Over the past few months going to DC pro­mot­ing the brand, we have begun to come across a unique set of indi­vid­u­als, other young entre­pre­neurs cre­at­ing brands and prod­ucts that deserve recog­ni­tion. We will begin a series called Brand Spot­light. Our first install­ment is Alexan­dra Smith of ShopALS and the Good­Hair­Blog. A native of the Mont­gomery County, the way she con­ducts busi­ness is sim­ply impres­sive. I could elab­o­rate more but then this inter­view wouldn’t serve it’s purpose…

How would describe the busi­ness and the ser­vices you pro­vide?
ALS is a brand that rep­re­sents vibrant cre­ativ­ity. I am in the busi­ness of giv­ing my cus­tomers hand­made qual­ity pieces that have been cre­ated with love, by me! I’ve also added a few con­tem­po­rary items, like metal rings that can’t be found in the states to give my shop­pers some extra vari­ety. My main goal is pro­vide my cus­tomers with qual­ity cre­ations and ser­vice, while leav­ing them with really big smiles on their faces after open­ing their ALS package.

Crown for Kings Chain

How and when did you get started? Also, when was that moment that you knew you should turn this love of yours into a busi­ness?
I’ve always been an entre­pre­neur. The first time I real­ized that I can make stuff and sell it, I did. My entre­pre­neur­ial efforts started in mid­dle school. I used to make tee shirts and cus­tom jean jack­ets back in the day. I sold them straight out of my locker, LOL! The hus­tle was real at about 13 years old for me. Once I got to col­lege I took an entre­pre­neur­ship class that changed my life. My pro­fes­sor was great and he encour­aged me to take my final project, which was a mockup of a hair care line, and make it a real­ity. So, I did. My first busi­ness was Safi; a nat­ural hair care line that catered to curly/coily haired folks like myself. I made all nat­ural prod­ucts in my mama’s kitchen for about 2 years and my line flour­ished in what seemed to be overnight. I am in the midst of revamp­ing Safi to have it coin­cide with my blog, The Good Hair Blog. I plan to re-launch in the Fall and I am very excited about it! How­ever, ALS is a lot dif­fer­ent from mak­ing hair prod­ucts. I’ve been around cre­ativ­ity most of my life. My mom is very cre­ative and actu­ally has her own high end jew­elry line; she is my biggest influ­ence when it comes to cre­at­ing. My mom tried to get me to bead for the longest time and I was not inter­ested, at all! Early last year I started explor­ing my cre­ativ­ity and tweet­ing here and there about my new ven­ture to spark people’s inter­est. I got a great response and after months of con­tem­plat­ing brand­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent busi­ness wise I decided to go ahead and launch ALS August of 2011. ALS are my ini­tials and I wanted to not only brand myself but things that I like. I fig­ured that giv­ing peo­ple a lit­tle bit of me, in that sense would make the cre­ations more spe­cial and mean­ing­ful. Thus far ALS has done great and I haven’t even hit my one year mark yet. I’ve made over 2,500 cre­ations, most of those being bracelets. For me this line of work makes me extremely happy!

What makes your cus­tomer expe­ri­ence unique?
I like giv­ing my cus­tomers spe­cial atten­tion when it comes to their pur­chases. Many of them wear my work daily so it’s impor­tant for them to know I appre­ci­ate their busi­ness and that their items are made with love and han­dled with care.

Crown for Kings Bracelet

Your oper­a­tion seems well-rooted in cater­ing to the cus­tomer and stel­lar cus­tomer ser­vice, would you con­sider this your niche? Niche? I am not sure I will call it that, mainly because I am not much of a peo­ple per­son. In real­ity, I am actu­ally very reserved and kind of shy until I get to know the peo­ple and space around me. How­ever, I know how I like to be treated as a cus­tomer. I mean, I shop too and I sup­port other creator’s crafts as well, so cus­tomer ser­vice is indeed impor­tant to me as a seller and a shop­per. Folks work hard for their money and I am hon­ored that some choose to spend it with me. It’s only right to treat my cus­tomers the way I want to be treated when shop­ping with some­one and that’s with respect, atten­tion and interest.

What other endeav­ors are you involved in?
I am a nat­ural hair blog­ger and Full Time mommy )

What can we expect to see in the future from the shopALS brand?
To be hon­est, I am play­ing that by ear. God is lead­ing this jour­ney so it’s only right that I take my time and let Him work. What He has for me is for me and I can­not wait to see where ALS will be in the future. The minute I know so will you. xo

In con­clu­sion, Alex and her brand ShopALS are cer­tainly on it’s way to becom­ing a house­hold name. Locally, there are start­ing to be very few that DONT have an ALS piece. With recent pur­chases from promi­nent musi­cians, locally and nation­ally known, actors and actresses, it’s only a mat­ter of time. Surely, this will not be the last time you hear of this brand…

Bright Bud­dha

Matte Black x Hex