EPISODE 76 TRANSCRIPT // INTERVIEW WITH SARAH HART

Sarah [00:00:03]: Little boxes for them. Because it was like November, it was holiday time. And I think 3 out of 4 or 4 out of 5 of the original scents, I think it’s 3 out of 4 of the original scents that I had at that show are still in our line.

Kristin [00:00:20]: That’s amazing.

Sarah [00:00:21]: And they sold so, so fast. They sold so quickly. And they were two to three times more expensive than the other girl who was selling candles. Because I was like, well, this is a vintage glass. This piece is one of a kind. The glass alone is valued at, you know, this much money. And the next time I went back, I had even more candles. And I was week after week selling more candles than other vintage stuff. And so after about six months, so in January, I agreed to do that market every weekend. I signed up for, like a permanent spot. So I had about six months until June of like regularly doing it. And it was just more and more candles to the point where there was almost nothing of the other stuff, but mostly just candles. Every week people could, because I was there every week, people could bring their, their vintage candle vessel back. I would refill it and return it to them the week after. I had repeat customers. It was really fun. And I was starting to get wholesale interest. In fact, I had this one buyer from Japan who I’m still in contact with, who wanted to, you know, import these Brooklyn vintage candles to Japan. And I was just like, so confused. I had no idea. I didn’t know what wholesale was. But I had a lot of other friends in this market who were making jewelry, who are making other things. And so I asked them, like, do you sell wholesale? What is that like? And then I went down. Another ADHD hyper fixation on the entire wholesale gift industry after that. Like, it was around June, and my sales at this in person market had really started to slow down. And I hit my first summer as a candle maker. And I just realized it’s hot and people do not want to light things on fire.

Kristin [00:02:11]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:02:12]: And it was brutal. And I just. After maybe two weeks of like, not even making enough money to cover my booth rent, I said, I can’t. I can’t do this. I needed to restructure and decide, okay, if I’m going to reimagine this business as only a candle business, what does that look like? I needed to make sure that if I was going to sell wholesale, that my margins were right for. For wholesale from the beginning, not just halving whatever my retail prices were working on my pricing structure from scratch. I found Megan Almond and she had a Website at the time, a blog called the Creative mba, which was just this idea that, you know, you’re building like you’re. You’re learning your master’s in business. Like it’s a trial by fire. Right. But there are so many business things that creative people often don’t learn. And she had really great resources. She had a couple ebooks, she had an online course. And I just devoured up all that information. And she was the first person who really like, taught me kind of foundational wholesale stuff, pricing, distribution, all that kind of stuff, trade shows. And I was lucky enough that I was living in New York City, so I was able to go to the stationery show in person. I was able to walk New York now and really get a visual of like, wow, this industry is huge. And until you’re in, like the wholesale industry in some kind of way, it completely changes how you walk into any store, how you experience just like the world. Because before you just walk into that store.

Kristin [00:03:43]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:03:44]: And you just looked at the things and you bought them and you didn’t think. Somebody had to pick out every single item that is on this shelf. Then somebody had to merchandise this item to make this whole display look really cute and price it and sticker it. I mean, all of these things, you just really, like, opened this whole world of retail. And especially like specialty shop retail, independent retail, which I just felt absolutely in love with. But it was the summer I had fallen in love, but I had no money to execute this plan of like rebranding my whole business as just a candle business. And I was kind of moping around my parents house complaining that I didn’t have any money. I had quit my job at AOL at this point because I was going to be a candle maker full time because my parents thought I was. Had lost it. Right. My mom was like, oh, my gosh, get a job. Like you need money, get a job.

Kristin [00:04:37]: Let me answer this for you.

Sarah [00:04:38]: And of course, she probably thought that I would go back to my, like, corporate job in the industry that I had studied for in like, the profession that I had chosen. And I said, I’m going to go find a family and be a nanny for a year on Long island and then put all the money that I make from being a nanny into rebranding this business. And then after a year, I’m going to move out of New York because it’s too expensive here. And again, I don’t know what they thought. They were just like, okay, I guess, like, you know, they were like, good luck they were not supportive. They were supportive, but, like, they were just confused because I was the kind of person who had had so many different entrepreneurial ideas. Right. I started a scrunchie business when I was 10 years old. I tried to sell Avon in high school. Like, I was. I had three jobs in college. I was a workaholic. And I loved business. I loved my first, like, job where I had to work a register was at cvs and I was, like, thrilled. Working in register was like the funnest thing ever. Facing floor plans. I loved it. I could not get enough. Everything was new information and I was just like soaking in all of this. And it was just like that with. With Simply Curated. So I found this design firm out of Georgia and they. I basically had a logo, but I. So they weren’t doing like a full brand, you know, redesign. I had done a little bit on my own, but I needed a packaging redesign because packaging was really important to me. And I knew that if we were going to sell at a certain price point, the packaging really had to match that price point. And I was working on developing our own illustrations, like our own patterns for glass that mimicked the vintage glass that I could get in larger quantities. Because as I got busier, I was running out of time to source these vintage glasses cheaply at estate sales and thrift stores. I was buying them on ebay and Etsy from other resellers for like sometimes $10 a glass, and then making a candle in that and then selling that candle for $50. Like, it was not sustainable, it was not scalable. But I knew that the candle, if I was going to wholesale it and still get it screen printed like they used to do with real 22 karat gold, it was still going to be an expensive product. And I needed the pack to reflect that. So this firm that’s called what’s called Stitch Design Co. Now, they’re. I think they go by a different acronym. They did our original rebranding and packaging and I had barely enough money to pay them for that with all the money that I made from, like nannying for a whole year. And I was paying them in installments. So, like, it was. It was tough. Then I had paid them, the project was done, but now I needed to order all of this packaging.

Kristin [00:07:26]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:07:27]: And it was so expensive. And I needed to order all of the glass. And I was planning to move to Michigan. And so I launched a Kickstarter because I had no more money to do this thing. I launched a Kickstarter specifically to launch Our cocktail collection. I said, this is the plan, this is what we already have and you know, ready to go. And one of my friends who was in tech as a Kickstarter consultant at the time, I asked him for a favor to give me like a, you know, 30 minute, like coaching call for free, like, what do I need to know about this? He basically said, you need to, you need to be prepared that you think you can fund 90% of your goal through people you already know through your network. If you don’t have enough people who are willing to put their money where their mouth is and support you, the platform is not going to do that. Right. It’s, it was an algorithm like everything else. I don’t know if the word algorithm was used, but we use it so much now. But it was that kind of thing where it’s like if the algorithm sees people already willing to support this, then it’s going to push it out more. I think it’s the same thing now when you launch a new Etsy store or anything like that, you need to have a group of people set up to make those first 30 days, whether it’s on Etsy or Faire or any of these marketplace type situations where that initial thing is going to be rushed with people that, you know, context that you already have to then boost it up in the algorithm. Yeah, and my Kickstarter was not the kind of Kickstarter where it was like, oh my gosh, we raised so much money, we barely met our goal. And I think we met it because my dad threw in probably the extra thousand bucks that needed to make sure that we got it over the edge there at the end. And that was really encouraging. And I moved to Michigan in October 10 years ago and I had until the holiday season to kind of fulfill what wholesale I already had from my existing packaging, but then fulfill to these Kickstarter backers by December, which is what I had kind of promised them by the holidays. And then we were going to launch our new packaging and rebranding in January. And in January I got reached out to by a group called AMDC or the American Design Club and they asked if I wanted to do New York now and in their little like group, group show area booth. And I was so excited because I knew I wanted to do it eventually, but I didn’t know that I was ready to do it. But my parents just said you got to just go for it.

