December 10, 2020

Meet Alana Kay

Local Stories

Today we’re excited to introduce you to Alana Kay. We were introduced to them by one of our community members and content partners – Liz Nelson. Check out our conversation with Alana below.

Alana, thanks for taking the time to share your story with us today. So, let’s start with your personal story – what can you share with us?
I am an artist and designer that stumbled onto this career by accident. A DIY table refinishing project in my driveway introduced me to resin and the beautiful movement it creates. People began asking if I could do paintings the same way I did my table. As I was photographing the paintings to create a website for this new side hustle of being an artist, I realized my paintings would be the perfect fabric. Unique, bold, colorful prints that no one else in the world had! I took to the internet to figure out how I could turn my art into clothing, without any kind of budget or connections to manufacturers. From there I have had my head down painting and designing that artwork into women’s apparel, jewelry, accessories, home decor and gifts. I now have an entire lifestyle brand, just launched a loyalty rewards program on my website, am preparing for my first ever virtual collection premier, have built a wholesale channel to my business, have grown my website sales channel, and continue to take commissions and paint.

Thanks for sharing that with us. How about obstacles and struggles – has it been a smooth road?
The only constant as an entrepreneur is that everything changes. Several friends found it really ironic that I was pouring resin. As I began to tell them what it was like to pour resin and to be in the studio they laughed! I am a notorious planner and love to have control of absolutely everything. Resin has taught and continues to teach me that planning is okay, trying to control things is sometimes necessary but if something does not go as planned it can still turn out beautiful. I take the lessons from my art studio into the business side of my brand. I have a couple dozen manufacturers in four different countries. Every product I make has so many details that my customers may not even notice when they wear or use the product but it is important to me to get them right. Getting the manufacturers to understand my vision and my quality expectations has been one of the most difficult parts of my process. Also the fit of my garments is custom to my brand, so that always takes many hours and much back and forth. The other really difficult thing is realizing cash flow is always tight. Three years in and I still have several times a year where I am not sure if I will be able to pay the bills I need to pay. I have to constantly remind myself that many of the great and large companies out there had this same problem in their first ten years in business AND even after you are a larger company it will continue to happen in periods of rapid growth. Lastly, COVID shutdown. I mean, WOW, talk about curve ball in business! I headed into 2020 thinking I had my assortment of products lined out, was ready to take a slight break on developing so many new products, then BAM…. the world stopped. This meant people stopped shopping, stopped going out, stopped carrying $300 Italian leather clutches. So I had to pivot. It felt like starting over because I had to pivot into so many new product categories. This is very expensive and time consuming. I have spent quite a bit of time noticing what people are wearing, how they are living their days and what is now a priority when they are shopping. I went into categories like face masks, lounge wear, and even puzzles. I am really happy with my assortment again but this holiday shopping season is very uncertain. Hopefully people will embrace the small brands like AlanaKayART this holiday season.

We’d love to hear more about your experience with Liz.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned through this journey is to find other creatives and entrepreneurs and collaborate with them. Liz Nelson, with Liz Diane Productions, has been the fuel to my fire in this area. She has introduced me to other like minded business owners and shown me there are people in this world that also believe in lifting others up. But I did not even know who Liz Nelson was until two years ago. I will never forget when I met Liz! I was following her on Instagram and just loved all of her Fort Worth posts and posts with her cute family, and I loved her style. I was set up at a little outdoor market one day and I saw her walking toward my booth and her face lit up because she realized it was AlanaKayART and to my surprise she actually knew what that was! We chatted a minute and she went on about her day. A couple weeks later she reached out to see if I would be interested in letting her borrow some items for a photoshoot she was working on, I quickly said YES. From there she and I have developed a beautiful friendship and professional relationship. She has included my brand in pop up opportunities, been able to incorporate me into her rotation of brands she supports and promotes through her social media channels, she even included me in her first ever Rodeo Ready Fashion Show. Liz is an incredible marketer and has a really natural way she communicates to her audience. But now that I know her, I know how much planning and thought she puts into those things. There is incredible value to what Liz is doing in our community. As I mentioned, she is the reason why I believe in collaboration over competition. As a small business or brand you do not have as large of an audience or as wide of a reach but when you bring lots of small businesses together you can do great things. The collaboration events I have participated in with Liz introduce me to other business owners, she coaches us on how to tag and cross promote leading up to the event, and this introduces me to all of their audiences. She makes it really simple. We have worked on several other projects together. She is one of my go to models for the AlanaKayART brand. She knows her angles, she knows what sells, and she works hard on every single shoot. Leading up to and during all photoshoots she does posts and stories about the project which is super helpful. Another thing she was instrumental in for me happened early in the COVID shutdown. I was feeling blah and missing having a reason to get dressed up, so I started getting “fancy” every Friday. Then I realized other people might benefit from this as well. Liz helped me start doing a LIVE Fancy Friday event each week. She helped me secure guests, created the promo graphics, as well as helped me promote the event each week. This was such a fun way for me to connect with my audience and grow my audience. She and I also share a birthday month! Last year we did a joint birthday party at a local restaurant and of course she and I used it as an opportunity to promote each other as well. This year, we had to think outside of the box for the birthday celebration. We created a virtual event and used the LIVE Fancy Friday platform to do a virtual birthday bash. Liz pulled together several businesses that let us use their space for the event broadcast and also that we brought on as guests. It was a fun way to keep our collab birthday celebration alive while pulling together some small businesses to promote. Lastly, Liz is my nurse injector extraordinaire. She helps my face stay in tip top shape for all of these photos and videos I am having to do for AlanaKayART. She is a true creative and it comes out in everything she does, including using my face as her canvas. I love seeing her in her AlanaKayART mask staring at my face with needle in hand plotting her next move! haha

Our lives and careers sometimes throw extremely difficult challenges our way. Do you have any advice for someone facing what they feel are insurmountable challenges?
Personally and professionally 2020 will go down as one of the most difficult years of my life. Without getting into all of the details, just know that every single person is struggling with hardships, illness, regrets, and fear. If you approach life that way, knowing that everyone you follow on social media is having a tough time too, I think that helps you bounce out of the low places and continue doing things even when you are scared. I do not know how to do everything that I need to do for my business day to day, and that is true from the very beginning. But I make sure that I take the next step because that is the only way to keep things moving forward. The other thing I do is keep my blinders on. I often get asked what artists I follow or what artists inspire me. This is a common question people of all industries get asked. My answer is, I don’t actually follow many artists because I know what I am good at and what my vision is and it does not need to look like someone else’s vision. If we could all use our unique combination of talent, experience, and passion to fuel our path instead of looking for someone to tell us how we should do something or what we should do next, we would all change the world in greater ways.

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