232. From $300 Investment To Making Multi Millions with Mary Seats aka Mz.Skittlez

This episode is for you if you are looking for a dose of inspiration as you learn about this motivational story about how Mz Skittles went from investing $300 into her first business to making multi millions.

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Mz. Skittlez, often dubbed ‘The Kris Jenner of Marketing,’ is a highly sought-after marketing maven based in Atlanta, renowned for her ability to conceive and execute campaigns and strategies that elevate brand recognition and drive substantial sales. With over a decade of experience, Mz. Skittlez has proven herself as a marketing powerhouse, steering her own fashion brand, Cupcake Mafia, from a $300 investment in 2011 to a $2.4 million-dollar business in just four years.

However, success was met with adversity when an acquisition-gone-wrong led to financial challenges, forcing Mz. Skittlez to sleep on an air mattress. Undeterred, she leveraged her expansive network and marketing expertise to regain control of her company. Her entrepreneurial journey, marked by ups and downs, showcases her ability to engage audiences and translate attention into sales.

Currently, Mz. Skittlez is the visionary behind the Icing Agency, a full-service marketing consultancy she founded in 2015. This agency provides a range of services, from graphic design to brand development, and emphasizes her commitment to supporting up-and-coming female founders, particularly minority entrepreneurs. Her client list includes notable names like Tamar Braxton, Kountry Wayne, Shear Share, and SPERGO, featured on Shark Tank.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the show.

I am so excited to be here. Thanks so much, Lucy.

Your show is amazing, so I’m so happy that I could get on here to chat with your audience really quickly.

Well, let’s start from the beginning. You founded your fashion brand, the Cupcake Mafia. You went from an investment of just $300 into a $2.4 million business in just four years. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I started with $300. I mean, it was literally my first 30 t-shirts and my logo and my website and that’s all I had. I had friends that knew how to create t-shirts and had a t-shirt brand before and he guided me on it.

And actually, if we want to tell a little bit of secrets, I was even scared to start with $300. So my friend who had a t-shirt brand gave me $150 to push me over the edge to get started. And in four years, we were in retail stores all over the U.S. and then going now to opening up different retailers globally as well. And then we got approached by Forever 21 in our fourth year to do a $1.4 million deal with Forever 21, which led me to partner with investors. And then I got fired from my company and it led me on a journey to really figuring out how to not put my eggs in one basket and what my true gifts and talents were. And that led me to my marketing agency, the ICA agency, my digital community for women, which is called Girl Mop, and then now I’m the owner of the largest female-focused coworking space, which is called The Bakery Coworks.

So that pitfall literally pivoted me into all of these different areas and lanes.

Yeah. And you speak a lot about your acquisition gone wrong story, right? That really led you to some financial challenges in between that left you sleeping on an air mattress.

I love this story. So tell it.

So yeah, I got fired from my own company, okay. And that led me to literally sleeping on an air mattress. I had an apartment above overlooking Central Park.

And I was like, oh my God, I have this apartment. And then I had nowhere to actually move back to in Atlanta. So that shifted everything for me.

I ended up on an airbed, but honestly, I always tell people it’s what I needed. That airbed story brought me closer to God. That airbed story literally transformed my life in ways that I didn’t know.

It made me believe in myself. It made me believe in my power. It made me open my mind to other opportunities, which was starting that marketing agency that in 2020 did $16 million.

So if it wasn’t for the airbed story, I probably would have just kept operating and building out that clothing brand to who knows if it would have worked or not. And then years later after putting my eggs in one basket for 10 years, then I would have failed and then had not been on this wavelength of where I am now. I mean, I’m talking about for six months, I slept on an airbed and directly after that, I went to China and opened my own factory in China and operated my factory in China for four years, going to China literally multiple times a year, taking women there so that they wouldn’t ever get beat in a middleman situation again either.

So I mean, I’ve been able to do so much and I’ve learned so much along the way, but it all came from that very big traumatic experience.

I love that story so much. And I love how you mentioned that it’s through these low points in our life that we grow, right? We don’t grow from having comfort or when everything is going smoothly, we grow when we hit these obstacles.

And then obviously you are here today with me because you obviously did not let those setbacks stop you.

Yeah, I didn’t. I didn’t let it stop me. I knew that it was so much more inside of me, you know?

And not only did I know that it was so much more inside of me, I surrounded myself by people that poured into me. And I think that’s the biggest thing. I tell my friends all the time, I tell people all the time that when I was on the airbed and I called one of my best friends who had exited her company, and I was like, Alex, can you look over my resume?

