The YB2C Live! Podcast

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #135 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs, featuring our special guest, Thai Ma'at Cromer from Stone Mountain Georgia; a children's coloring book creator, a Kemetic yoga practitioner, and a life coach. 

We record this podcast weekly from our studio in the Green Garage Coworking Community in Midtown Detroit.

Please support our sponsor, Your Business Your Brand Creatively (YB2C), which provides branding, marketing, training, productivity, and copywriting services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Thai is a multi-faceted entrepreneur who calls herself an independent nomad, which is also the name of her blog dedicated to yoga, travel, and life mastery for Black culture. She is dedicated to uplifting the African and African-American culture, especially for children.

Her primary product for children is a coloring book named "Queenie's Coloring Book" that she designed to showcase the beauty of Black women and girls with natural hair so that they can see themselves in a positive light.

Thai is also a Kemetic yoga practitioner; this yoga lineage hails from Africa, and from Egypt in particular. If you look closely at some of the paintings in the pyramids, you will see people in specific poses that are meant to energize the body and spirit.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services for writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Thai has a graphic design background that enabled her to draw all of the pictures in her coloring books from her memories of family members while using her imagination to accentuate certain features.

Thai discussed how she maximizes digital marketing, craft fairs, and her Etsy shop for selling her coloring books and other Afrocentric products.

Words of Wisdom

Thai recommends that all entrepreneurs know their vision and act on it consistently. Realize what resources you already have and work with them to grow your brand and grow your business.

Find out more about Thai Ma'at Cromer on Facebook.

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Welcome to Season 3, Episode #133 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs, with our special guest, Shayla Perry, the founder and CEO of BlackGrlBoss, which supports Black and Brown women entrepreneurs.

We record our podcast weekly from our studio located in the Green Garage Coworking Community in Midtown Detroit.

Please support our sponsor, Your Business Your Brand Creatively (YB2C), which provides branding, marketing, training, productivity, and copywriting services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Shayla has been a branding and marketing professional for over fifteen years, specifically working with small businesses. She helps them to build and strengthen their brands using social media.

Shayla started Black Girl Boss as a test on Instagram, using the hashtag #BlackGrlBoss, and built up a very large following. She then started the Black Girl Boss Facebook Group, to work with women of color around the world, and now works with that group full time.

Through BlackGrlBoss, Shayla provides actual resources, motivation, and education to the members that can be used for their businesses and that would also always be free.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services for writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Shayla's motivation for #BlackGrlBoss is "Skills and Sisterhood," and her focus is to provide a safe and effective space for networking and community. She still works with other clients on copywriting, branding, and marketing because she loves it so much, but now with #BlackGrlBoss, Shayla is also able to successfully juggle her Facebook Group, her clients, and her family, including her husband and children.

Words of Wisdom

Shayla advises other entrepreneurs to stay true to their vision and their mission, and stay focused on what you know you want for your business, even as you get ideas and input from others.

Check out #BlackGrlBoss on Facebook

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Detroit-based Nonprofit Executive Director oversees programs that help female entrepreneurs.

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #129 of the YB2C Live Podcast for Entrepreneurs! Our special guest this week is Dr. Joyce Suber, the executive director of the Women's Entrepreneurial Initiative of the Michigan Women Forward, a division of the Michigan Women's Forum. We rarely highlight nonprofit organizations on our podcast, but this organization is unique because of the programs it has to assist female entrepreneurs.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Dr. Joyce Suber is not an entrepreneur herself, but her organization offers a lot of help to women entrepreneurs, the fastest-growing business sector in the United States. In this episode, she explains that her nonprofit organization, Michigan Women Forward, operates on three fundamental pillars: 1) the youth program that works with girls aged 8 - 18, 2) social justice, including projects such as getting almost twelve thousand rape kits processed and seventy serial rapists prosecuted, and 3) the entrepreneurial initiative, that empowers mostly women, but some men, to start their own businesses, offering business loans, training, and other support services.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Dr. Suber gave some examples of the types of programs offered by the Women's Entrepreneurial Initiative, including statewide summits around Michigan, pitch competitions, courses in leadership and business planning, and training for the other skill sets that budding entrepreneurs need, especially "underground entrepreneurs" working out of their homes.

Her organization also offers microloans of as little as $1,000.00, although she prefers loans of $2,500.00 to $50,000.00. Since 2014, the Michigan Women Forward organization has loaned out over $2.8 million.

Words of Wisdom

Dr. Suber says she truly believes in the adage about being a "jack of all trades but a master of none." She advises that entrepreneurs get their wins from the things that they master.

Michigan Women Forward

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Detroit Wife, Mom, and Entrepreneur helps Sisters rock their crowns with the perfect head wraps and accessories.

