Innovative Entrepreneurs – The Entrepreneurial Life of Zakiya Mills

 

What does it take to run ten small companies? It might take a lot of bravery and a healthy dose of crazy. (Her words, not mine.)

So here is how she got her start

In 2007, Zakiya Mills started a small business producing corporate wear while remaining in full-time corporate employment. Her perfectionist tendencies made that unsustainable and not very cost-effective. As such, she then began distributing ready-to-wear corporate attire.

Then in 2012 this image consultant “took on a different slant” as she says. She began to attract customers by being their hairstylist. From there, she would convert customers to image clients and address their garment needs.

She asked herself hard questions in 2012. “Should I go full time into the business and leave corporate life?” she asked herself.

Go Big or Go Home says, Zakiya Mills

She says, “To be in business and to do well in business, you have to have a little bit of crazy in you … just a little bit.”

 

Launching out from the (so-called) “safe” path – the predictable path of the employee

Risk-taking

Extreme hours – long and strenuous

New offerings

 

Initial Unprecedented Booming Success

Zakiya, as all her clients call her, decided to do her first hair show at Hyatt rather than start small… and 1200 people showed up – “standing room only” she said.

Eight hundred people were turned away from that event because the event hall was at capacity.

This gave her brand ZM Image Consultants great exposure.

 

Entrepreneurs need to be self-motivated and also need the encouragement of their network, says serial entrepreneur Zakiya Mills.

 

“Our culture programs us for corporate life. They don’t program us to be an entrepreneur,” she says.

For Zakiya, this sets up a recipe for working all your life to wait for that so-called “magical” moment much later in life to just take a vacation. She felt there could be a more fulfilling and empowering path.

 

Understand your gift and what you are good at to operate in your purpose and your passion, says business owner of the ZM Group of companies.

 

Modelling Her Expectations for Staff

Inability to fill needed gaps in her business caused Zakiya Mills to pursue formal training for herself.

“Whatever business you have – you have to be in tune with everything,” she says. “Things internal to you and external to you because it affects the business.”

Zakiya says, “I am my business… I am a technician, CEO, everything…”

She knows all the aspects of her business and then can train staff accordingly to meet the preferred standards of her brand.

The principles she tries to uphold herself:

Honesty

Integrity

Patience

Courtesy (Be nice)

 

“Always be ready for the opportunities that come your way,” she says. “You cannot say you are in business and not putting things in place. I am always ready.”

In spite of multiple disappointments regarding staffing, Zakiya Mills seems to try to be fair regarding compensation.

“I pay my staff well… my role is to make my staff comfortable,” she says.

Indeed, she shares that she also provides inspiration and to some extent mentorship such that some of her staff go on to own their own businesses.

 

Spiritual philosophy and grounding seem infused in her strategic mindset as an entrepreneur.

 

Money, yes… But also empowerment, fulfilment, coaching and community.

Zakiya talks about increasing what she calls share of wallet by adding downstream, upstream and related businesses to your core business. She “does hair” so she also started a beauty line of hair care and skincare products.

There is a charitable aspect to her line Caribbean Beauty – Zakiya wants to use the proceeds to open an orphanage.

“As a child growing up without parents, it was tough. I always wanted to show people how somebody growing up against all odds could actually become successful,” she says.

She talks of:

Divine inspiration

Cultural contexts and norms that can work for you as an entrepreneur

Perspective shifts that create empowering mindsets

 

Zakiya Mills says, “The way you process data… and the way you receive … has everything to do with your outlook on life.”

Her advice, received from her grandmother and now shared in turn, is to become someone so great that whenever someone wants to say something negative about you, there must always be a “But” afterwards. In other words, people will say that person did or experienced something negative But then overcame it with something great afterwards.

According to serial entrepreneur Zakiya Mills, there is no blueprint for success in business ownership and in realizing your best life charting your own path.

She says:

Trust your gut

Work hard

Once you have prayed and then decided to start, stick with it

Don’t be afraid to buck tradition and start something new

Perhaps take it as some general signposts rather than a prescribed roadmap. Words of advice about what worked for her – from one entrepreneur to another.

 

 

Article by Dara Wilkinson Bobb