0:02

For Melissa Glardo, founder and CEO

0:04

of Benita Fierce Candles, starting

0:06

a candle business from scratch, mint handling every

0:08

single part of production, from

0:10

wax pouring and fragrance mixing to

0:13

packaging and shipping. She

0:15

mostly had been getting small orders from local boutiques,

0:18

but that all changed. One night in twenty

0:20

twenty two.

0:22

We got a fax po from

0:24

Barnes and Noble. A literal fact sent

0:26

my email at midnight and

0:29

it said fifty four hundred candles,

0:32

my biggest order to date. I think

0:34

I woke up and like I couldn't fall back

0:36

asleep. He goes like, how

0:38

in the world are we going to

0:40

do this? I just stare at my ceiling.

0:43

I'm like, there's no way. I don't

0:45

even have the money to get this far.

0:51

Welcome to the Unshakables from

0:54

Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from

0:56

iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter,

0:58

CEO of Chase for Business.

1:00

And I'm Tanya Nivo, a lawyer and consultant

1:02

for business owners.

1:03

On the Unshakables, we're sharing the daring

1:05

stories of small business owners facing

1:07

their crisis points and telling the stories

1:10

of how they got through it. Hey

1:13

Ben, Hey Tanya.

1:14

I think you're gonna like this one. We've got a guest

1:16

today who really mastered the art of pr

1:18

and successfully managed to weave her culture

1:21

into her brand and into her products.

1:23

Awesome, let's get going.

1:25

On today's episode Bonita Fierce

1:27

Candles from Long Island, New York.

1:31

If I put myself back in my childhood home, I

1:34

remember my mom cleaning

1:36

Saturday mornings so vividly.

1:39

That's Melissa Glado again, the owner

1:41

and CEO of Benita Fierce Candles.

1:43

She grew up in Long Island, New York, and like

1:46

me, she is the daughter of two immigrants, and

1:48

she has fond memories of the rich smells

1:50

and sounds of her childhood home.

1:53

So the smalls was first lavender,

1:55

fabuloso. You know, there were so

1:57

many kinds of sense and smell. I was like, from coffee

1:59

in the morning to the holidays where

2:01

most of my families drinking cookita.

2:03

But living on Long Island, Melissa felt

2:06

like her identity was always in question.

2:08

I absolutely loved

2:11

being at home with my family,

2:13

but as soon as I started going to school, I

2:16

really felt other. I

2:18

was probably one of a handful of Latinas

2:21

and even people of color in my own elementary

2:23

school and as a huge part of my story

2:26

because I am a non Spanish

2:28

speaking Latina, grew up in one of

2:30

the top ten most segregated suburbs, and

2:32

I had to deeply assimilate to feel accepted

2:34

in my community. And meanwhile, I never

2:37

did.

2:38

Like all kids, Melissa just wanted to fit

2:40

in, and for her that meant straightening

2:42

her naturally curly hair, dressing

2:44

like the other kids, and not talking about

2:46

her family's heritage.

2:48

By the time I got to middle school, we're understanding

2:50

more about the political landscape with presidential

2:53

elections and politics. I

2:55

couldn't talk about it, and that, you know, I

2:57

had relatives who were

3:00

still like getting their papers, who

3:02

were considered undocumented.

3:04

She loved her family and her home life,

3:06

but didn't feel like she could really celebrate

3:09

her culture. But during college,

3:11

Melissa began to reconnect with her culture,

3:13

and for her, that process started

3:15

with her hair.

3:16

Come probably twenty eighteen, I

3:19

decided that I kind of needed a change. So

3:21

the first thing to go was my hair. I was like, you know,

3:23

I'm going to go to a curly hair salon and

3:26

I got my first curly cut, and

3:28

while it was bleached and

3:30

it was damaged. I had never seen my

3:32

hair come back to its glorious,

3:35

curly hair form.

3:36

Melissa graduated from college with a degree

3:39

in communications and a head full of long,

3:41

bouncy curls. She got a job

3:43

in media, but just eight months

3:45

into working, the pandemic hit, and

3:47

just like that, she was working remotely

3:50

while living at home with her parents.

