Meet Billionaire Barbie, a dynamic serial entrepreneur who found her start in the bustling world of beauty and haircare around 2014. Originally from Atlanta, a known hotspot for hair enthusiasts, Barbie was living in Hawaii due to her ex-husband’s military assignment when she noticed a gap in the market for high-quality, affordable hair products. Leveraging her keen sense of opportunity, she launched her first business on a military base, quickly rising to prominence after a wildly successful grand opening that turned over $20,000 in a single day. From opening additional stores to styling celebrities in LA, and even appearing on popular TV shows like Love and Hip Hop Hollywood and Basketball Wives LA, Barbie’s journey through the beauty industry was nothing short of spectacular. However, the advent of COVID-19 brought new changes, leading her back to Atlanta in 2020, where she pivoted her career toward the financial sector, focusing on tax preparation, credit consulting, and content creation. Recently we had the pleasure to sit down and speak with her and here’s what she had to say.
Can you describe your experience in tax preparation, credit counseling, and content creation? How do these areas intersect in your previous roles?
Barbie: Well, starting with content creation, I’ve always known that I need to show certain aspects of my life to fulfill my audience if that makes sense. So for me, it was always about telling a story. I shared my life experiences and my past, and I just always tied that into my sales. I did some really big sales too. I think my biggest one was probably $400,000 in 3 days. I did $100,000 in a day. And then I used to hit, like, eighties and fifties and forties in, like, an hour all the time. I used to do these 1-hour pop-up sales. So the demand was there. It was nothing like how it is now. There was no such thing as an algorithm. It was, like, you had to get on the gram and you had to post and you had to go places and tell people to follow you and get them to engage. It was way harder back then. We had no stories. We had no DMs. It was none of that. So we had no hashtags. It was none of that back then. As it started to evolve, content started to play a bigger role. And so translating it into tax prep, I just followed the same module that I did. I’m a writer at heart, so I always was able to put together a compelling caption to drive sales. So I just thought with tax prep, I’m gonna do the same thing, and that’s exactly what I did. I started just recording my everyday life, literally.
I would wake up and just remember to record things. I would record, like, me getting ready, me going shopping, or going out to lunch. I didn’t care where we went to lunch. It could be a hood spot. It could be a fancy spot Whatever it was that I was doing, I was, like, recording it. And it started really from my stories. Mhmm. And then I started translating my stories onto the page, but I just found out real quick that, you know, marketing was in essence what it is. I was able to take that, you know, turn it into content and post it and, you know, make it move the person enough to go in their wallet and pay for whatever it was I was selling. But with everything that I’ve always done, I was able to find, like, my niche in it. Same thing with hair. I just kinda thought outside the box. Nobody had ever thought to put a kiosk on a military base or a store on a military base.
Nobody ever thought to put a hair commercial on the radio or TV or put hair billboards up. So those are always my marketing styles. Always outside the box, and I always wanted to do different than what everyone else was doing. So when I got into taxes, it kinda just fell into my lap, honestly. And when I saw, like, how lucrative it could be, I knew that I needed to take a class.
So, I flew to Houston. I took this $5,000 master class. I ended up needed ended up meeting someone who was my mentor at the time, and she would’ve taught me, like, a lot about the game. Mhmm. And I just basically, like I said, did the same thing that I did here. I recorded everything, and then I just, you know, I like to call it popping my shit. I just popped it, like, in my story. I popped it and it popped off. I don’t cap. Like, all my marketing is by me. There are 2 types of marketing. There’s lifestyle marketing and there’s cap marketing. Cap marketing is where you’re portraying that you’re doing something that you’re not doing. But lifestyle marketing is you’re just taking your lifestyle stuff that’s experiences you’re having, and you’re just translating them into content and using that content to sell your product or sell your service. So, at first, I realized now that I always did it. At first, I didn’t quite grasp what I was doing, but when I got into tax prep, I realized like, okay, this is what I’m doing. So I would just take all of my client’s results and just post them, but post it with my lifestyle. And it started to grow for me. And so when it came around to credit counseling, I just did the same thing. I just took my lifestyle, paired it with results, and posted it. And the same thing. So I start to see, like, gang, like, anything that I choose to do or whatever I think of or dream of, I could wake up tomorrow and decide I wanted to sell whatever or do whatever. And I can make it work with content.
