Meet the St. Pete Girl Bosses, where women support each other’s businesses

More than 50 women sat around in a circle inside the entrance hall of the St. Petersburg Municipal Theater on a Friday morning for a meeting of the St. Pete Girl Bosses.

The networking group’s communications director, Taylor Adams, walked into the circle with a microphone in hand, wearing pink earrings that read, “Screw it on.” Let’s do it.’ She started the meeting.

“We’re the largest, fastest growing, sexiest women’s entrepreneurship group in the Tampa Bay area,” she introduced the group. The women around her applauded.

The theater venue was a step up from the Crislip Cafe on Central Avenue where the St. Pete Girl Bosses began meeting nearly a year ago. The networking organization overtook the space as word of mouth spread – women business owners came together to be cheerleaders for each other in their businesses.

The St. Pete Girl Bosses Facebook group has grown to over 3,100 members since its launch. About 160 people are part of a paid membership program that began last summer. The group also launched its own podcast called “Bosscast” at the end of the year.

As they do every week, the St. Pete Girl Bosses meet at the theater on Friday mornings to discuss a specific topic. At the beginning of December, they focused on the themes of the use of social media and other online tools. The meeting began with leaders announcing its first Wellness Passport, members could purchase to gain access to nearly a dozen life coaches, energy readers or psychics – all of whom are women.

Then they broke into small groups — which paired women from a variety of industries, like real estate, coffee bean distribution, CBD retail, yoga and more — to jot down advice on pink sticky notes. They anonymously shared their notes with a random person in the room. They then discussed their earnings for the week, the online tools that have helped them run their business, and how chasing money can distract them from their missions.

Although many women came for the networking, several members said they stayed because they found people who understood what they were dealing with. The group’s sense of community has made it a safe space to make friends and get feedback on their work.

Founder Sandy Bean, 45, said she started the group after going from teacher to owner of an academic enrichment center for gifted students – realizing she lacked community during the process.

While psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs prioritizes security and consistency, Bean said, new entrepreneurs typically invert the pyramid to focus on self-actualization and sacrifice security in order to achieve goals. commercial. Having a community to lean on is key to rebuilding those safety nets, she said.

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Bean said she tried other networking groups, but found it hard to forge real friendships. She noticed that some women were not being heard.

“Go to these networking groups, women, they are so brilliant. But they can’t always talk,” Bean said. “It’s just different when you’re in a mixed crowd. I’m not trying to throw men under the bus or anything, but it’s just different.

So Bean invited five other women she already knew to meet at the cafe and started a Facebook group, choosing the name St. Pete Girl Bosses “ironically.” She was hoping maybe 20 people would sign up. Within days, she said there were a few hundred in the group, then a thousand. Now there are women from Dunedin, Sarasota and even Lakeland coming to the meetings.

“We started to organize in-person workshops and volunteer events, and [St. Pete Girl Bosses] quickly turned into a business that was not at all what I expected so quickly,” Bean said.

For Clara Clayton, a 57-year-old wellness coach, she said many of the networking groups she was part of shut down during COVID-19 and never restarted.

At first, Clayton joined the Facebook group and started attending Zoom coworking sessions. Then she started attending happy hour events before joining the big weekly get-togethers.

The group helped her find new clients and also advice when she needed it. She loved St. Pete Girl Bosses so much that she became its ambassador.

“It’s not just about exchanging business cards. It’s about building deep relationships. says Clayton. “Going over cold runs is not for me.”

Many local women entrepreneurs struggle with a lack of education in business practices that are outside of their expertise – such as selling, marketing or pricing their products – or accessing investors and resources. the community, said Jennifer Schultz, St. Pete Girl Bosses vice president and owner of The Crislip and the cafe’s adjoining gift shop, The Merchant.

“The magic of this group allows me to find other experts in areas that can help educate me and other women in areas that may not be our strong suit,” said Schultz said. “I never want to be the smartest person in the room, I want to meet other people who can help me learn and help other women learn.”

Many women also collaborate and visit each other’s stores or book sessions with each other.

A health insurance agent shared with her small group that the highlight of her week was that every appointment she had in the past seven days had been booked by a patron.

When Central Avenue home decor and gift shop The Canary opened in November, owner Allie Padin credited the group for helping connect her to a commercial real estate agent, a property attorney small businesses and a general contractor, which helped speed up the start-up of his business. pitch.

Schultz held a pop-up at her shop over the holiday season in support of fellow “girl boss” flower arranging business, The Roaming Petal.

Erica Holland, 29, of Roaming Petal, said the group helped her triple her network in a short time and opened up new opportunities for her to collaborate with other local businesses like The Merchant.

“I run my business on my own, it’s just me,” Holland, 29, said. everything in entrepreneurship was really helpful to have that here.