One For The Soap Makers

When I started my soap business, way back when no-one had heard of ‘natural’ soap I made a mountain of very costly mistakes that I would never make now.

 Soap making for me started as a hobby that I got pretty obsessed with and passionate about and then, on discovering my friends and family loved my soaps, it seemed like the next logical step would be to try and turn that hobby into a business. So how many of you identify with that scenario ??

 I wasn’t unfamiliar with building businesses from hobbies: Some years earlier knitting was my passion and before I knew it I found myself employing 600 knitters and selling my handknits to prestige stores in both London and New York. “How hard could running a soap business be” I thought.

 The problem with passion and hobbybased businesses is that most of us just seem to drift into them. We react to opportunities rather than planning a sustainable outcome and

when we are talking about a soap business, that can result in us doing endless creative explorations and being so busy with the pots, pans and paperwork that we don’t seem to have time to stop and look at the bigger picture or to consider how we can build a solid stream of production and sales without killing ourselves in the process. However much we love the ‘doing’ the bottom line is that a passion business isn’t actually a business unless it makes a profit.

 One year into my business, every surface in my house was covered in soap, my bath (where I washed my pots) was full of slime, my wooden floors were black with grease and the sceptic tank in the field outside my very rural house was billowing out (albeit sweet smelling) foam. 

 By the end of my first six months I had landed some great high street stores as customers and on doing the numbers I found that I had turned over what seemed like a whopping great ￡10,000….  I felt really pleased with that (in fact for a minute there I thought I was going to be the next Richard Branson) but when I did the sums I was completely horrified to discover that despite all my hard work I had only actually earned myself ￡2 an hour….. which was considerably less than I was paying my cleaner. I don’t know about you but I value my time and this simply was nowhere near what I felt my time was worth.

 Despite my passion for soap I knew things could not continue in this way. If this was going to be a viable business I needed to stop things in their tracks, go back to the drawing board, work out what I really wanted from this business and create a workable plan. With the right people advising me and a real understanding of the areas I needed to focus on I’m pleased to report that within eighteen months my business grew into multiple six figures (that is what it turned out I really wanted)…. but no matter what your level of ambition is you need to understand that soap Is a numbers game: you have to sell a lot of bars to make even a modest income and you need to put a lot of good business pieces in place to enable you to do that.

 Without doubt my passion for soap making changed my life and has given me amazing opportunities to travel and meet brilliant entrepreneurs all over the world. I’ve run workshops and done speaking gigs in the US, France, UK, Dubai and three countries in Africa This is a wonderful industry to be in and it attracts a lot of likeminded people who want to make a difference and improve the world and interestingly, right now, whilst we are brought down physically and spirituality by this awful epidemic and everything is gloom and doom there has never been a better time to build a soap making business. Our products are needed as is our entrepreneurial spirit and for this reason I want to help you to build a truly sustainable handmade soap business.

 For the last three months I have been re-visiting everything I learned during my soap making journey – the good, the bad and the ugly. I have spent hours talking to soap makers so I could understand their challenges in today’s market and I have re-capped on the challenges that the 200 entrepreneurs whom I have mentored over the last 15 years have also experienced.

 My aim was to put together a truly comprehensive and affordable online programme that would help those of you, who have started the journey of selling your soaps, turn that journey into a profitable and sustainable business. In short, I want to give you all the critical knowledge I have learned over my 20 year time spent in this industry.

 But, before I show you the content of my new “Soapmaker’s Business Masterplan” programme I would like to invite you to take a look at my webinar where I will outline “the 7 reasons why your business isn’t making enough money” and I will tell you how to change that for free. If you are struggling with your soap making business I really want you on this webinar so I’ll be running it several times to cover all timezones. 

https://www.melindacoss.com/soapbizwebinar

 Do come and join me because the one thing I am now passionate about is seeing you succeed.