Epiphanie Yohou is a Marketing and Planning Strategist and the Founder/CEO of Ayoka Candles Co. As a business leader, mentor, speaker, and entrepreneur, she partners with small businesses to create a vision for their start-ups and professional brands. For nearly a decade, her career has been focused on the pharmaceutical industry, spanning marketing, global planning, product launch, market access, and reimbursement. Although her marketing experiences play a vital role in helping to grow her own business, Epiphanie’s message to small business owners is to think beyond their marketing plan and focus on execution. Epiphanie is a trained project manager and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Global Economics from Hood College and a Master of Science in Business Management and Marketing from the University of Maryland University College. In this interview, she shares with us how she pursues her dreams and helps others in the pursuit of theirs. Be inspired for success!
Epiphanie, you are the Founder/CEO, of Ayoka Candles Co. When and how did you launch this company and how has being a marketing and planning strategist helped this business to thrive?
Ayoka has been a passion over the past three years as the dream became unfolded in me and sort of became a true aspiration of mine. But I began the business about three years ago, and I say it’s a dream in itself because that’s what it was. I initially wanted to do something that was creative that I could give back to friends and family, and that’s where the idea of Ayoka candles came from. So, three years ago, it started as me making gifts for close friends and family for the holidays, and it led me into a business that was officially launched in July 2018. And so, I’ve just been looking out for the marketing and the planning piece of it, it has really embedded itself into my business because I do that in my corporate world, planning and marketing. So, I like to say it’s building my own website as a company but also watching it – in my corporate world, building a website, I know what to do to create the best experience for our customers to help educate them about the brand, and even just looking at what is critical and what the purpose and the why is. I truly feel that my experience in marketing and planning has made my business even thrive more because I can see some of the pitfalls before I get there. I have been in business for over a year, and I am continuously learning in that aspect.
Why candles? What was it that attracted you to making candles? What are some of the designs you are proud of, and what have you been able to achieve with this business?
Why candles? Like I always say, why not candles? Right? I think sometimes when you think about your passion finding you, or your dream finding you, it doesn’t necessarily span out in so many forms. But as I was thinking of ways to create unique gifts – so think about it, every holiday you have a family member, or friend and often time you go to the store and you buy something and we’re so used to doing that in our commercial world that we don’t necessarily think about the things that we can make or the great makers of things that are out there. So, that’s where the candle piece came in for me, I said well what can I do that, one, probably won’t take me a lot of time but I can try to master as fast as I can? And I said, oh my goodness, this is a little bit complicated. And then I started learning about the ingredients and I said, oh my goodness, I can actually get myself educated about the candles that I have, and I’m a candle lover as well. So, I started looking at all the candles in my home and I said this isn’t healthy for me, what can I create that is going to be eco-friendly, and have all natural ingredients, that were good for you? And so that’s where the candlelight idea came from. And I started putting together all the formula, so I make the candles myself, I make all the oils, but in itself becoming a business, it wasn’t a business until 2018. Just for a fact all of my products and designs are inspired by the very powerful women in my life. The scents that I name in all my candles were just conversations I was having with girlfriends over tables, over dinner, and they would say, well, why don’t you try this? And I would say, oh this actually works. So, they became sort of my market research when I was thinking about making it into a business. I think what is making us stand out and thrive in our business is our uniqueness. There are a lot of companies out there that talk about getting all-natural ingredients, but we can truly say that we don’t use zinc, we don’t use paraffin in our candles and we can say that our candles have multi-purpose use because we use all-natural ingredients to bring to the table something that is good to have in your home with your children, with you breathing it in and not worrying about you having some health issues associated with it. And that’s sort of been our mission in building Ayoka.
You’ve told us where your inspiration comes from, but what do you hope will be the benefit to the end-users apart from the candles not harming their health? And what makes your candles unique?
The benefit, when we think about any product, for so many of us that are makers, we automatically think about, what would it look like in my own space? What would it be like? So, for our candles, when you do burn them you can use them as moisturising agents to put on your body, and to put on your hands. So, it could also become complementary and it also adds to the ideology that you truly feel good going into the store and purchasing one of our products. You can identify that it is made of love and passion and that we keep you in mind when we’re creating our products. We just recently moved into a line of diffusers especially because some of our customers said to us, can you provide an alternative for those of us who don’t like flaring? So we’ve now provided a water-based diffuser line so they can still experience Ayoka in our fragrances and still be able to have it in their homes. And we hope to continue to scale out business in that manner.
As a marketing and planning strategist, you work with entrepreneurs. Would you please explain to us what services you render and what results you have helped your clients achieve with their businesses?
