Jerrilynn B. Thomas

My business passion is facilitating lucrative cross marketing partnerships between complementary business and professional women so they can strategically expand their female client base while reducing the amount of time and money it takes to market their companies.

Entrepreneurial Journey: Fresh out of college and newly married, I discovered that I was pregnant with twins in 1988. I was living in a new state with no family to lean on. The news constantly had stories of day care providers and babysitters who were neglecting and abusing children. I used my nine months wisely by doing research and taking stock of my skills and interests to determine what the best home-based business would be for me.

Since high school, I was fascinated by PR and I loved writing. My college course in PR only reinforced my love for it. Being able to get free advertising in newspapers and on TV was simply ingenious to me. I decided that the perfect business for me was writing business profiles for new female entrepreneurs that they could send to the media as well as include in their brochures and newsletters. I selected mompreneurs as my specialty since I had an affinity for women who wanted to fulfill their dream of starting their own business so they could afford to quit their jobs and be at home with their children.

I sent a PSA to 104.7 in Atlanta to draw attention to the fact that women who wanted to jump into the entrepreneurial arena so they could afford to stay home with their children could use their job skills to start the perfect home-based business. Two weeks later I was invited to do a radio interview to share tips with aspiring mompreneurs. The interview generated over 400 calls and tied up my voice mail for weeks.

I had prospective clients who were ready to hire me. I quickly came up with a business name, Mothers INC, and started servicing clients. I created a mompreneur support group to convert prospects into paying clients. I parlayed the radio interview into a newspaper interview by sharing my story with the editor of the Clayton News Daily about how I started my business for less than $10 by simply purchasing nice stationary and a stamp so I could send an impressive PSA which landed me dozens of clients. I used the newspaper interview to get a TV interview on a local station.

A couple of years later I decided that I want to branch into a broader female audience so I morphed Mothers INC into Savvy Female Entrepreneur by giving a women’s business conference to make a big splash. Savvy Female Entrepreneur distributed women’s business profiles exclusively via fax. Women paid to have their profiles and news included. When one of my clients suggested that I use email to distribute the profiles, I blew her off. It was the early 90’s and I was clueless about the power of email. I continued for about a year using the fax platform until I grew tired of fax errors and other pitfalls. I took a short break to do research and learn about the Internet.

It was a fantastic learning experience that dramatically changed my life. I was exposed to business women around the globe via bulletin boards and discussion lists that were interested in using my services to reach other entrepreneurial minded women. I simplified my business name by becoming Jerrilynn B. Thomas Public Relations. I learned HTML and created my own web site. It was empowering.

It laid the foundation for several more name changes and modifications (women’s business network, news bureau, magazine, and women’s chamber) to keep up with the ever changing Internet. Seven years as the founder of an online women’s chamber, International Virtual Women’s Chamber of Commerce, (a story in itself) prepared me for the social networking evolution. I was able to promote women owned businesses while disseminating their knowledge so that we all increased our online business savvy. Social networking sites and the recession changed the way women distributed their news and networked online. I had to either morph or close my doors.

Women were complaining about losing clients and not having enough money to continue marketing and advertising. I decided to use their lack of funds and struggle to get new clients to my advantage. I transformed the women’s chamber into Marketing 2 Women International to help women share the cost of marketing and advertising to grow their female client base. It’s an educational process that is beginning to pay off tenfold for me. I learned the hard way that you can’t just tell someone that they need to change their solo marketing habits to keep their pipelines full. You have to show them how to do it. The economy is bouncing back. Confidence is up among consumers and business owners. But women still aren't partnering at the level they should be.

My newest project is the One Million Woman Link Up. It will help 1,000,000 business and professional women monetize their LinkedIn membership by cross pollinating their connections so they can fill their seats, coaching hours,