We were lucky to catch up with Sita Lewis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sita , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

On my journey to President & Founder of Mama Sita’s Miracle Butter Cream, as a Black small business owner, I faced hurdles and pitfalls along the way.

After years as an award-winning TV producer, I found myself at the end of my rope. My marriage of ten years had come to an end, my father suddenly died, I was unemployed and on the brink of losing my home.

Back in 2014, with few job prospects in sight, I accepted a position teaching inner city kids in NYC how to cook. That’s where I encountered kids suffering with eczema and in an effort to help, I shared my natural hand-made remedy and together we whipped up a batch of cream to soothe their skin ailments like no prescribed medication could.

In an instant “Mama Sita’s Miracle Butter Cream” was born!

Sita , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After graduating Georgetown University in Washington DC I began my career as a TV Producer, producing nationally award-winning shows for cable and network television. I’ve produced everything from live talk shows and lifestyle shows to casting for some of the biggest shows in television.

Eventually, I mixed my personal passion for cooking with my TV career and became a culinary producer, working with the likes of Celebrity Chef and Home Expert Martha Stewart and a host of others. Not long after,  I was selected and appeared as a finalist on the Food Network’s popular reality competition series, Food Network Star! Season 11.

In 2014 that experience allowed me to take my culinary passion and expertise into the classroom, educating NYC’s inner-city youth. Healthy cooking was the focus of my culinary lessons. After noticing that many of my students suffered a great deal from eczema and other skin irritations, I decided to teach and share my all-natural body cream recipe with my class. Even though it was not a food recipe, the class embraced the project and created a whole lot of jars of my formula and immediately put it to good use. After a few weeks of use, many of the students who had eczema reported that their symptoms never felt such incredible relief.  Some even reported that their symptoms had disappeared completely. Some noticed increased hair growth and hydrated skin lasting 24 hours and many more incredible results. My students were the ones who encouraged me to turn my passion for skincare into a business.

In 2017 Mama Sita’s Miracle Butter Cream was born.

My signature product is a vegan organic body moisturizer (mama Sita’s Miracle Butter Cream) that’s used from head-to-toe. I also offer body oils, all natural deodorant, hand-made soaps, men’s body and hair care products. foot care products and so much more. What sets my Miracle Butter Cream signature product apart from all other products on the market is how I process my ingredients. I never use heat. I have a proprietary way of producing my products without losing necessary vitamins and nutrients that happens when excessive heat is applied. It’s why my products heal the skin so quickly. I ultimately want my Brand to be known for producing quality products that customers can trust for themselves and their families. And we don’t water anything down. Our products don’t contain water or alcohol. Only high quality organic ingredients. The entire Brand experience from the time a customer opens their package will be one to remember.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

At this point in my life you can call me the pivot QUEEN. I had to pivot my entire career in 2014. Some serious life circumstances came up after the passing of my dad that put me out of work for 2 years. Here I was, a college educated TV producer with no job. When you leave your primary field for that long, you may not be able to get back in. That was my story. No one was hiring. Technology had changed and I was literally on the outside looking in. I was also on the brink of losing my home. That’s when I was offered a position to teach culinary at a NYC after school program. It was here in a basement kitchen environment far less fancy than my usual career digs, where God was setting me up for something greater than I could ever imagine.

Fast forward, my next pivot was in 2020, I was two and a half years into creating this business that was steadily growing. I made the bulk of my sales by participating in local expos and conferences as a vendor. When Covid hit, all of those expos and shows shut down for almost two full years. I literally had to kick my online sales into full speed ahead. I learned digital marketing. I learned the power of social media. And I got busy on my computer. My company was immediately opened up to the not only local markets up and down the East coast but now it was open to the whole world. Business took off! I now have customers as far as Indonesia. I look at every set back as a set up for something greater. I never get bothered when something doesn’t work out the way I had dreamed. What I’ve learned is that God can dream a bigger dream than we can dream for ourselves.

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 a business owner that takes pride in every single detail of my business, I had to learn that I needed to teach others how to run my business the same way I ran it. In the very beginning, I did everything myself. I would never allow part time help or any help for that matter to handle the making of my actual products. Then, I realized I would never be able to grow and scale my business unless I taught others to do what I did so that I can spend time growing the business. This was something that was definitely holding me back. I had to quickly learn after I received 1200 orders in one day after appearing on a podcast. I was overwhelmed with orders. And I hand make every product in small batches. So you can imagine how I had to bring in help and kick everything into overdrive. Now, I have trained professionals that are like duplicates of myself who produce my formula and package and ship my products as if they are ME :-) If I did not train my staff for such a time as now where we process thousands of orders each month, we would be in trouble. I now have an amazing staff.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MiracleButterCream.com
• Instagram: @MiracleButterCream
• Facebook: @MiracleButterCream
• Linkedin: Sita Lewis
• Twitter: SitaLewis
• Youtube: Youtube.com/MamaSitasMiracleButterCream

Image Credits
Sita Lewis