In the words of Colin Powell, there are no secrets to success. It is a result of preparation hard work and learning from failure. Welcome to episode 8, I'm excited to share this episode with you. Happy New Year. Happy 2020. I hope you'll years off to a good start. We're starting off the year with a brand new episode and I'm chatting with Jacqueline. Woo of malucci magazine manucci bride my Gisin is the leading a wedding magazine and online wedding Marketplace catering to Multicultural couples and serving the wedding and event industry. Jackie shares her journey since she launched malucci bride magazine in 2010 challenges. She has faced since the launch of the magazine advice on how creative entrepreneurs can get their work published and some do's and don'ts if you're looking to grow your wedding business by getting more press. Features and seeing your work in print or online. You're going to love this podcast. Take a listen. Hi friends, welcome to my podcast. Let's talk about it. My name is akechi. I can seye party planner event designer business coach author and founder of Kesh events, and I am your host each week. I'm going to bring you conversations about life business events lifestyle weddings and everything in between. Thank For joining me for today's episode. Let's Dive In. This episode is sponsored by anchor. If you haven't heard about anchor it's the easiest way to make a podcast. It is free and an amazing and easy creation tool that allows you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or your computer and could also help you distribute your podcast through Outlets like Spotify Apple podcast and many more. It is everything. You need to make a podcast all in one place download the free anchor app, or Go to Anchor that afem to get started. Hello. Hello Jackie. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Easter. Happy Everything. How are you doing? I'm good. Let's I'm so excited like this year started. I feel like today is a 20th of January because like we hit the first like crazy and hard. So right I am books just with so much excitement. We literally launched so much and there's All these amazing things happening. Like it's only the fourth. I knew many solutions all your launches and then you have my birthday coming up. So, you know, right forget everything. It's your birthday. So I I was saying when I was sharing and we were talking about it and how this whole podcasting even happened right like you were like you crazy girl don't need to hear you're so funny in years. Sweet voice and you need to do a pocket that was like girl Na and you know only took me three months to get you enough. McCall but all this time I've seen you and we would spend time together and all that stuff but it's happening when it should happen. I'm super excited for first and foremost. I know you're so busy. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm so glad this episode is I mean what-what are just discussion is going to be so good. I literally woke up so excited. So we're gonna dive in the first thank you for the push ask me up. Yes on the side I do pr. So if you ever need if you ever need it, you know PR agent. I miss my no, thank you for the push. Thank you for all that. You do. Thank you for your support. This podcast is happening because you you literally push them in encouraged me to do it. So thank you and thank you. Thank you. Thank you and last month. We were in the Bahamas together. Yeah your retreat which was so fun. And life-changing and and all of you. Have you gotten some rest since the retreat I did, you know, I did I finally did I slept for like 3 weeks. So now I'm wide awake and ready to rock and roll. I mean, we're actually going to announce the next location soon, but I guess we'll get to that later. But yeah, it was it was good. It was a you know, the energy is always great. There's always something new that's learned the connection. As were fantastic. So yeah, it was just a wonderful experience. It was I'm admitting I thank you. Thank you, but you know what? I mean? I had to pinch myself a few times because I'm like this this time. I was last year was great this year. You had like it Sheila Johnson and Preston Bailey at the in the same room like in the same room. It was crazy. It was my crazy only like five years no pressure though. And then of course that I could catch you. Designer Gala for press and I'm like, no big deal with my Sheila Johnson that you can be sitting here and I'm like, so Kristen pricing Bailey that loves flock that Lily's flower. God would like or no pressure. He is crazy by the way. Preston will be there and Sheila's not to give him an award and you're like, huh? Right? Am I wait wait, wait, wait wait, so but it was so good. It was good and it was a nice way to wrap up the ear and just watched it and it You see the energy the education the connection like you're you're very good at connecting people if I say and I can speak to this by say. Hey Jackie. I want to connect more with Allah you say hold on. You should talk to this person this person and this person and you do it all the time and not everybody's so willing to help other people grow or and With No Agenda like you're not saying like oh if you do this, Well, thank you. Anyway. All right, so we have a very I have I have a ton of questions for you. So I'm for the sake of everybody was sending I want to make sure I asked everything and just get as much juice out of you and you got so first I wanted to I want to talk about the history of malucci. So can you share a little bit? So first about what does malucci stand for malucci is to African names and wine come? Combined it means beautiful work of God. That is what we created and came up with that name back in really back in 2008 and felt like, you know, it totally represented the audience that we were trying to capture which was basically Multicultural and black women. You said 2008 my goodness and it's 2020. Yeah, you know what? It is 120 have to pinch yourself, right? So 12 years. Yes. Yes, because you know what we started off. Well, I mean to take it back a little bit. We I was a medical technologist which is basically laboratory science just a fancy way to describe laboratory science. So I don't know why they call it Medical Technology, but it's all good. And so it's so expensive. Yeah. It right. It sounds good. It's almost like housekeeping is called Environmental Specialist, like whatever they Jazz it up. I'll take it but that's what I did. That's what I went to school for. So I came out. I was working in the hospital Laboratories. And then I was working at Johnson & Johnson in a research lab testing red blood cells that were are used in the blood bank. Wow. Yeah, and that and that's what I did then I went to a diagnostic company and was testing autoimmune. Products and things like that. So my background was all surrounded around science because my parents felt that I was to be a doctor, you know, if you're a Nigerian you're a doctor lawyer engineer and nursing is okay now, so you're one of those four things and nothing else so they're like, okay. Well Jackie's going to be the doctor. So my field was always in science, but I always loved the business and I loved creativity. You know, I used to draw when I was younger. I I got to step into an art school course, I didn't go because my dad was like nope, but I had that creative background and I creative side and I loved business and I just couldn't go that path because I was going to science back and then my husband he was a network engineer. So he worked on routers and that kind of thing. That was his background. I did not know that picked up both of you. Yeah, you didn't I'm sorry. One bad friend. Okay, so I have to go do with me that means we need to spend more time together. Okay, right. Right, right. You need to come to Jersey? Okay, like maybe in the spring but yeah, so he was a network analyst. So these are our backgrounds. We have nothing to do with the wedding industry. We have nothing to do with business, but we got married shortly after we got married cheeky picked up a camera and said he wanted to you know, he loved photography. He had a Creative side too. And I said, okay. Well, you know, let's get a camera so we bought a camera he booked a wedding. It was his friend's wedding. They paid him five hundred dollars. Oh that was like that was huge for like five hundred dollars cash like side money. Okay, let's go. So from there he shot. His friend's wedding did a fantastic job taught himself how to use the camera has an icon shooter. Like everything was self-taught from his friend's wedding. He booked another wedding from that. He booked another wedding. So now I jumped in to be Second shooter. So he was yes. I was a photographer. Can you believe it? He was shoot and then I was second shoot I would get like the bride getting ready. I would get all the details, you know, the tables I would make basically follow the bride around but and then he would write he would edit the photos and I would do the album's so I would touch base with the bride we would select the pictures going to album. I would lay out the album order it so on and so forth. We were a team. So mind you we had our full-time jobs then we also had a two-year-old at the time when we started and then I was pregnant with my son with my second born at the same time. We're doing all this. So our first year doing weddings. We set our goal would be to shoot 10 wedding and we shot 10 weddings. I mean all of them were our friends except for like two or three But we traveled all over the world. We did a wedding in Nigeria. We went to Italy we went you know, like we traveled and it was great. It was a great gig it was a great side gig but in the process of having all these weddings that we shy we started getting to the point where like why how come there's no magazine at showcases all these weddings because you know how it is in a Nigerian Community every weekend starting from April. There's going to be a wedding or a week keeping every weekend. So like that's what's going to happen every weekend from April until the end