In today’s SPECIAL episode, we talk with the “Fab Five” which includes myself and 4 other local entrepreneurs who have come together to help refresh a local small business. We have created a unique way to refresh the local small business community and want give a complete business makeover for a small business in the Pinellas County area. Being small business owners ourselves, we know and understand what it’s like to run a small business during a challenging time and want to assist a business that may be in the market for an overall makeover. What does a business makeover look like? A combination of business consulting and coaching, marketing exposure, web development, and new logos, photos, and branding.
—
Meet the rest of the Fab Five!
Maggie Butler, Co-founder of Local Union, LLC – https://www.local-union.com/
Matthew Bert, Matthew Bert Web – https://www.matthewbertweb.net/
Jess Veguez, Jess Veguez Photography – https://jessveguezphotography.com/
Kaylin Ingram – https://www.kaycoastaldesigns.com/
—
Follow our journey as we accept applications, work with the winning small business and refresh their business to be set up for a strong second half of 2021.
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/businessmakeoverpinellas/
APPLY NOW – https://businessmakeoverpinellas.com/
Want to learn more about the podcast and Join the Locals? – PalmHarborLocal.com
Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/palmharborlocal/
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Business Makeover Pinellas
In this episode, we got a bonus episode of the show. I am sitting down with four other local entrepreneurs. The five of us have teamed up together to help a small business in our community that has either been affected by COVID or struggling to get going within the last couple of years. We wanted to create this show, share our story, how this idea came to life, and introduce ourselves to everyone. We will start by introducing the Fab Five, which is what we are calling ourselves. It is after a TV show that I have no idea about. Let us go around and introduce ourselves. Maggie, we will start with you.
The show you are talking about is Queer Eye, which is incredible so please go watch it. My name is Maggie Butler. I am the Cofounder of Local Union. I am so excited to participate in this business make-over. I own a business consulting and coaching firm. What I do for a living is helping small businesses and entrepreneurs grow and reach their full potential. I am excited to give back and work with some more businesses in the community.
We have a great community of small businesses, so it is going to be a lot of fun to interact and meet some more of them. Matt, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself?
I am Matthew Bert. I run Matthew Bert Web. I am a local web developer. I am excited about helping a business move forward in 2021 because everything is always evolving on the internet, how your SEO needs to function, and how your website needs to look. That is one thing I can help take off of somebody’s plate and help give them the best they can have.
If you have not checked out my website, Palm Harbor Local, is the one that Matt did, so be sure to check it out and you can see some of his work there. Jess, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Joining in with the community to try to help somebody else out is awesome.
My name is Jessica Veguez. I am a photographer and I specialize in people and portraits of every kind. I have been having a lot of fun working with local businesses doing branding content and headshots, which is what I will be able to provide for the winner of this amazing package that we are putting together. Dunedin or even Pinellas County alone has the most amazing small business owners. I am super excited to meet whoever it is that wins. You can be a part of this amazing community that we built.
The small business community is pretty cool. Our fifth one, Kaylin, could not make it, but she is the graphic designer and freelancer of the group. You can check more of her work out at KayCoastalDesigns.com. Let us start with where this idea came from. Maggie, you were the one who wanted to put all this together, so let us start there.
I am part of an incredible group that I started with Jess called the Pinellas Business Community. We are a Facebook Group of entrepreneurs helping each other. I put a message out there, “Do any businesses want to partner with me because I want to do something for communities and other small businesses.” All of the Fab Five responded to this post and said, “We would love to do something, but we don’t know what it looks like.” I started thinking, and I was inspired by two shows. One of them is Queer Eye and another is Bar Rescue. If you guys have not seen that, somebody goes in and rescues these restaurants and bars and turns them into something beautiful.
With 2020 being such a hard year for so many people, especially in the small business community, we have seen our home towns of Dunedin and Palm Harbor have been hit really hard, but across the country, I wanted to be able to help people and help them realize that there is hope in 2021. The idea came about with all of you, this Fab Five group, on how we can put our talents to use and share that with somebody in need. Not because they have struggled but maybe they started a new business in 2020 when COVID hit.
