The new Magnolias West website is live!
It’s been quite a journey.
The new website launched on the Friday of a three-day weekend.
Some say a holiday weekend is a bad time to launch, because people may be doing other things over the holiday and miss the launch announcement. Nope. Here’s my secret magic power tip: The day before a long weekend is the best time to launch, because if anything goes wrong, you’ll have more time to fix it and less eyes on you as you do!
For nearly three hours on that afternoon I sat in a circle with my brilliant web developer partner Anca Mosoiu and my css genius Nancy Brink, all three of us logged in as me with our laptops blazing away.
Picture it:
I’m making last-minute css tweaks. Anca’s making one final backup, then moving files and changing all the codes and pointers (simplified terms) that need to change so the new website displays instead of the old. And Nancy is on chat support with the host to solve the few mysterious errors that arose.
All at once. Making magic. And it worked, as you can see. I am so grateful!
My village is even bigger than that.
It truly does take a village.
If it wasn’t for the wisdom teachers with whom I’ve studied I would never have gotten to this point. This new Magnolias West website exists because it was time for me to uplevel my business, my brand, my offers, and my work in the world, so that I can be of service doing what I was born to do for the right people, sustainably and beautifully.
It’s been a long and bumpy road, this upleveling and rebranding, as you know if you followed my Anatomy of a Rebrand series (here are the posts: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6).
The new Magnolias West website was created, gestated, and midwifed through an eight-month process. Everything was reviewed, reshaped, reconcepted, rewritten, and redesigned.
I get it that this might sound like a very long timeline, and it is. Mainly because when I’m my own client, I can afford to allow for the slow unfolding and development of ideas. When you’re my client, sister, you drive the timeline. Together we come up with the perfect mix of slow simmer and get-it-done to make magic in a timely and thoroughly thought-out way.
I used to be a web designer. Now I help you Priestess Your Brand and Your Website. I used to be a business coach and a life coach. Now I help you Priestess Your Life. Similar activities, and an entirely different, holistic, badass approach.
I am very grateful for my teachers.
What a perfect time to acknowledge the powerful wisdom that these nine people have passed on to me in their classes, courses, and coaching.
These people are amazing, and if you don’t know them now, you should. Just sayin’…
Here we go, in an order that makes sense to me:
- Mark Silver. I’ve taken a ton of Mark’s courses. I’ve learned about starting and building a business, finding and growing a tribe of fans and clients, how to do marketing and networking from a light and generous heart, how to set pricing (no dartboard needed), and more. Just about everything I have learned has become a significant part of the work I do today in Priestess Your Brand.
- Yollana Shore was my coach for over three years. She helped me shape the previous iteration of Magnolias West, in which I first began to weave together my skills and experience as a web designer and as a coach (which led me to the Priestess work I’m doing today). She also supported me on my healing journey through the serious health crises I walked through during our time together.
- Molly Gordon. I have taken classes with Molly and done individual coaching with her. She’s brilliant, wise, funny, and I feel like she’s a sister and a friend. It’s a treat to work with someone close to my own age (that’s rare!), someone who has been around a few of the same blocks I have. I’m privileged to be in an ongoing group with Molly where we’re exploring her work with the Three Principles.
- Isabel Parlett. Although I have had but one brief working experience with Isabel, her way of working with me to elicit from my heart, gut, and soul the words that were important to my brand story and message made a huge impact on me. I continue to use Isabel’s techniques in my work today, and I just eagerly enrolled in her upcoming Wild Business Writing Retreat.
- Jen Louden. I’ve taken online and face-to-face writing workshops with Jen. I also immersed myself in her group course called The Shero’s Journey, where I learned the powerful concept of “conditions of enoughness.” Beyond the content of Jen’s classes, which has always been revealing and liberating, my experiences with her have taught me how to share my best stuff with love, transparency, and truth.
- Amethyst Mahoney is my favorite spiritual badass. She has taught me everything I know about using Facebook for marketing and community building and engagement. She is fearless, wicked smart, and an amazing teacher and exemplar of how to be generous in business and keep good boundaries. I am proud to be in badass sisterhood with this woman.
- Jason Stein is a mensch, and a great example of how to pay it forward in social media. Jason’s Monday Morning Minute videos are brilliant teachings presented as short and funny videos. I treated myself to one of Jason’s Chocolate Strategy Sessions (brilliant; I got to pay in chocolate!) and got a ton of help in my rebrand process.
- Paul Zelizer was my coach through the first seven months of the upleveling journey that brought to the current iteration of my brand. I never really understood what “brand story” was until I began to work with Paul. Now I know, and teach, that in order to create a solid, resonant, and integrated visual brand and marketing strategy, the brand story development is the thing you do first.
- Lisa Robbin Young is my current coach and business strategist. In calendar time, we’re only in our third month of working together, yet it’s been so solid, and we’ve accomplished so much so far that it feels like much longer than that. I have never tried to work in a business incubator process before, and I am so glad I found this opportunity. I’m leaning on Lisa as I take these big-deal growth steps in my business.
Okay, now you know. I’m happy to introduce you to my team. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Have you worked with any of these amazing folks? What was your experience like?
We’re coming up on Beltaine—the first of May—the pagan festival that honors new life and growth. It’s said that the veils between the worlds are thinnest around Beltaine, just as they are at Samhain time at the end of October. (We’re more used to thinking of our beloved dead at Samhain time, with all its attendant symbols of skulls, and skeletons, and coffins, but here at the opposite spot on the Wheel of the Year, the veils thin again.)
