Today we’d like to introduce you to LaPorsha Davis.
Thanks for sharing your story with us LaPorsha. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My journey was never pre-planned. My meme did nails my whole life & I would always joke around & say im going to do nails one day but growing up it never stuck to me. I had so many other things I was interested in so I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do as a career. I was going to these different nail shops & experiencing the worst treatment or just not getting my nails done the way I liked them period. I lived in Tyler with my son dad for a few years but that didn’t work but the one thing that stuck to me before I left Tyler to restart my life was a comment he made to me. He told me I would move back to Oak Cliff and live on my family and end up with an abusive dude that will be beating my ass every day but boy was he wrong. Those words have been my motivation since July 2016. It helped me to never settle for anything or just anybody and it makes me remind myself “ push through P, you got this!! I moved back to Dallas at 26. So, I immediately got in grind mode because at this point my son is depending on primarily me and I couldn’t dare ask my family to do anything for me because I would be proving him right. I worked for Bank of America at the time & things just didn’t sit well with me working for this call center.
While there, every team I was moved to the big bosses would try to force me to help that particular supervisor with assisting the team with the knowledge that I had on the products and work systems and even the customer calls. I looked online and found tint & called and spoke with their office. I met with one in particular and she told me to speak with my job, so I did and my manager told me yes he would do it for me if I would help him out on the call center floor. Shortly, I realized after asking so many times they weren’t willing to help me. It became so frustrating and depressing working there so I took a medical leave for two months. In the midst of the leave, I was already in the process of moving out of my apartment due to being told they did not want to resign my lease based on a disagreement I had with the office staff about a community bathroom in the office. A few days later, I return back to work and get fired the same day. So basically, I’m homeless at the moment – weighing my options on where and what to do next. things just weren’t going well. So, at this point, I’m moving in with my sister. I’m unemployed & I have a 5-year-old boy looking to me for everything!! That gave me all the motivation I needed. Because under pressure I always push through.
So, I signed up for Lyft for the remainder of the summer. I drove lyft for a month and found a job by the end of August just in time for my son to return home from summer break. It was an uncomfortable position to be put in but it gave me the hustle I needed to survive as an adult. To wake up every day not knowing how much money you’ll make that day is hella depressing but to know it’s up to you to determine how much you wanted to make was my biggest motivation. I started my job and it was the perfect schedule so I called the school back and she told me to come back and meet with her. I went back a few days after starting my new job and processed all my paperwork right then praying my job would provide me a new schedule freshly starting. Next day I spoke with my new manager nervous about if he would change my schedule again so that I could make it to school on time. He signed off on a new schedule with no hesitation. There, after six months of long days and restless nights, I completed my nail tech program and registered my brand and now I am the owner of my very own brand Snobbish Nailz. Since graduation in April, I’ve been accepting clients and perfecting my craft and learning all about the business. I am currently pacing myself so that I can learn how to build my brand the right way because I don’t want to fail as an entrepreneur. My goal is to open my nail shop by 2021 and hire four other like-minded nail techs.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I definitely wouldn’t say smooth. This journey is teaching me how to differentiate the type of clients I aim to service, which is important because you can not please everyone. Being on social media promoting my brand and my work I constantly have to remind myself to allow myself to grow at my own pace and to not rush my process or compare myself to others and better yet remember that I just completed school so it’s okay to not know some things yet, that’s a part of the journey. To observe the unknown, seek for more and apply it to my daily journey. I would tell others to write down your goals and complete them one by one without overwhelming yourself. It’s exciting to come across ideas that you see for your future but allow yourself to learn things and master them one at a time. Never compare your work or yourself to other women because you only see who they are today and not who they were at the beginning of their journey.
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I’m a nail technician. I specialize in long nails and also colors and patterns on the nails. My proudest moments are when I see people that I don’t know reaching out to me for services. That means the most to me because it shows me that somebody notices my work and that gives me so much motivation to keep learning and growing as a brand. The difference in my brand and others I think is the goals I set out for myself. I don’t promote services for the popularity and the fame which is what I see girls are craving. My goal is to open a shop within Dallas with all African American women to show that we are capable of providing the same services that others come to America and provide to us, but with great customer service and better services. Not to say that the others are incapable of providing great services it’s just something in particular that I myself and others are looking for that we have not been getting.
What do you feel are the biggest barriers today to female leadership, in your industry or generally?
The biggest barriers, in my opinion, is not giving the people something to believe in. People easily talk about what they’re going to do or aiming to do but there is no action behind it. I think with women we have more to prove because we’re less respected in corporate America. If you’re not a dominant person, it’s hard to succeed. You have to come to speak about what you believe and put action behind it. Then, people will genuinely support you because you are motivation for them. I also see the woman who provides services that fail to reach back and pull others up with them. When you’re great at what you do, others will aim to be like you and you have to be willing to teach others and help others in some type of way without you feeling like it’s you against everyone else in your industry or other industries. Don’t feel like if you show them your gift, they’ll pass you up or do it better than you. It’s not a competition or a battle. We all want to win and we all want to make money while doing it.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 4692224674
- Instagram: p.be.snobbing_ @snobbishnailz
- Facebook: La’Porsha Davis
- Other: Snapchat @pbesnobbing
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