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

Hi Sierra, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

Like many people my age (24) I grew up hearing that college was the only real option after high school. It’s just what you did – you finished high school and you moved out to begin higher education. I had done small entrepreneurial projects in my teen years that piqued my interest in going that self-made business owner route, but I still went to college because that was just the next natural step.

My school didn’t have an entrepreneurial major, so I went with marketing and I really enjoyed it – however, there was SO much pressure from professors and advisors to get a corporate job. I knew deep down I didn’t want to go that route, because I valued making my own schedule and craved creativity that just isn’t available when you work for someone else.

It got to a point where my career counselor emailed me weekly before graduation, begging me to get a corporate job so that their job placement rates that year could be 100%.

If I could change something about our education system to prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career, it would definitely be to provide students with ALL their options and let THEM decide what course of action is right for them.

Luckily I stuck with my intuition and didn’t get a corporate job after college – I dove straight into creating my candle company and it has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I just KNOW I would be so unfulfilled in a corporate setting, and I’m proud of myself for taking the road less traveled!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Sierra Cunningham, owner of Arrival Candle Company! I am currently the one and only employee, meaning I do EVERYTHING – from product photography and label design to making every single candle and shipping them out one by one.

I got into the candle industry almost by accident – I started making them for fun in my garage during quarantine, and quickly realized that producing a GOOD candle that actually puts off fragrance would be a LOT harder than I thought. But I’m stubborn, so I took it as a challenge (; 6 months of testing and several terrible prototypes later, I finally nailed down the recipe for the perfect candle and decided to make a business out of it!

Arrival Candle Company specializes in enhancing your space with luxurious fragrances while keeping you and your family safe by using clean burning and non toxic ingredients. We also strive to provide you with fragrances that create special memories – every time you light one of our candles, the olfactory (smell) nerve engages the parts of your brain responsible for memory and emotion, which in turn creates memories tied to our fragrances! So going forward, every time you light that candle again, you’ll remember the good times you had with every previous lighting.

We believe that candles are so much more than just wax and fragrance – they are modes of transportation back to your favorite memories, and that concept is what I am most proud of with this brand. We want followers and potential clients to know that our candles are not only made with the best ingredients, but they are also painstakingly made to give you the best burning experience possible.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I am a stubborn perfectionist. I’ve accepted it and I’m working on it (;

So one lesson I’ve had to unlearn is the notion that I have to do everything myself or it won’t turn out right.

It’s true that no one will have the exact vision for my company, and no one will take my brand as seriously as I will, but I let that notion completely control me for the first year of my business and it led to so much stress. I was trying to do literally everything myself, and it got to a point where I just had to outsource something. So I chose to outsource my leads generation and marketing / paid ads by hiring a marketing agency.

At first, it was a bumpy ride! I felt like they didn’t understand my brand at all and that they weren’t going to see the vision I had for my company. But I had to remind myself that I have been completely immersed in this brand, MY brand, for 2 years… and they JUST got introduced to it. So I let go of my control freak side for a little bit and let the experts do their job and I’m so glad I did. They got into the groove of things and it’s helping me scale so much! The best part is I get to focus on the things I love and save time and energy by not having to worry about my marketing.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele, before hiring a marketing agency to help me scale, was definitely selling and pitching my product in multiple different places! In person markets were huge at the beginning for getting my name out there and ensuring I was bringing in revenue weekly, I did a huge Christmas market that was SO much work but got me SO much repeated business, I have an online store that I direct people to via my social media, and I just started doing paid targeted advertising!

Doing all those different things allowed me to find different types of clientele, and now I have a base to encourage repeated transactions from!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.arrivalcandleco.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/arrivalcandleco
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/arrivalcandleco