3:52

I was commuting two hours each way to work

3:54

in Times Square. I

3:56

ended up reclaiming a lot of my

3:58

time. I was learning about personal

4:00

finance, and I wanted a side hustle.

4:03

Like so many other people, I felt like in corporate

4:05

I was starting to max out on how much I could make,

4:08

and for me, I didn't want that. I wanted

4:11

to feel limitless. So then I

4:13

picked up a hobby and it ended up being candle making,

4:16

just for fun, just for fun.

4:18

Melissa started looking for candles that reflected

4:20

the sense she grew up loving in her home, but

4:23

she couldn't find anything.

4:25

Historically in fragrance and fine fragrance

4:27

and home fragrance. It's really a eurocentric

4:29

industry. And I also

4:31

didn't find any candles on the

4:33

market that really represented my Latini

4:36

dad like anywhere, even from Etsy shops.

4:38

To a big name brand candles,

4:40

and so I really then and there I

4:43

was like, I'm going to combine my

4:45

identity with candle making, and Warren

4:47

was bony the Fierce Candles.

4:49

So Melissa got to work. She'd

4:51

continue her corporate job from home during the

4:53

day and pour all of her nights and

4:56

free time into beneath the Fierce candles.

4:58

Meanwhile, she saved up ten ten thousand dollars

5:00

to help clever startup costs, and

5:03

just six months after conceiving the idea for

5:05

her company, she launched her website with a

5:07

variety of sens.

5:09

We have candles like afacito,

5:13

which is inspired by Wilde Mercado, azugar,

5:16

which is inspired by Celia Cruz, like we

5:18

are creating very inclusive fragrances.

5:23

But even after the successful launch, Melissa

5:25

continued to work in the corporate world while

5:28

she finished her graduate degree. In

5:30

the meantime, the candle making business

5:32

started to take over her parents'

5:35

house.

5:36

It started in my kitchen, okay, then

5:39

it went into my dining room, and then

5:41

we took over the entire bottom half

5:43

of my house. So we have racks

5:45

of candles just stacked up,

5:48

and it got really, really crazy. And by

5:50

the way, my house smells amazing. Off, I

5:52

beg all the time. It

5:54

smells absolutely amazing, but it's

5:57

very overwhelming the amount

5:59

of space you need.

6:00

To Melissa realized

6:03

that the ten thousand dollars was enough to get her

6:05

started, but wouldn't last long. If

6:08

she wanted to be able to fill large purchase

6:10

orders, she was going to need a lot

6:12

more cash.

6:14

I started getting savvy with my money by

6:16

taking out zero APR credit cards. Oh

6:19

and I started charging those guys

6:21

once I knew like I had purchase orders, and

6:24

I really ran with that. But then

6:26

I realized the purchase orders were so large

6:28

that I needed more money to get

6:31

them started. But also I started

6:33

winning grants.

6:34

A wow. Okay,

6:36

Ben, I have to bring you in here to talk about

6:38

the funding piece, which is a huge part

6:40

of the story.

6:41

Yeah, you're just doing that because I'm a banker.

6:43

Well, I mean, let's make use of you right

6:45

while you're here.

6:46

So there's a couple of things that jumped out at me when you were

6:48

talking to her. First is I

6:51

think she learned a valuable lesson along

6:53

the way that I hope our listeners here

6:55

today and think about. Which is it's

6:58

really fun to talk about purchase ord and

7:00

sales. It's great. Cash

7:03

is king and cash flow always

7:06

matters. So you can sell an

7:08

infinite amount and if you don't have the inventory

7:10

or the financial resources to buy that inventory,

7:14

it doesn't matter. And you always

7:16

have to spend in advance. Always.

7:18

I can't think of many businesses where that's not the case.

7:21

And you need to be one step ahead on cash flow

7:23

at all times, and that means a couple of things. It

7:26

means having the financing in

7:28

place in advance for the orders that could come in.