So content has always played a part and it intersects with my previous roles because it’s always, always, always been content. So to me, that’s the most important thing. You gotta grasp that content. If you get the concept of content creation and how explosive it can be for, like, growing your business, expanding your sales, expanding your reach, it’s like they can’t stop you from there. There’s nothing you can’t do with that Instagram page and some great content. Mhmm. So everything led to the next thing. Awesome. Everything led into the next thing and it’s all the same. And so that’s why, I’m geared up to go more towards putting more of my time into content creation and just teaching people how to content in general. Because it is all the same thing. You can just take the same present and unwrap it in any business, any niche, any product that you wanna sell, any service that you wanna provide. If you do it, you know, the way that I’ve mastered on Instagram, it’s no way, like, it won’t convey to people. And I don’t come off sales. I just, like I said, tell a story, and it’s the result of the story.
Like, I’m telling them about the results because I’m showing it to them. Mhmm. So I think that’s kinda what’s different about me and what sets me apart.
How do you approach coaching clients who are overwhelmed by their financial situations, particularly around taxes and credit?
Barbie: I always just kinda identify the problem because the problems are all pretty much the same, and they’re all pretty common. So when it comes from a marketing aspect, identifying and kinda leading with the problem and then ending with the solution in every post, whether I do it in the story televised, whether it’s just straight. Here’s the problem. Here’s the solution. But I’m just always, identifying, like, what their problem is. And when it comes to being overwhelmed by financial situations, it’s all the same for everybody. You’re behind on your taxes, you made a lot of money, you don’t know how to offset your taxes, you don’t know how to save on taxes, you could be doing a refund, you wanna maximize it, you don’t know how. Your credit is bad. You wanna get approved for something, but they wanna approve you for bubblegum. So it hits you that you gotta clean it. Like, it all kinda ties into the same thing. It comes back around to experiences. People wanted to do things where those taxes or that credit was holding them back.
What recent changes in tax laws or credit regulations do you believe are most important for clients to understand? How do you stay updated on these changes?
Barbie: So I’m probably answering them in reverse. How I stay updated on changes is because I’m truly a nerd. Like, I just look like this. Like, I swear, like, if something piques my interest, I will go on a spree researching it. And so I’m always researching. Although I’m an instructor myself, I’m addicted to learning, so I’m always taking a class, trying to figure out something else. So I just kinda stay on top of it, and then I have my ear to the community too. So a lot of things get brought to me and I find out through there. But I think that the most recent change in tax laws or credit regulations would probably be the whole, you know, electronic form of payment. The $600 if you’re getting $600 or more on there, they’re gonna, you know, make you responsible for filing.
I think that’s most important, just because, like, they are gonna report those 10.99 k’s. So if it’s Cash App or Apple Pay or Zell or PayPal, or Square or Shopify, they will give that 10.99 ks. If it’s over $600, they will, you know, you will have a penalty for not paying the taxes on that. Also, a big misconception is to not pay taxes, and that’s just kinda not, like, that’s gonna have you, you know, stuck in a rent. The best thing that you can do, especially as a small business owner, is to pay the taxes. Because once you pay them in, there are a lot of different credits and adjustments and deductions, and things that we can do tax breaks that can help you if you pay the taxes. But if you didn’t pay them at all, that’s when you’re gonna take a hit from it. That’s good to know.
Can you provide an example of a content piece you created (e.g., a blog post, video, or workshop) that effectively educated clients about tax or credit issues? What was the outcome?
