Women in Business Feature Dunisa Joyce: Secrets to Becoming Established in the Online Market

Deborah's Muse sat with Dunisa Joyce who is co-founder to Joyce's Online Shopping and Courier Service. She humbly explanined that Glen Joyce, her husband, is the vissionary behind their business. Read in depth, as she shared her sercrets to becoming established in the Online Market.

Deborah's Muse What type of business do you have? 

Dunisa: The business that we currently have is an online shopping and courier service. Online in the sense that if you need any particular item that is not available in Guyana we can source it for you and have it available at your door front. Anything from a feather to a car. Courier service - we provide you with a mailing address snd you can ship to the mailing address, then you are informed when 

Deborah's Muse: What's the name of your business?

Dunisa: The name of the business is Joyce’s Online shopping and Courier service. Our tag line or motto: making online shopping a walk in the park. Just tell us what u need and we will do the rest for you. 

Deborah's Muse: Describe your early childhood and how it influenced your path in business? 

Dunisa: During my childhood, I was always surrounded by women entrepreneurs. From my grandmother to my mother, these women in my life were always selling something. I grew up on a farm where my grandparents sold Poultry, fruits, and vegetables, and I was a part of it all. After primary school, I sold vegetables in the neighborhood. I was shy and embarrassed at first and eventually, I began to love it. I realized that the business arena held my passions. My mom opened a small grocery shop, a stall in the Georgetown arcade. After school, weekends and holidays, I was tasked to assist with either the arcade or the shop. I was in charge, and I loved satisfying customers, making them happy, and encouraging them to come again. I followed the example of two generational influences before me, my mother and my grandmother to become a "Woman in Business.' My mother is still into business even though she is retired. It’s in my blood and in my DNA. My diploma is in marketing gives me great insight on how to marketing my business to make forthwith (your first thought) in minds of the clientele. I also hold a degree in Business Management, this knowledge is used to manage and move the business to a different level.  

Deborah's Muse: How did you get started in the online industry? 

Dunisa:

My husband actually realized that persons needed items that are not easily available in Guyana or are very costly. The online businesses in Guyana are very expensive so he decided to penetrate the market and offer the same online experience but with excellent customer service and of course better service rate.

Deborah's Muse: What prompted you to venture into the online arena? 

Dunisa:  The Online industry was actually started by my husband as he is the founder. And together we built our brand to where it is today.

Deborah's Muse: At what point in your process did you discover that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? 

Dunisa: Wanting to be an entrepreneur has always been in my dreams since I was selling pointer brooms and ground provision as a little primary school girl.

Deborah's Muse: Did you have the resources to get started?

 Dunisa: Yes and no, but with help of persons we were able to venture into the business.

Deborah's Muse: Was there ever a moment where you did not feel supported? 

Dunisa: No; Never. We received the support of families, friends, church members, and even strangers. 

Deborah's Muse: Have you experienced any failures in business?

Dunisa: I wouldn’t term it a failure, but it’s a setback because presently we do not have an office space to offer the full experience to customers.

Deborah's Muse: Do you still hold a corporate profession.

Dunisa: Yes, I still hold a corporate profession. I am currently a coordinate at Massy Services Guyana limited (She has held this position for 10 years while building her brand).

Deborah's Muse: Some women's sole income is from the business they have started while you on-the-other-hand work a full-time job. Explain if corporate is where you seek to stay or will eventually break out to become solely devoted to your business?

Dunisa: It is my heart’s desire to venture into the business and be solely devoted to it. In that regard, I can fully put more effort and time into it and develop more branches across Guyana and offer job opportunities to my fellow Guyanese. 

Deborah's Muse: How do you create balance amidst the various shoes you have to fill? 

Dunisa:  Very good question! One of my favorite verses is Phillippians 4:13  I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. I balance business mostly on my lunch breaks, nights after work, and weekends. 

Deborah's Muse: Do you think ambition is an attitude or a mindset? 

Dunisa: In my humble and professional opinion, I strongly believe that ambition is a mindset. It’s a desire or determination to achieve the success of any kind. 

 

Deborah's Muse: Would you say you procrastinate when it comes to your business?

Dunisa: Yes, something I do procrastinate, but we know what it says that procrastination is a killer of time. So once time permits me I do what needs to be done. Because time and opportunity lost can never be regained. 

Deborah's Muse: Looking at yourself introspectively, how would you describe the woman in business who is prone to be successful? 

Dunisa: Firstly, you need to set a goal that you want to achieve. Mentally it can be strenuous due to other obligations. Regardless of our mental and emotional situations, determination is a recipe for success. Moreover, letting God take charge will definitely cause us to become successful. When you stay God-focused and Goal-focused you will enjoy success.

