649 Sarah Clifford Owen:

Many great business ideas die the moment a budding entrepreneur tells their friends and family about it. They say things like, “what makes you think you can do it”? “You’ve got a great job, shouldn’t you stick with that?” Usually, they’re trying to protect you… or just projecting their own unconscious fears on you.  The trick is to know when to share and when to listen. My guest today – Sarah Clifford Owen – started her candle business in her kitchen and kept her confidence in her idea by keeping her big plans to herself.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock, 5-time serial entrepreneur and founder-CEO of the social podcast app Podopolo, and here on Wings of Inspired Business we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams.

Today we talk to an inspiring woman who turned her home into a candle making lab in the middle of the pandemic, and has grown her handmade Worthington Collection into a fast-growing business. Sarah Clifford Owen shares exactly how she did it, and what makes her odor-eliminating candles different from the millions of other options on the market.

I can’t wait to introduce you to Sarah! First…

Have you downloaded Podopolo yet? If you’re listening to this podcast right now then I know you love podcasts as much as me – and that’s why it’s time to explore the app that makes listening social and curates the ideal podcasts for you from our library of more than 4 million. Find out what everyone is talking about – join us on Podopolo today – free to download in either app store.

She’s a Mom. A Project Manager in the health care industry. A Cook. A Candlemaker. From the moment she got bored of bingeing another Netflix movie and turned to YouTube videos to learn how to make candles, she’s been on a singular mission to give a personal touch to give the quality that she demands from every product she creates. Sarah says what fuels her fire is infusing each candle she makes with love because she believes candles hold an intimate, honored place in a home.

And like most of us, Sarah doesn’t to expose herself or her family to harmful chemicals and unknown ingredients. So she uses non-toxic and vegan ingredients to formulate the candles in her Worthington Collection.

Today we talk about her journey as a first-time entrepreneur, how she kept her confidence as she learned along the way, and how she plans to scale a business that has a handmade product.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Sarah Clifford Owen.

Melinda Wittstock:         Sarah, welcome to Wings.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Hey Melinda, thanks for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’m excited to talk to you. How did you get your start in the candle industry? What motivated you to go in that direction in your entrepreneurial career?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      It’s actually a pretty random reason, so I got started during the pandemic. I was home, I was cooking pretty much every day of the week, and I just started to notice that scents were just lingering around, even the next day, my entire house just smelled like garlic, and I was burning candles that I had. I started purchasing other candles and burning it, thinking that would help, and it really wasn’t. So a thought just popped into my head, I was like, you know what? I need to figure out how to make a candle that would just get rid of odors and not just smell good while it’s lit.

And then, a little later on that day, I was probably watching Netflix or something, and I just had the urge to just start Googling. So I just started Googling candles, and the whole history, how to make them, found some YouTube videos. And I was like, hmm, maybe I can try that out. So I got some supplies, and just started to make some candles, that was kind of disastrous in the beginning, but eventually I made something that was working based on the research that I did.

And then I started reaching out to some other companies about the odor eliminating aspect, how I could create a candle that, okay, now it smells good, how do I make it actually get rid of lingering odors? Talked to some really amazing people that gave me some great ideas, and one thing led to another until I finally had this amazing candle, and I was like, you know what? I think I need to make a business out of it. And so, a year and a half later, I launched the Worthington Collection.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s such a lovely story. I think there are so many people that had an opportunity during the pandemic, or rather a choice, like they could seize an opportunity, something that they always wanted to do, or a problem they wanted to solve, and create a business around it, a lot of first-time entrepreneurs in the pandemic. Or they could just sit around and be upset and stressed, and worried.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:         And so you seized this opportunity. Women tend to launch businesses that are specifically related to a problem that they’re having in their own lives, or just through their own experiences. It’s kind of like, wait a minute, how come nobody’s doing this?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Right. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         And so where did you get the confidence? I always love to ask this question to just say, okay, nobody’s doing it, it’s going to be me.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Honestly, I gave myself the confidence. When I started researching and thought about, okay, maybe I can have a business. I just kind of stumbled upon a lot of different candle companies, especially in the luxury space, because I decided in the beginning, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go big. I want to be in the luxury space based on how I had the idea of what my candle would look like. And I did start to get a little discouraged because I was like, all right, there’s a lot of candles, what’s going to set me apart?