Kristin [00:10:00]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:10:01]: So I did my first show at New York now that winter, like right after we had just launched this packaging and was not the greatest. Not the greatest showing. But then Etsy had just, like, was just in the process of launching Etsy Wholesale that spring, and they did a program where they were. They were basically running a contest. It was like a pitch contest. So you. They were going to bring in, like, 20 different brands, and so you had to apply and win this contest. And then they were going to bring you to New York to pitch all of these big stores and media in person in the summer, so before holiday season. So I made an Etsy account just for this purpose because I originally was, like, not going to be on Etsy and selling our products, but I had to be on Etsy if I wanted to join Etsy Wholesale. So I did this and I won this contest and went back to Brooklyn to set up at the Etsy headquarters and pitch to all these brands. And then they were going to award their favorites at the end with a. With a contract, you know, with. With a retail contract for the season. And because they were doing a special, like, Etsy Wholesale section in a lot of these stores, and I did not win. However, the buyers from Nordstrom reached out to me again after the presentation and said, we still really liked your stuff. We want to bring it in for. For this year. And I was like, this was my first, like, holiday season with the new packaging. Like, this was nine years ago. And we also from New York, now we got a contract with Urban. So I was. I shipped my first, like, big retail, like, palette orders to Nordstrom and Urban in my first holiday season. Holiday season. And the Nordstrom.

Kristin [00:11:59]: Whoa.

Sarah [00:12:00]: Well, and the Nordstrom order was $60,000. I was like, I made it. I made all the right decisions. Everything is great. This is amazing. But Nordstrom, and here’s. Here’s the first, like, hint that I felt like, okay, I was so. I was so excited. They placed the order and they ordered. Like, they had different. They had a different order for, like, what was going to go online and what was actually going to be in stores. And they had three or four different scents of the cocktail collection. Now this is like, you know, a $50 candle at retail, or 48, I think at the time it was, but, like, expensive with a brand that nobody knows and no reasoning behind it. Like, there was not like a shelf talker about, like, what this brand was or who this person was or whatever. And then a bunch of our travel candle scents. So our lowest price item and our most expensive item, not our median, which was a very different aesthetic, packaging wise. So I understand why they didn’t choose that for this particular holiday display. But then I learned that at retail, they were only bringing in one skew of the cocktail collection, one fragrance. And I thought to myself, this is a bad idea. This isn’t gonna work. One scent on. On a shelf by its lonesome with other travel candles next to it. Like, not, you know, merchandise. I was like, this isn’t. They should diversify. You can do the same spend, but you should diversify this among some of the skus that you’re gonna put in. Whatever. But I just thought, this is a Nordstrom. Am I really gonna tell the buyer at Nordstrom that she’s making the wrong choice? So I didn’t say anything. And it was a huge failure in February. I don’t remember when, but eventually they came back with the numbers on how it did, what was what. It was our sell through. Right? And the travel candles did great. It’s like 70% thrilled. The cocktail collection, unsurprisingly, at its expensive price point, with brand that nobody had heard of and whatever, was like 25. It was like crushing. Right? And they asked me if I would do a buyback, and I said no, because I knew what that was. I scanned my contract for it, and I knew it was not in there. I knew I did not agree to that. And I just said, I’m so sorry. That would bankrupt this business. You can put it on sale.

Kristin [00:14:30]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:14:31]: So it was in the Nordstrom sale that summer, and they have never ordered again. Now, I. It was like a really hard lesson to learn because you felt like you made it. You were like, this is it. This business is going to the moon. And then it was just like, nothing. Right. Thankfully, they. They paid out. You know, whatever I made, I made the money that I was going to make. I didn’t have to take it back. I didn’t have to lose my business after being in business for only a year. But it was like a really hard lesson to learn.

Kristin [00:15:02]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:15:03]: My relationship with Urban was very similarly stop and start because it was through American Design Club. And so I didn’t have direct contact with those buyers. I couldn’t pitch them. I just kept hearing they want it, they didn’t want it. They reordered a couple times, but it was not like a solid relationship that I was building with a buyer there. I also had the experience a couple years later of a buyer from Urban reaching out to me and saying, oh, my gosh, we love this stuff so much. And I’m just like, yeah, you used to carry it. But she didn’t Know, she just started. Yeah, they’re just changing so often, you know. And so we have had a couple different, you know, corporate relationships like that. But for the most part, our. Our success has been not in the big fish. It was in lots of little small fish that were really consistent and great. And I just real. I like, learned the lesson that like, 50 small retailers who consistently order from you every three to six months, it beats one giant order that you’re so stressed about that then might not even work out well, like any day.

Kristin [00:16:01]: And it’s such a good con. It’s such a good perspective because I think so many, so many brands are always striving for what’s my really large retailer? I want this one. Like, I want to get into Urban, I want to get into Nordstrom, and if I don’t, then I’m not successful. But they actually have like a hundred really amazing, you know, small accounts. And it’s like, those are actually really good because they. You’re building relationships with them. And so it’s interesting. Not interesting necessarily, but like a good perspective to share, you know. And I know that you’ve really, like, built your business on connecting with gift brands. And that’s like, when we connected and I shared with you before we started recording like, that you had such a really clear. When you were. It wasn’t necessarily a pitch, it was when we were talking and I was like, what would you recommend for my shop? Because buyers want to know what’s going to do well. And you were one of the few back then, at least you were one of the few small brands that were like, this is what you should buy. Because other gift box brands, this is what works. And I was like, done. Thank you for giving me that perspective. And like, not being afraid, not being afraid on your end to say, like, this is what you should buy and this is what I know will genuinely work for you. And then I bought from you for years. Maybe not the tune of what Nordstrom was buying from, but like, you know, it builds that loyalty. Like, does. Does that perspective or that experience you have, did that give you that perspective as you’ve been reaching out to shops or connecting with shop owners since then?

