28 years old Ajia Monet has been a creative visionary her entire life. She decided to resign from her long time government employment with the United States Postal Service in 2015 to pursue her lifelong passion as an Interior Designer.
“A’Blige Interior Designs” is what she called it; founded in April of 2014.
The self-taught freelance designer has since been making big moves in the competitive industry doing so by her natural, creative talent. With no schooling or formal training, the designer was able to start her own company, and it has been a success ever since.
It took one argumentative conversation with her father, who is an entrepreneur in the restaurant industry, that helped her come to the realization that she should take that leap of faith and start own business. At that time, she was in the midst of waiting to be recruited by the United States Navy and was working for her father. She said she felt overworked and undervalued.
“I remember him saying to me when you get your own business, you can run your business how you want to run your business,” she said. “It was so funny to me because it was kind of like an aha moment for me because I never even considered it.
From that moment, the mother of two quit her job. She started putting together business plans to bring her vision to life.
“Everybody has always known that I was creative,” Monet added. “I always changed my room. My apartments were always nice, so when he said that to me, it gave me another perspective.”
The interior designer makes it clear that the journey of finding her passion wasn’t that smooth, though.
“It [interior design industry] was super new and foreign to people in my community because it always been like a luxury service,” she said, “I was like, what can I do differently. I wanted to offer affordable services to my people. The supply and demand worked and so many people were willing to patronize and support. The rest is history.”
During this time, Monet was contemplated pursuing a career design in school since she didn’t have any formal training. She knew creativity is from the inside though. She sought her father’s advice of whether she should do so or not since he was somebody she looked up to on how to run a business.
He told her that if she wanted to work for someone else, then going to school would be a great idea, but if she wanted to run her own business, then she shouldn’t waste time or money according to Blavity.
Then she took the leap of faith in starting the business without school. She knew she could hire and outsource people if she needed to.
“To be honest this year will be four years I have been in business,” Monet said. “I was looking back like ‘okay, I’ve officially graduated’. I couldn’t really do it any other way.”
Monet wants to make it clear that she is not degrading people who do go to school, but in those four years, she was able to learn through her experience, in the opposite way of those who go to school yet have no experience in their chosen field.
“They have the skills but they don’t have the experience,” she said. “At the end of four years, I was able to have both.”
During her journey, Monet pursued her business full-time, even though she still had bills to pay and really didn’t have support from others or her father during the time of her transition. But, her situation motivated her to work harder.
“For me, I felt like that was the push I needed to work harder to prove him (her father) wrong,” Monet said. “Not to say he didn’t believe in me, but what I saw, I didn’t feel the love or encouragement or support that most people need on this journey.”
Earlier on there were times where she had to take her two kids to work with her. At s a point, had to do their homework in the car because they returned home as late as 2 a.m.
She had to learn how to efficiently manage her money as well. She was driving a car that couldn’t fit all of her materials and, but her father was able to step in and help her purchase a truck.
Monet learned how to properly carry herself as a businesswoman. She did research online, read blogs and using Pinterest to help drive traffic to her business. In these circumstances of starting, most people would have quit.
“I had next to no budget when I started,” Monet said. “I wasn’t really able to show what I could really do. I had to work my way up and build that repertoire with people. I just had to immerse myself in it and I had to find the key ways to do things.”
With her experiences, the interior designer launched a Business Coaching Course for people in the interior design industry.
Monet believes people should still pursue a career using their natural talents even though they may be afraid to do so, even if they didn’t go to school.
“I feel like if God gave it to you use it,” Monet said. “You just have to believe and have faith in yourself. I hate to sound so spiritual but it all boils down to your state of mind. She wants entrepreneurs to know that it still takes time to perfect your craft, and along with it comes a lot of trial and error.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Monet said. “A good business is always trying to figure out the problem and coming up with a solution to it.” She learned the mindset of having patience and managing your emotions.
She has learned that business ownership is not a process of instant gratification, but to trust the process.
“People don’t see the hard work, the late nights and early mornings and the sacrifice,” Monet said. “They just see the pretty pictures on Instagram and they try to skip the process and not do it with integrity and not do it because they love it. They’re just trying to get where you are.”
Monet believes that one needs to get away from their comfort zone. They should at least try because you never know the outcome.
“I always tell people, God makes you uncomfortable when he wants you to grow,” she said. “I believe that. Being content is a mentality.”
“Just because this is my story and it worked for me, that doesn’t mean that what worked for you will be a better way,” said.
She just encourages any learning from her them to pray, focus and believe. According to her, if you can believe it you can achieve it.
“Try it first and if it doesn’t work out at least you said you tried,” she continued. “At least if it doesn’t work out, then you can try Plan B, and if Plan B doesn’t work go back to Plan A and just figure out how you’re going to refine it.”
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