How did your background, growing up in Atlanta and being a Spelman graduate, influence your business journey?
Graduated with a degree in computer science. I spent 18 years working at the world’s largest consulting firm doing technology consulting, and then VP of alliances, and then I decided to really tap into the entrepreneurial spirit I always had, and I started Princess Hair Pizzazz 5 years ago. Out of all of the great things I have accomplished in corporate America and in my community, the roles that I am most proud of is wife, mother, and daughter.
What made you transition from tech to entrepreneurship?
Probably a rare breed when you think about left brain, right brain, I’m very technical and logical, but I actually do have a lot of gifting in the creative space and more the artsy space. I love doing technology because it did tap into that very logical part of me, but what I always missed out on is the creative part. So the salon, designing the salons, interacting with people, helping people grow, those are some of my passions as well, so one, it helps me kind of tap into this other side of me, I’m big on gifting as far as some of my personal gifts, and then the other thing is, I just wanted to build something of my own.
How did you transform your initial salon idea into a full-fledged business plan?
I fell into this business from being a consumer, my oldest daughter Journey, getting up to do her take down her hair, then wash it, and by the time we wash it, it’s like we both needed a break, so then we take a break, then I do the new style, so I looked up, and it was a 24-hour process, and I’m like you need to pay somebody to do this, but I didn’t want them in salons and barbershops they’ll have conversation that takes place, and I did not want to subject her to that.
I was like, I wonder if there’s any kids salons? I really didn’t know, I looked for them, and I found one, and I was an every 2 weeker because I never wanted to go back to that routine that I described to you, and then I would look around to my left and to my right, and the same people would be there every 2 weeks, because guess what? They probably didn’t want to go back to their drama either.
I was like, this is a good business, and I think I could even bring more to this business than what they are doing, and that’s how Princess Hair Pizzazz idea was created. As far as going from idea to executing one business plan, like people that tell me that they want to start a business, and they want to skip over the business plan, that is already the number one sign that they are not ready to have a business if they don’t understand the importance of putting pen to paper as far as your plan.
One of the first things I had to figure out is, what do I want my brand to be known for? I landed on, I want it to be known for luxury, that it’s a really nice environment, luxurious environment. I wanted it to be known for service, I did not want to be a business where it’s like people come to me because they just need the service so bad, but they’re like “Man, are they rude!” I wanted to make sure that they had a great experience, and we provided great service, and I wanted to make sure we provided quality products to really make sure we’re keeping the little girls’ hair healthy.
One, putting pen to paper to really articulate and define what I want my brand to be, you can’t execute or create anything that you haven’t defined, and also wanted to make sure I understood my key goals as far as what I wanted to accomplish, and those my biggest. Two was making sure that we are the magic button for working parents like me, because, remember, I was, I’m a consumer of my business.
What makes the Princess Hair Pizzazz experience unique compared to traditional children’s hair salons?
We have competition, because there’s other kids saloons, but we don’t have competition, because no one’s doing it like we are. Of course, I still respect that, I got to understand there’s competition out there, but I would say that things and I like to call them the Princess Hair Pizzazz difference, that set us apart is one, luxury. We spend a good amount of money and invest good amount of money in our salons because we want it to be special, we want it to feel royal, because that was one of my goals that I wrote down in my business plan.
I wanted to contribute to the self-confidence of girls, I want them to feel worthy to know, I get to go to this beautiful place every 2 weeks, or once a month, I must be like a big deal. Yes, you absolutely are! We even have reflections of that we have something called the “Shero wall”, that has black, influential women, because I want them to see these reflections of themselves, so they know, if they can do it, I can do it too.
The other thing I mentioned before is customer service and the quality of service. One, we don’t just let anyone come in and be a stylist with us, we really pick top talent and customer service. I always tell my team, the day that customers are coming to us, and we’re giving them money, then I’ll let you do what you want to do, but as long as customers are coming to us, deciding to spend their hard-earned money with us, we are going to treat them with respect, we’re going to make their experience a really nice experience.
