Aug 27

Journey to Success: Steven Greene

Earlier this year, I encouraged small business owners in my area to share their tales of success with me and my community LIVE at Journey to Success 2014, a charity networking event that also happened to commemorate my biz anniversary.  About a dozen stories were submitted; many will appear as articles here on YourWebChick.biz.  Here is the second of three storytellers who were chosen for Journey to Success, Dr. Steven Greene of mAke the grAde:

steven-greene

The journey to success… it’s a process, that’s for sure. And the process has layers…heck, the layers have layers…but in the end, I learned that there is outward success and there is inward success.

I was trained as an educator; in addition to classroom teaching, I started tutoring privately.  As a result, my company – mAke the grAde – emerged.  My mission was simple: to help as many people as I could to learn and succeed. Initially, my journey created a great deal of success for my clients in a variety of ways.  Some got better grades or simply felt better about themselves.  Others were able to get into competitive colleges, experience less stress at home or achieve a greater sense of self-confidence.  I was enjoying that “outward success” – the business was lucrative and my clients were all very happy.  In fact, 100% of my new business was referral-based.  By all measures, everything was going according to plan.

Continue reading

Share This...

Aug 04

This isn’t about ME. It’s about YOU.

Only one personality test measures how the world sees YOUIt begins and ends with YOU.  What makes YOU valuable?  Most assessments show you how you see the world – this one shows how the world sees you…am I tickling your fancy yet?

Sally Hogshead, branding expert and leading authority on the science of fascination, launched her new book How the World Sees You on July 1.

To celebrate all of the new insights she’s collected over the past decade of research, she started Project Fascination, with a goal to show 100,000 people the value of their personalities.

To help accomplish this, she has given me a special code to share with 100 people – a code that will get you into her Fascination Advantage® assessment (a $37 value) for free!  This has never been done before, and will only last until we reach 100,000 assessment takers!

Continue reading

Share This...

Jul 25

Journey to Success: Kathy Dickson

I invited local small business owners to share their entrepreneurial tales with me and my community LIVE at my event, Journey to Success 2014. I received about a dozen submissions, many of which I will be sharing with you. Here, the first of three who were chosen to speak at Journey to Success, Kathy Dickson of Vital Body Wellness:
Success Storyteller 2014 Kathy Dickson

You could say my journey has been a circuitous one. I’m really an artist at heart, purpose-driven…but at age 20, I found myself a single mom with no marketable skills. So, I went to college to study Industrial Engineering (really?). Hey, it was the 80s — women in technical fields were in high demand, and baby needed a new pair of shoes (not to mention, we both needed a roof over our heads)!

Once I got my degree, I pursued a career that paid well but led to numerous health issues because I was doing work that I didn’t love. Pain is a huge motivator for me, so I sought out natural solutions: exercise, massage, herbs, nutrition, and mind-body modalities. As my symptoms began to fall away, I became more resilient and vibrant again. I shared the things I learned on my journey back to health with whoever would listen.

Fast forward 25+ years…I found myself in a development and leadership role for a corporate wellness program that was dramatically changing employees’ lives. This incredibly rewarding, meaningful work changed the trajectory of my life. I became certified in Thai Massage, then went to school for holistic nutrition and became a Certified Health Coach. I started Vital Body Wellness – Holistic Health and Nutrition in 2012. Now I live a rewarding, purpose-driven life helping people create vital bodies so they may live vibrant, and healthy, happy lives.

Vital Body Wellness: Success StorytellerKathy Dickson founded Vital Body Wellness in 2012 because she is passionate about wellness and helping others create healthy, happy, balanced lives. She is a Certified Holistic Health & Nutrition Coach as well as a Certified Thai Massage Practitioner who received her training at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC and the Institute of Thai Massage in New Jersey.

Read more about Kathy’s journey, connect with her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter and check her out on LinkedIn!

 

Share This...

Jul 09

Supporting Other Small Businesses – We’re All in This Together

Journey to Success 2014So, I’ve been doing what I do (web design, social media & e-mail marketing for small business) full time for two years.  I didn’t get here without tons of support from my community (not to mention my clients!).  So, I wanted to show my appreciation by throwing a party.  To celebrate my one-year anniversary, I did a small little something out of my home and only my clients were invited. This year, I wanted to go BIGGER.  I wanted to celebrate my community and THEIR accomplishments. I wanted to support other small businesses.  And I wanted to give back.  And so, Journey to Success: Two Years in the Making, a charity-networking-storytelling event, was born!

It was a nearly sold-out shindig (not too shabby for my first bash at this type of…bash…if I may say so myself!) and I had a great response when I put out the call for storytellers who wanted to share their entrepreneurial tales at my live event.  It wasn’t easy, but from the dozen or so submissions I received, I selected three to share their personal Journeys to Success live.  (For those of you who missed it or are not local, the three live storytellers’ narratives will be published here over the next several weeks, along with some of the other submissions.)