Sarah [00:17:37]: I think that that perspective kind of came from our next, like, three years in wholesale where we were trying to figure it out. We still had the cocktail collection and that was the, like, shiny thing, right? It looked beautiful whenever we did trade shows, like, it was what brought people in. Oh, look at these. Right? And it was not the right fit for probably 80 to 90 of retailers. And I knew that because of the price point, there was definitely a store I could sell in. Yeah, I would have loved to be in Neiman Marcus. It would have been great. Like it was a very high end candle and maybe if I had priced it even more expensive, that would have been more apparent. But it was also the story of our whole brand up until that point. Having started with vintage, like it was the story that I was telling. And then it led to this. And so even though we had a good, better, best, we had other price points, we had other products, it wasn’t the thing that people wanted, it wasn’t what attracted them to the brand and it wasn’t the story that they knew how to tell. Even our sales reps, when we brought them on eventually and I told that same story, then that was the story that they were telling. But they would convince their stores on this story and then they would bring in a line that was not a good fit for like a paper goods store. Your average checkout value is $25 or something. You’re not going to sell a bunch of $50 candles. It’s just not going to work. It’s not what the customer wants from you or what they’re expecting to spend when they walk into that environment. And I couldn’t like retrain the buyers. Like I couldn’t train that story out of them because it was just what they heard, it was what they clicked and they were what they were running with and they would open new account after new account on the strength of that story and that product line that then when it wasn’t successful for the retailer, they were like, oh, this doesn’t work. Your products don’t have good sell through. Whereas the stores that I was pitching and selling to in other areas where I was pitching them on some and selling through something that was like the right fit. We had reorder after reorder. So like our experiences were completely different because we were selling it completely differently. So it came to a point where I had to discontinue that entire collection, which of course my reps thought was a huge mistake because this was the like the story. This was the story. This was the shiny thing. And I said this isn’t the end of the story, this is just the end of this chapter. And we launched our botanical collection which also has illustrations on the same size. Glass can be reusable as far wear, but it’s not made with 22 karat gold or boxes that Kristen cost me over $3 a box. You know, like this collection was killing us and I needed a more affordable, like, I still, I still am a packaging snob. I still created a beautiful packaging. But the, the reps just were like, oh, this is such a loss for your line that you’re losing this. And I’m like, literally, it’s not, it’s going to help so much. But the fact that you don’t see that or understand that just really shows how, like, misaligned we are in, in what, what our goals were for the business. I did have a great conversation with one of our original rep groups before they, they took us on where the founder of that rep group, she sat me down and she said, so do you have any plans to like, kit this, these scents out? Meaning, like, you’re going to create other products in these fragrances. Lotion, soap, spray diffusers. And at the time I just said, no, we’re a candle company. I just want to do this, I don’t want to do that. And eventually in that particular area, I realized that she was right. Buyers wanted to be able to bring in a line that had a whole collection around these fragrances. Your fragrances were the things that were unique to your brand. And they wanted luxury products in this category that then they could sell across the board. So once we started doing that, we launched our first non candle product at Shop Object in February of 2020.

Kristin [00:21:41]: What a time.

Sarah [00:21:42]: It was a redefuser. And you know what? It went great. The buyers loved it. They were so excited. Everything was going great. It doubled our orders at the show because they still ordered all the candles they were going to order. And then they ordered re diffusers in all of those scents. It was amazing. And then 60% of those orders never even shipped because we all know what happened. We don’t need to go into that, but it gave me really incomplete data on was this product a failure? Like, do people want this? Because it kind of languished for like a year where, like, just no one really was buying it. I wasn’t marketing it well. It wasn’t until we continued the expansion of the kitting where we launched our hand wash and our hand lotion. And now we had a candle in two sizes, a re diffuser, a hand wash and a lotion that really, it increased the sales of the re diffuser as well, because now stores wanted to buy the whole thing and bring it all in and show. Show their clients. So it’s been this. It’s just like ever evolving fit because you have your kind of like, ideal store, like the ideal Store for us is usually like, a home goods. Not home goods. The brand. A home store. A store that sells home furnishings and goods and goods and things, and, you know, sometimes kitchen things or whatever. But usually we did really well in, like, furniture shops or the interior designer stores. Because somebody can’t buy a couch every weekend, right? Someone’s not buying a whole lighting package every weekend. But they want to go in. They want to shop around on Saturday with their friends. They’re gonna smell a candle. Oh, my gosh, this smells so good. Like, it’s an impulse purchase, but it’s an impulse purchase that then hooks them on your fragrances, on your line, and then they go back to that store because, oh, my gosh, I was here about this candle, but I also tried this lotion that was so amazing. And now I want to buy the lotion. And, oh, my gosh, they have a hand wash, too. Like, it was really, like, the thing that we needed to do. But we always had all of these other kind of, like, offshoots of store types that would carry different parts of our line. So we have flower shops that do really well with our botanical collection and always have. We have a couple really consistent accounts. One, Winston Flowers in Massachusetts. They have, like, four different locations. They’re our largest retailer right now. We had a really good relationship with Farm Girl Flowers for years, where they put our travel candles in some of their boxes, and that was like, getting paid for marketing. They so many people would come to us because they received one of our candles in a gift from somebody else, and it was just like, the perfect. The perfect thing. That relationship kind of went away in 2020 when their business model changed a little bit. But it was a very lucrative for a really long time. But I struggled to change our. Like, our manufacturing processes after Farm Girl went away, because I kind of didn’t know that they weren’t coming back. And we were. We were at the point before that and before COVID where we were making 4,000 travel candles a month for them. This was a huge. They were about a third of our annual revenue.

Kristin [00:24:55]: Okay. Pretty important account.

Sarah [00:24:58]: And, you know, it was the pandemic. It was hard. We didn’t feel the loss in the same way, because we were making up for it in a lot of ways because of E- commerce and because of all the online shopping and support of small business that we saw. But it was a real blow to our wholesale program and to the way that we were manufacturing, because we would pretty much run every month up until that point where we were making Product just for them. And then we would have like a week where we could restock our own stuff before we were back to like, fulfilling for them. So because I didn’t make that shift, like, quickly enough or whatever, we kind of struggled where we would have a lot of stuff on the shelf and there wasn’t the need for such a large production team. But it felt like we were still growing. And so we moved into this warehouse that we’re in now and more than doubled our space for storing things for production as we kept launching new products. That means new and different raw materials of packaging and bottles and glassware and things like that. We felt like we really needed the extra space, but we were going into a recession and farm girl hadn’t come back and I had product that I didn’t know how to discount or move, like in that way, the same way that you would if you had a retail store. Because it wasn’t going bad and I could sell it eventually. But that meant that there wasn’t work for my production team to do every day. So eventually we had to lay off like most of our staff last year, which was really, really difficult for me because I had had mostly an upward trajectory at up until this point, not really had like a down year. And 22, I think, was our first down year where I had just been hiring. Like we were doing so well. We had. I finally had some good access to credit, which I hadn’t had previously. And I’ll be completely honest, like, my business lost. We had our best revenue year ever and we lost $100,000. And I had never had the privilege to even be able to lose that much money before. But I wasn’t paying close enough attention. And the bookkeepers that I was working with were not bookkeepers in the way that they’re going to tell you when the ship is going wrong. They were just like, here’s the report.

Kristin [00:27:29]: They’re not advisors. They’re not like a CFO advisor. They’re just managing your books and passing.

Sarah [00:27:35]: They’re just making sure that it’s correct and accurate. Even if it’s accurate and you’re going down in flames.

Kristin [00:27:39]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:27:41]: So we’ve spent the last two years kind of digging out of like, honestly still recovering from that loss. Because now you have, you know, you have sales that you need, but you’re basically servicing debt, you’re servicing interest. You know, you’re. We’re dealing with a lot of what I think a lot of post Covid businesses, like, are struggling with whether that is, you know, Eidl loans coming due or whatever, or just general credit credit cycling, debt servicing kind of stuff. And I’m pretty transparent about that because I don’t want people to think that, oh, my gosh, you’re doing, like, everything is so amazing because it’s not easy. This is a. This is a very difficult thing to do. And every industry, every category of products, even within the handmade product industry, is going to have businesses that I would say are outliers. They not to diminish what they’ve done and say that they got lucky. But it’s kind of a very unique situation that is not everyone else’s situation. And I saw that with Rifle Paper Company. I saw that with a couple different candle companies. And you’re comparing yourself to their rise and how quickly they grew on their level of success, how many stores they have, did they. What are they. What are they doing? You’re trying to model that because it seems like they’re the only people who you’ve ever seen do it. So it’s the only model you even have to follow.