Deborah's Muse: How different is owning an online business versus a physical storefront?

Dunisa: A storefront offers a personalized experience with readily available assistance, but the same can be offered over the phone. 

We don’t have a physical store at the moment. We are working feverishly to acquire a store where we can continue to build a repertoire with our customers. Hence customers will have the experience of sitting and browsing from the comfort of our store and shop items that are readily available. 

Deborah's Muse: How can customers contact you?

Dunisa: Customers can contact us via our WhatsApp numbers 6010228 and 6803972 or our Facebook and Instagram page at Joyce’s Online Shopping.

Deborah' Muse: Work at building your dream. The ways in which we do so is through focus, diligence and discipline. Remember, Ecclessiates11:6 states, "Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well."

 Thank you to the Management and Staff of Joyce's Online Shopping and  Courier Services

Make Room

In the winter of 2020, my daughter was given a science project to germinate seeds in wet cotton balls. The seeds were placed in a ziplock bag and pasted to a window. After germination it was planted in soil, giving it the necessary nutrients, water, sunlight, and all the necessary things a plant needed to grow and mature.

The Encroaching of Roots

However, we soon realized that the planters and the pots which we initially used did not accommodate the continued growth of the pants. The sunflowers and the marigolds did not have sufficient space to allow for the maturing. As a result, some of the sunflowers were choked and died because of the limited space, some received too much water that caused its stem to absorb it and died, and there were the ones that were too fragile due to limited space causing maturation of the stems, hence they too broke and died.

This scenario causes us to examine the laws of nature and how the principle of allowing yourself the space to mature and grow is vital to one sustenance, longevity, and maturity.

The sunflowers placed in the pot with limited spacing affected its growth. Moreover, it is the same with people, some places and people you are planted around will encroach upon you and curtail your growth.

 

Plantla

 Environments can become toxic as a result of people and what they poured into us. The vicissitudes of life can create weak cores in us, and false misconceptions about what you lend to stunted growth. Sometimes too much of a good thing can leave you with the inability to function. The Law of nature teaches sustenance is due to equilibrium (balance). 

Where the is no balance maturity is stifled

 Now, you are unable to breathe and make decisions that will cause you to become resilient, persistent, and even formidable. 

 You reflect on your life and it seems like you're stuck in a place where all you are surrounded by weak saplings, no room to breathe or extend your roots. Growing stronger cores or stems requires sobriety to access your environs, the ability to be selective of conditions that suit growth, and being resilient during the transition. Understand, just as a plant needs room to mature, grow, and extend its roots,  so does a human.

Take all the room in the Word, that your roots may grow deep in God, and let your shoot extend to the highest heavens embracing the brilliance of the Son. All that matters now is that God loves us with an everlasting love that causes it to penetrate the deep recesses of our hearts. The fruits you able to bear are dependent upon the conditions in which you are planted.

Release yourself into the everlasting arms of God who has given us the precious gift of his Holy Spirit that causes us to be sustained in any condition. Continue to go forward as the Holy Spirit is your guiding light to illuminated the darkness of the soils of life. We can face our fears, we can face the darkness, we can face the evils, we can face anything because all things are made possible through Christ Jesus who gives us strength. So we make room to grow we make room for our roots to deepen in Christ's past transition zones. 

Make room for your roots so that you may elevate and mature fully.

Photo: Credit: Nature-and-Garden

The Beauty in the Process

That which is placed into your hands requires action. It is only when you work in faith believing, can beauty burst forth. 

The most beautiful of petals fall from a plant and withers, dries up, and eventually decays, not by being exposed to any forms of the elements (wind, water, etc.) but because of something called process.

Each person has been created to endure the process of life with the help of the Holy Spirit. In each of our lives, we have to be processed. And in the processing; just like eagles that lose their talons and have to grow them back, it is the same with humans. Your endurance and longevity are dependent on your ability to be processed. 

In your process ye will shed people,  things, you will shed desires, will, you will shed places, mindsets, beliefs in order for the beauty that God placed inside of you can come forth. In the shedding beauty still remains because it is never what's offered on the outside that makes you beautiful unless you're all about the superficial. 

If you should ever have the opportunity to observe any plant in nature; it is only when the left, flower, stem, fruit separates from the plant that it is ever able to sustain itself. 

I quote John 15:5, "“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned." 

Kingdom Rejected

 There is an old adage, "as you make so you must lie on it." The children of Israel made their bed by rejecting the Lord who brought them out of Eygpt, defended them, went out before them, and afforded them a wealth of possession.

We have seen over time how the power of choice causes the demise of the masses. Made a little lower than the angels; you were given the power to choose. However, choices made in rebellion offer the guarantee of consequences.