of the year. So we're like all these weddings are happening all the time. But the wedding magazines don't showcase any of our weddings and even when we got married we didn't notice that because as black people especially black women were conditioned to see ourselves and other people that's just how we're conditioned like you look at New York Fashion Week you look at the runway. You don't see black models if what you Can say that'll look cute on me, you know, so we never thought about it until we started shooting and we're like there's got to be something maybe we just don't know about it because we're not familiar with the industry. So we started Googling looking it up. We found nothing. Wow, and it was at that point. We said, you know, it was originally malucci Studios. That was our photography company. We said, okay. Well, you know, we're going to start Munna Lucci bridal magazine and that's how we got to the point of registering the Benny it was the May of 2009 when we registered our LLC. So wow, you know, it's been it's been a decade and we registered the company. We started researching how to start a magazine there was all kinds of stuff online about you know, you need like 250,000 Capital you need that and all of those things were actually true, but we were like no you don't need that all we need. We need some pictures. We got to lay it out. You know, like that's how we looked at it so we bought software we bought in design. So I taught myself how to use in design with the mask if you had graphic a graphic background because you're coming from medical. No, I took not one graphic design class my whole life Wow. The only time I ever learned graphic design was when I bought in design and I went on lynda.com and I took tutorials on how to use InDesign. I had no training. So that's what I did I learned how to use it. And you know when you're designing a photo album for a bride you start off with a blank white screen and you start laying it out you do, you know getting ready you pick pictures and you kind of put them together and you have a book. It's pretty much the same thing with a magazine at least that's how I looked at it. So I said I can do this. If I do albums, I can do a magazine. So we started putting it together. We started coming up with the sections and what we were going to feature of course every wedding. She was the ones that we shot because we didn't know use your coffee first. Yeah, you know like we didn't know anybody there was no way I was gonna send their wedding to us to a magazine that didn't exist. So we put all of our weddings in there. We were giving people as we're calling people up some of my friends that over the on New Year's I had a friend come over and we've been friends for 11 years. Now we met because of the magazine. I found her on Facebook and I said, hey you've got this planning company. I'm launching a magazine. I'm going to create an ad for you. Send me a picture. That's how I met. So we put all the ads in there. We laid the first magazine out. We thought it was going to be like a hundred pages from a hundred. I went to 150, you know from 150. We ended up at 208 pages of comic role for the very first magazine news. Hmm. It was 208 pages and you know now that we had this file of a magazine laid out. We're like, okay we got to get it. Covid mlu Google Google was our best friend. So we googled how to print a magazine and we came up all this stuff and started looking at printers found this fantastic printer out in Austin, Texas, and they were just so they were a small company like us so they had a lot of patience for people like me who knew nothing about what I was doing. I didn't know what CMYK was I was like seeing why what I have to do. What do you want me to do? I have to change the files from Archie what you know, it was crazy. So they kind of sat on the phone with me. They'll tell me how to convert the files. They'll tell me how to prep the file to send it for printing. Wow to put a bleed. You know, what what size the bleed had to be so on and so forth how to export and we got this whole file put together sent it to this printer and print a 10,000 copies of our first issue who knew it was called Premier issue 2009 the actual cover for the first issue was shot in our living room. What month? That's how This okay. So this was I would say we printed we sent everything to print September 2009. Mmm. Yeah, September 2009 and we printed them and ship them to our house. So our entire 10,000 problem. Yeah, we have pallets in a garage. So we had both sides of the garage were filled with this magazine that we felt like it's over like we're about to kill it and then you're gonna sell out I do now. Alright, so we got the Magazine's they were like, it's on I mean we're celebrating we're popping bottles, like look we did it. It's about to be over Okay, so Start selling it. So I remember it was around. Yeah, because we got them September Nigerian Day Parade was October. We said we're basically going to sell out at the parade. So we we took magazines to the Nigerian Day parade and sold like two puppies. Well, that's smart and I was begging you. How much are the Magnificent it was $10. It was 10 bucks and we were that was like begging like please just take one. Come on. Yeah, that didn't buy it. Buck's by come on support like we're you know, we're trying to do something for the great. I have 9,000 made word left. Yes, that didn't work. So we're like, okay, we're gonna go to the mall. We're going to we're going to set up a kiosk at Cherry Hill Mall, you know, those annoying people when you go to the monitor, like let me see your nails. I have this like diamond dust that's going to make your nails or whatever or the one which we weren't missing make your skin glow it, right? Exactly and you're like, no I'm not interested. So we are going to be those annoying people that didn't work. So then we said okay. We're going to call every store like we're calling Walgreens. We're calling Wegmans. We're calling Barnes and Noble and we called like every store in the area and said we've got this great magazine. This is something new it's needed in the industry blah blah blah blah and every single one of them would be like, okay send me a copy. So we would mail a copy to them with this whole long letter and they'll be like, you know, your magazines beautiful and everything, but who's your distributor? Everybody kept saying the same thing and she care like what's this whole thing about distributor Spike? What are you guys to we are the distributor like we are the distributor. What do you mean who's your distributor? No, it turns out what we found out was that you can't just get your publication. Even your book into a Barnes & Noble if it doesn't go through, you know a reputable Distribution Company. Wow, so now we're like darn it. Remember both garages are filled the car. Are parked outside is getting cold. Wow, and we have two kids now in a car seat because now I had I had my son so I had the two-year-old a newborn and then you know shortly after that was pregnant with my third when he was four months old. So yeah, that was a lot going on. So now we're like, okay, so we got to get a distributor. We started Googling Distributors, we found this one guy called him up. He's like, yeah. Well, you know you have to have Of a Distribution Company, but I can I can give you Consulting and it's going to cost like 3K. We were just like three paying $3,000 to tell me about distribution. Luckily. The guy sent us an email. I don't know why he did he send us an email and it had a list of a whole bunch of Distributors. Like my spread shell a spreadsheet. First name last name phone number location. So we just started calling these distribution companies. We called cable. We called Meredith all these companies and the Up three distribution companies that we actually applied for us at that us. So what we found out what you have to apply for distribution, it's not just called and they're going to distribute you go through an application process. Wow, and they can take six months to get back to you. And if they don't accept you you can't apply again for like another six months. So we were just like I can't believe this we got all these magazines here. We got to sell these magazines. We applied the top three Distribution Company that stepped it up. Wow, so we were good. So we said, okay. Which one are we going to go with we picked, you know cable distribution. That's the one that we thought was going to be best for us. We're in the Northeast and they were like, okay so, you know, we're going to start doing some marketing for your for your brand. We're going to start reaching out to the Retailer's to see if they want to pick up your publication. We are like you don't even have to do that because we've got 10,000 copies right? Like right at my garage did all that work. Yeah. So I remember very clearly the guy on the phone from the Distribution Company saying you have what we like we have 10,000 copies already. We did we did all that like we're good to go Barnes & Noble said the magazine is great. Everybody said is great. They said but who told you to print 10,000 copies of the magazine that nobody's heard of. Oh, you're like nobody. I mean, what's the problem? He said? Well you that he's like that just wasn't smart because first you get distribution after you get distribution, then you get orders. Maybe they placed an order for a thousand copies to start then that's what you print not tell, you know like that. No, you don't print 10,000 copies. You don't know if anybody wants to buy it from you or even sell it in. So you're like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. See so we were like, alright, no problem. We're good. We're good. We're going to keep on we're going to keep working this we're going to keep on trying to sell it. We will sell little copies here and there then we this is when we were actually leaving to go shoot a wedding in Nigeria for a friend. So we had a connection in London and in the process of getting to London mind you at this time. She can die for the first time started