Kristin [00:29:06]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:29:07]: Even if they’re like, please stop trying to model stuff after me. You’re like, no one else is even showing anything. How am I supposed to know what to do? How am I supposed to know what equipment to use? How am I supposed to know, you know, what way to go? And for me, that business was P.F. kendall Co. And I love Kristin and I love Tom, and I think that what they’ve done is amazing. But continually trying to model that, when there were so many aspects of my business that was very different, was honestly hurting me more mentally than anything else because I kept feeling like a failure for nothing. I think I held onto the number of employees we had for longer than I should have because I felt like that number of employees was an indicator of my success.

Kristin [00:29:50]: Yes.

Sarah [00:29:50]: Instead of looking at the numbers at the bottom line being an indicator of my success, it felt like outwardly, if you’re doing well, you should be able to hire people and support them. And I took the responsibility of being their boss and providing a job and providing an income and a living. So. Seriously, to the point where I was personally financially suffering and putting in my own money to run payroll.

Kristin [00:30:19]: Yeah. And unfortunately, that story, like that story is. Is not, I don’t want to say unique to you. It happens so often because as small business owners, like, we really take it personally. Like our. Our heart and soul is into it. It’s not. It’s not aol. Was it AOL that laid you off right away. It’s not like this Comcast. Yeah, it’s not Comcast. You know, they’re just like whatever. You’re a number, you know, it’s, it’s small business. But it is such a important thing to remember that like the outward view of success is not necessarily indicative of the bottom line. Like some of the most profit rich businesses on the outside don’t look like they’re, I don’t want to say much of anything but like that they’re like setting the world on fire. But they have profit. They’re not, you know, trying to like strive towards this what other people deem as successful, you know, and that’s, it’s easier said than done because we only see what we see on social media. Like that is in our face. Especially as small businesses like all these like revenue claims and I am an X, you know, figure business a year. Like I don’t really care. What do your books look like?

Sarah [00:31:30]: I literally started replying to people on threads when I would see those posts and I said, what’s the bottom line? I don’t care what the top line is. Yeah, what was the bottom line? You can’t call yourself a six figure entrepreneur. You’re not making a six figure income. You might not be making any income. I have no idea. And I’m not saying that you have to tell me that. But if you’re going to sell me a course based on this flashy number or try to.

Kristin [00:31:57]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:31:58]: Then, then you need to really show me what it is that you’re taking. You know, it’s kind of like show me your tax return. It’s like, I don’t know, like I.

Kristin [00:32:05]: Need, I need receipts.

Sarah [00:32:07]: Like I have receipts. Time. I have always been really, really transparent, probably too transparent about our numbers. And I think that it’s because people see somebody, they assume that you’re doing, you’re just doing, you must be doing amazing. Like you must be right. Even when I was by my, you know, by myself because I was single for most of this journey, I got married in 2020 and it was never really my intention to bring my husband into the business. When he moved out here, we just thought we would wait out the pandemic and then he would just go back to his job which was, he was, you know, he’s always had kind of a blue collar job. He’s prior military. Like he would just get certified out here and do H Vac out here or do something else or just have a blue collar job. That was the plan because he Was helping out so much around the studio with COVID and we really worked really well together and we have very complementary skills. Then we decided that we would bring him on and he would work for Simply Curated. Now, I have always been I very vocal in saying that, like, people are like, what motivates you? I’m like, the fact that no one else is paying my bills. I had no. I didn’t start this business with a husband who had a salary and health insurance. Not to say that there’s anything wrong if that’s what. If that’s how you started your business. But I didn’t have a safety net and that motivation to, like, pay rent every month, put gas in my car. People are like, when did you start paying yourself? And I’m like, I started paying myself 10 years ago when I moved out here and I didn’t take another job. Was it a salary? No, but it has paid all of my bills and put food on the table and gas in the car, which for a long time was my metric of what I was going to pay myself. Just kind of covering my base. My bases. I know that that’s not the healthiest, and I know that that’s not necessarily the best plan. And I know that I probably need to reach profit first, like yesterday. But this was how I survived. It was a survival. There was no other source of income coming in. And so then it was extra scary when now my whole household was dependent on this business. And a lot of times people would say, well, why doesn’t Doug just go out and get a job? When. When I complain about the business struggling and I’m like, because they’re two different things. I couldn’t pay anybody as little as I pay Doug and I to do what we have to get done. We’re just making it work.

Kristin [00:34:46]: God bless Doug.

Sarah [00:34:48]: Which is why the, like, recent changes in my, you know, income of, like, doing content creation stuff is such a weird and interesting shift in my life because for the first time, I have. I have supplementary income. Not for the first time, for the last, like, couple years. So somewhere in the middle of this long story that I didn’t even get into at all, I got really into floral design and I started a flower business on the side because I turn all of my hobbies into businesses. Like a psychopath, Honestly, sometimes I’m like.

Kristin [00:35:25]: Can you just do something for fun? Like, not everything for sure.

Sarah [00:35:29]: And I reached that point, I did reach that point with flowers, where it was like, I love this and the amount of work that it will take to consistently reach my target customer and book enough weddings and whatever for this to be kind of, like, sustainable was like, too much work because it was causing. It was causing simply curated to suffer. And that was the thing that was paying my bills. Right. I was too stretched too thin.

Kristin [00:35:52]: I mean, I literally, let me tell you, I started making sourdough this year. I’ve made six loaves. Okay, let me. I made six loaves. They were delicious and actually like. Like, pretty impressively perfect to the point that I was like, should I have a sourdough business? Like, should I start.

Sarah [00:36:08]: You are the same person.

Kristin [00:36:09]: How are you doing? Like, just stick with these six loaves. Like, come on.

Sarah [00:36:14]: A million percent. But so when I stopped doing flowers, like, as a business, I’ve been doing it freelance now for four years, which is awesome.

Kristin [00:36:23]: Creative outlet without.

Sarah [00:36:26]: It’s very different. You don’t. I don’t necessarily get the same creative itches scratched, but it’s keeping my skills sharp and I enjoy it. And it’ has been a great. Especially because the summer, the wedding season really does overlap with our slow season with candles. It has been a lovely source of supplemental income for me.

