We were lucky to catch up with Shabi Monzavi recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shabi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

I was a one woman show for the first year and a half of my business. During the depths of the pandemic, when e-commerce was still dominating and most brick and mortar shops were still closed, I had gotten in a little over my head with order volume. I had a customer / pal (or custo-pal as I affectionately call them) offer to help me a few times and I finally took her up on her offer. She started helping me out in my basement. She would come over and assist with some production and order packing and always bring snacks because I was NOT very good at taking care of myself.

My interview style is incredibly casual, and I will always interview as many candidates as I can. I know not everyone presents as well on paper as they do in person, and so I’d rather have a conversation with the candidates and get to know them a bit better before going to the next steps.

As I’ve grown my team, I love to build it organically. I much prefer to hire based on referrals and personality and of course some key skill points but a lot of the job is trainable, so I would rather hire based on fit with the team since it’s such a close working environment. I find it much more important that the team work effectively together, and I can help them grow their role specific skills day to day. We avoid any interpersonal issues, work really well as a team, and have truly bonded as much more than just co workers, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

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’m Shabi (like not too shabby) and I’m the proud owner and CEO of Market Candle Company. I made my first candles back in 2017 as bridal shower favours, and my friends and fam were messaging me for months afterwards to compliment them. So in 2019 I decided to take it to the next level and make this little craft I loved into a business plan. I was testing waxes, wicks and fragrances on my kitchen counter and started doodling up a label and logo concept. I designed my original logo, marketing materials and labels myself – and still do to this day, with the exception of a little brand expansion I outsourced because you can’t be good at everything LOL. In 2020 my little kitchen counter business grew significantly. With the majority of folks working from home and a lot of people really struggling with mental health, they were turning to self care items and supporting small shops, and I guess we ticked off both of those boxes. I was so busy I was able to leave my full time job and by the end of 2020, I had taken over the entire house and garage, and finally made the leap into a commercial space.

My original scent inspiration was an Aperol Spritz inspired candle now called Italian Spritz and she is still a fan favourite today. I have a background in the restaurant industry so a lot of my original scents were food and beverage inspired (think coffee shop vibes, freshly baked bread, a bubbly glass of prosecco etc). We’ve definitely expanded our scent library to a variety of scent families and collections and have expanded our offerings to include the occasional scent blending workshop where we walk you through creating your own signature scent!

I have a deep love of the colour (or shade….) black and that has always been my main branding colour. We definitely attract a customer base with a similar love (IFYKY) and more often than not, we’ll have customers showing up to shop in all black, and we share a little smile over our love of Noir.

Clean burning, high quality and approachable price points have always been my brand pillars with an extra bonus of community give backs on every purchase, and we’ve grown our retailer based to over 150 wholesale partners across Canada and the U.S.

I’m just incredibly proud to be a female owned, female employed business in this beautiful town of Newmarket, Ontario, doing what i love everyday, surrounded by the most amazing, supportive community.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I actually opened my business shortly into my fertility journey. It was a great way for me to channel a lot of feelings into something productive and made me feel so much better to create something that not only made me happy, but others happy too.

From 2019 to 2022 I underwent a series of fertility treatments finally having a successful round of IVF and giving birth to my son in 2022. I remembered vividly being signed up for an out town full weekend crafters market, but realizing I would have my first IUI smack dab in the middle of the weekend. My sister offered to open my booth for me that day while I drove back and forth that morning for the procedure. I remember asking my booth neighbour to watch my booth the evening before so I could sneak away into the public washroom stall to give myself a very time sensitive injection to increase my chances of success the next day. Unfortunately that round was not successful and was only the beginning of many “hey can you watch my booth for just a minute” moments to come.

As my feelings grew, my business grew and so I was able to really drown out a lot of the negative I was working through and immerse myself in the positive. When I finally got pregnant in early 2022, I was actually in shock and realized I was about to have a baby and a fully operational manufacturing business so that was a super interesting moment for this proud, stubborn and very independent woman. I wasn’t allowed to do much of anything physical because I was considered high risk. My team was incredible and very protective of my physical well being and really stepped up during my pregnancy and after the baby was born to allow me to enjoy a little bit of new motherhood without panicking about how my business would run.

We now advocate for fertility patients, collaborate, fundraise for and partner with many fertility based organizations like Fertility Canada and although it was one of the hardest few years of my life, I’m very proud of who I am and what I was able to accomplish and maintain throughout that journey.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ve always been a firm believer that slow and steady wins the race. Aside from being consistent (grid, stories and reels) I’ve always been myself on socials (even at my most disheveled times) and the feedback I’ve gotten from everyone is that by being my authentic self (mom bun, no makeup, etc) people find it to be relatable, approachable and actually entices them to support my business.

I was running my own socials for the first couple of years, and then one of my new hires actually ran her own social media management business as well so I was using her company for that, and most recently brought her on as my full time marketing manager so she now deals with most of the posting for strategic content, and I put the personal twist on things by hopping on stories, and putting out most of the funny / silly reels.

If I could give one piece of advice, it would be to not buy your following. I’m strongly against buying followers for a multitude of reasons, one being that it’s pretty obvious when someone does (to the naked eye but there’s also tools out there), which leads me to believe that the company isn’t as legitimate as they make themselves out to be, which ultimately leads to a lack of trust in the owner and product or service they’re selling and discourages me from buying.

And secondly, aside from risking losing your account, or a sudden overnight drop as bots get deleted, it’s pointless. If you want actual, engaged followers that may lead to an actual paying customer, then create consistent and quality content, and over time you will grow those followers. There’s really no point in having followers that don’t benefit your business or your bottom line.

A following doesn’t always lead to an immediate sale. We’ve had followers that engage with us for a year and then finally click the “check out” button and let us know they’ve been following for awhile, and don’t know what took them so long to actually buy etc.

Stay consistent, persistent, on brand and personable – they will come and they will love you and your brand for who you are!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marketcandlecompany.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketcandlecompany/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marketcandlecompany/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@marketcandleco?lang=en

Image Credits

House of Rue
Captured by KP