How I Supported Other Small Businesses and How You Can, Too!

In addition to putting some of my fellow small business owners in the spotlight as storytellers and giving others the opportunity to network, I tried to find a variety of ways of supporting other small businesses in the process.  Here’s what I came up with:

  • Venue: Instead of renting a room at a big chain hotel, I chose a little corner café just the right size for my soirée – Journey Café in Audubon, NJ.
  • Food: Rather than purchasing packaged foods from national brands at the grocery store, I opted to have Chef Kim’s Kitchen cater, which uses mostly locally sourced ingredients and Cupcakes by Ruth! provided little baked pieces of heaven for me and my guests.
  • Beverages: All my selections (♫ bottles of white…bottles of red…perhaps some bottles of rosé instead ♫) came from local wineries (Wagonhouse and Heritage Vineyards).
  • Event Planner: In addition to saving my sanity, I supported small biz by hiring local event planner Stacy L. McGuigan (who was bleepin’ amazing, by the way)
  • Sponsors: I had a great mix of local, small business sponsors supporting the event – I made sure to shout from the social media rooftops about how wonderful I thought they were!

I firmly believe that by supporting one another, small businesses and entrepreneurs are able to compete more effectively with our larger counterparts.  Now more than ever, it’s essential that we work together! 

teach-to-fish-give-a-fish_blogAward-winning web professional Bonny Clayton, aka Your Web Chick, offers web design, support and maintenance for small business, with a specialty in WordPress.

A Tech Geek with a Creative Streak℠, she helps small business owners and entrepreneurs everywhere establish and maintain their online presence. She is committed to serving them according to their needs, whether that means “giving them a fish” or “teaching them to fish”.


your-two-cents2How do you, in ways large or small, support other small businesses in your community?

Please share in the comments below!


Share This...

Apr 24

Yes, Virginia, You CAN Get Free Images for Use on the Web!! [UPDATED FOR 2018]

You CAN get images for your blog, social media, website, newsletter, etc completely, honestly and absolutely free at www.Unsplash.com.  Granted, they don’t have thousands of images (yet) and they’re not searchable in the traditional sense (where you type a keyword into their provided search field and receive a list of every image related to that keyword), but you may be able to find what you’re looking for using your browser’s Find on Page function. Update: there is now a keyword search function available at Unsplash!  YIPPEE!!!

It’ll take you a good 20 minutes to “scroll” through what’s on the front page.  A better bet would be to hit the Archive, where you can see thumbnails of everything that’s on the site.  Then you can subscribe to get 10 new hi-res images sent to your inbox every 10 days absolutely FREE.

Every image on their site falls under the Public Domain Dedication Code, meaning the person who created the work has dedicated it to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

You can copy, modify, and distribute the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.  All the images you see here came from Unsplash.

color-correct-coffee vectorbeastcom-grass-sun sonja-langford-acorns sky-rose lighthousemorning choco-lab

Other suggestions for finding free images on the web:

UPDATE NOV 2018: Pikwizard – This site recently came to my attention and I decided it merited being added here. They offer a collection of over 100,000 completely free images (without attribution), over 20,000 of which are exclusive to their site. I noticed they have quite a few pictures of people, which tends to be kind of rare on free stock photo sites.

Pixabay – A vault full of stunning public domain pictures. Get free vectors, drawings and photos on this site. You can freely use any of the images in digital and/or printed format, for personal and/or commercial use, without attributing credit to the original creator of the work.

Death to the Stock Photo – They have no archive, just free monthly photos to your inbox, to use any way you want.  When you sign up, they give you a free pack to download right away.

Gratisography – Get free high-res pictures you can use on your personal or business projects. New pictures are added weekly and they are all free of copyright restrictions.

morgueFile – Named from the popular term used in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues’ flats. This site provides free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. It is the world wide web’s morguefile, so to speak. Be aware that with a “MorgueFile License”, if you don’t alter the image (and leave it exactly as it is), then you must credit the photographer to use it.

So there are my recommendations for locating images on the web that are completely FREE for use on your website, blog, newsletter and so forth.  Bear in mind when you’re visiting these sites, some of them have partnered with paid sites and display suggested images from THOSE sites on the same page as their FREE images. Be aware of what you’re clicking on!

teach-to-fish-give-a-fish_blogAward-winning web professional Bonny Clayton, aka Your Web Chick, offers web design, support and maintenance for small business, with a specialty in WordPress.

A Tech Geek with a Creative Streak℠, she helps small business owners and entrepreneurs everywhere establish and maintain their online presence. She is committed to serving them according to their needs, whether that means “giving them a fish” or “teaching them to fish”.


your-two-cents2What are some of the FREE image websites you have found  that make your website, social media marketing and/or e-mail marketing life easier?  

Share with Your Web Chick’s readers in the comments below.

Share This...