Kristin [00:36:42]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:36:43]: But when I started cooking more, I started cooking a lot at home during COVID like, everybody did. And I had this very brief window in the very, like, early shutdown. Like, we’re all, like, literally trapped in our houses and not leaving where I was making videos, like, on my Instagram for, like, my friends and family of, like, what I was eating, what I was making. And I was just coming out of, like, being keto for, like, two years. So it was like my first time, like, eating bread and pasta and, like, all the stuff. And it was, like, amazing. And I had this brief moment because I consumed a lot of content around cooking and food, especially on YouTube, that I thought, oh, my gosh, what if I just was, like, a food YouTuber and Covid just, like, changed my life, whatever. And then, you know, quickly the world was like, hey, ma’am, we need candles. You need to come back and make more candles. And I was like, okay, right. Never mind. I’m not going to do. I’m not going to be a food youtuber. What was I thinking? And then this past year, at the beginning of January, one of my friends, she posted something, like, she needed to. She wanted to be better about cooking at home because she was spending so much money on takeout, her and her husband. She was like, literally, our. All of our credit card debt is just from, like, uber eats. Like, and she was very Vulnerable and even sharing that. But she’s like, I don’t have the habit of cooking at home. I don’t really know how. I’m not good at it. And I started making videos publicly, but just mostly just to show her, like, look, you can make this, or you could do this, or you could freeze all these things in individual portions. And she was like, whoa, whoa, Sarah. This is adulting on a level that I do not know how to adult. Like, you’re like, this is, like, way up here. I’m not even. We’re just talking about, like, maybe we’re gonna get some, like, meal kits. You’re like, you know, next level. Because I’ve been cooking my whole life. I love to cook. I love to talk about it. I love all that stuff. But I said, okay, fine. But still, I was like, but this is so. But people need to learn about this. Like, people need to know that you could do this even if you have a small household, even if you’re single. Like, this is that. I wish I knew when I was single, when I was trying to just cook for myself. So I kept making content, but I was making it. I was, like, making it at a rapid pace. I was making, like, three videos a day on TikTok for all of January and February. I just burned out completely. And in March, something, you know, kind of happened with our business that really caused me to, like, have to halt some things. And I kind of. I was burned out. I was stressed. I was financially stressed because of the business, and I just stopped really creating content, even if it was something that, like, brought me joy. And over the summer, I was gardening, and I kept thinking, I want to make content about gardening because I garden in a community garden. I rent an apartment. I don’t have a place to, like, grow things, but, like, people need to know that, like, there are community gardens that you can sign up for. But I just didn’t have the time to also make the content and do my job and freelance flowers. So I just kind of didn’t make any content. And then towards the end of August, I was like, I gotta start making videos again. I want to get back into this. I know it’s possible. I know people are monetizing this. I can do it. So I started making videos again in, like, end of August. Beginning of September. September. Beginning of September. I had about 5 or 6,000 followers on Instagram. This is my personal Instagram account, and about 3000ish followers on TikTok that I had just started, you know, last year by the middle of September I hit 10,000 followers on TikTok and I was so excited because that means I could monetize on TikTok. Like very similar to YouTube. TikTok will pay you for views. And I was like, this is so great. Wouldn’t it be great if we could earn like an extra thousand dollars a month? Like that would go so far to like help out our, our family and you know, like that would just be such a nice thing on the side, right? And then at the very end of September I had a video go viral. Like 2 million views in two days. Now is at 7 million views on, on Instagram and you know, 4 or 5 million views on TikTok I actually don’t even know. But between hitting 10,000 followers on TikTok and then that video going viral at the end of the month, I ended September at 40,000 followers on TikTok and very similar on Instagram. And then last month in October on Halloween, I hit 100,000 followers on Instagram and I met like 96,000 on TikTok.

Kristin [00:41:11]: It’s so crazy.

Sarah [00:41:13]: And I have, I honestly, I have had the experience of being on social media for a very long time and if we roll this interview back to where I said I started a video blog in 2007, eight before like right around when Twitter was founded. Like this is not, it’s not that I don’t know how to create content. I’ve been creating content for Simply curated for a long time. But there was also a lot of guilt around having this quick of success in again something that is not my primary business. Feeling like why couldn’t I do this for Simply curated. And I have to remind myself that it’s the same problem that I’ve always had with the Internet with selling candles online, with social media, with it’s like I can’t get you to smell them through the screen, but I can’t get people to taste the food through the screen either. So there’s something there that I still have to like learn and figure out that I think I can, I can do that I think might be helpful.

Kristin [00:42:08]: But this is what it comes down to. And you know, this might be some oversimplifying it but like it’s what people how, how your content benefits the end consumer of the content. You know, it’s like you’re not selling, you’re showing them how they can make their life easier, better. Like healthy recipes, quick recipes, recipes, how to like you know, budget and you know, do like budgeting, budget friendly meals and Use these amazing super cubes which like I’ve been I need to buy ever since I saw them in Shark Tank. I need to buy. Send me your affiliate link. But like you’re creating content that serves a need for someone’s life. People don’t want to be sold to all the time. I’m not saying you do that in your content for Simply Curated by any means. But like that’s what I think is we get wrong a lot and myself included. It’s like how do you have a product brand where you want to make more money from it and you want people to buy from you. But like how do you make that content be useful for someone’s life? And like that’s I think the difference.

Sarah [00:43:12]: Well, I think that the kind of content that I was always creating on Simply Curated, which was a lot of behind the scenes content and stuff, it was useful to other candle makers where the majority of my followers on Simply Curated are other small business owners who are looking at me the same way that I look at PF Candle co as like this aspirational thing. Yeah, but the content for the end consumer needs to be more aspirational lifestyle content around really beautiful aesthetic homes of which I am not in possession of one. So creating. So it’s truly the main reason why I feel like it’s been hard to create content for Simply Curated on a very consistent basis because my apartment is janky and my bathroom is purple and my kitchen is so ugly and I don’t have the place, the like beautiful aesthetic place to create the kind of content that like I know who my target customer is for Simply Curated, but I don’t live that lifestyle. So it’s been hard to create content in that, in that space where it’s almost like you need a me for that space where you would need a content creator to create good content in that space. Or I need to rent out beautiful homes, you know, once a month, whatever, and have content days, which I totally could do. But because I am also pouring every single one of the candles right now and shipping all of these orders with my husband and I have one part time person helping with finishing, labeling, packing, whatever. It’s like I don’t have the time to also be the content creator for my business. And I probably could figure that out if I decided to say, okay, now we need to hire somebody back to do the manufacturing side to help out so that I have more time to dedicate to the marketing and sales side of these amazing products that I know are lovely, that I know People would like and that. I literally just feel like I have a brand awareness problem.

Kristin [00:45:01]: I mean, most brands, that is the thing. You have an amazing product. You have a gorgeous brand. Your packaging is on point. You know who your customer is. It’s just a visibility, an awareness thing. It’s getting pr. It’s having content that’s consistently put out there, and it’s like, okay, well, how do you do that when you’re also doing the back end? And that’s just part of growing your business? Like, it doesn’t. Yeah, it doesn’t happen overnight, but there always has to be this, like, thing in our brain that is, like, you have to be selling every single day. And what that looks like doesn’t necessarily mean, like, here is my candle. Buy it. But, like, how are you showing up and making people. People want to give you their money. Like, that has to be a big priority. And it’s easier said than done whenever you also have to, like, make the stuff to ship.

Sarah [00:45:46]: It’s a really interesting journey because I feel like I’m learning a lot about these platforms through this other, you know, content creation journey, which is that these algorithms really work.

Kristin [00:46:00]: Yeah. I wanted to ask you.

Sarah [00:46:01]: People need to stop blaming the algorithm because it will find the people. The video that I. The video that I made that went. The initial video that went viral, which I should say, I have had five or six videos in the last month hit over a million views on Instagram without using any trending audio. All the audio is just my voice. It’s a voiceover.

Kristin [00:46:25]: Well, you have a great voice for voiceovers. I’m always like, thank you.

Sarah [00:46:29]: I did have one person comment, and my voice was really annoying, and I was like, bye.

Kristin [00:46:34]: They’re a troll. No, I’m like, literally, you had one the other day, and I was like, oh, her voice just, like, talking about shepherd’s pie. Like, I could listen to her, like, all day.

Sarah [00:46:43]: Oh, my gosh, that shepherd’s pie video. I messed up in the voiceover. I do know the right answer. I know that shepherd’s pie is made with lamb and cottage pie is made with beef. But I said it backwards in the voiceover that I was recording late at night and I was tired, and people think that I intend intentionally did it to rage bait them, because the comments are all people correcting me that I was wrong and I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Kristin [00:47:08]: So there’s. Therein lies the problem with going viral.

