The TRIBE

Each issue of b2bTRIBE highlights a few of those worthy rebels described in The Manifesto. The common thread among the small business owners and entrepreneurs featured in this issue is their affiliation with SPARK Publications, a design firm that produces custom-published books and magazines, including this magazine. The natural bias aside, these individuals take a rightful place in the spotlight as they design and grow their enterprises.

 

Lou Solomon

Keeping It Real
interactauthentically.com

Lou Solomon’s entire life has been driven by communication—writing, speaking, listening, and connecting. She wrote her first piece in the fourth grade. After that, there was never a question that her first degree would be in journalism and communications.

Solomon began her career in broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee. She had a front-row seat to watch hundreds of new music artists come and go. She observed who made a pivotal connection and who couldn’t connect; who could move the fans to action and who couldn’t make impact; and who sustained influence and who had it briefly before losing it.

An avid follower of the NPR style, Solomon went to work for an affiliate station. She eventually became a consultant for the local NPR station and other clients until she had a fateful opportunity to teach public speaking. “There I realized something was missing from the way speaking, presenting, and other business communication courses were being taught,” she says.

In 2000, Solomon founded Interact, a development firm committed to authentic connection as the driving force and value of communication. Today she has a reputation as a coach with a unique gift for seeing her clients’ authentic styles and building on their strengths. She has discovered that the biggest impact occurs in unscripted moments, and she has been helping leaders create those moments as secret weapons.

Words courtesy of interactauthentically.com
Photo by Deborah Triplett Studio

 

Reginald Bean

Mentorship In Motion
40-lessons.com

Reginald Bean hails from the streets of Detroit, where he admits to participating in “unproductive behavior” as a teenager. Now a youth mentor, inspirational speaker, and multicultural marketing director for one of Charlotte’s venerated corporations, he recently launched into entrepreneurship with the release of his first book, Unfinished: 40 Lessons on Purpose, Self, and Becoming a Man, custom-published through SPARK Publications.

Bean’s startup business, Ideas in Motion, partners with organizations that serve young people to offer self-awareness workshops and mentorship opportunities. He makes time for the business in the evenings and on weekends and plans to take the business full time when he retires from corporate life.

Unfinished targets young men transitioning into adulthood and provides a series of stories and exercises to help them define their paths. The first chapter shares his motivation for writing the book, which includes the vital role he believes men play in the success or failure of families and communities: “The reality is we never set a goal to fail our families and communities. That’s never the goal to start with, but it happens. It happens with our lack of presence.”

It’s no surprise that Bean puts a heavy emphasis on family time when he isn’t working. He, his wife (who took this photo), and their daughter enjoy playing board games together. Rather, they enjoy winning board games, and he enjoys smack talking.
After a particularly stressful week, he likes to unwind on his motorcycle. It’s just him, his 2012 Victory Cross Country Tour motorcycle, and the open road with no iDevices demanding his attention. He has his eye on a Ducati Streetfighter 848 that he can one day open up on a racetrack.

Whatever comes at him, you can always find Bean moving forward and adapting. And he’s transforming that lesson into a business of serving others.

Photo by Shawn B Photography

 

Lee McCracken

Finding Joy in the Word
JoyfulleeWritten.com

With her radiant smile, blonde tresses, and perky personality, you might think Lee McCracken has had an easy road. But like many artists, deep pain and disappointment fuel some of her best work.

Late last year, this freelance writer and editor published her first book, A Prayer and a Pink Pedicure, which has already received critical acclaim with two national MARCOM Gold Awards. The book describes McCracken’s journey through motherhood, including the deaths of two children and the troubles of a teenage daughter, and a battle with breast cancer. Finally, she found joy and peace in her faith.

Building her writing business and publishing the book has given new energy to McCracken’s career and opened up pathways to even more joyful writing opportunities and speaking engagements.

Photo by Glenn Roberson Photography

 

Darryl Parker

The Web Guy Down the Hall
ParkerWeb.com

How do you thrive through a recession? One way is to refine your business to focus on a niche service or product. As the recession hit hard in late 2008, Darryl Parker saw that his six-year-old business, Parker Web, was already poised to transition from building websites to maintaining existing websites. The shift proved so effective that by 2012 building new websites was no longer part of the business plan. The company now strictly provides hosting, monitoring, and maintenance packages designed to keep websites current and relevant.

In his downtime, Parker enjoys traveling and playing board games. He confesses to spending this past New Year’s Eve engrossed in a game of Settlers of Catan. “At least I was with my wife and friends!”

Photo by Magen Portanova, Magen Marie Photography

 

Dee Dixon

Pride In All She Does
pridemagazine.net

Dee Dixon became an entrepreneur in 2001 when she established Pride Communications and purchased Pride Magazine from the Charlotte Observer. She quickly positioned the magazine as an important voice for the Queen City and launched a variety of public relations and marketing ventures via Pride Public Relations. In addition to producing six issues of the magazine each year, the company hosts the Pride Awards Gala and the Pride Sunset Jazz Series, two major events that promote diversity, cultural awareness, and charitable giving.