7:30

And then it's about collecting your money after the fact,

7:32

because especially if you know, you get an order from a big

7:34

company like that, sometimes they don't pay for thirty days,

7:37

but sometimes it's sixty days, and sometimes it might

7:39

be ninety days and your calling and you need your

7:41

money, and in the meantime, your employees aren't

7:43

going to say, hey, no problem, pay me next week.

7:46

So cash flow is what kills businesses. So

7:48

staying on top of cash flow is really important.

7:50

Unfortunately, she had great credit and she had

7:52

ways to get the money. She was great at pitching

7:55

and getting grants. Not everybody's got that

7:57

going for them, you know, not everyone can pitch

7:59

and actually money.

8:00

There's ways to learn that, so I'd encourage everyone. You know,

8:02

there are way more resources out there

8:04

for small business owners than people realize,

8:07

whether it's to the government through what

8:09

are called CDFIs, which are financial institutions

8:12

for the underbank of course at banks as

8:14

well with venture capitalists,

8:16

with not for profits that are focused on helping

8:18

to spur entrepreneurship and self reliance.

8:21

There are way more resources out there

8:24

than people realize and put in the

8:26

research and spend the time.

8:28

Okay, Ben, let's get back to the story.

8:30

So Melissa works hard to get more cash

8:32

flow for her business and actually won ninety

8:35

thousand dollars from grant money alone.

8:37

So the online business was doing well, but Melissa

8:39

knew she could grow it a lot more. Besides

8:42

she had done her research.

8:44

I realized very quickly that two

8:46

thirds of the candle market is sold in big

8:48

box mass market retail, but

8:50

also in the candle world. It's really

8:53

hard to self fragrance online

8:55

because it's so important for people to actually

8:58

smell it and experience it for themselves.

9:01

I could tell you we have a capacio gonche cannel

9:03

smells exactly like a freshly brewed cup of

9:05

coffee. But you're not always

9:07

sold immediately. You think of what other

9:10

coffee candles smell like. But when

9:12

I create a product, it's a little

9:14

sweeter than what you would think with

9:16

caramel and like fresh milk, and

9:18

those are the things that are really hard to convey online.

9:21

So the strategy ended up being to go

9:23

into retail.

9:25

But to get into retail, Melissa

9:27

knew she needed to get her and

9:29

her company story out there.

9:31

It was a really hard sell online,

9:34

but our story was really strong, and it was about

9:36

brand awareness. Again, like I'm a media

9:38

person, That's what I did all day every day.

9:40

I grew the business based on my ability

9:42

to tell my story, to get

9:45

the brand out there and say it well.

9:48

Fortunately, Melissa had a strong media

9:50

background and knew how to sell her story

9:53

and just who to sell it to.

9:55

As part of my strategy in order to grow

9:59

was to to create brand

10:02

trustworthiness, and one

10:04

of the ways I could do that was getting

10:06

articles written about me and

10:08

my story and strategically

10:11

thinking about how I would tell my story

10:14

in order it for it to get picked up, in order

10:16

for me to fit the mold

10:18

of the media cycle.

10:21

And it was also strategically

10:23

reaching out to people who have written similar

10:26

stories, so pitching to the right journalis and

10:28

understanding where they live in the

10:30

landscape.

10:32

Her first big order came in from an unlikely

10:34

place, a DM on Instagram.

10:37

I got a DM from the assistant fire, which

10:40

is very rare for just so many

10:43

businesses. Most of the time you're going out and

10:45

pitching. Wow, my assistant buyer

10:48

was luckily one in a million because

10:50

she is Latina. She was my age, and

10:53

she was my target market. And she saw

10:55

beneath the Fierce Candles dms me

10:57

on Instagram. She's like, Hey, I'm on an assistant buyer

11:00

Norstrum and I'd love to set

11:02

up a meeting with you. And immediately I started

11:04

freaking out. Ran to

11:07

see my mom and we both started

11:09

crying.