Barbie: I would say maybe 60, 70% of my posts. Because the client is not gonna know what, you know, tax laws or tax law changes or what credits are available, a lot of things like that. What they qualify for. Like, I run across some people who you know, I work with high-income earners, so I run across a lot of people who make a lot of money on paper. And sometimes they just don’t know. Especially, like, if I run across a worker, and who made 6 figures on paper, and paid the proper amount of taxes. And most prepared would just, you know, doing the old style and not even looking to the expenses of the person and what those expenses could qualify them for. So I think that in all of my posts, I’m highlighting those things. I’m highlighting like, you know, if you meet this requirement or that requirement, you could qualify for this tax break or that one or these things or interest in your refund.
So, that’s pretty much my style of posting is to, you know, just come up with solutions for, like, problems that I know are common or, you know, get information. A lot of it is just knowledge. Things they didn’t know about what they might qualify in their income bracket.
How do you assess the unique needs of each client when developing your coaching strategies, especially when it comes to tax and credit advice?
Barbie: That’s a good question. So when it comes to coach strategy coaching strategies, every person is different. Just like everybody’s tax situation is different. So when talking about coaching strategies, I wanna know, 1st and foremost, where the person is at on the scale of how much they know about the business. I wanna say how long they’ve been in the business, but that doesn’t matter because I’ve been in the business for 2 years now, and I have people, you know, take my $5,000 Mastercard that tell me they’ve been doing taxes 10 years, 15 years and 20 years. So I wouldn’t say the time frame matters. A lot of them will say they know taxes, but they don’t. So initially going in, I just wanna know where you’re at on a scale. Like, how much do you know? Do you know the basics? That’s first things first. And if you do know the basics, I kinda go into, you know, what that individual’s unique need is, what they’re trying to accomplish, and then I can see, like, how I can tailor the culture strategies to best fit their needs. Same thing for the the tax clients. Everybody’s tax situation is different and because of that, I just like to request a lot of information is how I do it from the tax clients. Everything from their basic information down to, like, every itemized expense, whether they’re business or personal. Seeing what you know, how much they’re paying in taxes or not paying taxes, and then what they’re spending their money on can give me a better idea of how I can help them specifically.
What tools or software do you use to help clients manage their taxes and credit? How do these tools improve the coaching experience?
Barbie: So when it comes down to the software, my favorite is Taxpayer Pro, hands down. It’s the best tax software in my opinion. It’s very easy, for the user experience, and then it’s very easy from the setup experience. It’s very easy to teach. Very easy for a student to learn. And it keeps track of all your clients that, we use TPG banking products.
They keep track of all your deposits and everything, like, you know, lined up perfectly and neatly for you to be able to review it. So those are my 2 for taxes. When it comes to credit, it’s a little bit different. But I would probably have to say that maybe DisputeBox would be my favorite software for credit management for managing credit clients. Just because it makes it easier, you can easily import, like, their smart credit report, and it’ll just kinda grab out everything negative for you. And so you can know, like, where to start as far as when you’re cleaning up your credit.
How do you measure success in your role as a coach? What key performance indicators do you track for your clients?
Barbie: So, personally, as a coach, I measure my success by how successful my students are. And not all of my students because I have thousands of them. Only the ones that apply what I’m teaching them. I think that’s the thing for me, especially in Texas. It’s really hard to get them to do the thing they paid you to do if that makes sense. For me, I can’t understand. Like, when I took my $5,000 class, I was not about to play with it at all. So I immediately came back to Atlanta and started to implement everything that I learned. I think that’s probably, like, the hardest part of the process for me. But to a student who listens to and implements what I teach them, I measure my success by how successful they are. Because literally, that’s the only way I’m able to keep selling my coaching. My only marketing strategy is really for coaching, now when it comes to pulling back clients, I can easily throw something that I’m doing, pop it into my lifestyle together, and boom. But when it comes to coaching, they wanna see results, results, results, and they wanna see results not from me, but from my students. So, you know, I have a pipeline of them. They constantly, like, every week, send me their tax deposit drops or how much they save their clients, you know because everybody won’t get a refund back.
