We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alexis Jones a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alexis , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

At this time in my career I had been running a ministry, Lovers Anonymous, where I taught the depth behind love and helped individuals separate emotion from the choice that love requires. I was walking back and forth in my mother’s apartment I believe in either late April or early May and seeking the Lord for strategy within the ministry and like water came “Habit of loving You”. I was going to start a campaign underneath Lovers Anonymous to reach those who had been struggling with mental health. Immediately I drew up a plan and had a goal to get our first billboard message up in Conyers, Ga. HOLY officially launched May 15, 2021 and we took it to social media to raised all we needed before we even launched!

Fast forward, LA Ministry is now under new leadership and HOLY, which I labeled a campaign, only to be managed for maybe a month or two went on to most recently having its first birthday and being a nonprofit in the state of Texas.

I have always had a love for people, but it was growth I needed to provide the compassion they needed. When I started Habit of Loving You, it was a good thing but I wasn’t in complete passion mode, but as a few months went by and I began researching and hearing the stories of others my passion was undeniable.

I think so often we won’t touch ideas if they don’t immediately feel deep within us, but we’re all given the assignment to love people and see people and you may not initially understand why you’re embarking on a new journey, but my encouragement is that you take it in faith.

I was and I am still am excited about saving lives, even only one if that’s what all this is for.

Alexis , 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?

Is it just me or do we all not like talking about ourselves? LOL, just you? Because i love it!!! Okay I’m partially kidding.

I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and moved to Dallas, Texas this past Spring on a word from God.
If you ask me I’d say, “y’all nosey”, but okay let’s proceed without the jokes. I have been an entrepreneur for a little over three WHOLE years now since I was 19 yrs old. It’s been forever, but I have learned a lot from how to handle transactions, product distribution, team management, human management of just myself…and that’s the hardest one of them all. Nevertheless I have a deep love for the creativity and freedom that entrepreneurship gives me. I enjoy dreaming wild dreams that no one can tell me we are unable to pursue.

Habit of Loving You, HOLY, is a nonprofit preventing suicide through community engagement, fundamental knowledge, and public messaging. Our work throughout the last year has primarily been getting billboards across the state to encourage someone to choose life and feel loved. Through the help of our community we’ve raised about $4,000 in our first 6 months and so far we’ve gotten six billboards across Atlanta and in Alabama.

Last year on National Suicide Prevention day we hosted an online event where speakers shared their expertise on things such as dealing with social media, working a 9-5 and having a side hustle, being a mom and business owner and even singleness. HOLY is about being proactive and our goal is to provide the community with resources they can store in their pocket so when they get upset/mad/hurt/sad they have a prescription.

Since moving the org to Dallas, Texas we have now begun a community group titled “The Front Room” that allows us to ask thought provoking questions to acknowledge everyday human emotions, but of course we want to give a practical response as well so as a group we share helpful tips. Okay so I just really want to share how we came up with the name because it’s so sweet. If you are at all familiar with the front room of a house then you know it’s the first room you see coming in and without a doubt you’re going to see everyone in it. Our community group is designed to SEE people. Cool right? Yea, we think so too!!

Seriously, I have jokes for days and I hope you guys can easily read with a little personality added in.

Before I end this section, I would love to share our anchor story.

There was a girl dealing with the pressures of life, pressure to be a great daughter, an obedient Christian, a better big sister, an efficient employee, a great girlfriend, among many other things. Oftentimes we neglect the way life’s pressures can truly affect people because we’re “so good at managing.” This girl in particular made a video to express her feelings, about midway she said “and to be honest, I don’t want to live anymore” then she paused, my heart broke in the midst, and spoke “but I am going to try”. Do you know what happened in that pause moment? She thought about Habit of Loving You and our coming efforts to prevent suicide. We hadn’t even launched yet and one life had already been saved. This is how we’ve become the solution.

Any advice for managing a team?

I love this question because it has surely taken me some time to get a handle on how to effectively care for people and still get things done (I expect to continue learning). Within my for profit company, Unapologetic Girl Boss, I take in 2-3 high school interns Fall, Summer, and Spring from the New York City school system. Let me preface that last summer my team of 4 went to a team of 0 in all of a month or two and that felt like a kick to my hope and business growth. Living forward I now see how that short term was the foundation to the way I have implemented company morale and work with team leaders. I will give the BIG three.

RELATIONSHIP & TRANSPARENCY
It is important to have a transparent relationship with your team. Exercise wisdom about what to and not to share, but your team should know where the company is and where you are if at some point it begins to affect your work. This will allow you to establish a sense of relatability. Working with someone who seems like they are perfect patty is annoying. It can lead your team to become nervous about being transparent when they need help or are falling behind because you’ve set an unrealistic standard of yourself.

Have conversations with your team outside of work. How was their week? What are their goals and dreams? Better yet, ask them what they desire to gain from working at your company and how you can best serve them. If your team can trust and understand you’re human they have a tendency to serve your vision with more intentionality.

CREATIVITY
Allow your team to have creative flow and make adjustments where needed. The first thing my interns do before trainings or anything is a leader mood board. I have them read over their role in detail, do some research on UGB and show me the direction they would go in. It allows me to see their skill and talent plus the areas they can grow in and gives them the freedom to unlock their own potential and feel significant in the company.

The way social media is headed, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur or snatch up all their time with a 9-5 and a side hustle and 6 kids and a marriage, whew. I believe if companies gave their leaders more flexibility to create and yes sometimes more pay, people would actually love their jobs. We have to remember somebody still has to perform surgery and work at the gyms, food places, and stores we regularly go to. Make America creative again !!!!!

WORK ORGANIZATION
I encourage you to have a hosting site for your team, we use Trello. It allows me to place the weeks projects in there, our schedule, training links, helpful documents, etc. It is even where I have the interns clock in. I have developed a system that works well for my company. We work 4 days a week and all work is comprised into projects. If the projects are complete in a timely manner, I will approve their 25 hr work week. Some weeks they will run over if the project is more lengthy and some weeks will be a bit slower. Now, I have never been in Corporate America, but I heard that’s what’s going on over there. I heard y’all be bored !! LOL

I hope this helped!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

When HOLY first started, as I mentioned in a previous question we raised all we needed before we launched and then went on to raise at least $4,000 within 6 months solely from my relationship with people on social media. My for profit company has pivoted over the years and has allowed me to connect with many people and build relationship off of my desire to help and making a lot of content that was impactful. When it came to me launching an organization I had people that would cover the costs of an entire billboard and give monthly because they knew the effort I put behind my work.

Now, you do have to actually ask! If you know you have a community of people, be willing to ask and don’t make people feel bad if they can’t give financially. Ask them to share a video and allow people to be of assistance in the way that fits their current situation. When you ask be specific. How much do you need? How much time do you have to raise it? How can people give? And what are you doing? People want to see where their money is going. Now, this may be more resourceful to those who have donation based organizations/nonprofits/movements.

Social Media however has become a cow that’s running dry on milk for us. We are now in the process of developing new ways to bring in revenue to support our community. While we are a registered nonprofit, we are still raising money to finish the process with our 501C3. This tax exemption paperwork will allow us to get funding and partnerships with billboard companies and we are only $330 away from our raising goal. Be sure to check out our instagram if you would love to give. All links are in our bio and you can learn about us through our social media (our new website is currently being developed).

Contact Info:

• Instagram: habitoflovingyou