We were lucky to catch up with Ciara Gordon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ciara, appreciate you joining 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

I made a few good and bad investments as a first time business owner and I love the fact that you guys asked this question because I feel like my answer could help a lot of future & current entrepreneurs. One of my first bad investments was buying vendor lists. A vendor list is a list of vendors made by someone from their personal opinions. I spent around $600 on those lists when I first started my business thinking they would help me and, for me personally, they were useless. I ended up finding and using my own vendors that I found thru research and trial & error. Another bad investment l made was not using the profit I made from my business and putting it back into my business. I would always come out of pocket every time I purchased inventory because I wasn’t putting the money back into my business, so I wasn’t seeing my actual profit. Last but not least, one of the best investments I made was hiring models to model my inventory. It makes it easier for my customers to see the quality of the product when they are being modeled by a real person, as opposed to stock photos & helping my business drive in more sales.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

When I started my business during the pandemic, the nursing facility I was working at was shut down, so I was forced out of the job. Instead of immediately going to get another job, which is what I would have done in the past, I took some time off to figure out what I wanted to do with my life as a career and not a job. During that time, I knew I wanted to work in the beauty industry. Hair,nails, clothes etc, after constant deliberation, I settled on my first love, which has always been fashion, & became the CEO of FlyGirlz Inc. What sets FlyGirlz apart from other boutiques is quality, dedication and creativity. I spend hours a week finding the best quality & high fashion pieces. My customers can dress like their favorite celebrity for an affordable price. I want my future customers and current customers to know I love them & their support. They are go-getters and when they shop with FlyGirlz, they will not only be the part but they will look the part.

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

The most effective strategy for FlyGirlz Inc has been social media. Our generation can make so much money right from our cellphones. Most of my customers come from social media (Facebook,Instagram & TikTok). I like to engage with each customer personally. I don’t want my customers to feel like they don’t know who they are purchasing from. I’m extremely transparent.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I have a vendor that manufactures for me and I had to order from a few vendors before I found my vendor’s. When looking for vendors that are also manufacturers, get samples, ask questions, get actual videos and photos of your products, not stock photos, read the material type. Don’t just look at the pictures and order. That’s one of the most important lessons I learned.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://flygirlzboutique-883.myshopify.com
• Instagram: @flygirlzboutique5
• Facebook: Fly Girlz Boutique
• TikTok: flygirlzboutique