I’m about to work at Best Buy at night to pay for my store, like the staff that I had at my retail store. And she was like, girl, if you one multi-million dollar company, build it again, like build another one. And it was that that I needed for somebody that wasn’t myself to pour into me and tell me like, you did it once, you can do it again.

And that exact conversation is what gave me the momentum. And I was like, but how do I do that? And she was like, get on Periscope, start sharing your information, start talking about what you went through.

Like don’t be embarrassed. Don’t sit around and crawl under a rock, like use this as the momentum you need to go into something else. And that’s what I did.

And that’s how I actually started my agency. And then also someone came to me and was like, they needed a consultant for a multi-million dollar marketing idea for a retail brand. And they were like, we know that you’re the perfect person.

All you need is an agency. And they told me exactly what to do, how to start. So I think when you are in the darkest of times, it is also so important for you to find people around you that can pour into you.

And that is not going to let you give up. And it’s not going to let you throw in the towel. You know, like I have friends around me.

I say this all the time. I have friends around me that when I want to throw in the towel, they throw it right back.

That is so true. You got to have your tribe who’s rooting for you, but they’ve also got to have the same vision and goals as you though, right? Sometimes a lot of entrepreneurs, they’re, they’re not getting these positive feedback or positive energy from people around them is because say their family, they’re not in entrepreneurship.

They’re not, they’re not having the same goals and visions. So that wouldn’t work.

A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent.

You have to change your circle. You got to change your circle. You got to find people.

There are so many communities. There’s so many, I mean, there’s so much out here where you can meet people that are like-minded. If you have friends that you’re in a circle with, or your colleagues don’t pour into you, then you need a new circle.

You need, I always say, if it’s not reciprocal, like if you can’t pour into them and then they pour in you and you pour into them, then you’re not in a circle, you’re in a cage. And so, you know, you need to get out of the cage and find new people that will pour into you, that will inspire you. And there’s so many communities, entrepreneurs, the female founder collective, girl mob.

Like there’s so many communities. I own a community myself and I’m still in other communities because I feel like your network is your net worth at the end of the day. And so it’s not, you know, the opportunities that come in your life often are from other people.

It’s not even from what you know and the degrees that you have. It’s from someone saying she’s the best person for the job.

I love everything you just said. So you have actually pivoted many times in your own business as well, right? Yes.

I talked about the importance of pivoting and how pivoting is good for you in business. Would you agree with me?

A hundred percent. Yes. I sit around and I watch so many business owners drown in their own, like, like drown in the thought process of like, I started it, I have to finish it all the way through.

But meanwhile, you could have pivoted and saved the business. Like you want it to think about Blockbuster, right? Blockbuster was there.

I mean, I’m probably dating myself, but I remember going with my mom on every Friday to get a movie from Blockbuster. That’s why it’s not around anymore. No, because there’s Netflix, there’s Amazon movies, there’s all these other ways.

No one’s buying a DVD. No one’s buying a VHS tape, but they were not, they didn’t want to change. They didn’t want to convert their business model.

Oftentimes it’s not about you just converting your business model. I always tell my clients that you should be finding five ways minimum to make money doing what you currently are doing. For example, if you do skincare, right?

If you’re like, I am a statistician, I do skincare. I make all of my money behind the chair, working on a client’s face. No, you should one, have your own skincare brand so that when that client gets up, you can now sell them the routine on how to keep their skin beautiful in between treatments, right?

So you can sell that client, your skincare brand. You can also sell people now that never makes it to your chair. That’s out of town, but may follow you on Instagram or may love what you do.

You now can sell them your skincare line. That’s from all over the world. You can now train other estheticians on your special techniques and how you’ve been able to do it.

You can also create a training for your clients on what to do, what not to do, what not to eat on how to keep their skincare, their skin routine beautiful, right? Cause I, if I go to a esthetician every two weeks and then she’s selling me a course and the proper skincare on how to keep my skin beautiful, I will buy it because I’m going to trust her expertise. So I just think that people think that this is the only way, right?

And then what happens during COVID when people don’t want to lay in front of you to get their skin. Now it’s nothing. They can’t do anything for you.

Like you can’t do anything. You can’t make any money. But if you would have had those other four streams of income streaming, you wouldn’t have been out of business, right?

So I think that is so important to pivot and not just completely go from doing skincare into baking cookies, but maybe you do skincare. Then you have a class. Maybe you have an ebook.

Maybe you have a training manual. Maybe you have a planner, the skincare planner that you sell on your website. It’s so many other things that you can do that will allow you to pivot and still do what you love every single day.

So much truth in that because we as entrepreneurs, we wear so many hats and yes, you can, you can have all the things, just not at the same time. You just don’t start them up at the exact same time, but then you can go on to the next, right? Yes.

