A couple of weeks ago, I was attending a happy hour for Find Ventures. I met some inspirational people and had some great conversations. While in discussion with someone about social media communications work and design, we talked about how labor intensive it can be and the blessing and the curse about how everyone is not going to remember what you just poured your heart and soul into. The blessing is you can be human and make mistakes. The curse is a marketing campaign can consume your whole life and if it lands perfectly, the reality is most won’t even remember it.

The process of getting Office of Minority and Women Business Enterprises (OMWBE) certified with Washington state is, admittedly, time consuming and kind of a headache. I was encouraged by Dr. Julie Pham of CuriosityBased to pursue OMWBE state certification. She told me, the sooner the better.

As I reflect on the success of my business in the last year and a half , there’s one thing that continually stands out. My community. I couldn’t gush more about how amazing every single one of you has been during my journey.

You have an upcoming event with your nonprofit or small business. Maybe it’s a fundraiser or a launch of a product. There’s so much to do, but one thing you can’t put on the sideline is figuring out your communications strategy for your event.

Being a small business owner or a small nonprofit can feel overwhelming to say the least. There’s a million things to do and a whole list of aspirational wants. It’s never ending. Have you ever spent a lot of time creating a monthly newsletter or spent a lot of money on a curated video about your organization, or expended time and energy to create a program report? Whatever it is, my number one tip: create more content and repurpose it!

Attention Nonprofits! We’ve created a list of tools and resources that we’ve curated just for you!

I had the ultimate privilege to support an Indiegogo campaign that my friend and longtime mentor, Dr. Julie Pham, Founder of CuriosityBased, launched last year to self-publish her book, 7 Forms of Respect™.

Can you believe it? Normally, people like looking younger than their age, right? Nope. Not me. Maybe I should rephrase that. I’m totally fine with how I look. Personally, I like looking “young” even though my reality is that I feel like I look my age, like a mid-30s person. I even have a handful of… *GASP* white hairs *UGLY CRY*. So, why do I take offense when someone tells me that I look young? Honestly, it has hindered me professionally and financially.

It’s 2022 and if the pandemic hasn't encouraged you to cultivate an online presence for your small business or nonprofit, I don’t know what else could possibly help you get the ball rolling. I know, as a small business owner, there’s literally a MILLION things that you HAVE to be doing, but trust me on this…you need a site.

What the hell?! Taxes! What am I even doing?! Where do I even begin?

If you couldn’t tell by the design of this week’s post…taxes are a very stressful topic to me.

April is “tax season” and as a small business owner this freaked me the f*** out.

“What is my brand?”

“Where do I start?”

It doesn’t matter if you’re developing a personal brand or a business brand - as a small business owner, it’s kind of all the same in the beginning, especially if you’re a service-based business.

Who can believe that we’re entering Q2 of 2022? I know I can’t.

I figured it was time for an update since I’ve been somewhat radio silent on all of my business channels. I’ll be completely vulnerable with you and point out how absolutely ironic it is… my entire line of business is marketing. It’s highlighting amazing small businesses and nonprofits that I work with and telling the world just how epic these small businesses and nonprofits are and why they should support them. I encourage people in their own businesses to show up and show the world just how awesome they are… and yet, why can’t I do that for my own business?

Have you ever felt like you were built for more? Well, I quit my job and started a business and this is how that happened.

Okay, I get it. As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you’re pulled into every direction imaginable and here I am telling you to do more??!!! Hear me out. To free up your time, why not put in some of the leg work now to build a solid foundation so that your clients have resources to turn to every time a question comes up?