Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marissa Sanchez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Marissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
In order to have a profitable, consistently growing business there are many factors that can make it successful. I think persistence and consistency, paired with creativity and a lot of practice will determine whether a person is successful in meeting their goals or not. Many times when running your own business, you will run into a lot of failures or missed opportunities. Choosing to continue forward and being persistent is what separates a lot of successful endeavors and ones with shorter life spans. It takes consistent practice, and a really fierce belief in your business to make it past those thresholds that many will stop at. There’s also the instances where you will have a perfectly good product, and a well thought out product but poorly executed timing or inconsistent marketing. If you have a persistent approach, and are willing to try again and time it better again, you will have more opportunities to meet your goals.
There are a lot of factors that come into play, but just being consistent in your work and allowing yourself to keep flexing your creative muscle will invite in a lot more opportunity to be successful.
Marissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Marissa, and I have been running Yai’s Naturals for just over five years. I began my business in 2018 when I was personally on the hunt for alternative and natural healing modalities to help with my anxiety and depression. I began with a few used herbalism books, and started formulating teas and tinctures for myself, in attempts to make my mental health diagnoses more manageable as a young mom in a really tumultuous living situation. Eventually I found an herbalist to apprentice under, and hone my skills and practice herbalism in a way that was safer to turn into products. By 2019, I expanded into salves, teas, other herbal remedies, and finally candles. My own journey with managing mental health became a journey into a business that helped others reclaim their lives and well being. Eventually I began focusing my passions into candle making, and taking my knowledge of herbs to dress the candles for different intentions and purposes.
My candles became a love letter to my own journey, each intentional candle was made to serve a specific purpose, such as finding peace, grounding, protection, or fearlessness. I drew on different energies that I needed over certain points in my life and turned it into candle magic that I could share with my customers.
The candles resonated with so many, and allowed me to find a community of people who wanted to take that initiative to manage their well being and find alternative healing modalities to help them cope with their own hurdles and trials in life. My work turned from being very personal into something that many could connect with on a more spiritual and emotional level.
By 2022, I decided to take my knowledge of herbs, crystals, and candle making and create classes to share the art with those who also felt called to the practice of candle making. Over the last two years, I have taught dozens of classes and met many students who have branched off into their own candle making businesses. I offer coaching through the beginning stages of their businesses, to make sure they’re set up properly and feel confident in their products. We work together to find their purpose, their goals, and their individual style through candle making. My students share a passion for sharing their own healing journeys, using candle making as their way of telling the story. I love to brainstorm with and guide them through the product development stage, help them to find their niche, and watch them grow into established businesses that share so much love.
Women, especially mothers, who feel as though they have a story to tell or want a way to connect to other self-healers or conscious spiritual souls, tend to thrive in this arena. I have created a beautiful community of women who started as students and now are strong, confident business owners that support each other and share ideas to help each other grow or support each other in times of need. Its very special and dear to my heart and I am so excited for it to continue expanding.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
My audience on social media came from a very organic place. I built personal connections with a majority of them over the years, and prefer to grow my business through word of mouth or referrals. I think it is easy to get caught up in paid advertisements, or finding the right buzz words to catch potential customers. I have found that those will build a following, or draw more eyes to your social media, but don’t always guarantee loyal returning customers. I believe in the approach of transparency with my base. Because my motivation for starting the business was so personal, there has always been pieces of me or my story in the products I make, and appealing to the humanness we all share is what I noticed has brought me the most loyal and supportive customer base. It’s important to keep a piece of yourself or your voice when trying to build your brand, because the authenticity is what people connect with. It will draw in your ideal customer, someone who is like you, and you will know how to relate to them because it will come naturally to you to communicate in your own voice.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
I have had a couple of near death moments for the business. In 2021, my business storage was broken into and I had a majority of my inventory and product stolen from me in broad daylight. And almost exactly one year later, I was hit in my car by an 18 wheeler and my car, my main source of business and travel, was totaled. Each time I thought I would have to completely throw in the towel, give up the business, and move on. But each time I was able to pivot and find ways to keep the business afloat.
After the robbery, I was smarter about where I invested money in my inventory and streamlined my products to mostly selling candles, and almost entirely dropped my herbal remedies. This allowed for less inventory, and a quicker turn-around time to make sure my shop can easily be re-stocked in a timely manner if needed.
When I lost my car and could not travel to in person events and pop ups, where I made a majority of my income, I scaled back hugely in the amount of traveling I do for work. I was able to be more selective with the events I go to, which saved me time and allowed me to focus on growing my classes and really dive into teaching. Since last year my classes have become a much more consistent offering, and my students have tripled, and I am able to focus my energy so much more in growing my teaching experience.
Even though I had to recover greatly from both of these experiences, they allowed me to pivot and really refine what my business means to me and helped push me into new avenues that are more fitting to my purpose.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yaisnaturals.com
- Instagram: @yaisnaturals
- Facebook: @yais.naturals