Two local women share their triumphs, trials in business

METRO DETROIT — Colette Hughes of Warren and Jennifer Taylor Boykins of West Bloomfield credit being able to pivot as a key to their success.

Hughes is the owner, broker and coach of Virtual Real Estate Services, a full-service real estate company in Warren with clients all over the world. She started in real estate in 1988 as an office administrator and quickly moved up the ranks to become a real estate agent, making herself valuable at the two real estate offices she worked at prior to starting her own business in 2015.

A year before starting her business, Hughes joined a Toastmasters International club in Warren and attributes this to contributing to her success.

Toastmasters is a nonprofit public speaking organization that trains speakers.

“I was the shyest person in Michigan,” Hughes said. “I was great working behind the scenes, but I couldn’t go up to people and talk to them.”

Hughes credits Toastmasters for helping her to find her voice.

She was inspired to start her own business when she and a broker where she worked attended a real estate event.

“When it was time for me to be introduced at the event, I was left out,” Hughes said. “I cannot be left out when I am doing all the work. So I started my own business and could no longer be a secret agent.”

She left that real estate office and has continued to prosper even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hughes is a proponent of the power and support of women’s groups in business.

She is currently on the board of directors of the National Entrepreneurs Association and was named one of Career Masters’ 2025 Women to Watch.

“It’s a new day when it comes to women in business,” Hughes said. “Women’s groups help to empower them.”

Hughes also believes in the art of pivoting.

The holiday months are slow for real estate housing sales.  As a result, she started a real estate holdings company, where she holds real estate licenses for those agents not making money from real estate currently but want to hold onto their license.

She pays all the yearly fees they would incur and negotiates sales on their behalf, sharing a portion of the commission with them.

“When I saw the help was needed, I started the holdings company,” Hughes said.

In business, Hughes said, “Women have to yell louder, fight harder and stand taller.”

Nothing But Education in West Bloomfield was created to change the lives of children and inspire them by providing strategic thought, collaborative partnerships, industry best practices and resource sharing to school districts across the country and internationally in 2019.

Founder Jennifer Taylor Boykins is a former Detroit Public Schools teacher and vice president at Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, according to the company’s website, where she worked for more than 20 years.

Less than a year after launching her business, the pandemic hit.

When that happened, people weren’t talking as much and when they did it wasn’t an in-person meeting but by telephone. By the time she had the opportunity to use her marketing materials, they were out of date.

“From the early point of business, I learned you have to be able to pivot,” Taylor Boykins said. “What you think may be ideal in the marketplace, the marketplace can change…. Pivot is the name of the game when you are in business for yourself.”

That prompted Taylor Boykin and her team to develop materials that would promote continuous education while students were out of school during the pandemic or on summer vacation. It includes books, worksheets and journals.

The books are designed to engage the students. The worksheets are created to promote a deeper dive into the materials they read, and the journals prompt further reflection on what the student has read.

“Things to help them really think about what they are reading and why it is important,” Taylor Boykins said. “They received it (the materials) with open arms and joy.”

This program was first implemented in some of the Los Angeles area school districts four years ago and has been implemented every summer vacation since.

It was a huge, hard-fought project, and a major triumph for Nothing But Education. Being in contact with the students in their space “is the best part of the business,” she said. “The tales are always around the lives that you change, the lives that you touch.”

That led to her nonprofit, Bravehearts, which funds scholarships for high school seniors who are aging out of the foster care system. Students from school districts across the country have received scholarships. One student studied to be a graphic artist in Japan. Some go to college, attending top-tier schools, while others have gone to trade school, including the field of cosmetology.

To date, Bravehearts has funded around 40 scholarships.

Taylor Boykins says a lot is put on women in business.

“They keep piling it up, she said. But sometimes you have to say, ‘Yes, I can do that for you but not now.’”

Taylor Boykins is also on the West Bloomfield Planning Commission and sits on the West Bloomfield Library’s Board of Directors.