But I just kept telling myself, listen, if others can do it, you can do it. I also realized that I am going to stand out in that area because of the odor eliminating aspects. I think that just kind of gave me the confidence, like, yay, I’m not seeing any other candle that can say it gets rid of odors. So I was my biggest cheerleader, to be honest with you, and I do have a motto I taught myself, that I learned a long time ago. When you have an idea, sometimes other people may not be as excited for you, or if you mention it, they might actually say, “Okay, why are you going to be any different from all the other candles?” So I have this motto, move in silence, so I really kept it to myself. Outside of my husband, I didn’t tell anybody else what I was doing, and I think that just helped me to stay confident, stay focused, and just know that I’d be able to do it.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. When entrepreneurs take that leap, you do need confidence, you do need a lot of self-belief. But you mentioned something that’s so important, is how to be differentiated in a crowded space. Because everywhere you go, there are candles, there are a lot of candles, and so to really double down on what makes you different. So tell me a little bit about, I’m intrigued by this odor eliminating piece of it. I mean, how hard was that to actually figure out? You mentioned that you got advice from a lot of people, but I think in the manufacturing of the candles and I can think of so many different things that could be a challenge there. So what did you actually have to do to implement that and make that real?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      For candles, it was just a lot of testing. So I think I mentioned in the beginning, it was a little disastrous because I did some research, I watched some videos, I’m like, oh, I can do that. I got the fragrance oils, and the wax, and just started mixing stuff together, and then when I lit it, it’s like, I don’t think the flame is supposed to be that high. It was kind of like, all right, I need a fire extinguisher right now or I’m going to burn the house down. So there were a few of those moments.

So it really came down to just getting the formulas right. Maybe a lot of people don’t think there’s any science behind making candles, but you do have to make sure you’re using the right percentage of fragrance oils, the right type of fragrance oils. And then when you add odor elimination to the mix, that’s an additional ingredient. So, it took many sleepless nights, just staying up and mixing things up, and working on my formulas, and testing, and then going back and testing again, reaching out to the resources that I did find because they were great and really helpful, and gave me some additional formulations that I could try. So it took a while to get it down, but it really just came down to testing, and then testing, and testing again, until I perfected it.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. So your house, basically your kitchen, became your chemistry lab. [crosstalk].

Sarah Clifford Owen:      It did.

Melinda Wittstock:         A chemistry exercise. So once you get this formula right, and you’re really happy with it, you’ve obviously got to find a manufacturer, someone to make it, and make it, eventually, at scale, assuming you have the distribution. So talk me through that piece, what had to come first, second, third, fourth, fifth? The production, how many do you make? How many do you know you can sell?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      So the first piece of it was, obviously I created the candle, and then I realized that I can’t just say, “Hey, I have this odor eliminating candle.” I really had to get my branding down because that also had to be unique to the Worthington Collection, and I wanted to make sure it was something that when you saw it, you would remember it. And so I’m a project manager, I’ve been a project manager in health care for over 10 years, so that part of me kicked in. I made a project plan and just drafted out all the different areas that I knew that I would have to, not only do research, but reach out to experts and SMEs, and get their input, and also get people to work on my branding on the website and all of that.

So I took a month or two to just sit down and plot out all the different tasks, the deliverables, everything that would need to come together to make the Worthington Collection. Once I found those people, and getting into discussions with them, like, “Okay, what do you think this should look like?” Giving them a vision of what I envision my candle looking like, my website, my colors. And to be very honest, I didn’t even really realize that you needed to make sure that you set your branding guidelines up from the very beginning because that’s the piece that, anytime I reach out to someone, let’s say, I want to make a video for an ad, the first thing I say is, “Here are my branding guidelines, so let’s use that to mock something up.”

So, that piece had to come, and then of course, as you mentioned, creating the candle. So I did want my candles to be all handmade. I think that’s really important in the luxury space. You can actually tell the difference between a candle that’s mass manufactured versus handmade, the quality isn’t that great, especially when you’re using natural waxes like I am. I think it’s more important to make them by hand.

So, started with just one other person that came in and helped me part-time to get started, now it’s five of us that create the candles and the packaging, all of that. But it really just came down to planning and execution, like planning how it was going to be done, getting my team together, setting goals. So, my first month, this is what I wanted to achieve, by month two, this is what I wanted to achieve. And just making sure that I was meeting all those goals and timelines. And there have been some setbacks along the way, a lot of lessons learned, but we launched in June, and right now we’re doing really good, so I’m really happy about where we are.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s fantastic. As you say, in your bio, the candles are made with love, not mass production. What happens to you when, say it’s a breakout success and a lot more people want them than you can actually produce. That’s the big bind for a lot of companies because you get this first success, a lot of people want it, and then if you can’t fulfill the demand, that’s a big challenge. So how are you going to navigate that?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Hire more people. That was actually something that I had researched in the beginning and I found other candle companies that do hand-make their candles that have been around a lot longer than I have, and are a lot larger, and actually in stores. And I just read their story, I follow them on Instagram just to see like, okay, how were they able to maintain that? And it absolutely is maintainable, as long as you plan it out, and you know you have a team of people who are responsible for each aspect of it. So as I grow bigger, it will be amazing to be able to say I can hire more people as well. So yep, that’s the plan, as I get bigger, I’ve just got to grow my staff.

