Sylvia Montgomery With SiMMs Solutions for Business & Life, LLC

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Richmond, Virginia. It’s time for Richmond Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Lee Kantor here another episode of Richmond Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor works by consulting solutions, supporting women to lean into their purpose, craft their vision and crush their goals. Today on Richmond Business Radio, we have Sylvia Montgomery with SiMMs Solutions for Business and Life. Welcome, Sylvia.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:00:43] Hello, Lee. How are you today?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about SiMMs. How are you serving folks?

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:00:52] So Sims Solutions is just that. It’s an opportunity to help provide solutions to individuals and businesses, particularly small businesses, because it’s life is hard enough, right? It’s not easy. And so when we have the opportunity to provide solutions or to help in any way, then I just find it an awesome thing to be able to do that. And the solutions I provide are around content creation and copy editing, and that’s particularly to businesses or entrepreneurs who for one reason or another, they may not have time to really take the time to create the copy that they need, the content that they need for their business. And anyone in business knows that content is extremely important in anything that you do. So what I do is I step in there and I help to create that content. And that content can be in just about any form. It can be blog post, social media, email campaigns, news releases, even websites. So anything that a business needs, oftentimes there just isn’t time. And especially with small businesses because we were 1001 hats, right? So just being able to provide that type of help and those types of solutions to businesses, you know, is extremely important. And I also work in the way of copyediting. So when you need someone to look over your work, when you need someone to look over your websites and things of that nature, I also edit books, manuscripts.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:02:40] So for individuals who are trying to create that next project, that next book project, I’m also available to that. And I’ve helped quite a few businesses over the past couple of years as well as have edited 28 book projects. So, you know, I find that very you know, I love writing and I love proofing. So that’s just something that I love to do. But I really like helping other people to live their best lives and reach their best selves as well. I also provide informational blogs that are very beneficial and useful to businesses, to entrepreneurs who are trying to find solutions to some of their challenges that they have around business. And I am a podcast host where I interview entrepreneurs so that they can help encourage and motivate other entrepreneurs or who are just trying to get started or just getting started. Oftentimes there are people who want to get started in business, but there are so many challenges they see before them and they’re not quite sure what to do, how to do things. And so my weekly podcast helps to inspire, motivate, encourage and provide solutions by even giving them people that they can sort of relate to, associate with and even go to if they need to.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:04:10] So to provide assistance in that way. And then the other thing I do really is because I’m so focused on purpose, I believe that. No one can really be truly happy or fulfilled in life if they are not living their purpose. And I don’t care what it is we’re doing in life. I work in the federal government for 30 years, and even in doing that, I was not fulfilling my purpose. It is not. It’s just been these past few years when I went on my entrepreneur journey that I am now evolving into the person that I was meant to be in fulfilling my purpose. And so I am on a mission to help others do that as well. So I’ve created a purpose course. I’m an Introverts guide to finding purpose to help introverts extroverts. It really doesn’t matter who you are. I just believe that you will not live your best life until you are fully living in your purpose. And so I provide that opportunity as well. So I’m just really excited right now about the opportunities to come to help other people, and I just want to do it as often as I can for whomever I can.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] So let’s dig in a little deeper when it comes to purpose. And I agree with you 100%. If you’re aligned with your purpose, then life is a lot easier and it’s a lot more fulfilling. Do you have any advice for the folks out there who might be struggling, who might be frustrated in the life they’re leading on how to kind of know when you’re on the right track and that you are kind of living a life of purpose or there are some things, are there some clues or some work they can do right now to help them kind of identify what their true north is or should be?

