We recently connected with Tiffany Morris and have shared our conversation below.
Tiffany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Is your team able to work remotely? If so, how have you made it work? What, if any, have been the pitfalls? What have been the non-obvious benefits?
I’ve made remote work work for me by introducing my small business online. When I first came up with the idea of PersonaliTEA, I loved the thought of allowing others to personalize their tea flavors, because it was unheard of. I immediately pictured a storefront with lots of herbs available while people walk around, learning more about the herbs and filling their bags. As someone who didn’t have much knowledge about business and ownership, I went straight to a website creator who could bring my in-store vision to life over a screen. Now we operate via Wix. Customers from all over are now able to personalize their tea flavors remotely!
Tiffany, 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?
I’m Tiffany Morris, I’m a small business owner. I’m also a creative copywriter. I got into selling tea because I am used to having it as an answer to everything, I come from a Jamaican family so there’s that ha ha!
Additionally, I was inspired by seeing a lot of young black business owners on my feed from 2019 through 2020. I love seeing people have their own boutiques, nail businesses, hair, salons, and beauty brands. I’m no scientist, so I figured I wouldn’t start a hair company or anything like that, but I did love giving people options and I really wanted to stand out so that’s why I made PersonaliTEA.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I had to unlearn that hard work is the key to success. It’s really smart work. I would work tirelessly my business, and still watch others rack up sales off of some Etsy oils, because they had the connects to support them or they had that large following. No creativity, no unique concept, just a basic item. It’s backwards yeah, but I also learned their brand, their come up, their story is not mine. Whenever I considered myself to be working hard too, I wouldn’t get the same results because #1: I compared too much and spent much time doing that, and #2: I had to be real. I didn’t have the same people in my corner as them, so I aimed to market differently, and that was when I started seeing a difference. I went beyond my Instagram followers, and I think a lot of people forget about the world outside of the social media bubble and how much opportunity still lies out there. Bro, some people will stop and still look at flyers on a sidewalk, like, it’s important to find your crowd outside of the online space.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Definitely now, I think it was easier to run my business online during the pandemic, and especially in the height of it, but now a kiosk might be coming soon! I wanted to see how the brick and mortar location could work out, you know? Before getting into a huge storefront. Now I actually want people to experience it for what it was supposed to be, so this is my chance to pivot!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.personalitea.biz
- Instagram: Shoppersonalitea
- Facebook: @shoppersonalitea