Million Dollar Monday
Million Dollar Monday
Making It Happen: Turning a Hobby into a Thriving Business
Cindy Rumpf Novack founded Candles and Supplies.com. What started as a fun hobby with her daughters has now grown into a warehouse with over 50,000 square feet of supplies and $8 million in sales. Novack sells much more than just candles and soaps, she delivers an experience for the customer and is empowering people to pursue their own dreams.
“I like the Thomas Edison approach. It's not a mistake. You're just one step closer to perfecting it.”
Chapters:
- 00:42 - Introducing Cindy Rumpf Novack
- 01:48 - Family of Entrepreneurs
- 05:54 - From Hobby to Thriving Business
- 08:56 - Omni Channel Marketing
- 11:38 - Be Careful Who You Listen To
- 14:31 - Success in the Business
Key Takeaways
- So you're actually selling to resellers and empowering people to pursue their own dreams of business ownership.
- I love the fishing tackle business, but if it wasn't going to be my own, then you know, I wanted to have my own thing.
- But if you to listen to the wrong people, you might not have ever even started that business. People who just don't know. So we aspiring entrepreneurs have to be careful who we share ideas with and who we look for affirmation from. And sometimes we just got to go with our gut. So that's, uh, that's another great lesson from there.
- But then, then we started doing the classes and helping people develop businesses. So that's probably my greatest success is how many people we've helped along the way.
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Hello and welcome to Million Dollar Monday. I'm your host, Greg Muzzillo, bringing you real successful people with real useful advice for people with big dreams. I understand big dreams. I turned an investment of$200 and a lot of great advice from some really successful people into my big dream Proforma. That today is a half billion dollar company. Hello and welcome. I'm joined today by a fascinating woman who actually started her career working for her father's business, which was called Raymond C Rumpf and son. And there's a story there, and we're gonna talk about it, but somehow through all of the years and all of the hobbies, and it's a great story. Uh, she started Candles and Supplies.com and has grown it into a business with 50,000 square feet of supplies in the business.$8 million in sales and still growing. Please join me in welcoming Cindy Rumpf Novack, Cindy. Thanks for joining us.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Oh, thanks for having me.
Greg Muzzillo:All right. Let's start at the beginning and just tell us a little bit about your growing up years and where did you learn to have a passion for business? And then let's talk about the stories that led to your starting, uh, your business today.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Okay. Um, my, my dad was a serial entrepreneur. Um, he always, again, out of the need and just business is a game. It's fun. Um, you know, he taught me growing up at anything, anything I would wanna do, he'd be like, can you make any money at that? Can you make any money at that? What can you do to make money? So it was kind of a thing. Um, and I believe like probably when I started first grade and would pack my lunch, I was selling my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the cafeteria. Uh<laugh> and coming home starving. And then wondering why I'm so hungry when they've just packed me a lunch. So I'm pretty sure that's how it all started, but, um, you know, I always had something going on working, you know, different jobs, figuring out different things and learning things. And then I did go to work for my dad because I grew up in the business and he needed help and you know, I needed a job and they brought me in the business and they kind of just put me wherever needed, but what that did for me, I learned every single job. So I did everything from like clean the toilets and swept the floor, all the dirty, disgusting jobs that nobody wanted to do. But I learned everything about
Greg Muzzillo:What did that business do? What,
Cindy Rumpf Novack:What was that business about? Um, a wholesale fishing tackle business. So it was a life fishing business. So basically I was, you know, selling fishing tackle and stuff like that. So, and I always like people I on working with people and the employees and um, you know, the customers were awesome. You know, all my accounts were awesome and stuff like that. So, but you know, I just really dove into it and my dad was like setting up his exit strategy and getting ready to retire and stuff like that. I, I think he, he had high hopes that my brother would take over. Um, but my brother had other interests and everything and he's, he's off doing his thing and doing awesome. but never really wanted to take over the family business. So
Greg Muzzillo:Is that the son in Raymond C Rumpf and son. Okay.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Yep. That's that's Raymond Jr.
Greg Muzzillo:Okay. So the son never really showed an interest in taking over the business. So
Cindy Rumpf Novack:No.
