Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs is a great foundation for business ownership, but having the heart to do so is something that’s important in order to love and enjoy the work that you do. Finding your voice and developing your marketing strategies will be a great head start for your business.

This week, our guest is Tara Melvin, a  creator of experiences who has been a professional event planner for 17 years. Tara shares how she became a successful entrepreneur who creates an impact in the industry by molding successful event planners as well in her company.

Creating connections, building partnerships, and developing relationships between business owners has been the foundation of her company as she worked in unison with her clients and listened to what people needed, she was able to contribute and gain knowledge from everyone in the same industry as well.

Learn how she managed to go past different obstacles in her life and business and how she continued to thrive despite the pandemic. How did she enhance her network now that events all over the world have been restricted? By what means was she able to survive financially while continuing her work in the middle of the pandemic? How did she use social media to attract the right type of clients?

Let’s jump right into this episode to find out!

Thriving Points:

• “Although I built this for other people it’s rewarding to me too because, especially in the mentor program, I learned things from them and then it’s just rewarding knowing that they are inspiring me.” – Tara Melvin
• “It’s just having those people in my corner and you never know who’s watching you, and it will be the right people, you’ll know who the right people are. They’re not there to shame you, they’re there to help you to move and advance forward.” – Tara Melvin

Get to Know the Guest:
For over 16 years, Tara Melvin has been the creative engine and leader of Perfect Planning Events and Signature Concepts, L.L.C., an all-inclusive boutique event planning firm creating luxe lifestyle events with a highly personalized touch  She has been characterized as a Creative Entrepreneur Warrior and the Olivia Pope of Events.  In 2015, Tara created an educational platform for creative entrepreneurs, The Signature CEO Conference (TSCEO).  TSCEO is curated for Creatives who are innovators and exemplify keen business savvy to unite and discover great content.  The conference is designed to help creative entrepreneurs become exceptional leaders, excel at business acumen, expand their professional network to build genuine relationships, and reach their highest potential in the world of business and entrepreneurship!

Tara is active within the creative industry serving in different capacities in various organizations. She has an esteemed reputation as an industry leader and innovator who exemplifies boldness in breaking boundaries, champions the professional growth of others, and galvanizes positive impact for the industry.

Find Tara:

• Tara Melvin Event Planner
• Perfect Planning Events 
• The Signature C.E.O. Conference 
• National Society Black Wedding & Event Professionals 
• Mentoring for Wedding Planners

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Starting a business is not as easy as one, two, three. Dreams and vision aren’t enough in order to be successful. You gotta have a plan and the passion for what you do and a supporting system that’ll help you overcome the hurdles and challenges along the way.

Just like any kind of business, the wine business isn’t easy especially during this pandemic. The way you do business before has changed and demand for your products have been affected. Nonetheless, you have to figure it out and make it happen because it is a continuous learning process. And every day you learn on your own and from peers and mentors in the same industry.

As a business owner, doubt, fear of failure and challenges aren’t something to be afraid of. These things are all part of the learning process that can help you grow and improve. The success of your business relies on developing a strong network with other businesses, creating and maintaining relationships within your industry, and listening to the needs of your customers.

Listen to this episode to learn how Nicole Kearney journeyed from being a writer to a full-time winemaker. Take inspiration from how she has created a successful and intentional business that involves her entire family and is built on love and the desire to create a legacy. Learn more about wine, the benefits of vegan wine, and its comparison to that traditional wine we all know and – whether you’re a wine connoisseur or just plain love having a good drink!

Thriving Points:

• “I tell people it’s a journey of pacing yourself and the patience to process legalities and important documents.” – Nicole Kearney
• “It’s been fun and it’s a learning lesson, and I would tell people to start small.”- Nicole Kearney
• “We sell Artisanal Vegan Wine but really what we’re selling is community. We’re trying to build generational wealth for not just us, but other families that we bring into our business.” – Nicole Kearney
• “Social media is a kind of an equalizer.” – Nicole Kearney
• “I am the diversity and we’re educating and growing people as we grow.” – Nicole Kearney
• “People are really focused on their health and really trying to live clean but still wanting to have a glass of wine occasionally, I think it’s wonderful that you are offering a product that helps them do that.” – Nikki Rogers
• “Our wines are named Abundance and Love that manifest gratitude. Those are all words that carry a certain energy within them and we want to pass that energy or vibe onto our customers.” – Nicole Kearney

Get to Know the Guest:

Sip & Share Wines is a boutique winery, passionate about creating a community with wine for wine lovers overlooked and underrepresented by the wine industry. Our diversity of handcrafted vegan wines are approachable to all palates, fun to sip and share and available via our wine club or by-the-bottle.

