We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beatrice Alleyne a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Beatrice, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?
The type of legacy I’m hoping to build is one that encompasses kindness and resilience. My Mom passed away 4 years ago and was truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. She taught me to be kind and polite, even when those around me may not be the nicest. We live in a world today that has transformed into a landscape where there are more challenges to deal with. With those challenges people may not be as kind. Kindness goes a lot way. I want people to remember me as a kind, warm person. Ever since my Mom passed away, I’ve been riddled with more challenges in my personal and professional life. Those obstacles made me stronger. Quitting my job, being an entrepreneur, and jumping into an unstable career where there are bad months and good months have made me more resilient. Betting on myself has given me more skills along with patience that young Beatrice never knew she could ever have. I’d love to be remembered as someone who inspired others to challenge themselves to do something they never knew they could do.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I once worked a traditional 9-5 in the finance industry. I was with my previous employer for almost 7 year until I quit my job to become a full-time travel content creator. I’ve always been interested in travel, where my passion started after a trip to China visiting a friend for 2 weeks before college. The experience intrigued my interest in learning about other cultures and exploring new countries. I started my social media platform @BUSYBEATRAVELS in the summer of 2021 and shortly after made sure to turn it into a legitimate Limited Liability Corporation. The transition transformed me into a full fledged business owner and entrepreneur. At the end of the day content creation is a business and I carry myself as such. Busy Bea Travels develops businesses through social media with a focus on storytelling. As a Chicagoland based content creator when I’m not traveling, I connect with local businesses to assist in the promotion of their products and services. I’ve worked with businesses spanning from restaurants, dental offices, and tea houses to name a few. If an establishment is looking for social media assistance, I offer consulting services, promotional video reels, social media management, and even drone footage. When traveling, I offer the same product types that are geared more to the hospitality industry like tourism boards, hotels, boat chartering companies, travel providers, etc. My aim is to be a social media marketing solution for businesses and educate them on how they can empower themselves to tell their narratives. As a Black traveler, I take pride in supporting and patronizing Black Owned Businesses. In my travel plans abroad, I research Black and minority owned businesses to visit and share with the community I’ve built on my social media platforms. I am most proud of the work I do in the Black Travel space to uplift and amplify Black Owned Businesses and Black Travel. Now is a pivotal time to support minority owned businesses in the forever changing political climate. I want to do my part to give back and inspire others when they travel to support businesses they may not typically go to, but to discover a new way to support locally.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Q3 of 2024 I did outreach to hundreds of businesses to partner on Black History Month initiatives. Even with the early contact, no partnerships came from the time and effort put into the potential campaigns. It was a hard time as an entrepreneur and things can become quite unstable financially when work ebbs and flows. At any point in time giving up could have been an option. I’ll never lose faith on my mission to give back to the community and made plans to do my own campaign. I visited local Black Owned Businesses in the Chicagoland area and built relationships to foster connections and promote my community on my own accord through my own Busy Bea Travels campaign to highlight Black History Month. The results were beneficial to the businesses I ended up collaborating with and more exposure was showcased for all parties involved. The pivot was needed but in the end worked out. It helped with building more of an audience for my business and provided me with future work from the same businesses I collaborated with in February and brought me future partners to connect with. Although Black History Month may not have been the most financially beneficial month of the year for me, it proved advantageous in more ways than I could have imagined.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
Cold pitching via email can be a drag. Often times people will leave you hanging and not reply by ghosting your emails. I was getting sick of businesses not responding to my outreach and decided I would give them a call instead. I named this initiative my April Showers Calling Campaign in hopes businesses would start showering me with return calls and emails after I gave them a call. At my previous job, I was no stranger to being on the phone and cold calling people. I nearly forgot how helpful this tactic can work when reaching people. One day, I called a number of individuals, followed-up via email, and came back with a surprising response. The Calling Campaign worked! I got a handful of people who picked up the phone, several people emailed me back, and a couple even scheduled appointments with me to discuss my proposition further. Don’t forget the fundamentals of sales and pick up the phone to build your relationships!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.busybeatravels.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/busybeatravels?igsh=MW0zZmV3aWkwY3dhOA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/busybeatravels?igsh=MW0zZmV3aWkwY3dhOA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beatrice-alleyne-a29736ab?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@busybeatravels?si=_5HD6BJYlPDI9b8T
- Other: https://youtube.com/@busybeatravels?si=_5HD6BJYlPDI9b8T