We see an example of this in 1 Samuel 8, where the children of Israel chose government over the Kingdom, opening breathing grounds for totalitarianism. The bottom line is that the children of Israel were blind to the error of their way. They did not understand that again they were rejecting God and not just a man. The manifest power that resided in Samuel was by the Spirit of God and the children of Israel had countless encounters and memory stones about the power of their God.

Consider the potential demise that could be experienced when you reject the voice of the one who sent to guide you on the path of right-living, to preserve your life. 

And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken to the voice of the people in all they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not be King over them. 1 Samuel 8:7

Rejecting the Lordship of their Sovereign God and his might to save them brought on calamity. Be careful that the things you focus your heart upon inevitably take reign in your life.

God will always send a warning before destruction and again you are offered the opportunity to choose your fate. Desiring what others have should not be determined by perception. The end results, sons and mandated to be enlisted in the army (army officers and commanders of armies), women will go to work as a result of the men being sent away, enslaved, taxed, wealth and possessions misplaced.

Imagine seeking security in a mortal being, earthly gods, carved by human hands and earthly understanding and the irrefutable confidence that he can offer security and protection. Moreover, the price for rejecting God comes with recompense. God will entreat you with your desires but know His judgments will be in close pursuit of his righteousness.

Just Because

It's a fool who sees no light shining through the clouds, in the day who says there is no sun. Similarly, it is the fool that says in his heart, there's no God. Just because you cannot see it, means it doesn't exist.

The earth is in constant motion and it should be the same with all created things, to be in motion letting God redeem the 'time' in your life.

Just because you don't see the blessing doesn't mean it's not coming.

Just because you haven't seen Jesus doesn't mean he's not the sent son of God.

Just because that spouse isn't praying, worshiping, and seeking in the manner in which you are seeking, doesn't mean that God is not working behind the scenes. His salvation is nigh. It only takes belief which ushers in confident trust for the manifestations of miracles.

Just because the children are acting weird and imprudently does not mean that they aren't the 'blessing' that God gave you.

 The word of God states, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”(Luke 19:10). If, you would only believe that sons and daughters will be saved because God's promises are yes and Amen. In Jesus' name.

Just because...

For today, forget about your just because and trust and believe in your heart that it exists because He (God) created , extended advocates, and ordains that it is so.

Heavenly Father today we lay every 'just because' at your feet, We say that we believe in your word that it is truth and life. Your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We believe that you are God and God alone and there is none other besides you or before you.

You are the God yesterday today and forever, never changing, always faithful, merciful, gracious and we lay all our 'just because at your feet. We will trust in your word because we have hidden your word in our hearts that we will not sin against thee. Oh Lord, let not your word return to you void but let it accomplish all that which it has been spoken, sent out to accomplish according to your will and your purpose in the earth amen.

Rid us of every 'just because' and imagination that opposes the knowledge of Christ and we bring it all into captivity, now.

In Jesus mighty, and matchless name, Amen.

Vision Board: Can it Become Your Reality

I never created a vision board in my life until 2 years ago. I followed the Holy Spirits leading to begin to create an image of what I desired my life to look like. At the time, my life was the faintest reality of anything beautiful, but it was worth enduring. However, during the course of those trying moments in times all I could feel was pain.

Every day came with its own issues and the peaceful and loving relationship I thought I had slowly faded into something so unfamiliar and unappealing. Before I go any deeper; too quickly into my personal affairs, let me get back to my vision board experience.  

I awoke one morning with the thought impressed upon my heart that this vision board had to be made. The title, image, every aspect of this vision board sired my psyche. It had to be done and I completed it the same morning. 

I entitled it 'First Comes Love' and even as I am writing this I did have to take a glance to refresh my memory of this title. Like I said it was given to me by the Holy Spirit. The things that the Holy Spirit will give to you will be ingrained in your memory as if He had written it on the walls of your heart.

The vision board was a reflection of what my life was not. Every instruction received regarding this visual creation was synchronized by the Holy Spirit Himself. I remembered a pastor, The Eclectic Preacher on Spotify from a church I attended, recently started creating podcasts. I stumble upon one episode called "Write the Vision" the very morning. She gave instructions on how to create a vision board. She stated three things that formed the backbone of what I was about to create. She mentioned that my vision boarded needed to reflect "what I wanted to be, do, and have." 

I crafted the perfect vision for my life at the time, of what I wanted to "be," "do," and "have," though it was not a reflection of my life at the time. There had been chaos, pain, abuse, disrespect, and the inseparable and insatiable passions quickly turned it into an intoxicating reality that wounded the very core of my being.

