We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Breonna Ousmane. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Breonna below.
Breonna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you’re open to it, can you talk to us about the best (or worst) investment you’ve made. What’s the backstory and the relevant context behind why you made the investment
More is not always necessarily good. I remember when I began scaling my business back in 2020-2021 and I started to invest in more and more inventory which is one of the worst business TikTok I made. As a fashion business owner you want to keep trending items in stock and make sure you’re not always sold out but this process requires strategic inventory planning. This was something I knew absolutely nothing about and I ended up falling into the” inventory trap” I like to call it. I invested thousands into only one jacket design and ended up not even selling 25 of them. I brought so many jackets of one style because I had the thought process of “this is the one” “this is going to bring my business to the next level” instead of thinking about if the jacket was actually trending or did I just decide it was a good pick. Trending doesn’t just mean popular on decisions or Instagram but is it trending in the areas your customers are in, and is it trending in the google search bar? This is called strategic planning when you start diving deeper into your insights and your customers, plus that is who ultimately controls the business besides you. This situation humbled me a lot and taught me that inventory is not just about sitting on big boxes and taking cute picture or picking nice clothes and what you as a business owner may or may not like.
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.
Art has always been a passion of mine but little do people know that fashion is also a form of art. I jumped into the fashion industry at just 16 years old. I love clothes and putting together different pieces to create a fashionable look but what really interested me is how clothes were actually made. I took it upon myself to learn different techniques and started to create my own custom apparel. Still till this day I am known for creating some of the most unique pieces especially my patch work denim jeans. These days I am most proud of not only my amazing fashion business that I’ve been growing for 6 years but the fact that I am able to teach other people how to do the same thing. I recently created Shameless Millionaire to directly help upcoming business owners get their business off the ground. Sharing my knowledge by offering different digital products and business classes to my online community is not rewarding because of the money but knowing I’m helping others break generational curses and create wealth for themselves and their families.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I’ve been building my personal brand for years and at one point I didn’t even realize that I could leverage it. I learned that it was important to keep my audiences attention so I did whatever I could do. Of course things that aligned with who I was so I made funny skit videos, I went live almost everyday and I just showcased all my different talents daily. If you’re just starting out with social media you need to figure out what type of audience you want to attract and how you can gravitate them to your page. It’s not going to be easy starting out because you have to test many different pieces of content to figure out what works but once you do stick to what works and don’t break whatever’s not broken. Remember, likes shouldn’t be your overall goal you want people to comment, share and save too!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Your brand reputation is important especially if you plan on building a long lasting business. Building my brand has been a long journey and I have ran across many challenging situations that could have destroyed our reputation but overall my brand has grown to be known for many different things but most importantly our customer service. Fixing the customers situation regardless of how I might of felt has always been my go to. This is what makes people come back and this is how you want your brand and clientele to be. Even when it comes to social media you want your social presence to be clean and welcoming. You shouldn’t be using your personal page as your business page or sharing personal things on your business pages. These things will definitely help your work your way to becoming a reputable business.
Contact Info:
- Website: Livebreely.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/breelyyy
- Facebook: Breely
- Youtube: BreelyTV
Image Credits
Breely, Livebreely