Meet Jazmine Bell

We were lucky to catch up with Jazmine Bell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Jazmine with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I, personally, take a lot of pride in my work ethic. I feel strongly that the drive, grit, and determination I have has driven a lot of the success I have had throughout my life.

As I reflect on what helped me develop my work ethic, I think back to my upbringing. I was fortunate to have loving parents, who sacrificed so much and supported me in whatever I wanted to do. However, I was also very aware of our struggles. In addition to being aware of our struggles, I observed my mom just get things done, make things happen, or figure it out, even when there didn’t seem to be a path forward. When she did that, we always found our way, and everything was okay.

Those struggles helped me recognize that I never wanted those to be my circumstances. I wanted better for myself, and the children I knew I’d have some day. Simultaneously, I also recognized I could use my athletic talents to position and prepare myself for greater levels of success as I knew it could be my ticket to college. As I continued to invest so much of my time into playing different sports, being an athlete just compounded the work ethic I was already building throughout my childhood. Being an athlete taught me resilience, time-management, and several other leadership skills that I have been able to use in my personal life, and professional career.

At this point, my work ethic, and constant drive for success, is ingrained in me. It is just who I am.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Over the last 11 years, I have been driving my corporate career with Amazon, which I love! Throughout my time with Amazon, I have leveraged my strengths in operational management, details, logistics, and relationship building. About 3-4 years ago, I had a couple of opportunities to use these skills to plan events for my own personal occasions, as well as some for close friends. In doing so, I quickly recognized that some of my strengths translated very well to the event planning process. I also had the perfect ying to my yang by my side – my sister, Shanika. She is an interior designer by trade and the perfect creative compliment to the event planning process, allowing us to effectively plan all details and logistics, but also bring a beautiful aesthetic to what we do. We soon realized that our passion projects could actually be something more.

So, with a leap of faith, we created Bellevate. As we have been navigating the journey of building and growing our business, I have been steadfast in our priority of making sure that each and every customer is completely satisfied. I take pride in establishing strong partnerships with my clients, going above and beyond for them when needed, and ultimately being flexible enough to customize the way we support them, in alignment with their preferences.

Over the last three years, we have seen our event planning and design services evolve from smaller social events, to luxury weddings. However, what has been most fulfilling is seeing our repeat clients continue to feel like investing in our services is a choice they feel good about making.

Most recently, we have launched our new website, www.bellevate.com. We are thrilled to take this next step in our business journey and hope that it continues to propel us in a direction that we could have only imagined when we originally took that leap of faith.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Customer-Obsession – Putting the client’s experience at the very forefront of our minds has been the secret to our success.

Time Management – Managing a demanding full-time job, and a business in the evenings/on weekends requires a lot of discipline and strong time management skills. I do my best to work efficiently and effectively, allowing me to maximize my time for my professional and personal obligations.

Resourcefulness – Considering the fact that I am not an event planner by trade, I have had to learn a lot about the industry, in a short amount of time. Being able to quickly and accurately identify pertinent information, regardless of the task at hand, has allowed me develop the skills required to do my job well.

For folks early in their journey, I think that it is important to recognize that some of these things are inherent. However, when things do not naturally fall in place as it relates to these qualities and skillsets, there are always ways to help yourself become more effective at any of them. I find that when I lack an inherent skill, mechanisms help create parameters that almost force you to improve your effectiveness. For example, if you are not naturally strong at time-management, use mechanisms like calendar blocking, reminders, to-do lists, etc. to give you a framework to work within.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

As a business, we have certainly faced a number of challenges, as do most businesses. At this time, we are heavily focused on finding the most effective way to attract our ideal clients. As we look ahead, we would love to support events that continue to scale in nature. To do so, we have recently invested in a new website, which will hopefully allow us to attract new clients who would not have found our services otherwise!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bellevate.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/belleve_concierge
• Other: jazmine@bellevate.com

Image Credits

Angela Percy Photography
M2 Photography
Viva Visuals
SR Portraits
Trene Forbes Photography