Greg Muzzillo:No. So why didn't it become Raymond C Rumpf and daughter, talk to us about that.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Yeah, so, you know, my dad was very old school. You know, not that he wasn't a jerk, he was the most amazing one of the most amazing people in my whole entire life and one of my best mentors ever. Um, but you know, and not that he believed that women should be at home cooking and cleaning and stuff, but he just believed that women shouldn't run businesses. So there was that, I mean, at one point, you know, I wanted to buy him out. I had financing this, that, and he's like, I'm sorry, I just can't do it. The second generation screws everything up and you're a woman and I just can't do it. And um, so that's, I'm like, well, you know, that's, you know, back in 98, 99, 95 is when I really, um, started to think about like, you know, I, I kind of wanna do this on my own. I love the fishing tackle business, but if it wasn't gonna be my own, then you know, I wanted to have my own thing. So the internet was coming around, people were putting websites out, selling on them. I'm like, wow, this, this is probably gonna be pretty big because like, who wouldn't wanna buy on the internet? I, I think it's gonna be a big thing. So I think I want my own website. Um, so then, you know, my daughter wanted to make candles and we made candles and uh, you know, paid for, we had a heater blow up, we needed to make money. So we made money and bought a new heater, that type of thing. And it just turned into a real thing. So, um, how
Greg Muzzillo:Old, how old were your daughters when you started making candles and I'm assuming it started as a hobby or just for fun? And how did that hobby or fun, how old were the girls when you started making candles? Just for fun.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Yeah. Uh, I think they were six and eight. Five and eight. Okay. You were around there, so,
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah, that's really cool. And it's so cool that you as a family were able to make enough money to, you know, pay for some things that were needed around the house that had to give them a sense of pride, that they were really contributing in a meaningful way. They weren't just bringing home movie money. They were bringing home real money. So then how does this go from a hobby or a hobby where some there's some money being made to a real business that, that becomes a real business, gets a website and starts doing it seriously and full time. Talk about that transition in the details of it.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Mm-hmm<affirmative> um, it actually went pretty fast. I started working on my website in August of 1999, the website actually went live September 22nd is our anniversary. So, and it was a year after Google went live. So we share the same anniversary as Google, which kind of makes me feel like an underachiever, but, you know, whatever,<laugh> it, wasn't my life path. That's
Greg Muzzillo:All right.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Yeah. So the website went live September 27th and then back then, you know, it's still the same, you know, when you put a website up, it's like having a business on a back street, nobody finds you. So I sold, I ran some auctions on eBay, so I, and then I used the auctions to actually drive traffic to my site. So if somebody would win an auction for Wix or something, I'd be like, Hey, congratulations, you won, here's your Wix, you know, if you need anything else, ship with this here, click on our website, go to our website, see if there's anything else you need. So that ended up, uh, yeah, kept it, drove enough traffic to sustain the business. And then by January, I think I quit eBay. So it was very fast there. And after my website went live, I think by like November, I had actually given notice to my dad that I'm, I, you know, I started this thing and it's consuming all my time. I'm not sleeping at night, so I'm gonna have to quit. How
Greg Muzzillo:Do you feel about that?
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Uh, it was tense. Yeah.<laugh> it was very, it. Yeah, it was very intense, but, um, you know, he watched me grow something from nothing. Um, and he knows that he taught me that, so, yeah.
Greg Muzzillo:Well, that's
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Amazing after the initial, you know, well, what am I gonna do with my business? And, you know, uh, he ended up selling his business cuz he, you know, I ran the business, he would come back a couple days a week. He was an avid fisherman obviously. So he'd come, come back like, you know, a couple days a month and check the PNLs and yell at me about this, that whatever, go back to fishing. And then, you know, said that, well, I kind of wanna do this, you know, well I definitely wanna do this and this is my new path. And it was a little intense because he didn't know how to run his business at that point. So, but like I said, he got that all figured out, you know, everything's good. And then he, uh, he was actually very prideful, you know, after he retired and the tension went away after a year or two, he would be like, Hey, do you need any errands? He'd run up to uline for us and get stuff. Oh, nice fly. You know, whatever, we'd go on trips together. You know, couple times I had to like travel outta state to like, you know, Sue a customer that didn't pay or whatever. And he would go with me and stuff. And so yeah, it was awesome. It was
Greg Muzzillo:Awesome. That's amazing. I'm glad. I'm glad that that's how it progressed. I'm sure I'm, I'm sure, including a lot of pride in what it was that you were building. All right. So I love the eBay idea. Um, that's a very clever way to almost get free advertising, but once you quit the eBay thing, how did you continue to drive customers eyeballs to your website? What percentage of your business is done at the website versus people coming to your location?