The last, I think there’s a lot of things that set us apart, but the last main thing, the third thing I would say is upkeep, because it’s one thing to open a really nice location, but every 2 or 3 years, you need to paint. That chair that now is totally stained and torn up, you need to replace that, and a lot of companies don’t do that, so we really put pride in keeping our salons nice, keeping them clean, doing upkeep so that that luxurious experience is upheld.
Can you share a success story about how your salon has positively impacted a child’s life?
I would say, as far as our salon possibly affecting a child’s life, I would say in general, we possibly affect little girls’ lives every day all day, just in general. Once they get their hair done, you see them sit up a little straighter, you see more smiles, you see them like clicking their little braids, you see them walking with a little bit more confidence and I will tell you you have a passion when you work with kids because it’s not totally easy.
You really have to care about wanting to pour into kids, and our stylists have been with us, and we have a good amount that’s been with us for years, that’s their most rewarding thing, seeing the smiles at the end of the service. So I would say, just the nature of our business changes little girls’ lives, and contributes to confidence on a daily basis.
There’s one particular story, my extended family, from my in-laws, one of her nieces was going through a lot of bullying at school, she didn’t fit into that “I’m a skinny mini girl,” which a lot of our babies don’t fit into that, and that’s why it’s important to me that we celebrate each of our little girls, because God made them exactly how they should be. She was experiencing a lot of bullying, had very low self-esteem. I sponsor her coming into the salon, I told my stylist that would be there, “Look, this young lady is going through a lot, please, just like build her up, tell her how amazing she is, make sure you give her exactly what hairstyle she wants.”
And they did that, and do you know, from that one visit her family says, she was walking more confidently, she was speaking more, she was being more assertive, from that one visit of somebody just pouring into her and saying, I see you, and you’re amazing, because that’s really all we want as human beings is to be seen and know that we matter, and for her to have that experience – and from that one experience I still hear from my extended family, “wow! We see such a difference in her from when she came.” I’m really proud of that, and that is just an example of what I want our salon to be about, and remember that’s one of the goals that I wrote down, so I’m really proud of that.
How does being an Atlanta native influence your business and community service?
Being an Atlanta native, and now to open my 4th location in Metro Atlanta, I would just say, proud. Just pride, that’s what I think Atlanta native brings to the Atlanta commerce scene. My first location, my flagship location is in South Fulton Cascade, I’m not in South Fulton, I am South Fulton. My third location is in a city called Stonecrest, which is also, Stonecrest/Lithonia, I’m not in there, I am Stonecrest, I am Lithonia. I went to Lithonia High, so when I’m going over there, I’m remembering when I was driving to high school, I have so many memories up and down those roads.
It’s a pride that I bring to these locations, being an Atlanta native and opening up in our neighborhoods and brown neighborhoods, luxurious salons that you usually cannot experience unless you go north of the city. So there is a pride with that, and it’s so many memories I have, when I go to any of my locations, of just growing up here, and I am so proud now to have that I have those memories, and now I’m part of creating memories. So when I see somebody brought their daughter to Princess Hair Pizzazz for their birthday or their first salon experience, I am so proud to be part of that Atlanta memory that that young lady will carry with her for the rest of her life.
How did attending an HBCU shape you and your business?
Very similar, just pride, and I would also add a level of excellence. I just saw some stats, I think, yesterday or the day before on like how many doctors and lawyers and policy changers that HBCUs create, and all of those things, were in like the 80 percentile or higher.
So that alone shows the magic and power of HBCUs, but as we know, we’re taught as African Americans in this country, and particularly with everything that’s going on right now, that we do have to work twice as hard, and we do have to do things as being a minority, not just African Americans, but minority anywhere in any community.
It’s all about representing us well, us moving as a collective unit, us doing things in excellence because we know what we’re going to be up against when we come out of this very safe place that HBCUs have created for us. We know that that is not the workplace we’ll be able to work in. So I believe our HBCUs breeds excellence, not only teaches us, gives us such a great education, but it gives us such a great sense of community, and it trains us up even more than what our parents have already done to just move in excellence.
