We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Upchurch. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Katie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I’ve realized through running my small business that success is relative. But it took me a many years to get to this realization. Growing up in a capitalist country instills the belief in most of us that in order to be seen as a successful person, you have to eventually make lots and lots of cash money. But what is lots of money, though? 50k? 200k? 1 million? So, when I started my small business, I felt like it was imperative to continue to grow our revenue year after year. And if the number didn’t grow, I must be a failure.

For years, our business revenue did grow year after year. Until the last couple years. Post-Pandemic years have been rough for small business, regardless of what the market is dictating. So, naturally, I did feel like a failure. I thought for sure this meant my business was no longer successful. I went back and forth on whether or not I should just quit, shut down the business, and go work for someone else (gasp!) But I kept making things. I kept showing up, as hard as it was. We made small pivots here and there to overcome the loss of sales. I swear small businesses are the masters of the pivot.

Over this time, I started to dwell on what success actually meant for me. DID I actually want to make millions of dollars pouring candles? Did I really want to cultivate a huge team of people to manage? Did I actually want a huge candle manufacturing building? Did I want my business to be Instagram famous? When I actually dug deep to ask these questions, the answer to every single one was actually no. Actually, what I really wanted was to simply enjoy my craft in a sustainable way that wasn’t going to drive me crazy and create more responsibility. I didn’t start my business to be a boss to other people, so I know I didn’t want to grow the team. I also realized I don’t love the idea of large scale candle manufacturing, but I love the creative development of candles of small candle collections. Money is nice, but have you ever tried being HAPPY?

When I came to these realizations, I discovered I’ve actually been successful for years, regardless of having low-revenue years. I had an epiphany too – what if as small businesses we started modeling a different way to be successful in business? Instead of opening up a half dozen new retail locations, what if we enhance our current location and make it the cutest and most intentional and fun retail location in our town? What if we just continue to create fun offerings for the community? What if instead of continuing on the escalator of success and growth, we get off the never-ending escalator and figure out how we can grow horizontally instead of vertically. You know, work with what you already have and make it the best it can be, all the while enjoying what you’re doing.

So, for me, success means being able to enjoy the day-to-day at my job. It means getting to craft new and cute candle collections, it means offering a space for the community to gather, make stuff, and make friends, it means getting to go home at a reasonable hour to hang with my lil family. Monetarily, there’s no way 1 Million dollars would make me happy. As long as I can pay for my little house and feed myself and my cats, I’m good. But also, if you think success means being a millionaire, that’s cool too. It’s relative.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started Soy Much Brighter Candle Co. in 2014 because I was sick of working for corporate America. Although, I always daydreamed about running my own business as a kid. I never knew what I would do, but somehow I always thought I’d be my own boss. I can’t even tell you what made me choose candles. It just came to me one day. It seemed like the perfect way to incorporate having my own business with working with my hands and also flexed the creative muscle in me that I always had. I hit the ground running and immediately started selling the candles on Etsy and to a couple local stores in my town. I spent every hour I could on growing the business. After 6 months, I quit my full-time job so I could sell the candles at markets and events Friday-Sunday. I made the candles in my kitchen for the first 6 years and eventually moved to a studio. We grew out of that studio quickly and that’s when I moved into a space that now functions as a retail shop and candle making studio. We’ve been in this spot for 3 years this summer.

Adding a retail shop onto the business has been tons of fun. We get to stock products from small makers all over the country – mostly all the friends I’ve made in small business. We get to speak our values through the products we sell and we love engaging the community here.

About our candles: we make 100% soy wax, vegan, & cruelty-free candles. We value sustainability practices along with supporting our values through social justices causes. Our main claim to fame is that we offer completely unique, in-house custom blended fragrances (not every candle company does this). We also love to make fun themed collections throughout the year. We have a zodiac collection, a moon phase collection, a tarot collection, and soon we’ll have a Justice Crew collection and a new Witch collection.

Our current project is renovating our warehouse into a maker space for the community. We plan to lead workshops and host teachers who will teach creative classes. Think: candle making classes, spell jar making, wreath making, painting, clay play, terrarium building, book binding, collaging, jewelry making, and on and on. It’s called the Friends Forever studio and it’s located behind our shop in Beverly, Ma. It’s totally 90’s themed, which our millennial fan base is going to freak out over. We’re opening early summer 2024!

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Our number one form of keeping in touch with our customers is a consistent weekly newsletter. We send it at the same day and time every week. People value consistency and reliability. Even though we’re “just a candle company” they know they’ll be getting a note from us every single Tuesday at 9:30am on the dot. We’ve been doing this consistently for about 3 years now. Our list grows slowly, but its our most reliable way of generating revenue. Social Media isn’t cutting it anymore for sales generation, plus you don’t own your social media following, so it made sense that we needed to start collecting emails and connecting outside of those platforms. Our current open rate is hovering between 47-53%, which is high compared to the industry standard.

We keep it interesting by including games and fun anecdotes in our newsletters. We also use the newsletter to let our customers know when we have new candles, sales, or projects we’re working on. As a bonus when you sign up for the newsletter, you get a link to our Spotify playlists for each of our core collection scents.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Consistency and a good product. One thing about me is that consistency and quality are top tier goals in life and in my business. It’s important that we deliver the same product over and over to our customers. Since candles are a consumable based on a very strong human sense, people can tell when something is off. Every detail, down to the label placement needs to be the same every time. Crazy, I know! But I do believe it’s partially what has gotten us this far – almost 10 years in business.

Another thing that’s been helpful is continuing to show up. With our consistent email campaigns and continuous drive to make cute candle collections, we’ve created a way to keep popping up on people’s feeds. We do yearly in-person events that also help with brand recognition.

Lastly, we hold very firm social justice values and we aren’t afraid to showcase that on our products, marketing, and our brick and mortar windows.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.soymuchbrighter.com
• Instagram: @soymuchbrighter
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soymuchbrightercandles

Image Credits
All the product photos were taken by Liz Manuell of Essence Presents Productions. Header by The Good Trade Makers Market in PVD