Vintner/Founder, Nicole Kearney has been in the wine world for over ten years. She began as a representative for Black and women winemakers. She then spent 18 months testing the market with wines, allowing the consumer’s preferences to curate the flagship 7 Words Wine Collection of artisanal vegan wines. Her customer, community and culture- centered philosophy guides Sip & Share Wines decisions. Nicole is among the 2% of Black-owned wineries and .001% of Black women Vintners in the U.S.

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Dreams and passion are not enough to build that business you’ve been wanting for a long time. Executing the actual work, having the fire to serve others and uniqueness is what you need no matter what age, uncertainty and doubt you have on your mind. You gotta do it!

Why should you consider the time and season of your life when starting your business? How do building your network, staying connected and getting out of your comfort zone affect the whole process?

Passion and purpose can spring from many different sources; words heard as a child can spark
a life-long quest to right the injustices in the world.  Motivated by an experience of racism as a young girl, Dr. Roberta Wilburn has dedicated her life to promoting cross-cultural understanding and overcoming the hurdles of stereotyping and prejudice to build a successful business.

Be encouraged and moved by Dr. Wilburn’s story of how she built her business through passion, desire and faith, and why she is intentional about using her business to empower other people and make a difference in this world.

Thriving Points:

• Our business is about believing in building authentic relationships between diverse groups of people in order to promote cross-cultural understanding and help people to excel in a diverse and inclusive world through our diversity training, cultural coaching, courageous conversations and cultural events.  – Dr. Roberta Wilburn
• Sometimes people want you to give up your cultural heritage and that’s not a good thing but rather, we want to help by fostering respect, dignity and the celebrations of all dimensions of human diversity.  – Dr. Roberta Wilburn
• We don’t want to just survive, we want to thrive, we want to be able to do well.  – Dr. Roberta Wilburn

Get to Know the Guest:

Dr. Roberta J. Wilburn is an award-winning diversity and inclusion expert and the President and Co-Founder of Wilburn & Associates, LLC. Co-founded with her husband, Wilburn & Associates focuses on diversity training, coaching, courageous conversations, and cultural events. Dr. Wilburn recently retired as the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in Education and Diversity Initiatives at Whitworth University where she served for thirteen years. She believes in building authentic relationships between diverse groups of people to promote cross-cultural understanding. Through her work, Dr. Wilburn helps people who want to develop and increase culturally sensitive practices as well as learn to excel in a diverse and inclusive world.

Dr. Wilburn has been widely recognized for her diversity efforts and her major areas of research have focused on empowering women leaders of color, and various aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  She is married to James Wilburn, Jr. and they have three adult children and two grandsons.

For more information, go to the Wilburn & Associates’ website or you can schedule a free 30-minute clarity call.

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Motivation mantras tell us that there should be no place for doubt in business, but oftentimes the more important something is to us, the higher the stakes can get. And if our business also happens to be our life’s passion as well, which is most likely the case for most entrepreneurs, doubt and uncertainty can creep in and cause us to lose confidence in ourselves and lose sight of our purpose.

Entrepreneurs venture into this scary path unsure of where it will take them and terrified of the idea of failure.

How important is preparation and planning in the field of business? Why should we never settle? And why are vision and goals essential parts of the process?

In this episode, Fenyx Blue, author, publisher and owner of Wisdom Works, talks about her journey in the publishing industry amidst the pandemic. She shared how she was able to leverage her experiences and relationships as strengths which allowed her to thrive amidst challenging times and continue to pursue her passion.

Be inspired by the tips she shared on how aspiring authors and entrepreneurs can be successful in their businesses. Learn the importance of the Three P’s: Planning, Partnership, and Purpose to build a foundation stronger than a rock!

Thriving Points:

• Never settling is all about knowing your goals – your stretch goal – and never forgetting what that is then pushing yourself up to the next level. – Fenyx Blue
• All an entrepreneur actually does is answer a question for someone and provide something for them, provide a service or a product. – Fenyx Blue
• Reach beyond what you think your capabilities are. – Nikki Rogers
• Continue to follow your passion and if it truly is a passion project, go ahead and make that thing happen. – Fenyx Blue
• Keep improving yourself; continue to educate yourself and be a life-long learner. – Fenyx Blue

Get to Know the Guest:

Fenyx Blue is an educator, author and publisher, a Youtuber, and mompreneur. She is the founder and leader of Wisdom Works, LLC, an organization that supports self-published authors by building a community on social media that allows them to share industry secrets and provide motivation and encouragement for one another.

As the head of Wisdom Works LLC, Fenyx has interviewed, mentored, and served as an accountability partner for many up and coming authors who are beginning to build their brands.

Her upcoming projects include a conference for authors that will include writing workshops, guest speakers, and highlight authors from Wisdom Works, LLC as well as its participating partners.

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Too often in life and in businesswomen are burdened by the expectations and examples of others and may compromise their identity, mental health, and physical well-being to please others. In the process, one may sight of who she is and her purpose, and this is tragic.

