We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ebele Chioma. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ebele below.

Ebele, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Finding those key vendors can often be make or break for a brand. Can you talk to us about how you found your key vendors?

The CHIOMA brand represents authenticity and our products are curated to reflect that. What makes us unique as a company is that we strive to source clean, natural raw materials and products from their indigenous roots and also tell the story of the culture and the people that inspired the traditions. This is the CHIOMA difference.

The process of finding producers and manufacturers with similar goals and values in this era of mass manufacturing, watered down or bioengineered products can be quite challenging, but we stick to our values when it comes to sourcing and that makes it easier to identify the often needle in a haystack.

Our process is pretty straightforward, we do a lot of online research to build our database, we also attend trade shows. Sometimes it is as simple as trying a product at a boutique grocer and if it is a hit, we reach out to the manufacturer directly.

Websites like Etsy.com that feature smaller, artisan producers are gems and we’ve found a few partner producers from Etsy.com. Finally, one of our missions is to help fight and alleviate poverty on the African continent by promoting manufacturing and trade, so we also source directly from local farmers or distributors who practice fair trade. It does take tremendous discipline to stay focused on the singular mission of clean, natural and authentic but we are dedicated to it.

Ebele, 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 Ebele Chioma Okocha and I am the founder and CEO of CHIOMA, collectively CHIOMA Company. People often ask me what CHIOMA means or stands for. First, it is actually my middle name that’s extra special to me because it was given to me by my late paternal grandmother who was a savvy business woman and a gentle, sweet soul. As a young girl growing up in Nigeria, I remember being fascinated by her farm where she raised different poultries.

The name CHIOMA is of Igbo origin and means ‘to be in good spirits’ or to ‘ have a good personal spirit’. The name just fits at heart of everything that we do which is to enhance the quality of life for the communities we serve by being the neighborhood destination for affordable and accessible wellness and personal care products and services.

My heritage is the biggest inspiration for everything that we do. As an Igbo West African woman, my heritage is who I am and as the founder, it is what my company is. Growing up in West Africa, I was surrounded by an abundance of nature and rich traditions. My mom, who is my biggest inspiration in life and business, would always teach me and my siblings how to use various natural remedies to improve our lives. I remember every Sunday we would rub charcoal on teeth to whiten it. Or when we are sick, she would cook what we call ‘Nsala’ soup, a very tasty dish packed with a plethora of various traditional healing herbs and spices, and a powerful cleanser for the body.

We’ve grown a lot as a company and still growing, making mistakes, failing, falling, starting back over, dreaming, winning and everything else in between.

The vision I have for CHIOMA is to be a brand that can be trusted to provide authentic and quality products and experiences. What we put in and into our bodies and how we take care of our bodies affect how we feel, therefore we need to put self care as a priority.

I am proud of how much we’ve overcome and evolved and are still evolving. 2020, the start of the Covid pandemic was actually a year of epiphany for me. That period brought a lot of clarity for me in what I want out of life and what kind of impact I want my business to have on the world. I really connected and fully embraced my roots, and the more I learned, the clearer things became and I am so excited to share the beauty of my culture and origins with the world.

I would like readers and potential customers to see the passion, the hard work, the dedication and to know that we genuinely and authentically care and love what we do.

Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?

Yes I have actually bought a business in the past. In 2019 my business was still predominantly online but something was missing for me. I was craving face to face interaction with customers. I also had an esthetics license for years and wanted to do something with it and finally bring that part of me to life.

So, I came across a non-invasive body restoration business that I believe was listed on bizbuysell. The opportunity was presented like a franchise however the company had no brand or hands in operation so it was more of a licensing deal. They would provide all the training, equipment and tools to start but I could start under my brand.

The process was pretty straightforward, get the financing needed, make the purchase, receive all my tools and start the onboarding. I learned a lot from that purchase, but I also realized that I wanted to go in a different direction with the business and in 2021 we began the pivot to our own in-house equipment and more holistic services. That experience was a great teacher and gave me insight on how to build and run a brick and mortar service business.

We recently expanded from our initial location into an almost 2,000 square feet facility in Addison Farmers Branch located in the heart of the Dallas Fort Worth complex. Our new space blends natural beauty and wellness retail with holistic spa services. We have a range of products such as handcrafted soaps, natural body butters, exotic oils, bath bombs, various aromatherapy products, herbal tinctures, teas and supplements. These are not the watered down or bioengineered products, that’s what makes us different from shopping at your traditional retail stores.

Our holistic spa brings the vacation feel close to home and offers services such as infrared and herbal steam sauna, luxurious and decadent body treatments such as African mud wraps, Qibé Ethiopian butter body wrap, Dukhan women’s ancient V-steam and more. A trip to the CHIOMA spa is like being transported to the exotic plains of the African Serengeti or lush rainforests of the River Niger.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

At CHIOMA, our company culture revolves around hospitality. Therefore our approach to building our clientele is to treat our existing customers like royalty so that they become the walking billboard for the CHIOMA brand. It is something that we are working to improve and get better at everyday.

The most effective strategy has been word of mouth and grassroots marketing. For our services, we encourage our clients to bring their friends and reward them for it. We also have referral program offers and heavily push that in our marketing efforts.

For our products, it is almost the same. Most of our customers tell us that a friend has tried our products or they see all the good reviews that we have.

Currently at our CHIOMA Dallas location we reward our customers heavily for referrals. Bring a friend for an Oma sweat detox and the service is discounted for everyone. We also reward customers for their loyalty with various loyalty programs. Your 10th Oma sweat is free and there are complimentary upgrades.

Lastly we have different membership options ranging from $79, starter membership to $399 for the clients who want it all. Members at all tiers are considered VIP members and we aim to give them the red carpet treatment to encourage them to not only maintain their membership but refer their friends.

Contact Info:

Our natural wellness and beauty retail store and holistic spa is located at 14454 Midway Road, Farmers Branch, Texas 75244

• Website: www.chiomacompany.com
• Instagram: @chiomacompany
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chiomacompany
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chioma/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chiomacompany