Events

BrainCircles are intensive group coaching sessions. Got a business hiccup? Need answers fast? Grab a BrainCircle. This laser-focused two-hour session is led by SMARTY founder, Amy Swift Crosby and is designed to address six entrepreneurs in a small group setting. Each person brings a problem, and together, we find a solution. Partnership issues? Marketing questions? PR conundrum? Distribution dilemma? These coaching sessions are fast, furious and effective. $35

Members Only.

This BrainCircle with Cheryl Hunter is focused on the invisible side of your business. There's everything we know to do that we're not doing, plus everything that we can't see to do (the doing of which would make all the difference!) Cheryl will help you uncover and take on what you're not seeing for your business.

About Cheryl Hunter
Cheryl Hunter is a bestselling author, speaker and high-performance expert who specializes in providing Fortune 100 caliber coaching for individuals.  Cheryl has coached and led personal development seminars to over 90,000 people since 1995.  Her expertise is in guiding her clients to architect a very specific blueprint for their businesses and their lives that produces dramatic results in a very short window of time.  Cheryl was drawn to her work as a result of her own life path; she overcame a traumatic, life-altering experience that ignited a strong desire to contribute to others.  Frequently called upon by the media, Cheryl is currently featured as the on-camera expert in a Huffington Post series, is a regular contributing writer for several national publications, and is the author of the bestselling book USE IT. Cheryl believes in the transformative power of storytelling.  She has been a screenwriter for film and TV under contract with such studios and networks as CBS, NBC, Paramount and HBO, and she's merged her seemingly-divergent careers around one idea: that a simple story, well told, has the power to change lives.  She's parlayed that passion for storytelling into the three TEDx talks.  Cheryl is honored to be a member of Maria Shriver's Brain Trust, a select group dedicated to bettering the lives of women.

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Big SMARTY Member Price: Free
Little SMARTY Member Price: $15
Non-Member Price: $35

From Back Yard to Big Time: Three Scalable Models

About this event:
Does this sound familiar?

A lone woman typing madly on a keyboard (or ripping wax off 25 women a day in one case), up at the wee hours of the morning, without much of a break until late, late at night. There she is in her garage-turned-office or kitchen table-turned-desk. She's just one person – but she's got bigger dreams than this.

This is the way so many of us start, and it's EXACTLY the way our three panelists started on their road to fully scalable small empires. What I love about each of these businesses is that they aren't massive – they are small but mighty - still scrappy in their approach, still conscious of costs and still have the boss on the premises most days. Each of these women - from products to retail to service - started on her own with no funding outside her own purse strings.

Check out our June Master Event! This one applies to pretty much everyone…..

Panelists include:

• Jodi Shays, Owner and Queen Bee, Queen Bee Salon and Spa
• Jennifer McCabe, founder, Team Jenn Corp
• Jessica Frandson, founder and creator, Twistband
• Moderated by: SMARTY Founder, Amy Swift Crosby

Jodi Shays, Owner and Queen Bee, Queen Bee Salon and Spa
Jodi is an expert with over two decades of experience in the fields of skincare and hair removal. In 2000, at the urging of her longtime mentor Nance Mitchell, Jodi opened a private waxing and skincare studio. Her business quickly burgeoned, and in 2004, Jodi expanded by opening Queen Bee Salon & Spa in Culver City. Queen Bee offers the best in waxing, skin care, nail care and airbrush tanning in the kind of charming and friendly environment that’s not often found in Los Angeles. Since opening, Jodi has developed a cult celebrity following that includes Fergie, Kelly Wearstler, Busy Phillips and many others. Queen Bee has been featured time and time again as the Best of the Best in Allure, as well as in Vanity Fair, Lucky, Shape, Daily Candy, C Magazine, Redbook, Angeleno and StyleHive. In October 2011, Jodi bowed her second location in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

Jennifer McCabe, Founder and President, Team Jenn Corp
Jenn started out at Ogilvy and Mather where she learned the ropes of advertising. She got a taste of everything from public relations to direct response with a dash of systems development for good measure. She moved on to a short stint at a cash management company where she learned quickly that sprawling hallways and men you addressed as Sir Withersbee were not for her. Jenn loves the blood and guts of accounting. She wants to know the person signing the checks. During the corporate years, Jenn went to school to fluff up her accounting education and became certified in tax work. She was also helping friends with their start up advertising companies and discovered she had a desire to help the little guy with their real world challenges. The corporate world soon became too constraining and stodgy and Jenn jumped ship to create Team Jenn Corp.