saying to ourselves. Okay, maybe we kind of made a mistake because before then you just Couldn't tell we just felt so strongly that what we were doing was needed and it was just going to take off but we said okay, maybe you know, maybe we made a mistake. So anyway, we get to London we have a layover and just randomly checking email during a layover. We get an email from the girl that works at cable at the Distribution Company. She says look, I have great great news, you know, we actually got some orders in so I'm going to send you this link it will show you the orders and we're going to need to come and pick. Up, the Magazine's ASAP so that we can get them to on the retailer. So chicken are like, all right, that's cool. You know, we click on the link. It's a spreadsheet. You just scroll scroll scroll scroll 9600 copies were ordered. Wow, 9600 copies were ordered of a magazine that they told us that there's no way we're going to get orders in because you know blah blah blah. I don't know how it happened but it happened so Michiko, I like what So our brother he lives close to us. We told him like, you know, we're on our way to Nigeria, you know, all the magazines basically have been ordered, you know, we need you to get the garage open so that they can come the truck came. They took the pallets out of the garage and January 5th 2010. Our magazines were at Barnes & Noble and say oh wow, that is amazing. Yep, and and that's and that's how I started. So from from that point. Yeah, we're actually hitting 10 years. What tomorrow that's yeah, that's major in 10 years. So was there ever a point? Oh, was it ever gonna wear when you what you felt defeated like, okay. This was a this was a this was a mistake. Let's just go home and just burn these copies like what are we even doing? Well, I mean there was a point where we felt we made a mistake but we always we always felt like there there has to be a way there has to be a way because I you know cheek and I both strongly believe that you know, there are things that you are put through in life for a reason and there are things that line up in a certain way that you cannot possibly explain remember I came from a science background so I can be very analytical like science and a statistic. You know, I can be very and over-analytical so there but there are certain things that in the has happened in my life that I will never be able to explain like it doesn't make logical sense. So for me, I believe those things happen for a reason there's there's there's an endgame here. So we always felt like how did we get to a point where we just picked up a camera? We're taking casual wedding pictures here and there to launching a magazine with no experience learning like it. Design is not really that easy to learn learning in design software figuring out how to get sales putting a website together printing a magazine getting enough money to printed getting distribution. Yeah with cable. I mean cable is now has now gone out of business, but that was a Major Distribution Company. Like, how do you how do you get your magazine in to Barnes & Noble is sitting in Barnes & Noble all throughout the country major and international locations. Like we can't so we always felt like there are times where you're like, yeah. Is something isn't working out but there has to be another plan is how you know, you have to have faith that something is going to work out in the end. I have to have faith. So since 2009. I'm sure it's changed tremendously. But how has the well, first of all first part, how was the reaction when the magazine went out? I'm sure did you guys go home and just drill down a bottle of champagne or how baby? Well the thing is when we first did our a cover shoot in the living room and we printed we made we did a mock-up. We did like a cover mock-up and we made back then they didn't have Facebook pages. They had Facebook groups. And so we made a Facebook group and we put the the mock-up cover there and people were just like, oh my gosh this magazine where can I get it working on getting this was before we actually printed it that was kind of like the push for a we felt. Oh my gosh. So many people are on board with this and they want to know where to get it. Like, we really have to make this. Work, you know, so then when we actually printed the magazine this was before we went before we got distribution. We used to go to the stores put it on the newsstand snap a picture then take it back. Yeah and put it on there and then come back home and look at it can happen someday. You know, so when we actually finally got on the newsstands, I remember going to my local shop right for grocery shopping and seeing the magazine there and I was just like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that moment. This has really happy but the picture was created, you know, like we saw it we visualized it. We said this is how it needs to look and then it happened. Sometimes you have to create that opportunity. You have to visualize it in your head. You have to say how do I want to see myself? I know I'm not there. But how do I want to see myself sure and picture yourself there so that you you know, it gets you there for ya create that Vision. So how was it interesting changed since 2009? Wow, well 2009 I don't even know what the industry was like 2010 when we finally went on sale. There were no magazines that showcased black women on the cover. I'm saying like especially for what? Yeah, right, especially for wedding when it came to just a regular fashion and lifestyle magazines. They hardly were doing that as well. So the industry has changed tremendously. I mean from the time we, you know, we started off with Just a magazine from the magazine. We had our blog and we had our website. We were showcasing weddings and engagements sessions in different stories. This is pre Pinterest free Instagram Instagram was in such everything was in such infancy. So the only thing we were really using was Facebook as far as social media, yeah. So everything that we did right everything we did back then was from the ground up. It was Word of Mouth marketing it was you know, trying to get the word out through actual. People and things like that little little meetups that we would do here and there so that's what marketing I mean marketing back in 2010 versus marketing now is 100% Oh my gosh. So, right so 2012. That's when we started with the moon a Coterie. That's when we said okay, we have all these brides and grooms that are flocking to our platform. They're looking for vendors and they can't find vendors that look like them and it does I mean that any vendor can't help you but there's something about someone who you have something in common with that's just common Scientology. You're a black girl. You just want to make up artist that you know can handle your skin tone or your skin texture or you know, whatever is happening in your situation. So now we got to that point in 2012 or brides and grooms are like, you know, I'm in Seattle and I need a makeup artist. You have any recommendations? How did you find a black makeup artist back then? Then you I mean you couldn't google nobody listening. Yeah, either your there were there were no hashtags like none of that existed. How do you actually how do you find that you know so back then a lot of a lot of our couples didn't even know they could hire black professionals. That's the truth because there was that myth that if you're hiring someone who is of color, you know, the quality is not going to be the same, you know, you're not Get exactly what you're looking for. That was the myth then because there was no example to show what black people are actually doing, you know, so we said let's create the example. Let's start the Coterie. Let's start showcasing these vendors that we know of to these Brides that are looking for them and just you know, we're just want to put people together so that everybody can be successful in whatever it is that they're trying to do. Wow so that so that was 2012 and from there, you know the industry. The the as far as the Multicultural wedding industry kind of started to grow it started to flourish. It started to really really pick up people started recognizing the talents that are in this industry and and the fact that you know, they even have an opportunity to be in the industry in a capacity of some of the people that they've been looking up. Absolutely. So yeah a lot has a lot has changed in a lot has been done to cultivate it and I think it's all been for the best. I mean of it has to do with what your mission and what you guys have relentlessly done throughout the years for a decade just pushing and making sure like black vendors are seen as talented and professional and just as talented as the next person, you know, and right and just given us courage to be the best and and also while also focusing on quality cause you're not just saying hey, you're like you want to showcase quality professional vendors that are that are often overlooked or you know, I feel like they're not worthy or you know, if you don't have the interest in it's a constant battle thing. Yeah, thankfully because of what you're doing in a magazine is doing we feel more confident like, you know what we are good. That's you know what I mean, and you don't feel intimidated or In for everybody, you know listening this is that's why I wanted to bring you on and really share it because I don't think a lot of people understand what you go through for us. You know what I mean? It's not like you guys go through a lot and you've held true to what you guys your your initial Mission hasn't changed. What's to keep shoot a scene right? Keep shook his keep encouraging keep promoting in it cover to cover. You continue to do that even even when it's not appreciated, you know, right and our goal is not hasn't been to to get a pat on the back. You know, I don't I can get that from my family. Like I can get what I need as far as nurturing and things like that from for my children for my husband for my parents for my family. Like that's where I get that from. I don't