11:11

The meeting went great and north Strums

11:13

put in order for fifteen hundred

11:15

candles. At that point, Benita

11:17

Fierce Candles had only two employees,

11:19

Melissa and her sister. After

11:22

landing the north Strom order, Melissa started

11:24

pitching to other special t retailers, including

11:26

Barnes and Noble.

11:28

We sent them candles, they really liked them.

11:30

We were expecting, you know, a smaller order, probably

11:33

similar to Northtrum. Oh, there's gonna be like fifteen

11:35

hundred candles. And you

11:37

know, they said we were going to be in the Spanish

11:39

language section just for his spinal carritage mother. They

11:41

would be in select stores. Then

11:44

I sent them our new packaging mock up.

11:48

We got a fax po from

11:50

Barnes and Noble, a literal fact sent

11:52

to my email at midnight, and

11:55

it said fifty four hundred candles,

11:58

my biggest order to date. I

12:01

think. I woke up and like I couldn't

12:03

fall back asleep. I was like, how

12:06

in the world are we going to

12:08

do this? I just stare at

12:10

my ceiling. I'm like, there's

12:12

no way. I don't even have the money

12:14

to get this far. First

12:17

thing I did was whip out my notebook and start

12:20

mathing, immediately freaking

12:22

out with my family. My family's like, you're

12:25

gonna say, yes, you're gonna do it, like

12:27

we're gonna make sure it happens. And

12:29

I'm like, oh my god. I

12:32

knew we were gonna get another retailer,

12:35

didn't think it would be four times as large

12:37

as it was originally planned for.

12:40

But meanwhile I had to go find

12:42

money. I gave myself I think three weeks.

12:46

So Melissa went back to something she knew well,

12:49

how to get grant money.

12:51

I knew I was good at pitching.

12:54

One of my superpowers is being

12:56

able to give a really good pitch about my business,

12:59

and I was to win more money for.

13:01

It with grant money. Intel

13:03

she got started on her two biggest orders

13:06

to date.

13:07

It was all sorts of dramatic

13:09

because we originally had planned for it to go

13:11

out in mid August, a little

13:13

like I think the second week of August,

13:16

and it didn't go out on time. I

13:18

hired additional people. I even got like my

13:21

sister in law to jump in and

13:23

help. My mom was coming home from work

13:25

helping, like you know, four hours after she worked

13:27

an eight hour day. All the men of my life,

13:30

they took the pallets

13:33

and I mean literal pallettes of

13:35

candles like two thousand pounds

13:38

and pulled the pallettes out

13:40

of my backyard. Wow. So we could

13:43

literally just pull everything

13:45

out onto the liftgate of the

13:47

truck that showed up to my house.

13:49

Family business real quick, right, really

13:51

was. It

13:54

was a true family affair, all

13:56

hands on deck.

13:58

So we still pampoured every handle like

14:00

we always had. It was six hundred a week we

14:02

had to maintain, and you

14:05

know, everybody is going bonkers

14:08

making sure reorders are coming in. We

14:10

started production in May to

14:12

send out everything by August,

14:14

and New York heat and the humidity is

14:16

a huge concern, and

14:19

we ended up boxing everything in my

14:21

house. So we palatized

14:23

everything at seven o'clock at night in

14:26

the middle of August, and it took about

14:28

two or three hours of us

14:30

like putting all the boxes in the right

14:32

position, making sure everything was right.

14:34

So when the truck came, all we had to do was take

14:36

the palette jack and roll it down my front

14:38

yard.

14:40

But they had pulled it off. The

14:42

order that had caused so much excitement

14:45

and panic at the same time was finally

14:48

out the door.

14:50

You know that I announced the big launch into

14:52

Barnes and Nova the congratulations.

14:53

How are you going to celebrate?

14:54

I'm like I already did because

14:57

watching the truck leave Mush

14:59

Street, that was the time

15:01

to celebrate. For me. It was like the amount

15:03

of relief, the weight lifted

15:06

off of my shoulders because we

15:08

finally made it happen. And then

15:10

we celebrate it again when it actually thought

15:12

we saw it on shelf.

