"Focus on customer needs and wants."
Growing up in Suriname, an ethnically diverse country, with a Caribbean mother, & Middle Eastern father, Aziza El Wanni knew there had to be more to life than the straight hair she was seeing in the mainstream media. She started to experiment with different products & ingredients, to create her own hair ‘potions’ at the young age of 12.
After moving to Amsterdam to pursue a degree, Aziza noticed her hair changing due to the new climate, and again started to experiment with different potions that worked so well, friends & family eventually started asking for their own. After her own personal hair journey, came The Potion Studio, meant for everyone and anyone. Everyone’s haircare journey is different, but oddly enough, also the same.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Aziza El Wanni: Thank you so much for having me! I’m Aziza, the Founder of The Potion Studio. The Potion Studio is a collection of luxury haircare products designed to revolutionize and elevate your natural beauty and haircare routine. We mainly focus on textured hair and scalp health. We pride ourselves on creating simple but powerful ingredients.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Aziza El Wanni: Transparency and making the consumer feel heard and seen.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Aziza El Wanni: Focus on customer needs and wants.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Aziza El Wanni: The pandemic has changed a lot in the health and wellness space. Before the pandemic, wellness and self care was seen as a luxury or a hobby, not a necessity. As we’ve all been forced to stay home, we’ve collectively come to the conclusion that wellness and happiness go hand in hand.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Aziza El Wanni: I would have loved for someone to tell me that there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to doing business in the wellness or beauty space. Before we launched, I was so focused on making my brand look and feel a certain way that I was missing what wellness and beauty was all about. It’s about self expression and doing what works for you as an individual. My vision and goal became more clear once I started being a vendor at local markets. I was able to talk to people and really listen to what their experiences are, what they’re looking for and what they’ve been struggling with.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Aziza El Wanni: Authentic engagement with customers through social commerce, creative live shopping experiences and rethinking personalization.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Aziza El Wanni: Roughly about 10/12 hours a day.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Aziza El Wanni: This is a difficult question for me. Communication in the workplace, and the real world, is all about honesty and transparency.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Aziza El Wanni: Difficulties balancing growth and quality. Growth comes with growing pains. In many instances, I have to decide between working longer — and/or asking staff to do the same. Ultimately, I’m working on finding a way to grow my business without hurting it or my staff.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Aziza El Wanni: Definitely online marketing. With the ever changing algorithm of Instagram and Tik Tok and the rise of BeReal, it’s becoming more challenging to reach your target audience and set yourself apart from the competition and connect with the consumer on a different level. I would like to learn how to stay ahead of the curve but still be original and engaging.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Aziza El Wanni: It’s possible but also hard to say. I think it comes down to self reflection, asking “what is my work environment like?”. I’m really not sure how we change this. It’s especially hard to answer for small businesses.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Aziza El Wanni: Super-vision! I would love to have the ability to see what others don’t and focus on it . Having vision is an important part of running a business. A business goes where the vision takes it, my business goes nowhere without vision.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Aziza El Wanni: Success to me is living my true authentic self. My business is an extension of myself. I would define success as being able to successfully launch a community where beauty and wellness go hand in hand.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Aziza El Wanni for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Aziza El Wanni or her company, you can do it through her – Instagram
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