And that’s how I’m gauging how successful I am. As long as my students are experiencing the same level of success as me, then I know that I’m doing something right for sure, And the same thing with clients. Like, you know, I measure my success by how effective I’m able to help them in their particular situation, whether it situation, whether it be credit, taxes, content creation, marketing, whatever it might be. I just measure it by how effectively I know they implemented, it and it works for them. And I kinda change things and rearrange things, of course, according to changing trends, and things and rearrange things. Of course, according to changing trends and laws and all of that good stuff, I’m always, like, tweaking and tailoring, like, everything that I do.
How do you handle clients who are resistant to changing their financial habits or understanding their tax obligations?
Barbie: I’m kinda mean. I’m not gonna lie. I’m not gonna lie because I just hate beating a dead horse, you know. I hate trying to drive something home to somebody who paid me money to do this for them.
So, I’m not gonna lie. I’m kinda mean with it. It’s just kinda like, alright. Well, you paid me this money for nothing, or you’re gonna keep experiencing the same thing if you don’t do something different. And I’m kinda very matter-of-fact about it. Even with my coaching students, with them, I’m kinda mean about it as well just because, like, just do it. You can’t complain about what you’re getting if you don’t wanna change what you’re doing. So that kinda is one of those things that grabbed my gear. I’m not gonna lie.
I’m not gonna lie. And, like, they’re coming for you obviously for a reason. You came to me. You paid me money. Like, I should not have to fight with you about implementation. But what I’m learning is stepping more into it because I taught hair as well. So it would be the same thing. But most of the hair girls will get on it immediately. They might not get on the marketing part. I feel like that’s the hardest part for everyone across the board. But the technique but at least just start somewhere. Like I said, everyone, just give it a few minutes every day. You could feel proud. Like, I did something toward my dream or goal. But if you’re just waking up and you’re not doing anything about it, you can’t complain about what you’re getting. You can’t keep complaining about your current situation if you don’t take any steps to change, like, what you’re doing. So I’m, really, really big on that because if you knew, like, how my life used to be versus, like, how my life is now, it’s like I had to change a lot of things. Primarily, how I thought, how I spoke, what I listened to, and what I viewed. But I had to do something different to get something different. So essentially, that’s, like, the biggest key.
What is your coaching philosophy when it comes to empowering clients in their financial journeys? Can you provide an example of how this has worked in practice?
Barbie: My coaching philosophy is hands down, change your thoughts, change your life. We gotta start there. Like, we can’t even move forward to anything else if you don’t change your mindset in the way that you think. So that’s my biggest philosophy. You gotta do something you never did to get something that you’ve never had. So I’m always trying to drill that point home because, in my mind, it’s the most important. And, I do this with different I talk to them a lot too, but I meditate a lot. It’s a lot of different, meditations on YouTube that I like. I’m very into Christ, into Jesus. I like to owe him everything. So I’m always turning to someone on to, like, my faith. I wouldn’t say I’m a religious person, but I do have faith in Christ. That’s the biggest I feel like even over mindset, that’s the biggest key, like, first and foremost. So I’m always, like, telling them, like, this is the little key that I live by. And there’s no way that you could do these things, there’s no way you can filter what you’re watching, filter what you’re listening to, start watching things about abundance, start saying affirmations daily, listening to them. You know, start speaking positively and not speaking negatively. If there’s no way you can start speaking life and not see it, you know. And especially, like, taking a plan for god so that he can establish it, there is no way possible that you will do that and you’ll have faith and it won’t work out. Now the client twist is it might not always go exactly like you had thought in your mind, but God is always gonna work it out for your good. So I would say that everyone can grasp that first step and get their mindset in the right place first and just know that a lot of people don’t even think they’re worthy of being successful. You know, a lot of people don’t think they can do it. A lot of people have a broke and broken mindset. So I think that probably my biggest goal is, to get them to the king. Like, turn them on to Christ first, and I do that by showing my life that, like, I’m not perfect. I don’t try to be perfect, but you are gonna see, like, this girl loves god though. Like, you know what I mean? And then b is, like, stop thinking negatively.
