Hair Care Product Creation Brings $45,000 a Year
Tanieka Randall's story is all about growth she's experienced in
her personal life, in her professional career, and even with her
hair. Tanieka, or Tee, as she's more commonly known, started a
side hustle selling natural hair products that promote healthy
hair while also stimulating follicle growth.
Tee brings professional and personal experience to this venture.
She works as an oncology nurse, often pulling twelve-hour night
shifts from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. A self-described "healthy hair junkie,"
she had begun experimenting with making her own products after being
less than thrilled with everything else on the market. Those products
were full of lots of questionable chemicals like parabens, sulfates,
formaldehyde, and artificial colors. Not only that, the results
were unimpressive.
She wanted more natural products for her hair, and she also enjoyed
putting these products together. Her experimenting was put on hold,
however, when a bone marrow test revealed that Tee had leukemia.
She was a fighter, and pulled through the treatments cancer free -
but five rounds of strenuous chemotherapy left her completely
bald. Dismayed but victorious, she began to research the best ways
to naturally regrow her hair.
That's when she discovered the world of essential oils. Much more
so than artificial ingredients, the right recipe of essential oils
made an immediate difference in her hair's regrowth. She tried a series
of combinations before settling on her own unique recipe.
Naturally, Tee shared her newfound knowledge with her friends and
family so they could benefit from all her research. As her hair
regrew, people kept asking what her secret was - how did she get
it to grow back so thick and healthy after chemo?
One day, it dawned on her that she was creating products that others
may actually want to purchase themselves. Better yet, her target
audience was right there on Facebook. On a whim, she decided to take
the plunge and began accepting orders.
The response she received was overwhelmingly positive, and she knew
that she'd be outgrowing her impromptu Facebook sales page before
long. With this in mind, Tee went online to do what she does best -
researching - so that she could pit this positive momentum to work.
She set up an LLC (limited liability company), and the next month
she attended an event ad an official vendor.
That event was a local women's networking group. As she describes
it, "I made a few hundred dollars at that first event. While that's
nothing to some people, to me it was a lot." More than just making
some money she saw that there was a real market for her products.
Tee took that first few hundred dollars in revenue and put it right
back into her business. In total, she spent $1,500 to get going.
Around $800 went to buying ingredients and supplies directly
related to creating her products. Another couple hundred went to
registering her business, and the rest went toward flyers and business
cards. She also set up a website so that she could officially take
orders on her own instead of just through Facebook.
The investments paid off. In her first year in operation, Tee cleared
more than $20,000. Aside from spending a few thousand dollars on additional
ingredients to prototype new products, she had very few expenses.
One thing she did invest in, however, was business coaching. She
spent $3,000 to get some help learning how to run her own shop.
While it's the single largest thing she's purchased in relation to
hert business, she said it was worth every cent.
From that business coaching, she learned to focus on what her
customers were asking for, which led to introducing some new products
as well as bundling existing products into sets.
Tee also learned more about connecting with potential customers. When
she picked a name, she had grabbed accounts on most major social
networks, and then set about establishing a presence on many of them.
Tee also joined networking and entrepreneurial groups in her area.
Through all these efforts, she cleared $80,000 in sales in her
second year. In her third year, she wasn't able to focus on the
business as much, but still cleared $45,000.
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