We recently connected with Amanda Christine and have shared our conversation below.
Amanda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
Most female entrepreneur communities focus on growing a large number of members while we focus on the quality of relationships and the safety of the environment. In the same regard… most business coaches focus on helping their clients increase sales or traffic while I focus on helping my clients live a balanced CEO life that brings fulfillment, stirs passion, and provides a true sense of freedom. Yes, I coach on the importance of driving traffic and landing ideal clients, but… being a business owner is so much more than that.
The hustle culture is far from our core values as we have found that success comes easily to those who live in alignment. You don’t have to work 15 hour days in order to achieve success. In fact, CEOs are most successful when they are considering everything that encompasses who they are and what they are responsible for. This practically looks like considering physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional health. This also looks like considering a spouse, children, family, and friends. This is also why the definition of success is subjective to the person defining it.
To go a step further on how we are different… we educate our members on the fact that a well balanced CEO considers business, relationships, health, and finances in their planning process. We begin every new year with leading our members to get aligned with their own personal core values. We help them to identify what needs attention in both their life and business. There are seasons in which a business owner must be hyper-focused on certain areas of their business, but there are also seasons of embracing rest or focusing on marriage while the business… for a lack of better terminology… coasts itself for a while. We give permission to NOT hustle in seasons where healing and restoration are needed.
There are four core elements to our mission: 1., We aim to connect like-minded CEOs so that they have a sense of genuine community. 2., We focus on stirring passion within their souls so that they have sense of refreshed energy and excitement around their God-given talents and purpose. 3., We invest generously in all members with resources and education that leads them forward. 4., We challenge them to be the best version of themselves so that they can have the greatest impact on those around them.
SOWBO is a community for women CEOs who need friendship, fresh ideas, encouragement. accountability, and a safe place to be beautifully broken. We are all more than business owners. What probably binds us more than anything is that we all created our businesses to support our lives — not the other way around.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life – even as a young girl. My first business attempt was actually a babysitting club that I created with my friends who lived down the alley way of my childhood home. We were only 12 years old, but we didn’t think that we would need approval from anyone to kickstart this venture… especially our parents. Needless to say, when my mom found a advertisement flyer at our neighborhood market with our home phone number plastered all over it… she forced me to shut the business down. I guess I’ve always been independent!
My first successful and sustainable business venture was an online blog called, “The Caffeinated Woman.” It was a blog that focused on relationships. I would interview various people at coffee shops about how they defined a true connection with someone else. My mission back then was to reveal (or maybe discover) what intimacy truly meant. I was passionate about the subject matter and I was driving decent traffic each month. However, I felt very alone in the business building process.
I often found myself sitting in rooms full of people who just didn’t understand how I felt, what I needed, or how my brain worked. I was the only entrepreneur in the room. After endless months of searching for friends who could relate to the entrepreneurial lifestyle, I decided to host a meet up. I posted something along the lines of, “Looking for friends who want to grow their blogs together.” I had no idea if anyone would show up or not, but I was desperate for community. I needed someone to understand my big, crazy, scary dreams.
That first night in 2016, twenty women showed up. We talked for hours about purpose, passions, dreams, goals, tasks lists, cooking, laundry, and balancing everything that comes with being a female business owner. I left that meeting with a full heart, feeling excited, challenged, invested-in, and connected. Those twenty women decided to join me again the next month – except this time, they brought friends! Six months later, we had more women than the WholeFoods meal training space could hold, and SOWBO, the Society of Women Business Owners, came into existence.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Like most, COVID completely crushed all of my business plans for 2020. Since 2016, I had been hosting monthly workshops for entrepreneurs in Nashville, Tennessee and I had planned to extend the reach to other major cities. I had originally mapped out a “SOWBO on the road” workshop tour where our team would travel to various cities in the Southeast United States to host networking events for local entrepreneurs in those cities. We were to kick off our first event in April 2020.
BUT… BOOM! Our entire city was forced to shut-down. My event venue closed their doors until further notice. All the other venue options had also closed their doors. I had no where to host our monthly events. People were also too afraid to leave their homes. We did a few networking events on Zoom, but because several of our normal members were also forced to shut down their businesses…. they couldn’t justify paying for our virtual events. Only a few months later of attempting the Zoom networking events… Zoom fatigue became a trending topic. Eventually… I lost all income for SOWBO. I felt completely lost and very angry. I didn’t understand how the entire country could shut down and force the closure of so many local businesses. It was a hard season. Not just for me, but for everyone I served.
