Heart and Hustle by Patricia Bright

Author:Patricia Bright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

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How I made money by adding value

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You might be asking: But can I really do this, Patricia? Yes, you definitely can – because I have. If I can, you can too. YouTube is my focus these days, but I am all about exploring other options to keep things interesting: these five steps are all actions that I have taken – and, in fact, continue to take – in my everyday life. These days, as well as dealing with my social channels, I also work really hard on my company Y-HAIR, which sells beautiful hair extensions. And it all came about because I spotted a niche in the market – prompted by my own needs.

It was around 2010 when my friend and I were googling Beyoncé’s hair – she seemed to be wearing a really great, natural-looking hairpiece, and we wondered what it was. After searching online we discovered it was what’s called a lace-front wig. The beauty of this type of hairpiece is that they give you a really natural-looking hairline, but they were hard to get hold of. I got stuck into finding a manufacturer, to source these products for myself. This process was very hit-and-miss, and I was scammed a number of times, but eventually I was able to find a supplier who again and again provided excellent extensions. Over time we developed a working relationship and I knew I could trust him to supply quality products. So, when people started to ask me about my hairpieces and extensions, I thought: I’ve a supplier I trust, I’m already importing hair for my own needs as good-quality hair is hard to come by – so why don’t I just scale this up? And so Y-HAIR was born!

I didn’t brand the hair company after myself, as I wanted to focus on the customer, not me. So it’s Y-HAIR – associated with ‘yeah hair’ and ‘why (y) not’? (People get caught up in naming their business, but it really doesn’t matter as much as your product and service. A name is easy to change.) With Y-HAIR, we deliver a high-quality product, supported by a rapid delivery service and an easy returns process. That’s how we add value to the stock we import.

Back at the start, I invested £8,000 to buy the stock and get it to the UK. So I used the majority of my savings at the time. I had to get over the fear of losing that money to start something – and that was far from the only outlay. I had to pay for shoots to display the products, I had to buy my packaging, I had to pay my logistics company, which would handle distribution. I’d realised I didn’t have time to handle orders, so, after visiting trade shows to find suitable partners, I found a company with the warehouse staff to do so. It took six to seven months to get my initial investment back.

Once you’re up and running, the challenges are different.

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