Stop thinking that you can’t. Stop thinking about the worst possible outcome. What if it all worked out and got to the way you wanted to? Because it will. And it is what you think it is. So I’m really big on that whole mindset factor. Like, I could talk about that all night. I like how you say it is what you think it is. It is. It is what you think you think it is. We are creators. God put his Spirit into us. That’s our soul. Our spirit so we’re little men and he gave us that power. You know, that’s why I like the law of attraction and all that good stuff. And not just to get too preachy, but, you know, all of that comes from Christ. You know, so is a man thinketh in his part and eat his feet. Ask and believe and he shall receive. Like, those are all the key fundamental elements to manifesting anything and we said it first, you know. So it is what we said it was. We can do all things through Christ. We can do he said, you’ll go and do these miracles and greater than not. And it’s so true. Like, my life is a testament to that. And I know that God is no respecter of person. So that is I’m no I’m I’m not a professional. Like, that’s for anybody who sets, fits, and does the work on the mind. And, frankly, the mind is the biggest work that’s triggered to do in your whole life.
In your opinion, what are the emerging trends in tax and credit management that coaches should be aware of to better serve their clients in the coming years?
Barbie: For taxes, the biggest trend is definitely, user awareness. Like making them a wool wool education. Educating the client on the fact that everybody is not gonna get a tax refund back. Everybody should not even be looking to get a tax refund back. But there are big tax breaks and deductions and adjustments that can, excuse me, wipe out that entire tax bill. If you have a high tax obligation or lower it significantly and possibly get, you know, some of them in the green to where they will get a refund back. And sometimes the refunds can be pretty big. So I think that the most important thing is just educating the client and making them aware of how important taxes are, how different they are for everyone, and how that can be very beneficial in a lot of other areas. Because when we start getting into credit, nowadays, these credit companies, they’re like, we want a tax return transcript of 45060 directly from the IRS. Like, they know. Mhmm. So a lot of times, like, not having those taxes filed will stop a person from getting approved for, you know, a business line of credit or loan or a home loan, and the list goes on and on and on. So I think it’s very important for, like, anybody who wants to coach or be a coach or a teacher in this industry to stay on top of that. Also, knowing what is new, you know, like, I’m always on top of, like, new credits coming out for the next tax year and, you know, because it changes every year.
So I think that’s very important. Don’t learn one style of teaching and just get stuck in that because it’s an ever-changing industry. And then the same thing for credit management. The biggest thing right now in credit is credit sweeps. They’re going well, but I think it’s really important aside from sweeping someone’s credit.
I think it’s really important just to teach them how to manage their credit, how important it is, like, how to not get something that they can’t be off. You know, they’re not gonna be able to pay back, and how powerful of a tool credit can really be, especially in this day and age and what just happened to all of us with COVID. I think that that shows a lot of people just how important credit management is and they made a lot of people get serious about it because there’s a boom since 2020 up until now. So I think that’s the most important thing. Same thing for credit.