I can honestly say today that I am grateful it was all shut-down. It was the biggest blessing in disguise because it forced SOWBO to rethink and restructure. Instead of traveling to cities… we tapped into an online market that completely changed the trajectory of the business. Of course, I had some stubbornness and pride to swallow at the beginning of this journey. It took me a while to accept the changes, but once I did… I began seeing opportunities. COVID’s shut-down brought awareness to the subject matters that we really needed to be discussed among the CEOs I had been serving: rest, balance, relationships, passive-income, creative energy, and the need for community.
By focusing on live trainings, digital resources, and other online solutions… I was able to grow our Facebook Group (Fulfilled & Free CEOs) and attract women CEOs from all over the country. Eventually… I realized that our impact was growing faster than I could have ever done with in-person events. It also opened up opportunities to do some 1:1 business coaching with women from outside of Nashville (where I lived).
In the Spring of 2021, we hosted our annual business planning retreat (in-person) and CEOs came from all over the country to participate. That retreat gave me the confidence and reassurance to do exactly what I had been feeling deep down… to launch an online coaching program.
Today, we have an online membership platform that provides CEOs with two different levels of coaching. I’m not traveling from city to city to gather women together – rather, these women are showing up from all over the country to meet me on Zoom wherever I am. I have more freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment today because of the forced restructure. I see myself as resilient because of this situation. I also recognize that God’s ways are higher than my ways and where I am today is far better than anything I could have imagined or dreamed of for myself.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
When SOWBO was simple a monthly in-person meetup in Nashville, Tennessee… it was small potatoes. It didn’t provide enough income for me to sustain any sort of lifestyle. My scalability plan was to tap into other cities / markets, but I knew that would take time. Though SOWBO took up a chunk of my time, it often felt like my “side-hustle” or “passion project.” I poured everything I earned back into the business. I paid for team members and systems to run the operation, but there was nothing leftover for me. My livelihood came from marketing consulting. And honestly… back in those days… I never really thought that SOWBO would earn enough financially to justify focusing on it full-time. Boy have I proven that wrong! ;) But let’s not get ahead of the story.
Marketing consulting paid me very well. It was a means to an end, but it wasn’t my true passion. Don’t get me wrong… I am and have always been very good at marketing. I even have a Bachelors Degree in the subject matter. BUT… Somewhere along the way, I allowed some middle-aged, entitled, proud, white-man to tell me that I would need him and his connections in order to be anything or have anything in my career. I was naive and clung to his every word because… well… I believed him. He was “successful.” He told me everything I needed to hear. He highlighted all my skills and talents. Poured encouragement and wisdom into me (of course this encouragement and wisdom only steered me to serve his mission). He claimed to “mentor” me in the business world. Somewhere along the way… I started to believe that his dream was more important than my own. I eventually saw the light and got out of that dark place. It got really ugly before it got fully out. I now identify this time as the hardest, darkest seasons of my life. I wasn’t in alignment in any way. I had abandoned my own identity in order to wear the mask that was being thrown at me.
Just when I thought I could put consulting to bed for good… COVID happened. The little bit of income and plans I had made for growing SOWBO were crushed. I had to take another consulting gig to make ends meet. Of course, it ended up being for another middle-aged, entitled, proud, white-man. Except this time… I knew how to make boundaries and stay true to myself. There were many circumstances and conversations that felt all too familiar… I started to have anxiety attacks weekly. I knew that I needed to pivot. Within 9-months… I walked away from the gig and put all my efforts into SOWBO. I made a promise to myself after this situation that I would never violate my own values, boundaries, or inner-knowing again. I had no idea how I was going to pay my rent, but I knew THIS wasn’t the way forward.
I came up with some very creative income plans like having a big yard sale, selling digital products on Etsy, building a friend’s website, and some other random projects to make money. I did anything I could to keep afloat while I focused almost all of my energy on SOWBO. I did a ton of market research in this season of my life… I listened more than anything. I listened for patterns and common struggles. After enough time… I was able to map out a solution that not only helped CEOs, but also aligned with my core values. This was the birth of the SOWBO we know today.
If you’re not fulfilled and living in peace, then pivot. It is not easy, but what is on the other side is absolutely worth it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sowbo.org
- Instagram: @sowbo_official
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SOWBO/members
- Linkedin: none
- Twitter: none
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVxSq2yLMNbUsrzIbbYpFYQ
- Yelp: none
- Other: TikTok: @amandasowbo
Image Credits
I hired all photographers to photograph each event for promotion purposes. No credit is necessary.