We were lucky to catch up with Kelci Borges recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kelci, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

My business looks a lot different from when I first started it. Back in 2018, I was operating under a different name and providing only marketing services. About 18 months in, I realized that the passion that I started my business for had changed after being exposed to new opportunities in the online, digital world.

The clients I was serving just didn’t get the power of leveraging social media for their business, so gaining clients was a real challenge for me at the time. I was working with clients who didn’t value my work, would steamroll my ideas, and not respect my boundaries. The social media landscape has changed drastically from just 5 years ago, even though back then I would say that social media was essential for a business, now it is REALLY essential for all businesses. A lot of the small businesses I was getting connected with just didn’t understand how powerful the tool was for their success and it was exhausting trying to convince them otherwise.

At the end of 2020, I was incredibly burnt out because I continued to render services that I was no longer excited about (social media management). This made me feel resentful toward my business and ultimately unfulfilled in my life. I was at a crossroads… I either had to get a job or rebrand my business to the idea that had been on my heart for almost 2 years.

I was incredibly scared to leave behind the business that kicked off my entrepreneurial journey, but I knew something had to change.

I rebranded my business to Sherose in March of 2021 and have not looked back. This name and concept came to me during a coffee date with a friend and I couldn’t unsee it. Not only do we help women (she) rise to the occasion, but we focus on helping female founders (Sheroes – like female heroes). The duality of this name is the mission and foundation of everything that we do.

Rebranding to something that I’m genuinely excited about has been the single most important thing to scaling. I truly believe in our mission and purpose. I am hell-bent on helping women grow their businesses so that they can use it as a vehicle for their long-term dreams.

Along the way, I’ve tried a lot of different service offerings and promotional strategies… some have done really well and some have completely tanked. I’ve spent thousands of dollars to see no ROI. I’ve been copied, lied to, taken advantage of, ghosted — you name it I’ve probably experienced it! I believe it’s really important to talk about the struggles in business so that we feel less alone… and I started a podcast for that reason! My podcast, Confessions of a CEO talks about the shit that stinks in business so that the people listening feel safe, understood and like they’re not the only ones trudging through the mud of business.

I’ve also been incredibly blessed with the clients I get to work with, the community I’ve built around my business, and the support that I’ve received. I have always focused on growing my business deep and not wide, so when I moved to Boise in 2020 I knew that I wanted to become locally rooted. I worked on making connections with other entrepreneurs in the area and that helped my business grow.

In January of 2023, I also launched a local networking community called The Boise Breakfast Club. Launching this community for women to come together, learn, and connect with other successful, growth-minded gals was a major goal of mine. It came with a lot of fear and anxiety that no one would show up, but much to my surprise, we have sold out every single event over the last year and had 50+ women in the room at each event. Again, I launched this community for the purpose of serving our ideal clients and providing value to them. I was not in it for the financial gain, but instead providing something really valuable to our community.

People can tell if you’re there to serve or if you’re there to just make money… and I think that the ability to scale my company is due to creating valuable offers that truly serve my clientele in a way that keeps them coming back.

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 got my start after getting told ‘no’ when I asked for a raise several times following the successful completion of a huge marketing campaign for a $20 million renovation project at a company I was working at. Not only had I executed a grand re-opening campaign that resulted in a record-breaking sales weekend, I also led a project following an act of vandalism that forced our property’s golf course to shut down for 8 weeks. I had 6 weeks to pull together a successful event that got the community involved and to see the golf course in a positive light. The event I directed involved 20+ local non-profits, had record-breaking attendance in the lifetime of the course and raised more than $5,000 for local charities. These two projects were assigned to me on top of my regular duties as a digital marketing coordinator.

Safe to say, I thought my efforts were more worthy than a $40,000 salary so I asked to be promoted because I was doing more than anyone else in my department. My manager basically ghosted the request and didn’t fight to keep me there by trying to get what I was asking for. I didn’t feel valued so I knew it was time to figure something else out.

I had always wanted to start my own company, and so that’s what I did! In July of 2018, I decided to go for it and start my own marketing company. I burned the midnight oil to create a website, put together packages, finalize branding, start a social media channel, etc. I was able to secure 2 clients that replaced my 9-5 salary and I took the leap… scared, nervous, and equally excited!

