Meet Troi Hawkins of Velena Consulting Group

Today we’d like to introduce you to Troi Hawkins.

Hi Troi, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started out as a Makeup Artist for MAC Cosmetics where I worked my way up from cashier to Assistant Manager. I managed Several of NYC top Stores. MAC Times Square was where I thrived helping bring in over 14 million with a team of 10 managers and over 80 artists. I was their go to for customer service and became their Ambassador. No client left that store unhappy. In 2017 I walked away and started my own business and started freelancing around the Metro area. Became a licensed cosmetologist and began working in TV/Film. Highly referred through my work and began a social media presence and then was shut down by the pandemic in 2020. Having to Pivot I got licensed and became a life insurance agent, and a certified credit repair specialist. This was the beginning of what is now Velena Consulting Group and Funded & Flourishing. I did not know it at the time because life takes its turns

Alright, 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?
The Pandemic was a special time, I feel like there were people who got super rich and people who were just trying to survive. I was the latter, for a moment, lol I was in a whole new industry and it was around the time that using your LLC or Business can get you funding. Before the pandemic Funding was not talked about in mainstream. I was learning it all. How people were leveraging their personal credit to build wealth and I was astonished. I partnered with real estate investors and made $35k off of one deal. That was rich to me. From there i kept investing in myself. My toxic trait is I’ll spend down to my last $ on an investment or deal or what have you because Hey you never know….. So in doing so I made a few bad investments and ended up losing it all. and having to start over again in 2023. I left a financially abusive relationship and after severing ties and starting over from scratch, I had to rebuild financially and started freelancing again. I was working with makeup artists and hairstylists all over NYC. I used that time to do market research asking questions like: “Do you have life insurance?” “How do you pay for your supplies?” “How’s your personal credit?” “Do you operate under an LLC?” Every artist I talked to had nothing in place. Bingo! I merged my knowledge while working in the field and VCG was born.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Velena Consulting Group is a boutique firm geared towards the development of the Beauty professional. Its the Umbrella company to Funded & Flourishing where we help beauty pros learn to leverage their personal credit to get funding for their business so they can stop using their own money. We offer everything from funding to business development and marketing. We have a team of professionals that will help you build a credit profile that is fundable, Will build your back-end systems so that you can focus on shaking hands and kissing babies.

I’m proud of the fact that we were able to build an academy to support beauty pros where they can learn the framework B.O.S.S. Build Organize Systemize and Secure. A full 6 week course with support and weekly meetings on how to build your credit for funding organize your business, systemize it so you learn how to work on your business and not in your business. Finally, we teach you how to secure it all with insurance and trusts to build legacy.

We are always available to take on new clients from wherever they are in business.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is defined by how you feel after you accomplish something. It’s also a mindset. Even if you didn’t accomplish a goal the success is in the lesson.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fundedandflourishing.com/credit-strategy-531108#row-gJyeHHRvl7
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/fundedandflourishing