Gerald Grinter, Neighbor

What I am is an entrepreneur/business mentor who started an insurance agency from scratch and ten years later sold my business for more than I ever imagined, which is pretty impressive when you consider that I did not set out to build a business to sell.

Once I became a full-fledged entrepreneur/business mentor and began looking at the world through that lens, I began seeing needs going unmet, and now package myself as the solution to those needs. Ever a believer in technology and having identified the need to provide e-services to my existing mentees, I created YouGoGirlSolutions.com to extend my effectiveness by offering a range of on-line business education and support to women business owners. As that developed and I got more into Washington CASH, I learned that they turned away a number of applicants who were overqualified for the program. I expanded "You Go Girl Solutions and in January 2011 created "The Twelfth Power Consulting" to provide the same solutions that Washington CASH did for those potential business owners that were being turned away.

Not only is volunteering personally satisfying; it can be professionally profitable as well. Two years before I sold my insurance agency, I taught quarterly classes on commercial insurance basics for aspiring business owners through the boot-strapping micro-loan non-profit Washington CASH. After about a year, I jumped at the honor and opportunity to step up my game when the executive director invited me to become a business mentor. I got to help my mentees write their business and marketing plans, develop and implement their new sales strategies, and was treated to a ringside seat as eight new businesses were born and took their first new steps. A co-mentor and I now support fifteen new business owners.