Sarah [00:47:11]: No, no. It’s like, it reaches. Anyway, what I was gonna say was the viral video. Initially it was talking about my friend and like a real conversation with a friend of mine that I had had, who she’s single and about cooking for one and how I cook for one all the time because my husband and I don’t always eat the same things. And I kept saying that I make freezer meals and she just didn’t understand what I was talking about. But I took her over to my freezer and I opened the door and I said, this is what it looks like. And I pull out all of these different frozen super cubes, meals and components of meals and all these things. And it was just like a light bulb went off in her head. She was just like, this is amazing because when, when you said freezer meals, I just kept thinking casserole, like big full size casseroles. And then like crock pot, dump meals and all the things that you see for people that are no shade to them. Preparing food for a larger family. When you’re single or it’s just you and your partner, cooking feels really overwhelming because then you have all these leftovers and then you have to eat it the next three days in a row and you don’t even want to eat it. It’s not that you don’t like it, you’re just not in the mood or like you order takeout and there’s way too much leftover Chinese and you don’t want to eat leftover Chinese for the next four days. Like, I just freeze all of it anyway. The video specifically used the words like single and lives alone multiple times, not even intentionally, like trying to put keywords in the voiceover. But when you use a voiceover or you type copy on the screen or you have captions or you put it in your copy, the algorithm indexes all of that and pushed it out to the people who needed to see this specific content. And that video alone I can track at the number of people who hit follow after watching that video. Because it was like it wasn’t just a funny video that was viral or a dance or somebody falling down or hurting themselves or whatever, Something like goofy that you send to your friends. It was like, oh my gosh, I need this. Yes, please teach me how to do this. I will follow you because I need to figure this out. The only thing that sucks was that I didn’t immediately have a PDF guide to sell them on how to do it, which I’m working on, but it is harder than it looks. But basically the point is that whoever your target audience is, like, I know that algorithms work because I’m constantly being served images of beautiful kitchens in English countrysides. And I never told Instagram that that’s what I like, but I would like the picture every single time I saw it. So it just keeps showing me other accounts that I’m not following in my main feed. So if you create content that doesn’t need to be necessarily a real, or you don’t have to dance on the Internet or whatever, but you have to put the right words in there that are resonating with people. The things that get more likes, the things that get more engagement are the things that the algorithm will continue to push out and sometimes even when that engagement is negative. But.

Kristin [00:50:04]: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s still engagement, you know.

Sarah [00:50:07]: Yeah, but we’re not. That’s not what we’re trying to do, right?

Kristin [00:50:09]: No, yeah, exactly. I mean, what’s interesting, you know, these platforms weren’t search engines even a year ago. They were starting to, like, test it out. But I feel like in the last years when they really came out and they said, I mean, TikTok kind of.

Sarah [00:50:21]: Was, Tick Tock is a search engine now.

Kristin [00:50:23]: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And they were the first, I feel like, social platform that came out and said, like, we are a search engine. And then Instagram was like. But now it’s like they. You have to optimize your bio, you have to optimize your captions. And like, if you’re going to be making the effort to create any content, it needs to be in alignment with what you’re ultimately trying to sell. So it’s like, you don’t have to always be selling in your content, but those keywords need to attract the person that are going to come in and, like, why are they going to follow you? If you have one funny thing where you go viral because you’re dancing on Tick tock or on your reel, but it has nothing to do with like, the rest of your content, then that’s a waste of your time and that you’re not going to actually benefit from going viral. But, like, you did because all your content aligns to what you’re. You went viral for.

Sarah [00:51:15]: Right. And I’m dealing with where, like, the, the virality of it is, like, not even necessary because what you really want are you wanting, you know, 50,000 people, 100,000 people that are all the right people who really wanted to see this and are like, yes, right, Hit that follow button. I want to learn, I want more show. They’re telling the algorithm, I want more of this, please. Right. And so whatever it is that you’re sharing, you just need to. You. It’s got to be that that’s attracting the right people. And you can do that by simply like looking at the people that are following you. When I was creating reels with lots of behind the scenes content of making candles, I would see the followers that we’re getting and they’re all other candle companies. I haven’t figured out what it is that I need to really shift or how it is I really need to do that on that side. And it’s kind of caused me to step back from as much social media creation as I have. But reels originally were what helped me go from being stuck at 8000 followers on my simply curated account for literally 8 years to finally hitting 10k to hitting 20k within a few more months and 30k a few more months after that. It was reels that did that. And that was because that was what the algorithm was pushing. But it was still the caption in there. I wasn’t doing voiceovers as much. I think I maybe did a few, but I still was trying to use trending sounds or relaxing things or whatever. But I think I need more to create the kind of lifestyle content or behind the scenes con, like, like just showing it in somebody’s home in that, that ideal home of that ideal customer or the aspirational home of your ideal customer. Either way, do you need to be able to create, you know, create that kind of content.

Kristin [00:52:55]: Yeah.

Sarah [00:52:56]: And show, show what it is that, that your ideal customer wants to see and wants to consume the thing that really like, like move the needle. For me in the beginning of September was I saw an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, which was so funny because I used to know Gary Vaynerchuk very well. There are multiple pictures of me and him. We went on a cruise together. It’s a whole thing.

Kristin [00:53:16]: Anyway, on a cruise with Gary Vander.

Sarah [00:53:19]: I went on a Gary Vaynerchuk cruise. To be clear, it was a wine library, wine library, TV cruise. But there was still a very small group of people. Okay, Gary knows who I am. Maybe not anymore now that I’ve changed my name. But anyway, I saw a clip. I saw mostly I like unfollowed a lot of his content because it just gets to be a lot. But I saw a clip of his where. So he’s talking to somebody about, about algorithms and about how much content you should create. Like how many videos should I be posting a day? Right. He said it is not Your job, like the algorithm’s job, is not to service you as the content creator or you as the small business. It is not to benefit you, it is to benefit the consumer, the person who’s either consuming the content or that you’re targeting or that is watching or viewing this type of media. The algorithm’s job is to find the media that they want to see and then show it to them so that they do the thing that they want, that the algorithm wants them to do on TikTok, that’s either stay on the platform or buy on TikTok shop or something like that on Instagram, it’s that they want them to be sending it to their friends. They want to see that engagement in, in the dms. They want all that kind of. They want the shares. Right. The algorithm is benefit. It’s like, is doing that. And so he said, it doesn’t matter if you were to put out 18 pieces of content on the same day. No one is going to see all 18 pieces of those of that content. One, maybe your biggest fan is going to, and they’re going to be thrilled because they literally can’t get enough of you. But you can, you can put it out and just, just see what works and let the content find the people that it’s supposed to find. And you would, you could literally see that. You would see videos that like, didn’t go anywhere and then videos that like did really well or got really good engagement and things that were kind of in the middle. Like you could just see how that was, how that would work. So it just encouraged me to just post and don’t. Doesn’t matter that you’re not posting too much, you’re not overwhelming your audience. They’re just not going to see it. Yeah, and we’re all complaining that they’re not seeing it anyway. So why not just put out way more and then maybe they’ll see something.