I’ve been full-time in my entrepreneurship journey since October 16, 2018 and it’s been a wild roller coaster ride!

I have pivoted our brand and service offerings since we first started. At Sherose, we provide consulting, education, and community for female founders wanting to scale their business and use it as a vehicle for achieving their life-long goals.

Specifically, we help women build their businesses around the lifestyle they want to live so their growth is sustainable instead of burning them out. I’ve gone through this multiple times, and I am on a mission to ensure that other women don’t have to go through the same challenges that I faced. I support my clients with branding, marketing, business operations, team growth, building out profitable offers/services, and project management.

We do this through our retreats, networking events, masterminds, group coaching programs, and 1:1 consulting offers. I want to be able to meet my community where they’re at in business and provide value to them no matter if they’re in year one or year five of business.

I am the most proud of this past year in business. I launched a local networking community that has exceeded my hopes and dreams for it already. We sell out 55 tickets each month to these educational and networking events. The women continue to come back, they tell their friends about it. The Boise Breakfast Club is a very powerful community and I am excited to continue growing it. Another exciting thing that happened in the last year was the retreat I hosted at Sundance Mountain Resort. The vibes were immaculate, the transformations and insights gained were life-altering and the women left renewed and energized about their business plans.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In 2020, I was publicly humiliated on social media by two women whom I considered my friends. They made a major scene and told their audience that if they wanted to continue following me, then they should unfollow them OR they could continue following them but they needed to unfollow me.

They told lies and completely defamed my business. I felt bullied and like I was back in middle school getting harassed by “mean girls”. I was insanely embarrassed and wanted to hermit forever. This experience actually almost led me to quit entrepreneurship and get a regular job.

I was completely shattered by this experience and was scared to share anything about myself or my business because they had used the most basic things as ammo against me.

I didn’t think that anyone would trust me or believe me and I truly almost gave up.

But after going through a couple of job interviews with a local real estate mogul, she told me, “Why aren’t you just pursuing your business full time?” because she saw that I would be most successful as my own business owner.

That was the fuel I needed to push my insecurities and shame aside.

I decided to go all in on the rebrand of my business, and really nurture my audience with a 12-day giveaway. I served those clients that I worked with for free to the best of my ability and that catapulted me into my biggest revenue month to date at that time.

I used that momentum to confidently rebrand and share my new services with the world. I am so glad that I didn’t let this experience own me because I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t push through.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

The market was shifting towards the end of 2022 and businesses were preparing for a recession. The first thing to go is always the marketing budget (which in my opinion is ass-backward because you need marketing for your business to make money)… but who am I to say?!

We had a couple of clients who wanted to terminate their contract at the end of the year, so I was hustling to get their spots filled so there weren’t any dips in revenue. I was stressed and overwhelmed. The need to hustle to make payroll forced me to realize that I was incredibly burnt out from the busiest year of my life. I couldn’t keep going at the pace I was.

I turned inward to reflect and really think about my business and the direction I wanted to move in. Doing this allowed me to recognize that the reason that it was so hard to get clients to fill these spots was because that’s not what I really wanted. I had spent about 12 months straying from the mission and purpose of my business in an effort to make recurring revenue through my marketing agency.

It left me incredibly unfulfilled and burnt out.

In order to give myself the space that I needed to get back on track and steer my business in the right direction, I had to let go of even more of our agency clients. This was taking up so much of my time to manage and wreaking havoc on my stress levels.

So I cut my agency roster by 60%. Which also cut my revenue by 60%.

I had to make the very difficult decision to let go of my full-time employee. It no longer made sense because I didn’t have the workload or the revenue to pay for her salary.

As challenging as this experience was, it made room for me to call in the things that I really wanted in my business. It allowed me to finally pay myself a worthwhile CEO salary.

The result has been the best year in my business thus far. Stress levels are vastly lower than what they used to be, I feel so fulfilled with the work I get to do and I am proud of our small and mighty team. We are incredibly capable, flexible, and successful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wearesherose.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearesherose/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelcidouglas/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@kelciborges

Image Credits
Ampersand Studios Creative Co Studios