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #125 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs! Our special guest this week is "Queen Yaya," a Detroit-based businesswoman who specializes in helping her clients choose and wear beautiful and customized African head wraps and accessories through her company, My Royalty Wraps. Queen YaYa believes that women can create everything they desire through positive energy and tough love, and that being in charge is a lifestyle.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Queen Yaya is a young wife, mother, and businesswoman who believes that Black women should always remember that they are queens and embrace their royalty and carry and dress accordingly. She started her company less than two years ago and manages to balance marriage, a toddler, another baby on the way, and her business so that everything is going right in all areas. She creates head wraps, exhibits and sells at various events, holds head wrapping workshops, and produces video tutorials to help her clients look their royal best. Her product lines include head wraps and accessories for women and for babies.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Queen YaYa says that she was inspired to start this business by her mother and father, who reminded her that just because you're from Detroit, it does not mean you are limited. You can expand your mind and do great things with your business and in your community.

Her mother-in-law is a designer and seamstress, so she is an inspiration and a perfect complement for the passion Queen YaYa has for her own creations.

A typical day and week for Queen YaYa involves integrating her family life and her business life to take care of business, but also to take care of family, and to have fun along the way. She answers emails, books events and workshops, sells her products from her website that she updates herself, and spreads positive affirmations to energy to her Sisterhood community.

Words of Wisdom

Choose wisely for your business, your business name, and everything about your business so they are a true representation of you and your values. Make sure to take time to take care of yourself so that you can take care of others. Work for balance between all that you have to do and want to do.

My Royalty Wraps Website

Please Download and Listen to the complete episode!

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #123 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs! Our special guest this week in Lori Conerly, founder and owner of Leeanne's Luxury Bridal Boutique, which helps women from Detroit, Michigan, and the entire metro area fulfill their dream about finding the perfect dress for their special day.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Lori Conerly, founder and owner of Leeanne's Luxury Bridal Boutique, has been in business for a little over a year and a half. Her full-service bridal and formal wear salon provides dresses, undergarments, and accessories for brides, bridesmaids, and mothers of the bride and is located in the Grandmont-Rosedale community in Detroit.

Lori started her business right after she graduated from college. While matriculating at Grand Valley State University, she worked in bridal shops and developed a passion for helping brides get ready for their special day. Her degree in advertising and public relations was a good foundation for starting her business very soon after she graduated; she researched and wrote the initial business plan while she was still in school.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

At first, Lori followed the career path that she thought she was supposed to follow, working a regular 9-5 job in her chosen field, but her boyfriend encouraged to instead follow her passion of helping brides. She knew that opening and operating her own business would be hard work, but she also knew it would be quite fulfilling.

She was determined to open her store in the City of Detroit, her hometown, and spent months finding the right location. She also knew that the name of her business would be "Leeanne's," her middle name, which she thinks sounds more like her vision of traditional weddings.

She found a manufacturing partner, secured her financing, and after a lot of very hard work, she was in business at the ripe young age of 23. Lori describes all of the ups and downs and successes and challenges of being a business owner in the city at a very young age but knowing this was exactly what she was meant to do.

Download and listen to the entire episode to hear Lori Leeanne's inspiring and motivational story of her entrepreneurial journey!

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #123 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs! This week, our special guest is Dazmonique Carr, co-founder of Deeply Rooted Produce in Detroit, Michigan, a multidimensional local food distribution hub in Detroit Michigan. Her company focuses on providing holistic education and locally grown and locally manufactured food, with the goal if opening a mobile grocery store by the end of 2019.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Dazmonique is originally from a small town in New Jersey and was recruited to run track at Wayne State University in Detroit as an undergrad, and graduated with a bachelor degree in exercise and sports science. She eventually completed her master's degree in community health and sports administration from Wayne State. Dazmonique originally was going to be a physical therapist but decided she really loved educating people about food and nutrition, using her experience dealing with food access and gardening as an undergrad at Wayne State.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Dazmonique's experiences in finding outlets for fresh food as a student with only a bicycle for transportation helped her realize the need for additional services for fresh food for other people in Detroit with transportation issues, and that's how her idea for a mobile grocery store came to be.

In this episode, Dazmonique tells us how she and her co-founders are working to continue to educate people about the benefits of fresh food while completing the arduous process of bringing their vision of a mobile grocery store to fruition, fulfilling a need to provide high quality, yet lower-priced foods to everyone in Detroit.

Download and listen to the entire episode to hear the inspirational and motivational story of this recent college graduate and entrepreneur!

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #115 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs! This week, our special guest is DeAndrea Byrd, a former hair salon owner who transformed her life and her business into a successful business consultancy and training program in Atlanta, Georgia.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

DeAndrea and I found each other in a Facebook group for podcasters and we both understand how important an active social media presence is to the growth of small businesses. A self-taught entrepreneur, DeAndrea first opened a successful hair salon with a business partner, but after her partner suddenly passed away at age 33, DeAndrea decided to take a closer look at her life and business. After opening and closing a second business, DeAndrea realized that her true passion in life is to help other people, so she started a business that teaches people how to create an online business, automate their business, and scale up to make more money.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Her primary offering is called the "Entrepreneur Accountability Squad," which is a group coaching membership program. The program includes a workbook that helps people break down their goals month by month and give themselves a self-progress report. DeAndrea also speaks to students at colleges and universities about setting SMART goals. DeAndrea explains that her greatest business challenge was losing her business partner, and her greatest success is having her children watch what she is doing while still being able to have a life while building a business.

