Jo Neisha Johnson's Swimwear Line Is For The Woman Who Wants To Vacation On The Fly
With the rise of more and more black women breaking away from traditional 9-5s to become their own bosses, the CEO is getting a revamp as the SHEeo. CEOs are forging their own paths, blazing their own trails, and turning their passion into a profit. Curious to know how she does it? In the Meet The SHEeo series, we talk to melanated mavens leveling up and glowing up, all while redefining what it means to be a boss.
As an avid vacationer, Jo Neishia Johnson loved shopping her favorite stores for swimsuits and vacation wear. But when many of the stores began to only sell their products online, she found the quality and the aesthetic no longer appealed to her tastes or her budget. She launched Beulah Swim as a solution to a growing need for high-quality swimwear, resort wear and fashion options at low to mid-prices for the confident woman who is ready to slay her vacation. Beulah Swim has been a featured vendor in large-scale events such as ESSENCE Festival and continues to expand its product offering for the fearless and fly traveler.
In this week's feature, meet Jo Neishia Johnson of Beulah Swim.
Courtesy of Jo Neisha Johnson
The Stats
Title: CEO of Beulah Swim
Location: Jacksonville, Florida
Year Founded: 2016
# of Employee(s): 1
30-Second Pitch: "Iconic moments aren't created, they're curated; and many people, from those with very little social media presence, to influencers and celebrities, strive to capture 'Instagrammable' content. Studies show, 40% of millennials prioritize their travel based on their ability to capture great pictures; and commonly, fashionable millennials pre-plan curated looks, inspired by pre-determined destinations they will visit. Beulah Swim is an emerging brand that offers exclusive swimwear and statement fashion for the fearless and confident woman who is ready to slay her vacation!"
The Details
What inspired you to start your brand?
My style preference has always been more than Forever 21, but a lot less than Gucci; BCBG was always my first stop to shop. After a lot of these well-known labels started to phase out their brick and mortar locations, I was forced to do more online shopping. In looking, I was so uninspired by a lot of the fashion that I found available in most online boutiques. In my opinion, I felt that the quality of the products was not what I wanted or the offerings lacked originality. If I did like something, I could find that specific look in multiple boutiques, and that was a turn-off as well. I did find some more custom brands, and then the dilemma became, I didn't want to pay upwards of $300 for more exclusive, designer looks offered by smaller brands.
Because I love to vacation near water, and because I saw a need for high-quality, low to mid-price swimwear, resort wear and fashion options in the smaller brand sector, I moved forward with Beulah Swim.
What was your “a-ha!” moment that brought your idea into reality?
Statistics revealed that Black millennial women spend more than any other demographic on travel and they have one of the highest purchasing powers in retail. Again, when I discovered that there was a need for selective, high-quality, mid-priced poolside and fashion looks, I knew that Beulah Swim would be successful.
Who is your ideal customer?
Women between the ages of 25 and 44. They are likely educated professionals who live in metro areas with a decent discretionary income. Our customer is social, a consistent online shopper and a "cultural traveler". She averages three trips a year and spends about $2,078 on each vacation.
What makes your business different?
What differentiates Beulah Swim from other online boutiques is service, selection (product offerings), and sustainability (quality).
What obstacles did you have to overcome while launching and growing your brand? How were you able to overcome them?
Two major obstacles that I constantly face while growing my brand are effective social media engagement and consistently meeting my sales goal. Initially, I did not want to serve as the face of Beulah Swim. So, I would hire models and photographers once a month to shoot content. However, I have realized that the resources I was spending on photoshoots would give a greater ROI if I spent it on inventory. So, going forward, I will be my own muse and I am expanding our product line beyond swimwear and resort wear. This way, I can shoot content more frequently and invest more in products to sell.
Also, IG analytics showed that I always have a lot of clicks to the website, but the sales did not reflect the activity. Several people have told me that my price point is too high for them, which I'm okay with. I do understand that everyone is not my target customer, but I also understand that people may also question the quality of my pieces, being that Beulah Swim is an online boutique. To remedy this issue, I have signed up to vend at numerous pop-up shops in different cities so potential customers can see and feel the quality of my piece and this has proven successful. The most common compliment I receive at pop-up shops is always in reference to the quality of my collection.
What was the defining moment in your entrepreneurial journey?
Vending in New Orleans during ESSENCE Festival weekend this year has been the most defining moment in my entrepreneurial journey thus far. I have wanted to give up on so many occasions but the love and support Beulah Swim received was overwhelming and I was reassured that there was a space, a need for us.
Where do you see your company in 5-10 years?
Beulah Swim will be the preferred brand for fearless and confident women who are looking for fly pieces to vacation in. By then, we would have expanded our product line to include countless travel-based products.
Where have you seen the biggest return on investment?
My biggest ROI has been vending. I get to introduce my label to and connect with potential customers, as well as gain new customers.
Do you have a mentor? If so, who?
I have two mentors. One of my mentors owns a Human Resources consulting firm; she is one of the most resourceful people I've ever met. I also recently connected with a more seasoned boutique owner who has offered to mentor me.
Biggest lesson you’ve learned in business?
Be grateful for loss; grow from it and appreciate that it wasn't a greater loss. Also, whenever you have the greatest feeling of opposition to attending a networking event or training workshop that you had planned to attend, push through and go! Without fail, that's when I've always benefited the most from connections.
Anything else you would like for people to know, or take away from your entrepreneurial story?
Never, ever give up. It's okay to take a break or even alter your course, but never give up!
For more Beulah Swim, follow them on social media @beulahswim.