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Uh, right now we're about 60% web and about 40% traveling. So it gets, it gets a little muddy cuz people were on I these days it's called omnichannel, right? So you have, you know, a web presence you can pick up in store, that type of thing. The website becomes a tool for your store. So people can pre-order and they don't have to wait in line when they get here. So, um, it's more of like, you know, an omnichannel experience versus just web versus just retail. So, but 60% of our orders do come from our website and the other 40% come from telephone or retail traffic. We also do classes. So we do hands on classes. Um, you know, these days a lot is zoom classes and stuff and we will have that eventually, but I'm a big fan of people learn by hands on doing it, getting into classes. I
Greg Muzzillo:Know for sure. For
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Sure. So we do hands on classes. We have people to travel all over. Like we've had people come from like Hong Kong to take our classes and you know, all over the place. Oh
Greg Muzzillo:Wow.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Yeah. So that's very popular. So the classes generate a lot of sales. Um, we train all of our staff. So all of our staff knows how to make handles and soaps and whatever. So, so people get a lot of help when they come in here too. So we make it more of an experience. So even if you place your order on the web and come pick up, you're probably gonna go into our store and pick up some other things too. Um, our classes are kind of like Disney world. So you take a class and after the class, it dumps you out into our store. So kind of like Disney world, you go on the ride, you get dumped out into the gift shop. So<laugh>, I went to Disney world. I figured that was brilliant. So I'm like, I'm gonna design my classroom where people take class, they use all this stuff and then they have to walk all the way through our showroom to get out the door. So yeah.
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah. It is brilliant by the way. And it's tortured cuz when you take your children, like I can walk through those stores at Disney and I can get out unscathed, but not with children. Oh daddy, can I get that? Right. Yeah.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:That's
Greg Muzzillo:Brilliant. And good. Good for you. Any ideas of
Cindy Rumpf Novack:It was Disney's idea. Not mine. So I yeah. That's alright there.
Greg Muzzillo:So that's all, I think that every successful entrepreneur has to admit, they borrowed<laugh> some great ideas from other people, right?
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Drew inspiration from yeah.
Greg Muzzillo:All right. Borrowed,
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Not drew inspiration from
Greg Muzzillo:There you go. I love it. Well, I think your story is amazing to go from a kind of a hobby to almost accidentally making money and then realizing it could become a business and then turning it into an$8 million business, 50,000 square feet with lots of growth ahead. Uh, because you love what you're doing. I could tell and you're passionate about it. All right. Tell our folks one or two big mistakes that you made along the way and what lessons they hold for entrepreneurs.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Hmm. And choosing just one or two mistakes. That's hard. So mistakes are a daily thing here. Exactly. I like the Thomas Edison approach. It's not a mistake. You're just one step closer to perfecting it. So I, I love that at all times, but my biggest, biggest mistake, um, it would probably be not reaching out for help. You know, when you start a business, people are like, oh, you're never gonna make a living in candles. You're never gonna this. You're never gonna that. So you, you know, the rebel in me, immediately is like, yes I am. Of course I am. I can do this. You know? And then you think, you know, all the answers, but you're presented with situations that you've never had before, because you've never dealt with this before. And I didn't reach out for help as quickly and to the right people as I should, because I thought that within myself, I should have these answers cuz I started this business and I grew this monster and like I should know all this, but I didn't. So and it probably took ten years to figure that out to reach out for help when needed, don't stay stuck. Gosh, reach out for help. There's so many resources and so many helpful people out there. So that's my biggest mistake. And I could, you know, go into about 150 different stories off of that. Why that's a mistake. Um, and the, the second one, um, and I, I may have gotten this from my father cuz one of the reasons he said that women can't run businesses is cuz we're too emotional. Um, so I, I didn't react to situations as quickly as I should because then I think, am I being too emotional? Like so situations, you know, whether it's an employee problem or this problem or whatever problem I would be like, you know, immediately your blood pressure goes up when anything happens. Um, and sometimes, you know, you don't have to fly out the handle and react, but you need to handle a situation. So, you know, I've had business coaches tell me that you're being a tolerator<laugh>, don't be a tolerator. So, so I ended up being a tolerator instead of just like handle the situation matter of factly. So that would be probably my second mistake.