need a pat on the back from the industry. What I need is for the industry to be recognized. And I need for people to succeed in their businesses and for them to make the connections they need and for these couples to find the vendors that they're looking for and we're good when that happens, you know, that's that's always been that's amazing. That's amazing and it's a tough one, but amazing like what it was because you know, the thing the thing about being getting into the publishing industry as we didn't, you know, I say if we knew exactly what it took we probably It'd be like you know what? Let me just go apply for that Ph.D. Program in doctor after all, right, like I was about to go to graduate school. I mean we could have been we would have been okay, you know what? I actually left my job. I was in the process of getting a promotion. I'm like sorry. I have a magazine and I'm leaving their like what I'm they were very happy for me and till this day they still follow what I'm doing, but you know, it's a lot of work, you know, and we came into the publishing industry at a time where you know malucci was basically the magazine that was pointing out. What the industry was not doing purposely. They didn't have to showcase our weddings because either way we were still purchasing their product because you know, I say the black black people are the number one consumer so they didn't have to show they don't have to put a black girl on the cover because what you're still going to buy that magazine so impressed. They don't have to we don't have to highlight highlight black vendors because at the end of the day, you're still going to sign up for this plow the number one consumer. So we We are that we are the number one. Wow, and many people's business model is built off of the fact that black people no matter what their going to consume something. Look at the beauty industry. If you look at the big giants in the beauty industry, those does companies are hardly owned by black people right black women. Meanwhile black women are the ones that are powering the beauty of three so we came into the industry at a time where we were basically pointing out that You you and you are not showcasing diversity and we are here to Showcase diversity. So as you can imagine there, you know while we're doing all of this stuff on the front ends behind the scene. There's all kinds of attacks going on. For instance. One of our biggest advertisers early on was Target. So we were able to secure Target as an Advertiser from one of the cheek and the early days until there was a really really nice wrap at Target who just happened. To nicely tell us the reason that they're pulling out of advertising with us is because XYZ magazine. I'm not going to name them but really really big wedding publication told them specifically you don't have to advertise him loose because 40% of our Market are black. Wow, you can get more of them with us. So why advertise with them when they have a portion when you can get more with us and this is what they told us Target said, you know, so people higher up the girl was a rep so she's like the higher-ups have decided that No, they got to focus their advertising budget with XYZ magazine. So now here we are. We're trying to push out a product. We're trying to print a magazine. We're trying to you know, highlight black vendors. We're trying to make a living and now our biggest advertisers not coming anymore because the Publications that doesn't show case. I says, yeah, we have 40% of that audience. So there was a lot of work that had to be done behind the scenes to make sure that on a front end we can still continue to to uplift support and highlight the Multicultural community and you know, that's just business you live and you learn is insane. It is it Sky. I was really great. What are the things the things that have? Yeah, I was going to ask you challenges you face, but you just told me that's my and I'm sure over 10 years. There's been so many but you continue. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know the biggest challenge with with black businesses in this country is you know, as a black business is very difficult to get funding, you know, a venture a venture capitalist is not going to Right out of the block find a black company. Usually, you know it is what else this is. Just what happens in Silicon Valley. So everything that we did was we had no funding we did everything based on savings creativity Evolution, you know evolving as a brand coming up with this coming up with that but there was no funding and you know, sometimes you sit down and watch Shark Tank and I'm like I had to turn in some of these companies that come on Shark Tank. I'm like you feel so well and they gave me right go like wait a minute. They gave you XYZ for that crazy, right? Hey, this is this is the world that we live in so we as long as we understand that we have, you know, building a community is not an easy thing General, but you have to find ways to evolve and sustain yourself. Yeah so that you can still stay relevant for your community. Well, that's I mean that motivates me. Because you know sometimes I'm sure that many times in between where you're like, you know, screw this why am I even trying but you keep I mean you you're going and you keep forget forgiving your you know, you guys are so generous and I am speaking even myself throughout the years. You know, when I first started my business, I got like a big hug from you guys and you guys a little like a caching, you know, what you're doing and Chicago, LOL my first my first what am I forgetting? First weddings were was in print we have this wedding way back then was that the New Orleans one? It was a masquerade Chicago of it was masquerade theme. It was an NFL NFL player. Oh, yeah. Yeah that wedding. I remember that wedding get a gorgeous ball gown. They had a mask on yeah. Yeah. Oh my God, Mike and heaven love them to death, but they of the magazine and they love the feature and what the Magazine's that's awesome. So And just kind of going back to like, okay, so I know like a lot of magazines have had folded snake. Hmm. They had a print magazine. Now that Journey has been challenging some people literally have not made it and if had to call it quits. All right guys. How have you been able to sustain and grow even with magazines Calling it Quits? Yeah, that's a big one because one of the biggest joys for us was being able to go to our local Barnes and Noble and Morristown and seeing the magazine on a newsstand, you know, the problem that many public. I mean you have the big Publications like teen and you know, Martha Stewart going down to one copy which would probably end up, you know, not printing at all. But the big ones the Conde Nast brands. Are even shutting down so then imagine a small publisher like us right? This is a husband and wife team in South Jersey, you know, not a huge conglomerate like Conde Nast trying to sustain newsstand space the thing we didn't know about the newsstand industry is that it's a very very brutal industry. A lot of Publications are folding because the way that distribution is set up is not set up in a way for you to say Succeed, you know getting your magazine on a newsstand even with books like some people that want to be Publishers and write books. That book is a marketing tool. It's not necessarily that nobody read the book and I'm going to get a book deal. Right? Like you're not going to get a book deal like Michelle, right? Okay, that's a different story. Like they're paying her to write the book and she's making all kinds of royalties. Most Self book publishers and magazine Publishers are using their funds to put that out and then putting that on. You stand hoping that they get some kind of return. It takes a lot to get a return from a new stand still. So the problem with the newsstand for us was first of all our distributor cable distribution went out of business right in the middle. This was the I think it was 2015. It was the magazine that had it was a beauty cover that Amy Anaya's shot and we sent our magazines out did all the things we had to do sending out to be on new status and cable distribution went out of business till this day. We have no idea where those magazines are totally gone disappeared never made it to the newsstand. They could be in a truck. They could have been shredded. Who knows but that's the nature of handle. No, it's no nope. We got an email and the email is just like oh, yeah. Yeah, you know that cable is no longer in business. So on and so forth. Okay. So where are the magazines? Like we're actually going on sale. People are saying we can't find it you can Finally because they never put them out. You know, so we're like, okay, we had an option. We had a couple of options one we can get with another Distribution Company we can get that process started over again. We looked into another one and it was the same thing where you know, sometimes you can send your magazines and you send your magazines. Let's say you're sending a thousand magazines to you know, the Barnes and Noble and somewhere downtown, Chicago. But they never make it off the truck. So now your magazine. Yeah, they why I don't know. So now people are looking for your publication to can't find it because the person who was supposed to take it off the truck never took it off or maybe they took it off the truck and it's sitting in the back room and they never put it on the newsstand. You know, there are some there were some sitch. Yeah, there were some situations where like in there's a very big D ç Barnes & Noble where someone I remember was there Kia. She sent an email said she had to go to the Barnes and Noble. And tell them it is at this store is always been at the store and somebody had to go in the back and bring it on kidding. I'm dead serious, and and there's nothing you can do about it. So the way that the newsstand works the Distribution Company does extremely well they take more than half of your magazine sale after they take after they take more than half. They only pay you about 15% of whatever you sell a