How can we move into 2021 and rebrand and refresh ourselves? We have this awesome talent pool of a web developer, imagery, graphic design, business coaching, and consulting with this show, marketing, and exposure. We are the perfect group of five to go into a business and help them restart or revamp and move into 2022 with incredible success.
Business Makeover: With 2020 being such a hard year for so many people, especially in the small business community, we want to help people realize that there is hope in 2021.
It is nice to see momentum coming back after 2020 and what happened with COVID and everything. This is another way for us to keep that moment going forward and help a small business in the community. What are you guys looking forward to the most about this project?
Giving this person hope that it is going to be okay. You are going to be okay. You have access to five passionate and talented people. To see the arc of our first meeting and what that person is going to bring into the room feeling like maybe a little hopeless or lost, but then through working with them and seeing how it turns out in the end. I am excited to see this person from start to finish, be able to help them, and get to know them personally.
It is going to be fun to meet who or whatever it is. The small business community is a tight-knit community, especially here in Dunedin. Dunedin got its special place but it is branching out to all over Pinellas County, too. Matt, your business took off because of the connections you made within the small business community.
I would not be where I am now without it. Joining in with this community to try to help somebody else out is awesome. I cannot wait to be a part of it. Getting to see how the person reacts, takes what we have to offer, and sees how they grow even after 2022 is going to be an exciting thing to watch.
This is a life-changing experience that we are going to be giving someone. This is awesome.
If your businesses are strong, your cities are strong and your people are strong.
We talked about it before, but these are the small business owners in our community. It is not just the business. It is your neighbor that you are helping out. That is going to be a fun aspect of it, too.
We are even bringing this person into our group of amazing business owners and entrepreneurs so that it is not just the five of us. It is going to be a legion of other business owners that will be able to welcome them with open arms. They can feel like they are never going to be alone again and they have people that will always look out for them. Community is everything.
They create the Pinellas Business Community and stuff. That has been fun to be involved in and the connections from that have been special.
I feel Jess deserves all the credit here because she has brought so much spirit and community to our groups. We always know the community is important, but it takes cheerleaders like Jess and the rest of you in the Fab Five to band together and say like, “We are here to support and be your ally.” Whoever ends up winning this, not only do they get awesome services from all of us, but they have friends and partners for life to help them through their challenges.
We need more people like Jess and I am so excited to not just see who the winner is but who applies because we want to bring all of the applicants into the bigger community that we are creating with the Pinellas Business Community. There will still be benefits for people, even if you do not win because the spirit, community, and comradery will be beneficial.
I have not even thought of that. I am excited to see the Pinellas Business Community grow over from this alone.
Business Makeover: We are excited to see the Pinellas Business Community grow over from this alone.
We are going to keep everyone up-to-date as we go through this process. It is a new journey for us, too. It will be fun to learn along the way and grow ourselves as well. Let me ask if anybody wants to say anything else or anything you are looking forward to or any final thoughts before we wrap up the show?
I am hopeful for all of you entrepreneurs reading. Go to our application. Apply not just for yourself, but you have the opportunity to nominate other people. If you do, you get to spend a month with us, which is huge. I am so excited. We will have so much fun together. I am hoping to also record some of this and make it Live and do a low-quality Queer Eye episode, which everybody needs to watch the show. Even if you don’t apply, reach out to all of us. We are all here to help you and uplift our incredible communities, which if your businesses and your cities are strong, your people are strong.
I have learned so much from all of you guys in the short time that we have been together. That is an important thing for any business owner or anybody, too. If you surround yourself with people that can help and benefit you in a positive, great things will happen. If you are a small business owner, you can visit our website. It is going to be BusinessMakeoverPinellas.com. You can apply there, nominate another business from there, and you can check out what we are doing. We have an Instagram page as well, @BusinessMakeoverPinellas. Stay tuned. I know we are excited and it is going to be a lot of fun.
The application will stay live until the end of April 2021, so make sure everyone can get on it before it closes.
Thank you.