Greg Muzzillo:You know, from the first mistake that you were sharing, there was a bit of wisdom in there also, and it be careful who you listen to. It sounds like you had some conversations with people, maybe neighbors or maybe friends that would say you can never make money doing that. And, and uh, I think some people get crushed, get their souls crushed by sharing their ideas with people, looking for enthusiasm and looking for affirmation. And they've got a great idea. They've got a great idea like you, that turned into an$8 million business and on the way to a whole lot more. But if you would have listened to the wrong people, you might not have ever even started that business. People who just don't know. So we aspiring entrepreneurs have to be careful who we share ideas with and who we look for affirmation from. And sometimes we just gotta go with our gut. So that's a, that's another great lesson from there. All right. You're successful in a big way, share one or two of the great successes that you've had and what lessons those hold for our listeners.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:Um, probably I would consider my biggest success is all the people that we've helped throughout the years, all the customers and everything. So, you know, I get people like me that they come to me and they're looking that they're starting a side hustle or whatever. Uh, we wanna make candles so a little bit on the side, this and that. So I share whatever I can with them teach.'em how, you know, my staff teaches them, how, whatever share with that. And I've seen people do some wonderful things like, you know, um, you know, they'll make candles and they'll, they'll buy a bunch of stuff and make candles like crazy and be selling'em. And they're like, we're buying a house with the candle money we had. Yeah. Oh wow. Stuff like that. You know, I put my kids through college or this or that and it, you know, it all started out right. You know, with us. Um, and I feel seeing them be successful. I felt good cuz you know, when I first started it and you know, there's all different professions isn't that doctors and lawyers are saving li or doctors are saving lives. Nurses are saving lives. People are doing all these wonderful things and I'm like, what am I doing? I'm I'm selling things. But then, then we started doing the classes and helping people develop businesses. So that's probably my greatest success is how many people we've helped along the way. Um, yeah, that feels really
Greg Muzzillo:Good. Yeah. And to build, to build on that, most of the people that are buying or a lot of people are buying your, uh, buying from you, aren't just hobbyists. They're actually reselling these candles. Right. Um, or they're reselling all of the things that they're making. So you're actually selling to resellers and empowering people to pursue their own dreams of business ownership. That's cool. All right. One more big success.
Cindy Rumpf Novack:One more big success. Um, probably my staff and the people that I have here. We have, we have such a wonderful collection and, nobody's the same, everybody's different, you know, um, it doesn't, you know, age, gender, uh, race. It doesn't really matter. Everybody's got their own collective set of assets. Um, and since we're growing, it makes it really easy to take advantage of everybody's assets and put them like where they like it. We always do, you know, reviews, what are you best at? What do you like doing? We can put those people where they thrive and succeed and everything. Um, when I see their self evaluation, sometimes I'm a little disappointed cuz they don't brag about themselves as much as they are wonderful. Like I would've said this and this and this about you. So, and I tell them that too, but, we really have a wonderful collection of people and we have, you know, no matter people come and go, but we always have a wonderful collection of people here. Uh, just really good people. I always say one of our mottos is we only work with people we're proud of. So it really kind of separates the people that should be here versus shouldn't be. Um, but yeah, I'm proud of every single person here and the people that we've helped.
Greg Muzzillo:I love that answer. And I think it helps really point out that your father was half, right. Women are emotional, but that's only half the story women are emotionally intelligent. And in general, not that I like to generalize, but I find in general, women are far more emotionally intelligent than men and in many ways that makes them really great leaders. And you, Cindy are a great leader. Thank you very much for joining us and sharing your story.
Speaker 4:Thank you for having me.