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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From Beauty Editor To Bestselling Novelist: Inside The World Of Author Tia Williams
If Tia Williams’ A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an ode to Black artists, it’s at least partially informed by her experience as a creator herself. The novelist has never been a florist or a musician, like the couple in her latest book, but she’s most certainly an artist in her own right.
Williams has repeatedly imagined – and subsequently depicted – Black women as protagonists who are just as ordinary as they are extraordinary. Her readers might bury themselves in her tales of romance as a means of escaping their own lives, but they likely also see glimpses of themselves within the pages of each of her books.
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, released earlier this year via Grand Central Publishing, follows a florist who has recently moved into an “enchanted” brownstone in Harlem from Atlanta. When she falls in love with a musician, the pair realizes their lives are intertwined in a mysterious way that dates back to the Harlem Renaissance.
Williams says she wanted to use the book to explore the idea of “Black Excellence” and what it means for artists today. “We had to call it out [our achievements] because our excellence for so long had been ignored and still is being erased. But, I do think Black excellence can become a prison because the idea of what is excellent can become very narrow,” she says. “This book is about Black artists and having the freedom to pursue Black art. I just wanted to investigate what Black excellence really means. Should we be redefining it? Is it a different definition based on who you are?”
Amazon
Although she spent a few years in Germany, Tia Williams spent most of her childhood in Virginia and Maryland, surrounded by Black people who had various lived experiences. A career as a writer, she says, always felt within her grasp. “I always knew I could do it,” she tells me when we speak in early February, just days after the release of her latest book. While she released her first novel, The Accidental Diva, in 2004, she’s certainly been writing for more than 20 years. According to her, she wrote her first book when she was just seven years old. “It was called Peter and the Crystal Bunny, and there was an “About the Author” section. It [said] ‘Tia Williams, 7, is probably the youngest writer you’ve ever read.’”
In elementary school, Williams found herself reading magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Mademoiselle, determined to become a beauty editor and a novelist when she became an adult. She’s achieved both. In addition to her creative writing, she’s worked as a beauty editor for magazines such as Elle, Glamour, Lucky, and Essence. Most recently, she was the editorial director for Estèe Lauder.
Two of Williams’ novels have achieved noteworthy success in the past decade. The 2016 novel The Perfect Find was adapted into a film, which won the audience award for narrative feature at The Tribeca Film Festival before it was released on Netflix last year. Gabrielle Union stars in the film as Jenna Jones, a 40-year-old creative director who falls in love with her company’s 25-year-old videographer, Eric, following a bad breakup. Eric (portrayed by Keith Powers) also happens to be the son of Jenna’s boss/professional rival.
(L-R) Keith Powers and Gabrielle Union starring in the Netflix film, 'The Perfect Find.'
Courtesy of NetflixWilliams says she’d placed Gabrielle Union on a vision board when she was writing the book. “And I don’t even do vision boards,” she says. “My friend made me do one. I was having such a hard time writing.”
Recently, it was announced that Williams’ 2021 Seven Days in June – a New York Times bestseller and former pick for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club – would be adapted into a television series for Prime Video. Will Packer Media will produce the series, with Williams serving as an executive producer.
Still, the writer’s career hasn’t come without challenges. As an avid reader, Williams remembers being frustrated by how whitewashed literature was because of how much it juxtaposed with the world she grew up in. “I knew we were in all spaces,” she says. The few stories she did see about Black people tended to invoke common narratives about slavery or the civil rights era, which felt extremely limiting. Where were the stories about Black people who were living lives that were not centered around trauma and oppression, she wondered.
In the '90s, she fell in love with authors such as Terry McMillan, Omar Tyree, and Eric Jerome Dickey, only to be disappointed when publishing moved away from uplifting Black authors again in the early 2000s.
She learned for herself how difficult the publishing industry could be when she tried to find a publisher for The Perfect Find. “I went with a very, very small indie press. It was really more like self-publishing,” she says, adding that the book had been rejected by every major publisher. But, publishing this way proved to be extremely challenging, especially for someone with a disability. (Williams, like the protagonist in Seven Days in June, suffers from chronic migraines.)
Williams is hesitant to even reflect on this time in her life because of how traumatic it was. “It’s still really triggering to even talk about. It was a terrible, terrible time,” she says before letting a deep, long sigh. “It stays with me. It was horrible.”
“And I wanted to give up, but then there's this other part of me that…when you're a writer, you know when your work sucks and you know when it's good. I knew that this was good, and I just refused to, I couldn't let it go,” she continues. “I just poured everything into it. And I felt like just letting it go would be like a death. That sounds dramatic, but it’s true.”
Working in a creative industry can feel like always “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” but Williams has persisted and continued to follow her lifelong dreams.
Reflecting again on her latest book, the Brooklyn resident says A Love Song for Ricki Wilde was also inspired by her fascination with Harlem in the 1920s. “It was really fun to do research [and] to go up to Harlem and walk around and sort of get the vibe of the contemporary feel of the streets,” Williams says. “But, then, you'll be walking down some street and see an obscure little plaque that will say something like ‘Billie Holiday was discovered here, singing at 14 in 1928,’ or something. It feels like the past and the present are coexisting there in a really magical way. That helped inspire the story.”
In the days following our conversation, Williams will begin a book tour to promote the novel and connect with the readers who have supported her throughout the years. “A Love Song for Ricki Wilde," she says, is a “magical, modern fairytale.”
But it’s her latest offering to Black women who are so often ignored by the media and literary worlds. “I really write for Black women primarily. Anyone else who comes to the table, I’m thrilled,” she says. “But, first and foremost, I write my books, and especially this one, as a gift to us.”
Editor's note: Will Packer Media, the company that will adapt Tia Williams’ Seven Days in June into a Prime Video series, owns xoNecole.
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