Dixon is also active in the nonprofit world. Under the Pride umbrella, she founded PEEP (Pride Entrepreneur Education Program), which works to eliminate future socio-economic disparities in the African American community by promoting education, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship among youth ages ten to twenty-five. She also co-founded the Women’s Inter-Cultural Exchange (WIE), a nonprofit organization designed to build social capital and trust among women of all races.

In addition to her role as a voice for the community, Dixon is a mother and grandmother who enjoys traveling. She has visited many exciting locales, including Egypt, Israel, South Africa, Peru, China, Ghana, Brazil, and India.

Photo by Michael LoBiondo Photography

 

Fabi Preslar

SPARKly Creative
SPARKpublications.com

Business as usual for Fabi Preslar means a careful eye for details, a healthy dose of whimsy, and a steadfast dedication to principles. Her mission is to help other entrepreneurs and businesses look good with beautifully crafted publications and marketing materials. But what’s the point in looking good if you aren’t having fun and staying true to your ideals. This attitude has helped Preslar grow and adapt her business, SPARK Publications, through several market and economic changes. And this summer, the company will celebrate its sweet-sixteen anniversary.

“I go into every new client meeting with three key words in my pocket: intention, audience, and authenticity,” says Preslar. “Know what your goals are for your business and yourself. Know the audience you want to reach. And be your authentic self, and your audience will respond to your message. Those are the keys to my business, and they work for my clients as well, whether they’re authors, entrepreneurs, or corporate representatives.”

These days, when she isn’t at work, Preslar and her husband are helping their daughter remodel her kitchen and dining room. “We make a trip to Lowe’s every weekend and snuggle up with heating pads every Sunday,” she says laughing. “The fifty-year-old, dark wood paneling and cabinets needed to come down.”

And in case you’re wondering, Fabi rhymes with lady.

Photo by Michael LoBiondo Photography

 

Constance Brossa

Journalist for Hire
FinalEdit.net

After spending more than a decade at the Charlotte Observer, Constance Holloway Brossa hung out her shingle in 1995 as an independent content provider. Over the years her clients have included regional magazines, trade publications, and corporations from various industries. One such client even gave her its highest honor, a Writer’s Excellence Award. All of her clients have one thing in common: the need for timely, effective storytelling, which Brossa delivers.

When she isn’t writing or editing, Brossa enjoys cheering on her alma mater, the University of Georgia Bulldogs. She also enjoys the outdoors and has an adventurous streak. Want to know what it’s like to soar thousands of feet in the air on a hang glider? Ask Constance Brossa.

Photo by Tiona Fuller Photography

 

Julie Bee

Bee Awesome
BeeSmartSocialMedia.com

When you need a smart social media strategy, turn to an accountant. Wait … what?

It’s true. Julie Bee began her career as a tax accountant with one of the world’s largest professional services firms and holds a master’s in professional accountancy. She reinvented her career as an online marketing strategist in 2008 and launched BeeSmart Social Media in 2010. Her background, she says, helps her counsel clients on data-driven decisions.

Bee’s engaging storytelling style no doubt helps her clients as well. Content is king in the online marketing world, and Bee says every brand has a story to tell. The key is merging smart analytics with measurable objectives and a personal touch. That strategy is paying off as Bee’s business keeps building.

Photo by Jeff Cravotta Photography

 

Tamela Rich

A Ghostwriter Takes the Podium
TamelaRich.com

The notion of a ghostwriter conjures images of a studious esthete comfortably working behind the scenes to craft another’s legend. This pale penman bears little resemblance to the motorcycle-riding, public-speaking, bright-and-shining Tamela Rich. But there you have it—this modern ghostwriter wields a pen, a podium, a BMW motorcycle, and the limelight with equal dexterity.

With a background in business development for insurance and financial services firms, Rich attended Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in her late thirties. While at Fuqua, Rich’s classmates often turned to her for project edits and write-ups. But she didn’t catch on to the potential of ghostwriting just yet. After graduation in 2000, she launched an industrial cleaning company that folded in 2006. Bereft after the business failure and feeling like she had nothing left to lose, she decided to try something crazy and launched her ghostwriting career.

The risk paid off, and Tamela now has a thriving business. Her most recent project—Retirement GPS with Aaron Katsman of Lighthouse Capital—even included cover credit as a co-author, a rare feat in the ghostwriting world. She published her own book, Live Full Throttle: Life Lessons from Friends Who Faced Cancer, in 2011 to document two cross-country motorcycle trips to raise money for breast cancer charities. It has won three national awards. Her ghostwriting services focus on nonfiction books, articles, presentations, and speeches for business and legal professionals.

As a speaker for hire, Rich borrows from her life experiences to present engaging keynotes, after-dinner speeches, and workshops that are part entertaining story and part practical advice. She offers a range of topics including lessons learned from cancer patients, the difference between wants and needs, the importance of positive inner dialogue, the kindness of strangers, facing fear, and more.

Photo by Christina Shook Photography

 

Jim Cherry

Tight Knits
CarolinaMade.com

Though he’ll never retire, at least not of his own accord, Jim Cherry does enjoy spending downtime in his mountain retreat in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. His condo there is decorated with an 1850s theme, a time period he associates with individualism and self-reliance, when your word was your bond and handshakes were meaningful. His interior design preferences are symptomatic of his character and business style.

