BONUS: The Benefits of Integrating Culture Into Your Products

00:00:01

Teri Johnson: It's wonderful to celebrate history, to celebrate the past, to acknowledge the people who came before us who have done tremendous things. I want to learn more about other places, and other parts of history, and other cultures. I'd love to learn about that through some sort of product.

00:00:18

Andrea Marquez: It's Black History Month, and what better way to celebrate than to talk to a brand that celebrates Black culture all year round? Season 4 is right around the corner. In the past three seasons, I loved featuring as many diverse entrepreneurs as possible. I've noticed that a lot of them incorporate their culture into the brands in different ways. Aside from the fact that it's wonderful to be able to share your culture with other people, it can help your product stand out, and even build a loyal customer base.

I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we have a special episode with Teri Johnson, the CEO of Harlem Candle Company. Teri's business creates candles inspired by people and places from the Harlem Renaissance, an art movement that started in the Harlem neighborhood in New York. We'll be talking about how she incorporates culture into her products, the importance of having community, and of course, the stories behind some of her favorite scents. But first, let's get into Teri's story. Her journey building Harlem Candle Company started in her kitchen.

00:01:23

Teri Johnson: There was one year I had no money to buy gifts, and I was going to be seeing so many different family members and friends all over the country, and I wanted to bring something that was really special.

00:01:33

Andrea Marquez: And because she loved scented candles, she decided to make some and gift them to her friends and family for Christmas.

00:01:39

Teri Johnson: I had gotten some fragrance oils from a friend of mine, who's a chemist, who had created fragrance oils for different candle brands, and I made about 50 candles and I branded it La Maison de Bougies de Teri, Teri's House of Candles. Each candle had a little story, had a different color, had a different scent, depending on who I was gifting it to. The response was overwhelming. My friends and family love them. They wanted to order more. I was like, “Well, it's not a business,” but they said, “You should turn it into a business,” which is what I did. It was really an experiment, and I knew I could not call it La Maison de Bougies de Teri, because that makes no sense to most people. So I decided to name it the Harlem Candle Company, and use the essence of the Harlem Renaissance, and these incredible icons and legendary places as the inspiration for the fragrances.

00:02:31

Andrea Marquez: Even before the idea of Harlem Candle Company came to her, Teri always knew that she wanted to be her own boss.

00:02:38

Teri Johnson: I did corporate America. I definitely tried it. I used to do management consulting. The position that I had, I was responsible for going into these companies, understanding every little part of what a person did. I used to code, and being able to create a process, a system, to replace that person in their job. It was crazy, because it was like, “Oof, this is tough.”  

However, I got these people to give me all their information about what they did, which is why I think creating a business, and creating a brand, I understand, from the very minute detail of being able to create something, and every single thing that is necessary in order to make it happen. Creating this brand, honestly, it wasn't hard. I'm not saying it with humility, but I'm saying it because I used to do really, really hard stuff for financial services companies. Building a candle brand? I was like, “Oh, no, that wasn't hard, and I can do it again.”

00:03:36

Andrea Marquez: Teri was ready to build a brand, and even though she makes building a business look easy and fun, it wasn't always so glamorous.

00:03:44

Teri Johnson: There are plenty of things about it that are not fun, that are not easy. Imagine packing up all your candles, a lot of them that you made the night before, or two nights before. Candles are heavy. Lugging them in a big old suitcase, some on a backpack, some on a tote bag, packing all this stuff into an Uber, and going to a pop-up and selling two candles, and not even being able to break even and pay for the Uber back and forth. That has happened. It's happened multiple times, and those are those moments that they're extremely humbling, but you have to fight through it. You can't give up, you can't quit.

00:04:22

Andrea Marquez: One of the things that helped Teri keep going, despite all that, was the supportive community she had around her.

00:04:28

Teri Johnson: I have a lot of friends who are also entrepreneurs or designers, who are makers, and it's important because sometimes it's just we're venting, and you just need to let it out. Then you also can sometimes get ideas, or, “Did you hear about this market,” or, “Did you hear about that?” You share, you collaborate. I'm wearing jewelry by a brand called Lionette. She's one of my best friends. I met her at a pop-up, and I wear her stuff as much as I possibly can, in different photo shoots, when I'm doing Instagram lives, and all that good stuff, and she puts my candles in her product photography. There's all sorts of really cool ways to be able to support each other, direct or indirectly. Having a community of people who believe in you, and just like you a lot, is important.

00:05:15

Andrea Marquez: This reminds me of an episode we had with Justin Forsett, a former NFL player, and the founder of Hustle Clean. He called it Having Your Huddle; a group of people that are close to you, and that you can go to for help.

00:05:31

Teri Johnson: It makes such a difference, because so many of us are self-funded, and we know the struggle. We know the struggle is real. When you know the struggle is real, and you see each other struggling, or doing some stuff, that's kind of cool. Being able to help, and support, and share is just the best.

00:05:50

Andrea Marquez: Another important part of Teri's community are her customers.

00:05:54

Teri Johnson: I call these people angels. There are people who are talking about your brand, doing really nice things, gifting your brand, that you don't really even know, and you don't know the impact and the moves that are actually being made. This really is our customers. These are our customers. They're our friends.

00:06:11

Andrea Marquez: Harlem Candle Company is more than just a candle company. Storytelling is an integral part of the brand.

00:06:18

Teri Johnson: All of the candles are inspired by the Harlem Renaissance. It could be a scent inspired by Josephine Baker, and we've used our interpretation of her boudoir. What did her boudoir smell like? Her boudoir in Paris. We imagine there's some rose, and some jasmine, and some amber. When you think about the time period of the 1920s and '30s, “Okay, what was the perfume that women were wearing?” We'd really just tried to create something that was sensual, and lovely, evocative, but that could transport you into this boudoir.