Melinda Wittstock:         I like that you’re really focused on non-toxic ingredients, because you wonder, with so many products, whether it’s cosmetics, even food, I mean, so many things, you really have no idea what’s in them.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Right.

Melinda Wittstock:         And so candles are letting off all sorts of things that we’re breathing in. So, how does it differ from, say, if you just go buy a regular candle, as opposed to one of your candles, I’m just curious about this, what’s the difference? How are yours non-toxic?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      So, starting with the wax, so a lot of candles that you can buy in the big box stores, their waxes are probably paraffin based or entirely paraffin, versus the natural waxes. So we use apricot and coconut waxes in the Worthington Collection. We make sure that they’re vegan, so none of the products are being tested on animals. There are no animal by-fat products, that was also something that was important to me.

And then with the fragrance oils, I mean, there’s some fragrance oils out there that contain acetone, which is nail polish remover, or chemicals that are used to make plastics, so that can be contained in it. It really is in a lot of these big brand, or big box candle stores, that you will find that. They probably won’t tell you that, but if you do a little research or dig deeper into what ingredients they’re listing on their websites, you will see.

So I make sure that, working with the companies who create my fragrances, that none of those chemicals were in there and actually do list out all the, I call it the no list, like you’ll never find these chemicals in my candles, whether it’s the wax or the fragrance oil, and then even the wicks. I use cotton wicks to make sure it’s a nice clean burn, you’re not getting all that smoke and soot. And some fragrances can cause headaches based on the ingredients that are in there, you won’t find that in my candles as well.

So it was really important that, if I was going to take the time to do this, and if I’m going to be taking the time to literally hand-make candles, that they had to be as clean as possible. And I was confident that I could say, “If you bring my candle into my home, it is safe, it’s safe for you, safe for your family, and you know what you’re burning is a good clean product.”

Melinda Wittstock:         I think consumers are just demanding this more. I mean, we’ve just gone through this pandemic, we’re still sort of in it, a little bit, but people are getting more health conscious, more concerned about the environment. I mean, this is a big selling point. So tell me a little bit about the branding, and the concept behind the Worthington Collection. Why did you name it?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Another random reason, so, again, I was like, okay, I want to come out into the luxury space, time to think of a name that I felt sounded like a luxury brand, a luxury item, and wrote down a lot of different things. Nothing thrilled me, and literally, Worthington is my husband’s middle name, and I was looking at something that had his whole name on it, and I was like, huh, Worthington, I like that. And searched to make sure nobody used it, and I’m like, yep, we’re going to go with the Worthington Collection. And I didn’t want to just have Worthington Candle Company or anything because I do intend to expand. I would love to expand it into home decor in the near future, so I chose collection just so it’s not just candles. It can be anything that I choose to expand in. So, yeah, my husband’s middle name is what I used.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, that’s great. So where do people get it? How do you buy it? Are you sold exclusively online? Or are you aiming to be in stores or how does it work?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      So right now, exclusively online, I think in the near future, hopefully, we’ll be in stores, but right now it’s the worthingtoncollection.com, is our website. And Instagram is @theworthingtoncollection, that’s our Instagram handle. So you can go out and you can check us out, and if you’d like to purchase then you can just purchase directly on the website, Always free shipping. I’m one of those people that I could have $500 worth of stuff in my cart, and if I see $5 shipping, I’m like, forget it. I was like, we need to figure out a way to make free shipping, free returns as well. If you get it, you don’t like the fragrance, every fragrance is not going to be for everybody, I’ve gotten some candles in the past that I was like, okay, it had rave reviews, everybody said it smelled great, and I’m like, I don’t like this, wish I could return it or exchange it, get something else. So, free returns, free exchanges, and free shipping from our website.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s wonderful. How many different scents and colors and things do you have?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      So we have two different collections. Our Signature Collection has six scents, and then our Luxe Collection has two scents, for a total of eight different candle scents right now.

