Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Meleka Simon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Meleka, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mom is a huge inspiration behind my why. She spent her entire life as a single mom dedicated to making a better life the next generations. She grew up in Mississippi during segregation and had a limited education. By herself, she raised 7 of her own children, 5 of her grandkids, and 3 of greatgrand children. As the matriarch of our family, she instilled in us faith, determination, a strong work-ethic, discipline, and most important accountability. I witness her put all of her children, her family, and other people’s children before herself to make sure they had the best opportunity to become their best selves. She dedidicated her wholelife to others. I call it sacrifice, she would call it “doing the Lord’s work; serving in love”. I admired her for her sacrifice and service. I desire to impact the world in this way with every student I teach. When my mom became my number supporter in my dance career, it changed things for me. I knew then that I could accomplish any goal I set and I would stop at nothing to live out my destiny. Mom encouraged to open up and studio. Unfortunately, 2 week after we had that conversation my mom unexpectedly passed away. In the conversation before she passed, she told that I was destined to dance, destined to impact lives, and not to let anything or anyone stop me from doing what God had called me to do.
It was a devastating time for me because my biggest support system was gone. In her honor, I named the studio Destiny Devoted Dance. I wanted to create a community with a strong positive atmosphere, that allows each invidual who graces our doors, the love, support, and freedom to be who God destined them to be. I desire to live out my destiny and my mother’s legacy through DDD.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m orginally from the southside of Chicago, IL. Growing up in Chicago was tough. Our schools were poor and access to many extra-curricular activities. I was exposed to dance in high school after my family relocated to Texas. When I expressed interest in dance my mom wasn’t as supportive as I hoped. If I wanted to pursue this, which I wasn’t sure I wanted to, I had to get a job and pay for it myself. When I turned 16 I did just that. I registered for my first dance class and quickly realized, I was late to the game, but it didn’t matter, I enjoyed learning new things. Apparently I had talent that I didn’t see. My teachers helped me realize what was inside of me, they supported and encouraged my growth. As I trained, I grew a strong passion for dance and decided to commit myself to perfecting my craft.

Dance brought me so many opportunities to travel, to grow in my creativity, to connect and work with like-minded individuals. and honestly to learn who I was and what I wanted to contributed to this world that we live in. With dance, I participated in competitions and conventions, I started teaching, I learned to choreograph, and I earned scholarships to train with industry professionals all over the United States. After graduating high school,

I attended the University of North Texas but not as a dance major. My mom still wasn’t supportive of me choosing dance as a career. I had to attend college but I had to choose a major that would lead to a sustainable career. While in school I pursued professional dance opportunities and was blessed to do come really cool work. I got to be in commercials, dance at festivals, dance for a few dance companies, sing back-up for music artists, dance back-up for music artists, I established myself as a teacher and choreographer, I entered the world of dance adjudication, but most importantly, I got to give back.

The reality is, I was a late bloomer to dance. Most successful dancer start training as toddlers or in elementary school. I was a 16 year old, high school junior. Realizing the gap gave me the tenacity to prove the stereotype wrong. I wanted to prove that it no matter your age, economic status, or even your race, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. Passion, hardwork, determination, and a desire to keep growing.

I decided at 18 that I would one day own a dance studio. When I was dancing professionally, I was a crossroads at an audition and this particular audition was deciding my future. If the audition was successful, I would’ve had to quit school and make the big move to California. I prayed long and hard about this audition. I asked God to reveal my purpose and if this opportunity wasn’t for me, to cut me in the beginning of the audition. Well, I got cut and I realized that though I love performing, my passion was teaching. Being able to invest in my students, see them grow, and give them what was given to me by dance teacher was my drive.

After teaching dance for 17 years, I was finally able to follow my dream and open my dance studio, Destiny Devoted Dance. Here at DDD we work hard to create a family-friendly atmosphere, with a strong community of support, as we invest in the indidividual needs of our dancers on and off the dance floor. No matter what your destiny is in life we want your experience at DDD to be impactful.
We offer dance classes in the genres of tap, ballet, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, contemporary, praise dance, and acro to dancers age 2 to adult. Through dance our student technique and life skills that will serve them no matter what their life path is. I’m proud of the culture we have created at DDD. I’m proud to be a black business owner in a prodominantly white field. I’m proud of our diversity. I’m proud of the community we have. I’m proud to serve every family we get the pleasure of meeting.

As the visionary for Destiny Devoted Dance, I’m committed to inspiring our youth to be world-changers by encouraging discipline, diversity, and drive in a loving and safe environment. I endeavor to have our movement transcend our four walls and equip our students with the tools to impact the world we live in as they live out their destinies.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

When we first opened I had 9 students. It was a whirlwind of an experience getting open and I knew I was opening a studio with zero clientele. By our first day of classes, we had 22 kids registered. I remember having slight panic inside because we needed 50 students to break even. I tried all the things, highering a marketing company, do ads in local papers and magazines, and ads on social media. The only accomplishment was more traffic to our website, but there was no conversion. We did not break even our first year. By the middle of 2, we have to break our lease and move because we could no longer fit in our tiny studio.
What changed? What actually worked? WORD OF MOUTH.
Word of Mouth has been the most effective strategy for growing our clientele. I no longer advertise. Yes we have social media, but I rarely post. What we do is hold true to the values of which Destiny Devoted Dance was founded. We live out these values everyday in the product we produce, our interaction with our clientele, our customer service, and our standards and expectations.
The word spread. People hear how different we are from your typical dance school and they desire that for not only their child but for their family. We truly are a village.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I love this question! I taught dance for 17 years before opening up my own studio. I had the awesome opportunity to work at 6 different studios and run my own preschool program through daycares. Along the way I took note of what worked and what didn’t. I noticed that no matter who I worked for, all studios were practically ran the same. Of course when I opened, my strategy was taking the good, the bad, and the indifferent of my experiences and what I learned throughout my teaching career and put together a strategy for my business. Well, it didn’t quite work. I spent the first 3 years of my business comparing myself to other studios I taught for or others that I admired. I had this weird recipe for trying to stand out and be different but at the same time, being like the industry standard.
We were in the middle our 3rd year of business when the pandemic hit. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to re-evaluate my business strategies. I had to realize that based on what I desired for DDD to be, I could no longer compare us to the industry standard. The standard model would not work for us. Yes we teach dance, but that’s not the root of what we do. Dance is just the avenue at which we accomplish our endeavors. Once I unlearned the typical and began to be more innovative in how we accomplish our goals, we are now in the middle of our 6th year in business and we are thriving. We started thriving in the middle of a pandemic.
We may not be large in numbers or one of the well-known studio names, but we are great at what we do and well known in community in which we serve. I couldn’t be prouder of that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.destinydevoteddance.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/dance_triple_d
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/destinydevoteddance

Image Credits
Photographer Davy Rhule with Davy’s Digital Memories