15:14

And after that it was full speed

15:16

ahead for Benita Fierce Candles and they

15:18

haven't stopped since now.

15:21

To see customers picking up these

15:23

candles, it brings tears to my eyes. It brings

15:25

a smile to my face every time somebody

15:28

says that they've discovered us for the first

15:30

time. I can't tell you how much

15:33

joy it brings to me to see

15:35

our community thriving and

15:37

feeling like they're seen for the first

15:40

time.

15:41

Today, Banita Fierce Candles are sold in

15:43

about seven hundred stores across the country.

15:46

They're in Barnes and Noble and Nordstrom,

15:48

and there are plans to launch and another major retailer

15:51

very soon. So,

16:00

ben what'd you think about that story?

16:01

She's got a great story. I thought a few

16:03

things when I heard her speaking. The first thing

16:06

I thought was, this is someone who's

16:08

really found a passion, and

16:10

that's why I think she has so much energy

16:13

for what she's doing.

16:14

Yeah, her story is compelling, and she's very

16:16

tied to it and clearly very led

16:19

by it. And that's something

16:21

that people see right. People can see

16:23

it, they can experience it. I think that was

16:25

such a critical part of what

16:27

drives her and what has contributed

16:30

to her success.

16:30

Yeah, and I think her business for her is

16:33

not just what she does, it's who she is. It

16:35

comes from who she is, her

16:37

identity and her connection with her

16:39

identity is a part of what drives her. And

16:42

that's a lot more powerful than just the need for

16:44

profit. And so I think the fact

16:46

that she's driven by such a personal

16:48

connection to her own background

16:51

and making that come to life for a community,

16:53

I think is part of why she's going to be successful.

16:55

Yeah, and again I think it's something that

16:57

people can see, you know, customers,

17:00

potential partners, potential vendors.

17:02

All of those employees and granted, her employees

17:04

at the beginning were her family, right, But you

17:07

know, I don't think they just did it because they're

17:09

the step dad or the mom or the sister. I think

17:11

they did it because they shared that passion. I

17:14

think finding ways to get

17:16

free help in the beginning is really

17:18

underrated, and that clearly

17:20

helped her get off the ground.

17:22

It does, and it shows leadership, right,

17:24

It shows that she was able to get people

17:26

behind her, because just because someone's in your family doesn't

17:28

mean they want to work for you for free.

17:29

Yeah, tell me about that.

17:31

Yet, right, And definitely not for an extended

17:33

period of time, but she was able to get people to

17:35

rally behind what she wanted to do. So I

17:37

think that's a huge testimony to how

17:40

that passion translated into

17:42

a way that made people connect with her

17:44

and what she was trying to do in her business.

17:46

Yeah, it did, but to her credit, one of the

17:48

things she realized Tanya, is that brands

17:50

matter. There are very few products today

17:52

that can't be copied. You know, someone

17:54

could buy one of her candles and try

17:57

to re engineer the scent. That's doable,

18:00

harder to copy. And I think she realized

18:02

very early that if she was going to be successful

18:05

in this venture, she was going to have to build a brand.

18:08

And there's lots of ways to build a brand. Sometimes

18:10

you can just throw a lot of money at it, but she didn't have a lot

18:12

of money, right, so she built the brand through herself.

18:14

So I think the lesson for me is

18:17

that there are lots of ways to build a brand, but

18:19

brands always matter, and she.

18:20

Was very intentional about it. I think

18:22

that's what people forget, is that you have a brand.

18:25

It's just whether you are intentional about creating

18:28

the brand you want or not. So

18:30

there's certain thoughts and feelings

18:32

and emotions that someone feels when

18:34

they hear a particular business name or have it

18:36

an experience with the business. And she was

18:39

intentional about creating

18:41

the experience or designing the experience

18:43

she wanted people to have. But intentionality,

18:46

I think is the key. Or she was really really thoughtful

18:49

from the beginning.

