Years ago I hung up the phone with my mother, we were planning the baby shower for my first child who was to arrive in two months.  In what seemed like a minute later the phone rang again, my husband answered. His voice somber, it was my father telling him that my mother was unresponsive and on her way to the hospital. She had suffered a brain aneurysm and as a result was left paraplegic. 

At the same time, I was a top salesperson on wall street and the financial markets began to melt down and they closed our division.  Within three months, I lost my job, had a brand new baby and had to help take care of my mom. But, I knew I had to pull it together and figure out something, but what?

There was no way I could go and get a full time role.  A seasoned sales pro, I tapped into my network.  I told them I could do sales training or marketing and they all said they wanted their websites to come up first in Google searches. I said “Sure!” Thinking “how hard could that be?” Well... it turns out it's pretty hard especially since I didn't even know it was called search engine optimization or anything about it at all!

Much like today – everyone wanted me to read their book or take a course but I thought if I could just find someone to show me I could learn it. and that's what I did – I found someone I paid for their time and I  came up to speed quickly. 

I then parlayed that into a successful consulting practice with SEO and then added social media. That one interaction with an expert planted the seed for the expert advice networks that I have created today, getWise which focuses on Main Street businesses and startups and now channeWise which focuses on the technology channel and enabling and empowering partners to go farther faster in their business.