We were lucky to catch up with Sandy Porrer recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sandy, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
Our mission at Esther Candle Co started with a simple question, “What do you want us to do for your Kingdom, Lord?”
From that moment on God has placed this creative desire to make something great with a greater purpose.
We aren’t just candles. While candles are great and most people love them our candles come with scripture on the bottom of every lid and a portion of each sale gets donated to our local pregnancy help center.
Our driving force behind our company is to spread the love and hope of Jesus with every purchase. We have seen His word on our candles surprise and meet people right where they are. We have enjoyed supporting our local Pregnancy Help Center as they support families in crisis.
Our hope is that we leave people better than we found them and we lead them a little closer to knowing the hope found in Jesus.
Every purchase has a purpose.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started this business through a quiet time I was having with the Lord. However, I had been looking at candle making for quite some time. I had even gone as far as typing up a spreadsheet to show my husband in the hopes that I would impress him enough to say yes to my crazy idea!
This was all crazy because I had never made a candle in my life! All I knew was I was good at learning a new craft as a creative person, I loved candles and I knew God was pushing me to do something bigger than myself.
So we launched Esther Candle Co in the summer of 2022. I still hadn’t made a candle. I had all my supplies coming in the mail and I already had pre sale orders flying in. Needless to say intimidation set in pretty quickly! It didn’t take long to realize that all my plan on how to make a great candle was not as easy as the actual implementation of that plan. Everything is easy in theory but much more difficult in practice. Who knew candles were going to be so difficult to make? I sure didn’t!
But with a lot of faith and so much wonderful support from my husband, I kept going. We found the right formula, supplies, and methods for making candles and after a year and a half of business we have outgrown our making spaces two times over, expanded our product line from five signature scents to over twenty and have made life long bonds with customers and other small business owners.
So many people have grown to love our candles over store bought candles because of the quality we try to implement in all of our products. All of our candles are made of 100% soy and mixed with clean burning fragrance oils that not only meet the strict industry standards set by the IFRA(International Fragrance Association) but are also infused with many essential oils. We product test our candles to ensure that they burn safely and preform well. Lastly, the thing our customers love about our candles is how strong they are! We push our fragrance load to the max. While you’ll find most store bought candles having a load of around 8% fragrance we push ours to 10% or more depending on what our wax can handle. Because who wants to buy a candle that doesn’t fill your entire house up? Not us!
I have to say that the last year and a half has not been a consistent build and climb. The lows have been low. I didn’t think that I could cry so much over candles. But the highs, joys and life lessons from working this business while we make our customers happy with products that also provide a purpose is something we wont let go of.
As a family owned business run out of our home our children get to experience this discipline and growth of business often! Our children have seen the highs and the lows of business and the entrepreneurial spirit strikes them often too! We take our candles to local markets and through those opportunities our children have been able to explore their own business ventures. Through this business our entire family has seen what it takes to build something from the ground up, to endure when things get hard, how to handle difficult situations when things go wrong and most importantly how to put people first.
All of this has filled our hearts and we can honestly say we are more than just a candle company.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
One of the more inspiring moments in our journey comes from one of the more terrifying ones as a small business owner.
Twice a month we package up a good portion of our products, pack them in our vehicles and set up shop at a local market called Hometown Market in West Columbia, Tx. We adore this market and the small business community it has fostered. Well, if you know anything about Texas you know it gets HOT in the summer time. And, if your know anything about candles you know they melt when it gets hot.
This particular day we had taken much of our inventory to the market in the middle of July. The sun got high and hot and at the end of our day almost every single candle looked ruined. I stared in shock and horror at all of my seemingly wasted inventory and began to cry. In my brain I was a failure. I had let my business down, my family down, and my future customers down because how in the world would I replace all of this stock??
That’s when community and God ordained timing stepped in. One of dear friends, Jamie Walker, who is a great business man and father to our favorite small business girlie, Handcrafted by Julia, immediately stepped in with wisdom and problem solving ideas coupled with a lot of love and encouragement to keep going. He didn’t let me leave until I agreed I would try and keep going. He not only spoke to our problem we faced in our business but the problem we faced with trusted the Lord to get us through this moment.
I took that push and support, went home, stared and cried a little more at my inventory, and went to work. I flushed out how to fix the stock instead of abandon it. Within a week’s time my inventory was back to its former glory and ready for it’s next market, in the shade.
My resilience came from someone seeing me in a moment of weakness, picking me up and helping me see what I couldn’t. It was a testament not only to what I could accomplish with a little bit of grit but an even greater moment of what it looks like when community, vulnerability and care for others happen.
I will always remember the encouragement and faith others had in me when I had none of my own that pushed me to keep going when all felt lost.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Authenticity.
We all love a good product. It’s no secret that we are a consumer based society looking for SOMETHING to make our lives “better”. However, at some point people get tired of seeing a product shoved in their faces all the time.
Our main and most consistent form of communication with our clientele is social media. When we first started out we had to be so persistent with who we are and what we sold. At a certain point thought, people get the idea. We sell candles, still.
What people need to know is the WHY more than the WHAT. It gives people something to connect to and have a more meaningful experience with our brand. Most people are looking for connection underneath their desire to look for something to purchase. If you can connect with your clientele then I truly believe you can grow your clientele. which will ultimately feed into your why.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.esthercandleco.com
- Instagram: @esthercandleco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EstherCandleCo
Image Credits
Sandy Porter