We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Julie & Jon Hamm. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Julie & Jon below.
Julie & Jon, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?
I absolutely love being a business owner….most of the time. One of the difficult things for me when it comes to thinking about “what would it be like to have a regular job?” is my “regular” jobs have all involved teaching English overseas either full time in a private academy’s, as a tutor to put myself through my Masters Degree or while working with a non-profit wearing multiple hats. So, my idea of a regular job involves a lot of traveling and moving around. With that said, there are times I think “What would it be like to work outside of the house?” Since I breed dogs and make wax melts I work from home all the time. My husband, Jon, has a a regular 8-4 job that allows him to work from home so we are able to do the daily dog tasks together. When it comes to the boring parts of business like taxes and bills, I do those. I run all of our social media apps, which includes 7 platforms at this point and includes a website, I run sales, and I make sure we have what we need for puppies to be able to go home to their families. I also do all the making and marketing of our wax melts and run the Etsy shop we have. When I start to think of all of the things I do to run the business, I can get a little overwhelmed and start to think about what it would be like to work for someone else outside of the house. What I always come back to though, is I would always much rather work for myself, have the flexibility that running a business like ours allows me, and do what I truly enjoy. Owning a business it tough and you have to wear so many hats all the time but I do love what I do and I am thankful every day I am able to do it with my husband.
Julie & Jon, 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?
I am Julie and my husband is Jon. We are the owners of J & J Frenchies LLC and J & J Wax Melts. At J & J Frenchies we breed French Bulldogs. We had our first litter in December of 2021 and absolutely loved it! Before we had our first litter we had decided if we like it we will do it again and if we don’t we won’t. Turns out we loved it because within 3 months of having out first litter we went from 1 Frenchie (Talula Jones the III) to 4 Frenchies! Since we started breeding in 2021 we have had 12 litters and have had an ever changing amount of dogs in our house. As much as we would love to keep all of our dogs it just isn’t feasible so when we have a dog that is ready for retirement we retire them to a loving home to live their best pet life with their new family. We pride ourselves on how much we love our dogs, who live in our home as pets, and the health of our puppies. We really take great care to put dogs together that balance each other out structurally and personality wise.
At J & J Wax Melts we make… wax melts! We started making French Bulldog candles to send home with our clients and they were a hit but no one ever wanted to burn them since they were so cute. So we decided to start making wax melts instead. We started with 3 simple French Bulldog heads but have since expanded our inventory to have a variety of different melts to choose from. We have opened an Etsy shop and we still send puppy clients home with a bag of wax melts. I can honestly say selling wax melts is harder than selling puppies!
With both our of businesses we take pride in providing clients with amazing customer service, whether it is someone buying a puppy from us or someone buying wax melts from us, our goal is always to give clients the best experience we can.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
For the French Bulldog side of our business the most effective strategy we have had for growing clientele has been word of mouth. There are so many breeders people can find to get their new family member from. However, like most things, not all breeders are created the same. We are thankful for clients who choose us to get their new family member from. We strive to provide as much information as the client would like and we are always available for clients before and after their puppy goes home. We send daily photos and/or videos, answer any and all questions, suggest food and vitamins and so much more. We love hearing from clients that we provided them with an easy and informative experience when they get a puppy from us. From there, people tell their friends and family about us and that drives more clients to our business. We find that quality customer service and well mannered dogs has been our key to success.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
This is a great question for the wax melt side of our business. Initially, when we had the idea to send puppy clients home with a French Bulldog candle we were working with a small candle company. That relationship ended up not working out so I took it upon myself to learn how to make candles! I had never made a candle before so I had a lot of learning to do. I did quite a bit of research on wax types, molds, what supplies I would need to start making candles, where to buy scents and colors and a whole lot more. As I started making the candles I realized it was not as hard as I had anticipated it being. While I was purchasing molds shops would send samples of smaller molds as a gift. With the smaller molds I learned I could make wax melts with the same wax I was already using to make the candles. We stopped making the candles since they were can be fragile and started our wax melt side of the business. Another reason we moved away from candles and into wax melts is that wax melts don’t have the same safety concerns that candles have. There is no flame with wax melts if you use an electric wax warmer, and there is no soot from a burning wick making them a healthier option. Initially we kept our inventory to French Bulldog and other dog related items but since have expanded to a variety of molds. For this specific venture I have taken away that if you can do it yourself, you should! By making my own wax melts I am able to control the entire process from deciding what molds to get, to what scents and colors to offer. It is also incredibly fun to make them and hear that clients love our products. With anything new there will be a period of trial and error but that only makes you better at what you do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jandjfrenchiesllc.com/ AND https://jandjwaxmelts.etsy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jandjfrenchies/ AND https://www.instagram.com/jandjwaxmelts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JandJFrenchies AND https://www.facebook.com/JandJWaxMelts/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jandjfrenchies
- Twitter: https://x.com/JandJFrenchies
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JandJFrenchiesLLC
- Other: https://linktr.ee/jandjfrenchies
Image Credits
All images were created or taken by me.