We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Scott Boateng. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Scott below.

Scott , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

The quicker you learn the lesson the faster you can grow your business. As the first entrepreneur in my family, I didn’t have a role model to call on or to help me avoid costly mistakes. I had to take the long route. Which meant there were a lot of trial and errors, but honestly, I think that was driving force to my success. “Bought sense is better than taught sense” as mother would tell me quite often. Luckily, I was a quick learner and there were so many tools online to help you figure out. Before I knew it, I had learned so much about running a business. Of course, I didn’t know it all, but I was pretty proud of myself.

Early on in my journey I had recognized the importance of brand and marketing, and I reaped the benefits of creating a company that had a professional but yet inviting essence. Within my first year in business, I was given opportunities that I could only dream of. I was featured on many news outlets and sales were growing fast. After all these years of repeated failures I finally felt like I had made it. What could go wrong now?

I am a firm believer that if you fail a lesson, you may get by for a short period of time, but you will eventually have to revisit it until you master what you need to learn. And This is where my fairytale story took a sharp turn towards failure but also growth. As my business started to thrive, I was contacted by a childhood friend who presented and idea that we should collaborate on a project. At the time I thought this would be an excellent Idea because she presented herself as such a great businesswoman and from what I could see on social media she seemed very successful and plus I had been knowing her for over 20 years. So, we created a unique product under my company. Now this was only a collaboration on a specific product but before I knew it, she was becoming more and more involved with my business, it was almost like I had gotten an unsolicited business partner. I had always been told “Scott, you are too nice, you are going to get taken advantage of”, but I didn’t think this person I have been knowing since we were children would ever do anything malicious towards me.

During our time together, some of the things that she would tell me would get more and more outrageous, but again since we were such good friends, I never felt the need to fact check anything she told me. I was taking everything she told me to be true, but for some strange reason I would always get this gut feeling that something was wrong. But I never would act on those gut feelings. Sometimes I would actually question her about some of her claims about protentional business deals, but she always had such a quick rebuttal. which mad me believe she was telling the truth and perhaps I was delusional.

After a very successful holiday season she started retrieving money from me for investments into other projects, and without a hesitation I would send her payment because I trusted her. Within a short period of time, I had gone through all of my savings. Even though I trusted her I would still question her about my doubts or inquire about the sales orders she claimed we were going to receive but there was always some clever excuse.

After a while I started to notice things were terribly wrong and strange but this time, I knew I was not delusional. I started to pay attention to everything, even the smallest details. One day I received an email from a guy claiming he was over a huge organization (Which I will not name) and that he had come across my product, and he wanted to order about $20,000 worth of inventory to put in gift bags for an upcoming event. I was beyond excited. I spent so much money trying to prepare for this project but every time I would ask that he would contact me via phone to sort out the details for the order he would never comply. But he was so persistent on getting my company’s account and routing number so he could send a wire transfer. This led me to do some research. I looked this guy up on every outlet known to man and I couldn’t find anything to suggest this was an actual person and not fraud. I even googled his email and absolutely nothing came up. How could someone who claims to be over this huge organization not come up on a basic google search? This is the point where I got another gut feeling but this time I decided to listen. When I told my self-proclaimed business partner that something seemed wrong, and I had decided to not to proceed with this order she told me she would handle it. The very next day I get another email from the guy in charge of this “organization” and he stated he was contacted by my business partner. This is when I discovered that I was being manipulated by my friend. What she failed to realize was that I never gave her his email address. So how could she have contacted him when there was absolutely no evidence that he actually existed online? That was all that I needed to know.

I didn’t mention that I knew it was her and I decided to stick around just a little longer to get more evidence. This time I could see everything so clearly, I no longer was blinded by this “friendship” veil, and everything was clear to me. The signs were there all along. At first, I was so upset at myself for allowing this to happen, but I quickly realized that this was a lesson I needed to learn. If I being honest this is not the first time, I have been taken advantage of because of me being too nice and Nieve. This goes back to the saying that my mother told me “Bought sense is better than taught sense” No one could have taught me this lesson…. It was one I had to pay for myself.

Looking back at it, I don’t regret anything that I went through. This was something I had to go through to make me into the businessman that I am today. Again, I don’t have everything figured out however more confident in myself and I have truly learned how to protect myself and my business assets.

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 started Preva body after my trip to Africa to visit my family. During my time there I noticed how beautiful everyone skin was. So of course, I paid attention to everything they did when it came to skin care and health. About a week into my trip, I noticed that everyone used only natural products. Because they have so many natural resources at their disposal, they use them for their skin regimen. When it came to skin moisturizing my family only used organic shea butter.

When I returned home to the United States, I started Preva Body. I am determined to offer organic skin care products with very few ingredients at an affordable cost. Most skin care companies add a great deal of harmful ingredients to try to cut cost. Here at Preva we promise to never comprise out integrity.

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

As you read in my story above, I have been taken advantage of many times. And after getting the short end of the stick repeatedly I discovered that I needed to make some serious changes. I still consider myself to be a very nice person however I have set some safeguards in place to prevent me from being in the same situation again.

My first rule and one of the most important is to “Always listen to your gut”. Every time I have ever had a bad feeling about something or someone, I have always been correct. You might not see it now, but you will eventually. Its best to be safe than sorry.

My second rule is “Give yourself at least 48 hours to decide on all business decisions.” Rather its someone asking to be business partners, or an investment opportunity arises, always give yourself time to research, plan and decided if this is really a move you want to make. We as entrepreneurs are sometimes rushed into things and we don’t scope everything out which can lead us into some really bad business deals or even losing thousands of dollars. We should also remember never let anyone pressures us into anything we don’t want to do and if you can’t decide the answer should always be “no”

My Third and last rule is “Fact Check Everything and Everyone.” When someone applies for a job, they must be interviewed and if that goes well, almost all companies will perform a background and reference check, and some will even perform a mandatory credit check. Doing your research is so important because it’s so easy for people to pretend to be someone thing not. This rule also helps prevent you from becoming a victim of fraud.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Have you ever listened to Abraham hicks? Well, if you haven’t, I would highly recommend that you look into her books and YouTube videos. I found myself in shambles after so many failures but listening to Abraham hicks, helped me realize that I can create a life of success and wealth, The Mind is a very powerful tool and if you believe that the mistakes you have made were only set in place to help you grow you can move on with your life and manifest success.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Prevabody.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prevabody/