Meet Miguel Carmona III

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Miguel Carmona III. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Miguel, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
For me there are two types of optimism…. false optimism and real optimism, unfortunately for a long period of my life I was caught up in the idea of false optimism or some call it unrealistic optimism.  I was taught as a child to be the best at whatever I did, whatever role I played, no matter what the cost. So optimism for me was “ as long as you’re good at something, you have the right to be optimistic about yourself, etc.”. Remember that it will play a crucial role throughout the story. From that simple definition alone, I now realize that my optimism was false as I had developed this thinking as a young child that my achievements or material items alone were my right to feel optimistic. If I made an A on a test, made the all-star football team, or got a compliment on the clothes I was wearing that day, this is where my optimism came; however if I didn’t receive any of that from another person  I felt empty and defeated. I bought into this lie of emptiness, would tell myself that I wasn’t good and that I  had to do more to get the assuring praise from others. After all, this is where my false optimism originated. Unfortunately, this habit carried on into my college years where it was finally exposed. A tragic turn of events helped me realize that real optimism comes from shockingly my worst moments and pitfalls.

In my last year of college,  I was the SGA President, voted “Mr.Knight” which was the most popular male at the school, and was the first student commencement speaker ever at Middle Georgia State University. As a black male at this particular university..these accolades were the highest that I could have received and once again my false optimism was at an all-time high.
Then life hit… I graduated with no post-grad job opportunities, was homeless living out of my grandma’s car, and working at Belk wearing the same clothes every day while showering at my local gym, this was the lowest moment in my life at that time. From there, after almost a year of depression and feeling stuck in my situation, I was blessed with a great opportunity with a Nationally recognized leasing company where I was promoted quickly and enjoyed tons of success in that position for my entire tenure. Once again I was putting myself back into the false idea that I was optimistic because of my achievements, title, and how others perceived me. Without realizing that I’ve never truly found what and where my optimism came from. Life like always will force us to learn lessons even if we don’t want to, like most other Americans 2020 was a very hard year. I was laid off early in the pandemic, I had many struggles trying to find a job and when I did find one, they paid $30,000 less than my previous job, I stayed there only three months when another opportunity came my way that I  thought once again would save me and gave me optimism that everything is going to be oK now. Another three months later and once again laid off due to Covid-19 “related reasons” or at least that’s what my separation notice says.

There I was in the holiday season of 2020 alone, The most depressed I’ve ever been in my life, and for the first time hopeless. Mostly because in three months if I was not able to sustain a job I would be evicted from my apartment, essentially homeless again in less than three years, with no options in sight I was left wondering “What now?”. The answer would come in the form of “You”, What I mean is with nothing to distract me or with me not being able to distract myself, I had no choice but to look at myself and wonder “where do I want to go from here?”, ” What makes you happy?”, and most importantly “ what do you want to do with your life?” As I thought more and more about these questions I realize that I never had a true answer for myself, just answers that I thought other people wanted me to have. So despite being steeped in dark thoughts, I told myself “that for the next six months, you do what makes you happy, you do what you control, and no matter the result you stay optimistic because you tried what they wanted, now try what you want!”. So first I started by looking at what I was good at, what was something that always I could do easier that required other people to take more time with. As I  was thinking I came up with Marketing, networking, and lastly sales. Now with me understanding what I was best at I had to figure out how I could apply those key skills to my current situation to help improve it, not realizing I was setting up the framework for my real optimism as it was derived from what I believed I could do best. I began reading more on topics like business management, wealth generation, and inspiring others, building up my optimism as well because now I had more skills to add on which gave me confidence moving forward in anything I tried.

