Daily Inspiration: Meet Steven & Whitney Sains

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven & Whitney Sains.

Hi Steven & Whitney, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
We wanted to provide our community with a safe space to shop for their hair and beauty needs. The beauty supply industry is heavily dominated by African American consumerism, but we rarely see a black-owned beauty supply store. This industry’s gross revenue is more than $13 billion annually, with over 90% of the beauty supply consumer base being African American. However, as it applies to ownership, we own less than 3% nationwide. Many other groups take and take from the black community, but we don’t see any amounts put back into the black community. We wanted to provide our community with the opportunity to shop for their hair and beauty needs. We see many reviews about being followed, accused of stealing, and overall price gouging. We want to be the change that we would like to see in the industry. So, we decided to open Crown Love Beauty Supply, where we can prioritize impacting our community.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road is never smooth with any adventure. Everyone is going to have their share of bumps in the street. Our struggles were finding the right product selection when we opened and creating hair accounts. We didn’t want just to put many items in the store like other beauty supply stores. We wanted this to be a blank slate for our community to decide what they want to put here. We made sure to start with the necessities and must-haves, such as edge control, human wigs, natural product lines, kids’ hair beads, hair bows, clack balls, oils, sheens, human track hair, crochet, and braiding hair. We felt it was best to let the community decide for the rest. That means we have to take customer requests and go out and find the items.

Since Grand Opening, we have grown over 40% of our inventory based on customer recommendations. We have expanded our hair inventory with brands such as Xpressions braiding hair, Freetress, Bobbie Boss Nu Locs, Onyx, Brazilian Bundles, Organique, etc. We have also expanded our hair care products with significant brand names formulated for our hair. We hope to see more customers shortly to give their brand selection so we can get the inventory to where the community wants it.

Who else deserves credit for your story?
To this point, the credit for the success of Crown Love has come from the local community. Our customers have gotten behind the movement to Take the Industry Back. We have had significant growth in the first quarter because our customers understand the importance of a black-owned beauty supply store in the community. We appreciate the requests and excitement that the store has received. We are now the 2nd most searched beauty supply store in Antioch according to Google search Engine. Our customers have come from all over Nashville and the surrounding area to do business with us in just a few months. The way that we have shown our appreciation for the outpour of support is by providing top-tier unmatched customer service as well as providing a flexible inventory that our customers have the opportunity to create and nurture.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.crownlovebeauty.com
• Instagram: @crownlovebeautysupply
• Facebook: @crownlovebeautysupply