Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marlena Jayatilake. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Marlena, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

Growing up in Englewood from a child’s lens was amazing. My parents did such an amazing job, that I did not realize that I grew up in the “ghetto” until I was just about to graduate from high school. I had quite the childhood growing up in Englewood! Early on I was put on a path of education by way of private school filled with instructors and teachers who genuinely cared about my future. After my elementary school education, I went on to Von Steuben High School on the north side of Chicago. My parents made the very wise choice of putting me in a school where I was forced to open my eyes and see how other races, religions and people with money lived. That, was the single most important decision my parents, in my opinion, ever made for me. After graduating from high school I could not return to my neighborhood to start my adult life because now I could see the poverty and lack of opportunities in my all Black neighborhood.. I could see my friends being killed or worse, giving up on life and accepting the status quo. I could not. For that, I thank my parents because if you can see it, you can be it. My parents knew her children needed to go, to get every opportunity afforded me. I left the Southside of Chicago where I would start my adult life.

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 stumbled into this industry thanks to my brother-in-law Rohan. In 2005 I married my husband Rohana who is from Sri Lanka and knew from that very moment, I was in for an adventure! My brother-in-law asked me if I would consider opening a spice store and that they would ship spices and herbs direct from suppliers. I immediately told him that there was The Spice House that was very good at selling spices and had been in the Chicagoland area for many, many years. I knew that I could not compete with a store that I adored. I decided to really think about the proposition. I thought, how could I be different? Because I had been studying herbs I thought I would visit spice shops and ask about the health benefits of each spice and herbs direct. To my amazement, not one employee could tell me about the health benefits. Ah ha!!! I realized that there was in fact a market for the spices I wanted to sell. Love That Spice was born out of what I thought was a need to educate consumers about none other than the staggering health benefits found in spices, herbs and teas. All of our spice blends would ground and bottled right in the store to preserve that vitamins and nutrients and most importantly, the purity! I made sure to deal with organic suppliers that practiced third party testing for purity and heavy metals. I wanted to be different, to provide a product that not only tasted fantastic and fresh but a product that could nourish the body as well..

Have you ever had to pivot?

I remember pretty early on, I would say about a year into the business, I was failing. I had run out of the money I saved to operate the business. I was in danger of closing. My location was awful and no one could find me. I will never forget the day a producer from channel 7 came into the store. We talked and he made a purchase and he left. A week later he came back in and told me that I would receive a call from one of the producers for the Sunday morning news. A week later a received a request to do a cooking segment on live television. A few months after that, billionaire Marcus Lemonis came into my store and made an offer of partnership which meant that I would get funding and lots of it. Although I did not do the partnership deal with Marcus, he gave me encouragement because he thought my business was worthy of a billionaire partnership! I decide to add more tea and herbs as I quickly realized that my handcrafted tea was what people was interested in. Customers made it clear what they wanted and either I could pivot and produce more tea or I would go out of business. Sometimes in business we are emotional about our product. I knew we has a superior product but it was not the product customers wanted. I quickly went from selling 5 teas to selling over 50. I reduced the spices by half. The lesson here is sometimes a spice shop must turn into a tea shop in order to survive. If you are not willing to pivot, then you will not survive.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

What I found helpful in succeeding in my business is the ability to genuinely reach people. I love people so that helps. I talk, I laugh, I dance, I love and I share of myself with great sincerity. My customers turn into my friends, who turn into family. I have created a very close knit community business. It’s important to love people and really care about them, that’s rare. That’s Love That Spice.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lovethatspice.com
• Instagram: loveThatSpice
• Facebook: Lovethatspice
• Twitter: Lovethatspice
• Yelp: Lovethatspice