Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Keisha Hester. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Keisha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started sooner or later?
When I first decided to start KD3 Enterprises, I had already tried once at the ‘entrepreneur’ lifestyle. Originally being a teacher for 7 years, I experienced a life changing car accident that made me have a different outlook on how I was going about my chance here in this lifetime. Therefore I decided to ‘retire’ early, and go after my dreams of building my own business. I joined what I thought was a great opportunity at the time, to work in financial services. Long story short, it was nothing of what I truly wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I had to return to teaching, just to make ends meet, while I figured out a different way to approach my dreams. In late 2020 I survived a suicide attempt. After another very life altering event, I decided to put 100% in building my company and helping others reach their dreams. By mid 2021, I was beginning to receive so many clients, that I had no choice but to move on from teaching and pursue my career full time. Looking back, the first time I tried, I had to fail to realize what worked for myself, my clients, and those around me. If I had to go back, I wouldn’t say I would prefer to do it the same knowing what I know now. But if at any moment I had to do it all over, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Keisha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ll try to keep this as short as possible.
I, Keisha Dionne Hester, a regular girl from a small town in Texas, known as Beaumont, was always one thing; a dreamer. I never could answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, because I wanted to do everything! I had modest dreams of becoming a cashier or a secretary, because I loved people, money, and professionalism. I loved to read, I loved numbers, and organizing things. As an athlete, I was taught discipline early on, and not just from being successful in sports, but seeing the results from tried and true hard-work. When it was time to go to college, I decided on being a Communications major, which changed quickly once it was time to memorize a 3 minute speech (lol). I moved on to Accounting, because as I said earlier, I loved money and business. Throughout college, at Prairie View A&M University, I joined a business fraternity that I had the pleasure of being the Secretary (dreams do come true), during my time in Undergraduate. From there, I earned my first internship for a Nonprofit in their Grant Writing department. I was a little familiar with grants, because I worked in the Scholarship office on campus, but nothing to the degree of what I would learn during my internship. I learned the ins and outs of grants; how to write them, research, reporting, delegating funds, running programs- if it had to do with a grant, I learned it. I ended up working for that Nonprofit until I graduated college.
After college, I began teaching Special Education, because regular Accounting jobs were difficult for me to obtain. I either had too much experience, or not enough. In some cases, discrimination played a part. It’s something I fight today through my services to create change. It’s just a part of our world that needs to be healed. However, I found joy in teaching, because I loved helping the students. Later, throughout my career, I would find myself writing grants for the Special Education teams in my schools and districts. I began helping teachers who had their own businesses on the side, raise funding and gain partnerships. This is when I learned that there is a real chance for me to follow this and make it into a sustainable business, for myself and others who love to write and help as much as I do!
Moving forward, as I had to step out on faith and truly find out who I am, is when I coined the name KD3. Most would think it is my initials, but it stands for Keep Divinity 3; Father, Son, Holy Spirit. With all three of those components, any, ANY one can be successful going towards their dreams. Please do not mistake successful with ‘rich’- these two are not interchangeable, and this is part of the knowledge that my clients get from me.
Faith has the ability to take us anywhere in the world we want to go. Once activated, when we continue to work towards that goal, we see things move in our favor that brings it steps closer to us, every day. By providing my clients the education of financing their business, building their business, staying disciplined to their goals, all while my team and myself research, write, and submit to multiple funding sources, in order to help them continue or strengthen their path in providing the service or products of their organization or business, to the world.
While I am out finding funding for my client, they are able to fully focus on what their true passion and purpose is. They don’t have to worry about taking part of the day to put towards fundraising. I completely take that responsibility away from them, and they are to only focus on running their business. KD3 stands out from the rest, because we are a total package of the knowledge behind what a business owner may need to know to propel their business, innovate their business, all while not having to worry about how- we come to our clients with solutions to the problems they already have, while decreasing the chance of more in the future.
The one thing I am most proud of is that although the road has not been easy, and all businesses grow and change daily, I am thankful that the processes that I have learned, the people I have met, the opportunities that are still to come, will ensure that I am able to continue to serve those who are dedicated to helping their community and others all over the world. I am very blessed in the path God has chosen for me; I wake up daily and go to work for whatever it is He needs me to do. I am very humble, and it’s hard for me to even share this, but I’ve been told before that deals or opportunities for my clients would have not happened if I were not involved. I hold that dear, and I hold my integrity higher than anything I could ever offer. If I say I’m going to do it , that’s what I do. No matter how long it takes. And that standard is held high at KD3.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Whew! I will say this, and I want anyone to read it over and over until they understand. JUST CAUSE YOU’RE BUSY, DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE BEING PRODUCTIVE! I had to really and truly unlearn that I didn’t constantly have to always be doing something! In this culture growing up, it’s a very huge misconception about ‘grinding’. Spending 20 hours doing something, ANYTHING, is not healthy! Yes, there are certain situations where maybe you have to pull an all nighter to meet a deadline (yet, if planned accordingly, this is very seldom to happen!), but that should not be multiple times in a week! Rest is important for any creative or executive that uses their brain for majority of their work. It’s almost like trying to function intoxicated. Yes, your body may move and can keep up with the extremities of what you are doing, but your brain is deprived of sleep, and is not making clear decisions, or able to produce quality work. So many times I’ve had to go back and re-do something, because I’ve done it off little to no sleep, or I tried to squeeze in one more thing off my to-do list for that day. Uh uh! Do it 100% the first time, and you will love the quality of what you do, which builds confidence and also those who you serve will trust your judgment a little more!
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
This is an important aspect of running a business. The people you hire, represent your business; however, your business represents you. Do you show up early and stay late? Do you communicate important information in enough time to make sound decisions- especially if it affects others besides yourself? One thing we’ve all done is worked for someone before- whether it was your mother, yourself, a side job, or a career you worked for years. Thinking about how instructions were given, how someone made you feel when you came up short or failed at something. How did you speak to yourself when you know that you’ve messed up, royally? Always keeping the question of “What is the best way I would like to know about this” -good news, bad news, exciting news, new job duties, schedule change, anything, will always help you create processes that are safe yet strong to always have a self-managing team, that can come to you with anything that is on their mind. Open communication and change and grow a culture quicker than any rules one can put into place.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kd3enterprises.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/kd3enterprises