I built my first website in 2002 because my dad wanted to sell fishing tackle online. You know how dads are…they think if you know a little about something, you must know EVERYTHING about it. So because I knew how to operate a computer and handle complicated tasks across the entire Microsoft Office suite, he believed I could build websites. Always up for an interesting challenge and never wanting to let my dad down, I agreed to take a bash at it. I taught myself HTML at the school of ‘hey-what’s-this-button-do?’ and before long, I had built him an all-out e-commerce site that he owned (and I maintained/improved) for 10 years.
Fast forward to January 2011, when I was basically bullied out of a job that I had held for nearly 6 years and loved for almost five. The last year I was there, we lost a good chunk of funding and rather than fire me or lay me off, my boss just made my work life miserable until I finally gave notice. And this wasn’t the first time it happened. In my previous position, after four and a half glorious years of being – in my supervisor’s eyes – the best thing since pockets, suddenly I couldn’t do anything right. It has been suggested to me that, in both instances, my superiors felt threatened by my autonomy and feared for their own jobs. I will probably never know.
So…I decided I never wanted that to happen to me again. That’s how I became an entrepreneur. With a little bit of moxie and a whole lot of support from my then fiancée/now husband, Timely Manner Consulting was born. Here is my first logo, HA! You’ve come a long way, baby!
In the months leading up to the ultimate decision to leave my well-paying but no-longer-satisfying-or-rewarding job, I had heard a few website/social media horror stories from people in my existing circles who just happened to also be small business owners. My nail tech/salon owner was paying upwards of $250/month to have a website because she didn’t know any better. My brother-in-law, a Master Plumber, paid someone a boatload of money to build a website for him. But he’d been trying to get them to make some minor changes for him for weeks, without success. An acquaintance was paying an exorbitant monthly fee for social media services but seeing no return on her investment.
Pulling from these tales of woe, I knew I wanted to help small business owners and entrepreneurs to get a handle on building and maintaining their web presence while ensuring they weren’t getting taken for a ride. All that being said, how can I help you?
