We were lucky to catch up with Brezauhna Pickens recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brezauhna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

All my life I was a member of nonprofit organizations and growing up being mentored by a lot of great local legends made me the women I am today! My dream is to educate the next generation with the knowledge and skills that I have. E.M.M.A ( Educate, Motivate, Minorities & Achieve) is a my nonprofit dance team for young ladies ages 4-18. The main goal for the program is to promote unity and sisterhood through majorette dance. Our community is underserved and needs more support from local leaders and state officials. As we are based in the heart of East Austin you would think the government would love to help nonprofits but we get no recognition or funding from anyone to flourish our program the way we would 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.

For those who don’t know me I am born and raised Austinite. I graduated from a AISD high school in north east Austin and went on to get my A.A in General Studies from ACC. My passion for dance came from my parents, my mother always inspired me to pursue my passion in social work and taught me the importance of giving back. E.M.M.A was founded by my mother and Aunt which included a dance team and pageantry. While the success of both programs were thriving we tending to focus more on the dance team so the pageant program was short lived. Now going on 8 years of just the dance team, my main focus is to get the girls recognized by city council and higher officials to get some type of funding to hopefully one day get a building going and make this a statewide program.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

How I built my audience with social media, was creating different social networks to connect with my parents and audience from. Currently we have a X page and a Facebook page along with an email to connect with anyone that would like too stay informed with enrollment information and parade schedule, anyone who would like to sponsor or simply donate to the youth it’s always open and greatly appreciated.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

My most effective strategy for growing my clientele is really stay consistent and engaged Community and surrounding areas. Emma has been known to do community involvement for as performing at nursing homes and other community functions outside of parade we do host fundraisers. Overall we teach the ladies the importance of giving back and staying involved.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bossbrep_
• Facebook: Emma N Moore
• Twitter: @EMMALadyRoyals1