The Prestige Society was created and founded by, Nicole Doss an experienced businesswoman who used her professional skills to create 
something great! While providing a unique network for women, the importance of Business 101 is certainly the most important tool when starting a brand, Nicole recently enlightened us on the growth and expansion of Prestige and what we all should know about creating the right business partnerships!
USTYLE: What Inspired you to create your brand?
Nicole: A number of things, but I think the first thing is this need that I think a lot of women felt or feel early on in their entrepreneur journey to partner with someone. So they feel like they should do this because they are unsure of what the entrepreneurial quarters will bring and they’re fearful of doing it alone. A lot of people turn to friends to go into business with & their friendships are being ruined because they aren’t necessarily being thorough on who they’re selecting to go into business with. So I realized that it’s not a lot about grabbing this friend and saying “go in this direction with me” but it is all about belonging to a network of women who truly believe that they are not successful unless their sister is successful. Where they are able to debunk the idea that women cannot work and collaborate with one another.
USTYLE: Very Interesting! So while we are on the topic of entrepreneurship, would you say that lane is oversaturated?
Nicole: Yes. Definitely.
USTYLE: What do you think is the best way to go about starting your own business as a woman these days?
Nicole: You gotta go to Business 101, I think what happens is we become so passionate about the things we are good at or the opportunities or the earning potential , we do not take the time to go to Business 101. If you have an idea, you have to figure out what problem your business is solving. What is currently the problem with the target demographic that you are trying to reach and how will your business solve it. What other companies in the same lane missing? How will your business fill that void. That’s going to be the unique identifier that sets you apart from the rest or your competition.
USTYLE: Would you say that it’s not a good idea to enter into business with a friend?
Nicole: I think if it makes sense! So here’s the thing I think you need to do, first of all, forget that it’s your friend. Interview this person as if they were straight off the street. So do they have the skill sets, the education, the experience that is required to fulfill the task or fill the position. If the answer is no, and the only criteria they fulfill is friendship, then you can’t go into business with this individual. I think that when it makes sense, that’s when you bring that person on. But just like any marriage you need an exit strategy, you need to figure out what happens when you guys do not agree and what role this person plays. If it’s a partnership with 50/50, realize that if any partner disagrees on something, business stops, and when this happens, what do you do? So you have to plan for these things. The problem with women is that, we really believe in happy paths, because we are best friends with that person, but the reality is, in business you need to be able to see when there is going to good times and when 
there is going to be those bad times, and most importantly how to separate when the partnership no longer works for you. What are you going to do to make sure that both of you are protected when you walk away from the partnership. That is how you save the friendship and brand. Put it in black and white, get it contracted, make sure skills are there and protect both interests.
USTYLE: The Prestige Society has been around for since 2013, what in these 6 years have you see grow the most?
Nicole: Our vision really. At first, it was 5 women, we all knew that we just needed a support group for our individual goals and brands. Even I, at the time was focusing on providing organizational development services to Fortune 500 companies and so it was Prestige development solutions, the networking piece of it was for us all to come together and share some of the challenges that we were hitting. We literally came from 5 women sitting in my living room doing seminars on business acumen and figuring out what we needed to do differently to attract clients to saying other women need this and moving this out of my hoe to the public. Now, we have a virtual community where we have over 8, 000 followers and 400 women on our nonmember platform. We have about 40 members now that are all over the U.S. It’s nice to see that growth, so women know that no matter where they are, they have access to tools.
My background is in structural design and technology, so what I use to do was create learning solutions for fortune 500 companies and so I took my professional background and made something that would work for Women Entrepreneurs. We have platforms like ‘Pink University’ that teaches Business 101, monthly membership round tables where there is a topic every month and women are able to share, video conferencing so we ae building that virtual platform.
USTYLE: So what exactly does one get when they decide to join the Prestige Society?
Nicole: So there are 3 tiers. The 1st tier, is very basic, it just gives them access to the Online Community. The 2nd Tier is like the sweet tooth, everyone wants to be on the socialite level, it is perfect for the woman who wants to connect with other women face to face, as well as the online access and monthly coaching. Then at the Elite membership, you get all of those privileges as well as the monthly coaching. So they have dashboards and milestones and each month they have an assignment that they have to complete in order to help them with catapulting their brand to the next level. That’s very important for the woman that is stuck and has a very specific project in mind. We have 3 different tiers for membership to cater to women who are at different stages of their journey. We want to make sure that we meet them and provide the right resources for where they currently are.
USTYLE: What can Prestige supporters expect in the future!?
Nicole: Honestly, I would say going global and I don’t think that is hard when you have an online presence, it’s so easy to cross borders. Also to collaborate with other groups like ours. When we say that we are not successful unless our sisters are, that’s really our truth.
We wish nothing but continued success to Nicole and The Prestige Society! Learn more about the organization at theprestigesociety.com !
Subscribe to UStyle Magazine and stay Up-To-Date and In-The-Know with the latest!