Download and listen to the entire episode to hear DeAndrea's motivational story of entrepreneurship!

DeAndrea Byrd

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #117 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs! Our special guest this week, is Latricia Wright, the founder and owner of Olive Seed, a lifestyle center and cafe, opening in Detroit, Michigan. Latricia is a registered herbalist, youth fitness instructor, and nutrition educator.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Latricia and I met a few months ago at an event in Detroit when she told me that she was a native Detroiter who loves to learn and is creative and passionate about health and well-being for herself and others. Latricia started making her own seed packets back in 2008 in memory her father, who was suffering from severe migraines and eventually died of a brain aneurysm. Later, her grandmother, with whom she lived in high school, died from complications of diabetes. By the time she was 17 years old, Latricia had lost two close family members to preventable diseases.

When she married, Latricia's husband also started suffering from nosebleeds and migraines, and Latricia remembered that there was often no such thing as a "simple headache." She was determined to find out more about natural health practitioners and how to correct health problems with quality food and supplements.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Latricia describes how she started her business in Las Vegas, and then came back to Detroit and started doing nutrition programs and setting up walking clubs, but wanted to help people realize that they can't out walk or out exercise a bad diet. So she started offering monthly cooking classes. Latricia later studied to become an herbalist and making nourishing loose teas.

All of her previous education and experience led her to open a place where people could come to achieve better health and learn how to quickly and easily prepare nutritious food.

Latricia faced a lot of obstacles on the way to opening her brick-and-mortar establishment for her company, Olive Seed, but through hard work and perseverance, her vision is coming to fruition.

Download and listen to the entire episode to hear Latricia's educational and inspirational story of her entrepreneurial journey.

Welcome to Season 3, Episode #113 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs! This week our special guest is one of my "edibuddiies" (editing colleague), Tenita Johnson, writer, author, playwright, editor, workshop leader, and publisher, and founder of So It Is Written writing and editing services in metro Detroit.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively providing branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Tenita didn't start out to be a full-time self-employed writer and editor. She received her degree in journalism and media arts and planned to work at a newspaper, but that was about the time newspapers were drastically downsizing their professional employees. So she worked in the corporate space for several years at different companies in corporate communications. However, in 2017, her last contract position was phased out, and instead of waiting for the "we'll call you when we need you" call that never came, she decided to expand her writing and editing business that she had already started as a side gig.

Family considerations were another deciding factor, when her youngest child, her only daughter was a baby, she was in daycare from 6 am to 6 pm. Tenita decided that when her daughter was schoolbag, she wouldn't be a "latch key kid."

Because she already had a client base as a foundation, Tenita was able to step out on faith and go full-time with So It Is Written.

Please support our sponsor, Detroit Ink Publishing, which provides an entire suite of services including editing, publishing, and marketing, to writers who want to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Tenita knows that her primary purpose is to help others step into their greatness, but in order to do that, and take care of her family, she had to make her business viable and profitable on a full-time basis.

She learned how to run her business successfully, and has expanded into hosting the Red Ink Conference for upcoming authors in several cities, writing and producing stage plays, and continuing to write and publish her own books. Her 10th book will be published this year.

Download and listen to the entire episode to hear Tenita's inspiring story!

Reference Links:

So It Is Written

Your Business Your Brand Creatively

Detroit Ink Publishing

Welcome to Season #3, Episode #111 of the YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs. Our special guest this week is Elizabeth Mays, CEO of MCS Multimedia and the 3rd generation of her family to run the multi-dimensional company that started as Mays Printing in 1946 in Detroit, Michigan. In this episode, Elizabeth tells us about her company, how the family succession plan worked seamlessly, and how she and her father now successfully run the business as full partners.

Please support our sponsor: Your Business Your Brand Creatively provides branding, marketing, training, and social media services to creative and solo professionals and small business owners.

About Our Guest

Elizabeth Mays is the CEO of Mays Multimedia, a full-service media firm that specializes in image overview and branding for printing, marketing, and digital projects of all sizes. Elizabeth works closely with her staff to continuously master their craft and provide excellent service to her customers whose projects can last from just a few days to up to a year.

Although her father expected Elizabeth to take over the company one day, he made sure that she went to school to further learn everything she needed to know about all of the different services they provide.

Please support our sponsor: Detroit Ink Publishing provides an entire suite of services including editing, publishing, and marketing, to writers who wish to become published authors.

What Our Guest Talked About

Elizabeth advises entrepreneurs at any point to continually master their craft and improve (not perfect) their business systems. You should be able to answer any question a prospect may ask, especially if you are the business owner. Elizabeth also recommends that entrepreneurs and business owners master time management: seize the day and don't "burn daylight!"

Download and listen to the entire episode to hear Elizabeth's inspiring and educational interview!

MCS Multimedia

Elizabeth Mays