63% of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck according to CNBC.
And you can be sure that many more Americans could use a little extra cash to fatten their savings and safety net in case things go wrong.
One of the easiest ways to earn money is to start your own candle making business.
It doesn’t take huge amounts of skill and hard work and dedication can pay off and start bringing some much needed cash through the door.
Don’t Make Your Own Candles, Yet? Then Start
It’s very easy to start making candles.
Check out our 10 good reasons to start making candles.
Then read our guide on how to make candles.
And get started with one of our best candle making kits.
Once you’re making candles, you can make a business out of it.
Begin By Defining Your Brand And Your Product Range
Start by giving your business a brand name and a brand identity.
This should incorporate your personal values and the brand’s values.
Work out who would be your ideal customer and aim to please them.
Then define your product range, it doesn’t have to be huge but it needs to be tailored to your customers and your brand.
Think about: what vessels will you pack the candles in? What scents should they carry? How should your packaging look? What material will you use for wax?
Take Some Pictures And Build A Website
The next step is to make your candles visually appealing.
All you need is a lightbox (you can buy them cheap on Amazon) and a camera (and yes, a smartphone is fine if you don’t have anything else to hand).
Take shots from a few angles, then make sure that your shots incorporate your brand values and you’re ready to go with a website.
You can also create video content as this generates fantastic levels of engagement.
You don’t want to spend a fortune on a website to begin with.
In fact, we’d skip the website entirely and start with Shopify or Etsy which allow you to build what looks like a website within their website and you don’t need any coding experience.
Why? Because they have some ready-made customers that you can tap into, whereas if you start by building a website, you’ll need to find those people yourself.
Set Some Goals And Then Start Local
Then it’s time to set yourself some targets.
These should be simple and achievable.
Such as:
- Sell a candle to a family member
- Sell a candle to a friend
- Sell a candle to someone who isn’t a friend or family member
- Get a repeat customer
- First 10 candles sold
- First 100 candles sold
- First $100 profit
- First $1,000 profit
And then start selling and the best way to do this is start local.
Talk to friends, neighbors, acquaintances, the lady at the grocery store, the guy in the hairdresser, whoever you meet and let them know about your business.
Get them to look at your web presence and even, maybe try and sell them a candle.
Make Sure Your Products Rock AND That You Support Them
The last part of running a successful business is to never compromise on quality and always supply excellent post-purchase support.
If you’re selling locally, this is doubly as important as your personal reputation is at stake.
And if you do this well, you will be able to ask people to leave positive online reviews which will help with your future marketing efforts!
Final Thoughts On Turning Your Candle Making Hobby Into A Profitable Side-Hustle
Candle making is awesome and it’s an easy thing to turn into a nice small business.
You probably won’t get rich on candles but if you’re one of the 63% of Americans with no savings at all, you can probably earn enough to start filling your bank account and that’s awesome!
We hope if you do decide to start a candle making business that you let us know too, we’d love to hear about it.
Good luck!