I love how you mentioned there’s so many opportunities and a lot of women, especially they get stuck in choosing between having a or B, but why not both, right? Why not? A, B, C, D, E.

Yeah. And I think that’s important in seeing the opportunity when your audience gives you that feedback, right? What I’ve seen is women, they are in a certain niche, but their audience is asking them for something else.

But, and they say, Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t offer that. Why not create this extra offer?

Absolutely. And for me, when it came to my marketing agency, right? I feel like I have a doctorate degree.

You guys see it behind me. I’m like, I’ve worked, I’ve been doing this for nine years. If anybody, there’s no one that can tell me about marketing.

Like, obviously I’m always a student, but I know what I’m talking about. I’m watching cases. I’m doing so much research on So I set my tiered price of what I wanted to work with, right?

Like, Oh, this is the minimum budget needed to work with my agency. But then I started to realize like, wow, there’s so many women that I want to help. There’s so many women that I want to be able to change their lives, but they don’t have the budget.

So I had to create different tiers of access to my company, which is our a la carte division where you get to work with my team. I get to see all of the work, but you don’t hands on directly with us, but this is for budgets under 5,000. And then I created another tier, which is like a mid range.

And then I created the elite portion of my agency where you get hands-on services done for you. You’re working with my team, me and you are speaking weekly. So that pivot opened us up to more business because everybody maybe cannot afford a $15,000 retainer a month, but there is someone that still needs that initial marketing services and maybe they’re at like 7,500, maybe they’re at 5,000.

And I want it to be like, okay, I can’t go from telling you, you need marketing and branding and all these things, marketing, brand strategy, all these things. And then just tell you, Oh, well, you can’t afford me. So go to Fiverr.

You can’t afford me, go to Upwork. And then that customer gets the wrong or doesn’t really know what she wants. So she’s not going to get the best out of her money.

I had to be able to do it somewhere. I already have the team of people that are amazing and know what they’re doing. Why can’t I develop these other levels and layers for clients to be able to access my agency?

Yeah, I totally get that. And sometimes people get stuck. They are stuck in the overthinking and you know, when that happens, I would say, okay, go ahead, go get yourself someone on Fiverr for like $15 and get it started.

But then immediately work on something bigger, right? Because sometimes in the beginning, you just really get stuck.

Yeah, totally. I always tell people when you’re looking at your brand, and when you’re looking at your business, when you start to talk about it in the world, it’s now the world’s idea. It’s now the world’s concept.

So best person to market that idea is the one that’s going to be known for it. There’s so many brands in this world that are doing the exact same thing, probably have the exact same look, but it’s only one that you know about because like there’s so many smart cars, there’s so many electric cars. But at the end of the day, everyone’s talking about Tesla because it was quickest to market.

It was biggest to all the influencers, all the celebrities. Oh, Elon Musk is a whole person. So at the end of the day, you got to think about like, okay, yeah, I can go on Fiverr, pay $10 and get this terrible logo and get this terrible marketing plan.

Or I can truly believe in myself, invest in myself. And when I go to market, people are going to say she did that first and she did it best. So it’s the best marketer that wins.

Yeah. And I know you speak a lot about this idea of having forward thinking, and I really resonate with that because I talk about how I believe there is always a way. And when you have that mentality, you’re moving forward.

Even if that means failing forward or having these challenges, we’re still making progress, forward progress.

Absolutely. Everybody in my company, the people around me must be forward thinkers. Like there’s just not an opportunity for you to be around me.

I have this sheet. Oh, I just took it in the other room, but I have this sheet, um, in my office. And it literally says, before you come to me, do these things, ask yourself, like, what would I do if she wasn’t here?

What decision do you think is best? Like basically what’s the best case scenario? Are we losing money?

Are we losing customers? Are we like, once they done all of that, then they have their answer. They didn’t need me to answer it.

But most people don’t trust themselves. They don’t trust their thought process. They don’t trust their thinking, which causes them to be like, let me ask someone else.

Let me ask someone else. Let me ask someone else. Let me ask the boss.

Let me ask. No, I need you to trust yourself because you made it through a whole interview out of all the people that I was interviewing you and you got the job. So there was something about you that you trusted yourself to make it through that interview.

You answered the questions. You weren’t just, when I asked you, Oh, how’s your, how’s your day? You didn’t reply.

How’s your day? Like you didn’t ask me for the answer in your interview. So I know that you have the answer.

I know that you have the, the answer. And all you need to do is forward think, okay, if I make this decision, what will be the outcome? What is going to happen after that?

