We're Oasis, a new luxury concept of fine jewelry that tells your story through our pieces. Oasis was birthed from Kolohe styling and maturing into fine jewelry. We thank you for supporting our business thus far and are excited for the new journey.
We want to highlight your story with jewelry pieces and celebrate a cheers to getting through it all. Should you accept, we will design a fine jewelry piece custom made for you and your story.
Featuring an array of solid gold, gold fill and other metal options, Oasis jewelry fits all. Walk into the Oasis and choose from different semi precious stones, chain styles and metals to create a truly one-of-a-kind piece.
Click here for our other store, Kolohe in Waikiki at the 'Alohilani Resort, gift guide
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We're so excited you're here! That means you saw our Christmas Giveaway. Yep, it's really happening! (Read further for more promotions)
2020 was an interesting year for everyone. We were forced to pause operations and close down our retail store. Despite everything that was shut down, support for small businesses were not. We seriously do a happy dance every time we get an order! We are so very grateful for all of your support of our small business during this time.
To end 2020, we are saying thank you in a few different ways:
'Alohilani Location:
Oasis Location:
As we wrap up 2020, let's end it on a good note, with sparkly new gifts + generous gestures.
Cheers to getting through it all!
Love,
The Kolohe Ladies
P.S Follow our journey on social media for daily posts about our business, new pieces and promotions (@shopkolohe)
]]>This is the vision and lifestyle behind Kolohe. We strive to surround ourselves with other passionate, poised, and powerful women.
It's been One Year since we moved into our showroom and we're celebrating! We hope you'll join us, check below for more information.
It's been an exciting year and here's what we were able to accomplish in just One Year:
And much more! We owe much of our success to our customers, supports, mentors, and friends.
We chose the theme Roaring 20's because during this time, women had a certain spunk similar to the Kolohe lifestyle.
The 1920's was a time when a brand new fashion emerged in American society, that exemplifies the attitude of the decade, the flapper look. Influenced by movie actresses and their need for independence, young women shocked older generations by dressing and acting a certain "kick ass, boss babe, I don't care what you think" type of way.
That is the vision and lifestyle behind Kolohe. Kolohe is Hawaiian for Rascal, mischievous. To us it means to be unconventional, to think outside of the box, to challenge norms, and to be creative and unique.
So come celebrate One Year of Kolohe with 20's themed food and cocktails...Come dressed because the best dressed will win a Kolohe Crop Top and a $250 Kolohe gift card. Of course, we'll be showcasing and selling Kolohe jewelry.
You can just show up or RSVP below, each RSVP will receive a special gift (and I promise you won't want to miss it!)
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The first business pitch I ever did was in front of 50+ CEO's and Fortune 500 businesses. I choked up and I didn't place.
That's when I vowed to myself that I'd never do that again. I came back, entered another business pitch competition, won. I entered another and took 2nd place against graduate students.
Two years later, I spoke in front of Hawaii's top business leaders (business owners, accelerators, investors, and more) and I'm proud of how far I've come from choking up.
Now, I'm able to speak like a lady! (Still definitely improving) Here's the full video of my speech at the 2019 Hawaii Venture Capital Association (Shout out to Tai for catching the shot, and to the gentleman at the FareHarbor table for his enthusiasm when I was announced the winner!)
I felt relieved when people came up to me after, congratulating on how well my speech was.
Watch the video, and then read below for the tips I use to confidently speak.
The years of practice combined with the thirst for learning, growing, and improving is starting to pay off and here's what came from this speech: A Hawaii angel approached me and said to call him when I'm ready (this is like every entrepreneurs dream!). I have a few other businesses I've been working on and when I'm ready, I'll be able to utilize everything I've built up. And, a tech startup asked me to consider joining their team.
My practice began when I joined Hawaii Student Entrepreneurs. I remember my first time publicly speaking to a classroom trying to recruit for our club...It was a small fashion class and I got almost everyone to sign up on our mailing list. From there, I was addicted on tweaking what I could to make it better. I KNEW that practicing on college students would some day pay off. Each event we put on is me practicing in the present to perfect in the future.
2. Practice anywhere
For the 2018 UH Business Plan Competition the night before the semi finalist presentation, I had my team practice at least 5 times in the room we were going to present in the next day. I invited others to come in and give us feedback. If I know where I'm going to pitch/present, then I'll practice in that room because I'll be more comfortable in the setting when I do pitch. If I don't know where or it isn't accessible, I'll find the closest thing to the space and practice there.
3. Hold something in your hand
This helps to calm my nerves so much. I always take a pen or a slide deck clicker up with me to present. This stops your hand from shaking because if you see that you're shaking, you begin to get nervous and think about it. And if you do that, it consumes your focus to you being nervous. In the photo below, you can see me holding a pen and drink tickets.
