Update: How We Increased Revenue From $3.5K/Month To $20K/Month In One Year

Brittany Taylor

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Published: July 26th, 2022

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Brittany Taylor

Founder, Black Luxe Candle Co.

$20K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Black Luxe Candle...

blackluxecandles.com

from CHICAGO

started April 2019

$20,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Brittany recommends to grow your business!

Want more updates on Black Luxe Candle Co.? Check out these stories:

1. We Have Been Earning Upwards Of $35K/Month With Our Luxury Candle And Accessories Business [Update] (2023) ➜

2. How My Luxury Candles Business Reached $12K/Month In Sales (2021) ➜

This is a follow up story for Black Luxe Candle Co.. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 3 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

Hi, my name is Brittany and I am the owner and CEO of Black Luxe Candle Co. I run this business with my husband Julius. We make and sell luxury experiences through our luxury handcrafted candles and candle accessories.

In addition to that, I am so excited to share that we have also recently enhanced this experience by providing luxury candle-making classes in our new storefront location in the Bucktown/Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago!

Our customers come from a variety of backgrounds and from all over the country. A vast number of our new customers come from our local Chicagoland area. But all our customers are candle lovers who value their mental health and enjoy a taste of the good life.

By focusing on ensuring an amazing customer experience, we believe that we have found a way to reach more to give them the peace of mind they are searching for.

As of the end of April, we have been earning upwards of 20k/month. This is a great leap from our 3.5k/month only a year and a few months ago. A large amount of this growth can be attributed to the introduction of our storefront.

By the end of 2021, we had made 65k in sales. That felt nice but what caught us by surprise is that we have managed to make that same amount in 4 months! Amazing!

Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?

I’m sure you’re wondering how we managed to get to this point in our own Black Luxe journey. A lot has happened that made this all possible.

Shortly after the completion of our holiday season. A friend reached out to me and asked me if I was ready to stop making candles out of the house. Being curious about what she had in mind I said sure.

From there I began going through the process of renting out commercial space in Homewood, Illinois. We were able to move in mid-January and thus began the life of our candle studio. I was excited to get it all set up and decked it out with all of the things that represented my style. This was to be the new location our Black Luxe Candles would be made.

Now things did calm down a bit in the early part of January and after such an exhilarating 4th quarter. I wondered if our sales would come back down to Earth. What happened though was that we were standing on a new plateau.

We had found a way to continue to grow past the previous year’s monthly sales. Our second anniversary showed us that people were still very excited to buy our candles. Year over year, we nearly tripled our sales for April.

This would only hold out for so long, however, due to one of our marketing outlets making drastic changes. Facebook/Instagram, which had been a pivotal avenue for revenue, changed how ads reached the people back last April.

This threw many things off and had us re-evaluating how we would continue to market. Since we knew the previous year’s growth rate might not have shown itself by the time we got to the Summer I braced myself for what was to come while continuing to do what I knew to do best.

In addition to getting our new candle studio, I continued to do what I do best, research! What’s funny is I always said you can't catch me going back to school, but I never said I wouldn't keep myself educated.

Since the pandemic started, I had taken up 4 educational courses to keep expanding my knowledge in the realm of marketing advertising, and business management. I always said, “I do it for me and the advancement of Black Luxe.” For completing my last certification course with Northwestern Kellogg School of Business, I had to pat myself on the back because it was so mentally draining to complete.

While all this was going on, Julius had been teaching middle school science remotely. One of the ways he kept his students engaged was by showing them the science of candle making and how he uses all of what they learned to make candles regularly and to be able to run the business.

Start with your current customer base. As an entrepreneur, one must be able to understand their customers and know what it takes to get new customers.

From there he had this bright idea to ask some of his 8th graders if they’d be interested in doing a summer program where they would learn about entrepreneurship and financial enrichment. A few of them expressed interest so Julius got to work planning out and raising funds for a Summer program where he would use Black Luxe as a model for his students to learn how to build a business.

The program took place at our beautiful candle studio and was set to last for four weeks. The young participants learned all of the ins and outs of developing a small business through the lens of Black Luxe Candles. Each week they learned something new with the bonus of learning about various avenues of finance such as investments and cryptocurrency.

By the end of the program, the newly minted Junior Entrepreneurs had launched their very own collection within the Black Luxe Candle Brand. Their collection would be named the Luxe Lite Collection.

They went through the entire collection creation, candle making, and marketing process to bring their collection to life. Not only did they make an amazing collection, but their collection also sold out within weeks and the culmination of the program ended with them selling their products at a vendor event on the south side of Chicago.

An old high school friend of Julius reached out to him and said that he liked what we had been doing with the kids. He stated that he may have a space that would match our aesthetic. After checking out a few pics and being informed of the location, Julius was set on making something big happen for this coming season.

He was ready for Black Luxe to elevate to the next level. I was too, but the looming thought that I kept thinking was “there’s no way we could afford to have a store!” I said, “for this to make sense in my head we would have to make over 30k this holiday season.”

He was so sure that it would work that he offered to front the cost and simply said “trust me.” By the end of contract negotiations, Black Luxe Candles was set to begin its life at 1741 North Damen Avenue in Chicago, IL. In addition to acquiring a storefront, we also had the idea to ask our Junior Entrepreneurs if they’d like to be invested in this part of Black Luxe’s journey as well. And to our great delight, they jumped at the opportunity.

I learned that no matter how much you like some aspect of what you do if you are adaptable, the customer will dictate the direction of the brand. Being rigid can lead to a loss of focus and your customer base.

