Meet Sharaea (Rae) Lamb

We were lucky to catch up with Sharaea (Rae) Lamb recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sharaea (Rae), appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes from tough experiences throughout my life. I can recall times, fresh out of college not receiving jobs I’d qualified for with my education experience. Moving away from home to try and find better opportunities, but pretty much getting dealt a similar hand. I can recall other times, when landing roles, I was never good enough to get offered a full time position, but instead, I was offered temporary to hire positions, without benefits. Despite the adversity, I developed a huge confidence which didn’t allow me to feel lesser than my abilities and talents. Developing that confidence came with a lot of sleepless nights, tears, and tough conversations, but through it all, I continued to build character. I get my resilience from very tough life experiences, lessons, and unforeseen blessings.

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?
I own YuleTiide Flair LLC. YTF is my baby; it is my holiday sweater and holiday accessories business. My journey to entrepreneurship was truly unexpected. I enjoyed creating holiday sweaters for close friends and family, and in 2021, I was encouraged to do more! In 2021, I created my first (2) holiday sweater digital designs, and had them mass produced. I was so excited to have a business and merchandise to sell, I didn’t expect to sell out in my first year! While riding high from the success within the first year, I took a leap of faith to expand & added more in 2022. I created (4) holiday sweater digital designs, & (2) holiday socks digital designs. As my anticipation was at an all time high, I suffered an unexpected injury, one month prior to my 2nd year launch. Getting news that I’d ruptured my Achilles Tendon was truly tough. As the owner of a new business, I found myself wearing multiple hats, and it was time to prepare for the photoshoot for the new product items, organize all available inventory, update the website, market/advertise, and prepare for vendor events. With the love and support of my family and close friends, I was able to push through & have a successful launch. While in 2022, I didn’t sell out, like in 2021, but I found myself reinventing the brand, by coming up with different ways to market & advertise & to stay relevant as a hungry new business. I even tried seeking out help to hire a college intern to help with marketing, but was unsuccessful in finding a candidate. Currently, I am still wearing lots of hats, but I know it is worth it, and in time, things will truly pay off. I stand firmly behind my brand, YuleTiide Flair is not only a brand of holiday style, it is a brand of high quality. Our goal is to have our customers stand out during their holiday events!

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?
Looking back, I think the area of knowledge that was most impactful along my journey was learning how to manage my time. Running a business, while also having a full time corporate job & a part-time job, isn’t for the faint of hearts. I think learning how to set aside an allotted amount of time to design, discuss advertising & marketing, discuss sales strategies, manage social media awareness, and discuss the importance of where to invent, at large, within the business are all really crucial & require more than just 6months of time. Discovering these things made me also recognize my three leadership qualities: Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Resilience. Skills that I am currently working to develop are : Time management, Decisiveness, and Strategic thinking.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
I would take all the risk required to hone in on my crafts, and build a legacy for YuleTiide Flair. There wouldn’t be many opportunities missed. I would broaden YuleTiide’s Flair reach of brand awareness as I travelled the world. I would actively prepare to build a legacy, hoping to inspire someone to continue YuleTiide, even when I’m gone. Passionately, encouraging my team to continue to be innovative, to continue to think outside the box, and to never allow limitations to stop growth. There is so much inspiration within the entrepreneurial world, when you think about it, we’ve all watched small mom and pop shops that are now franchises, small online shops that have turned into the largest e-commerce platforms, and many more examples. I would truly hope to continue the journey.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
David [email protected] Dezmond [email protected]

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