Today we’d like to introduce you to Latoya Bond.
Hi Latoya, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I left corporate America in 2007 after finding out my firstborn son was deaf. I knew I could not maintain my then schedule as an account manager for a major manufacturer to top brands like Target, Macy’s, and Walmart and be the full-time mom my son needed at the time. I had to make a hard decision to choose my family and it is the best decision I could have made for us. Professionally, yes I did struggle to find myself as anyone would stepping away from the traditional 9-5 setting. Soon after I stepped away my entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and once my son was stable I re-entered the business world as a business owner.
I started an accessory business with my college best friend using my expertise in sourcing, production and importing goods from China. A year into my business, another college friend, Yandy Smith approached me to help her start an accessory business and my journey into consulting began. From product development to brand positioning and Integrated Marketing Strategies, I helped Yandy create a lifestyle brand with her at the center… Even back then I knew that the person was the star and not the product. I knew that if we could position Yandy as a lifestyle expert, it would give her great influence with one of the largest consumer groups in the world, black women. We then used that influence to build a social community and once the community was strong the possibilities for monetization were endless. To date, Yandy and I have launched and scaled several brand extensions, including her popular multi-seven figure beauty brand YELLE Skin Care which I currently still serve as the outsourced Chief Marketing Officer.
Soon after working with Yandy, other amazing women founders started to seek out my services. People always talk about purpose and sometimes it’s cliche but I truly realized that all of the traits that made me successful as an Account Manager also made me great as a Positioning and Marketing Strategist, this space was my purpose. In 2015 I officially launched The BBM Agency, a Full Service Brand Positioning and Integrated Marketing Agency. The acronym stands for Building Brown Millionaires because that’s exactly what I do. I help women create legacy brands by working with them to identify their market niche, then positioning them as an expert in that niche to build influence, we then use that influence to build an online community and then monetize the community but launching products and driving sales with integrated digital marketing strategies. To date, the agency has helped over 70 women build successful brands that have generated over 50 million in collective sales.
The best part of my journey is that I am now a full-time mom AND businesswoman and I didn’t have to choose one over the other! I set my schedule, my vacation days and my workload and I am able to be truly present and active in my children’s lives. Within all of this, I am also able to help other women realize the freedom that comes with being your own boss. I love helping women, specifically black women. I love seeing their ideas take flight and become a true reality. In a world where only 4% of black women-owned businesses make it past the startup phase, I’m proud that I’ve done my part to change those statistics.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think life is a smooth road. There are bumps, cracks, holes and turns all along the way and business is the same. Nothing stands out to me as exceptionally difficult. I have always had a can-do mentality. I taught myself coding back in the 90s when you still had to use a telephone cord to get online, lol. I’m a black woman in America and that’s challenging. So while I have had challenges, once I tackle them, I can’t even remember that they were challenges to begin with. If I had to pick something, I would say my biggest challenge is scaling my agency because that requires building a team. I have a few great women that have been with me for a long time but we have a cap on how many accounts we can handle at one time. To scale means we need to be able to service more clients which means growing and finding good people has been difficult. In my business every day is different, every client is different. I need a strong team of project managers that can multi-task and function in fast-paced, demanding environments without sacrificing the quality of work and attention to detail. Essentially I need unicorns and finding unicorns in this day and age is hard.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
“We can all be influential, and we can all turn that influence into a 7-figure brand with the right strategy. “ I know this to be true because I’ve successfully used this model to Build several Brown (Women) Millionaires over the past 15 years.
The BBM (Building Brown Millionaires) Agency is an integrated digital marketing agency specializing in positioning and community building. We are women-owned, women-led, & women-focused with a proven “Proprietary Model” designed for women to launch, refine, and leverage digital marketing and virtual communities to create products with scaleability.
With our results-driven approach, we position women to build authority in their niche to establish influence. We leverage that influence to build community-based relationships with consumers. We then implement strategies to supply the community with curated products and offers that we scale into viable brands through integrated digital marketing tactics.
When authority and influence combine with community and strategy, we create strong brands with consistent and measurable growth. This is the recipe for scalability and legacy.
To date, we have helped women build personal and product focus brands using positioning, community building and integrated digital marketing strategies as the pillars resulting in over 30 million media impressions and 50 million in revenue collectively for our clients.
We offer our services in several options;
One to Many, via Our Quarterly Group Incubator
One on One, via Our VIP CEO Weekends
Outsourced CMO for Small Businesses Grossing Over 250K Annually
Any big plans?
In the future, I would like to scale the agency to global status and become a destination for black women founders around the globe. I also want to create an online resource similar to Masterclass as a destination for women founders to gain access to information, funding resources and the business networks needed to help them win in business. By winning, I mean that they make it past the five year mark, they gross more than the average of $24k per year and they create legacy businesses that can begin to close the wealth gap in our communities.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://the-bbm-agency.mykajabi.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebbmagency/