It’s important to know what’s out, what’s new, what’s changing, because it’s also an ever-changing market. And the third thing, content is not in the question, but Mhmm. Same thing for content. It is ever-changing, but no business can survive without it. So like I said, no one content, there’s nothing that nobody can stop you from if you know the content. And so I think staying on top of what’s trending, trending sounds, how to make viral reels, you know, how to write compelling captions, hooks, all that good stuff. I think that’s very important because if you don’t stay on top of what’s changing, you ain’t gonna get left behind and these things are really big major corporations like Blockbusters and towards r x and things that we thought would be around forever gone just like that because they couldn’t keep up with the trend, the digital trend, which is what it is. It’s like whatever you see is a time to and we’re all human, so I get it. Like, I go on my benches where I’m like, I just wanna finish all my work and watch Netflix, and then, you know, but then I’m like, okay. You did this. You had your little Netflix week. Cool. Now it’s time to, you know, get back on because I go on my bouts where I’m only watching, like, violent golden and YouTube, you know, meditations and prayers, and, like, I’m going to sleep to it. I’m waking up to it. Like, I’m feeding my mind with the things that I know I need for it to grow. So, you know, I went to InvestFest, this past weekend for a couple of hours. It was my first time going. I was able to catch, like, Steve Harvey kinda right at the end. But he kinda start preaching and he said something that resonated and stuck out with me. Like, everything in life is hard. Like, you know, so if you’re trying to escape hard, baby, it’s not gonna happen. It’s gonna be heartbreaking to escape hard, but you gotta pick what you want to be hard. Because being rich is hard, but being poor is hard as fuck. You know what I’m saying?
Like, just having nothing and having nothing at all, that’s hard. But having abundance and being responsible for it and being accountable for it is hard as well. Running a business is hard. Yes. True. Indeed. Not knowing where it’s coming from and you having to grind and go get it is hard but having to get your ass up 5 days a week and go report to somebody’s job at 8 AM for 8 hours, 9 hours of your life every single day is hard too. Very hard. It was too hard for me. I could never do it for more than, like, 3 months. So, you know, you just gotta pick what’s hard for you because you’re not gonna escape that. And I think that we should just stop trying to find the easy fix for things and just sit down and put the work in. God is gonna bless, you know, the work that you put in. And I believe in working smart and not hard, but we can’t escape working hard for the things that we want for certain. Awesome. That would kind of be like if we insert it up, what would you leave, our audience with? Oh my god. That would be a good one. Yeah. So I’ll add in, like, my bad. I’ll, like, once it’s all transcribed, like, see, okay, maybe we could add in this question because you touched a lot of, different points. Right now the recording is at 30 30 minutes. So Wow. That’s what it seemed like it went on the phone for that minute. That’s crazy, but that’s good. I just want them to know, like, it’s and I’m glad, like, this is outside of the box for me. Mhmm. But I wanna do more stuff like this. I wanna get booked to be more for, like, podcasts and speaking engagements and stuff. Definitely. I do. You know, I have a lot to say, and I feel like the world needs to hear it. And I know looking at my page, it probably just comes off a certain way, like, oh, okay. Yeah. This is flashy but I worked hard and I overcame a lot. Like I said at the beginning of the interview, the mindset was, like, the hardest thing to overcome. And I feel like once you win that battle of your mind, Joyce Meyer, by the way, has a really good book on that called The Battlefield of the Mind. Mhmm. But I feel like once you win that battle of the mind, it’s like no obstacle you can’t overcome. It’s nothing that life throws you that you can’t sit down and buckle down and figure it out. Okay? To figure out the mind is the hardest thing in your life that you’re gonna figure. So I just want people to know, like, sit down and do that work, change your thoughts, and it really will change your life by oh my god. Like I I this life never gets old to me. I look around this house. I look around my car, my experiences, my business, and my Instagram page every day. And I’m just like, wow. Like, thank you, Jesus. Like seriously? Like, this is this is my life. Like, I’m not dreaming. Like, it never gets old to me. So if I can do it coming from out east Jacksonville, Florida, the worst part of town in the world, straight from the hood, from nothing. I remember when I just had a suitcase, and then I came to Atlanta and then turned it into all of this. So if I could do it, anybody could do it for sure.
If you’re inspired by Billionaire Barbie’s journey from beauty mogul to financial guru and want to keep up with her latest ventures, be sure to follow her on social media and check out her website for updates. Whether you’re looking for career inspiration or tips on financial management, Barbie’s story is a testament to the power of resilience and adaptability in the face of change. Stay tuned for more updates as she continues to innovate and inspire in her new endeavors!
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Photo Credit: Courtesy of Billionaire Barbie
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