Rakia Reynolds delivers a personal, anecdotal talk about building her brand and company, Sky Blue Media. She recounts overcoming a childhood learning disability, early media work, and a difficult period that motivated her to start her agency in 2009. The core of the talk is a set of "10 small business commandments"—practical rules (authenticity, transparency, knowing your value, surrounding yourself with supporters, controlling your narrative, etc.)—framed as actionable guidance for entrepreneurs and personal-brand builders.
Hi, everyone. I just want to say Woo Sa. Woo Sa. It has been an emotional week for a lot of us. Snap if you agree, but clap. Give me a clap. Because I like snaps and claps. Give me a clap. If you are hopeful and you believe that this is just another process or position and our global positioning to the road that we're traveling on. Yes, yes. I like claps because it means that you're hopeful, but in my Drake voice, because I like Drake. Oh, what a time to be alive. This is my first time at Inbound. My first time in Boston. Yay. Give it up for Boston. Lots of great Instagram moments here. It's a really pretty city. But, you know, we live in a world where perception is reality and reality is sometimes perception. So I want to tell you why I'm here and maybe why I wear so much blue. The name of my company is called Sky Blue Media, and blue is the color of trust, honesty, and sincerity. So I like to say that I keep it 100. So what I'm going to do is give you a little bit of the glory and tell you a little bit of my story. So the glory is that I own this awesome multimedia communications agency, and I've worked with big brands like Dell and Uber and Forbes and Global Citizen and Serena Williams, who did a keynote yesterday, and Marley Dyess, who's going to be speaking later on, Ashley Graham. And the list goes on and on. But the story is that it took me a really long time to get here. So I'm a black woman, I'm a Christian, I'm a mother, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a risk taker. But very early on, I was diagnosed with a learning disability and adhd. And when you are diagnosed at a very young age with a learning disability, it puts certain limitations on your life. You don't have confidence, it breaks your confidence. And I will tell you that I graduated from college by the same skin of my teeth. It's bad because I say that and my daughter sitting here in the front row. But I graduated college by the skin of my teeth, but I pushed through it. I went on to be a television producer because there was something when I had this learning disability when I was younger, I wasn't able to write papers, so my dad bought me a video camera so that I could act things out. So I didn't know in the fourth and fifth grade that I was really a television producer. He let me videotape things. That was the way that I communicated my messaging. So I became after I Graduated from college, I became a television producer, I became a magazine producer. And then I got complacent and I got into a regular traditional PR agency. Sorry if you work for a traditional PR agency, but I got into a traditional PR agency and then I got bored and said, you know what? I'm going to dictate my own destiny. I'm going to be who I want to be. I went back into television and I was laid off. And let me tell you something. When you're broke and negative dollars in the bank, eating peanut butter and jelly and tuna fish, pregnant with your second child, there's something about that that provokes the power in you. There's something about that that makes you say, I want to build something, I want to do something great. I want to sustain it, and I want to blow it out of the water. And to me, that is successful. Success to me is attempting, making every attempt to be great. Not just saying I'm great and I'm super successful and I've achieved all of my goals, but it's making every attempt to be great. So when I started my company in 2009, I attempted to do all of these things and be great. And I wrote a set of rules for myself. Now, the content hasn't changed, but the context usually change because there's different ebbs and flows in the business. So my 10 small business commandments are, be authentic. People want the real you. There's something about a law of attraction. There are enough aspirational people out here. Be relatable. People want the real you. Be honest with yourself and other people. There's something about that authenticity. And when you're honest with yourself and you can assure people who you are, you can communicate what your brand story is. And you never know who you're inspiring by talking about your missteps. I always say, be ready with the next steps plan. My mother used to always say, rekia. You want to be on every ship that sails. And I could have taken that as rekiya. You want to be a part of everything. You're scatterbrained. But what I took it as is a strategic way for myself to predict and plan for failure. Know your value proposition. So just like you know your name and your elevator pitch, you have to be ready at all times to communicate with what makes you unique and what your competitive advantage is. Surround yourself with people that believe in your purpose, position, and plan. I call them my friend tours. It is a term that my chief of staff came up with. And it's a mixture of Friends and mentors and family that will keep it real with you and tell you when you're doing something wrong and when you're doing something great. Now, this is my family here. There are some good friends. There are some good friend tours and friends. And then my team, that's my chief of staff that came up with the red hair, that came up with the term mentor. I say be transparent. Be transparent. That's a little different than being authentic. People have to see through you to get to you. You have to be able to work with people that you can relate to. And being transparent is the way that you disclose information. But you must be able to know when to fog up your glass. You have to know how to control your narrative to the point where you are protected and you are protecting your message. This is important. Be very careful about complaining. Not every hello and how are you? Is an opportunity for you to talk about the fight that you had with your significant other the night before or use your social media platforms to word vomit about your horrible week. It's not attractive. Make yourself a commodity. It's a simple economic fundamental principle that when there's a low supply, it's higher demand. So do everything in your power to make yourself a commodity. And then my last one, and I always say, people want more of you when they have less access to you. Make a plan to be great. So just like you have a business plan for yourself, you also have to have a life plan for yourself. Every road that you go down will have hidden nails in the road that may flatten your tires. Sometimes you will download the wrong directions. But if you equip yourself, you equip yourself with the tools and the wherewithal and the know how to recalculate and reroute. That's what we call success. Thank you.
