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Outside of social media, how have you guys marketed and branded your product?
I keep my nails pink all the time, so people always say I like your nails, and why every time I see you have pink, I have a brand called pink Nookie, or I have pink in my hair. At one point, I just make sure I have something with the brand on. Yeah, we do saying text, texting, email marketing a lot. Fashion Nova is crazy with the text message marketing, so I kind of what do they do? They send out texts like every day?
Crazy?
Yeah, like one was like your order is guaranteed to come faster than your man. Like so I'm like, okay, And when you get on social media you see everybody talking.
About fashion Ova.
Yeah, so that's what I try to do.
Like last week I did drop and give me fifty kegels like stuff like that.
Like it gets the people going.
So that's all.
Looking looking for and fast fast this year. What is some things that you guys are going to do differently this year than you've done in the past.
We're getting a premium booth definitely, Yeah, that premium booth, and then this year I want to do like.
We'll talk about why that's important, like location, right, yeah, talk about that.
Every year we've had a good booth. But when you guys do the walk through, it's certain aisles that you guys go through. You're not going through the back aisles or the middle ones. You're going through their premium booths and that's where everybody is Like nineteen keys, every everybody has a premium booth.
So I think the faster you buy it, the better your booth is. That's what they say, because you get to pick it last year first. As soon as you'll dropped it we brought it. We was, we was, We was across from the e yl University booth.
That's how we end up.
Yeah, I seen Mike. I didn't even know who Mike was. I just seen him at the booth. I seen his face out and we went back morning, I pull it down. I'm as he gave me his personal number and everything like after I talked to him, told my story his number being that's probably like the closest thing I had to a mentor since we started.
That's that's dope, man, That's dope dope.
So yeah, I think that it's always an exciting time, but it's important to make sure you got your business correct. Like a lot of people be excited. I'm gonna be a vendor investments, but that's cool, but make sure you got a strategy, make sure you got the logo correct, make sure you got enough inventory because especially this year,
if in the marketplace. We haven't announced it yet, but we got some some pretty dope vendors that are gonna do activation, so it's gonna be that in the marketplace is always a vibe, but this year, I think it's gonna be even more of a vibe.
Business cards, make sure you got the right shoes hustle like us, we pulling twelve our shifts three days, and you gotta be coming shift three days and.
Get there early, get there early, I know. Like I feel like the past couple of years, I've always met you out in the morning.
In the morning, it'd be like nine.
O'clock, I'm doing laps to see what's going on out a dealing a crowd of people down around.
Yeah, and it's not enough people to run to you yet.
So it's and I feel like when you are there earlier, everybody is kind of more relaxed when the crowds of people start coming and you obviously naturally have to be more you.
Know, you know, as crazy as that. So when we brought h We brought Robert Smith through last year, and some people knew he was, but a lot of people like he was able to walk through with no problem, Like it wasn't like like you know, he bring Steve Harvey through and it's like a like he walked through.
I boved too. Oh yeah, yeah, this one. Yeah.
So it's crazy. But like you said, as far as the early Bird catching the World and the Dan Cathy story, I think it's good because Sunday is the last day of the event. That was two years ago, and he came very unassuming, name tag stuff like that. So a lot of he was there before vendors. There's no reason why somebody that's worth seven billion dollars it's there before a small business vendor and it's their business.
Like long Street trapper. He put us on his live Yeah, that little morning Yep, that's how it happens.
You got to be there early. I always tell people, man like early birds catch the work and you never know.
Yeah, you literally never And that's the thing, Like I'm replaying the story in my head. I'm like, you saw him. He was actually lost.
He was just trying to find He didn't know where to.
Go, you know, where to go, Like, oh, they're over there, just go.
But we made sure to talk to him first and get you where you need to go.
From that moment I got to I walked with him, showed him around, and then I was able to introduce him to Don Peeples who had never met. And so now you got these billionaire tycoons and respective spaces are now meeting for the first time. So the witness side was crazy. But to start with, you're trying to figure out, Oh there he is, go there over there.
So as far as you guys looking at you know, you moved to Atlanta, and Atlanta is the place of INVESTM Festival. It's also entrepreneurship hub of Black America. How has your experience been in Atlanta as far as meeting people networking? Like, how how has your experience been in Atlanta? That's entrepreneurs that's moving from out of town.
