"Don’t let no’s stop you and be creative as you can be in the process."
Calvaniece Mason is the Founder of Calvaniece Mason Hair Brands Co., a professional hair care and luxury hair extensions company. As a Professional Hairdresser, Calvaniece has been called upon to work with many leading fashion and beauty professionals around the globe. She has worked backstage at New York Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week at the Élysée Palace (the official residence of the President of France), Vogue’s CFDA Awards and The Golden Globes Art of Elysium.
Calvaniece has served as a Lead Educator at the Aveda Institute of Atlanta, has trained under the Award-Winning Francesco Group in the United Kingdom, Aveda’s Advanced Academy in New York and has earned a certification in Sustainable Business Strategy from Harvard Business School.
Calvaniece is an Influential Business Leader, Entrepreneur and Humanitarian who has turned her love for beauty and passion for business into a purpose driven sustainable hair care brand for women of color.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for joining us, please introduce yourself to our readers.
Calvaniece Mason: Hi, I’m Calvaniece Mason and I’m the Founder of Calvaniece Mason Hair Brands Co., a professional hair care and luxury hair extensions company. As a Professional Hairdresser, I have been called upon to work with many leading fashion and beauty professionals around the globe. I worked backstage at New York Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week at the Élysée Palace (the official residence of the President of France), Vogue’s CFDA Awards and The Golden Globes Art of Elysium.
As hair care expert with distinctive knowledge and skills, I served as a Lead Educator at the Aveda Institute of Atlanta. I also trained under the Award-Winning Francesco Group in the United Kingdom, Aveda’s Advanced Academy in New York and earned a certification in Sustainable Business Strategy from Harvard Business School.
I’d consider myself as an Influential Business Leader, Entrepreneur and Humanitarian who has turned my love for beauty and passion for business into a purpose driven sustainable hair care brand for women of color.
Can you tell our readers in what ways you are disrupting your industry?
Calvaniece Mason: I am disrupting the beauty hair care industry with my products that work for black hair types/textures and sustainable business missions.
Did you become a disruptor by choice or by necessity? Tell us more about the journey.
Calvaniece Mason: I became a disruptive by necessity. In 2015, I launched my company Calvaniece Mason Hairbrands Co. with Elite Pro Turbo, a hairdryer designed to reduce hairdressers’ work-related injuries, after discovering at that time that approximately 75% of hairdressers reported work related injuries due to Carpal Tunnel.
In 2018 I began suffering from hair loss brought on by grief and depression. Searching for a solution to my own hair loss, I got with a manufacture and produced the Anti Itch + Growth Oil.
Hair loss is a common thing amongst African American women, especially alopecia, so from my own personal experience with this issue I wanted to be able to help other women grow their hair back.
Now for the main focus of this interview: Many readers may wonder what are the biggest challenges women entrepreneurs must overcome to be successful?
Calvaniece Mason: Owning your accomplishments: I know a lot of times this is hard thing for women to do because we are often too hard on ourselves.
Know that you have put in the work and manifested the results of your hard work and that you should be confident within your accomplishments because you deserve it.
Balancing business and family life: This is one of the most crucial challenges women must tackle early on in entrepreneurship.
Do all you can and have a schedule in place. For me, I have made my weekends be time for me to regroup and enjoy time with those that matter most.
Coping with fear of failure: I say this because I want women to know in entrepreneurship there are no failures, only lessons, and know that when you sign up for this you sign up to be a student.
The only time you fail is when you quit.
How did you overcome these obstacles? Who helped you during these difficult times and how did they?
Calvaniece Mason: For me personally, it’s a consistent journey of embracing self-love; knowing that I am enough and reciting positive affirmations to myself daily.
I start my journey off in the morning with affirmations and just trusting that this vision and purpose that was given to me is not in vain. If I keep showing up doing the diligent work required, everything that I vision for myself will come true because that’s just how it all works. I have also cultivated a strong support system of friends and family that believe in me and want to see me win 100%. They always pour words of encouragement and positivity in me.
How did these lessons shaped the way you conduct business today?
Calvaniece Mason: I would say it these lessons have made me more confident and trusting of the process. I am much more open minded, and I know that it’s okay to not know it all or try to do it all by yourself. You need people that have experience in other areas you may not be as knowledgeable in.
Knowing that it is okay to share information; a lot of times people try to hold on to what they know or may have learned or have access to, but you must share it so that you can make room for new information to enter you.
What advice you wished you had received when you started, that you’d like to share now with aspiring women entrepreneurs?
Calvaniece Mason: Don’t allow what to see your competitors are doing, or anyone around are you doing, impact the vision that you have.
Don’t let no’s stop you and be creative as you can be in the process.
Out of all of your proudest moments as an entrepreneur, is there a particular one that stands out the most?
Calvaniece Mason: The version of myself that I am right now is what stands out to me the most because I have done a lot of work on myself. I am mentally stronger as an entrepreneur than I was when I first started.I have been humbled in many ways in which I needed to be to grow, and I want to continue embracing and enjoying this journey that I am on because entrepreneurship is great at character building.
What do you plan on tackling during the 2022 year? Share your goals and battles you expect to face.
Calvaniece Mason: Creating Brand Awareness and Brand Love. That’s my focus point for this year in my business.
The challenge I am currently facing is everything is so fast with social media scrolling, so really grasping that engagement with my brands content along with understanding and staying on top of the constant changes on platforms such as Instagram.
Converting my social media followers into consumers of my brands products.
I’m sure our readers will be very thankful for the insights you have shared. What is the best book you’ve gone through lately and please share some take away lessons from it.
Calvaniece Mason: There are several books that I will highly recommend reading but the most recent two I have read are “We should all be Millionaires” by Rachel Rodgers and “Agent You” by Nicole Lynn.
They both just light a new fire under you to get you going and remind you if not you, then who? You’re just as deserving to be successful as anyone who has come before you whether you are and entrepreneur or a woman climbing the corporate ladder.
Other books I highly recommend reading are:
- “She Means Business” by Carrie Green
- “The Power Playbook” by LaLa Anthony
- “Own It” by Tabatha Coffey
- “Chillpreneur” by Denise Duffield Thomas
- “Influencer” by Brittany Hennessy
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, I do have one more question for you. When was the last time you did something for the first time and what was it?
Calvaniece Mason: I honestly can’t think of anything because I haven’t done too much with us constantly facing some new strand of Covid or a new virus, but I would like to try Zip lining. That’s on my bucket list of things to do and something I have never done.
Jed Marley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Calvaniece Mason 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 Calvaniece Mason or her company, you can do it through her – Instagram
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