hundred. Eighty days after you go off sale so much out of your control, right? So It's so much out of your control. So you get to a point where you're like. Is it worth it? I can't get my I can't get my product to the people who wanted you're not gonna work because I can't control the distribution come you don't know her like you don't play out your interviews. You've done your part and they have to do there and it's under par and then people people can't find it because of the inefficiency of a Distribution Company that were at the mercy of so we decided and it was a very hard decision because we said if we take it off new stands like what's that gonna mean? What is that going to look like? How's it going to be perceived? You know, it was it was something that we were so proud of but we had to we made a decision. We said I think it was 2017. We said they were taking it off new stance and we will be you can purchase it if you want from our website or you can get it for free digitally. And honestly, we adopted that model back actually 2016 adopted that model and ever since then our sales have just skyrocketed, like everything has been absolutely amazing. So I think that people in their businesses no matter what kind of what kind of business that you're in you have to understand at what point you need to be at what point, you know at what point do you need to Pivot? You can't stay in one place? Like if you're playing basketball you had your say On paper place. You got your pivot foot you put your keep your foot down and you pivot you turn this way. You can't that way you make a decision. You're taking the jump shot. You're passing the ball. Whatever it is that you're going to do. You have to Pivot you got to move. If you don't you won't be successful in business. You can't do the same thing all the time and think it's going to work if that was the case Blockbuster over here. I felt like they will never go down like no way until Netflix came around Blockbuster if they were smart and they pivoted after Netflix came around not even it wasn't even Netflix. It was red box. There was that red box thing where you go in you can go grocery shopping and go put a little thing and get your movie outgoing return it easily. There was that then it was Netflix, but of Blockbuster was smart, they would have said, Okay, either one. I'm going to acquire one of these companies fast one or two. I'm going to launch my own because my audience is 100 times bigger that a pavement around them, right? You got to Pivot. So we've always been in a situation where we you know, you have to feel what's going on like generation is the generation of 2010 is different from what's Happening Now and now we're looking at gen Z. Like that's our that's the market that we're really pushing ourselves to because that's what's going to be getting married in the next five years. Ears, you know throughout the next five years, but if you're not if you don't have a pulse on the industry that you're in and understand where things are going and Vivid you can't you can't sustain your business. Wow, that's such great advice for anyone whether it's magazine or you have to Pivot you and you have to pay attention to what's where we're headed. But I think a lot of times and we're so focused and maybe over in might be ego or something on but I'm here now, okay, but what's coming up? And how it survived and then when it does because it I mean and the thing and the thing is like Eagle Eagle is what gets in the way of people being successful in their businesses. If we had ego we would have said now we're going to keep on new things. We don't we had to let it go it hurt. It was like, oh man, I don't want to do that. But you know, it was the best thing I could have done after we go digital and then we do our you know, our current model then look what happens to Martha Stewart, you know. Then you get the news about stymie pretty so we were like, okay. Well we were way ahead of their we've been doing this for a long time. Now the Teen Magazine went digital, you know, and it just keeps going on and on there's more that's going to follow suit, but you have to change with the times you have to give people content in a way that their consumer that's so amazing. I mean, I'm so inspired just hearing it and honestly, I didn't know half of the stuff you just told me because I thought we were I thought we were besties but now I'm perfect. That's on my part. I had free but it's so much because sometimes we get down like you can save me if you feel like what you're doing. This model doesn't work you pivot and then you adapt and you try something new and you go out of your way. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so the second part of our interview we can do this all day. So I have to bring you back a lot of the creatives I coach and anybody, you know everyone out there, you know, there's we want to get featured we want. To get press you want to get there's something about seeing your work in print that or did you know online or a Blog that just you know gives you a boost it right for the client, but just seeing you work on paper in a national magazine or localized. It's just it's like okay. I've arrived probably how I feel and I'm like, oh my gosh, my wedding is on outside of Chicago. Somebody can look at this. I have copy. The every magazine literally but apart and I have all my money Lucci features and there's you know, it does do something for you. But it you know, it really does take your business to that next level and add value and credibility to your work. So I want to talk a little bit about submissions and I'm sure some people are doing it all wrong because I say well, how do I get press? I'm like, okay. Well, let's go back and I don't want step so we know getting your work can boost your business. I know it did for my thanks to you guys. So first of all, how The thing the thing about submissions is that you know, people need to be published somewhere in some form because it provides a level of visibility that you can't do possibly by yourself. So being published is important and the truth of the matter is the audience that you're looking for are people who aren't even in a relationship like you're marketing to people who are just casually looking at a magazine. They might not even be in a serious. These relationship or even if they're in a relationship, they're not engaged. You're marketing to everyone you're marketing to current people who are engaged in your marketing to people who are going to get engaged. So you never know when that person is going to come across your work. That's why that's why getting published is so important but the biggest thing I tell people first is with with your brand. You have to understand who your brand is. What's your brand is about and what? Type of clientele you want to attract? Everyone cannot do luxury luxury is a niche market and luxury Multicultural is a niche right a niche. It's not going to be for everybody. Like that's the truth of the matter. So everyone can be branded as luxury XYZ person because what does that really mean? And are you actually portraying that you have to understand who your brand is and once you understand your brand you will know. Where it is that you want to be featured the biggest problem that people have is that they send their content everywhere thinking I'm just going to send it everywhere and somebody's going to pick it up. That's so that's mistake. Number one. Yeah. I said energy don't send your content to rock and roll bride. If that's not the type of audience that you're going for. It makes no sense, you know and vice versa. If you're if you're into you know that type of funky, you know rock and roll type of rock and roll bride type of client. No more quirky then maybe you're not going to send that to you know, Lucci or maybe you're not going to send that inside weddings. You have to actually think about who your audience is and a step that and be happy with that. There are a ton of people getting married that are not spending, you know, 500,000 and up. There are a ton of people getting married that I just spending a hundred thousand between 75 and a hundred thousand. That's a huge Market. Are you are you attracting that one? Are you attracting people who are closer to the Thousand range because that that's a huge Market as well. Whatever it is that market is for you. You have to accept that and you have to know exactly where you want to bring then once you know where you want to be featured take a look at what they publish, you know, I feel like people don't they don't and maybe it's just this day and age people aren't taking the time to do research. There's so much time in the day if people spent less time scrolling on Instagram, they could get a lot of work done. There's a lot of research that can be done. You go to the blogs and the websites in the magazines that you want to be published in his study the heck out of them. What kind of content are they putting out who are the people that are always getting featured? Maybe there's a reason those people are always getting featured. Maybe they submit all the time you'd be surprised how many people submit to us once in a whole year and then when they don't want it doesn't get picked up they get it they get upset because of course nobody wants to be rejected. But if you Only if you only sent it to send something to us. Once what are your chances of getting paid up, you know, like you have to continuously submit if this doesn't work out you find out why I didn't work out and you try again, you know, it can be very discouraging to get rejected. But at the end of the day, the only way that you're going to get picked up is to keep on yeah, you know, so I always start with the biggest thing for people is knowing where what audience you're trying to attract and then understanding what kind of world Work that that um publication actually publishes before I love do your research and I think that's so vital because people just like you said wake up and say I have this wedding. I'm going to send it to every publication out there, which