18:50

That's right. And she didn't make the sort of classic mistake

18:52

of creating a brand and then trying to build a product

18:54

to fit that brand. You can't do that. A

18:56

brand is a megaphone. You build a great product

18:59

that people love, and then the brand is the megaphone

19:01

with which you amplify that. And she got it in

19:03

the right order. A brand is a megaphone for what

19:05

you already do great, not an excuse

19:07

to say that you're great at things you aren't. And

19:09

so she realized what she was great

19:12

at, and she picked up the megaphone and yelled

19:14

about that.

19:14

I love that.

19:15

I also give her a lot of credit. You know, people need to think

19:17

really deeply about

19:19

how they want to use different types of

19:21

financing, and by that I specifically mean equity

19:24

versus debt.

19:25

Yeah, that's a you know, she.

19:27

Chose to use debt because she knew how

19:29

to use it. Well, look, I think debt

19:31

has a place in a business. I work for a bank. It'd be really

19:33

weird if I said something different. But I absolutely

19:36

believe in responsible use of

19:38

debt. So she took a risk because she borrowed

19:40

money. Now it was in some

19:42

sense a somewhat de risk because she already had the purchase

19:44

order. But if she had failed to deliver on that order, they wouldn't

19:47

have paid her. Or if they'd paid her late

19:49

and she had had to miss a payment, that would have come back

19:51

on her. So she was willing to bet on herself

19:53

and take the personal risk to keep more

19:55

ownership in the business. Other people might say,

19:58

I think I'm going to need more capital than I can access

20:00

through debt, so I'm going to use equity and I'm going to

20:03

go find an investor in the business, And

20:05

that's another way to do it. But you're going to have to give up some ownership

20:07

and that's painful, and you should guard that really carefully

20:09

because once you give it up, you don't get it back. So there's

20:12

always that trade off to make. She has

20:14

grown at a pace that's allowed her to use that and

20:16

maintain ownership and control. Some

20:18

businesses lend themselves to that, some don't.

20:21

But she was ready going in.

20:22

It's really important to make an intentional

20:25

decision and take it very seriously when

20:27

deciding whether to go with the debt

20:29

or the equity route to grow your business. And Melissa's

20:32

retained all equity in her company up to this point

20:34

and for what she's doing, I like

20:37

that approach.

20:39

Okay, Tanya, I want to go now to

20:41

what's fast becoming my favorite part of the show,

20:44

sharing the great advice from our small business owners.

20:46

Now, Melissa is kind of a PR expert at this point,

20:49

and here's what she had to say about getting pressed for your

20:51

small business.

20:52

Well, let's hear it.

20:54

I really think entrepreneurs need

20:56

to understand what value

20:59

journalists have and putting

21:01

themselves in their shoes, making

21:03

their lives easier, seeing

21:06

how their brands could fit

21:08

into their stories and

21:11

what's going on in the world today. So

21:13

I'm going to be reaching out like, hey, we

21:16

should talk about our Gona

21:18

La Florida candle because it is inspired

21:20

by Latina icon during Women's

21:23

History Month.

21:23

How cool is that?

21:25

Or even a better example would be we

21:27

have an azook garde candle and

21:29

it's based off Celia Cruz, Queen of Saltza,

21:32

and she is going to be on the US

21:35

Quarter And that is so freaking

21:37

cool. It would be great

21:40

to have that for Women's History Month or

21:42

during that announcement time where I can go to

21:44

a journalist and say, hey, we have a candle that's

21:46

inspired by the Queen of Salsa

21:48

and she's going to be in the US Quarter. That is

21:51

a story to be said.

21:54

Thanks so much for listening to The Unshakables.

21:56

If you liked this episode, please rate and review

21:59

it. It'll help our she'll find more listeners.

22:02

On the next episode, we'll be back with the story

22:04

of a couple that risked it all to start their

22:06

own electrical company right as

22:08

they were about to have their first child. Could

22:11

they keep their family afloat while starting this

22:13

new company. I'm Tanya n Nevo

22:15

and this is The Unshakables from Chase for Business

22:17

and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.

22:21

The Unshakables is a production of Ruby

22:23

Studio from iHeartMedia and Wheelhouse

22:26

DNA