Salute to Black Business Month

What is the impact of your business on the community?

Since 2014, Ariel has successfully navigated the linear and digital media publishing sphere at flagship institutions including: Viacom/Nickelodeon, NBCUniversal, Disney and Google. In 2018, Ariel realized the opportunity to make a greater impact to the minority community by channeling her 15-year background in journalism, consultative media planning and creative copy development to form Celestial Content Creations. CCC was born to fill the apparent need for professional branding and small business development writing services. Since launching, Ariel has traveled the country and served the community through educational workshops, business and career consultation sessions, and professional development writing.

For most young, Black professionals, self-promotion and marketing their career highlights feels like an anxiety-inducing task. Junior and mid-level white and blue collar employees find communicating their worth on paper or in an office setting to be daunting. Celestial Content Creations meets these people at the point of their needs with authoritative and reassuring consultations. Our career and small business consultations have been delivered nation-wide to galvanize growth for professionals who struggle with owning their career narrative.

Celestial Content Creations not only offers 1:1 consultation sessions to push past negative self-talk and mental blockages, we also offer these services at scale via interactive workshops. CCC has partnered with community and corporate organizations to instill the confidence and conviction in minority professionals in order to bridge the achievement gap. Some notable partnerships in the past include: Wendy Williams Hunter Foundation, National Basketball Association (NBA), Google, Storyblocks, I. A.M. C.U.L.T.U.R.E.D., 100 Black Men, Minorities In Media Connect, and more!

Starting in 2022, CCC is embarking on a new journey to deliver career preparation resources to make learning even more widely available. In February, Ariel composed the first of many career empowerment publications entitled, “CCC Tiny Book of Affirmations.” This publication was supplementary to a corporate Affirmation Workshop conducted at a Washington, D.C. based start up company. Following the affirmation book will be a career playbook and a better business mindset guide. CCC realizes the continued opportunity to drive impact by delivering scalable solutions such as these resources.

What is your biggest challenge in operating your business?

Among the biggest challenges when operating Celestial Content Creations is helping prove the value proposition of hiring a writing professional to the audiences we serve. At the start of our business, soliciting support for resume revisions was an easy marketing ploy. Since 2018, CCC has delivered affordable solutions to transform career trajectories with resume building, mock interview training, personal statement writing workshops, career navigation best practices and empowerment keynote addresses. We have had the great fortune to generate public scholarship online via guest speaking opportunities, social media live sessions, podcast episodes, blogs and newsletter features.

When CCC decided in Q4 2021 to shift to consulting in order to broaden the reach and impact we can deliver, business slowed down significantly. Now, we are tasked and challenged with educating our target audience that there is so much more work to do in order to prepare for long term career success beyond resume revisions. Now, CCC is focused on addressing the root cause of self-doubt and mental blockages among our community members.

We recognize that the most effective way to educate and raise awareness to the importance of healing from non-serving mental frameworks will be via social media and broadcast media campaigning. As a career media professional, I see that the next area of major focus for CCC will have to be in public awareness campaigns across social media, YouTube, podcasts and digital advertising. CCC will now, more than ever, need to lean into video education content and readily available resources to meet our community wherever inspiration strikes them.

What do you envision for your business 12 months from today?

In the next calendar year, I envision CCC as the destination for career uplift, empowerment and trajectory tracking. I see CCC inking corporate partnerships for standing employee mobility and affinity group workshops and presentations. I envision CCC working with local Small Business Development organizations throughout Houston, New York and or New Orleans to facilitate business consulting, strategy and marketing programming. I am putting in the work now, proactively, so that in a year’s time, I can dedicate my full time and talents to my company. Right now, managing my brand and working a full time role requires me to be selective with my focus. Generating enough sales and revenue in the next 12 months with the successful consumption of CCC’s career resources positions me for a chance at full-time entrepreneurship.

Dedicating my full attention to CCC will only drive impact and revolutionary career change further. In a year’s time, I see my company as having partnerships with every corporation I have been an employee of. The list includes: Viacom/CBS, Disney, NBCUniversal and Google. I envision our partnerships being healthy thriving partnerships that integrate the valuable consultative services we provide into the deserving members of communities largely underrepresented in Corporate America. It is my absolute dream to raise enough capital to sustain myself as a full-time dedicated CEO of Celestial Content Creations.