Amazing, amazing, Like as soon as we came, it's like the love. Then it's just when I explain it to people, I just be like, it's just it's made for us. Like you want to succeed in the world, go to Atlanta from then that's from.
Experience though, because you and meet we're just I mean they're regular people, but they're not regular people, but they're doing regular people things like just out to eat or he has season passes to the Hawks games. Like the amount of people we've met just going to a basketball game is insane.
And watch sports even that the brand of choice that you'll have on today is a testament to that, right, Like y'all are were in Milano for those who are not to know, but yeah, was just y'all, y'all ran into it. Y'all were looking for this said on the site.
She said, let me.
She took a picture in my contact card and she had her assistant text me and have what we needed uber to us the next day.
Because I feel like a lot of Atlanta gets a lot of bad rap and for people, but I don't think that's people that's fully experienced it right, And it's like coming from other places, it's not the same, like you know that level of like sometimes you got to be inspired and be in the right situation to have
the ability to grow. And it's like a lot of small towns of different cities and different things that nature, and it's like it's a crab in a barrel mentality, and it's not a lot of people that are doing the same thing that you're doing. So it's difficult to kind of grow if you're not in the right environment and you.
Have to go to the right places.
Like you can't say moving to Atlanta to grow and you're not in any places that business owners are. You just only in the clubs or you only at the bar.
It's like we don't even go out like when people come to Atlanta. Oh, what's just like, we don't know.
What's the rest restaurant, have no clue business.
And even like our lawyer at Investments, Brandon Williams is our lawyer, but our first but our first year or one of the year's that investor. He walked right past us like we were trying to give him something. He just kept on going. And so now it's like, now he's our attorney.
That's a good story too, because he works for Steve Harvey. He's Steve Harvey's lawyer, and now he represents you guys. So how did you make that connection?
Investments?
There you have it.
That's all I can say is like and he is like people always say, oh, he's just he's somebody like he is, yes, yeah, And he he took us our first time meeting him. He took us to the Four Seasons and for breakfast, and we were.
Like what are we wear and what do we doing?
And he was just so like cool, like he was just regular. And they know him by name there they're like, yeah, but mister Williams comes all the time.
A lot of people are fearful of moving out of that environment. What do you say to those people that, like, you know, sometimes you just got to take a leap of faith and leave the place that you grew up and leave the familiar surrounding, leave the family that you know. It's difficult to ligrific. How do you what kind of advice would you give to those type people?
It's a big world out there.
I don't think about it, just do it.
Yeah, And people get so caught up in friends and family supporting them, Like it's a big world out there. It's way more people. And you will turn a stranger into a customer before you turn a family member or a friend to a customer. So my biggest thing was just knowing like I already dominated in my city, but I want so much more. And I don't feel like I would have ever done that if I would have just stayed in Indianapolis and just been content with the support I got there.
And well, we're from everybody that made it left like Mike phyblical fox Babyface, everybody from our hometown that made it left. Nobody made it living in Indianapolies.
East.
It's one of these things where I feel like from the East, I feel like it's one of these things that I always say, you can always come back home. If worst comes to worst, you move your actra and you're trying to move to l A, or you're trying to go to Atlanta or one of these Miami, one of these places. If it doesn't work out, you could always go home, right, Like, you know that you're familiar
with that situation. But what about the regret that you're gonna have because you never knew what would have happened. If it's like that Drake song, like I'm leaving, I'm leaving, like what would have happened if you would have packed your bags and left, right? You always gotta lived with that regret thinking about damn, I never know what could have happened. At least you knew if it didn't work out. At least you know I gave him my all. I tried,
you know, things didn't happen. Now I'm gonna come back home.
And even then, for me, going home is not an option either. It's somewhere else to go, somewhere else.
Whoever said it was gonna be easy, Yeah, like every it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be uncomfortable. That's why when stuff happened to us, I like it, don't phaze me because I already knew it was coming. Like so being uncomfortable. Oh I don't want to leave. I don't want to move. So you're just not gonna move because you don't want to. Maybe you gotta move. Like I got a daughter, My I left, my daughter, still living in Annapolis and always daughter. It's a sacrifice.
She know what I'm doing here. She knows she's gonna win out of it in the future.
You're building a legacy. Man, It's incredible. Six hundred dollars, no job in jail. See it on the floor. Making a decision to come to an event that turned into a thousand dollar business, to a million dollar business, to a multi million dollar business. It's an incredible story.
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