We were lucky to catch up with Niesha Dyson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Niesha, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Success is measured differently for everyone; for me, it’s not necessarily a dollar amount, but the impact you have and how you positively inspire others around you. Success is a combination of hard work, determination, perseverance, adaptability, self-discipline, and continuous learning. Setting clear goals is important, being open to feedback and making strategic decisions as well building strong relationships by networking and looking for opportunities for growth. Over the past three years of having my own brand (NAI), I’ve learned so much about different aspects within business and just life in general – a lot of what I will use and refer to for the rest of my life.

A little story time! On a Saturday in the summer of 2022, I was vending at my local farmer’s market; a man came to my booth and raved about how him and his wife previously purchased candles from me and absolutely loved them. He shared that his wife worked for Nordstrom in the Buying office and asked me if I ever thought about scaling my brand to get into high volume retailers. (At that time, he had no idea I even worked for Nordstrom!) His wife came over and we had a great conversation about potentially having my products in Nordstrom one day. At that moment, I recognized the impact my brand made on two strangers who didn’t really know me but believed in my products and my brand.

I feel most liberated and successful when I’m fulfilled and content with my accomplishments, both personally and professionally. From gaining complete stranger’s trust to consistently being told how much I’ve inspired people in various ways.

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.

I’d like to say I always knew I would be an entrepreneur, but that honestly was not the case for me at all. With zero background or knowledge of business/entrepreneurship, I’ve built my brand truly from the ground up. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with candles. Like, oddly obsessed – I’m talking hoarding them around my house, constantly burning one in every single room, spending an unlimited amount of money on them. Frustrated by the lack of aesthetically pleasing uniquely scented candles, I decided to curate my own in my small apartment kitchen. Not realizing the positive impact during a difficult season of life, the passion evolved, and I began curating candles in my spare time after my 9-5. Fast forward a few months, I decided to take a leap of faith and turn it into something more… From then, NAI has evolved naturally out of desire to create a brand that emphasizes the importance of self-care in connection with self-love – to encourage inner peace, balance, and happiness within yourself and throughout your home.

A true story of passion and discovery, NAI blends all my favorite things into one: home fragrance, décor, and my love for designing. As a one-woman show – from hand curating every product, labeling, creating content for socials + marketing, emails, packaging orders, every minute of hard work is worth the feeling of knowing a little piece of me is in someone else’s sacred space of home.

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

These days, social media plays a big part in building your audience and promoting your brand. Like everyone, I started with 0 followers, no one knew about my brand and the only people who followed me for the first couple months were my close family and friends. To build my community, I focused on identifying my target audience and creating content that resonated with them. I made sure to establish a consistent brand voice and stayed active in engagement. I also found that in person pop ups really allowed me to connect with my local community and build relationships which lead to trust and often lead to sales. When I was first starting out and doing my own research, I watched YouTube videos, invested & read different courses. It sounds easy, but in reality, it’s one of the most time-consuming parts of having a brand, especially with how influential social media is these days – you have to stay on top of it.
My advice… (it may sound cliché but it’s literally the KEY) …CONSISTENCY!! Don’t worry about the number of likes or comments. Keep creating and sharing and the right audience will organically gravitate to you. Put a lot of thought into your craft, place yourself in your consumer’s shoes and think about what sells you when you’re on social media. For an example, I am a suckerrr for cute packaging, so I put a lot of effort into creating my own custom packaging and highlighting that through our socials. Focus on specific topics to highlight every week, write your goals down – they don’t necessarily always have to be huge goals.
APPS that have been helpful for me: PREVIEW app (plan your social content out), Lightroom, VSCO (photo editing), CapCut (video editing) – these are my top 4!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

The story behind how my business came to fruition makes me a little emotional every time I speak about it because it is solid proof that everything works out exactly how it’s supposed to. Early 2020, before the Covid pandemic I was working full-time as a store admin at Nordstrom. I loved that role so much; it was a perfect fit for me, and I had a solid career plan to climb into the HR world soon after being there for two years. The pandemic hit and we were forced to close and quarantine with the assumption that we could eventually come back. A couple months later, the company completely got rid of the store admin role and I was no longer an employee at Nordstrom. I felt like it was the end of the world, I had no idea how I was going to survive, pay my bills and fend for myself. I was living on my own and had little to no help from anyone, so I was forced to get on unemployment. After searching for a job for another couple months, I was hired for a fully remote role within HR at Nordstrom. This was such a full circle moment!! Five months later, I launched NAI and have been juggling my 9-5 job all while running my business. I consider both my full-time jobs as I’m learning from a successful corporation all while building my own brand and I feel so grateful to have the flexibility and ability to balance both.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.naithebrand.com
• Instagram: @nai_thebrand
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naithebrand/

Image Credits
Hailey Atkins Photography – IG @haileyaitkinsphoto Caro Bell Photography – IG @by__caro_