We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joshua Wright a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Joshua, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?
My hero is definitely my mother Lisa. As a single parent myself, I look back at all the sacrifices my mother made to keep us safe and healthy with a different appreciation. Although she became a civil engineer and worked many years in the corporate world she never gave up her dreams of being a business owner. She was always a server throughout my life starting with the worst shift, then moving up to managing other’s bars and restaurants to eventually buying a neighborhood tavern and then a second location of her own. It really showed me the example of resourcefullness I carry with me in my own business. Starting at the bottom and building yourself across years and decades, sometimes taking giant leaps and at other times baby steps. If you keep your goal in focus, everyday can be one step closer to your dreams. I never felt like failure was a fear but a learning opportunity.
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.
The events that led up to Clemeno range from middle school desires to be a graphic designer, high school dreams of being a movie director, and my real life experience working for other small & large businesses. Once I started making candles for friends and family, I started pushing the envelope a bit on more traditional home goods companies designs’. It was clear there was a demand for the product and it stood out from many competitors. My first job was in fast food, and as much as its a great place to start the amount of specific work that went into merchandising was eye opening to me. The way people find your product is almost more important than the product itself and I wanted to make products that are a conversation starter. Once I created my logo and branding identity, I wanted that story to reverberate with the product even if Im not there to tell it. Whether at a craft market or in a store, when buying candles often times visual appeal is the first thing a customer will see before ever smelling the fragrance. Getting those two things to line up, and giving the product its own identity, can really boost how a product appeals to potential buyers.
Since I did not invent the candle, keeping the designs and messaging fresh is truly what I am selling but another aspect will always be customer service. This goes as far as interactions one on one all the way to what happens when this candle burns out. What incentive does the person have to buy again? When thinking about thousands of competitors across the globe, I couldnt help think about the waste of such a temporary luxury item. So once I started offering free delivery in my area I realized If I already want to be delivering new candles to people why not collect the empty jars from them also. So I started incentivising my customers to return their glassware for a discount that really reminded me of the era of the milkman. Once that system was rolling many people love the fact their jar is not going to the landfill or on some gas guzzling truck but being remade into another candle. I give the customer a discount towards their next purchase and coincidentally I am collecting one of the more expensive materials in my business.
All these aspects combined together have led to more questions and research for new products beyond candles. The value of meeting the needs and concerns of the customer, creating a brand that stands out, and applying environmentally conscious practices has opened the door for new and exciting concepts like my biodegradeable perfumes, incense, and reed diffusers. Basically if its a fragranced item I am focused on finding a way to remove the waste and encourage the customer to choose me because they know this and can trust my brand to operate with that mindset going forward.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Growth can be very tough at first mostly because its not always easy to measure customers reception to a product. Because my products last a long time it could be months or a year before a customer buys again. If I put out something brand new it may be months before you get reassuring feedback that they actually enjoyed it. Most of my years sales come from the holiday gift giving season, and then sheer dread and fear set in. If everyone buys in November what am I supposed to do the next three months. Well I figure if someone is halfway through my product and loving it they are bound to share it with friends or even buy one for someone else. So I started doing astrology themed candles which created a gift peope will want to give every month of the year. It helps create a new marketing stream, the gifted item is now going somewhere I never could to a person I never met. Making sure that when they get their gift it has all the necessary details that can lead the customer back to my website to find out more. There they will find new exciting products and that candle their friend said they loved, just in time to return the favor for their birthday or wedding etc.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
For me building relationships with other retailers in my community has been huge. Getting my products in stores locally helps take some of the focus off feeding that area and allowing me to focus on wagon-wheel marketing to other cities near me. For most of the year I do two things: fulfill large orders locally and doing handmade events all over the midwest to get in front of potential new clients. Its a concept I co-opted from touring musicians. You visit a town, put on a good show, and make sure people know you’ll be back to rock their socks in a month or two. I do not get hurt by slow sales in new markets I only care about interactions. How many people simply saw the logo or read the name of the company, stopping to talk, having a laugh. All of these things do not equal gross net income but they foster memories so when they think candles or perfumes I want to be a stand out character to them. It takes a lot of energy and money to travel and haul your business around but I find the impact is far greater in person than digital marketing only. That being said I find a lot of online merchants struggle for engagement and are intimidated by pay to play tactics when they dont see immediate results. My advice to all business owners is always pay for ads. Just dont pay a lot. Most modern social media sites have very flexible offers that can specifically target your potential customers. I never travel to a new area without doing regional ads targeted by age and interest. As you grow your business those metrics will become more obvious and you specifically get in front of people who are more likely buy or follow you.
Contact Info:
- Website: Clemeno.com
- Instagram: @clemenocandleco
- Facebook: Facebook.com/clemenocandleco