What is going to happen after that? What is going to happen after that? To me, that is how I think, like, I’m already thinking like, all right, well, cause right now I’m planning, even though I’m not there yet, but I’m planning for my exit.

I built an amazing business, business and businesses. I worked a very long time. I have an amazing team, but I ultimately want to exit one of my companies.

All right. Well, if I want to exit one of my companies, how do I remove myself from the brand now? So that my personal brand is not so wrapped up into the company that they think that the company cannot exist without me.

So how do I pull myself back to where the company can live on its own? Right. How do I build my SOPs, my trainees, my guide?

So when any CEO comes and sits in this seat that I’m in now, they’ll be like, Oh, easy. Like everything is there. Every question is answered.

Everything that I could have possibly thought that Mary would have explained to me about this particular role or this particular part of the job is already in this handbook. It’s already in this manual. And then I also think, okay, once I exited, I wake up one day and I’m like, I have an exit, like, oh my God, million dollars, multimillion dollar, billion dollars.

What am I doing? The time that I want to spend with my kids, where do I want to live? How do I want to show up?

Am I still going to want to be on Instagram? What is that going to look like? Do I want to speak at schools?

Like, I think that you should be forward thinking in every single thing that you do.

I love that so much because, you know, in the beginning, when you were in that first initial $300 investment, you didn’t think about the exits, right? So if you’re listening and then you’re in the beginner stages, know what’s possible because of Mary.

And honestly, I want to say that I didn’t think about the exit, but I did think about, I’ve been a forward thinker for so long. So while I was not thinking about exiting, I was thinking about how is this going to go global, right? And so I think for the people that are in the startup stages of their business, for me, it was $300.

And I was like, Oh my God, I have these t-shirt lines. If I could literally pull up right now, our first photo shoots, our first photo shoots were done as if it was a major brand already. Like I knew that if Macy’s was to call or, you know, a bigger retailer, ladies footlocker was to call me, I wanted the photography and the branding that I had to be enough, right?

I didn’t want to have to rebrand and, Oh, now I got to take me out of it. Oh, now our messaging is swayed. I have to sway it this way or sway it that way.

So I’ve always thought about like, when I started Cupcake Mafia, my concept was I would be the streetwear version of Juicy Couture. And so when I started to think about Juicy Couture and how they literally infiltrated the market when it came for, for our, you know, for our ages, like 16, 17, 18, everyone wanted Juicy Couture. Like everyone needed to have a like the fleece with the bling on the, on the butt, right?

Like everybody needed that, right? And so like, when I thought of that, I’m like, you didn’t really see the owners. You didn’t really see the founders in all of the photo shoots.

You didn’t see them on all, you’ve seen models, you’ve seen the celebrities, you’ve seen the Paris Hiltons of the world, you’ve seen all of those people. And so I wanted to make sure that my brand fit that same wavelength. I was thinking about the forwardness of when this company goes global and it’s sold in Japan, like it was, and it’s sold in Africa, like it was, I want this company to be bigger than me.

So I definitely think that you should be thinking about that in your starter stages.

So much goodness. So much goodness. What is a favorite quote that you go by?

Oh my God. So some of my, one of my favorite quotes, this is like something I live by is a slow rise to the top is better than a fast fall to the bottom. I truly believe that like when people look at me, they’re like, oh my God, you’re an overnight success.

Just we’ve seen you. I’m like, really? I started my company 12 years ago, my first company.

And now I’ve been in my marketing agency nine years. So I don’t know about overnight. If overnight takes 12 years, then yeah.

Okay. Overnight. But I think when you slowly rise to the top, every single pitfall, every single bump that you encounter, it just makes you stronger.

But I always tell people, if you look at a ladder, right? If I just came and put a ladder in the middle of the floor, it was like, Hey Lucy, jump to the top of the ladder. If you did it, you may make it to the top, but you’re going to fall off because you didn’t have that time to like balance yourself and pace yourself.

And the momentum of the jump is going to cause you to cause the ladder to fall over quickly. And that’s when we get overnight successes that never make it to their next business. Or that’s why we get music artists that are here today going tomorrow, because like one day you’re hearing that song.

You cannot, every single radio station is playing the song, but they didn’t have time to actually build their career up, build their name up, build their brand, the ability of build their visibility up to where customers actually cared about them after that one song. Right? So I, that is my favorite quote, a slow rise to the top is better than a fast fall to the bottom.

Beautifully said.

Thank you so much for your wisdom. Everyone go follow Ms. Skittles on Instagram so you can get that dose of inspiration yourself and all of the ways to connect with her will be linked in the show notes. Thank you so much.

Thank you, girl. I appreciate it.