The Exchanges

Q Was it clear to you pretty early on this was not what you were going to do with your life?

A Yep, very clear. Um, I remember, like, when I first started, and I stepped on the floor of labor and delivery, I dealt with more senior nurses and senior personnel that worked in the hospital that were not too friendly. They're not nice. They were mean, quite frankly. And, you know, I would ask myself, why is everybody so mean? And it dawned on me very early, like, they're mean because they don't like being here. And I just told myself then, I was like, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I have to find other things to make money so I can get out of this career. Like, that was my mindset.

AI assessment note: “Yep, very clear. Um, I remember, like, when I first started”

Q I'm curious about something, which is, I read you describe yourself as that naturally you're not a salesperson. Like, you don't feel comfortable going up to people and selling things. But I, and so what was that like doing Mary Kay or selling cable subscriptions? Like, did you have to, like, Break out of your shell and fear of doing that? How did you do it?

A Yeah, that's a great question because I'm not a talker. I'm an introverted person by nature, but I force myself to come out of my shell in order to get a job done, and I do credit that to working as a nurse because I had to deal with so many different patients from all different walks of life, and I learned very early on how to develop, like, rapport with people and how to connect and engage with people and Um, and make them feel very comfortable with me, and I took the same skill set of making people feel comfortable from nursing, and I applied that to business, so I learned how to push myself to talk more and to be more interactive and engage with people at a level where I'm uncomfortable, where it scares me, um, and I know that if I'm scared that I'm challenging myself, and you can only grow from those type of challenges.

AI assessment note: “I force myself to come out of my shell in order to get a job done”

Q And so you're up against... There's a lot that's working against you. So, how did you get into that world? How did you find people to work with and to help you kind of get to the next step and to expand? Did you, did you, would you go to, like, trade shows, or would you, yeah, tell me what you did.

A We did a lot of trade shows in the beginning. So, as I mentioned, like, I would go online and find, like, different workshops that I could attend. I would also, you You know, uh, join these, like, natural hair communities and all of these natural hair sites, and so I was able to meet and connect with a lot of great people just by going to trade shows. Like, one of the manufacturers that I work with today, I met someone that introduced me to them at a trade show. Some of our marketing, uh, that we did early on was a connection made at a trade show. So, you know, it's just getting out there and networking and, you know, just showing up, Every show that we did, you know, even though we didn't have a lot of money, you can tell that we put a lot of love and effort into, like, our displays and how everything looked. People would just come over and talk to us and want to learn more and figure out how they can help us scale, and they also found out, like, that we were actually real cool people and very humble people that, you know, they wanted to work with, and so a lot of the connections came from consumer trade shows and also B to B trade shows.

AI assessment note: “We did a lot of trade shows in the beginning.”

Q And was she a beauty influencer or a hair influencer in particular?

A She was neither. She was just, she was on a reality show, And she just had really beautiful hair. I knew that, like, I'm like, she has beautiful hair. She starts talking about, like, what she's doing with her hair, and she starts talking about it with my product. People are gonna buy my product because of her. And so my friends, they were game. They were like, ok, we'll drive to Detroit with you. And so I had set up a table. It was a booth display. And she was speaking, and then they opened it up for, like, questions in the audience. And I said, ok, Monique, here's your chance. Don't blow it. Just say it. And so I raised my hand. When I tell you, like, I was probably sweating under my arms. Uh, I was so nervous, but I forgot what I, or what question I asked, but I, the last thing I said to her was, and I just started a product line. It's called Myel Organics, and it's for natural hair, and I see that you have natural hair. And she was like, yes, I have natural hair. Just meet me on the side, and let me try your product. So then I followed up a week later, and And, you know, we ended up doing a contract together, and so she became the first influencer.

AI assessment note: “She was neither. She was just, she was on a reality show”

Q And, but I mean, even with such a small following, I mean, that kind of positive feedback, I guess, helped you start to think about opening your own business, a beauty business. And, and I guess your initial idea was like a salon, maybe featuring your own hair care products?

