other: Tiktok: @thecraftychandler
Image Credits
all taken by myself except the photo of us – that was taken by our daughter Courtnea