We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Quaniece Fish. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Quaniece below.
Hi Quaniece, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
It takes many skills to be a successful full time creative. Success is something that looks different for each individual. But throughout my entrepreneur career there are a 5 skills that helped me the most. The first one is being resourceful, do what you can with what you have. I meet so many people that focus so much on not having the best equipment, software, team, etc. I always say that done is better than perfect and that’s taken me very far. Focusing on the things you don’t have can leave you stagnant for a long time. The second skill that has helped me leverage my career, is staying consistent. Regardless of what personal things are happening in my life, I figure out how to stay consistent with posting on social media, communicating with my clients and chatting with my team. Consistency is so important when it comes to social media marketing, it’s easier to get referrals when your audience/followers are always seeing your posts. The third skill is learning how to pivot quickly, if your original plan does not work or just doesn’t make sense anymore, go back to the drawing board. I have never been afraid to fail because I will just keep adjusting to the circumstances. The 4th skill that has changed my life is networking! I am not talking about only messaging people on social media, while that does help, I am referring to showing up in your local community. Show up and show your face at local events in your community, offer your support to community members and build genuine connections. The last skill that has helped me continue to be a full time entrepreneur is reading. I read articles, blogs, books and pretty much anything that can help me be a better business owner. You have to enjoy learning to be in this business world.
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
My name is Quaniece Fish and I am a 24 year old serial entrepreneur from Chapel Hill, NC. I first got into the business world in college. I was laying in my dorm room thinking about how much I hated my physical therapy internship and how I would much rather spend my life doing things that bring me joy. A few weeks later I finally came up with my first business idea which was selling activewear online. At the time I was a group fitness instructor and I was extremely athletic throughout college so this made sense. I quickly gathered up as many resources as I could to get this online store off the ground. After recruting many brand models and influencers from campus, I started to have a lot of success with me newly founded online store. Throughout my experience of marketing for my own company, friends and family started to approach me asking me to help them with their online store and I did! Due to lack of funding I quickly learned how to build, develop, and design websites in addition to increasing overall conversion rates. From there I went to YouTube university and learned how to leverage seo and run social media ads. After leaving college I was able to pursue my activewear company full time because my social media ads were converting so well. This all eventually lead to me starting my second company which is a creative agency that helps brands tell their unique story, turn their followers into clients and build a loyal online community. This consists of social media marketing, content development and influencer marketing. I am so proud of this company because not only do I get to help business owners but I also get to connect and collaborate with local freelance creatives on many of my projects. Something that separates my company from similar agencies is the fact that it’s black owned, women ran, and all of the creative freelancers we work with are black & brown. It is also our goal to continue advocating for freelance creatives and make sure they have the necessary resources to sustain their freelance career full-time. I have several programs and initiatives that help support this goal. More recently I started curating unique social events for creatives and entrepreneurs to mix and mingle over food, drinks and education. Attendees leave my events with real life connections and resources that can be utilized to help them achieve their goals. I am very proud of my company QMF AGENCY because my team and I have helped many business owners, creatives and influencers make money while also introducing them to this extensive network that we have built just for them!
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
Something that people often do not understand about my journey is that I did not come from a business background or entrepreneur parents. Because of the success I have had over the last 3 years, people often assume that I have a business degree or that I was groomed into this lifestyle. So, I wanted to share some insight on my upbringing and what lead me here. I grew up in a single parent house hold with just my mother. She is a college graduate and spent a lot of my teenage years working very hard to help me pay for college. My mother is the hardest working person I know. Overall my family has always advocated for the traditional route of things when it comes to having a career. Go to college, get a degree, get a high paying job and work until it’s time to retire. This has never been my mindset and because of that I received a lot of adversity from family members when I decided to pursue my entrepreneur endeavors full time rather than take a full time cooperate job at Amazon. The lack of emotional support bothered me for awhile until I learned how to channel that hurt into becoming obsessed with making my vision a reality. The book that helped me elevate my mindset was “The 10 Pillars Of Wealth” by Alex Becker. This book gave me a new perspective on life and I’ve been following the pillars ever since I read them. Now that I have been a full time entrepreneur for 3 years my family has come around to being more supportive of my endeavors. I said all of this to say that you can do it without them. Your friends, family and the people closest to you may or may not support your new business idea. My advice to anyone out there aspiring to start a new business is to learn how to be self motivating. Learn how to take negative feedback and still pursue your goals. Some people might not see your vision at first or ever but do not let that stop you from being great. If you really want to do something and you know it will be positive for you and the community, do not listen to the critics. There is an old saying that I love to keep in the back of mind, “It’s easy to critic, but hard to create.”
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
A huge resource to creatives and entrepreneurs is getting a membership at a co-working space. If I could have known that it was the cheat code earlier that would of been awesome. But I do believe in divine timing so I am happy I found out when I did. Co-working spaces have all the resources and tools you need to leverage your business. They usually provide access to educational workshops, networking events, pitch competitions and more. They are the perfect hub to do your work, have clients meetings and build important relationships with other local business owners. In addition if you are a member, you can use their venue to curate your own events. So if you are reading this, search for a co-working space in your local community now.
Contact Info:
- Website: qmfagency.com
- Instagram: qmfagency
- Facebook: Qmfagency
- Youtube: QMF Model TV
Image Credits
Marika Photography Lightshattering Stilofreelanced