Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leah Ryan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Leah, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

What’s crazy is that the idea for my Denver Housewives group and events wasn’t really even my idea. It was a combination of years of events, connecting people, and hosting and attending networking events. I started throwing a type of vendor event, networking event, and craft fair in 2007 before vendor events and networking groups were really a thing. I called it my “Holiday Shopping Event and Food Bank Food Drive”. Every year, it got a little bigger and a little better until I really separated them into their own different event types. In 2012 I held just vendor-centric holiday shopping events focusing on and only featuring locally owned small businesses with handmade and giftable items, and held co-ed networking events helping people connect with each other and learn how to support each other’s businesses instead of only promoting themselves. Since 2016, I have hosted monthly Ladies Night Out and Networking Events all over the Denver Metro Area in addition to my holiday shopping events multiple times per year.

As for my non-profit… I have always just tried to do my best to help as many people as I can. A friend of mine that I met through one of those previously mentioned networking events saw a post I put up on social media at the beginning of the pandemic and asked to meet for lunch. He wanted to help others as well and we decided to create a Facebook group and invite others to help us help others. Soon, we had over a thousand people in the group that we called Be The Good Ones. I coined our tag line of “Small Needs and Good Deeds” to help people understand what we do and we haven’t looked back since.

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?

Coming from a long line of entrepreneurs, I had the urge early on to do things my own way. While I cherished my guaranteed income from my day job (which has been in the Real Estate and Mortgage Industry since 1999, so on top of everything else you are reading about, I am a Licensed Senior Mortgage Professional working at Custom Lending in the tech center), I still wanted to do my own thing. I have always had a side hustle, since my early twenties, and learned to let my guard down a little and be open to meeting new people.

I quickly became incredibly passionate about supporting locally-owned, small businesses. What could I do to support them, boost their businesses, connect them with others and new demographics? I figured it out and I did it and still do. I grew a large following and a solid network of connections which made it easy to put out a call-to-action when wanting to help others in a different way. I am happy and proud of the strides I have made when it comes to both being able to lead others in a networking professional setting and developing a legitimate non-profit that will hopefully help others for years to come.

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Building a social media audience is now something that is key to growing your warm market. It isn’t something that you can do overnight. Staying consistent with posting, connecting with your friends, followers, and audience will help you slowly but surely build an audience. Find your demographic, find your niche, stay consistent and interesting and become relatable to your followers.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I am very transparent and am myself no matter what platform you get me on. I don’t have a fake bone in my body and by being my true self, thick skin and all, I find that it is easier to befriend and connect with someone when they know they can trust you off the bat. I am a reliable leader and I really think that has helped me make the connections that I have made. It also makes it easier to show people how they can be comfortable being their true selves as well, which will always make your connections stronger!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.BeTheGoodOnes.com
• Instagram: DenHousewives
• Facebook: DenverHousewives
• Other: www.BeTheGoodOnes.com

Image Credits
Parker Headshots