Two weeks ago I added 2 marketers to my team. Both mid-20s and both impressed me in the interviews.

Disclaimer: I adore GenZ and have so much respect for their hustle and drive. I know they are going to do big things and change the world! 

During our weekly marketing tag up these kiddos sat me down with a PowerPoint presentation to inform me my brand was all wrong. The following is a list of all the changes I needed to make if I wanted my business to succeed. You all, the amount of energy and restraint it took for me to keep a straight face during this meeting was truly heroic.

This is the cover slide for the 'Marketing Meeting'. 

From the presentation:

Stop being so political including women’s rights and equality posts. Politics has nothing to do with candles. I had to remind them that the whole mission of MWCC was to give voice to real issues, set the feelings on fire and let that shit go.

Stop using profanity. I almost broke here…but didn’t burst out laughing yet.

Curate the social media feeds, especially Instagram. The feed looks like chaos and is not aesthetically pleasing. *slowly nodding my head* I said “yeah…life is chaos. I’m not going to curate my feed with some rose-gold bullshit, I like to keep it real and authentic.

This is the slide that killed me. I have so many questions. Like the goal here is to have candles floating in the middle of the road? Don't even get me started on the formatting.

Only post your blog notices on your personal social accounts and write candle related content only. I did actually laugh at this one. All I said was okay…continue…AND THEY DID!!! There was no stopping this dynamic GenZ duo! Like, ladies…read the room! Nope, they were so confident in their opinions. 

James (21 YO Male) even tried to jump in and help educate them, to which the presenter said "You're not our target demographic, your opinion doesn't matter. It was so rude and disrespectful. I had to jump in on that one. Like she looked James directly in the eyes and dismissed him. Later, I told James that is what it is like for women in any corporation. 

I let it go on mostly out of curiosity. I mean how could two college-educated marketers get a brand so wrong? I stared blankly, making direct eye contact with them as they informed me that I should personally take over Facebook because people my age don’t use TikTok. I’m 49.

I am very unclear on what a 'tubber ware' is???

The presentation ended with them explaining to me that to compete in the candle market, we needed to be more candle focused and less focused on me and my stories. *My eyes got so big at this point they nearly fell out of my face* I raised my hand like a student in a classroom and said…’Ok…my turn’.

I went through as calmly as I could and explained AGAIN (this was not our first conversation which is why they chose to do a formal presentation) the brand, my mission and that I wasn’t going to fit in a mason jar candle box. Our demographic is not Women Ages 35-54, It is any person 16+ that has ever felt unheard, unseen or under-represented. I am going to continue telling my stories and I will NEVER curate my social media feeds or hide my voice.

The ringleader continued to argue with me. Like, full-on telling me she knows more about marketing than I do. I looked her directly in the face and asked her if she has ever built a business with an organic social media following of 400K? 

She kept going...I finally put both hands up and said "Full Stop, this is my business and I will run it the way I want to." She actually said "Good Luck."

I paused. Then said “I’m not feeling a good fit here and invite you to please leave.” I got up, went to my office, shut the door and just laughed in shock and disbelief. I called my husband and I was cry-laughing as I told him all about this ‘sit-down-talking-to’ I just endured. He said he was proud of me for not losing my shit. I told Joe ‘You know I keep my bitch locked up tight for everyone’s protection.”

So…back to Indeed to start the process over again. Wish me luck!  

This week's Candle: I am putting my Generation collection on sale for $18 each! 

Stay Malicious,

Lacie