I wrote the vision, praying that it would soon become my reality. Moreover, there was not the slightest evidence of things becoming better. I was believing with all my heart, as my soul was slowly dying inside. I fasted and prayed, and fasted some more. Daniel fast, Ester fast, 40 days fast, you name it, I did it. My outcome... the burden of stress, anger, and utter resentment.

2020, I created the vision board, and one year later at the end of my strength, I burned the vision board. I expound on 'my' because I was trying to achieve the vision in my strength. I did not literally burn the vision board, I took it off of my wall and put it out of sight where I could no longer see it. I was done, I had given up on the vision board, and angrier that the vision board got my hopes up. In the end, I lost. I told myself vision boards don't work. I was so hurt, despondent and dejected at such a brut outcome. Under mentorship, the group was prompted to create a vision board, and I was not motivated. My bitter outcome showed at the time, "those things don't work." The vision board that is.

Let me shorten this story for you before it exceeds my word limit because I am not certain if there is one. I did not create the new board but used the one I had previously created. I spoke about my vision and dreams with dreaded tears in my eyes, a bleeding heart, and a distraught soul. Hope deferred certainly made my heart sick and boy was it sick.

Five months later, now 2021, I fasted, prayed, was prayed for, received prophecies. God stepped in and spoke to me, and dealt with me in a way He had never dealt with me before. My ears were itching, I sought help in all the unrequired places, and the activation of my vision was delayed, not denied. as a result of my misplaced hope. Was I truly trusting God to accelerate the vision He placed in me? I could not have created that vision board if He hadn't given it to me in the first place.

 Trust is a critical commodity when it comes to dealing with God. He cannot work in your life with a heart that can't trust him. Whole-hearted trust is what will cause the vision to unfold and become the reality you will enjoy in the land of the living. God's promises are true, they are yes, and they are sealed. He wants us to get rid of the dependency and trust in the words of men and put complete trust in his word. If God said it; He will do it. This is not a cliche; it is called clinging to the very word which the God who created Heaven and the earth by His spoken word. Again by His spoken word, He will accomplish His will, purpose, and His vision for your life. The story doesn't have to end because emotions tell you all is lost. The story is just beginning because the author, God is still writing your story.

Today, I am watching my vision board come alive and speak for my life and for my generation to come. God is the one who places the vision in you and will cause it to come to fruition and completeness in your life.

Go ahead write your vision and make it plain and trust God to establish every detail.

After the Rain

Have you ever walked outside after it rained and beheld the beauty of the brilliant green leaves and the effervescent freshness of everything in nature that had been brushed by the water droplets? 

Scientifically speaking, the cumulonimbus clouds release a deluge of water upon the earth. As a result of such outpour of the Heavens, some take it as a blessing and some would clearly state that they don't like the rain. "Cumulonimbus clouds are thunderstorm clouds and are associated with heavy rain, snow, hail, lightning, and sometimes tornadoes."

 Everything God created was created with a purpose for the glory of God to be revealed.

 There are diverse opinions about the rain, some like it and some don't care for it. In God's sovereignty, he knew what we needed before we can even ask. God,  after the six days of creating everything on the earth he saw that it is good. "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31, NIV)

Rain is a result of unstable atmospheres. We see an example of this when the stability of the earth was out of sorts in Noah's day. God sent rain. One of the catastrophes of that day resulted in a flood that created an extinction-level event.

21 "And all flesh ceased to breathe that moved upon the earth–fowls andbirds, [tame] animals, [wild] beasts, all swarming andcreeping things that swarm andcreep upon the land, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils were the breath andspirit of life died."(Genesis 7:21-22)

 Besides, we see how righteousness will preserve life. Even after the rain life can be preserved. 

Huestos is Hebrew for rain. It was quite a necessity in Elijah's time. When he prophesied there would be no rain for three years. "Elijah Tishbite, of the temporary residents of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew or rain these years but according to My word." (1 Kings 17:1) Again we see this ongoing theme, the preservation of life. God held the rain from the land and every created thing. You may ask a few questions. How could something so good create such havoc and something deemed so bad preserve life? Rain can even birth new life.

Consider a seed that seems lifeless and lacking substance. Moisture, water, some form of wet and uncomfortable environment initiates a process for tangible outcomes. The beauty buried inside you requires that uncomfortable, cold, dark environment to affect germination. The circumstance might not look optimal but you possess what it takes to be cultivated if you will remain planted. Perceptions can be misguided based on a feeling and trusting in your emotions has the strong potential to leave you baren. There remains beauty after the rain only when you choose to see it.

Before a seed can come fort it needs to be burried and before it can become a tree it needs to endure darkness

It is when the seed dies; can new life emerge.