But what if we don’t have to make those awful compromises that slowly chip away at who we are and why we initially chose our career and business paths?

What if we can live out our profession or run our enterprise with integrity and combine our faith and our passion?

In this episode, Carleeka Basnight-Menendez, entrepreneur and business strategist, speaks about how in our businesses and careers everything starts from the inside and is projected externally, and in doing so, we are doing what God has called us out to do. When we embrace this truth, we can proceed with living out our faith in and outside the professional and entrepreneurial arenas.

Thriving points:

• Being an entrepreneur, you can get paid for your purpose, doing whatever it is that God has called you to do
• Inside Out was built during a time when I was making a decision to live or die. So that’s where Inside Out came from because I had to decide and change some things from within about how I viewed myself.
• My pillars in my business are to connect and build relationships to form partnerships. Too many times, we want to skip over all the other stuff. So we connect with people, but we don’t nurture anything.
• Let’s not talk about sisterhood. Let’s not talk about women’s empowerment. Let’s live it.
• One of my biggest lessons for myself is definitely knowing who you’re talking to. If you don’t know who it is that you’re serving, what are you going to offer them?

Get To Know the Guest:

As one highly sought out for her innovative approach to wide-ranging topics, Carleeka has earned both domestic and international respect from the world stage.

She is the creator of the F-IT Method, The A.V.E., and Menopause and Mimosas; offering new and aspiring Christian female entrepreneurs the skillsets needed to increase visibility, earn a solid income, and impact the world from the dimension of their purpose. Her coaching and consulting brand is one of a kind, as Carleeka offers consultation, strategies, and direction for clients looking to reform their lives.

Carleeka believes that when you change your perspective, you are then able to change your life. This has allowed her to bring top-tier service to the coaching industry as she takes clients from being sick, silent, and stuck, to creating the lives that they demand; with no compromise.

• carleeka.com
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Let’s ring in 2021! We’re only in the first week of this new decade and yet this year is already oozing with possibilities. A new year brings in new hope, and what perfect way to start visualizing and planning to have your best year yet – or better yet – best year ever!

But as promising as that all sounds, working without a planning blueprint is like walking in a dark room – you don’t really know what you’re doing or where you’re headed.

This is why I’m sharing with you five key components (courage, strategy, confidence,  consistency, connection) to help you achieve your goals and have your best year ever. Each component will address a specific problem that most people who are starting to build on something often encounter. Apply these five things to create a well-founded structure for your business, career or life mission.

Listen all the way through the end as I have an important mental exercise that we can all benefit from. This can help you level up your business, relationships, and bring in more opportunities.

Thriving Points:

• “Set some goals that you can measure and reflect on throughout the year.” 
• “Just be honest about where you are right now. Therefore, you can chart your progress and see where you will end up.” 
• “You need people around you who are going to support you. These relationships are key to help you achieve your goals.” 

Sponsored by the Women Thriving in Business Mastermind:

The WTiB Mastermind offers a curated environment of entrepreneurs who provide community collaboration, collective brainstorming, problem-solving, and accountability. The Mastermind reduces the learning curve as you listen and grow from the experiences of other group members.

We are about to open the Mastermind, which will include six 90-minute sessions, and we are now accepting enrollment from new members. The first meeting takes place January 14th.

Each session helps you move from questions and confusion to ideas for the next steps to execute within your business.

Click here to learn more and join other like-minded female visionaries and entrepreneurs who are ready to take their business to the next level!

Anyone who’s deeply committed to women’s advancement in the workplace will definitely find this a great conversation. Whether you’re a business leader, a diversity, equity, and inclusion professional, or an employee who is ready for a change in business culture, then listen up and listen good!

In this episode, Jackie Robinson, a reputable and highly respected success strategist, talks about the keys to an inclusive workplace, which includes accountability and engagement of women and allies in creating the culture that supports and nurtures women’s success.

She shares why relationship building and collaboration are vital to cultivating workplace culture, and dives deep into the concepts of complete transparency and honesty to create more equal opportunities for women.

As an advocate of “taking that leap” in business and in life, Jackie’s also shares her biggest
challenges and gave such strong advice on how women can indeed thrive in business.

1. Lead yourself
2. Leadership is more about “being” vs doing
3. Know when to change lanes
4. Know when to change gears
5. Don’t be attached to things that no longer serve you

Thriving Points:

• “There’s always room for one more even in a crowded marketplace.” – Jackie Robinson
• “Relationships lead to collaboration, which are vital to success.” –  Jackie Robinson
• “Collaboration is the new competition.” –  Jackie Robinson

Get To Know the Guest:

Jackie Robinson is the Founder and CEO (Chief Empowerment Officer) of SheBoss Unlimited, a leadership, professional development and empowerment organization for women.  SheBoss Unlimited serves career and goal-driven women who work in traditional 9-5 jobs and women entrepreneurs. The organization also serves women who aspire to excel in their current career or start their own businesses. Jackie is a reputable and highly respected success strategist, learning and development professional, workplace culture analyst, empowerment speaker, and author.

