Lakesha Cole is a business woman, mother of 3 and Marine Corps spouse and was selected as the 2014 Military Spouse of the Year® for her entrepreneurial prowess, volunteer efforts, and her support of the military community. She really does represent the millions of past and present military spouses who continue to thrive in a wartime environment, and dedicate their lives and families to service and giving back.
I really enjoyed my talk with Lakesha, given her very unique story … she is the CEO and owner of She Swank Too, which is a curated online children's boutique for girls. This dream-to-reality of owning a boutique started as an idea six years ago and today her brand has traveled to customers in all 50 states and four countries and as we'll cover in a few minutes, it lead to the opening of her first successful pop-up shop in Okinawa, Japan where she and her family are currently stationed. She was selected into the Military Entrepreneur Program by Inc. magazine and also featured on The Today Show with Kathie Lee & Hoda. She's been published in Military Spouse Magazine and also featured by Ebony as The Coolest Black Family in America, No. 59
In this episode, we discussed:
- The actions she took as a new entrepreneur to bring her idea to reality
- Why she started an online business
- How she grew and moved her business from California to Virginia, then to Japan
- All the difficulties and challenges of moving her business overseas
- How social media helped her business
- What she did after losing nearly 90% of her customer base and having to hit the reset button
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