I will say that’s the biggest contributor of being an HBCU grad, like our business, my team, they know, I always tell them I don’t want to be good, I don’t even want to be great, I want to be excellent, so everything we do, we will do it in excellence, and that is the expectation that I have set and that’s the expectation that I continue to manage.
What have been the challenging moments in your business journey?
When Covid hit we literally were a year into our business, first location open year into that, just had started making some money., cause that’s what a lot of people aren’t prepared for too. You should be prepared to open a business and not even make any money the first year, so if you’re not prepared for that, and have a plan in place on how you will be able to keep your doors open, that’s the telltale sign that you are not ready if you’re going to have a brick and mortar.
We had made it to the one year mark, we had just landed in that profit stage, and here we are, Covid, and having to make a decision to close down, and that was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had, to look at my team that I know this is how they feed their children, this is how they pay their rent, but for me to have to do as the leader, what I knew was best for our safety, for their safety, for their children’s safety, for our community safety, and to have to choose to close down, and when you have invested a whole bunch of money in a business, and you just start making money, the last thing you want to do is close your doors, but that was the right thing to do, and that’s what I had to do, and that was a big lesson on, even when it’s hard, do what’s right. I would say, that’s one of them, and the other thing from resources, I would say is, I have a family feel to my business, and I created sisterhood.
A lot of these ladies that have worked for me, I consider them family, we really form relationships, and one of the hardest things with resources, there’s some people that you would really care about along the way, and at some point they may have really contributed well to your salon, but when they become unaligned with those goals you wrote in the business plan, those values you wrote in the business plan, you cannot sacrifice your brand and the success of your business based upon that relationship.
So that was very hard the first couple of times. I was like, this is someone I really care about, but they’re not moving how I need them to move, they’re not aligned with my vision, and how I want things to be, and letting them go was very hard, and I’ve had to learn along the way, because each time I’ve had to do it, it’s been hard, but now I do it quicker than the whole like “Oh my God”, this is a lot because I’m a big heart, I wear my heart on my shoulders, so that would be one, and I would say the other with resources is betrayal.
Q: How do you handle expansion while keeping things personal?
One, making sure that my management team at each location is establishing that locally. Two, that they are creating that sisterhood, that family feel locally, and then we do things, we call them our quarterly fun events, where two times out of the year, we get together as a whole team, meaning all locations.
We do something fun in the summer, and then we usually do something fun during the holiday, and then those other two quarters are, again, local, where each salon goes and does something fun, within their salon group. I mentioned this, because these are the things that keep that camaraderie, I’m not in the salons a lot, but these quarterly fun events allow me to catch up and hang out with the people that I already know, and it helps me to get to know the people that I don’t know yet that have joined one of our teams since the last time we had a fun event. I just try to be personable, my team knows I always want to know if one of our stylists is going through something like they’ve lost a very close family member, I reach out and just say, “Hey, you’re in my thoughts,” those kind of things. People just want to know that they matter and you have to do that with authenticity.
That’s how I have created this family feel, a lot of sisterhoods, I pray for sisterhoods to be developed, and they have been, these ladies keep each other’s kids. One story recently happened that warmed my heart, one of my stylists’ car wouldn’t start one morning, and her co-stylist that works at her salon, got out of her bed, went and picked her child up and took her to school.
Those are the kind of sisterhoods that now exist within our four walls, and I’m very proud of that, and those events and us just having a “hey, we’re in this together, we all celebrate together, we all cry together, pray together”, that creates that family feel. I plan to keep that by making sure we’re having those quarterly events and check-ins where, even though they may not see me every day, they do know who I am, I’m a real person that they can touch and feel and know like “man, this is the woman that is the leader of all of this, and she’s cool, and she’s compassionate, and she’s humble.” Those are the things that give that feeling within a corporation.
Q: What advice would you give entrepreneurs starting community-focused businesses?