This is a great question because I think a lot of entrepreneurs think similarly. So, when I started Ayoka Candles, you would look online to see what business courses are offered what other entrepreneurs have fully gone through, and sometimes you get the cookie-cutter answer, you need to do ABCDEFG, but it doesn’t quite help you in your journey. So, one of the things I find – especially in my expertise as a planning and marketing strategist – in working with entrepreneurs it starts by asking them why? Why are you doing this? What are you hoping to gain out of it? Helping them really answer that why because that’s really the difficult part. So the services that we provide to go along with the why is, we when you think about building a house, you start with the base, you have to have a great foundation in order to scale your business to the next level. So, we help them understand their brand; establish their why, and understand their brand, and really help them build that marketing plan. And about marketing, what is your operation? How do you plan to execute? And if you don’t have the different arms to help you execute, all of the planning that you’ve done before is really not going to be fruitful, if you don’t establish a great operation plan. But we look at those three pillars around branding, marketing and operation, to help them execute it and fly. And I think one of the things that we achieve through our clients is even something as simple as I need to design a logo that helps me create the image of my business. So, we work with them, and we’re their eyes and ears. Small businesses have really leaned on us to help them create that vision, designing their logo, designing their brand, and even just a simple thing as packaging. How do I present my products so that it’s appetising and not just something somebody would want to pass by? How do I lure in customers and at the end of the day, let my product speak for itself? The services we provide looks at all across, so we build a foundation, and once you have that great foundation, like a house, you can start to build the walls, and they won’t collapse.
What are some of the lessons you have learned from working with entrepreneurs, which are helpful to you in your entrepreneurial journey?
Ah, lessons, there are quite a few, but I think one that resonates to me, I’ve been a constant learner and what I love about working with entrepreneurs is they’re continuously learning, every day is a learning process. And I will say for myself as an entrepreneur and business owner, I am learning things. As an example, we said we want a question around, how do you plan to scale your business to the retail stage? That’s a new area for us, we’re used to our eCommerce, having customers come to us. But we understand that part of the lesson is to continuously be a learner and not to be shy to ask, who has that expertise so that they can better mentor you? And be it a woman who’s successful in her own career or a man who’s successful in a specific subject matter expertise. And another part of the journey that’s helped my clients is getting them out there to network, and get to know others aside from the support services we provide.
What plans do you have for the future with regards to Ayoka Candles and your work as a marketing and planning strategist?
Ayoka is my baby, and Ayoka means gratitude in my native dialect. I am originally from Ivory Coast. And so, building this company and using that name, for me is giving thanks. One of the things that we’re really looking forward to is collaborating with other businesses and looking for those opportunities to collaborate because that truly means that we’re continuing to grow, continuing to build on our purpose, and then scaling our business. Because right now, we have this eCommerce site, which is doing very well, but we want to make Ayoka a household name. Ayoka needs to be everywhere. So, we’re also going toward retailing like Target. I think that allows us to really step into the whole action and continue to fulfil our purpose. Marketing and planning for me now becomes a need because of Ayoka and because of AVE Business Solutions that is always ready to support small businesses in understanding that they have supported us and when they reach out to us we will work with them to build their foundation, and we will make sure that they are supported along the way.
What three marketing and planning strategies do you have for women, especially those who are entrepreneurs or would like to go on the entrepreneurial journey?
It is one of those things that you’ve got to look into your journey, and what I’ve found is so critical, the number one being, know your why. Why is your why important? Your why is important because it would define at the end of the day when you’re standing at that crossroad and when you cannot find a supplier last minute who can support your service, and you are stressed to the maximum, and you just want to throw it all out, and we’ve had those moments, close the computer or close the laptop and just throw it out the window. Your why is going to keep you and it’s not to say that you won’t have those moments, but it will keep you consistent in why you’re doing this. And then write down your plan, that’s the second strategy. Write whatever it is you want to do. I’m an Excel spreadsheet person, but there are other tools and resources that you can use that will help you organise yourself so that you have them in a sequential order and then help to prioritise so once you’ve written them down, there is a priority, right? So you’re not going to build a website if you don’t have a product, you’re not going to start putting an Instagram out there if you don’t really have a name or a logo or anything that can set your business apart from everyone else. So, you start to prioritise everything you’ve written down so that you can start to see the smaller pieces come together as a whole. The entrepreneurial journey is truly one that I think can be very difficult and the road map is not always clear, but if you can stick to these three strategies, find your why, write them down, and prioritise them, you will truly start to make headways in what it is you want to do, because it is very overwhelming. And I will say for myself, I was very overwhelmed, and I said, okay I think I can handle one or two things on that list for six months and then go from there. (She laughs)
How can people contact you if they would like to know more about what you do and where can they get your candles to buy?
Yeah. So, our website is www.ayokacandles.com and we do have an Instagram and Facebook, which is @ayokacandlesco, and you can follow us, and you can order our products from our website.
