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Meet Dr. Kelora Cofer of Elite Expertise, Infinite Beauty, and King Beard

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Kelora Cofer.

Dr. Cofer, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve always known that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but at first, I couldn’t immediately land on what type of business I wanted to start. Initially, I thought that I needed to have some new disruptive technology or product that would take the world by storm, but it later occurred to me that there were literally thousands of profitable, proven business ideas that I could employ immediately. At that time, my experience was that I had worked in Corporate America for ADP as a Manager and Project Manager for a few years in addition to working in the public health arena at Augusta University for over five years. As I pondered how to parlay my skills into a successful business, I remembered my work at the university and how the non-profits we worked with often needed grant writers or advice on how to make their businesses more efficient. That’s when I decided that I would start Elite Expertise. We offer a variety of business services for non-profit and for-profit businesses at affordable prices. Our services include finding and developing grants, developing business plans and 501(c)(3) applications, and designing websites. We offer many of our services for $500 because I understand what it’s like to start a business from scratch and I want to help foster an environment that promotes entrepreneurship by offering top-quality work at affordable prices.

Since starting Elite Expertise in January 2020, I’ve also started a beauty supply store named Infinite Beauty Supply and started a men’s beard care line named King Beard. I started Infinite Beauty because I believe in a better beauty experience for African American women. I wanted a store that was clean, neat, and without clutter that offered an online shopping experience. While simultaneously running Elite Expertise, I hired a realtor and worked towards securing a building for the store and developing vendor relationships. I started working on bringing Infinite Beauty to life in March 2020 and it is nearly ready to open! We are currently logging all of our inventory into our point of sale system and plan to open by the end of November.

Lastly, I started King Beard Products because I could only find a handful of African American beard brands to sell at Infinite Beauty. King Beard specializes in all-natural, organic, kosher beard products. It is currently sold online and will be offered in-store at Infinite Beauty in the very near future.

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 encountered challenges in opening all of my businesses, but there were far more obstacles to opening Infinite Beauty than the others. For example, my husband and I self-funded the store and are proud to say that we own everything in it with no debt, but the building owner thought my business was risky without additional capital and suggested that I secure a business loan. Since I didn’t want to take out a loan, I was asked to provide six months of rent prepaid. While that seemed outlandish, I took the deal because three other property owners would hardly return my phone calls or emails when I was scouting out other potential properties, and when my realtor would finally get someone on the phone, she was told that the property had already been secured by another business that actually ended up paying less than what I was initially told the monthly rent would be. It was infuriating, but we persevered.

Unfortunately, there are also multiple examples of overcoming challenges in my journey to develop vendor relationships. In this business, it is critical to have major-brand hair available to sell in your store. While trying to procure the hair, I contacted five mainstream hair vendors and I have only been able to open an account with one of them so far. One of them responded to my request, but would not allow me to open an account because my store was too close to another store that sold their products. The other three suppliers simply did not respond to my inquiries, while the final vendor allowed me to open an account and order their entire line of hair products. In another case, I was trying to find a vendor for a line of premium relaxers, shampoos, and conditioners. I reached out to a supplier and asked how to open a wholesale account, and they told me to develop a sales proposal and mail it to their New York office. When I asked if there was an email address that I could send it to, I was told that snail mail was the only way. When I asked how they would contact me about their decision to allow me to open an account, I was told they would send me a letter in the mail. I was very frustrated by that scenario because this is a major national brand that has the technological resources to receive sales proposals electronically; however, I am in the process of developing the proposal and have found a retailer that provides limited access to their products. I expect to be able to offer their full line of products within my first year of operation.

Lastly, and unfortunately, I’ve also experienced racism. While delivering one of my packages, a delivery driver for one of the major carriers asked me what type of store I was opening, and when I told him it was a beauty supply store he replied, “Well there goes the neighborhood.” Nevertheless, I carried on and Infinite Beauty will open within the next few weeks, debt-free, starting out in the black. When I consider all of the difficulties encountered while opening my store, I thank God for helping me to overcome them and continue to push forward. Infinite Beauty’s grand opening later this month will be the culmination of my challenges, and so worth it.

Please tell us about Elite Expertise, Infinite Beauty, and King Beard.
Elite Expertise is known for high-quality work and expertise at affordable and fair prices. I believe in entrepreneurship and want to help others start and maintain their dream business. Most new businesses are boot-strapped and can’t afford website design services that average at $5,000. Simply put, I offer reasonable prices for quality work. King Beard is unique because it offers all-natural, organic, kosher beard products. Infinite Beauty stands out because it is African American owned and will operate debt-free. I am most proud of the debt-free portion. It gives me pause to think that it was possible to achieve this feat. Opening Infinite Beauty has opened my eyes to how other owners of large companies think. Sometimes it’s saddening because I believe that it is not necessary to be cut-throat and malicious. Successful businesses can be created and managed while still being an honest, moral, and compassionate owner. Seeing all of the flaws of the beauty industry’s supply chain has given me so many ideas for future endeavors. The best is truly yet to come for this business.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
When considering this, no one memory crosses my mind, but rather a string of memories of my early childhood with my sister (Reva) and younger cousins (Crysonde’, Elwyn, and Shelicia). What immediately came to mind was how we would play Hide-and-Seek all afternoon in my grandparents’ backyard and ride bikes in their cul-de-sac. Our parents would let us stay over often and we would be up all-night snickering and talking when we should have been asleep. A montage of playing in the summer heat with them is all that filled my mind when I read this question. It was warm, nostalgic, and full of the simple pleasures of life and family.

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Image Credit:
Reginald Cofer

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