As a small business owner, you have a lot of wish lists. However, in the lean years of starting up, these dreams get shelved to the back burner in lieu of more practical things like client retention, advertising and work. My number one wish list item when I started this company was to have a creative office space to work out of. Because our company believes in keeping a minimal footprint, all of our team works out of home offices and we meet via Skype or teleconference. So needless to say - as a mom of 2 under 5 - my workspace became a hodgepodge of work, bills, kids' art, baby gear, and little Lightning McQueen race cars - aaah! I will post a photo so you can see the insanity.
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| The dreaded "before" pic. Hard to believe creativity came out of this clutter. |
Enter
Crave Charlotte - a dynamic network that brings women-owned businesses together locally and believes in the support of local businesses. I ran into them at a buzz party back in February and have met some phenomenal women in business in the Charlotte area. Being the Social Media junkie I am, I of course began to follow them on
Facebook and
Twitter.
Sometime in May, they posted a contest on their social media pages about winning a Home Office makeover. So of course I hopped on this immediately because I so desperately needed to unclutter and define my workspace separately from the family space. It was an intense 10-day contest. I had to ask every
Facebook and
Twitter friend I knew to vote for us. In the first 7 days - there was a clear leader. She had everyone beat by at least 50 votes. Part of me just gave up since I thought - there was no way I could overcome that gap.
Then my husband reminded me of that fighting spirit that usually prevents me from giving up. So, on the final day - I did what I do best - I launched a viral social media plea to all my network to come and vote for
Signpost, Inc. We were 80 votes behind and with the help of friends and family near and far, we managed to catch up in the last half hour. Of course the competition also started to get her people voting. At one point we were within 2 points of each other. The competition ended at 5pm on May 27th. I was too nervous to look but one of my Twitter friends noticed that we ended in a tie. Wow - after all that work, Signpost was in a dead heat with another local Charlotte lady.
Our tiebreaker challenge was to write a short rationale as to why we deserved the Home Office Makeover. the final judges were the lovely ladies from:
Swell Decor,
Sarah Catherine Studio of Design,
Isabella,
Front Door Fabrics, and
Happy Chair. I sent mine in and crossed my fingers. Then I let it go and hoped the universe would align in my favor. Five days later...I got the good news. They decided to award Signpost the win! Wahoo!
A few weeks later, I got an email from Sarah of
Sarah Catherine Studio of Design. She was the project leader and she came over with a videographer to assess the initial office specs. I felt like one of those lucky folks on HGTV Extreme Makeover. Sarah was amazing! Her bubbly personality and ability to capture the fine details was impressive. I loved every minute of collaborating with her.
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Sarah (Sarah Catherine Studio of Design), Merrin and Angie from Swell Decor and Design
Erin from Isabella |
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| Shawna Robinson from Happy Chair |
About 10 days after that, I had the pleasure of meeting Angie and Merrin from Swell Decor, Alaina from Front Door Fabrics, Erin from Isabella, and
Shawna from Happy Chair. These ladies are run amazing businesses in the Charlotte area and they collaborated as if they were from a single company to make this transformation happen. I was very impressed by the way they all got along and how quickly they made this happen.
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| Sarah of Sarah Catherine Studio of Design |
In less than 10 hours, we had a new, fabulous workspace. Everything was perfection - from the new lighting to the custom window treatments and inspiration board. My favorite - if I can even pick one thing - is the custom-designed Happy Chair that matches my window valance perfectly. Shawna Robinson is an amazing talent. And to capture it all was the fabulous Lindsay Hess from
Lindsay Wynne Photography. Her photos tell the story of the makeover from start to fantastic finish.
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| Merrin and Angie from Swell Decor, Charlotte |
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| Voila - check out our new fab office space! |
So that's the story of a dream that was made reality - thanks to
Crave Charlotte. By the way, look for
Signpost Inc. to be featured in their
"Guide to the 150 Women-Owned Charlotte Businesses". I believe they're wrapping up their edition this month and the final product should be ready late summer/early fall.
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| Me and Sarah - she is so talented, you should check her out |
The big takeaway from this experience: Charlotte Women-Owned Businesses rock! And not just cause I am one of them. These ladies have no idea how much they've contributed to my creativity and happiness. Love y'all!
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| Debi Adam - Social Media Manager and Brand Architect - SignPost, Inc. |
