So ChickSwagg.....

Friday, February 11, 2011

CHICKSWAGG so Polished ... Innovating, Creativity, Entrepreneur








ChickSwagg- The ability to be flawless, fly, accurate all while carrying a one year old with a bottle and an Ipad in your free hand and giving instructions over your blue tooth. Confidence with a savvy appeal, the ability to excel in a world of naysayers. Strapped with a leather bag full of proposals, standing all day in stiletto’s, steel toes,  or pink fly ass air force ones with bad ass chick air brushed on the side.  ChickSwagg is a feel, a lifestyle, a plan to be great. ChickSwagg is your go to for support and resources helping you get to where you need to be and chick, thats at  the top!  ChickSwagg is every woman young and seasoned, from socialite  to single mom rallying for free breakfast for elementary students. ChickSwagg is you! Are you a member yet? 



Poochie is an innovator in the nail game. She is one of the most popular nail technicians  in Atlanta and beyond. She shows her creativity on the lucky client that sits in her chair and teaches other nail technicians her craft. She is a hard working business owner of Poochiez Pawz Nail Studio. Poochie is always willing to learn the latest technique but what she doesn’t know is that we all are waiting to see what she will do next because she is the trendsetter. 

Poochiez Pawz Nail Studio is located at 
2905 Campbellton Rd SW 
Atlanta, GA 30311 
(You can call and make an appt. (404) 344-3358) 


Who are you?
Well number one I am a leader, I’m loyal -I take my friendship to heart, I talk to everybody, I am helpful I really try to help other nail technicians, I am very creative, I’m a loner - I like to be by myself that surprises people because of my field of work, I am an artsy person, eccentric, bossy - but I know what I’m talking about.

What are your hobbies?
I like to do graphics, roller skate, drinking Starbucks, shopping, eating, I love electronics and gadgets.


How did you become a nail technician?
I started at 14 my Godmother was a nail technician and she did my nails for me for the first time and I was hooked. My father saw how excited I was and how motivated I was to learn. He had my Godmother teach me everything and that’s how I started! I would work hard and I wanted to learn everything. So it’s been 22 years. 

Why did you choose to be an entrepreneur in the nail technician field?
I knew as a kid I was going to work for myself, because I saw what people went through I try to learn from people mistakes. I saw people around me struggle and I didn’t want that. Also I’m scary I want to always be prepared. Even as a young kid  I would sell things. I’m a hustler.

You have a huge fan base and internet presence why do you think people are drawn to you?
Because I’m real and I am a genuine person. 90% of what I know I will tell it. I take time out and let you know and I try to answer everybody. I believe the more you give the more you receive. Also your personality takes you far.

 I noticed you went to school for graphic arts.
 It’s funny how that happened I moved from Savannah to Atlanta and I needed flyers I saw all these graphics on peoples flyers. I didn’t have any money so I decided to go to school and learn! I would read all the books I could and went for myself, I even did my website. If I have my mind on something I want to learn about it and I will figure out how to do it.

What is your swagg? Meaning what makes you stand apart from the rest?
I call myself a nerd with swagg on the low. I have a coolness about me, and I’m bossy. I know what I want.

How long has Poochiez Paws Nail Studio been open?
This is our 6th year. I did everything on my own no loans or anything believe me I was shaking like a leaf. But I did it.

What can you tell a woman who’s goal is to start a business?
You have to be into your business one hundred percent you have to be passionate and patient and it takes time. I have to do everything in my business, know your business! Know everything.

What is a quote that inspires you?
All money is good but it’s the people hands that comes from that it ain’t.
Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.
It’s not the tool its the fool.
Don’t watch me watch my hands (really good for you nail techs!)

Who are your business inspirations?
Oprah- you know she is an Aquarius just like me. She is so fly!
Donald Trump - he is a business man he doesn’t play any games and very serious.
Nicki Manaj- she is smart creative and different.
Michelle Obama- I think she is the brains behind them, she means business and handles it very lady like.

What did you wish people knew about you in the business sense?



I want them to know that I don’t see what the average person sees that’s what keeps me ahead. I am a visionary.



Do you feel its important to create a business that can employ other people?



It’s very important to employ people and it feels good. But I also have to trust you, know that you respect my business and I can leave you in my business. That really keeps the business going that they are reliable and dependable and trust worthy. I am very lucky that I have my coworkers that are supportive and while I was in school they made sure things ran smoothly I never received a phone call.
Do you have a good support base?
Yes I am so lucky I have the best friends they encourage me in everything that I do. We really encourage each other.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?
I’m not at my highlight and I am not at my peak. I will never get comfortable. It will feel good when I am able to  travel and not worry. But I am proud that I went to school recently to get my instructor’s license. 