Melinda Wittstock:         When you’re focused on your growth, do you think about differentiating your product line? Or are you more about doubling down on what you’ve got and really seizing market share with what you have right now?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      I do want to expand into different collections, so I do hope that next year I will have a really nice holiday collection, possibly doing something in the spring as well. Right now, since we just launched in June, I’m just focused on the eight candle scents that I have, and I’m just kind of really looking at what’s my highest sellers versus what’s not doing so great, whether I need some market those more, or maybe I need to think about rebranding it or refreshing it, or just completely pulling it. So I’m just really looking at the eight that I have right now and seeing how well they’re doing, and then I’m going to use the results from that to expand into other collections. And again, as I mentioned, hopefully I can branch out into home decor as well.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right. So one of the things I’ve learned as a serial entrepreneur, is that the product can be amazing, it can be like the best thing ever, but if people don’t know about it, that, does it even exist? And so the marketing, I would imagine, is a really big part of what you have to do here. Tell me how you’re getting the word out about it. I mean, apart from being on this podcast, of course.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Right. Of course. So I do have a publicist that reaches out to different publications, and I’ve done a couple podcasts because I really wanted people to learn about me too. I think it’s really important that people understand the name and the face behind the brand, and just understand where I’m coming from, why I created this, and I feel that that would resonate with a lot of people. And just reassure them that it’s safe to purchase these candles and that there is somebody who’s actually putting a backing behind it.

So, just promoting myself and then promoting the business, reaching out to different publications and letting them know what we’ve got going on, as well as my social media. So, on Instagram, just try to really engage with my followers, grow them organically, as well as, we have some influencers who are actually taking the product and testing it out, so they can give good real reviews from just real people that when people research, okay, let me see what’s going on with the Worthington Collection, is it safe? Are people enjoying it? Are they liking it? When they go out and look at our social media, or a website, or just publications that are put out, they can actually get the word from real people who are actually using the product.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. No, that’s super smart. So what is the moment in your business that was the most heart-wrenching, the most, kind of that moment, because we all have them, where it’s like, oh my God, what?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      One comes to mind, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Yeah. So prior to launching of course, getting in my candle vessels, which are all glass, so ready to take delivery of the shipment of candle vessels that I got. And I don’t know what happened, but the delivery driver was taking them off the truck, and an entire pallet just fell off the truck, from a very far distance. So I’m standing there, and I’m just watching all these boxes just tumble off the truck. And it’s like, I don’t want to ugly cry in front of these people who are standing here, but I couldn’t help it. And there were little setbacks, little delays, that pushed my launch out along the way, and I was able to get over those hurdles. And then here is this one final thing, like the final straw that just kind of broke me.

I was like, “Oh my God, I think this is a sign, I shouldn’t be doing this.” Fortunately it looked a lot worse than it was. We had only a few that broke, thankfully, I don’t even know how that happened, I guess they were packaged really well. But that piece of it really shook me. And then, for a while it was like, okay, I couldn’t have even have prevented this, like what could I have possibly have done to prevent this? And I was talking to my husband, who’s in real estate and he does a lot of house flipping. And, he was like, “When I have tile and stuff getting delivered, they actually, on the truck, they come prepared with like a forklift,” I forget the actual name, but it’s like a small version of a forklift that they actually use to pick those up, “So you need to make sure the next time you shipment’s coming in, you request that and make sure that they’re coming with the proper equipment, they’re coming with people who are prepared to deliver.”

So it was a teachable moment for me, it definitely is a lesson learned, and I make sure now to inquire what kind of equipment’s going to be used to deliver whatever it is that I’m purchasing. But that was kind of rough, but I got through it, and I was still able to launch.

Melinda Wittstock:         There are always opportunities to learn. I mean, I think when things go wrong, it’s just really a way that we’re being shown something that we need to learn, and better to just embrace it with that kind of mindset. But yes, after all the hard work, when there’s a setback like that, yeah, it can be hard because we pour every ounce of ourselves into our businesses. But, you’ve just got to take the learning, and there’ll be more, there always are, I certainly found that on my journey. And so what’s your proudest moment? What’s the moment where you’re like, oh, look at me, look what I’ve done?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      I think it was launch day, when the website went live, and I just got to see everything that took me that long to create just actually come to fruition, and, to me, it was just perfect, it was beautiful. And to actually have had sales on launch day too, because I think, I mean, obviously I went into it wanting sales, but a part of me was like, you know what? It might take a little time, don’t get discouraged. And I’d had a good amount of sales, and that came from working on my social media pages a couple of months before, just to build engagement, awareness, and let people know, hey, this is coming, and educating them about what it is that I was doing and why it would be different. So I think, yeah, launch day for me right now goes down in the history books because it was huge and it was so satisfying to see that what I built was actually successful.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, it’s so nice you took the moment to enjoy it. I think sometimes we can all be in a terrible rush, like once one milestone is completed, I mean, our minds are already on the next.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Right.

