Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Leaphart.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Julia. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My business journey began in 2004 when I went through a divorce and found myself with no job, few marketable skills and a 3-year-old daughter. I knew I didn’t want to go back to an office job, I wanted to be close by to my daughter and my whole family lived overseas. I had grown up in a small town in the Himalayas of northern India to an Indian father and an English mother and had met and married an American guy from Georgia. We had moved to the small town of Conyers and I felt pretty isolated there.
I started buying jewelry supplies and making simple pieces of jewelry to sell and then going to yard sales and finding bits of furniture I would refinish and resell at the monthly Lakewood antique market. The first time I did this show I was hooked. I loved the environment, the traders who lived on the road, the freewheeling entrepreneurialism. It was liberating and I felt a sense of belonging there. After spending some time in India, I bought back a container load of decorative items to go on the road with and sell at shows. I never made any money in this venture, but it gave me the seed for what would grow into my real business.
At the time, Mexican wooden sugar molds were really popular, they would be sold with candles and the combination of the aged rustic wood with a lit hand dipped candle looked really good. I had some wooden bowls that were not selling, so I ordered some wax and fragrance oils off the internet and filled up a couple. I took them out to the Lakewood market the next day and they sold right away! I went home and made some more and those also sold immediately for good money with no bargaining. This had never happened to me before! I knew then I had a good idea.
Over the next 14 years, I grew the business organically with no outside capital and little business knowledge. I had started with a few wooden bowl candles, and over the years added varieties of glass, metal and terra-cotta always focusing on unique designs that had a vintage feel. In the beginning, I would set up a display at local shows, festivals and craft fairs. They were fun, and I could take my daughter to them, but physically hard work and sales would always be limited. In 2006 I added wholesale markets through the Atlanta gift show and then added the NY gift show the next year.
Lakewood Antiques Show closed in 2007 when the fairgrounds were sold off and I slowly became too busy with the wholesale side to participate in festivals and craft shows. In 2011 I started adding sales rep groups with showrooms around the country and we became a fully wholesale company. As my company grew we went through many growing pains, but I had a built a loyal customer base that was forgiving and supportive. My father told me once you build a business by adding one customer at a time. I always remembered this. Your product and your customer are the 2 most important components. A business will grow as long as it focuses on pleasing its customer and making products that connect with its core customer.
I moved my production from my kitchen and front living room to a small warehouse near my house in Conyers, then taking over the warehouse next door as well. In 2011 I moved to Decatur so my daughter could attend Decatur City Schools. I moved the business to an empty 8000 sq ft warehouse on Laredo Dr., near the Dekalb Farmer’s Market. In 2013 the warehouse next door became available and we expanded into it as well. The business started growing fast and my sales were doubling every year. I had to spend lots of time hiring and training office, production and shipping staff as I tried to establish procedures and a team that could operate independently of myself. A growing business is a constant work in progress and you will need some smart people around you. It cannot be done alone.
Fortunately, I had some gifted folks around me along the way that helped me implement a streamlined production process and a robust accounting structure to keep our growth on track. Presently Himalayan Candles has a full-time team of 20 employees. We sell to around 2000 retail stores in the United States and Canada with distributors in Europe, Japan, S Korea and Israel. Himalayan Candles has grown into a nationally recognized artisan brand and competes with brands many times its size.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The biggest struggle for me was getting the business to generate enough money for me to live on and to be able to expand the business. Women starting their own business tend not to get taken seriously because people assume there is a spouse paying the bills or that her parents are subsidizing her. My business was my living and it is a testament to my lack of business experience that I did not realize early on how much money a business needs to simply keep running let alone to grow. Cash flow was an issue when it came time to buy inventory or even make payroll, and I had to keep taking money out for my own expenses. I gradually dug myself into a great deal of debt and when the market crashed in 2009 all my credit dried up.
The next year was probably the hardest of my life. I had racked up over a 160 k in credit card debt and lines of credit on my house. I couldn’t even make the monthly minimum payments and creditors called constantly. My personal life had crumbled as well, a 6-year relationship came to an end and someone who had helped me build my business and given me so much practical and emotional support was gone. My ex-husband had recently developed a bad drug and alcohol addiction and had gone into extended rehab treatment. My daughter and I did not see him for the next 9 months. I felt very much alone.
Looking back on this time, I have come to realize that many people go through terrible difficulties, and it is from working through these that they gain the fortitude and confidence to move on to greater success down the road. I was able to work out payment plans on the debt, and over the next few years painfully dug out of it. My sales had dropped, but in 2011 things turned around considerably. I had introduced lots of new looks, mercury glass was huge at the time and we became flooded with orders. I didn’t have enough inventory to fill them. I learned to persuade my suppliers to ship me goods on credit. I explained to them what was going on, they trusted me. I was single and I threw myself into work and taking care of my daughter. This was also strangely liberating. It was freedom to focus on my two biggest most rewarding priorities.
In 2011 I turned in my first profitable year as we reached over $1M in sales. Our brand grew fast from there as we started getting orders from national chains like Urban Outfitters, Nordstroms and Barnes and Noble. I had hired a publicist and Himalayan was featured in national publications like House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, Southern Living and People and numerous regional publications, blogs and lifestyle supplements. It all helped build Himalayan’s brand. From then on it became more about managing growth and delivering on our potential.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Himalayan Candles – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Himalayan Candles is a candle manufacturer specializing in artisan design driven vessels and evocative, multilayered fragrances. The look and feel of Himalayan Candles has remained consistent – reusable decorative vessels, and a handmade vintage appearance. I knew I had to remain focused to compete in such a saturated market. Our customer should be able to recognize a Himalayan candle in a store without looking at the label. The original wooden candle tray that I started with back in 2004 is still unique in the market and I haven’t seen anything similar to compete with it.
Our vessels are manufactured in small outfits in India using primarily handmade techniques. I work with manufacturers there directly visiting each facility to become familiar with the working conditions and the process that goes into each vessel. Our factory in Decatur, hand pours and packages these containers at a high volume while maintaining a handmade approach. We still hand stamp each fragrance on every label and our ribbon is painstakingly tied into a perfect bow on every wooden tray. Every piece is individually quality control checked before packing. I am proud that we are so strongly in control of every stage of production.
All of our employees should feel proud that they are making a handmade artisan piece that is generally valued and kept by the customer long after the candle has melted away. Many of our production employees are refugees who live in the Decatur, Clarkston, Gwinnett area. We provide them a pleasant, flexible, non-hierarchical and collaborative work environment where they have the freedom to be themselves. There are no daily work quotas or line supervisors, but still, we are able to product a high-quality product efficiently.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Last year I sold Himalayan Candles to a group of investors. I am confident they will be able to take it to the next level in terms of growth whilst holding on to our core values of hands-on teamwork, creativity in design and focus on our core brand and customer. I remain on board as a consultant in charge of product design and branding. I am not sure yet if I will stay on in this role as my contract expires. I don’t know yet what the future holds, there are so many ideas jostling around in my head.
Contact Info:
- Address: 202 Laredo Dr., Decatur, GA 30030
- Website: www.himalayantradingpost.com
- Phone: 678 705 3245
- Email: jleaphart@himalayantradingpost.com
- Instagram: @himalayancandle
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/himalayancandles/
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