Kristin [00:55:22]: Yep. And on the, on the flip side too, like if you are overwhelmed by content, then it’s better to put out quality content that is going to be optimized and reach the right person versus just pumping out like, oh, on TikTok, to be successful, I have to do five videos a day. Well, you know that’s not going to work if those five videos are garbage or not optimized. So it’s like do what’s right for you.

Sarah [00:55:45]: The algorithm, I don’t, I don’t think really cares how many videos a day you’re posting. It’s not penalizing you for posting too Many videos a day or not enough videos a day. It’s more that if you post five, there’s a better chance that one will hit. I truly think so.

Kristin [00:56:00]: It’s a numbers game.

Sarah [00:56:01]: It’s just like. It’s just like wholesale outreach.

Kristin [00:56:04]: I was going to say that, but I don’t want to, like.

Sarah [00:56:06]: No, it is. It is a numbers game, because. And I think also it’s encouraging you to tell the same. Or I’m going to encourage you to tell the same story, because I’m so bad at that, too. Every time I tell somebody that they need to, like, trim their wick or they need to let their candle burn all the way, you know, to the edge, they’re like, oh, my God, I never knew that. And you’re like, wow, I’ve been saying that literally for years, every single time. Like, all the time. But maybe not enough. Or maybe they didn’t specifically hear it. And so you just never really know, like, who’s going to see it when it is that you post it. So keep posting it, because somebody else asked me, or they were. They were saying that they. They create. They want to create food content, but they’re worried they’re just gonna run out of recipes, right? I don’t have enough. Everybody’s only got, like, max 10 recipes in their arsenal. Like, how do I keep creating, you know, content? And I just said, you can get so much content out of one recipe.

Kristin [00:57:03]: Oh, my gosh.

Sarah [00:57:03]: And you can reshare that recipe so many different times because somebody didn’t see it the last time, or you’re sharing a different version of it, or you’re reheating the leftovers, or you’re telling a story about this one time that you brought it to a potluck. Like, there’s so many things that. The same item, right? What I’m trying to sell you is this. This recipe. I’m trying to get you to click on my substack and read it and subscribe and whatever, or to want to, you know, to want to make it enough. But I can keep talking about that over and over again. And I think that I knew that on the con on, like, the candle side, but I wasn’t practicing what I’m practicing now, which is like, I’m still putting out, like, two to three videos a day. And it’s not hard to create that content because I gotta eat. But.

Kristin [00:57:48]: And it flows easily to you because it’s just like something you. You. I mean, not that you don’t love simply curated by any means but like, you have to eat, you love cooking and it’s something that you just can talk about all day, every day because it fulfills you. And so it just feels a little, there’s less friction with creating that. It seems like I think the things.

Sarah [00:58:06]: That I’m doing every day in, on the simply curated side to show you, that would really only, I think, in my opinion, attract the people that I’ve been attracting, which is other small business owners.

Kristin [00:58:20]: So it’s a, it’s a different approach. A different approach. So what’s like, what do you think is next for you with how you’re going to lean into the content creation, balancing simply curated? I’m big, big question, loaded question.

Sarah [00:58:40]: I’m not really sure. We haven’t really talked so much about the timeline. We’re recording this kind of like right after the presidential election. So there’s a lot of like, unknowns, right, for, for our economy, for small businesses. And I think that this holiday season, I think last holiday season was super make or break for a lot of retailers. This holiday season is super make or break for a lot of retailers. But it’s not just the holiday season. It’s, it’s what’s going to happen in January. It’s. Are all my prices going to go way up? You know, trying to figure out now, I mean, do we need to order, do we, do we need to place. It’s like a huge overseas order in December so that we can get some stuff in and have that before, you know, the prices go up. But especially when you know that you might need to make those decisions but you feel like you don’t have the money to make those choices. It’s, it’s really, it’s a restricting kind of feeling. So I’m not really sure what’s next for simply curated, but at the very least it feels like there is for the first time in probably since I quit my nanny job where I have other income coming in that I can choose to either, you know, use to help make simply curated a little bit easier or use to pay our bills at home so that we’re not needing to take so much of the cash out of the business right now. Which I think sometimes when, when I talk about this with other entrepreneurs who are less, less further into it than I am, and I’m very transparent about what it’s like right now. They get really, they tell me that it’s really depressing because they want us, they want to hear that this has to get easier. Right? And I’m here Saying it’s to get easier and I’m depressed and I’m stressed out or whatever. But my husband Doug, he put this post up on Instagram. I think this was like two or three years ago where he did this voiceover. And I can find the real for you because I think it was great. And it was basically saying, like, it doesn’t get easier, but you get better at handling it, you know, more than you did. And if my work experience in what you guys have gotten of, like, a blitz through it, and I’m so sorry that it’s so long and convoluted, but like, has taught me anything. It’s that, like, every little thing that you learn, the fact that I went to school for photography and I do all of our product photography now, and I went to school for, like, media studies, and I’m literally creating media to sell products, you know, on the Internet. Like, I know how to edit video. I know how to edit voiceovers. I know I did a. You know, anyway, I like all these things. Like, it all makes sense. Eventually it all kind of comes together to be useful. But you. You have to trust that, like, you’re getting better at it, even though it feels like it’s. It’s harder.

Kristin [01:01:36]: Yeah. So the phrase, like, new level, new devil, it’s. That’s the beauty and the pain of running a business. Like, you just continue to get better. And as you get better, you make your business grow. And as your business grow, new problems come and it keeps challenging you. And if you didn’t, if you don’t like that, then, like, the entrepreneurial ride, like, get off of it now, because it’s not going to just suddenly get easier. But the problems that you’re feeling right now in a year aren’t going to be your problems anymore, because you’re going to get them. You’re going to figure them out. So those are going to become easy. It’s going to be a new thing that you’re just challenged and figuring out.

Sarah [01:02:16]: Yeah, it’s. It’s really. It’s really interesting, honestly, like, the, the whole journey of, like, what. What are you. What are you learning? What are you getting better at? But I probably by the. Yeah. By the time this goes up. When do you think this will go up?

Kristin [01:02:37]: Probably mid. Early to mid December. So in a couple weeks.

Sarah [01:02:41]: Okay. So I did just sign a contract with Super Cubes.

Kristin [01:02:46]: No, you did it.

Sarah [01:02:48]: Oh, my God.

Kristin [01:02:49]: Congrats.

Sarah [01:02:50]: So. Which is like a. A sponsorship contract to do, like, three promoted videos a month, which I obviously can’t talk about how much money that is for, but it is a way to provide like that. And then I have other, other brand deals like, in my inbox. And so just realizing, like, wow, this, this whole influencer thing, even though I’m like, you know, not showing my, like, outfits online and I’m not doing beauty stuff or whatever, but, like, I got reached out to by, like, a condiment company, I got reached out to by, like, a frozen dumpling company. And it was just like, wow, okay, like, and you have enough followers where they want access to your audience. Because I have an extremely targeted audience now where, yeah, these are people who want to learn how to cook and who want to utilize convenience things and their freezer and in ways like that to make their lives, you know, easier.

Kristin [01:03:50]: Yeah.

