We were lucky to catch up with Renea Grant recently and have shared our conversation below.
Renea, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
My mother and I actually the owners of Hey Girl Hey Natural Body Care. I think family businesses are a great way to create a legacy or something to be passed down & a great opportunity to build generational wealth. So when we first decided to actually turn our creations into an actual business, that was really goal & will always be until it has been accomplished. My mom wanted to be able to build something with me & for me to have of my own way of generating money. We both were kind of tired of the cooperate work life & struggling to make ends meet even though you’re putting in overtime. It was just so ridiculous and extremely unfulfilling. The funny part is that we’re actually putting in a lot more work, energy & time into the business but it’s with purpose and I’m working on my own time so it’s definitely feel different and very rewarding.
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?
My name is Renea Grant & I am the Founder and Creator here at Hey Girl Hey Natural Body & Wellness Care. Getting into the skincare industry really just fell right into my lap. My mom Leotta was actually the one who started the whole thing. We moved from Guyana to the United States in 2009 & of course it was a tough transition. The one thing that was hard was the way my skin reacted to the climate over here. I had amazing skin prior to moving here. In a matter of a few months my skin got extremely dry, itchy & flaked a lot. It was weird for me and I remember my mom and I being so concerned. We tried regular lotion like Aveeno, I probably tried it all to be honest with you. I even went to a doctor about it & they were no help. My mom one day decided to buy raw shea butter & cocoa butter. I remember her making this concoction in the kitchen for me with all these amazing ingredients. Whatever she made that night worked ! Years later she moved to MD from NY & started making body butters on her own and selling them at work. People were very impressed. She would send a few to me and I sold those at my job. She was so convinced I had to move to MD & start this business with her but my mindset back then was very different & I just didn’t want to do it. In December 2019, my living situation became complicated & it forced me to move to MD with my mom. I quite my job, used up all my savings to make the move & had no clue what my next step was. My mom on the other hand knew exactly what the next step was, she was very convincing of me joining her. At that time COVID had hit, I wasn’t finding any job, everywhere was shut down, I felt completely defeated & I had a lot of time on my hands. I eventually decided to join her vision & dedicated all my time to learning the craft. There was tons of research, doubts if I can even do this & trial and error but it was ultimately well worth it. I would be forever grateful to her for having that faith that we can do this. We create handmade all natural skincare, bath & wellness products that’s truly meant to heal the body. Most, if not all of our products are herbal infused. We try our best to cater to a few set of people; the person who loves take the time to indulge in some self care using our product to smell good & feel good, the person who looking for help controlling a skin conditions like eczema or even acne & the person looking into better alternatives for their skin rather than your harsh chemically filled beauty product.Our products work & they make you feel good. I think that’s what sets us apart from others. We are also love taking the time to explain the benefits of the herbs & ingredients we decide to use. People are tapping a lot more into making better choices about the things they put inside and on their body so this is truly an amazing time for our business.
We’re immigrants & we really came here for a better life & opportunities. I am extremely proud that we were able to start this business from literally nothing. Every step in making this business what it is today was a learning experience, whether it went good or bad I always took something away from it & with that we can never fail.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I like to think our followers on social media is very organic. We do a lot of pop up shops around the DMV area & so a lot of our following came from those face to face interactions with customers. They hear us talk about the benefits of our products and get a chance to truly engage with them so a lot of people love what they hear and want to hear more and since social media is this community where informations is always being circulated, the first thing a customer would ask for is our instagram and that’s where you can get more info on our business, products, events, sales and so much more. Using the right hashtags to target your specific audience is a great way to get other people from around the world to tap into your business through social media. Posting daily to keep that following you currently have engaged as much as possible is another good way. People are constantly searching for the next new exciting thing, so it important to make sure you’re posting constantly and kind of staying in the limelight to be apart of the crowd is a ideal way to stay relevant and on top of hype. We’ve tried paying for ads but it hasn’t really worked out for us. There’s very specific way to set up your ad to reach the right people but I haven’t figured that out yet but also paying someone to get this done is an option.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
We actually have our own website right now but it did not start off that way for us. When we initially started, Etsy was the platform I decided to go with. I was constantly coming across Etsy during the researching phase so it was a no brainer that that’s where we wanted to start. It was said to be this great market place for handmade & crafting individuals. I really wanted us to have our own domain and website but at the time as much as I am tech savvy, getting into that was just not on the top of my to do list. A pro for Etsy is that it has a pretty good user friendly process for sellers so it was easy to learn. It was good for a while but then Etsy raised their fees which is a con for selling on most third party platforms but that was enough for me to start the process of building my own site. It just didn’t make sense to me anymore when I can pay roughly about the same price but with my own website, with the business name & everything to look professional & legit. So I set a goal for myself to build my own site. I dedicated three hours a day, 4 times a week for 21 days to get it done. I chose Shopify to start that learning process, mostly because it was VERY user friendly. 21 days was after my free trial ended & would have to pay monthly to use their platform. I needed sales in order to pay that fee so my site had to be up and running within that time period. And I did ! I Build it, got my domain & currently selling on Shopify’s platform. I can’t think of any con other than finding that time to build it yourself but this is also something you can also pay someone for if you have the means to do so.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://heygirlheybodycare.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heygirlhey_bodycare/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heygirlheybodycare/