We were lucky to catch up with Zakia Jones recently and have shared our conversation below.

Zakia , appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My sunglasses business started by my love for wearing them. One day I just thought why not share this with other woman, that love fashionable and affordable eyewear as well. I did not first vendor event and the ladies love what I had to offer. Every pair picked with love and passion, now we have my esthetician business. My baby Honey Beez Esthetics where I specialize in teen skin. Where I focus on acne facials. Hold Teen confidence facial classes. Where I focus on educating teens on health skin regimen, proper cleansing, nutrition and skin, picking products, and benefits of monthly facials. This class was necessary as I did research to see if anyone was offering teens away to understand why they have acne how they can help their skin doing acne breakouts. So that they are better able to understand what is needed even in the future to maintain healthy skin. I have seen a boost in confidence from clients their parents have noticed a boost and confidence and self-esteem. So I feel like I have offered something that was needed in the community especially for teens.

Zakia , 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?

I’m originally from Baltimore Maryland where I was a licensed cosmetologist as well as in Virginia. When I was in cosmetology school the best part about the classes were when, we got to the facials and skin care and understanding about the skin. So I decided to move forward and that direction of expertise as I was a teen who suffered from severe acne. Being the team with low self-esteem no little confidence, teased about my skin condition. Parents not able to afford facials or dermatologist I just suffered. So it is my passion to make sure that no team feels as though they have to live with acne or there is no way of treating it and that they can’t have confidence in themselves. Honey beez aesthetics is dedicated to helping parents to understand how they can help their children with team acne and showing teens how they can help themselves feel better in these vulnerable teenage years. Any information I’m giving them when I’m providing for them is something they can take into their adult lie to know how to love their skin.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started selling sunglasses in Baltimore Maryland loved it made a little bit money off of it. I slow down stop selling. I was super worried about I wasn’t getting support from my family and my friends. as I had hoped. Thought everybody was going to be like so supportive and then I had to learn that my biggest supporters were people I didn’t even know. That was a big turning point for me and my confidence in my side hustle boosted through the roof of all this wonderful support from women that I had no idea who they were. Started selling on Poshmark and did pretty well on Poshmark. My friends were doing vendor events and we’re like you should come out and sell your sunglasses. So I gathered the rest of the inventory that I had bought with me from Baltimore and some new things that I had just purchased wholesale and I went to the vendor event not expecting to really do very much. At that event I did about $100 in sales first time, I said well let’s get some new things and see what happens. So I got to Shopify website and said let’s see how this works Shopify website doing wonderful. I was like sunglasses my little passion for sunglasses and making sure that they’re affordable has now turned into this whole other business, that I was just like this is the way to. Make a little bit of extra money. Now I’m scheduled to do events in Atlanta Georgia this summer Virginia and around the Florida area for my sunglass business and has been a joy to watch it grow.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I had to learn was stop putting expectations, on my family and friends to be my customers. Some of the biggest supporters that I had in the beginning of my business, were people that I didn’t know. My business did better when I came to this understanding, because I was no longer trying to please still I found my niche and now I was able to offer them what they were looking for and wanted. After sometime past I start to notice that I was getting more support from those family and friends that I will originally looking for and I wasn’t looking for it any longer it was just what they wanted they like what they saw. I believe patience is the key is an entrepreneur because it’s not going to happen overnight. This is not a quick turnaround for success you have to love what you’re doing and you have to be patient with what you’re doing and what is for you will come to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shadesbyzakia.com
• Instagram: Zakia.the.esthetician
• Facebook: Shades By Zakia