I took those skills that I learned and paired them with my newfound optimism now believing that no matter what happens as long as I believe in it then there’s always a possibility that it will be great.  I no longer needed an outside pour of compliments to be full of positivity .. it was now pouring from within. I got to that point of thought because whenever my optimism was tied to material things or depending on others to compliment me … I had no control of, I was at the subject to its will as when it went up or down so goes my optimism, now with my optimism grounded in skills and traits that I know are my best qualities. With that, I finally saw that I can push forward with anything since if I want to improve on something I can learn it, If I want to build something never done before I can, if I start something and it doesn’t work out it’s ok. Optimism isn’t simply just knowing things are going to go well, optimism is knowing that no matter what happens the outcome is better than never starting at all. I’ll leave you with this, at the end of 2020 I only made $26,000 that year, I didn’t find a job until Late February 2021 30 days before my eviction was set to start, and I nearly double our revenue at my business Clipnwhip while changing our entire business model. I data dump all that information to say that despite the following year being up-and-down as some would see, I see my optimism highlighted as I know the person before was seeing nothing but failure, yet the person now and the person I’m becoming love the journey to get to the finish line that I know will be there, that is real optimism.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Well to start my name is Miguel Carmona III, I am the CEO/founder of ClipnWhip the first ever black-owned on-demand beauty app built for the artist and the client. We list health and beauty artists whether they be barbers, hairstylists, Makeup artists, etc. nearest to you that you can drive to or we come to you, wherever you’re located to complete whatever service you need. We are currently located in Georgia but are looking to expand to North Carolina and other southern states throughout 2023. At ClipnWhip our main objective is to remove headaches for our artists and give all of our clients a resource to book only licensed/certified artists every time. We do this by social media management for all of our artists where we create content for them whether that be physically going in taking the pictures and videos for them, creating captions/hashtags specific to their industry, or posting their content on all of our social media channels to spread their brand awareness. We also gift all of our artists free business cards along with multiple opportunities to do showcases at local beauty schools to increase their notoriety along with adding a bit of professionalism. To increase the likelihood of our clients booking licensed and certified artists we only add artists that are fully certified that way each client gets the best service every time no matter who they book.

What makes me feel special about what we do here at Clipnwhip is the fact we can make a difference on so many levels outside of improving our brand. We work with artists who ever since working with us they’ve improved their social media, they can now do things with their families that they’ve always wanted to do as you create your schedule, with our emphasis on the high-quality artist we can facilitate families or children with specific needs like alopecia and schedule those appointments for them in whichever venue makes them more comfortable, and even being able to simply do free haircuts or holiday makeovers can mean so much to people, especially during this time. I love that here at Clipnwhip our business model is made up of receiving what we get back, yes there is a subscription fee to join ClipnWhip but for simply $25 a month to start you can’t beat the amount of value we give back or the amount of value that we put back into our community. Our newest expansion has been our brand ambassador program and merchandising which will be available for sale in January 2023. You can download our app on Apple or Android, along with also booking any of our services on Google, IG, Facebook, etc. as well all by searching Clipnwhip.

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?
The three most impactful things to my success on my journey would be as follows: learning how to communicate effectively, The importance of social media engagement, and understanding there is no such thing as failure. Learning how to communicate effectively is one of the biggest tools in my arsenal that has helped me to progress not only in my business but in my personal life as well. Whether it’s negotiating a salary increase, communicating to your team new updates to the business, or even speaking with your child on why cleaning their room is important, being able to effectively say what you mean and that it is understood by the receiving party is invaluable. You can improve the skill by either taking an improv class or watching classes/ acting breakdowns on YouTube, I also suggest reading books about other entrepreneurial struggles as it will give you insight into how specific entrepreneurs have overcome very similar issues you’re facing now, and lastly taking more opportunities where you’re speaking or be asked to share experiences. You can do this at your local church or volunteering to read to children at nonprofit groups, just something that gets you out of your normal speech pattern and into uncomfortable territory. The more uncomfortable you are speaking, in the beginning, is great because it will make you more comfortable as you continuously do it and you will gradually notice your words will land when speaking with someone a lot easier.

