We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharai Oliver-Blanks. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharai below.

Alright, Sharai thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

Knowing what I know today there are a few things I would surely change. First would to be more confident in myself. We all go through points of doubt but to know you got this and to keep showing is everything. Next would be for me is to buy to sell. One mistake I did wrong from the being was to listen to others before me and the goal was to buy, buy and buy. For me this left me with inventory just sitting around not being sold. To give my self the advice to start off slow, make sure the things you have people are interested in buying. Then build from there because I did it the opposite way. Another is sometimes it’s not always about having a team. For me I didn’t want to force people to join me if they truly didn’t want to. It’s better to have a team of like minded people because then you don’t go lacking and will succeed as a whole. Lastly would be not to expect to be where others are in their business. A lot of times I would say I wish I sold like you, I wish I had the cliental like you. Only thing it did for me was give me the mindset that I was failing because these things weren’t happening for me as I wanted them to. Just be good and genuine at what you do and your customers will be happy to come back in supporting you.

Sharai , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a mother of 3, 2 girls and a boy. I am also a wife to a very loving husband. My business name is Chic Treasures and I have been doing this for about three years. Before this adventure, I spent 17 years working at the hospital, giving care to many, many patients. That was something that I was very passionate about and I gave my time to it and I loved it. I initially got into selling jewelry because it was something that I put a lot of money into personally. I liked the products and ultimately thought that other people would like the items too. I started in the mist of the Covid era and everybody was sitting at home. So I said this would give me something to do. At that point I had been a stay at home mom for about a year, and for somebody that has worked from the age of 14 staying home was a bit of a hard thing for me to do. So, with starting this business, it gave me something to do to pass the time. So now I sell five dollar jewelry. I have necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings and sets and then I have a signature collection that is composed of my ZI collection items. I give my customers the option to see these pieces in ways others don’t. Some people see in their vision for the sets differently. So I assist my customers with different ways to make this piece look different and to match their individual style. I pride myself in having the ability to be able to do that. I am most proud of still doing this since 2021. There was many days where I wanted to give up and call it quits and I’m glad that I have stuck with it this long and have continued to have the support of my customers and new customers..

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I can say one of the hardest times that I had to re-direct my business was when it came down to my family buying a house. This was a hard time, especially when it came to my business because if anybody knows buying a house is a hard thing to do. And with that I had to back up from my business a bit to be able to focus on what I needed to do when it came down to having the funds and Being able to still operate the business and then operate with buying a house. So ultimately for at least about eight months I had to back up and slim down what I did business wise. To me, it hurt me a little bit business wise, but I still was able to function and sell Just at a slower rate than before. Another thing that took some time for me to do is setting up a system to be able to locate items ,store items and be able to get my customer packages out as soon as possible.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The main thing that I had to unlearn was the fact of being taught to buy, buy, buy items without knowing if they were going to sell. Ultimately, this took some money away from my business because I had items that were not selling that could’ve been used on something different. It comes a point where you don’t need to put your bank account or your credit cards in the negative to be able to finance items that will ultimately be sitting around.

Contact Info:

• Website: HTTPS://shop.paparazzipremiere.com/437586/shop
• Instagram: Sharai_blanks
• Facebook: Chic treasures
• Other: Tictok Sharai chic treasures