Let’s all celebrate Small Business Week 2019! This year is particularly exciting because I am speaking at the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce Small Business Week workshops: “The Journey of a Digital Influencer.”

As a blogger, I am effectively running a small business. I started my blog in 2013 as a way to showcase my style and my writing and as time went on, it turned into a legitimate brand and business that I feel lucky to have as a major part of my career and identity.

Blogging Turned into More…

With blogging, came many opportunities like: sponsored content, brand representation and social media marketing roles. My blogging skills were able to translate into freelance jobs that only enriched my personal brand and my blog: My Stiletto Life.

As I added to my resume as a blogger, I also turned my skills to another business close to home. You may not know this but I actually come from a family of small business owners. My grandfather owned a few businesses during his life and more notably my dad founded a plastics company called Mr. Plastics in 1985 (the same year I was born). So I grew up with a father who was extremely entrepreneurial and became a role model for how I wanted to be in business. So after some years establishing my blogging career and working in fashion, I started freelancing for Mr. Plastics as the social media marketer and more recently I joined the company full time in sales and marketing. It’s a very proud, rewarding and hardworking time as I am able to be a part of something that my family has built for the last 34 years.

Sharing my Story During Small Business Week…

So small business week is especially poignant this year and being asked to speak at the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce workshop is really a milestone in my career. San Leandro is my hometown: where I conceptualized My Stiletto Life and where Mr. Plastics is a huge part of the city’s DNA. Being able to speak at one of their workshops and share my “journey” feels very full circle.

If you’re in the Bay Area, come spend Thursday May 9th from 1-3 pm, with me, at the San Leandro Chamber or Commerce!