We recently connected with La’Cellia Pruitt and have shared our conversation below.

La’Cellia, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I hope my legacy will create generational wealth and history for my family as well as for my community. I want my legacy to not only positively impact myself and my family but I want to improve and support my neighborhood and eventually my entire city. I am extremely proud to be where I am from and I want to give back as much as I feel I’ve received.

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 back background and context?

Growing up I’ve always been into creative avenues; rather painting, drawing, photos, clothing, music, etc. I actually told my mom when I was younger I wanted to be an artist. Then I looked at being an artist as a painter or someone that draws well. My mom bought me the entire art set! She was so supportive of everything I did. I told her I wanted to play guitar and she got me one.

As I got older and after I immaturely tried all of those things, I settled on being a veterinarian! I went to school graduated undergrad and worked in the field as I prepared to apply for veterinary school. Working in the actual field and learning the politics of it all made me reconsider my decision for various amount of reasoning honestly. Mainly because I was miserable, one day I just woke up and quit my job. I had no idea what else I was going to do I just knew I couldn’t do it anymore. First thing I did was go to a pawn shop and bought a camera. I have no clue why I did it I just did it. I spent that day walking around the city just taking photos and listening to music.

Shortly after that photography became a hobby and eventually a part time job thanks to the support of family and friends. I didn’t take it serious until I went to atl and started getting booking from people idek. Word to mouth had been the biggest push for me. So that motivated me to make it an actual business (llc)

Being in Atlanta inspired me in a lot of ways, but it mainly motivated me to try and create the type of environment I felt and experienced there, here in Detroit.

So I moved to Detroit and really put my all in my over all brand created branches in it that I loved. Untimely revisiting all of my past passion. Broadening my brand from just photography to clothing, art and events. I then began to use my brand to promote local painters, musical artist and even local businesses. That’s really where I am right now with it.

What sets my brand apart from others is the overall experience. No matter if you are receiving a product or a service you receive an entire experience. My website in internationally interactive, the services are imitate and individually catered and the products are great quality and contain so much detail and creativity, even the custom boxes and bags that carry the products.

I am most proud of the evaluation of my brand and the standard it holds. I am also proud of the overall message it carries and promote. The main things i want potential clients/followers/fans to know about my brand is TWELVE.XVI (12.16) is more than a brand, it is a community; a family. They are not clients, followers or fans. They are now family members and it is important that they feel that they are in a two way relationship. We give back to literally EVERYONE that has supported in some way through free products, services and opportunities.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for my brand has been giveaways and promotion events. Many people see my product from photos and think it’s nice but maybe not worth the price so when I conduct giveaways people and the people around them are able to actually see and feel the quality of the materials which always helps me get more sales. They also love the boxes; many people want to be apart of the promotional events because they’re member only as well as want the boxes. I know a few people who are actually trying to collect them which makes me so happy!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was just because people love you and support you does not mean they have to give you their business. Just because you do something and you do it well doesn’t mean you do it how someone else would like it; which is not a bad thing and should not be taken personal because at the end of the day you are running a business and you cannot appeal to everyone and you should not try because if you do you will forget why you’re doing everything you’re doing and eventually hate it as well as feel lost in how to move forward.! When I first began everything (and even still now!) I go so much feedback as to what I should do different and I tried to keep up with it because that’s what the people say they want but I learned I would make these changes and still not get their business and in the end I’d feel lost because it was not the direction I was initially heading towards.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.twelvexvi.services
• Instagram: @Twelve.xvi & @_twelve.xvi_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twelvexvi.1216?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Image Credits
TWELVE.XVI PHOTOGRAPHY LLC.