Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jennifer Pinillos. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jennifer , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
After the first interview with Voyage MIA in 2019 4Elementum was doing great sales in farmers markets, local events, fairs and local stores so the business was slowly growing and expanding in the region, but once we hit March 2020 everything changed completely. CoVID took a big part into my business and it went down hill from the following months on. As I struggled to figure out what to do and where to sell (since lockdowns were in full effect) I had to think very hard what to do into expanding and growing the business. So I decided and went full effect into becoming an e-commerce business crossing my fingers that I will make some sort of sales and grow, I took that leap of faith and didn’t know how to really make it happen. I looked into all these different market places there are online and I started to just get into them and hoping that my star product the Himalayan Salt Inhalers would be the ones that will open the doors for me int that online space and maybe people would be receptive into at least hearing out about my brand and build some sort of trust that would eventually transfer into a sale. So I went ahead and applied in Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Etsy.com and saw that opening was a process but the easiest thing from the entire process because trying to establish a brand in an online market place is not as easy as it looks like. Once I was in all 3 platforms I had to learn how to do PPC pay-per-click (advertising ads) in these platforms to learn how to make sales or at least be able to rank in the first page of these platforms…Now that was a huge challenge, specially since I have no team members or mentors who can help me or guide me with that, I am a one woman show and had to learn it all by myself in order to establish 4Elementum one way or another. It took me a few months watching YouTube videos, joining Ecommerce advertising groups who can help with some expertise advice and hoping that their strategies might work for me and so on. What a struggle and mission it was the first 6 months of 2020, but the good thing about it was that since the world was changing into online shopping I was able to learn as quickly as possible and actually place the inhalers in these platforms, learn the game rules, build some trust, create videos that show how they are used and slowly people were believing in my product and buying them. So ever since I started to invest more time on these advertising strategies, learn more tricks, find people that will help and I can say that now in 2022 4Elementum survives from its online presence, I do not depend on local events any longer no more weekend farmers markets that I was doing for 5 years strong, I have expanded into other marketplaces online like UNFI and Amazon.ca and so on. Additionally now I have lots of ideas in expanding into other channels like YouTube and keep on expanding in the online world.
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
1. For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself, how you got into your industry / business / discipline / craft etc, I started this business in 2013 after graduating college and not knowing where to begin with a business since I study Business Management & Supervision. So in 2012 I can across aromatherapy, learned much more about it by taking classes and getting certified in Plant Based Aromatherapy Alternative Medicine and once I finish my studies I decided that I wanted to make something that will help people in a healthy way with a company that serves a purpose with effective products. So I came up with the concept of 4Elementum which stand for the 4 Elements in latin, and created a small product line with creams, serums soaps, clay masks, essential oils, and aromatherapy products. Did lots of events in the Miami region so people can know about the brand and what I sell and Ive been strong ever since, always changing and adjusting to the market after having years of interactions with people in events, to now that has lead me into the brand that it is by diversifying and selecting what people are really interested and not. So if you go to the website, now I a=only carry selective products instead of an entire collection of items that become overwhelming to maintain, now its simple and just the effective essentials that people search for and need.
2. What type of products/services/creative works you provide, what problems you solve for your clients & 3. What you think sets you apart from others.
My main game changer are the Himalayan Salt Inhalers, they relieve and help people breathe better by fully inhaling the benefits of aromatherapy. This creative and unique concept has people always asking questions about the benefits of salt for inhalation purposes and the design is mine NO BODY ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS THIS CONCEPT so it makes me completely different from the plastic nasal stick inhaler that carries a non described cotton wick which most likely its full of toxic ingredients from the growing process, and those inhalers tend to dry out quickly making them non lasting. On the other hand, our Himalayan Salt inhalers are about experiencing aromatherapy in a simple, natural, and effective way. We use Plant-based essential oils applied into raw Himalayan salt, tucked in a glass bottle that absorbs & preserves the essence, and it is safely sealed with an organic cotton ball that allows through the properties of the aromatherapy to be inhaled. It’s unique because the Himalayan Salt is believed to be one of the purest mined salt’s available, and because of that once you inhale the fine salt particles that paired with the aromatherapy, you will feel how your breathing amplifies and stress is automatically released.
This is a 100% natural remedy in a handy inhaler form.
4. What are you most proud of
ME, MY HARD WORK, MY DEDICATION, PUSHING MYSELF WHEN I FEEL THAT I DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS ANY MORE, I know I am talking about myself but all this hard work is slowly paying off and I see how people respond so well by leaving reviews, reaching out to me and telling me their personal stories of how they love my products and how the inhalers have helped them so much when they have a flu, fell stress, or want to amplify their breathing. I am product of not quitting, finding the light during the saddest and dark moments of the downfalls when you have a business and I really do this for the people.
5. What are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.
I want them to see that nature has everything to help us be healthy, for people to be open minded to natural products like 4Elementum’s instead of pharmaceuticals that don’t really heal or cures a cause, they tend to help temporarily the cause. And to inspire others who want to make a business or have a great idea for them not to be afraid and take a leap of faith… trust me you won’t let yourself fail if you are battling alone. I am alone and I am making it happen, it takes time but eventually I will succeed 100% and they will too.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Well I started with just 1,000 in my personal bank account and was wondering how can I grow my idea… so I did side jobs in my full time job. I used to work for a medical center and they offered me the opportunity to do the gran opening events for their new medical centers, I did but I managed to negotiate so they can pay me additional money for my hard work in opening these centers, so they did and I made extra cash that way. 4Elementum was always a side hustle job, a weekend job from my full time job. Another way I got funds was through a go fund me platform called Idea.me, its the same concept of a go fund me but at that time it was a new platform and they were helping new people who enrolled by matching uptown 5,000 in earnings if you reached the goal of 5k in donations, so I managed to do it and was able to get that matching price :) so with those funds I was able to make 4E happen and be concrete with some money and slowly making it grow till what it is today.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process./
Currently I manufacture my own products, I have a lab/ office at home where I do everything. At the begging I used to sell creams, soaps, serums and much more, but do to seeing how people ask so many questions about products, where the essential oils come from and so on, I decided that I was going to simplify and just focus on aromatherapy. A lot easier for me to make and less complicated just in case people reacted badly to a lotion or anything that way. Aromatherapy is used for inhalation purposes not for application so its safe for me as I can avoid to be sued or anything of that way, specially. since I am a small company and do not want to ever get involved with such problems. The inhalers was a trial and error of different colored bottles, design, formulations, and testing it with the market out there in the streets when I used to do events. People would react a lot better to a clear bottle where they can see the salt, smell the essential oils and actually hold the bottle. My goal is to be able to buy a machine that will make these for me, and I don’t have to manufacture any longer :)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://4elementum.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4elementum/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4Elementum
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHAtY9iXcydzmxQmhoffd_g
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/6580F222-367F-4F3F-A95B-E00EFFF4D6A6 https://www.etsy.com/market/4elementum
Image Credits
to all my friends who supports me on my mission, thank you for helping with the photos as my models :)