About Sky Stover
I am uniquely qualified to help women in business with their online presence because I am a woman in business!
I have been in business for myself since age 12.
I know, I know...I was a young'n!
You're probably wondering who in my life encouraged me to foster an entrepreneurial spirit so young - and the answer to that question is my stepdad!
I wanted a drum set, and my mom and stepdad told me the only way I was getting something like that was if I paid for it myself.
Being 12, I couldn't just get a job (pesky child labor laws...), so I started to think of ways I could make money on my own.
I had shoveled some neighborhood walks during the winters for some extra candy money, but it was summer now. I figured the closest thing would be to mow lawns!
I had a goal in mind and a plan to achieve it, but another obstacle quickly became apparent: We didn't own a lawnmower!
It was then that my stepdad gave me the opportunity of a lifetime: He said that if I could go out and get 10 people to say I could cut their lawns in a week or so, he would invest in my business.
So I went out that very evening and had my very first sales experience.
I don’t think I got quite 10 signatures, but he was impressed enough that we went to K-Mart that night and bought a brand new lawnmower.
I was floored about something none of my middle school friends understood — the ability to work and create my own income.
That summer, I woke up early before any of my friends did while it was still cool enough outside to cut lawns.
It didn’t take me too long to decide that pushing a heavy lawnmower and gas can up record-breaking Beechview Pennsylvania hills at 1 PM with the sun beating down and sweat pouring down my face was a terrible idea.
The number one thing I learned from the experience was the value of a customer, and that I would do anything I could to go above and beyond so that they would hire me again.
After all, I really didn’t like knocking on new doors — I much preferred keeping the customers I had and having them introduce me to their neighbors, which is an ideal I hold in every business I have started since.
The amazing thing?
That summer, I purchased the drum set. It was such a great feeling…and I was hooked.
I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, so I continued to create businesses throughout high school.
My favorite of these businesses was when I was 16: a custom playing card company for magicians (I was a magic nerd in high school).
Naturally, I needed websites for the various businesses I was trying out, but had little money to actually hire someone.
It wasn't easy, but I decided that the best way to go about this was to teach myself to design websites.
My first websites were not pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but I got better with time and practice.
First came the technical know-how, and later came the marketing knowledge to put those skills to practical use.
At around the age of 18, I began investing as much time and money as I could in my marketing education.
By this point, I had decided that college wasn't for me. I was getting real, hands-on experience. In my mind, nothing could replace that.
I took it upon myself to begin networking, to start reading all of the books and taking all of the courses.
I quickly amassed a wealth of marketing knowledge that I was applying to my actual real-world business (at this time, I was performing magic full-time at corporate and non-profit events).
“Hey! You seem to be really good at marketing and building websites..do you think you would want to work on mine?”
I began hearing this all the time. At first, designing websites for others was just something I did for extra cash.
Not long after, this "side business" overtook my main business entirely. I was making more money in my pajamas than I was getting dressed up and performing magic on my weekends.
My biggest strength starting out as a Web Designer was having empathy for what it's like to be passionate about a business but know nothing about Websites.
As a result, it’s important to me that I always explain things in a way that anybody could understand.
I was able to break down what I did countless times for myself into a 5-step process that I now take all of my clients through.
And because I didn’t go to any kind of school for Web design or marketing, I was creating this business from the ground up in a way that was entirely unique from my competitors. Mostly because I just didn’t have any clue what they were doing.
(as it turns out, it was overcharging for bad websites and technical mumbo-jumbo)
What I did was take my knowledge and first-hand experience and put it into a step-by-step system that allows me to help passionate business owners create Websites that position themselves as trusted authorities, using tools that allow me to teach them how to edit the content as easily as you would edit a word document.
This is the crux of what differentiates me from any other web designer you are going to meet:
- I was a business owner first and a web designer later. I know what it means to be an entrepreneur because I have been one my entire life.
- I'm a people-person and enjoy translating techy stuff into a language that anyone can understand.
- I'm a woman, which frankly is lacking in this industry. I run my business with empathy.
- I've been designing websites since I was 14 years old.
Today, I focus my attention primarily on helping women coaches and consultants share their stories and build their businesses online.
I do this through my full strategic website design packages as well as my affordable no-contract website maintenance plans.