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

Hi Tatiana, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

At times, if I could go back in time, I wish I would have started Braids That Speak sooner. I had always been a braider throughout middle, high school and even college and after. It was just something I did because I truly enjoyed serving black women and I always did a great job. At the end of 2018, I decided to leave my 6-figure IT job because I wanted to work with black women full time. In 2019, I took everything seriously and decided to go at it full-time and I built my clientele from my home salon. I was very intentional on creating something that was never done before so despite covid happening, I used that time to practice on a few ideas I had. None of them had anything to do with microlocs but it definitely prepared me for everything I do today–Microlocs.

On another end, I feel like covid is what made a lot more women even consider microlocs because black women were over it and didn’t want to worry about their hair anymore. Even if I had started sooner, I believe in God and in God’s timing in everything in my life. He orchestrated things to work out the way they did and especially when I didn’t see any possibility in a new industry I had no experience in. Looking back, as much as I would have wanted to change covid and as much as I would have liked to have taken braiding seriously from when I was in high school, my IT experience has given me an upper hand in how I handle my business. In my corporate days, I learned a lot about working in teams, creating self-sustainable teams, professionalism, customer service and being organized. I still use a lot of those skills in my business today and I think that gives me an upper hand.

Tatiana, 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?

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Tatiana Nchotu. I am a serial braider from age 10. It’s what I do and it’s what keeps me excited–serving women. After enjoying a thriving IT career, I decided I no longer wanted to work in an industry I had no interest in. So I decided to pursue braiding full time. I knew I didn’t just want to be a regular braider–not that there is anything wrong with that but one thing I learned in corporate America is the importance of being intentional and innovative. I knew if I could pour that energy into someone else’s company, I could create something that would be a game changer. Every single time I was braiding, I would always look for solutions to client problems. I would always ask clients questions and it helped me to be able to connect with black women. The more I focused on problems, I created solutions and my clientele grew in a very short period of time. One day in March 2021, a prospective client reached out to me about being a super busy wife, mom and grandma with 3 jobs who had absolutely no time to worry about her hair and needed something permanent. She loved my work and trusted that I could do something with human hair extensions. I am not one to back down from a challenge so I agreed and used her faith in me as my motivation to come up with what I now call Belle Microlocs.

Basically, Belle Microlocs as small sized microlocs installed with kinky human hair. The two things that BM provides our clients with is instant length and versatility. Imagine the millions of black women who truly want to loc their hair but don’t want to start off with short hair. Some women don’t have the type of hair that grows super fast and others have very low density and thin areas in their head. Belle Microlocs is a game changer for those type of women or just any woman who has no issues with her hair who doesn’t want to go through the beginning loc stages because it doesn’t fit everyone’s face. We know this as the “ugly phase” in the loc industry.

Belle Microlocs solves a ton of problems for black women with all hair types and with all hair conditions. We believe when a woman at least has some good length, she can have more versatile styling options. For women with thin areas or balding in certain areas, having that extra length can totally help camouflage those thin areas. That would have been a challenge to do with shorter hair.

What sets me apart from others is that I truly care about the health of our clients’ hair. We are always improving our techniques and learning more as we gain more experience in an industry that has actually not been very accepting of this particular service. When extensions are not added properly, it could cause a lot of damage so we strive to prioritize healthy hair. We are different because the hair we use is human hair (not a blend) and this hair also matches our actual hair texture the closest compared to the wavy or curlier textures which doesn’t blend well with everyone.

I am most proud of how far we’ve come. We don’t claim to be perfect at all because we have made a lot of mistakes but progress is a big thing for me so I’m always going back to the drawing board and making changes to our techniques so that our clients can receive the best service and truly experience freedom with our microlocs. The main things I want potential clients/followers/fans to know about me is that we truly care about their hair issues and I am personally working round the clock to be better. We are just a year and a half in and we’ve changed so many lives already. Imagine what we would accomplish by year 5. We cannot wait.

We want all black women to know about our Belle Microlocs services so I have decided to start sharing this lovely skill with other women so that they can serve women who can’t get to us. We cannot serve everyone and we see how impactful our services are. We hope to take this service to the motherland and change how locs are perceived back home.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One lesson I had to unlearn is that I don’t have to let anyone else think for me. Our education system in the US and even in the motherland (I’m from Cameroon, West Africa) where we are taught to go to school, learn specific subjects and then go work for someone else till we retire and die. I was taught that the best fields are law, medicine and engineering and those fields are always praised and prestigious. I had to unlearn that I do not have to work for another person forever–now there is nothing wrong with that because not everyone can/should be an entrepreneur. I had to train myself to believe that I could be part of solutions to issues in an industry that truly interests me.

I had to unlearn that handwork is something I could be proud of. I don’t have to be a doctor to make my parents and society proud of me. I have used the work of my hands, my gift and some thinking and created something that will forever impact women’s lives on so many levels. I’ve learned that I can always do more if I keep looking for problems to solve in my environment.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I think this is a great question. Social media has become a major aspect of my business. We get over 300k views on our page each week and that’s like a dream come true for me. I always saw social media as this super scary thing but with one post at a time, our following has grown a ton.

I built my social media audience when I realized that I was going to strictly focus on microlocs. I studied others’ pages to see what type of videos and photos go the most views and interaction and likes. I realized that I didn’t actually like the way most locticians showed their work online. So i decided to do things differently. I realized that if I was going to spend all that time getting my parts right and creating this beautiful work, I was going to show it off. So I started capturing videos that were enticing. I started having my clients shake their hair and play with their locs to show how happy and bouncy they were. That was so attractive and it drew people in and got my work to the explore page a lot.

I learned a few things about video editing and I try to tell a story every chance I get. I also try to educate my followers and clients and use social media as a way to connect with them and share our love for our work. It has done wonders for my business. I honestly could do better and if I’ve gotten this far with no plan or structure imagine how far I would go if I invested more time posting about 3x a day consistently. Right now, I just post a few times a week and we still gain about 1-2k followers every 2 days.

I’m learning to go live more and show my face. I think people want to connect with a face and voice so badly and to build trust, I go live every chance I get so that I can answer questions, provide clarity or share information with my community. It’s scary if you’re an introvert like me but everyone always appreciates it and I think I get more interaction too when I go live. For those starting out, the only way to get over the fear is to post at least one time a day. Do not expect to be perfect, there is no perfect. Don’t compare with others as that’s the thief of joy. Just make your own videos as perfect as you can in your own way and go live to connect with your community as often as you can. Always ask your community questions and tell them to ask you questions then create a video and answer it. Things like that builds trust and connection and it’ll make it easier to sell them anything. Social media is for connecting and you can’t market successfully without trust and connection.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.braidsthatspeak.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braidsthatspeak/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/braidsthatspeak
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa1x0c2W84UWo4hsdrR1Ylg/videos
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/braids-that-speak-landover-2?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
• Other: Book us here: https://bit.ly/33cWGbH 2 Day Workshop/Training: https://tatiana-nchotu.mykajabi.com/sales-page

Image Credits
Braids That Speak