Beyond the Wick: Crafting Wealth Your Way "Built from scratch. Crafted for greatness
This isn’t your average business podcast.
Not Just Candle Talk is the unapologetic, unfiltered audio home for ambitious entrepreneurs, creatives, and side-hustlers ready to do business on their own terms — no fluff, no fake motivation.
Founded on real experience and raw truth, this podcast dives into the real-life challenges behind the candle business and beyond. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling your empire, every episode is packed with lessons, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you build a business and a life you don’t need to escape from.
Hey, I’m Toni, and I know what it’s like to start from scratch.
When I launched my candle business, I had big dreams but limited resources — no investors, no fancy marketing team, just grit, Google, and a lot of trial and error. I built my brand from the ground up, burned out more times than I can count, and learned to pivot, scale, and get smart about what really makes money in this game.
Not Just Candle Talk was born out of my journey — the highs, the hustle, the hard lessons — and the deep desire to have conversations no one else is having in entrepreneurship. The stuff beyond the surface. The why behind the work.
This Podcast Is For You If…
- You’re tired of overnight success stories with no receipts.
- You want to make real money while staying true to yourself.
- You believe business can be both profitable and purposeful.
- You’re building your brand while managing your real life.
Beyond the Wick: Crafting Wealth Your Way "Built from scratch. Crafted for greatness
When to Invest, When to Scale Back: The Entrepreneur's Eternal Question
What does the centuries-old wisdom "it takes money to make money" really mean for today's entrepreneurs? I'm challenging conventional thinking by breaking down when and how this principle applies in the modern business landscape.
Through a personal story of using this phrase as a career compass during a job interview, I reveal how this principle became a powerful goal-setting tool in my own entrepreneurial journey. The traditional understanding suggests substantial capital is necessary to launch successfully, but is that still true? I explore the fascinating alternatives now available - from no-cost collaborations to low-investment digital platforms that allow entrepreneurs to test concepts before significant financial commitment.
The real power lies in strategic implementation. Whether you're just starting out or scaling an established venture, knowing exactly when to invest (and when to hold back) becomes the critical skill. Rather than seeing this principle as a barrier, I encourage treating it as a checkpoint for regular business assessment. Are you at a stage where expansion requires hiring? Do operations demand new equipment? Understanding precisely when capital investment becomes necessary distinguishes thriving businesses from struggling ones.
Perhaps most valuable is the counterintuitive wisdom of knowing when to scale back. Sometimes the smartest financial move isn't expansion but strategic contraction - questioning if you truly need that additional staff member or expanded inventory. By approaching your business with this balanced perspective, you'll make smarter decisions about when money truly makes money. Join me for this exploration, and stay tuned for a deeper dive in part two!
Hello world, welcome back to Not Just Candle Talk. Today we're going to talk about the phrase it takes money to make money. Is that true nowadays? You can answer that yourself in your journey and where you're at. For me, I'll tell you a quick story, real quick.
Speaker 1:I took a job a couple of years ago and in an interview, I you know how they ask you, you know what? Do you know what you're here for? And I'm like, hey, I have a small business, ok, and and I understand that it takes money to make money. And so they looked at me, right, they looked at me with this look like what, what, what she's talking about. But you know, by me saying that out loud, putting that in the air, that right there, for me it was, uh, me just stating my goals of why I was there and to, at some point, mentally, it was a mental note to myself, like this is what you're here for. And they looked at me because they probably never heard anybody come in and say that to them. The look alone said it and I understood that. But that's not, that's not. You know, I can't do anything about that, but I'm gonna tell you my truth anyway, uh, because that is why I'm here. No, I'm not at the job anymore because once I got to where I wanted to be goal-wise, I had to let it go because, at the end of the day, my business is my. You know what's important to me. So that's a quick story of you.
Speaker 1:Know how that phrase mattered At the time and it still does. You can implement it, like I said, throughout your journey. Now the phrase itself has been around forever, for centuries people have. That's nothing new. Now it what's new is when do you apply that To your journey in your entrepreneurship, small business journey? When do you implement that to your journey in your entrepreneurship, small business journey? When do you implement that? The beginning, middle end when does that thought come to your mind? Or does it come to your mind? And traditionally, the traditional ways of starting a business does that apply to the many ways you can or can't start a business? Right Now you can do low cost. You could do no cost. Low cost, no cost.
Speaker 1:Collaborations, freelancing, offering services to start your small businesses or collaborations. It doesn't. You know that's a free one, no money down. You're collabing, you're helping the next entrepreneur Do their thing and they're helping you. So those types of things, no low cost or no cost.
