We recently connected with Latoya James and have shared our conversation below.

Latoya, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

This is a story i love to share! So i also create and customize marketing material for or just for a celebration! I make all visions come to life! I started doing a lot of events as far as being a vendor to show case my business. My husband would always say to him, man if they had this or that it would be perfect! after months of this my husbands says, If you feel that way then fill the need and do! I laughed and thought I don’t know where to start! Lets fast forward to 2020 and as we all know it was a BIG change for the world but and even bigger change for us small business owners!

One day on on Facebook and there was a lady that was an owner of a beauty salon and unfortunately like a lot of small businesses in 2020 they were closing the dose but, before they did they posted “if anyone wants to rent out the salon for an event they were open to it and the fee was only $100! I was like oh wow it cant be! I thought it was $100 per hour but nope! It was $100 for the whole time!! It was an opportunity i could not pass up! Yes I didn’t know what where to start but, I knew it was a chance I needed to take to help us small businesses in need! That was our very first event. We only had 13 vendors and 35 shoppers but we had a wonderful time and i knew in that moment THIS is what i am ment to do! Help build the bridge between the community and small businesses! Little did we know that it would grow to something so big and help so many small businesses in the community !

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

This may sound crazy but talking about myself is always hard for some reason but here we go!

My name is Latoya James an I am the CEO of Rep Your Brand LLC. This brand came about because i seen a need to bridge the gap with small businesses and the community ! I seen that with being a small business owner there is not much support! Either you have to have lot of money to just ask questions or you have to just bump your head an learn as you go! As we know that can be very stressful and discouraging!

My goal was to create a safe space for all small brand owners looking to build and grown there brand. No matter if its your first day in business or your fifth year, we all need that support. Our business modal is “Teamwork Makes the Dream a Reality” ! Its an amazing feeling to be in for yourself but to know that you are not by yourself!

We host free events for the community to come out and enjoys but also meet and shop with local small businesses ! We also host free financial workshops for the community but we focus on helping small business owners to under how to manage the financial side of the business. What is needed to gain and maintain cash flow. We all know its easy to get into business but the true task is stay in business

Rep Your Brand is more then a brand is community, its family! We host a Small Business awards that highlight those that have been working hard through out the year to show that WE see them and the community celebrates them! We do giveaways for brand items such as banners, table cloths, hats and more with the brand logo on them so they can rep there brand where ever they go! I believe no matter what every day you should rep your brand in some kind of way. Let the world know that you are here and here to stay!

How did you build your audience on social media?

When I comes to social media it can be tricky. It’s all about timing and knowing your target audience. You have to ask yourself: Who do i want to attract? What age group? Do i want to attract women or men or both? Knowing the time is important! Knowing which platforms are best for your product and or brand is important as well.

Knowing when your timeline is most active is good to know for example: Most people check there social media in the morning between 5:00 am and 8:30 am before work or class. (Yes people are on other times but this is most times). Then again at about lunch time between 11:30 am an 1:00 pm.

Now of couse depending what’s going on in the world this can change, its social media. If you are willing and able to running ads/ promotions are a big help! It helps to reach those that are not just in your area but others! I know with being a small business owner its gets hard trying to do everything so i utilize scheduling my post when that option is available! Its like having an extra me and i love it.

We have been able to grow our Instagram to 16.3k an our Facebook group to 3.2k! I build this just though always thinking of others! By supporting and sharing and always remaining positive even in time when it was very hard! Always making sure to keep other in mind! I love to think of our supporters and fellow brand owners as limited partners in away. With out them there is no Rep Your Brand.

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

I had to learn and still am learning how to get out of the self employed mindset. Its really hard especially if you have great passion and belief in the vision for your brand its hard to let someone help but, you can not do it alone! Trying to wear all the hats will burn you our and or cause you to handle more then you can and it will make your business fail! I had to understand this once we got to our first big event. Hot sun 50 vendor setup water slides food trucks and over 600 attendees !! It was a wonderful event with great feed back but i feel that with a team its can be better!

With being the owner back office and setting meetings with those that will take your business to the next level is your focus. Hire or partner with other brands to help in other areas. It was hard because I am a hands on person and love to be right on the battle field but it took me aways from doing behind the desk things. Build your team and protect your brand!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rybeventz.com
• Instagram: @repyourbrandllc
• Facebook: @repyourbrandllc
• Other: Tiktok: @repyourbrandllc