I would say one of my favorites is the Langston candle, which is inspired by the poet and writer Langston Hughes. What we really tried to do is recreate his creative space. Langston Hughes was a big smoker, so we put tobacco fragrance notes in there. He also used to live in Mexico, at two points in his life, and he loved going into these really small, candlelit, dusky churches, where they're burning incense. So we put incense notes in there. But then we also imagine him sitting on his leather chair, as he's writing very late at night, and so we put elements of leather. We really do try to embody the spirit and the creativity of whoever we are named the candle after. Storytelling is everything about the candle, and people connect to it, and they can feel it.

00:07:39

Andrea Marquez: I see that that storytelling extends to the packaging as well.

00:07:44

Teri Johnson: If you open up the candle box, you'll see a 1932 illustration of the nightclub map of Harlem. You'll also find a card that has a really beautiful picture of the candle in a lifestyle setting. And on the back of that card, it'll tell you the inspiration, and the fragrance notes, and a little romance story about the candle and how it connects to either the person that it's named after or the place it's named after. It's all about storytelling, and we try to make it really easy to gift, because you don't have to remember the story when you give the candle because it's on the inside.

00:08:15

Andrea Marquez: I could listen to Teri talk about these stories all day. She's obviously really passionate about what she does, and that passion and the storytelling behind the candles has brought them loads of success, even though they don't have a PR team.

00:08:29

Teri Johnson: I think because the brand is based on storytelling that people can connect, people understand. They get it. I think it makes it really easy for media outlets to talk about us. I would say those things, when all of these magazines, Elle, WWD, Cosmo, Vanity Fair, all these magazines, it's like, “Okay, this is cool. Thank you.” We don't even know the editors. We don't know the writers. They just know the brand, and they like it, and they write about it.

00:08:58

Andrea Marquez: She's even had a few celebrity customers.

00:09:01

Teri Johnson: I saw an order come through, and the name said Justin Bieber, but it was a large order, so I always noticed the real big orders. That was Justin Bieber. He ordered a candle. I called my fulfillment center. I was like, “Everybody, stop. Justin Bieber ordered candles.” They're like, “What?” We were like, “We got to make it so nice. Let's just like... We're going to write a handwritten note. Thank you, Justin, so much. We're just going to put so much love.” We put love into everything, but I said, “I need this box to have extra love.” Alicia Keys ordered his candles, Misty Copeland.

00:09:35

Andrea Marquez: From getting featured on magazines to celebrity customers. I think it's so cool that Teri has managed to build a brand that resonated with so many people, all through the power of storytelling. But at the end of the day, it still is entrepreneurship, and if you know anything about building a business, it's that there's always a few bumps in the road.

00:09:55

Teri Johnson: One of my manufacturers, a few years back, put the wrong fragrance in, I don't know, about 3, 000 candles, labeled it, everything. All our customers who know this candle, because it is their favorite, are just saying, “Hey, this is not the Speakeasy candle.”

00:10:10

Andrea Marquez: So Teri orders a candle, and realizes that the manufacturer had accidentally used another fragrance instead of Speakeasy.

00:10:18

Teri Johnson: We had to go and figure out the batch, and figure out every single person that had been shipped these candles with the wrong fragrance, because we knew it was wrong. We told them. We had to email all of them, and just say, “We are so sorry. Unfortunately, our manufacturer put the wrong candle fragrance.” We said, “Okay, this fragrance was actually our Brownstone fragrance.” Some people replied saying, “Thank you for letting me know, because I love this Brownstone fragrance.”

00:10:43

Andrea Marquez: I love that some of the customers ended up loving the scent.

00:10:47

Teri Johnson: They were very grateful, because a lot of the customers, if that was their first time ordering speakeasy, they didn't know that that was not the smell. But we were like, “No, we have to be very transparent, and let them know mistakes happen.” A mistake happened, and we fixed it. We've had so much customer loyalty, because we just like to just be upfront and honest, and let them know what's going on as a small business, because things like this can happen.

00:11:11

Andrea Marquez: Teri sent the right fragrance to all customers who had ordered it. Speaking from a customer's perspective, I definitely appreciate seeing that a brand is going above and beyond for me. That would've definitely made me a repeat customer. Let's go back to the storytelling behind Teri's brand. Teri incorporates history and culture in her products in such a beautiful way, and she managed to find a whole community who appreciates that. If you've been thinking about doing something similar...

00:11:37

Teri Johnson: Do it because it's good. It's wonderful to celebrate history, to celebrate the past, to acknowledge the people who came before us who have done tremendous things. I say do it. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong. I want to learn more about other places, and other parts of history, and other cultures. I'd love to learn about that through some sort of product.

00:12:00

Andrea Marquez: But if you're going to be working with specific people, Teri says it's important to be in touch with their families and get their permission.

00:12:08

Teri Johnson: The packaging that we have on the inside of our boxes, with the nightclub map of Harlem, illustration from 1932, I know the daughter of the artist, and the granddaughter of the artist. We got their permission, and they said, “Oh, absolutely. Thank you for celebrating my father's work in this way.”

00:12:26

Andrea Marquez: That was Teri Johnson, the CEO of Harlem Candle Company. It's so obvious that Teri's passionate about Harlem Candle Company, and I think that passion and the storytelling behind her brand is one of the main reasons why she has such loyal customers, or angels, as she calls them. We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business, brought to You by Amazon. Make sure to subscribe, and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And please, please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone, or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com.  

Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio.