We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Thomas Fortenberry a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Thomas, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
This is a question I get asked a lot from colleagues, friends, and family.
Whether or not you see yourself as successful, is how you perceive what success truly is.
Is success running an profitable endeavor, having the business acumen to keep with the trends, or simply having a business that gets your creative juices flowing into something you love?
And how do I define success?
Success to me is something you personally have to define for yourself as no one else can tell you what success looks like.
Success doesn’t mean by a certain age, at a certain time, or by a certain deadline, and is definitely not about any other person’s measures or metrics except your own.
For myself and my luxury candle company, L.F. Wickery, success is having the ability to make a great luxury candle, and get positive customer feedback on my products.
The success that keeps me going day to day is something my parents often state; Never Give Up!
That is how I measure my success!
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?
As a creative person, I started my first candle company back in 2002, not knowing how I was going to market, sell, or even produce an entire line of candle and fragrances.
I started with 5 candle fragrances which then expanded into a line of 30 candle fragrances, Bath & Body lotions, Bath Salts, Reed Diffusers, Wax Fragrance Tarts, and many other items.
Running that business while holding a full time job in the IT sector, was a lot to handle being my first company launch, and it lasted for about 10 years before I finally called it quits.
Then around 2012, I decided to launch a new Men’s line of Body Bars, Body Wash, Beard Oil, Beard Wash, Daily Face Cleanser, etc, all around sustainability. This meant all of my packaging could be 100% recycled and all of my base products were all natural and eco-friendly.
Last year, in 2021 during Covid, I decided to launch a new, luxury candle company that focuses on fragrances that you do not see sold on the store shelves. Such fragrances as Eau de Mer + Amber, Awapuhi + Seaberry, Saffron + Tobacco, Bergamot + Ambergris and many others.
I wanted to create a luxury brand that surpasses all other candle companies in the marketplace, and so far customers are loving our new line.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
I do manufacture all of my products and it has definitely been a learning journey.
There have been many costly mistakes that I have made in the past, not knowing or having any experience going into this field.
I did a lot of studying of materials around candles, what is the right wax, do I use Soy or Paraffin, what kinds of wicks to use, etc
There were a lot of products that I tested and after creating at least 70 different candles with different waxes and wicks, I created the ultimate luxury candle that is sold today on L.F. Wickery
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
The easiest way that I like to keep in touch with my awesome customers is through all of our social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram.
We also create a blog on our site for new and upcoming products and promotions as well as email blasts
Sometimes I like to send a personal thank you email to each client just to let then know how much I appreciate them supporting a small, independent business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lfwickery.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lfwickery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LFWickery
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lfwickery