Jessica Frandson, Founder and Creator, Twistband
Like all great inventions, Twistband was born out of necessity. After having a baby, Jessica Frandson grew tired of having her hair tugged by the little one and quickly learned the least painful hairstyle for a new mom was a ponytail. She made sure to always have her hair up and kept a second band on her wrist as a backup. Traditional hair bands hurt her head and her wrist, so she twisted a soft piece of elastic trim to hold back her hair, thus creating the first Twistband. A few weeks later she was looking to write down a phone number and in the absence of a notepad, she wrote the number on her Twistband, and the custom message Twistband was born. In 2009 she officially launched the Twistband brand and began selling the product at retail stores nationwide. Jessica serves as the president of Twistband, overseeing all aspects of the emerging brand.

SMARTY Members Only

Sunday, June 9th

This Course is designed to:

Support your transition to entrepreneur… from working IN the business to working ON the business. Set up your infrastructure, systems, and resources to support the growth of the business. Provide a template for a sales and business development plan tailored to your revenue goals.

You will:

• Create an infrastructure that will provide a solid foundation to grow
• Implement a sales and business development plan and a process to forecast and track revenue
• Gain a clear understanding of who, how and when to hire people
• Understand a profit and loss statement and how to use it as a tool to grow your business

This course is Ideal for:

• Anyone who had completed Foundation Course 1 and needs the next set of guidelines
• Business owners in year 2 or 3
  
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Join SMARTY for this community discussion on launching or running a small business. SMARTY, a network for women in business based in Los Angeles, brings the momentum and community started on the west coast to New England (finally!) with events in Boston as well as on the North Shore. Community Meetings allow local freelancers, consultants, business owners and entrepreneurs to be in conversation on the challenges they face as well as goals on the horizon as they grow and build their product or service based offerings. Moderated by SMARTY founder and Manchester resident Amy Swift Crosby, this meeting is open to any woman with an idea, a business or a vision for herself. SMARTY is a Membership based organization but Membership is not required to attend these local meeting at this time. We are honored to partner with Ananda Shanti Yoga and Wellness Center in Manchester to host our Community Meeting. Free.

About SMART Conversations:

Get out of your home office and into someone else's workspace. From creative agencies to retail stores to well-being epicenters to tea salons, SMART Conversations take business owners into a selected "workspace" for drinks, treats and 30 minutes of Q and A with the business owner. It's nice to hear what other entrepreneurs do all day, and also see it in action. These intimate get-togethers make getting to know other women easy, casual and low-key. Come through, grab a glass, hear an interesting story and be off to your next engagement (or home to bed!). Quick, social, engaging and a little voyeuristic, SMART Conversations gives you a peek behind the curtain of how someone runs their show.

Featured SMART Conversation: The Urban Grape

Oh, the glamour of owning the chicest wine store in Boston! Hadley Douglas and her husband TJ have successfully risen to the top of the city's food chain in not only a highly considered selection of wine and spirits, but a deep (borderline obsessive!) wine knowledge, fresh and contemporary presentation and truly thoughtful curation. With monthly events featuring various chefs and education on pairings and palette, the Urban Grape is leading Boston's small business revolution by marrying elevated sophistication with every-man accessibility. Who says wine has to be haughty? Never at the Urban Grape.

You are invited to enjoy a five-wine tasting and hear Hadley's story first hand - including how she co-founded the business with her husband, how they divide their roles and responsibilities, marketing strategy and so much more…like how to still pick up your kids from school every day! This mother of two is a local superhero - come meet her as part of our ongoing SMART Conversation series featuring extraordinary small business owners in their amazing spaces.

This Conversation will be hosted by SMARTY founder Amy Swift Crosby

About Hadley Douglas of The Urban Grape

My earliest wine memory centers around one word – “Trefethen.”  Actually, it was two words – “More Trefethen!”  It was my dad’s birthday party and I was about 15 years old.  I sat to his right with my family and extended family stretched out on either side.  Somehow I had a wine glass, and in the merriment that glass kept getting filled along with everyone else’s.  A case of Trefethen into the evening, my older brothers took me aside and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you through this.”  It was a fun night, but a while before I drank wine again.

After helping many other companies with their marketing, public relations, events and philanthropy I’m excited to now be doing the same for The Urban Grape.  The perks are great – there’s always lots of wine to sip with dinner, and I liked the owner enough to marry him.