4. Make it relatable
Know your crowd and find a way to make your speech relatable. If I was pitching to a computer science class about my club, I'd find a way to explain how it would benefit them. If I were pitching to judges for a business pitch competition, I'd think about it from their perspective and figure out ways to make them understand my business (since often they are from a different generation). In this case of the HVCA Gala, I summarized what the keynote speakers before me said, related it to why I was selected for the award, and then brought it back to the crowd and why entrepreneurship is so important.
5. Prepare!
Very few people have the innate natural public speaking aptitude. I'll get there some day (hopefully), but for now, I always have to prepare myself. In this case, I didn't know I was giving a speech until the day of the event. Thankfully, I was already writing down important parts of the keynote speakers section and was able to use that to relate it to myself, and the others in the room. People always say that if you prepare too much, then it's not authentic/"in the moment". But if you prepare, then you make sure to hit the important parts and include what you need to include. For me, if I don't prepare then I'll blabber about something that isn't as important as what I should be saying.
I learned this the hard way. KITV interviewed me on our student boutique and the night before, I was preparing material to put in our store, rather than what I would say. I learned to always have a list of the important points you want to include. It's easier to prepare the night before than to try to think of everything on the spot. I was asked, "What are your long term plans as Haumana Soul (our boutique name)?". I haven't really thought of our long term plans together as a whole, so I sort of blabbered and said, "We want to do a trade show in Japan!". This is an example of good blabbering because from this interview, we were approached to attend the Tokyo International Gift Fair in September!
6. Remain calm
This is much easier said than done. What I mean by remain calm is this, no one knows that you're nervous when you actually are. At the HVCA, I thought my voice was trembling and I thought that I sounded super nervous. Looking back at the video Tai captured of my speech, it sounded much calmer than I was. No one is going to notice and so if you find yourself trembling or your voice start to get cracky, move on and don't think about it because it'll just consume your thoughts.
7. Watch others and learn!
You don't know something if you aren't exposed to it. An important way I learn is by watching others. I love listening to motivating speeches and I LOVE WATCHING PITCHES. It's definitely my top 5 things to do. Every pitch is different and each pitch has their own twist to it. I went to a lot of events and wrote down what I liked about each speech/presentation/pitch to later use when it was my time.
8. Marketing is BIG!
In each of my speeches and pitches, I'm wearing my color-pink. When I pitch, everything is coordinated from the colors of my slide deck, to what I'm wearing, to the business cards and material I give to the judges. This is me building my brand and also me showing the judges that I care about my business and have put in the due diligence of presenting it the right way.
In the UH Business Plan Competition, my whole team was matching (I even made Kahi buy a pink tie) and the colors were coordinated to our slide deck. I even printed out thick marble business cards to match our slide deck. This shows that you are poised, professional, and you care about your business. Small marketing moves go a long way.
I also made this pitch relevant to the audience by offering a code for 30% off because it was right before Mother's Day. This was a trick I saw in a pitch deck from the East Meets West event by Blue Startups and I thought the "IKNOW___" was light, funny, and appealing, so I used it in my pitch!
If you are going to actually do any of these, the strongest tips for me are to practice on anyone anywhere, hold a pen in my hand, and watch others!
I'll post another blog about each of my awards, what I learned from them, and how I used that to make my next presentation/pitch/speech better.
(I just remembered), but another tip that makes me feel confident, is jewelry! Dress yourself up and show them you are poised and professional by wearing the right accessories. I feel much more confident when I have jewelry on. If you read this far, click here for 30% off our pieces or use the code "SPEAKLIKEALADY". Buy some jewelry for yourself or buy something for any boss females in your life.
X,
Rose
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Use your wall to find your passion, become clear of your goals, and create a life plan to do the things you need to do to become the person you want to be.
]]>As cheesy as it sounds, goals really start to manifest once you write them down. Thoughts become actionable. So I started to write on my wall (with washable markers, of course).
My wall includes 5 sections:
Read further if you want to see what I put into each of those sections and how you can make your wall :)
For those of you who know me, I'm a super visual person and I love lists. I'm a very independent person and writing my goals, values, plans, etc. on my wall helps me map out my decisions because I truly believe everything that I do should push me forward. And if it isn't, then I'll drop it. Whenever I'm feeling down, I honestly redo my wall and it brings me to a better mood to think about my goals and all of the things that I know I can accomplish.
Recently, there's been a lot of people asking me, "How do I find what I want to do?", and my answer has always been the same: take a night to write down a life plan of YOU. This works for a few different reasons: 1) If you want to find a business you can be passionate about, 2) if you need help making decisions and 3) if you want to actually take the steps to who you want to become. (I know sounds super cheesy, right? But trust me, it works!)
If you care to read through this, I'll explain how I use my life map and then explain exactly what I put on my wall and why.
I use my life plan for all three reasons. People always approach me saying things like, "You're doing so good, it seems like you have everything figured out". Truth is, I'm still figuring out exactly what I want to do too. I know that I can do something much much bigger than my jewelry business and I get closer everyday. Writing down my values, strengths, and interests helps me to connect the dots of what I want to do. This is all information that is inside of our heads, but without really writing it down, it's often hard to make that connection. Once you start to brainstorm and put all of these things together, it's easy to find something you can be passionate about. The hard part is spending the time to do this, but if you aren't willing to spend time on yourself, then I'm not sure what else I can do for you!
