Last week marked the third anniversary of Get Your Pretty On. Three years have flown by and so much has happened both personally and professionally in that time. Our oldest child graduated and moved off to college, I got laid off from corporate America and received the blessing of being able to pursue my passion full-time, and this little fledgling “hobby” blog grew from nothing to a combined 38,000 subscribers on e-mail/social media and over 1.5 million page views per year.
Not only that but it’s gone from a space created for my own accountability – where I shared my daily outfits and journey out of my mom rut – into a resource for women everywhere who are rediscovering style. GYPO now has readers in over 200 countries. Over 6,000 women have participated in the GYPO Style Challenge from all over the world including Canada, Finland, Germany, UK, New Zealand and Australia. We have a global community of style sisters who are the kindest women I’ve ever encountered anywhere.
Honestly I’m totally blown away when I stop to think about it.
But a lot has stayed the same too. I still do all of the blogging here and it’s been one of my favorite things to do since day one. Plus I get to do one of my other favorite things which is share advice and the things that I’ve learned along the way. The GYPO Style Challenge is just the icing on the cake. It gives me another opportunity to be creative but more importantly to make a difference in the lives of other women – something that humbles me on a daily basis.
Year One was all about figuring out blogging and my place in what felt like a foreign land. Year Two was the beginning of the Style Challenge, a huge amount of growth and being behind the 8 ball trying to keep up with it all. Year Three has been about getting the right systems and support in place to properly take care of everyone.
I’m starting to finally feel like I can breathe.
One of the biggest changes over the past three years is that I no longer go it alone. I now have the amazing support of Team GYPO for all of the growth and change that’s taken place and there’s no better feeling. The girls on my support team allow me to free up my time to focus on creativity and community building.
I’d love to introduce you to them today.
Customer Concierge/All Around Assistant – Kathryn
Kathryn is my right hand girl and primarily handles admin, technical and customer support. Her job is to keep customers happy, manage my inbox and make sure nobody falls through the cracks. She’s known to log in after hours and on weekends to help get issues resolved because she shares my belief that our customers should always feel taken care of. If you didn’t get a style challenge e-mail, Kathryn finds out why and fixes it. If you can’t log into the membership site, Kathryn gets you in. If you need to change your e-mail address or have a billing question, Kathryn’s got you covered.
Kathryn is my front line with customers, which means I can relax knowing they’re well cared for. In addition, she handles our affiliate program, assists with loading social media content, manages the Pretty Strong program and is your girl when it comes to all customer-facing issues. In short, Kathryn is the Wonder Woman behind GYPO. She’s a hard worker, very motivated and always willing to learn something new.
Community Manager (Facebook) – Bebe Walder
Each GYPO Style Challenge includes a private Facebook group of up to 1,800 women to manage. As you can imagine, this could be a very daunting task for me to handle on my own. Thankfully, I have my Super Woman Bebe Walder to assist with this.
Bebe is the heart and soul of our Facebook community. She communicates and enforces our community guidelines, coordinates giveaways and fun weekly themes, reviews, responds to and moderates comments, engages our community, adds new group members and coordinates and attends local live events like Girls’ Nights Out and media appearances. Bebe is the perfect combination of honesty and directness combined with love, support and encouragement.
GYPO Style Challenge Launch Team
In addition to Kathryn and Bebe I have four talented tech experts that are members of the “behind the scenes launch team” for the GYPO Style Challenge. These girls take care of everything from technical issues on the membership site to graphic and web design, web development and advertising.
The New GYPO Headquarters
Want to know a secret? For the past three years, I’ve been working from my kitchen table. I made the decision that Year Three was the year that I deserved an upgraded work space that allows me to be more organized and creative.
I’m happy to say that I now have a space that’s a true reflection of me and a joy to work in. My new home office is girly, serene and comfortable with just the right touch of glam.
Welcome to my new office. Come on in!
Thank You
Thank you for being a part of the GYPO journey, whether you’ve been here since day one or just recently found me. These past three years have been nothing short of a dream. I get to do what I love with people that I love. There’s honestly nothing else I’d rather do, this is truly my dream job.
I can’t thank you enough for being here and making this dream a reality.