is you haven't done your research who their target out. Like you said, those are so key and so helpful, but I think there's also some people are just lazy to do it. They just what if I send it in maybe they'll take it but like we got to do the work we got to do the research. So I'd love that. Yeah. Really? What do you look for in a submission? So when you see an album like First Reactions like yet automatically, do you know you don't want it or like what do you look for? Yeah, there's some there's some back. Well, there are many that come in that we know right off the bat. This is not going to work out. I'll tell you what one of the biggest things pet peeves for me is people not following instruction. So if we have a simple submission form and we say give us a gallery of like up to a hundred images or something and you sent a gallery on SmugMug with 1000 pictures. We're not even looking at it. There's an automatic skip because the time it takes to go through 1,000 images usually if you're sending a gallery of a thousand images is going to be like a hundred of people dancing. We don't publish pictures of practicing that's just not our brand. It doesn't do anything for our audience. They don't care. So obviously you have not taken the time to do the research and you're not respecting our time, you know, so the biggest pet peeve is people not following instructions often times people when it comes to them. Missions the first thing that we look at with every submission at comes in weather is coming through the Coterie portal or coming through our general box. We always look at it for print first. So the first thing we're going to say is this good enough to go into print if it is good enough to go into print it'll get queued on a list for review. And the reason we have to do that is before we can accept something for print. Normally. We have to look at the full the entire work of what's going to go in that magazine because there was a time where we were I'm like all purple weddings. Everything was purple purple purple purple. We can't have a whole anything except a wedding. It was that case over for weddings. You're so right like everything like and gold everything was purple and it was like purple and it was at the Biltmore in Atlanta. It was just so many so you get to a point where it's like they're and they're all fantastic like fantastically photographs gorgeous details, but how many purple weddings and you really show in a publication that maybe is going to showcase The wedding's tops. So sometimes your work is really really good enough to go into print but maybe the time that you sent it in. It just didn't make the cut because we have so much of the same thing, you know, and that's as as it pertains to weddings as it pertains to styled shoots. We do publish style shoes, but because a style shoot is a controlled environment. I'm expecting people to really go all out with creativity like you can't you Can't send me your style shoot. That is something as totally overdone or maybe your tablescape has like one or two candles in the middle and you know the table where is not set properly, you know, like people do that too. Like I have the knife in the wrong place the fork and little things like that. I we can't accept it because this it was a controlled environment. So you had everything in your control and you had you were able to plan it out and you should have planned it out better. We're not going to publish. Publish things like that sometimes with with getting published like at least within the Coterie. There are people who will present an idea, you know, send me a mood board and I'll kind of take a look and say yeah. Well this this is really cool. Dude. I haven't seen this angle before why don't you go for it. I was just going to publish and we never guarantee anything until we yeah, we never guarantee until we get the photos but oftentimes we'll we'll take a look at a mood board and say like this is good. You know, this is Something that we want or sometimes I'll ask someone like can you produce a shoot with XYZ because there's a concept I'm looking forward to publish in an upgrade. So you highly recommend if you have an idea figure out do your research and then reach out to the to the magazine and asked if they would be interested in that idea before you actually go money and put the shoe together, but also you have to pay attention to detail and do well. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And if you have if you have access to us because you're an Advertiser. That's something that we will always take a look at it and give you feedback on now. If you're not an Advertiser that we we just don't have enough time in the day to go through everybody's Concepts but it's something that we will do for people that advertise with us because you know, we'll take the time out and say okay this sounds good or you know, maybe you should try this or the fashion isn't really up to Paris. Why don't you Up with this stylus or hook up with this bridal salon will give you a letter of recommendation, you know, so on and so forth and that kind of elevates to shoot, right? So that actually great point and I want to talk about the the katori membership. So I think a lot of people don't understand the value in that because I feel like we they need these resources. I could you said if you have a style shoe. They reach out as a member. You're going to say. Hey connect with ABCD members. You guys knock it out you ever better shot of getting your work published then if you weren't so it's actually a good investment right to be a member the talk a little bit about your membership and sure how that came about in that process and so on. Sure. Well the the Coterie membership and the quarter is that is like a French word described as a small group of people that have a common interest and that's what we felt the you know, the collective was is just we're already a niche group and now we're trying to bring people together with a common interest to elevate all of their brands. So the thing about the Coterie is not just it's not just like a wedding wire with a not where you sign up and you know, you have a profile we have that part and we have the lead matching and you know people that are filling out leaves on our website at like today we had six that came out their Brides that are like I'm getting married in 2021 and I'm looking for a hair stylist sure, but we have that because the brides are on our website every day and they're looking mmm, but it's the it's the network to You know, you're you're as good as your network, you know, you're as good as the company that you can and often times people when we first started the Coterie. I remember they were there were certain cities where we had Coterie members who had never met one another like you're in the same city in the same industry and you never met we need to bring you together. So you can start meeting and networking and collaborating and you know doing things together. So a lot of it is also that is the Ships it's it's the work that you actually put into it. It's the commitment to uplifting the community, you know in the positivity a lot of that is centered around the Coterie and then we do, you know, there's a number of things we do throughout the year like the serenade that we do that's basically our date night that Coterie members actually put together for actual couples that are getting married and haven't haven't booked vendors yet and every every time we do serenade and Have our Coterie members participate, you know and give these couples has experienced these couples end up booking the people who put the experience together. So it's like a direct, you know, it's a direct link to someone who can potentially be your customer and worst case scenario. Even if you don't book them. We're basically curating a style shoot for you that's going to get published right? So then you still get the visibility anyway from it, you know, so we have a number of things like that then we have The networking that we do we have the the conference that we're doing. We have the discounted pricing on the different advertising and things we have the moon and love affair that we're doing throughout the yourself. The I mean there's there's so much more than just a list inside is also the community as a community. I love and what you you're giving people access to things that ideally they have no clue where to go or you know, who did not work. I know right? I met I met a lot like a lot of great relationships I have now was through the retreat like Mark Wilson last year and now my work husband I met Ed Edd and I've met I've connected more with nah not like I've met so many amazing people Tristan. Yeah. I mean, right they're all amazing creative that I've seen on social media and we've all connected but we never really met as we're not in the same. And when do we really cause pass in person, but Remove the connection like when we did, you know love is waiting. For example. Well, enter work together Kesha came and Slade. I mean they'd have you know, these are people that really are in New York and different places all over and we you know, so that just kind of connected us and we've all stayed in touch so that sense of community and an access to so much alone is worth Way more and in the membership is so affordable. So, you know, it's sometimes like people are like, oh, how do I hide away? I'm like well goal go get some education go connect. If first thing that actually is all value and stop wasting money on things that don't even matter, right? I mean, We tell people that we you know, we're like an extension of your marketing. If you're if you're going to pay for marketing getting a membership gives you so much more than just being listed on a website or being inside of a group, you know, you get you get access to us you get access to our Insight are experienced for 10 years in this industry. There was a time we did we had this we had Dmitry on the cover. She was on a show called. Blood Sweat and heels and you know, we had an opportunity to do a photo shoot with her and