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Name: Shannon DePalma

Business: Shannon DePalma Coaching

Location: Nutley, New Jersey, U.S.

Industry: Marketing & PR

Reason for starting? Before starting Shannon DePalma Coaching, I was a floral designer and there was a lack of marketing for wedding professionals – I couldn’t find anything about this industry! Once I started to learn about marketing strategy goals, I wanted everyone in my wedding industry to know how to do this too. I wanted to show other entrepreneurs that they didn’t have to struggle and they can get support.

Related: Read about another marketing strategist here. 

How do you define success? Success to me means you love the work that you do and you still create time for your family. It means finding a balance, changing people’s lives, and being in the moment where ever you are.

Biggest success: My biggest success to date was selling my previous floral design business in 2 years. I made back 15x my investment and gave a new beginning to other people.

What is your top challenge and how you have addressed it? My top challenge has been looking at numbers financially! I never used to go through my business numbers every month to see what came in, what went out, what worked and what didn’t. Once I faced everything head on, my life became a lot easier. I knew what my financial goals were and created strategies on how to achieve them.

I was a child of poverty, born into the projects, raised by a single mom, and I carried around this story that “I was born poor, I’ll always be poor.” I used to be sabotage myself and created bad spending habits because I was always poor. That affected my business spending.

Related: Four Ideas for Jumpstarting Good Design 

Who is your most important role model? My role model is Marie Forleo. She took this crazy thing called an online business and turned it into an empire. She paved the way for the rest of us online female entrepreneurs.

[box_light]Website   www.shannondepalma.com
Facebook   www.Facebook.com/shannondepalmacoaching[/box_light]

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Edited by The Story Exchange