Skye Media Group had the pleasure of exhibiting at CBS Radio’s 2013 Women’s Luncheon at Tony & Joe’s (Georgetown). Our heads are still reeling from the positive vibes and energy from the ladies in a crowded room of about 200.

Inside Tony & Joe’s

I attended with my posse aka “Jedi Roundtable” – Simone of Simone’s Styles, Alexa, Nadine of Fresh Market Enterprise (website coming soon) and we all agreed that we overall felt inspired, encouraged, thoughtful and brave, ready to take on the challenges of being independent business owners. Being by the beautiful water at Tony & Joe’s helped me to think of freedom and endless opportunities as I sat and listened to a panel of successful working mothers talk about life & work changes and doing the dang thing.

Simone with Kathleen Matthews

“Brave” was the word of the afternoon. Kathleen Matthews, former CBS news anchor, talked about how her move from CBS to Marriott was an unexpected move in her long-standing reporting career. Many of the women on the panel, Kathy Korman Frey (Founder, Hot Mommas® Project), Heather Rosen (Franchise Specialist, FranNet), Michele Woodward (Executive Coach) & many more turned their passion into a business or left a job without having a new job all to take a risk and run with their business.

Of all the takeaways (and I learned quite a bit) I filed several pieces of advice into my mental database. See if you identify with any of these:

• Surround yourself with people that embody where you are and where you’re going, people who will tell you the truth, challenge and push you to reach your business potential
• If you compare yourself to others, you will always be depressed.
• Map your energy level into 100 units and set your priorities daily. Once you run out of units, it’s time to go to bed.
• Learn to say “No” and it’s OK to say “No”.
• Know your worth.

I can’t wait to attend the next event!

(l-r)Nadine, Kathleen, Toni P., Alexa

When you branched out and started your business, what piece or pieces of advice do you still remember and activate today? Why?

A few months ago SMG exhibited at Majestic Divas Cupcakes & Cocktails event where we met The Sisterlocked Diva, Lauren. Lauren is an effervescent blogger who reports on natural hair, diva style and her life. Through our love of cupcakes, we learned that she wanted to update her blog and transition from Blogger to WordPress. While Lauren wanted to keep her color palette, she wanted an updated look, additional functionality and a CMS that’s easy to update. We created a sophisticated, clean and feminine blog for her focusing on her beautiful photographs, well-written content and social circles.

We loved working on Lauren’s new blog and hearing her expressions of delight. To our happiness, Lauren needed no additional revisions. She loved her new WordPress blog just as we presented it! We were happy to work with Lauren who is easygoing, creative and down-to-earth.

Lauren is planning an event for the 2013 International Natural Hair Meetup Day. Visit her blog for more details.

Tell us which design you prefer – before or after. What do you like about the new design?
We have our favorite (*wink,*wink) but we want to hear from you!

It’s a little known fact that I take ballet. To my friends & family this came as a shock because I’m not the typical type of person you’d envision when you think of a ballerina. In actuality though I took intense modern dance in high school and have wanted to take ballet for some time now. I was inspired by one of my friends to take ballet since she too has taken up this graceful and focused dance style. So at the age of — (a lady never tells…) I tried something new and started taking ballet.

It’s funny what seemingly unrelated things can teach us about ourselves…Like me for instance, as I mentioned I’m not the typical ballerina type and yet, I enjoy ballet and plan on continuing. It has helped me to see myself in a different light so I started thinking about some connections the art of ballet has made for me in life, business and as always design:

#1: Each movement builds up to something bigger
Ballet is not the type of dance style you can just dive into. Professional ballerinas like Misty Copeland, make it look easy, but it is not. While I was ready to leap around the room, the teacher taught us about our “feet” and “hands”. Not what I expected, but now some time later I am using what she taught us about our hands and feet on bigger moves and combos. Moral: Each movement builds up to something bigger.

Same in business – when you’re looking to start your own business, you’ll have a lot of ideas as to what you want to sell, say, how much money you’ll make, etc., but for the first year or so, you’ll wind up learning about the “hands” and “feet” of your business: brainstorming and hitting the pavement to generate buzz about it. It might not be what you expect in the beginning, but it’ll pay off when you hit a stride with your own moves and combos: Detourné toward back foot, tombé front onto right anyone?

Misty Copeland

#2: Take a look at yourself
Before I realized why, I thought it was egotistic that ballerinas (and dancers, in general) look at themselves in the mirror when they move. I had a big d’uh moment when I understood why. Take a look at yourself. Looking in the mirror while dancing has helped me to see what I can improve on and what I’m doing right.

From time to time, do a business-self-audit. Er?! Simply put: check your business systems, files, notes, etc. to see what you’re doing right, what you can improve on, condense, get rid of, etc. This will help you evaluate, de-clutter and organize which is key to maximizing success and minimizing stress.

3) Follow through
Ballet moves are graceful. They look even better when the feet are pointed properly and the hands are graceful. Each movement follows through from tip to tip making for a complete move or piece of choreography.

Business is no different. While the moves aren’t graceful, the art of making and keeping business connections is key to entrepreneurs staying afloat. That connection you made at that event you attended, follow through. Whether you’re the entrepreneur or potential client, following through with a call, email, text or postcard can keep you on that person’s mind and they will think of you should they want to refer or use your services.

Not a comprehensive list, but we want to hear from you:

What have you learned about your business from obscure situations? Tell us about it.

To answer the growing demand from our clients to manage their site on their own, we’ve created a series of WordPress beginner training videos, sort of like WordPress 101. Our goal is to empower our clients with the tools and skills needed to manage their IT, not charge for every little change that’s asked of us. The quick 2 to 5 minutes videos will cover basic WordPress administration such as adding blog posts, photos, editing text, etc.

This is just another way we’re helping our clients reach the next level so if you have any thing you’d like to see or have questions about this video, let us know below. Enjoy!

Hello Friends! Like the new digs?! So we decided to redesign the website to make it more user friendly and easier to navigate for our clients, friends and new customers. I get annoyed when I go to a website and it’s clunky, you know like a car that makes a lot of noise, is big but not going anywhere. I put myself on the opposite side of the screen and thought about visitors who come to SMG’s website and may not be as savvy in web navigation. While we kept the same overall look and content, we cleaned up a few things.

What’s new?

• Home Page. The overall layout is easier to digest with teasers of the best content front and center like recent projects.
• Blog. The new blog is not about having hundreds of followers (though it would be nice), but it’s a platform to share our knowledge, showcase the work we take pride in and to keep a steady flow of communication with all who stop by.
• Portfolio. We’ve placed all of our designs on one page – websites, logos, etc. that can now be sorted using JQuery. Try it out!
• Responsive. Our new website is now responsive which means that it can now be seen on iPads and mobile devices. Our previous design was responsive, but the new design has better functionality, clarity and organization for mobile devices.

We hope you love the new design and that we’ve made it easier for you. Tell us what you think by leaving your thoughts below. We hope you sign up & follow our blog. We appreciate YOU!

(No cars were hurt during the creation of this post).