Melinda Wittstock:         And so taking time to actually savor the accomplishment is hugely, hugely important. So where do you see it going ultimately? I know you mentioned a little while ago that there’s all kinds of potential for moving beyond candles, into household things, with a lot of products like this. What’s your big vision? Where do you want to be in five years, 10 years, with this?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      In five years, I definitely want to be known for odor eliminating candles. I want the Worthington Collection, when you hear that, it’s like, oh yeah, we know them, it’s odor eliminating candles that smell amazing. So I definitely want my candles to be very prominent. And at the same time, I do want to be able to try to launch a different product in the home decor space and have the same type of success. And honestly, for me, I think it’s more, all right, I’ve done candles, now what else can I do? I never sit still, or remain stagnant. I always want to try to see, okay, how can I be better? So I’m hoping, and I’m very hopeful, and it’s looking like it will be able to happen, that I will be able to launch in the home decor space and achieve the same success within five years.

Melinda Wittstock:         So what advice would you give to other women who just recently launched businesses? Say through the pandemic, whatever, based on your own experience, what would be your main advice?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      So, something recently happened and I think it kind of shifted how I think. So I say that you always need to make sure that you use experts that you know they’ve achieved success in that area, don’t sit there and think that you can do everything yourself. So, don’t be afraid to outsource to other experts. I still believe that, however, and I’m going to give an example. So, with running ads on Facebook, I took the approach of, okay, a, I really don’t have time to sit there and figure out how this works, I’m just going to outsource that, obviously do my research and find someone who’s had great success and can show me that they’ve worked with companies in my area, and I’m just going to outsource that from the very beginning. Looking at what was achieved with those ads, two months in, I realized it wasn’t where it should have been.

And so, I took the time to just sit down and look at the ads, and I said to myself, you know what, I think I should work with someone who can actually educate me on how Facebook ads work, and why you target certain people, and why you do certain ads. So I decided to find the time, so one week, it was a week of three hour sessions with an expert on Facebook ads, and just went in and looked at everything that we had set up and going on, and explained how we could’ve have done differently, why it didn’t perform. And then they actually showed me, hey, take a stab at creating ads for yourself, just so you can actually see and understand what you’re doing. And I think that’s really important.

So, even though you really should, if you can, reach out to experts and try to get them involved in helping you launch your company, it’s also important to understand what’s going on so that if something’s broken, you can at least ask the questions and realize that something’s broken in order to make sure that it gets fixed timely. So, definitely take some time, even though you might not think you have time, there’s only 24 hours in the day, but definitely take some time to really just understand what’s happening so you can ask the right questions, you can ask why, and understand the why as well.

Melinda Wittstock:         I think sometimes as women we’re prone to try and do everything ourselves, we don’t have to do it all, but it is important as a CEO and founder of a company to understand all the dynamics in your business. I mean, everything from the numbers, the metrics, where you’re going, product, marketing, just to understand it because if you understand it, obviously, you’re a better leader. I mean, you can manage people, you can really define the results that you want, like what’s success and not, but it doesn’t mean you have to do it all. And that’s a trap I see a lot of female founders, in particular, falling into, this idea of, you got to do everything.

You mentioned that you have a team, and you hired pretty quickly on, that’s vital as well.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Right.

Melinda Wittstock:         You need help. And so, was it hard for you to ask for help when you needed it? I know a lot of female founders actually struggle with that.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      No, it wasn’t. I think because I’ve been a project manager so long, I mean, I understand the importance of having a team of people who are dedicated to a specific task within that project. So, asking for help earlier on wasn’t an issue for me, in fact, I’d pretty much outsourced everything except for the accounting, I keep that close to heart. But I think what was hard, as I explained before, is that I didn’t actually, for certain areas with the ads or marketing in general, I didn’t have, I’m going to say I just didn’t have any knowledge of the social media marketing platforms. And in hindsight, a lessons learned was, okay, I should have done that course before hiring, because that would have led me to ask questions of the people who I was interviewing to assist me. I would have been able to ask questions and probably have determined that, okay, maybe this is not, or maybe my business or my area is not something that you’re really familiar and comfortable working with, maybe I should look for someone else.

So, had no issue with asking for help, but definitely learned that I need to probably educate myself a little bit more before I try to find the people who can successfully help me.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, Sarah, I want to make sure people know how to find the Worthington Collection. What’s the best way, again, remind everybody about your Instagram as well?

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Yeah, so the website is theworthingtoncollection.com, and our Instagram handle is @theworthingtoncollection, and Facebook as well, is @theworthingtoncollection, that’s our handle on Facebook.

Melinda Wittstock:         Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Sarah Clifford Owen:      Thank you for having me. I enjoyed this.