Q. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
A. TNT United Services Inc. is a strategic Digital Marketing & Consultancy agency, located on Long Island in Centereach, NY. We specialize in Responsive Website Design, Social Media Marketing & Management, SEO and Email marketing.
Q. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
A. My background is in Sales, Finance, Relationship Management & Marketing. I started in retail sales over 20 years ago in a retail electronics store by the Name of Nobody Beats The Wiz while going to Briarcliffe College for Business Management.
It was somewhat of a boys club. It was there I learned how to sell and the importance of being knowledgeable so that you can be truthful about what you’re selling. Most of the females in the store were cashiers, but I was a young single mom at the time and cashiers didn’t make any commission I needed to support my son at the time, so no commission wasn’t an option.
I had no sales experience but was determined & eager to learn, and I was placed in the camera department but in actuality I really wanted to be in the Big Screen department because that is where you were really able to make some extra money depending on the television you sold you could make up to 300 plus dollars per sale.
Everyone is the Big Screen department were older males that had several years of experience, but the one thing I noticed was that when customers would come in and ask them about certain specifications and what the difference was between one brand vs. the other, they didn’t know. So, I asked my manager if I could take the informational books that came with each television home, read and study them and he said no problem.
Before long I moved to the big screen department and answering all the questions that no one else knew almost always on the Top Dog Sales Board that they displayed in the lunch area for everyone to see and doing ok for my son and me. After the Wiz went out of business, I decided to jump into telephone sales I did that for about three years and was new Business development of the year 2 years in a row & by then was training others on what to listen to over the phone highs lows inflections things like that. Then was recruited over the phone from a Banking recruiter that represented Chase at the time.
From there I was in banking for the next 16 years with a few other banks during that time until I started my own company. When my husband and I welcomed our daughter in 2013. business enjoyed sales and working with people and developing relationships, s
Q. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Interestingly enough, my husband had incorporated the business several years prior but never did anything with it after he stopped doing mortgages & he actually had a God-given idea to build a search engine to help companies to get more relevance online. Zapyah.com Financially we were in a pretty good place, and I thought why not we were in the process of buying a home, I was very pregnant with our youngest and thought to my self we can do this.
Then the unthinkable happened. At 8 months pregnant myself and several other Relationship Bankers and Business Bankers across the country were told we didn’t have a job. I was completely blindsided there was no way I saw that coming I don’t think any of us did. I still remember it like yesterday.
So, I did what any other women would do if she was 8 months pregnant in a contract for a house and told that she had no job, I cried said, Lord, what are you doing? Then put my big girl pants on welcomed my daughter not soon after and stepped out on faith. My inspiration was to never be in a position like that again.
Q. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
A. One / There are always going to obstacles & situations, but you can’t allow the challenges to become roadblocks and detour you for what God has in store for your life.
Two /Have faith keep pushing and be consistent and make sure you stay around positive people. Negativity brings you down.
Three/ I would say it’s always darker before the dawn don’t give up.
Q. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
A. 1. You must have strong people skills:
You must know when to delegate & when not to when to know how to make sure that your staff is accountable and when to be able to admit that you make a mistake also staying humble is very important. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Cesar didn’t do it all by himself.
- Communication You must know how to communicate with others, you can’t bark orders. We are all people no matter in what a capacity within an organization. Understanding & empathy goes a long way.
- Be open minded always willing to learn and be able to take constructive criticism
Q. How many hours do you work a day on average?
A. Daily about 10 weekly 50-60 hours
Q. To what do you most attribute your success?
A. My faith is God a fantastic husband & the fact that I hadn’t had the easiest life, it has really been the fuel to drove me to succeed and do better failure has never been an option for me.
Q. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
A. That depends if we are talking about brand awareness and a following I would absolutely say Social Media Marketing and Organic SEO(search engine optimization).
This has helped us to create leads and be able to follow up on those leads through calling and emails helping us to stay relevant and top of mind. Of course, we can’t forget traditional marketing and networking, developing genuine relationships goes a long way.
Q. Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
A. With the severance I received from the let go earlier I started the company. Mind you that severance was being pulled in multiple directions with a new baby, new house and other children it really wasn’t as much as you might think it was a lot of sacrifices and wasn’t easy.
Q. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
A. In my opinion, there are a few things like, the entrepreneur or business owners determination, they have to have a passion & believe in what they do. I really think if you’re in business just to make money you won’t be in business for long. You have to want to make a difference and help people in some sort of capacity, stay humble and the ability to accept & welcome new things and change. As a woman, I believe that a blend is essential and making sure you make your family, and yourself first is necessary. You have to enjoy your life, or you will get burnt out and be involved in your community.
Q. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 -10 years?
A. In the next 5 – 10 years I see TNT United Services Inc. having more than one location and in more than one state and possibly expanding into more areas of business. I am confident that Zapyah.com will have grown tremendously we’ll be putting a lot of time and money into perfecting this in Q4 & Q1 of 2020 and that division of TNT United services Inc. will be having a large team of highly qualified professionals who will be able to work remotely across various states from multiple locations.
Q. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
A. This probably sounds cliché but Apple their ability to adapt to constant changes in technology and advancements since 1976 when Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak started the company in his garage in incredible. It encourages me because TNT was launched in our basement and worked like that for over a year until getting a location. It just proves anything is possible.
Q. What motivates you?
A. My family and the fear of failure, so it pushes me to succeed.
Q. How do you generate new ideas?
A. I think about the marketing industry as a whole. I see what my competitors are doing what I like what I dislike and how we can do it better how we can put our spin on it how we can be more creative, I always put myself in the customers shoes I look at things from the customers perspective, then a start to write sometimes in an a very quiet place and dump everything whatever it is I have in my brain on paper or with my team on a board get a cup of coffee and go from there I usually have t stand up and be moving to get my creative ideas to flow.
Q. How do you define success?
A. Being around those you love & those who love you, truly enjoying what you do, having the ability to train, coach, motivate & help, others and making money while doing it.
Q. How do you build a successful customer base?
A. By doing the right thing in business, developing a relationship with them, being fair and retaining your customers.
Q. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
A. The ability to have more control over my time.
Q. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
A. So far it was moving out of my basement into a physical location.
Q. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
A. The ability to adapt to change, the ability to be a good follower than leader, humility and the ability to take a risk self-motivated and driven you to have to have tunnel vision.
Q. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
A. Purposeful
For more information visit us at https://www.tntusinc.com/
TNT United Services Inc.
2100 Middle Country Rd. Suite 212B ,
Centereach – NY 11720
Tel No: (631) 868-4006
E-mail Id: info@tntusinc.com
Business Hours:
Monday to Wednesday (09.00am – 05.00pm)
Thursday (09.00am – 08.00pm)
Friday (09.00am – 05.00pm)
Saturday (09.00am – 12.00pm)
Sunday (Closed)