The first thing I always say is start. With starting a business, you always have all the reasons of why it’s not the right time, what you don’t have that you need to have, etc. Just start with where you are, because there’s something about momentum that once you start, then something else is uncovered, and then you meet this person, and then you have this idea because you’re spending consistent time on it.
It’s like that tumbleweed that goes down the hill, as it continues to go, it gets bigger and bigger because it’s picking up resources, it’s picking up networks, it’s picking up ideas, it’s picking up education, etc. I would say a business plan for sure, if you’re trying to skip over a business plan, I can tell you you are not ready to own a business. Do the things I did, establish what you want, define what you want your brand to be about, define your values, then think through how much is it going to cost.
I see this mistake made so many times where people go get a brick and mortar, they don’t really need it. A lot of people don’t think about how brick and mortar costs multiple thousands of dollars every single month, and they want their money, and then you got to think about air, you got to have supplies in the salon, in the brick and mortar, it’s a lot to come with brick and mortar.
Some companies have to have it, but just for the companies that don’t, don’t jump into that, think smart, and really write out your financial plan. Now, the person that makes jewelry, it doesn’t mean that they can’t set a goal to get to the point where they can have a brick and mortar, but it may be that that is phase 5, that you have written your business plan versus phase one.
Make sure you are solving a problem, I would not have opened a salon if it was not a kid salon, because there’s a salon on every corner. So anybody that just opens a regular salon, please ask yourself, what are you going to do that’s going to make people say “I’m not going to go to Salon 1, 2, or 3 that’s right here at this intersection, I’m going to go to that salon,” and if you don’t have a good answer for that, don’t go in a saturated market. If you go in a saturated market, you need to make sure you are solving a very unique problem.
Q: What has been the most rewarding aspect of creating Princess Hair Pizzazz?
It’s hard for me to get it to work, so I’ll give you my top 3. The young ladies, we do from little little kids up to about like teenager age, being part of the journey of their self-confidence means everything to me again, because colorism is still such a real thing, we don’t even say words like “good hair” and all these things we hear in our community, we do not say those in our salon, so that is big to me to be part of fighting against so much damage that is done in that space.
Another thing is, I’m very proud of what I have contributed to the community. I know again, living in an underserved community, every time I see something open, and then I find out it’s another liquor store, or it’s another Family Dollar, and I’m not knocking those things per se, but I am saying that black people need a lot more services than a Family Dollar and a liquor store, and we have to travel to other communities to just experience the finer things in life. So I’m very, very proud of the investments that we make, that we go out of our way to make our salons absolutely amazing, and that they are in communities that usually do not see the caliber of luxury that we offer in our salons, I’m very proud of that.
My last thing is my team, I have moved a lot of the ladies working for me, I’ve created a career path. They have moved into management, so not only do they use the beautiful gift that God put in their hands because they are artists, as I always tell them, but now, along the way I’ve started teaching them business. They’re running the frontline operations of my business so that I can focus on growth strategy, all of the other things that I do behind the scenes, and I’m really proud of that because it’s very hard for them to stand up and do hair all day. So one day, in 10 years, when their body can’t do that all day anymore, now they have another skill set that they are able to continue to tap in, and we have a lot of women that make really good money with us, and they have moved out of poverty to middle class, and having salaries and making money that usually you don’t make unless you have a college degree, and I’m very proud of that.
As I continue to rise, the Princess Hair Pizzazz boat, I want all of them to rise with me, how can I move someone that would have been a forever renter to helping them get a home. We have this dilemma of ladies that work hard, but they don’t have a car, but they need to work to be able to get a car, but they need a car to be able to work, how do I start solving those problems to help some of these ladies that’s just caught in this cycle, and all they need is somebody to help them just untie this one little thing and give them a chance, and then they’ll take it from there.
This just isn’t about me and my husband getting this empire that we are building to where we know it can go. It’s about getting us all there as a collective and as me and my husband rise, as Princess Hair Pizzazz rises, everyone that has helped us get to that point, I want to continue to help them rise, because I’ve already done that, and I want to continue to do that.
Q: Final thoughts?
Tell your friend to tell a friend, but thank you so much for having me.