Growing up, Cherry always wanted to own his own business. He craved the freedom of being his own boss and setting his own rules. After college and a brief stint in the US Navy, he got his chance. On his day off from working retail at Sears, he spotted a very colorful rug that he liked. It was a blind item, meaning that no one in the area had seen the item or knew what it cost. So he began selling the rug to retail stores and gift shops throughout the Carolinas and soon made more money moonlighting. He resigned from Sears and began traveling the East Coast selling rugs, handbags, and garment bags from the back of his truck in 1967.

Forty-seven years later Carolina Made has graduated to 225,000 square feet of warehouse space in Indian Trail, North Carolina, from which it sells and distributes imprintable sportswear to screen printers, embroiderers, and other apparel companies. The secret to business longevity, Cherry says, is to sell quality products without overcharging, hire quality personnel, and never spend more money than you make.

Now chairman of the board, Cherry recently handed over official reins to the company to his eldest son, Tripp. Two of his other five children and his sister also work for the company full time, and many of the staff members have been part of the team for their whole careers. Proving himself a master of puns as well as business, Cherry calls his wholesale apparel company a “tight-knit” group.

Photo by Michael LoBiondo Photography

 

Mary Buchan

The Lifestyle RN
MaryBuchan.com

Over fifteen years of working as a nurse in hospitals and community health clinics, Mary Buchan has heard all of the excuses for why people can’t live healthy, balanced lives. And she may have used a few of them herself along her journey to adulthood and through motherhood. Now, at “fifty or so,” she has published her first book, Over iT: How to Live Above Your Circumstances and Beyond Yourself. She has also launched a business offering worksite wellness workshops to corporations and life reinvention workshops to women in need of a little help navigating midlife changes.

In addition to exercise and nutrition, Mary uses music to ground herself and feed her spirit. She even writes and performs her own music.

Photo by Myra Wilson, The Wilson Way Photography

 

Terri Bennett

Reinvention is Spelled G-R-E-E-N
TerriBennett.com

After sixteen years as the first and only female chief meteorologist in the market, Emmy winner Terri Bennett lost her job. Once she worked through the grief, she decided not to look for a new contract and instead to transform and simplify her life. She launched Terri Bennett Enterprises, a media company specializing in all things green. Its signature brand, Do Your Part®,was launched in 2008 with the mission of creating healthier homes, healthier families, and a healthier planet. It offers syndicated, eco-friendly content to news outlets.

In addition to advocating for green living, Bennett’s passion is teaching. She shares her wisdom on the speaker circuit as an expert on green living, entrepreneurship, and fresh starts. You might also find her at a local school captivating students with science.

Photo by Sean Lyon, Lyon Pictures

 

Angela Prince

Waltzes and Whinnies
linkedin.com/afprince28105

On weekdays, you might find Angela Prince at her computer hard at work providing public relations services to her clients. At night, you might find her in the dance studio practicing her ballroom moves. On the weekends, you might find her exercising one of her two horses stabled at her farm along with fifteen other horses. From boardroom to ballroom to paddock, Prince has the skills and grace to get the job done.
Her business, AF Prince Associates, is a twenty-five-year-old public relations and marketing firm serving the real estate development, sports, and entertainment industries. One of her top clients is USA Dance, Inc., for which she serves as publisher and editor in chief of American Dancer Magazine (a membership publication with 20,000 subscribers) and national public relations director.

Photo courtesy of USA Dance

 

Sharon Simpson

Queen of the Lake
lncurrents.com

When your children grow up and leave your nest quiet and empty, it’s time to shag. Just ask Sharon Simpson, native Charlottean and publisher of Lake Norman CURRENTS. She and her husband took up shag dancing, the official state dance for both North Carolina and South Carolina, eight years ago after their son was grown and out on his own. They’ve been dancing ever since, spending quality time together going to dance parties and making new friends among shag enthusiasts throughout the Carolinas.

Simpson began her career straight out of high school as a classified ad sales rep for the Charlotte Observer. Over the next thirty-plus years, she was promoted through the magazine division and eventually became the director of targeted publications. Following layoffs at the newspaper in 2008, a group of investors encouraged Simpson to launch a magazine focusing on unique characteristics of the Lake Norman area. Simpson recruited her former coworkers to work on the new magazine with her. Thus Venture Magazines, LLC and Lake Norman CURRENTS were born. Venture Magazines now publishes three monthly or bimonthly magazines and four annual magazines.

Her secret to business success is developing strong relationships. “If you love what you do, you need to share it with others,” Simpson says. “It’s really important to show people how much you appreciate and value them.” She applies this basic principle to relationships with employees, colleagues, friends, and vendors, and says it’s the key to her leadership.

While the nest is still empty–no grandbabies on the way just yet–Simpson and her husband have adopted two dachshunds that have become like children to them. The fur-babies, Barkley and Bailey, are regular companions on the couple’s travels.

Photo by Glenn Roberson Photography