I also use my wall to help make decisions for myself (I'll explain this below showing you the sections of my map).
Most importantly, my wall is a consistent reminder of who I want to become and the steps that I need to take. It's so easy to get lost in everyday shenanigans, but once you write everything down, your goals become clear and it's much easier to do the things you need to do to become the person you want to be. Yes, everyone wants to be a millionaire, run their own business, travel, etc...but what are you actually going to do to make that happen?
SO now (without showing you my wall exactly because it's kind of personal), my wall has about 7 different sections.
The first section is what source of income is most important to me now. What motivates you? What makes it easy for you to wake up but hard for you to go to sleep? What thing in your life inspires you?
That would be my jewelry business, Kolohe. Here I write down things like: what I currently have (stores I sell in, different channels, etc.), what I want to have (goals for my business), and what I need to do (how will I reach those goals). You can write down any information you feel is important to your business/job/whatever is the main focus for you right now. This maps out your main focus and shows you each section you should be focusing on.
The second section is my other commitment. How else are you building your empire?
This is my club, Hawaii Student Entrepreneurs. I never thought I'd join a club, but I wouldn't be where I am today without joining HSE as a freshmen. The first two years in HSE, I've traveled for free for entrepreneurship programs, received many awards, and have made lasting business connections that help drive me forward. HSE has done a lot for me, and now as President, I'm able to pass that forward to other student businesses. Here, I write down goals I have for HSE just to keep myself reminded of long term plans.
(**If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I will always include a gift giveaway in my blogs, so use the code "GOALS10" for $10 off our products...seriously, I'm giving you $10 to spend on jewelry so treat your sister, mom, or girlfriend!)
The third section is titled, "Who do you want to be"?
Underneath that title, I wrote down things like:
I then narrowed it down and made a list of a few long term goals that I have. I wrote down things like:
The average millionaire has seven streams of income and so finally, I jotted down a few ideas that I could use my skills for. This list so far is pretty short and includes Kolohe (of course) because I am good at my business, and a small business consultant because I enjoy helping other businesses. Although short, I wrote it down to keep myself thinking and brainstorming ways that I could put my different skills to use to have different sources of income.
The fourth section is my month-to-month goals for the year.
By writing these down, you can keep yourself on track and use it to refer back to your progress. For example, my goal for 2019 for Kolohe is to make at least $100,000 in revenue. It's almost three months into 2019 and we're about 30% to reaching that goal (woo!!). But now, I have to make sure to keep myself on track. So for each month, I wrote down a revenue goal and then specific goals each month. For March 2019, my revenue goal is $10,000 and my specific goals are: to finish the ABC product proposal, finish the Coastal Co. partnership, find a manufacturer in Bali (we leave in 2 weeks!), and do a crazy amount of research on my e-commerce analytics/online advertising.
This doesn't at all have to be related to your business. This can be monthly goals for grades, a job your working, or just personal growth things. But, it should be written down to hold yourself accountable each month.
This is my favorite of my wall because I LOVE checking off that I reached my goal. If in the middle of the month, I see that I'm not doing so well on the progress, then I'll make a list of things that I can do to make sure I reach that monthly goal.
The fifth and last section of my wall is my personal growth.
This includes my daily habits that should be stopped (procrastination, parking tickets, unnecessary spending, etc.) as well as habits that I want to start (pay more attention in class, surf more, learn to say no, drink more water).
It also includes things that I want to learn about: investing/stocks, politics, psychology, etc.
My biggest strength is my biggest weakness, and that is that I cannot say no. I am a yes girl and I like to take on each challenge and opportunity. Sometimes, I need to take a step back and say no to things and people in my life. So, I've developed a checklist of how to decide whether to say yes or no. I ask myself these questions based on my values:
These questions help me decide whether it is worth it for me to put my time into a person or a project. At the bottom of this list, I wrote, "Stay focused, stay hungry, stay undistracted" to remind myself that anything outside of this list is a distraction that doesn't relate to me or my goals.
Lastly, I have a short list of my values. I am very picky about who I surround myself with because I truly believe that you are the product of your 5 closest friends. Your network is your net worth! Who are your top 5? What do they do to push you forward? My list of values include:
And there you have it, a small secret to your success! The next step is the smallest step forward. It's up to you to make the decision to build yourself each day or let life happen. Be the CEO of your life!
Become aware of negative thoughts or habits, and stop them. Become clear of your goals, and do the things you need to do to become the person you want to be.
And if still, you tell me that nothing inspires you, then you're probably not looking hard enough.
Visualize what you want. Be so committed to what's best for you, your goals, and your heart that you're willing to sit through the most uncomfortable pain of growth and change, that you refuse to accept anything less than complete alignment.
If you read through all of this, thank you! I would love to hear your thoughts and especially see your walls! Let me know if you
X,
Rose