Entrepreneur and public relations expert Valese Jones is not only a member of our elite Executive Power alums, but also a proud supporter and champion of Black business and culture. With her beauty company, The Queendom, Jones aids several Black-owned brands reach customers across the country while innovating the ways we practice self-care and love ourselves.
It’s been a minute since your last feature. You have launched a beauty based delivery business called The Queendom. Tell us about it.
The Queendom has been an interesting journey to say the least. We are currently in a rebranding and rebuilding phase. We’re getting a new website built, testing out our weave and wig care product line, along with hair extensions, while still raising the money to finish our first full service mobile salon and spa.
What are the things that you consider when selecting products for the monthly beauty box?
We like to test the quality and consistency of the products ourselves before we market them to our customers. I know some people might feel that’s taking a long route but quality control is the most important thing to us along with allowing our partners to grow with us. We don’t want to outpace the small Black and Brown businesses we started this venture to support.
The beauty box also introduces your ever-growing subscribers to new products from a wide range of Black owned business. Why is providing these kind of placement opportunities so important to the community as a whole?
Providing the opportunity ourselves is important because mainstream channel cost and require too much. We are priced out of an industry that makes billions of dollars off us but we are never offered a slice of the pie. Between my business partner and I, the goal with The Queendom is to make more of us owners and main players in the beauty industry. We are the moment and everything that is popping is because of the Black community. So, you can keep trying to shut us out but I’m all about kicking doors down.
Outside of The Queendom, you still run your public relations firm. How do you find the time to do so much?
Honestly, I ask myself this daily. But a lot of it is creating systems that allow me to work in the way that’s most efficient and comfortable for me, which is a privilege I don’t take for granted. I also outsource everything I am not good at and simply do not want to do. I don’t force myself to fit in this rigid box of girl boss and grind culture anymore. I get my rest, I take my self-care days, vacations and I delegate.
You are very outspoken on a broad range of topics from politics to relationships on Twitter. Do you ever worry about being so transparent on a public platform?
I don’t because it is redacted transparency. I don’t share a lot of my personal life on social media but, I do provide commentary on whatever the trending topic is for the day. Social media rarely gets my first thought because I’m conscious of my audience and how easily influenced a lot of people are, especially by people they view a certain way.
As a publicist, do you ever feel the need to censor yourself on social media?
Yes and no. I feel like we should all know less about each other. But I’m never going to be one of those people who curates an image for myself because the minute I can no longer play that character, everything will fall apart. I don’t even believe in curating images for my clients, I just make who they are resonate with their target audience. With me, what you see is what you get and it hasn’t kept me from any opportunity I’ve wanted. I think people are actually tired of all the curation and miss seeing people just be themselves.
What changes would you like to see happen in Black culture and what are you doing to bring them into fruition?
This is a loaded question and I could write an essay but, I would like to see us stop trying to imitate white patriarchal systems. They should never be the standard. I truly believe that is the driving force behind all the divides in our community. This is why I do so much with the youth in my community via volunteering with nonprofit organizations and just in my everyday life. I’m auntie Vee to so many kids. I try my best to pour so much love into our children, so they can have plenty to give themselves and others. True community is the only way we will survive these unprecedented times and I try to model that.
Do you have any advice you would like to share with other Black women entrepreneurs?
Collaboration over competition. We can do so much more together than we do alone. If your first thought is to think something negative of another woman, please do some soul searching and go to therapy to unpack the internalized misogyny. You are your sister’s keeper even if you don’t like her, you shouldn’t be looking to hurt her.
For more information on Valese Jones and The Queendom, check out her websites: sincerelynicole.net and https://thequeendombbtx.com/
Be’n Original