Sarah [01:03:50]: So I’m still learning a ton on that side, learning how to charge, learning about usage rights. And I still have a little bit of guilt, you know, even. Even saying out loud what my social, what my, like, content creation rates are, because as a small business owner, you’re like, wow, I don’t. Wouldn’t have that money to pay a content creator who came to me. Like, I wouldn’t be able to swing that, you know. So I’m coming at it from this very, Like, I have a lot of empathy and understanding on the business side for them of, like, what they need this to do. You need this to drive sales. Like, you need this to drive awareness. And I can prove that not only through link clicks and tracking and stuff like that, but through the hundreds of comments that I get where people are like, oh, my gosh, I bought Super Cubes because of you. Or they came in the mail today. Or, I’m so excited to start freezing my food. You’ve saved me so much time. You’ve saved me so much money. I screenshot every single one of those things.

Kristin [01:04:51]: Yeah.

Sarah [01:04:52]: Because those are all testimonials of, like, people. Like, this is your, your influence over people. And somebody. I heard somebody say the other day on a podcast that if you’re trying to figure out what is your scope of influence, like, think about what your friends ask you for advice about. You know, if you live in a really hot city and they’re coming in from out of town, maybe you know, all the best restaurants to eat at and you’re a big foodie and, like, they’re going to ask you for all those recommendations. Maybe you love fashion and, you know, new brands and they’re always asking you, oh, what should, like, where should I buy? I really need A new dress or I. There’s always things that you have influence over people in your life. The things that they think about you for. Those are the things that, like, if you want to start creating content, you should create. Create content around those things, because those are things you already have. You know, you have a scope of influence around. I know that’s probably not helpful to people as small business owners, but you.

Kristin [01:05:47]: Could look at it in terms of your business too. Like, what are people continuously asking you about? Like, what are your.

Sarah [01:05:53]: Right. And that’s how I know that my scope of influence on Simply Curated, his account is over other candle makers. Because people in my DMs are constantly asking me, where did you get that pouring funnel? Or where did you. Where do you get your packaging? Or where do you get.

Kristin [01:06:06]: You know, I know not asking about a pouring funnel. They’re, like, cool.

Sarah [01:06:11]: That’s the thing, right? Like, what I need to do is put the Amazon storefront that I have for. For, like, simply Sarah Hart. I need to make a candle makers section of that Amazon storefront. That’s what I need to do.

Kristin [01:06:24]: There you go.

Sarah [01:06:25]: Because I’m like, look, just here, go get it there.

Kristin [01:06:28]: Yeah.

Sarah [01:06:29]: I am tired of it.

Kristin [01:06:30]: Coming soon. Well, this is such an awesome conversation. I feel like you have such an incredible story and that, like, through thread of where you started and how it’s evolved for you continuously over the years. And, like, listening to it, it’s just such a great reminder to just keep tapping into the things that, like, you inherently are good at, you inherently are drawn to, and that will just keep you on the path of, like, feeling fulfilled with what you’re doing. So I really appreciate you sharing your story and, like, I’m always cheering you on and I’m so excited to see where this all goes for you because the. I don’t know, it’s so exciting. Like, you’re the next Martha.

Sarah [01:07:14]: Oh, no, I don’t think we should start saying that. I. I recently. No, no. Okay. Okay. Honestly, I recently listened to Ina Garden’s memoir and I’m listening to it right now.

Kristin [01:07:23]: I’m obsessed with her.

Sarah [01:07:25]: It is so good. I’ve cried so much.

Kristin [01:07:29]: Cried like sobs. And I’m like, is there. I think there’s outside influence making me cry.

Sarah [01:07:34]: No, but it’s. It was, it was. It was so funny because I was listening to it in September as all of this was happening, and, like, my account was blowing up and, like, listening to her journey of, like, all this stuff. It was just like, sometimes your life, your Life has chapters just like with like closing the cocktail collection and getting rid of that where people didn’t understand why you would do that. You just never. No, you have to trust your gut when it’s right to like, either, you know, expand. She moved stores and then eventually, you know, sell the store. There’s so many different things. There’s so many different chapters and it’s not. It’s not over. And her story even isn’t over yet. And it’s just like, it was just so encouraging to me. Right. But somebody who’s like, very talented, very multi passionate, is good at a lot of things. But I think she loved the most was like, was cooking and cooking for her friends and entertaining and like then figuring out a way to share that with other people in one way or another, like, I just think is so. Is so interesting. And yes, both her story and Martha’s story, minus some of the more recent years for Martha, like, I love her.

Kristin [01:08:39]: But seriously, I. I really wish that, like, I had had INA’s memoir 10 years ago this year. 10 years ago. But, like, really specifically for me earlier this year. Yeah, Yeah.

Sarah [01:08:51]: Y.

Kristin [01:08:51]: My own closure and like, leaning into something I’m really passionate about because it’s just like such a good reminder of like, leaning into that and like, your story is always evolving. It is such a good. It is such a good book. If you’ve not listened to it yet, like, I might link that in the show notes. Like it is that it is so. And actually listen to it because her.

Sarah [01:09:09]: No. Listen to it. It’s like the best podcast. No, no shade to this podcast that you’re all right now.

Kristin [01:09:13]: It’s fine.

Sarah [01:09:14]: But like, it’s great. You’re gonna. There’s a few books that I recommend as audio books. That’s one of them. Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential as an audiobook.

Kristin [01:09:23]: Yes.

Sarah [01:09:24]: I’ve re. Listened to so many times. They’re like re watching movies for me. Like, you’re getting to spend time with this person and hear their stories in their voice and it’s just like, it’s about. I absolutely love business memoirs that are read by the author. Yeah, I used to really recommend Girl Boss, but again we got into some. Yeah, I can’t really do that. Anyway, also was a good audiobook back in the day. Helped me out a lot.

Kristin [01:09:48]: Yeah, everything. You know what, everything exists for a reason in your life, and then that chapter is closed. Okay, so how can people find you on all the things if they’re interested in cooking, if they’re interested in candles. Just want to get to know you all the places.

Sarah [01:10:04]: Okay. So obviously Simply Curated is my business account. We have a TikTok for it, but it’s kind of been like mid and we’re not really been putting out. We should be better about that. But Simply Created on Instagram. Simply created.com is our website. We like didn’t even get to talk at all about this sister brand that I launched, which is totally fine because it’s literally not feeling like it’s going anywhere right now.

Kristin [01:10:29]: You never know, maybe another time.

Sarah [01:10:31]: But anyway, that’s called. That’s like Heart and Company Home on Instagram. We launched an Etsy for that. And you can shop both of those brands on our one Fair account on wholesale. So they’re together on the Simply Created Fair Fair store. And I have this really great idea about the physical catalog. I’m going to produce for both of these brands but have not done yet. But I want to do it like one of those books we had as a kid where you flip it the other way and then the back cover is like the other brand. It’s like two stories but the same one. That’s what I want to do. Anyway, you heard it here. If I never make a physical catalog again, then you will. I will still get credit for the idea. And then cooking and like lifestyle ish light content is simply Sarah Hart on Instagram and on TikTok and also on YouTube. But like just like a little bit on YouTube. Like I’m trying not mostly with shorts right now, but eventually would like to do more longer form content on YouTube because I love consuming that kind of content on YouTube. So I think that anywhere you find yourself consuming a lot of content is a good platform to start creating content on. And then I also have a substack for all the recipes and the things that I have not currently put behind a payroll paywall. So get it. Get all of the. Download all the recipes.

Kristin [01:11:57]: I’ll put everything linked in the show notes so you can. You can just click and get access to them. Get all those recipes. They’re so good.

Sarah [01:12:04]: Thanks for having me! 

Kristin [01:12:07]: You’re the best.