The importance of social media engagement is a lot deeper than just liking and commenting randomly. It’s specifically targeting individuals that are in your niche or industry and engaging with them through simple social media tools. For instance, instead of just liking your most popular artist or your favorite actress’s latest salad, try using those engagement tools for more mutually beneficial means. For instance, if you are a hairstylist in Atlanta look up #HairstylistAtl in your social media search bar, you will notice very quickly how there are a lot of people posting with that same hashtag, which means in most instances you and that random individual more than likely share a comment interest in hairstyling along with trying to reach the Atlanta area. You could engage with this person in many ways by liking their most recent post, commenting on the post something relevant to the image and if you’re bold ( which I suggest you be bold more than not) DM said random individual about possibly collaborating in the future to improve both your businesses. Improving this skill is probably the simplest out of all three as it just requires practice makes perfect. One look up 5 to 10 niche or industry-specific hashtags and under each one of those hashtags pick out 3 to 5 individuals to engage with. Set a goal where you engage with 5 to 10 different profiles each day that you deem in your niche, you can engage with them by using any of the following ways described above but make sure you set a number to it and a consistent date of completion (ex. Do 25 per week).  The more you do it the more your profile will grow as more accounts will be inclined to engage with you back, your post will get increased engagement as instead of just getting random individuals you will now get specific people in your industry that are interested in the topics that you consistently post about and the biggest hidden gem from engaging in this manner is that now you’ll be primed to receive more opportunities in your industry as everyone that sees your post could be a potential collaborator down the line.

The third and final quality for success on your journey would be to understand that there is no failure that you can’t recover or learn from. When a situation doesn’t appear to have worked in your favor, that is an opportunity to learn the specifics on how I can turn this around or do it better. It’s not a moment to quit or throw in towel.  Failure is an idea developed in our heads when it comes to us venturing out on something that we’re not that sure about. It can be a fear of failure that you’ll do badly at public speaking for your project, or it can be a fear of failure when it comes to you trying for a new job, whatever it might be you have to understand that just simply starting the journey makes it a success. We are so quick to measure success to numbers or other achievements from others we look up to you and when we don’t reach similar heights we immediately think we failed. When in actuality anything that comes from your journey will always produce more success than if you never started the journey at all, that’s why simply starting the process is already one step to more success than when you were thinking and debating about it prior. To improve this skill you have to continue to take more opportunities that you might not be ready for at the moment, try new things that you’ve always wanted to do but you felt you weren’t 100% ready for, set a date that you promise yourself to have said journey started or task completed, and attach your journey to something bigger than yourself as you can cheat yourself but you won’t cheat your child or something you care about that’s bigger than you. I know it seems like hallmark words, but these are the simplest steps to take to simply understand that failure is only something we develop and success is something that we will always have once we start anything.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We are definitely in the market for collaborators and partners as we are consistently striving to better serve our clients and community.  Starting in 2023 we are doing a huge promotion where any artists joining between January 2023 and March 2023 up to 50 artists can join free and won’t be charged until April 2023. We are also looking to add more members to our newly formed brand ambassador program and looking to add some film/video help for content creation. Our ideal candidate for our app or artist in the health and beauty industry: (ex. Barber, Hairstylist, Makeup artist, Lash tech, Esthetician, etc.), who needs some help with their social media management (creating content, finding out the best time to post or increasing engagement on their post), need increased clientele as they either have newly moved here or have ventured out to a new location, someone just starting in the industry and does not want to simply go to a brick/mortar shop. Ideal candidates for our new Brand ambassador program are as follows: A individual in the health and beauty industry that has either an established following or demonstrates they have a high degree of social media marketing skill, and are looking to help brand a black-owned business with multiple opportunities for executive roles in the future, and have good recruiting skills as there will be a commission attached to how many artists there able to add in a certain timeframe per month. For videographer/film crew we are not looking for the experience even though that is great to have, someone who can drive to artist appointments and be able to film the service whether it be with a phone or other means, and be able to create content on their own for the company without supervision. These three positions are our highlights and the biggest pushes going into 2023 that we’re looking for. So if you’re interested please contact me by calling or texting me at 678-879-8680, DM us on any social media platform like IG or Facebook just search Clipnwhip, and if neither of those options works you can email me at mcarmona3@clipnwhip.com.

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