What are your goals for the next 5 years?
Well my goal is to get my instructor’s license from the Georgia State Board and to open my own nail private school. I want to make sure the nail technicians in my school are serious and they will get the best education because they are driven. I also want a bigger salon but I want to be able to always watch my business. I always have to make sure that it is running right.





Ginger + Liz is created by model/author S. Liz Pickett and entrepreneur H.Ginger Johnson. 

Ginger is from Syracuse, NY as a young child she was in love with fashion which was sparked by her grandmother. She read Vogue and Elle magazines when she was young. Ginger’s father is Panamanian and she was fortunate enough to travel to Panama to visit family and appreciate the differences in the culture and fashion.

Liz is from New Jersey and graduated from the famed Wesleyan College.
While attending college in Connecticut she would travel back and forth to New York for modeling and acting assignments.They met each other while Ginger was a senior at Spelman College and Liz was still actively modeling. Ginger and Liz bonded over their love for fashion, beauty and both are admitted product junkies. 

Out of college Ginger created a lip lacquer and Liz was the model for her line.  In 2009 Ginger and Liz wanted to start something new and fun they both have a love for nail polish and Ginger+Liz was born.Ginger+Liz is a non-toxic and vegan nail polish line with fun names like Put a Ring on it, Swagger (my personal favorite!), Boy Toy and many more. The colors are vibrant and one of a kind. According to their website,“Ginger + Liz provide small ticket luxury cosmetic products to the increasingly discerning beauty buffs that are predominately influenced by fashion, arts, travel, and entertainment. The G+L patron spans the trends and ages. She represents the Classic and Casual Chic, the Rock Glam and Bohemian, the Girly and the Pretty Prepster”.







Ginger+Liz has been featured in Essence, Bop, Marie Claire amongst others. The upscale line has been used by famed manicurist Kimmie Keys and Lisa Logan. Rachel Zoe, Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige have been seen wearing Ginger+Liz along with many other fashionistas.
Ginger+Liz retails for $12.00 each.   

 Look on http://www.gingerandliz.com/ for retail locations.





CHICKSWAGG Books to Read:

Every woman with ChickSwagg needs to research and learn how to be a better business woman and grow. Remember to research your particular field but always read a business book that will give you new ideas. We would be interested in knowing what books you have read! We will add to this list every month. (All books available at http://www.amazon.com)















Lessons of a Lipstick Queen: Finding and Developing the Great Idea that Can 







Change Your Life is a book by Poppy King

































 Purple Cow:Transform Your 









Business by Being Remarkable is a book by Seth Godin




























 Sister Ceo: The Black Woman's Guide to Starting Your Own Business  





                                          by Cheryl D. Broussard

















ChickSwagg will continue to grow where women can cheer each other on and be supportive. I want our young girls to see women who are wanting to own a fortune 500 company or to see her mom accomplish a goal that she has worked hard towards. We all have ChickSwagg it's a matter of letting her come out and succeed.

Eyreka
Major ChickSwagg!


To be a ChickSwagg member please log on at:

To be a Facebook member please log on at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ChickSwagg/169309666448020




draft

Monday, January 3, 2011

GOT THAT ChickSwagg?

Got that ChickSwagg- The ability to be flawless, fly, accurate all while carrying a one year old with a bottle and an Ipad in your free hand and giving instructions over your blue tooth. Confidence with a savvy appeal, the ability to excel in a world of naysayers. Strapped with a leather bag full of proposals, standing all day in stiletto’s, steel toes,  or pink fly ass air force ones with bad ass chick air brushed on the side.  ChickSwagg is a feel, a lifestyle, a plan to be great. ChickSwagg is your go to for support and resources helping you get to where you need to be and chick, thats at  the top!  ChickSwagg is every woman young and seasoned, from socialite  to single mom rallying for free breakfast for elementary students. ChickSwagg is you! Are you a member yet?
ChickSwagg will interview women in business, provide inspiration,business tools and advice to readers that will help take your business to another level. One of ChickSwagg's goals is to pay homage to women in the past that were trailblazers in the business world. 
ChickSwagg will have monthly events based in the bay area reaching out to other communities pushing women business owners to support each other, exchange ideas and create lucrative business opportunities that mainly focus on pushing creative economics.
This Chick has major Natural Business Swagg..........Cleo Cartel

Cleo Cartel is the C.E.O of Yummi Goodz an all organic skin and hair line catering towards women and men. Cleo has been a celebrated veteran stylist. Cleo realized that there was a need for an all natural hair and skin product line. Yummi Goodz was formed in 1999.  After many concoctions and recipes were used on family, friends and clients, The formula for success was perfected. In 2010 "The House of Holistic Healing" The Chocolate Butterfly "Spa Concierge" was created to offer VIP spa services that renewed the spirit, restored health and intensify awareness of self while maintaining a beautiful you cocobuttafly.com.Yummi Goodz is available online at yummigoodz.com.

