We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dinyell McNair . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dinyell below.

Dinyell, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

StartupISTA is a name that I felt was most relevant to the type of business I wanted to start. I wanted to help women who needed assistance in starting their small business, start building their small business and/or start growing their small business.

Dinyell, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Dinyell McNair. I started my entrepreneurship journey through e-commerce. In 2017, I had an idea to start an online hair company with a subscription business model. With this business model, we sold hair bundles, wigs and hair products based on a one-time payment or a subscription which allowed the customer to receive new hair bundles or a wig once every 2, 3 or 6 months. Unfortunately, I made a lot of mistakes while running my business and decided to no longer pursue it by 2020.

Ironically, I learned so much from my mistakes while running my hair company because I did not have the tools I need to properly plan my business or take the steps needed to be successful. Also, during the process, I acquired a lot of knowledge about how to start a business, build it and scale it through research and a short mentoring program provided by Bank of America. Once I decided to no longer pursue my endeavors with my hair company, I knew that I still wanted to continue my entrepreneur journey, but I was not sure exactly, what kind of business to start and when.

I felt like I needed direction that would guide me so in my faith, I prayed to God about this dilemma. It soon came to me, that I needed to start a faith based business that helps women who are just like myself when I started my hair company. I realized that there was a market for women who needed guidance in how to start, build and/or scale their business and also need the encouragement through faith and prayer.

I help my clients solve issues with obstacles that include marketing their small business, planning content, finding their target audience, implementing alternate streams of revenue with their services/products, balance their time management, provide practices that assist with balancing their mental health, etc…..

I have a bachelor’s degree in education and I’ve always wanted to teach, in fact, it has always been my passion to become an educator. I also have a sales background from my former career as a mortgage broker. With these two backgrounds combined along with my previous experience as a business owner, I feel that this sets me apart. I am able to not only educate my clients, but also have the ability to teach them the skills of cold selling and they also learn from a former entrepreneur’s major mistakes.

I am most proud of creating a faith based business that encourages a community of women who are inspired to push through the ups and downs through faith and prayer to nurture a business while balancing everyday life and supporting one another throughout the process.

I want potential clients to know that The StartupISTA brand is also supportive of balancing mental health & their well-being as well as a successful small business journey.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Initially, I was extremely lost in how to build my audience and community on social media. My biggest mistake was watching others and trying to do exactly what they were doing. I started to realize that I was on the right track, but going about it all wrong. There are some basic methods that we should all be doing to grow our audience and build our community of social media, but the we should also be customizing these methods that target the audience we want.

That is exactly what I started to do. I started posting content that educated, inspired and entertained (trending sounds, what’s popular, etc….)my audience. I then began to watch my analytics and learned what kind of content that my audience wanted me to post the most. It became clear to me that my audience was more interested in educational and inspirational content within my market. After, I started implementing those two kinds of content, I noticed a shift in increased engagement and followers.

My advise to build your audience on social media would be to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Think of what problems you can solve and structure your content in the form of education, inspiration and entertainment. After that, watch your analytics to see what resonates with your target audience the most and start posting more content similar to what they are interacting with more. You will not grow your audience overnight, however if you stay resilient and consistent you will see a difference in your growth.

Lastly, always, always, always, be your authentic self. Authenticity is very important. When someone can see themselves in you, that builds trust. Trust will always lead to loyalty and from their you will have a potential customer or client who will purchase from you and will potentially refer your business to someone else.

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 has been building a community. I’ve learned that community is the key to a successful brand. When you have a community it helps to build trust. People often want to connect with brands that can solve their problems and become a go to company for their future needs. They will also refer your brand to others which is essentially free marketing and who doesn’t see free marketing as a benefit?

Contact Info:

• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thestartupista
• Email: hello@thestartupista.com.

Image Credits
These are self portraits at my home.