We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Marco a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

I started making candles post pandemic, almost 3 years ago. I started with a website, an Etsy shop and began signing up for vendor markets in my area. After some trial and error, I was able to create a brand for myself and a candle that stands out amongst others with is simplistic yet sophisticated design and a strong smelling scent. What really scaled up my business was introducing candle making classes. I happened to go to a charcuterie making class with my sister in law, and she said to me, “You should offer candle making classes.” I really must attribute the idea to her. The woman that hosted the charcuterie class hosts a lot of different types of classes in her barn, and she thought it was a great idea to start having candle making classes. After a few months of brainstorming and figuring out how I could actually execute this idea, I had my first candle making workshop with 10 of my family and friends. It was a success and I got a lot of great feedback in order to enhance the workshop. Now, I’ve hosted over 30 classes and am getting more and more interest from other businesses wanting to offer candle classes as well. This has been a big money maker for me, rather than just relying on candle sales, and it’s fun to show others my passion.

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?

Hi! I’m Laura Marco, founder of LaMarco Candle Co. I started making candles in 2016 when I decided to gift all of the guests at my wedding with 8oz candles. When I looked into prices for 200 guests, I decided I could cut down on cost by making the candles myself, and everyone raved about them! So, fast forward to 2024, and I have a small yet mighty business that I’ve been working hard at growing. My goal is to share my love of candles with all of you! I aim to give you a beautiful, richly aromatic wooden wick candle that will delight your senses!

I also offer candle making workshops where you can get to pick out your own signature scent, blend and pour your wax, decorate your own label, and add glitter, shimmer, gemstones, and/or wax embeds to make your candle extra unique and beautiful.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

I decided to share my biography on my Facebook page introducing myself and my business. A friend of my husband, who owns a contracting business, decided to share my post. A realtor that follows him saw my bio and decided to hire me to create custom candles for their business that they could give to their new clients. They bought 50 candles. This was my first big order and I was so excited and grateful to social media for this opportunity. I was also able to get another order from a different realtor that saw what I had created for this other business.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth has been a great source of new clients for me. When you make a good product, people notice and people share that with others. Customers have shared with me that they really love my candles and the aromas are very fragrant, they burn beautifully, and they enjoy the crackling wooden wick. I have had customers come to me that have heard about my candle classes from someone else, or have bought candles from me because someone raved about them. I also got a new partnership in a store based on a positive customer review. She shared my candles with the business owner, who later reached out to me to sell my candles in their shop, and as well as host candle making workshops. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lamarcocandles.com
• Instagram: Lamarco_candles
• Facebook: LaMarco Candle Co.