We were lucky to catch up with Nikki McKnight recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nikki, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

I want my legacy to be known by the lives I’ve touched. I love really hard on the people around me. I encourage them to speak positivity into their lives, focus on their goals and just spread genuine love to themselves and others. We need more love and positivity in this world. That’s what I aim to keep around me. Once I conquered self love and speaking light into my life, my whole world changed for the better. It’s not the easiest path, because life happens. But I’m at a place now where I can notice when my energy is off and I need to reboot and regain control of the positive. It really does work and I feel like everyone should know this. Once you realize this, everything else will slowly start to fall in place, not only the way you want but the way it needs it to.

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?

The way I got into my industry was something like an accident. FIEcrū started out as an independent record label. My cousin Ty and I were working with this phenomenal artist by the name of Mack Strong, God Bless his soul. He just passed away on New Year’s Eve. His music is what kicked in the doors for the brand. We were starting to get more shows for him to perform at and Ty suggested we get some sweatshirts with the brand logo on them so we could represent our brand while we were out. People loved the logo and what the name FIEcrū stood for (Family Is Everything crew.) They started asking where they could get the shirts from and it just went from there. We saw it as a way to bring money in to help promote the brand and then it just kept growing. Soon after that we were getting hats, joggers, shorts, jackets and different types of accessories with the logo on it. We were honestly only looking to do hoodies and t-shirts, but people kept asking when we were gonna have this, that and the other. If they demanded, we did our best to supply it.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I sell on my website now, but it didn’t start out that way. The online store came about from a few problems I’ve had with outsourcing others to press up the material we needed. It was too much of a hassle dealing with a third party and a customer at the same time if something went wrong. After a few mishaps, I decided to buy my own equipment and get on YouTube to learn how to do it myself. The cons are just that, having to do everything yourself. But the pros outweigh those by a long shot because I can keep my customers happy when dealing with them one one. I don’t have to wait around until a third party has time to take care of any issues that may come up. They can call or email me and I can handle it right on the spot for them. They trust me and know I’m going to make it right. My customer service is the best. I have no shame in bragging on that lol. And also, the website is a big help with keeping up with finances and inventory. Trying to write all that stuff down and do all that math myself was stressful. I’m pretty good with math, but remembering how much and what size products were left was a wild experience. Taking orders through all my social media platforms and through text messages or phone calls was not the move.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I have an email list that customers and potential customers can opt in to join on the website. So whether they’ve bought something or not, if they join they’ll get emails with first dibs on products and promo codes that I don’t post on social media all the time. I want my customers to know I appreciate their loyalty and I want to gain the trust of potential customers by offering them something for signing up because they didn’t have to.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fiecru.shop
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/fiecru
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/fiecru
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/fiecru
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@fiecru

Image Credits
Muva Media Group Delontaye Taylor RAM