Speaker 1:Another low cost to me would be Starting a website. To me, that Another low cost to me would be Starting a website. To me, that's low cost. It doesn't take a lot to start a website. Not at all, not today. It doesn't. And then it depends on what kind of business you actually have, right.
Speaker 1:So the phrase to me, it takes money to make money, right Absolutely, and you have to do it. To me, you have to do it strategically as well. Now, do you forefront. No matter if you say it or believe it, it's at some point in your journey. It's going to be implemented right. I'm excited because I use that now. I use it as a goal setter for myself whenever I'm doing something and I understand, I try to understand at best the best ways to put it into what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Because, like I said, it doesn't matter where you're at in your journey. It just depends on what's the need for it and what you're doing at that given time. So, like I said, like a lot of times, you don't even need anything to start a small business, or very little. Now, if you a gambler, you know you take risks. You want to start big with the big loan. If you're a gambler, you know you take risks. You want to start big with the big loan. Make sure that your strategy is strategic enough to where you say, hey, okay, I got this loan, I'm going to pay this boy off in five to ten years. Just know that that fast success is not going to happen. Right, it might happen, but be realistic about when you do things like that. Be realistic in your journey. Absolutely be realistic, because I think a lot of times people are not and they don't plan strategically or think that if I start off big, I'm going to end big. That's not always the case. Uh, especially with small businesses. To me, the best way to grow is to keep it in a nice, nice little package. Right, this is just my opinions. I'm not an expert Again, I always say that but I think I do things that work for me and I try to share as much as I can or give insight or or stay in the know of things. Right Again, on my last episode, I was talking about AI and how now you can implement that in some type of form or fashion in your take.
Speaker 1:It makes money to take money, jondra, not Jondra in your thoughts. I don't know why I said Jondra, but anyway, let's get back to it. So, when it comes to marketing, you don't have to do it big in marketing. Now you can, but you know, is that going to? Is that going to get you to where you're to where you're at in your goals? Like I said, it all depends on where you're at in your journey for your business. It really does.
Speaker 1:But at some point that statement is going to hold true. Are you hiring, are you expanding? Are you equipment-wise, inventory-wise? Where you're at in your business will determine if it takes money to make money. That statement will all. You can always come back to that statement. It's like a checkpoint okay, I'm here, check where am I at with it. Um, and you know, you know how much money you're going to need if you're paying attention, right, not everybody knows. If you're grounded in your business and you are like hands on in what you do, you know what your capital needs are. Absolutely, that's a strong business-minded people, absolutely. But a lot of entrepreneurs understand that.
Speaker 1:Now, how you get there is, like I said, it's so many different ways. Pick up a book. I am big on reading, I'm big on doing research no-transcript To increase your capital or decrease. Sometimes you need to decrease, right. Do you need that staff? Okay. Do you need to put that person on your payroll? Do you need all of this inventory? Do you need all of these marketing tools? Do you need that? So, keep in mind, if you keep in mind that phrase, it takes money to make money. Sometimes you have to scale back. That's more. That's probably the biggest journey is to know when to scale back, because it's cool, it's okay to scale back, right, it's okay. So, but always keep that phrase in mind.
Speaker 1:To me, it means so much in so many different ways, and checking in with yourself and checking in with your business is so important, and putting that on uh, putting that phrase on any topic, uh, or any category throughout your business journey will will. It will save you a lot of misfortune in what you're doing. To me. That's just my opinion. I mean that you can implement it at any point of your journey, and it's not. It's never ending, right? Because since that phrase has been around for centuries, that part of your business is never ending. Just do a check Every so often, quarterly, twice a year, whatever. However, you do it and see where you're at, because it's like a check, it's like a check mark, it's like a pause. It takes money to make money. So where am I at With my business? Right, I just wanted to hit on that topic.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do a part two. I'm going to do a little bit more deep diving into this because I just came across this. Like I said, I did it in my interview with that company and to me that was a reality check. Like I'd never said this before, I never put it out there, but now it's part of my goals, it's part of how I check myself. So I want to do a part two of this and do some more deep diving. Maybe have a guest on, I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm excited about this topic. I just want to touch on it and, you know, give a little insight of where I'm headed with this one. But I'm definitely going to do a part two. I just don't know when. But stay tuned, we're going to do, I'm going to do a little more deep dive and digging into some research on this topic alone because I'm excited, I'm fired up about it.
Speaker 1:It takes money to make money. That's the truest statement around right now, at this time, with the economy, the way it is, 2025 and where you're at in it, because there's so many avenues and so many ways you can use that. Stay with me, people. Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you. I'll see you next time. Bye.