Her professional experience spans over 25 years of working in sectors of business that include education, healthcare, and law. Her expertise has landed her consulting opportunities working with non-profit and for-profit entities.  Over this time period she has dually served as a business consultant, providing services for new entrepreneurs, small businesses and non-profit organizations, and a success coach for clients seeking assistance with developing their professional brand, advancing in their careers, and leveraging their natural abilities for professional growth.  Her coaching is anchored on the concept of developing and implementing strategies that will help clients increase their level of “Success-Ability”. This is why she has been dubbed, “The Success-Ability Coach”.

She is a published author of the book Broken But Not Destroyed: Restoration is Possible, which was released in 2015. She was also featured in the March 2017 edition of Training Industry Magazine. Her article “Cultivating a Workplace Culture That Grows High-Potential Employees” was selected among many competitors for this edition.

Jackie is passionate about initiatives related to domestic violence, sexual assault/abuse, and women’s advancement.

SheBoss Unlimited’s mantra is, “If she’s qualified to do it, get out of her way and let her do it.  She deserves an opportunity to do what she loves.”

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Best-selling author and Jackie of all trades *wink-wink* Jessica Sinclair joins us for this very first episode of the Women Thriving in Business Podcast. And it’s a special one, indeed, since we talked about a very important topic that everyone in business should know!

Behind every successful business is the ability to network. But how come so many business owners and entrepreneurs get it so wrong? In this episode, Jessica shares with us the true essence of networking and why everyone in the business community should never shy away from it.

Learn about the different challenges you’ll face when building your connections and how to successfully overcome them. And why it’s important to be transformational, not transactional, in our businesses.

Thriving Points:

• “Networking is about listening to and understanding what the needs are. Because if I understand what your needs are, then I can possibly refer, recommend or even provide service. And so with the service piece, as a servant leader, it’s innate in me to figure out how I can be of service. So networking for me is very strategic.” – Jessica Sinclair
• “Networking has to be more intentional, more strategic, more purposeful.” – Jessica Sinclair
• “It’s about foundation. It has to be more strategic than hitting me up on LinkedIn and not even knowing what you stand for. Because we’re in the virtual space, you want to say hey to everyone, but not everyone is necessarily going to network with you.” – Jessica Sinclair

Get To Know the Guest:

Jessica Sinclair is a woman who strives for greatness in everything that she does. As a registered nurse, she knows all too well how short life is and the importance of going after all your dreams.

As a businesswoman and creative, Jessica discovered that effective communication was lacking in business for professional and personal growth.  She naturally wanted to fix that so she created  Network Like You Mean It ™, a workshop that provides tips on how to identify, cultivate and maintain meaningful relationships through networking.

Jessica has a passion for activism, empowering young girls and family. One of Jessica’s beliefs is that one of the most essential factors to a successful event or business is communication. Jessica is the bestselling author of her first book: Network Like You Mean it, A Nurses Journey to Entrepreneurship & Purpose.

Jessica created Sinclair Master of Ceremonies, Inc., the umbrella under which she provides MC services and in addition to on-air hosting, interviews, public speaking, vlogging and voice-overs. Today she is a multi-recipient of the Wedding Wire’s Couples’ Choice Awards, the Caribbean American Healthcare Award, and in 2020 has won the Business Award from Ladies of Third Thursday Organization.

• jessicasinclair.com
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I attended the Legacy Awards Ceremony for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, a wonderful literary education organization committed to the development, dissemination and preservation of literature, with a focus on the contributions of African American writers.

Given my obsession with books, I was overjoyed to be in the midst of an entire room dedicated to celebrating literature! The presenters and awardees represented the entire spectrum, from poetry to fiction to nonfiction and were authors of world renown. Where else can you find the likes of Marita Golden (Hurston/Wright co-founder), Rita Dove (7th Poet Laureate of the United States), and MacArthur Fellow Nikole Hannah-Jones all in one place?

Hurston/Wright Foundation programs include awards for college writers and published authors, public readings, and writers’ workshops for adults and teens.

A highlight of the evening was meeting Glory Edim, founder of Well-Read Black Girl, in person!  Glory was gracious and kind and she truly embodies the spirit of her literary movement. On average, I read 1-2 books a week, so I totally align with the “well-read Black girl” identity! Glory’s book, the Well-Read Black Girl anthology is a great gift for the readers in your life — I sent copies to all my besties.  Check out the website to see what book the WRBG community is reading this month and to learn more about the upcoming literary festival in November.