A Yes. Right. I wanted to make my own products in this hair salon. And so I had, like, put together, like, a plan of creating a hair salon, and I remember telling my husband this, and my husband would always encourage me too, because I would have those days where I would just sit and, you know, just probably stare at the wall, and he's like, no, get up, like, get out your plan. What are you gonna do next? Let's do something. So he would always push and encourage me too, because he saw that when I started focusing on stuff that had to do with hair, My face will light up, or I will be happy, or I'll be focused. Yeah. And so, when I thought of the idea for the hair salon, he was just like, okay, we're gonna do it. So, I knew, I'm very self-aware. I understand my weaknesses. I understand the areas that I'm really good at, um, and the areas that I'm weak, I go find help. And I knew that I did not have any knowledge of business. I knew that I did not have any knowledge of how to build a brand, how to market on social media. So I would go online and listen to podcasts, and How I Built This was one of the podcasts that I would binge listen to. I would find workshops that were talking about branding and marketing, and so I went to one workshop, and she was a famous celebrity hairstylist who's from Chicago, and she was doing a workshop on how to build your brand on social media. And I pres…

AI assessment note: “Yes. Right. I wanted to make my own products in this hair salon.”

Q Yeah. You, through all of this networking work you did, um, you land your first retail shop, which is Sally Beauty, which is a massive chain of stores, um, and I think you got into, like, 90 or 95 stores initially. Tell me how, how that happened. How did you get in? I mean, I have to assume it's hard to get into one of these stores.

A It's extremely hard to get into retail, like, and the funny thing is, I didn't even realize how hard it was, because it kind of, like, fell into our laps. So, we had, uh, built up so much great momentum. We were selling product like hotcakes, and, you know, we had a lot of social media buzz, and this was only year one. And we were also selling in, like, you know, your mom and pop beauty supply stores. And so, it was a black-owned beauty supply store that had called me, and she was like, you know, your products are just selling crazy in this store. I need to introduce you to, um, this lady, and she has, like, all the retail connections, and she can help get you into, like, the major stores. And so, I kind of just, like, blew her off, and I was like, oh, ok, yeah, just give me her number. And I took her number, never called the lady. So the beauty supply owner calls me again. She's like, did you call her? Like, I told her that she was expecting your call, and you know, I probably got distracted, busy. I still didn't call the lady. So then the third time she gets on a call with my husband and I, like we happened to be on a call together. So she puts me on blast in front of my husband. She was like, yeah, I've been telling Monique to call this lady. You know, she has great connections with retails and the way your products are moving in my store, like you guys should really just en…

AI assessment note: “I need to introduce you to, um, this lady, and she has, like, all the retail connections”

Q You know, an hour out in Indiana. Was it hard to find people to, I mean, how did you find people to come and work with you?

A Yeah. It's hard to find people now, honestly. Uh, yeah. So I think that like the challenge in the very beginning was like not knowing what to hire I mean, we kind of just started with, like, where we knew that we were drowning. Customer service was, like, one of the first positions that we hired for because I was doing customer service in addition to marketing, and, and then once we started to grow and get bigger, again, it's like, you know, meeting people, going to, like, events, finding people on social media, um, and then, you know, I started growing more. I started meeting, like, mentors, so, like, Richie Lou Dennis is, like, one of my mentors, um,

AI assessment note: “meeting people, going to, like, events, finding people on social media”

Q biggest companies in the world, their ability, they're just the research department, their marketing. So it makes a lot of sense. But, you know, with the investment from Berkshire, presumably you could have, you would have continued to grow and expand and, and Was there, in your view, like, a path where you could have become a massive independent company without joining P&G or Unilever or a company like that?

A Yeah, and I think, you know, the path is still to become a massive independent company, because, you know, with our partnership with P&G, we are operating as an independent subsidiary under P&G, so we are operating as a standalone, so the company's still in Indiana, P&G has not came in and, and hired a new CEO, like, it seems like nothing has changed, now we just have Access to more, you know, with the advanced technology, the access to the unlimited resources, like you said, the marketing, the media, um, the innovation, that's something that we wanted to unlock. You know, the whole goal is to create legacy, and I felt that partnering with P&G, the name I yell, the brand, the heart and soul of the brand, the legacy will continue on For generations after generations. So my great grandkids will go in the store and they will still see my Yale there because of the unlock of resources and access that we now have with working with a major global company like P&G. I mean, it's an incredible achievement, right?

AI assessment note: “with our partnership with P&G, we are operating as an independent subsidiary”