Who are you?
I am a passionate, determined, focused, tenacious, comical, faith driven, spirit filled, dynamic, bad ass poet-singer, chemist, and style whore.
What are your hobbies?
Making jewelry, designing gowns, cooking, bitching, creating, helping, eating, laughing, sex, raising my dogs-badly sometimes, definitely listening to music, writing, fishing, being at the ocean, kicking it with my air tight crew and yelling at Da-Budda (her miniature pinscher).

Why did you choose to be an entrepreneur?
It chose me, anything else that I would have chosen for a profession would have probably killed me by now.
What are your inspirations? Also who is your business inspiration?
My business inspiration are the black men and women who owned businesses in the 40’s-50’s and sixties. My father is my inspiration.
What advice can you give a woman that is wanting to start a business?
Research her business, research, research, research.
What is the major obstacle you have come across being a business owner?
Not being taken seriously because of my womanhood, skin color and my honest spirit.
Being a business owner has it’s advantages and disadvantages can you tell me about that for you?
I only see advantages no disadvantages. The advantages being able to create your own reality.
Why did you choose natural skin and hair care?
Because I love making people feel beautiful and feel that everybody should have the chance to be at there best naturally so I designed a system to accomplish that.
What is your business motto?
No pain no gain.
What are your goals for the next 5 years?
Well for my life to be healthy, spirit filled, to be an inspriation for others and for Yummi Goodz to be a houshold name.

What is your swagg? Meaning what makes you stand apart from the rest?
My attitude.. my attitude is fresh to death.

Major ChickSwagg from the past: Madame C.J. Walker

Sarah Breedlove was born on Dec 23, 1867 in Delta, Louisiana. Born to former slaves that were now sharecroppers, Sarah learned to carry water to field hands, and dropped cotton seeds into plowed furrows.  Sarah became orphaned at the age of 7, at the age of 14 she married and gave birth to a daughter, Lelia in 1885. Her husband died two years after getting married, she traveled to St.Louis to establish herself as a laundrywoman. For the next 17 years, Sarah supported herself and her daughter as a laundrywoman. While attending and being active in her church, St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) she encountered prosperous, well-educated African Americans, and as a result, she began to consider how to improve her appearance. Only in her thirties, she found her hair was falling out. She experimented with hair products already on the market, but nothing helped. Finally, as she told a reporter, God "answered my prayer, for one night I had a dream, and in that dream a big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out. I tried it on my friends; it helped them. I made up my mind I would begin to sell it."

Sarah moved to Denver because her brother’s widow and four children lived there and she could set up her own business.Arriving in Denver in 1905 with $1.50 savings, she rented an attic room, joined the local AME church, and found a job as a cook. She saved her money and before long she was able to quit that job and, taking in laundry two days a week to pay her rent, spend the rest of her time mixing her products and selling them door to door. Wonderful Hair Grower, Glossine, and Vegetable Shampoo. She changed her name to Madame C.J. Walker after becoming newly married to C.J. Walker because she thought the name gave her products more appeal.




She later divorced Walker, putting the 21-year-old Lelia (her daughter) in charge of the mail-order branch of the business while she traveled around the country promoting the products. Business grew and in 1908, Walker and Lelia settled in Pittsburgh where they established Lelia College, a training facility for the Walker System of Hair Culture.

Eventually, her products formed the basis of a national corporation employing at one point over 3,000 people. Her Walker System, which included an offering of cosmetics, licensed Walker Agents, and Walker Schools offered employment and personal growth to thousands of Black women. Madame Walker’s aggressive marketing strategy combined with ambition led her to be labeled as the first known African-American woman to become a self-made millionaire.



 This ChickSwagg businesswoman died at the age of 52. Her prescription for success was perseverance, hard work, faith in herself and in God, "honest business dealings" and of course, quality products. 


ChickSwagg Books to Read:

Every woman with ChickSwagg needs to research and learn how to be a better business woman and grow. Remember to research your particular field but always read a business book that will give you new ideas. We would be interested in knowing what books you have read! We will add to this list every month.

Mommy Millionaire: How I Turned My Kitchen Table Idea into a Million Dollars and How You! Can, Too
Author Kim Lavine

The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to do about it
Author Michael E. Gerber

Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success
Author Russel Simmons



ChickSwagg will continue to grow where women can cheer each other on and be supportive. I want our young girls to see women who are wanting to own a fortune 500 company or to see her mom accomplish a goal that she has worked hard towards. We all have ChickSwagg it's a matter of letting her come out and succeed.


Eyreka
Major ChickSwagg!

To be a ChickSwagg member please log on at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001867022745