Members: Free

Guests: $30

About this Event

What is one of the BIGGEST, fastest growing, most EXCITING industries to be in right now?

It's the business of Health and Well-Being. Whether you're a life coach, a nutritionist, a relationship advisor, a food or health blogger, a speaker, an author, a fitness instructor or studio owner, a therapist or even just a fan and follower of all things healthy and well, you will NOT want to miss this Master Event featuring four fascinating thought-leaders in the business. We'll be talking about trends in health and wellness, fitness, nutrition and spirituality, in addition to the BUSINESS MODELS that support these industries in various ways.

Panelists include:

• Jayla Siciliano, founder, Bon Affair
• Christa Orecchio, founder, The Whole Journey
• Michelle Weinstein, Founder, FITzee Foods
• Corinne da Silva, founder, Bellevado

About Jayla Siciliano

Jayla Siciliano is always looking for a better way to do this thing called life. She credits her friends at Diesel and Burton for inspiring Bon Affair. During seven years as a product specialist for those global brands, happy hour was an essential job skill. Jayla loved it—until that morning in Hong Kong. After two weeks of toasting co-workers, she woke up at 5AM with a new vision. She needed a lighter, everyday wine option that fit her professional, active lifestyle. The solution: Wine spritzers. The problem? A good one didn’t exist. So Jayla made it her mission. She quit her job to create a better, modern spritzer worthy of America’s awesome wine culture. The spritzer had to share her values—real wine, all-natural, zero added sugar. She added electrolytes (why not?). While getting her MBA at USD Jayla raised over $500K to launch her venture—and after four years, Bon Affair is fully realized. Bon Affair is sold online and will be available at Whole Foods in the San Diego region this summer.

About Christa Orecchio

Christa Orecchio is a clinical and holistic nutritionist and founder of The Whole Journey, a private nutrition practice and informational website established to help people live healthier, happier, and more energetic lives through whole food nutrition, high quality supplementation, and healthy lifestyle guidance. Christa's clinical approach is always uniquely tailored to the individual, focused on healing common chronic health concerns from the root cause, in lieu of addressing individual symptoms.

Christa has been regularly featured as a health expert on TV and in print nationwide. She is the author of "The Whole Journey Cookbook: 180 Delicious Ways to Use Food as Medicine" and "The Five Tris: A Holistic Approach to a Vibrant Pregnancy", and the co-author of "The Anti-Inflammatory Diet" with Cheryl Tiegs. Christa's Food as Medicine segment is on Fox 5 San Diego every Thursday morning at 9:05am. She is committed to helping people first to heal, and then to achieve vibrant health"

About Michelle Weinstein

You would think that a woman who is building an empire based on healthy meals would have gotten her inspiration for the business right out of her own kitchen. However, Michelle Weinstein is a self-confessed kitchen nightmare; her inspiration actually sprung to her from inside an office cubicle. Michelle Weinstein, owner and CEO of FITzee Foods, graduated from the University of Arizona in December of 2000 with a degree in Finance. After her years in corporate America, Michelle wanted to establish a totally different experience; not only for the consumer, but for the employee as well. FITzee Foods fosters an environment where employees have the ability to form their own career path.  She seeks employees whose visions align with the company’s core values and allows them to build their own position. Employees are encouraged to not only dream but to also create, breaking the corporate-styled mold of what Michelle refers to as “robots”. In a time where employees typically go to a job and are programmed to act, think and only do certain things, the FITzee employee helps to create the FITzee experience --- generating many of the company’s marketing ideas, promotions and even meals themselves. From this freethinking ideology, the FITzee “empire” is being created, embodying a healthy lifestyle from the food you put in your body and the exercise you put your body through. FITzee offers nationwide delivery of all of their healthy meals, snacks and bars.

About Corinne da Silva

Corinne da Silva, co-founder, of Bella Vado, a California Avocado Oil, is the only U.S. made Avocado Oil produced in San Diego County. The company was founded with the vision of creating the most unique, healthy products, crafted to nourish the body and feed the skin.  From gourmet foods to spa inspired body products, Bella Vado products strive to feed the soul and cleanse the spirit. Throughout her journey of envisioning, launching and creating Bella Vado, Corinne, still continues to work as a full-time executive at a digital agency, providing strategic guidance and account direction to top brands like Sony, Southern California Edison, Roadrunner Sports, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Napster and Disney.