This new opportunity gave them the chance to not only learn more about the growth of the business but have a hand in its growth and the direction things are taking. From my birthday/grand opening celebration on September 25th to our Hot Chocolate and Candle-making event on December 26th. We saw a growth in business like we hadn’t seen before. The thing is, our bread n’ butter shifted. Not only were we selling handcrafted candles, but we were also providing luxury candle-making classes for anyone ready and willing to enjoy a Black Luxe Candle-making Experience.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

If I could write out every lesson I’ve learned since we last spoke I would be writing a draft for a book. I will touch on some of the bigger keys for what was learned this past year though.

One of the biggest lessons that I learned through the course of this time was that adaptability is key. I think as people of the world we all have to re-learn this each time we find ourselves adapting to change. Through the course of 2021, the world began to open up and our customers were no longer glued to their monitors and phones… not all day every day, at least. They ventured outside and we did too.

Another lesson I learned was the adage “give and you shall receive.” When Julius informed me of his Summer program plans, my mind was set on creating a unique collection with provocative undertones. I was ready to be riské while still focusing on caring for myself.

This ended up being something that Julius would advise against as I was intending to launch this collection at the same time he would be working with his soon-to-be Junior Entrepreneurs. Despite me being quite perturbed about the change, we found a way to adjust and figured out how we would make things work. Had it not been for this, we might not have been fortunate enough to have a storefront.

Know where your customers are going. If you recognize that your current customer base has shifted their focus, you have to get back in front of them and take notice of what their attention has shifted to.”

And finally, I learned that no matter how much you like some aspect of what you do, if you are adaptable, the customer will dictate the direction of the brand. Being rigid can lead to a loss of focus and your customer base.

Our candle-making classes have carried us far beyond where I thought they would take us. It has become the majority of our sales. We’ve gotten over 55 new 5-star Google reviews since opening the store. In addition to that, the neighborhood has welcomed us with open arms and everyone asks us questions about how we got started and how long we’ve been in the location. They express that they enjoy the ambiance and they don’t want us to leave the neighborhood anytime soon.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

One of the goals this past holiday season was to beat our previous holiday season in sales. Julius said that to do so, the storefront was the way to go. This forced me to set a goal of $30k in sales for the quarter for the store to make sense in my head.

We were originally only supposed to be in the storefront from mid-September through mid-January, the holiday season. But we managed to negotiate the option to extend our stay should things prove to work just as Julius said. Not only did we extend our stay, but we also managed to reach a point where our stay made sense in my head by generating over 32k in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Needless to say, I was overjoyed and amazed! For the 2022 year, I felt saucy enough to set a goal of achieving our first 6 figure year! I knew the road to $100k was underway and I was ready to begin planning for the future. Thinking things would slow down in the early part of the year I set my sights on making the coming holiday season even more epic than the last.

Well surprise, surprise… things did not slow down. People loved our candle-making classes so much that it has become Black Luxe’s most popular and sought-after item.

Things picked up so much this first quarter that March outperformed November, becoming our first 20k month and quarter 1 finished 40% higher than the previous quarter. By the end of April, we had already beaten all of 2021 sales. At this point, we’re excited to see what’s next for Black Luxe Candles.

When thinking of our 5-year goal, I honestly am at a place where I must begin planning for what I want all over again. I’ve done everything I’ve wanted from my original 5-year goal in just over 3 years. I’m well on my way to making Black Luxe Candle Co a multi-6-figure brand with e-commerce and brick & mortar along with an ever-growing community of love and support in our Black Luxe customers. What the next 5 years might hold for us, we’ll see!

Have you read any good books in the last year?

I can honestly say that with all of the time I dedicate to continuing to craft Black Luxe Candles, I haven’t taken much time to just sit back and read. What I had been doing, however, was listening to various motivational videos each morning.

Les Brown is one of my favorites.

I also listen to a handful of podcasts that keep me in the know. A few of these include:

These help my mind stay sharp and keep me thinking of strategies to take Black Luxe Candles even further.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

If I were to give advice to other entrepreneurs struggling to keep their businesses afloat and allow them to grow, I would say to start with your current customer base. As an entrepreneur, one must be able to understand their customers and know what it takes to get new customers. Know where your customers are going. If you recognize that your current customer base has shifted their focus, you have to get back in front of them and take notice of what their attention has shifted to.

When Black Luxe shifted into our storefront, our focus shifted as well. We knew we needed to engage with a new world through which we’d be able to build our business further. Our customer base grew because we stepped into a new arena.

The next idea that entrepreneurs have to keep in mind is that as we all live in an ever-changing world, we must be able to adapt to survive. Alluding to it once before, no matter how much you like certain aspects of what you’re doing, the customer will dictate the direction of your business… if you let it happen. Being resistant to this shift and not being flexible enough to keep interest alive will lead to an ever-decreasing interest in your brand and products.

The retail space gave us access to an array of local patrons that we saw as an assortment of potential customers. This new wave of local customers did begin showing up but what they wanted was different from our earliest customer base. We saw a keen interest in our candle-making classes and things began to spike. We didn’t resist the demand, we rose to meet it.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

As of right now, we are looking to bring in a couple of enthusiastic, people-oriented, self-starters to learn and adopt the Black Luxe way and work within our retail space.

If you’d like to reach out about an opportunity with Black Luxe Candles, send your résumé to [email protected] and feel free to tell us a bit about yourself and what got you interested in working with us.