We were lucky to catch up with Cee Lashley recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Cee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with something countless entrepreneurs have had to figure out on the fly – how have you dealt with the rise of remote work?
Before the height of the pandemic #lifeasasocialite did events regularly as part of our client campaigns so when quarantine arrived, I shifted focus to all things digital in marketing and branding. The blessing is that we were already managing several clients’ social media prior to quarantine. I took that “lockdown” time period to focus on learning to create visually engaging assets and mixed media content for Reels, Stories and TikTok. That digital skill development enabled the company to diversify our clients, expand our services offerings and take clients outside of Atlanta. Services for social media management, online campaigns and virtual employee onboarding proved successful during those times. Even as things are opening back up we are retaining and growing our digital client base.
Cee , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am originally from Montgomery, AL, born and raised. Atlanta adopted me in the early
2000s and I am currently in Puerto Rico.
My journey as an entrepreneur began while in college working with my uncle at a club he opened. He taught me the ins and outs of business and let me throw parties there with my friends. I learned a lot of core business processes under my Uncle Mike’s guidance.
I decided to relocate to Atlanta after my daughter was born and began waiting tables at Up the Creek on Cascade Road. Everybody from Atlanta knows that Up the Creek! Ha. This job was important in my journey because other than my Uncle, this was the first manager who shared knowledge and didn’t play gatekeeper with pertinent info as he saw I was eager to know things about this business.
I started promoting parties about a year after I began working in Atlanta. I had previously thrown parties before at Alabama State (shoutout 4 the Team), and was eager to get into the entertainment industry and obviously in Atlanta the nightlife is where the real networking happens.
I met Skip Smith, an incredible art legend who has done art for everyone from George López to Lil Jon, at my very first Atlanta promoted event and after about a year of nagging him persuaded him to be a mentor to me. Under his mentorship I learned to navigate the Atlanta industry and nightlife scene with integrity and was able to be in rooms and places I’d only dreamed of as a kid.
I continued working at restaurants and started delving deeper into the promotion game, with one of my first residencies being a dope art house vibe at a wonderful black owned spot called Endenu. It was located in downtown Atlanta and Skip was good friends with the owners. We hosted a hybrid event series that blended open mic, art slam and DJ party formats.
It was very successful and we showcased some of the music industry’s brightest and biggest talents from Big Krit, Sean Falyon and Hotsauce (pka Hollywood Hotsauce) who would later go on to write and produce for Rihanna, Diddy, Robin Thicke and more.
I continued working in nightlife and hospitality for continued investment into social currency, but began to focus more on creating innovative branding and marketing for customer service businesses. I began noticing the current businesses I was working with were not really implementing tactics to maximize their current and potential clients even though business was technically “good”. About a decade ago, the opportunity was presented for me to venture in brand marketing for different wine and spirits brands. My restaurant and nightlife network proved to be worth its weight in gold as it helped grow my marketing progress and sales impact exponentially.
These successes provided other awesome opportunities from Saks Fifth Avenue, Giorgio Armani, Bobbi Brown and W Hotels. From there it’s only been up.
As a company #lifeasasocialite now focuses on all aspects of digital marketing and branding and have a expanded our client roster to include yoga studio, short term rental properties, cafes, insurance agencies, independent artists and more.
What sets us apart from other consulting companies are a few key things:
1) our extensive experience in executive management and Human Resources. We have in depth knowledge on budgets, P&L, operations and more. Therefore, our strategies are based less on happenstance and hypothesis’ and more on tangible and achievable goals.
2) our entire approach to each client is hyper personalized versus using carbon copy techniques. We assess needs or opportunities from the mindset of a consumer which enables us to be extremely effective in a shorter period of time.
3) CONSTANT market research. As a consultant you never really turn your brain off so traveling and dining frequently enables one to have consumer experiences that whether it be positive or negative adds value to current and potential clients as it sparks ideas on strategies to implement or remove.
Our research has shown that most small businesses miss somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of revenue quarterly due to oversight on details or just lacking the knowledge of the ever changing landscape of reaching consumers effectively. Our business model is founded on helping you find as much of that percentage as possible in Q1 of our consultancy to cover our cost and help them see profit increase. It’s a win win.
What I’m most proud of with what #lifeasasocialite has done is the level of heartfelt, gleaming testimonials from clients. When I started this journey, I always felt it was possible to be an effective entrepreneur along with making a positive impact financially for small businesses and that they see clear success from the investment of using our services. We have been able to do that for customers repeatedly. That’s the greatest continued fulfillment. .
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Consistency, consistency, consistency!. I am consistent in my due diligence as a consultant. Whether it’s algorithm trends on social media or current consumer habits, I make it my business to always be in the know on what the latest is so that I can be as positively impactful to my clients business as possible.
I am consistent with my strategies. Hyper personalization is my only focus. My belief is that EVERY business offers something unique to a unique consumer or a unique attribute within all consumers. My only goal when taking on a client is to find, personalize and amplify that uniqueness.
Last but not least, I am consistent with results.. I very humbly, yet very confidently say I have no clients present or past that have not seen radical results with their first 60-90 days of hiring me.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
I’’d have to say it’s referrals. Ironically that’s not necessarily a strategy in itself but the intentional love and care I pour into each client yields the type of positive results that prompt them to tell other businesses about what we do. I’m blessed to operate a company that thrives primarily off of referrals.
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InvertTheWorld lifeasasocialite
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