then Bravo wanted to tape it and we brought in we brought in code remember it's for that episode. You know, we're like hey, you calm do the cake. You come bring your gown. We you know Pantera ended up booking. Well Demetria ended up booking pantora because of that photo shoot over actual wedding dress at the end of the day will give you the access and put you in the room. What happens from there is totally up to you. Hm. Oh, I lost that last part repeat. I said we'll give you the access and put you in the room and what happens from there is totally up to now you have to do the work. You have to be the yeah business owner that you should be and work it but like you said you open the door, but you in that space I have to do the work and that's a place where people don't want to do the work again. It's like okay we can do everything for you, but you getting anything you've created access and that's great. But I also love the opportunity of so many more like in September. We did the cover shoot. Yeah, it was so so fun and it was fun more fun because you came to my city and we're had office, you know, spend time and like kind of brainstorm a little bit and I love that every time you meet him like Hey Jackie, so what do you think about this idea of quake and like if you do this, right because we're always watching, you know, I can't I can't help it again pivoting. That shoot was so fun and that opportunity to do a cover shoot and work with all the missing people was you know, again, it's not just a little but a listing there were so many opportunities and not even about getting featured. It's just being able to do these things that typically would be a lot more difficult on your own right? All right, right. Now we always try to give different people opportunities like, you know, the hair stylist that we brought in from New York and the makeup artist that I'm from New Jersey. And you know, okay, you're going to come to Chicago and we're going to do this shoe and we're going to kill it and it's going to be fantastic. But at the end of the day, they've built new relationships and you know, like if love he's in New York. She's gonna call Tanika, you know, she's going to call Felicia. She's gonna be like I can recommend them to somebody so you just people that you come across in your life never underestimate them because you never know what they can do for you. Hmm. You have no idea. What doing makeup. For lovey out of add a cover shoot can do for you. And if you sure you don't know what that connection is going to get you. You don't know what the connection in the room. You don't know if a cat she's going to bring you into something in the future or you know, vice versa. I always tell people treat everyone like their a celebrity because you just don't know what kind of opportunity they're going to stumble on and how it's going to affect your life in a positive way if you are going to them, I love it. So with me, I know there's moon no, mommy. No lifestyle. Yes when the love affair Retreat Kitt. Yes husband me you how do you how do you balance us? All like, how do you do it all like and your soul you have this sense of Life of comment which I think I told you like a few weeks ago Mike. This is your tone is always this sweet like a might do you get Mad and say like oh, I'm so mad at you today. So I'm like I thought mad yeah, but how do you how do you say balance? How do you how do you do it? All like I want I don't want to know I'm sure people want to know too. Well, I always say there's no such thing as balance, you know, because my life is not balanced. My life is just I just manage it, you know, you kind of you kind of go with the flow. There's there's a ton as you know, like the even to get this appointment. There's so much going on like so much going on, but the only thing I can do is just to set my priorities like okay, you know what these are the things I must accomplish this week. And I can accomplish those things this week and I can still get other things done. But these ones are on the top of the list and I must get these things done and then making sure that I also if I'm doing all this work and the same thing with chica, we're doing all this work for the industry. We have to also do work for the family as well, you know working as a husband and wife team as you know, it can have its ups and downs. It can be devastating to if you're not if you're not careful so as much as I can put in work for the business I can put in work for my family and when I put in work for my family and I'm going to you know, like after this I'm going to go to my youngest ones basketball practice and that you know, like there's so much in my other ones having a sleepover tonight. There's a lot going on but because I make sure I dedicate time for my family. That's why I can really go hard for the industry without guilt. You know, I feel like I'm balancing it out in the best way that I know how I'm giving here and I'm also giving here and I'm making it all work out. I mean, there's always going to be something that gets you know, that gets missed and you know something that you kind of knew I should have done that or I don't beat myself up over it. You know, I've learned I've learned nobody's perfect. I can't beat myself up over things that I miss if I focus my energy on man, I didn't get that done. Then I won't get anything done. You know, the only thing I Indu is all it's like I tell my kids. Okay fine. Maybe you just got to turn over next play like work on this on the next focus on the next play like what you want to do next. Maybe you go steal the ball get it back. What is the next play? So if I drop the ball on something? Yeah. Okay fine. Now I messed up that was horrible blah blah blah, but you know, what? What's my next play What's Next? What am I going to do to make up for it? Right? So don't worry. I'll just move on to the next thing you you have to I'm You have to because if you don't you get stuck in this spiral of of guilt inand shame and you know feeling unaccomplished and when you get into that when you get into that spiral as an entrepreneur, it can be a very dangerous place. You have to constantly pat yourself in the on the back as an entrepreneur and and lift yourself up. It's like we're create that's why they say entrepreneurs are crazy because you're constantly playing a mind game with Yourself like no, I'm good. Okay. No. No, I got this i got this i got this. Oh wait this person just did this. No. No, I'm alright. I'm alright. Alright like it is what it is. That's that's kind of that's what you go through. But if you don't if you don't find a way to keep yourself positive, then you end up smiling down it part of how I felt. You know, I like to watch my shows on Netflix with my little blanket and I'm content like those little simple things my little glass of wine here and there and I'm content like I'm good. Yeah. And then I can go hard every day. I love that. Okay. So what are you most proud of? Hmm. What am I most proud of in business and life in in general? We think of one thing you like it in the end after everything. What are you most proud of that you've done? You know, I'm proud that I believed in myself enough to To totally transform my life and my lifestyle and you know what the life of my children is going to be in the future, you know there I had you get to a point in a road and it goes into three different directions and you're like which way do I go do I go in this direction where my parents are like this what you should do do I go in that direction where I feel like there's a passion there do I go this way? Who am I going with you know? Can be extremely difficult but whichever direction that you go should be a place where you feel proud you feel like I'm going to own this, you know, I did this decision on my own. I thought it out. I felt like it was the right thing to do and you own it throughout the way and you make it work and what I'm saying. So I feel I feel good that I mean honestly when I left my job, it's my mom didn't know my parents didn't know for six months and the only reason a new is my brother told I'm like hey The only girl I have three brothers, so they're like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe this is actually turned out she left. Job, and she's going to go and do magazine. Hey, my life has ended you know, but I feel I feel proud that I was able to say look I'm going to this is what I want to do. Don't worry, you'll see and now everywhere. My mom has every single play she calls me from work like AA at this lady is yes my daughter on the phone, you know, so so yeah, I'm just it makes me proud because I can be extreme. Like I said, I can be an The Thinker extremely analytical and you know, sometimes you get into a motor some people get into a mold where they're trying to do what they feel other people want them to do and they don't follow your passions because of that, you know, there are people that are at their full-time jobs, which I'm not even knocking I feel like if you need to have a job do what you need to do get that paycheck plus that is a luxury to have a paycheck every two weeks get your paycheck and get your business together and get yourself ready and get your confidence level up so that when you're ready to Full-time you can do it with no regrets because it's not it's not an easy Rodeo. But you know, a lot of people have passions that they aren't following because they don't have the support system behind or you know the strength to just if you just go ham do it fear. That's another thing too or just like something one thing happens. You quit the okay. That's it. We were right. I see what he would be doing it. Exactly also acting so what's next for malucci? So what's next for malucci what we're about to hit our 10 years of being in business. Wow, which is ridiculous. I can't I just can't believe it's fucking easy 10 years. That's sick. You know, I've been playing back the past few days, like what everything that has happened in the past 10 years and it's like what I line it up and I kind of list it out. There's just so many things that