About the Chef

Hello and welcome! I’m Téa (pronounced Tay’ah)

 

headshot-brickI know you.

You’re like me.

You’ve found your true calling as an entrepreneur, but that long list of marketing-things-the-experts-say-you-must-do makes you itch.

And you swear that if you hear one more time about a Road Map to 6-Figures, you’ll seriously puke.

I soooo get it. I feel like that Every. Single. Day.

 

The truth: I won’t make you promises I can’t keep.

After spending my whole adult life as a marketer, I can tell you the Marketing Industrial Complex is real.

It’s big and slimy and oozing with mediocrity. And it exists solely to feed on our checking accounts.

Thing is, we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

If we don’t find a way to share who we are and what we do, our businesses will fail.

Those dreams and visions we have of changing the world? Those will fail, too.

Also? We don’t all start out creating Purple Cows. Most of us need a little time to jigger things; to clarify what we’re doing and who we serve before we get to kick-ass awesome.

Until then, what we can do is Be Human. Share our stories. Listen to each other. Be there for each other.

That’s why I started Story Bistro.

So I could help small biz owners like you connect their Big Why to those who need to hear about it.

 

My Story

Tea-10_cropped_WEBI’ve spent the last 20+ years of my career up to my eyebrows in getting the various pieces of marketing done. Getting things shipped. Figuring out not just the big picture WHY but the little picture HOW.

In my early 20s, as a self-taught graphic designer (yes, I’m a little geeky) and aspiring author, I was sure I would someday change the world.

And I spent the next two decades attempting to do just that — all the while working my way into upper levels of management.

Along the way I noticed that corporate spin and positioning made my stomach turn. So I switched gears — first to working for a local government; then, a national nonprofit.

I felt a little better, but I still wasn’t happy with the rigmarole, politics and general lack of getting things done.

So I started my own business.

In 2006, I tried my hand at the traditional marketing agency model, specifically serving nonprofits and socially conscious small businesses.

I learned a LOT of lessons with that one — not least of which is that I’m much happier teaching and mentoring than I am doing the work.

So, in 2011, I shifted again with the creation of Word Chef.

Definitely, a lot more fun and fulfilling, but there was too much Internet Marketing crap that rubbed me the wrong way. So I said, No More.

And now here we are at Story Bistro.

I’m still coaching, mentoring and teaching small biz clients — but in a much narrower capacity.

What’s different here is the emphasis on storytelling (and the de-emphasis on traditional marketing stuff like benchmarks, conversion rates, and other sorts of comparisons).

I’m not saying those things aren’t sometimes important. I’m just not interested in championing them.

Never have been.

I’m much more curious about our motivations, conversations and how those build relationships.

In other words, my mission here is to help you learn to tell your most engaging and authentic stories; how to listen deeply to your audience and prospective customers; and how to put all of that together in a way that brings you more clients, more prosperity and more joy.

One of the best ways you can get a taste for that is to join the Story Bistro mailing list.

But Let’s talk about YOU

If you own a small biz and you’re still trying to figure out your stories and how to tell them, I may be the right person to help. But we won’t know until we sit down and chat. I offer a free 20 minute consultation just for that purpose. Here’s where you get started. We’ll talk about where you are now, where you’d like to go, and see if we can pull together two or three priority next steps for you to take. (And those steps might not be with me!)

Need more traditional stuff? Alrighty, then…here’s a fancy pants version of who I am:

Téa Silvestre is all about The Story. Telling them, listening to them and figuring out what they mean.

Tea-30-waysShe’s also the author of “Attract and Feed a Hungry Crowd: How Thinking Like a Chef Can Help You Build a Solid Business.” And the co-author and editor of “30 Ways to Bloom Your Relationships Online.”

Her marketing career began 20+ years ago when she took a job as a copy editor/graphic designer/coffee-getter for a national bank that no longer exists. Over the last two decades, she’s honed her skills and served in high level positions, directing the marketing efforts of city governments and national organizations.

In 2005, she launched her first company, Social Good Marketing, and has walked the entrepreneurial path — helping mission-driven business owners communicate — ever since.

Tea’s writing is often seen on some of the biggest blogs on the Internet, including Copyblogger, Problogger and MarketingProfs.

You can find her in Portland, OR where she spends much of her free time hiking, seeing the latest movies and sharing meals with friends and family.

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If that wasn’t enough for you, here’s my Linkedin profile.

But I waste spend most of my time on Facebook.