We recently connected with Cindy Brown and have shared our conversation below.

Cindy, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

As I prepared to wrap up my 30 year career in education, it was becoming more and more common to see elementary aged students showing signs of depression, anxiety and lack of motivation.

Throughout my career, I’ve worked with more than 800 families helping parents and students balance home life, emotions, and learning experiences. What I came to realize is that a child’s mindset is very powerful and thoughts or internal beliefs often remain present in the mind from a very young age through adolescence to young adulthood.

When I retired from the classroom, I knew I wanted to continue helping parents guide their child’s mindset development. My goal is to flip the climbing teen suicide, depression and anxiety rates by providing strategies to children at an early age.

I named my business, Polished Parents because I truly believe that all parents want what is best for their child and they possess everything they need to be GREAT parents already. As a Family Consultant, specializing in healthy mindset development in children, I apply the “buff & shine” strategies, resources and guidance to help parents radiate as a “Polished Parent”.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an award-winning educator, Social Emotional Coach, and public speaker with more than 30 years of experience, and 24 years raising my own children. I combine my years of experience with my speaking expertise to serve as the secret weapon for parents who are ready to create empowerment and fulfillment in their children’s lives.

I am actively involved in serving my community, supporting numerous family based organizations and nonprofits. I am an active member of the Junior League of Phoenix as an internal leader, serve on the Board of Directors for the Arizona Association for Gifted and Talented, and Chair their statewide Parents Institute Conference.

As a Family Consultant, I work with parents to identify their unique vision and goals for their family. Through workshops, 1:1 coaching sessions and leading Parent Focus groups, I am able to create personalized programs that provide parents with all the knowledge and techniques they need to be the hero of their household and strengthen the bond they share with their child.

Currently, I am focusing on families involved in Homeschooling, Micro Schooling, and Co-Op Schooling. I am excited to share my expertise of infusing life experience with mindset development to create impactful life lessons. In Spring of 2022, The Polished Parent Place, a membership platform for engaged parents who desire everyday strategies to instill positive mindset development, naturally, will be launching. From curriculum design to inspiring social and emotional intelligence strategies, my programs support parents who are raising children to be confident, independent, and joyful!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Switching from a 30 year career in public education into entrepreneurship, in the beginning, I assumed social media was where I needed to spend most of my time. I learned so much about creating my message within a certain word count, or within a specific time frame on reels, IGTV, and in Stories. I even created a few FB groups to have more LIVE engagement with the people I felt were my ideal clients.

The problem was, my ideal clients are parents of school aged children. Typically, they are not jumping on social media to learn or gain tips. They are there for the purpose of the platform…..social connection.

Then I discovered the power of Pinterest! It’s not a social media platform, but a social search engine. I no longer had to guess what I needed to provide each day in my posts. Once I created Boards and Pins on Pinterest, I had a place for parents to go specifically, in search of their most current need. I can post a parent tip in January, and parents will have access to it exactly when they need it, in June or even 3 years from now!

I’m not saying that preparing Pinterest content is easier than social media content. It was impossible for me to provide what most of my audience needed on the day they needed it on IG or FB. Pinterest has solved that problem for me. It’s like having an electronic file cabinet for everyone to access when they are ready.

On Pinterest, I can still have a “Call to Action” button to direct parents to my email list, programs and other offers.

If you haven’t explored Pinterest for your business growth, I encourage you to check it out!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I am grateful I had the foresight, 2 years ahead of my retirement, to plan my new business launch. While still in the education field, I was able to obtain grants to pay for and attend trainings on mindset development, child social development and emotional intelligence strategies.

I followed up each training, by showing gratitude for the grants by offering free parent workshops and educator professional development. This allowed me to start to developing my focus for my business, gain a following, and test out presentation strategies.

Within a month of my retirement, I launched Polished Parents. Being a new business, I was fortunate to rely on my monthly retirement check, as a safety net, to make up the difference of what I wasn’t earning as a new entrepreneur.

The bright side of the Pandemic for me, I was forced to launch my business online, which saved me the cost of renting a meeting space and allowed me to reach beyond my local community and out to the entire world to serve parents who needed mindset strategies for themselves and their children during one of the most challenging times in history.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://polishedparents.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/polished_parents/
• Facebook: Cindy Brown Polished Parents https://www.facebook.com/Cindy-Brown-Polished-Parents-115808853304076/?ref=pages_you_manage
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindy-brown-7729531a3/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/CindyBrown_PolishedParents/_created/

Image Credits
Girls Squad Media/Monica Linda