have happened in so many things that have changed then You know so much rapid growth for the Multicultural industry and I've always said like when I did my TED Talk Back In 2011 I said we will get to a point where having a multicultural wedding magazine is not a big deal and that's a good point to get to because that means that diversity has exploded, you know, and it's not it's no longer a niche is it is becoming the norm and I feel like you know, we're at the point where there's so many Publications in there. How many blogs and there's so many Instagram accounts and and groups that are all highlighting, you know, Multicultural wedding industry and diversity and that that was the goal and it's the good thing is it's now a matter of how do we how do we take all of that energy and bring it all together and be a major Force? You know what I'm saying? Like a major Force because this is not about us anymore. This is about the generation that's coming after us in the right after them. You know what I'm saying? Like we're you know, we're getting up there in age. So we have to start thinking about what are we building collectively as a group of people that can sustain our people for the future. So, um, so yeah, this is just been a lot but you know, we're we have our Coterie Retreat that's going to be coming up in December. We're going to be in our set where we going. So So, when do we find out a lot of people think that but I just you know, sometimes we think we know no, let me just stop but no we're actually going to be announcing it probably in another ten days. We're gonna will start putting out some little hints here and there but it will be nice and it'll be fun move the the malucci the issue that we shot is actually going to be shipping in the next 10 days or so. So excited for people comfort. That was my Instagram. I mean like it was amazing. Just just and I was so proud to in May because now I actually saw it was just it was really random. Head wrap and then catch the came with this black background. I came out of nowhere in a room. It was like, yeah, I'm going to put her against that and then, you know, Lori bride with that custom gown that she made and then the stylist with the big hoop earring. It was it was sick. And then when that when that picture when we started looking at the pictures, there are so many gorgeous ones that that would have equally had been amazing on the cover but we're like this one with the head wrap and a black background beautiful brown skin bold red lip like this size. Is everything that we're talking about right now is my boo and she she was I mean, but the whole process was so didn't even feel like we were working like we just haven't had too much fun. Yeah, it was a lot of it was so good. And I love how lovely was just chill. She was just like okay, let's and everyone was on board. Everyone had the same level what I did notice the same level of respect for each other. It wasn't Diva. Yeah, there were no there was no Diva. There was no me me me and there was no no, it was just everyone laughs and that's what happens when we do that. The result is an fantastic Thank you for having my team and I was being part of that. It was just so I can't even I can't wait to see the issue. I'm like dying. - yeah, I can't hear you need literally collects everything. I might please give it back only makes you like and I have them I can do what like she takes. She took my work pens because I have pens in the office. That's a catchy event. She goes it's souvenirs. I'm like, so when you take this back to Nigeria, what are you doing - immense pain she was like she was like women. Have those so cute and then we were doing this how shoot and she's like let's let's take a picture and then she told she was like make sure it's even on the other side and I told my team I say you see where I get it from. My grandma know like Oh, I like that. It's even on the other side of my co oh it hit me on my dad's. Oh my gosh. I'm sure your family and your parents must be so proud to just see all that you're doing. The changes the impact, you know that you're making even the ones you're not aware of confidently you given every bad girl, but guy out there but person that says come out you two can shine like, you know, their faith why everyone you you're all so talented and I think that's the message that I got because I started where I was like I have passion. And I am I have style but sometimes you talk like you said we have conversations in our head. I talked myself into it talk myself out of it. Just knowing that there is the place out there that can give you that boost that lifts a place like what you can say have an idea in their go. Okay connect with this and this like it's just this beauty it's beyond and it's so it's a tumble of you say, it's not you don't want a pat on the back but But you guys absolutely deserve it in. Like I said, you know what you're doing that you said setting up for the next Generation, but knowing that you actually started this. Has to be you have to go in your continent and cry sometimes like I'm doing which is okay. However you want but it's that's so amazing. Okay find her in question is you I have to bring you back for part two because we have so much to talk about. I know I know I know I know I can go all know. This is so good and people need to know this. Okay, so find a few questions if you could have lunch with anyone, who would it be besides me? Besides you if I can have like maybe Mary J Blige, but I do love married life go marry her. Um if I can have lunch with probably brene Brown, I love brene Brown. She's like my friend in my head. She's your friend in here. I'd probably say yeah, I would have locate her. I'll have any if you could ask her one question. What would it be? Oh one question for brene Brown. I mean, I probably would ask her if she could. If she could evaluate how I'm operating in a space that that didn't exist that you know, I'm kind of responsible for and what bravery to her for me looks like that's a great question. Five minutes I'm going to call but I want to call her and tell her to call you. Oh, really? Okay, it's just like that. Okay, how can listeners find you? You can find us on our website. That's Munna Lucci Bridal.com. You can find us on Instagram. We are at Munna Lucci Bride on Instagram. And from that Instagram, you'll see a link to our Munna mommy Instagram and our Cody Retreat Instagram and you kind of can stay up to date with all the things that we're doing if you click the link in our bio and sign up for Our newsletter list because we do have some new things that will be launching in 2020 as far as our network is involved in our community and we definitely want to keep you up-to-date on that. So definitely join our newsletter so you can stay up to date on everything amazing Jackie. Thank you. So before we go, I just want to take this time to say thank you for all that you do. Thank you for what you've created your generosity and all that you continue to do. So. Thank you so much. Thankfully, no. Thanks. Thanks so much for that and thanks for having me on your podcast. Yeah, this is so good. Thank you so much, and I will be bugging you soon. Okay. Talk to you later. If you enjoyed today's episode share with your friends and tag me on Instagram add cash events, before we go. I want to give a quick shout-out to one of our creative Corner members. Shout out to Viola Jean-Baptiste of dream wedding and event. I've been educating creative entrepreneurs and how they can be the best. They can be that is why I created creatives Corner a monthly business online membership specifically curated for event planners and floor. An event designers I created this platform because I wish I had something like this when I first launched my business if you're not a member of this amazing Community, you can join now by visiting the cash experience.com. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please check out the show notes for more information. I appreciate you sharing this hour with me remember to do something great today. See you next week.
About EPISODE 8: In this episode, host Akeshi Akinseye features special guest Jacqueline Nwobu CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Munaluchi Bride Magazine. Jacqueline Nwobu is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Munaluchi Bride Magazine, the leading nationally distributed wedding magazine and online wedding marketplace catering to multicultural couples and serving the $200 billion wedding and events industry. Since the launch of Munaluchi in 2010, Jacqueline has grown the brand into an industry leader with a robust multi-cultural marketplace and social media influence of over 600,000 followers worldwide. With a strong and focused vision to champion diversity, Jacqueline has successfully disrupted the industry to influence positive change and inclusiveness. Her TEDx talk on "Reshaping an Industry, One Like at a Time" has received rave reviews. Prior to launching Munaluchi Bride, Jacqueline obtained her B.S. degree in Medical Technology and worked for major pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, including Johnson and Johnson. The rapid success of her magazine has landed her interviews on NBC, ABC and WPIX NY. Jacqueline resides in New Jersey with her husband and three children. In this episode, Jacqueline shares:   Her journey since she launched Munaluchi magazine in 2010  Challenges she faced during the launch of the magazine  Advice on how creative entrepreneurs can get their work published and some do's and don'ts! To learn more about our guest, Andrea Wise, follow her on: Instagram @munaluchibride : http://instagram.com/munaluchibride Facebook: hhttp://facebook.com/munaluchibridal Twitter: http://twitter.com/munaluchibride Website: www.munaluchibridal.com  If you loved today's episode, share with your friends and tag me on Instagram, facebook or twitter @keshevents Follow Akeshi on instagram @keshevents If you would like to featured as a guest on the "Let's Talk About It Podcast" or have feedback or questions, send an email to info@keshevents.com 