We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aliyah Ambrose a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aliyah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

To be successful you must believe in yourself. Before you start anything in life you must trust that you can do it, I mean if you don’t believe in yourself how can you expect anybody else to? In my opinion being successful is a mindset, you start with self-development, perfect your skill, then execute. All the success comes once you put in the consistent hard work and find a strategy that works for you. I remember thinking to myself why my sales are so low and not understanding what I was doing wrong, then I realized I was just putting out content with no strategy and I did not understand who I was marketing to, I retyped a business plan & followed my plan. I started working on self-development to build more confidence in myself so that I could be more confident in my work and content. Once my mentality changed, I already felt successful because I believed in myself and my vision.

Aliyah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Aliyah Ambrose, I am an African American women born & raised in Baltimore Maryland. Since a young child I have always loved pampering my family and close friends with mini facials, playing in makeup, or giving Pedicures and manicures. I love making others feel good about themselves that makes me feel so whole and happy within to see others smile. In high school I really started taking makeup serious by watching several makeup tutorials, practicing daily and trying my hardest to perfect my craft, as soon as I was of age, I applied to MAC cosmetics. I was hired on the spot and working for MAC cosmetics really helped me expand my skills with working on various races and skin complexions, I became confident in my work and started recording and posting my work online to build more clientele. After a couple of months of working for MAC cosmetics I begin to realize my love for skincare also, usually MAC girls wear super dramatic makeup, I always wore my makeup on the more natural side whereas you could see how flawless my skin was. By 2020 I decided to take a leap of faith and start my own skincare line named “COCOBEAUTYLLC” I would tie makeup and skincare together because your makeup will look just as good as your skin looks. All of my makeup clients started purchasing my skincare products and helping me promote my products by word of mouth, and online content. Everything was going well until beginning of 2021 my job felt it was a conflict of interest to have my own line, so I felt like this was my sign to venture out on my own and really push my business to grow as a company. My makeup and skincare clientele grew, I was doing well, then 11/11/21 changed everything, I received a phone call while in the middle of doing makeup for a bridal client of mine on her special day that my father had died of an overdose, it took everything in me to not ruin the best day of her life by crying or breaking down so I actually finished her makeup which took a lot of strength, then I left the venue and immediately broke down into tears. I had no idea how I would continue moving forward at this point in my life, me and my father were extremely close, I honestly felt lost in my life for a while, after several months of therapy and working out to help with my mental I started accepting clients again and working on growing COCOBEAUTYLLC my skincare line, I knew my father would have wanted me to push through and keep growing not just stay in a depression. End of 2022 I made a huge decision to leave my hometown and move to Houston Texas and completely start over with absolutely no clientele. After settling in for a couple of months I applied to esthetician school because I wanted to have a skincare license behind my skincare brand, I recently graduated Esthetics school Jan 2024, I signed a lease to my own location here in Texas to offer skincare/makeup services to my clients. I will not only offer services but sell my retail in person for pickup, COCOBEAUTYLLC has over 22 products and not just skin products but skin tools like facial steamers, facial headbands, etc. I feel like my life & business is finally falling into place. My customer service for my clients is absolutely amazing, my product has transformed many people skin, cocobeautyllc has cleared up acne, helped with dark spots and hyperpigmentation, and puffy under eyes. As I continue to grow my clientele here in Texas, I want my future clients to know that they will receive amazing service and a working product that will maintain and transfer their skin, COCOBEAUTYLLC has products for both men and women. You can find us online @Cocobeautyllc or through our website cocobeautyllc.com.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding my business was the hardest part especially starting out as someone who did not know much about the business side of things. When I initially started out, I put money aside from each paycheck I was receiving from working in order to get samples and finger out what ingredients I wanted in my skincare, also money for marketing and packaging. My supportive family also help pitch in.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building an audience on social media is all about knowing who you are marketing to. If you don’t know your target audience, you can’t really pinpoint who you’re talking/selling to. My advice would be to write out a business plan and figure out how often you should post and what should be in your content, also using the right hashtags to reach bigger audiences who don’t follow you. Get Friends and family to repost your content so that more people can see your content and follow you.

Contact Info:

• Website: Cocobeautyllc.com
• Instagram: Cocobeautyllc
• Facebook: Cocobeautyllc
• Youtube: Cocobeautyllc