Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Beatrice Springs. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Beatrice, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
When the term legacy is mentioned, depending on who mentions it, legacy can mean different things. To some it automatically takes them to an inheritance; to others it represents someone with historical significance. Then there are those like me who think of the impact or influence a person leaves behind based on their actions, achievements, or contributions. Influential family women have been my foundation, and this is how I plan to continue building. Although the influential women in my family were not entrepreneurs, I did come from a family of trailblazers in their own industry. These women have left a mark of confidence, integrity, tenacity, and grace I strive to achieve in my life and pass on to other women. My mother, Carrie Davidson, my aunt, Lillie Jessie, and my spiritual mother, Dr. Bonita Lockhart were women who set the pace for legacy in my life. They all went through challenges that marked them as women that made a difference. My mother always taught me to be confident and I could do anything I put my mind to. From the cotton fields, of Newberry, SC my mother and aunt never allowed the bowels of poverty to be their excuse for not being great. They both used their situations to help them forge ahead to be change agents in their areas of influence. My aunt, who marched in civil rights protests, who has engaged in the education system to ensure underprivileged students had the same opportunities others with more affluence, taught me to care about other people. As a woman who miraculously escaped a jail sentence of more than 10 years, Dr. Bonita Lockhart taught me and many other women the importance of knowing our worth in Christ, how to pray fervent, effectual prayers. My legacy runs deep.
The legacy I am hoping to build will be one that teaches my daughter and other women to embrace their identity and confidence through the eyes of God. So many women have not identified their true selves and mask the stranger with clothes, makeup, hair, and bad relationships. The outward façade can only mask so much. Eventually, the complements will not be enough. Using my businesses, “Thrifty Springs & Things” and “Confidently Speaking with Bea Springs,” I can adorn them with reasonably priced apparel, while building their confidence and identity with workshops and coaching.
Engagement with women of all ages through live shopping shows and events, gives me the opportunity to get to know them, identify areas of challenge and help them sort through unresolved feelings of inadequacy that have led to low self esteem and settling. My goal is always to empower every woman to be all God called them to be and live a life of purpose that impacts the next generation.
As the natural span of life does require us all to pass away, I know people will say Bea always told the truth about the situation, and you knew where she stood on the matter. I believe they would also say she never wavered on her faith in God. No matter what Bea went through, she never doubted God’s love for her, and He would come through for her because she was His favorite. People would say she was dedicated to her family and the people she loved.
I hope to be remembered for all the things I mentioned earlier, but I want to be remembered as the person who did not compromise her relationship with God or use others to better position herself. I want to be the person remembered for meeting people where they were to be a bridge to the next place. I want to be remembered as a conduit for change to the lives of women, so they truly embrace being fearfully and wonderfully made by God.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
• I am a top performing corporate professional in quality assurance for a non-profit organization with more than 35 years of experience adhering to guidance from the Code of Federal Regulations for the Food and Drug Administration. • I am a top performer and strong advocate for staff engagement and diversity leader serving on the Steering Committee for Development and Advancement.
• I have over 15 years of experience as a corporate instructor/mentor with a major non-profit organization.
• My facilitation and mentoring experience paved the wave for community workshops and events to empower women in my area.
• As a parent, I started a nonprofit organization to aid high school college prep activities including college tours, financial aid workshops and serving as scholarship committee judge.
• To offset college tuition, I started Thrifty Springs & Things Boutique, LLC, an online resell business. Originally started the business through live sales through Facebook into an online store. Thrifty Springs has also hosted in person shopping events, road trips and collaboration between other online resellers.
• I facilitate virtual graphic design software for beginners.
• Design business cards for the busy professional who wants more than the standard card.
• Completed my Public Speaker Certification through the Life Christian College to further pursue a new venture “Confidently Speaking with Bea Springs.”
• Authored my first literary workbook, Confidence is More Than A Dress, to provide women with a toolkit in building their confidence through the word of God.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Building my social media is an ongoing activity. When I first started, I used a group instead of a business page. Invited my family and friends and had them do the same. As my business started to pick up, I started my business page to access a virtual assistant system to reduce time with invoicing after my live Facebook sales. I did have the group members to start following the business page. I incorporated Facebook boosts and ads to grow the business page. My Facebook business page is linked to my Instagram business page to allow for cross posting. I do receive orders from both pages as the two platforms have different audiences. I also enrolled in a social media marketing course through Marketing Maven to help me facilitate a great social media audience through engagement. Posting more regularly has increased my audience and I am still looking to build more as I become more proficient at creating content and scheduling it.
My advice to those just starting to build your social media presence is to prepare, plan and be consistent. These are the areas that make the difference in obtaining followship and the customers. Due to a health challenge with my husband, my last eight months were not great from a social media standpoint and my bottom line. I was unable to post regularly or do my live shopping shows, which affected my viewership (my buying audience) when I jumped back in. So, I am concentrating on rebuilding. This viewership affects traffic to the Facebook shop, the website as well as my Instagram shopping. So, the more you prepare and plan, you have content that will post consistently, even when you are not available, which directly determines your financial bottom line.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
As a leader, it is important to understand that staff engagement is the key to success with a team. Leaders do not have all the answers and in most cases do not do the real work that keeps the ship moving forward. Your staff is your primary resource. Your job as a leader is to be intentional with listening and fostering good relationships with staff to build trust and credibility. Meeting regularly with each staff member and meeting with the entire team are both important. As you learn the staff, this helps identify their strengths and weaknesses. It also helps to identify areas of improvement, find special projects to help develop staff and foster growth. Staff need to know their voice counts. Leaders are not always able to accomplish staff requests, but hearing and attempting goes a long way to maintaining high morale.
Conducting team meetings provides staff with an opportunity to bring their ideas to the table to improve workflow, team engagement and build trust with the leader. When the team provides input, they are more willing to follow through instead of complaining about what they have been told to do. Their contribution provides them with positive feedback that results in better morale for the team overall.
Contact Info:
- Website: thriftysprings.com
- Other: https://linktr.ee/beasprings?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=1bbf410c-79a6-4bf7-a1e5-84c9b055fbe0
Image Credits
Seize Your Moment Photography Zuri Creative Orlando Curry Photography Takisha Herring