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:06:00] So it’s you know, it’s sort of a tricky question because a lot of times we can be doing things or we can be living a certain way and we find ourselves happy in doing that and we feel a little content and especially if, you know, if everything’s going well for us and if we’re busy, right? It just seems like we’re always having something to do. We’re always on the go. A lot of times that leaves us with not much time to really think about what we’re doing and how we’re living. And if we’re really, really fully happy with what we’re doing with our lives. So I’d say there are quite a few things that we really need to do within us to really a certain whether or not we’re on the path that we’re meant to be. And, you know, even with my course, I have people go back as far back as they can early in their childhood to just really think about what their dreams were when they were small. Because when we’re young, that’s when we’re our authentic selves, right? That’s when we are truly our best selves. We’re young and we’re thinking or thinking outside the box. It’s like no limits, right? And the sky’s the limit for us. But as we get older, we find that as we get older, we go through life.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:07:24] Life happens. Reality sets in. And all those dreams that we used to have, we no longer have them. We may still have them, but we don’t feel as compelled to move forward with trying to fulfill those dreams because life can hit us hard. And when it does, we tend to feel that that’s just not possible. So one of the things I tell people is go back to your young self, because if we go back there, that is where so many of our answers lie. We can do that. One of the things that I did, even though, like I said, I was in the federal government for 30 years, I always felt myself doing things on the side and I always had people coming to me asking me certain things, certain questions, as if they knew I could help them. I didn’t have solutions then, but it was always as if and even now, you know, people still come to me with certain things. And when that happens, if they come to me enough with those things, then I know that’s what I need to figure out how to do for that individual, or that’s what I need to figure out how to do for more people as part of my solutions package. But a lot of times the answers are right around us. The answers are there.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:08:45] We’re either not paying attention or we just don’t want to give into it. Because again, when we truly live our purpose, it’s hard. Purpose is not easy. It’s a challenge. And a lot of times we just want to avoid it because we feel that it is too challenging. And that’s why my podcast, I feel, is just so important because it helps people to understand the challenges are going to come in life regardless of what you do. Everyone has challenges, even those who have been successful in being able to live the life that they were meant to live have had challenges. But we talk about how we get over those challenges and we talk about how to get through those things. Even when you’re not living your purpose, you’re going to have challenges. You know something? One of my guests recently said is that choose your heart. Choose your heart because the challenges are going to come. It’s going to be hard either way. So do you want to try to challenge through what it is you are meant to do to get over it? Or do you want to have the challenges of something that’s not even fulfilling yet? So you’re going to have the challenges that are going to come, but let’s have the challenges around what we were meant to do so that we can help you to get over it, because help is out there.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:10:09] There are people who are there to support, and that’s one of the things that I do at some solutions. So those are two of the things I say. Go back to your childhood and I say, Just look around you. And when you really take time to take time to yourself, when we get away from our busyness and just really think about our lives, there are like a ton of questions that I put out there for people to just answer about themselves. One of the things I have them do is to define Who are you? Answer that question. A lot of us, if you ask who are you, they’re not able to really tell you who they are. So that I think there’s so many questions that that help us to answer that question about ourselves. So, you know, there are some exercises there, but really spending time with yourself because the. The answer lies within you. It’s there. And guess what? It’s been there all the time. So our purpose is for us. Our purpose is it’s what makes us truly happy. It’s what truly fulfills us. And if we’re not living it, we might be content for a little bit, but that’s always going to be something that’s missing.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:23] Now, how do you recommend folks who say, okay, I believe every word you’re saying, I am going to now live my life with purpose, on purpose, and I am. So that’s going to mean I’m changing a little bit. You know, like you said, you were working 30 years in the government and now you’re an entrepreneur and, you know, coming to a family or a group of friends who were part of that, they might, you know, with your best interests at heart, might not they might kind of I don’t want to say sabotage, but they might not be as enthusiastic about that drastic change as you were about making it, which the change is difficult by itself. So how do you kind of protect yourself and insulate yourself, inoculate yourself from some of the negativity that might come with a change of directions, especially if it is kind of drastic in terms of what you used to be and what you’d like to be?

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:12:20] Mm hmm. That’s a very good question. And again, as I said, you know, it’s challenging, it’s hard. And that’s even one of the challenges, just trying to stay focused. So, you know, once you have an idea, you’ve come to a certain of what your purpose is. And you you know, you said this is what I want to do and this is the course I want to take. Yeah, there are definitely going to be obstacles. You know, I’m not even going to I’m not even going to lie about that. There are going to be so many obstacles. There going to be so many distractions. There are going to be people around you who will not understand and who will be very feel very free to tell you, oh, just stay where you are or God, you should just do this. You know, they’re even going to put words in your mouth and tell you what you should be doing. But that is why that weekly podcast is so important, because we put that out there, the importance of understanding that those types of obstacles and those are just, you know, those aren’t even the real, real like work related obstacles. That’s just a mindset thing, you know, it’s important that mindset change doesn’t happen overnight. That’s a process. So you have to surround yourself around the right people. And if you’ve never been around the right people again, that’s not an overnight thing. You have to look for the right people. You’ve got to join groups, be a part of networks. There’s so much stuff happening online now. There are so many Facebook groups out there just for just about anything that you can think of.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:13:56] So if you just do some searching out there, you will find a Facebook group that can relate to what you’re going to or what it is you’re trying to do. Even maybe so, I would say connect with the people that you really need to help you to think a little bit better, be a little bit more positive about what it is you’re trying to do. Mindset is extremely important and actually that’s one of the places I start from with my course, because again, we’re talking about when you’re talking about mindset, you’re talking about changing your belief system and changing what you have probably thought or believed all of your life. And a lot of that belief system is stuff that we learned along the way as we grew up from our parents and then from generations and generations. You know, it could be a generational thing. You know, you don’t do this or you don’t do that or you shouldn’t do that. One of the misconceptions that are one of the beliefs that I had growing up with that, one of the things I used to hear a lot was money don’t grow on trees. And while that is true, that’s a very true statement. It does not grow on trees. But what that led me to believe is that money is very, very, very limited. You know, there’s not a lot out there. And I believe to this day, there is so much out there, we just need to know how to access it. So it’s about accessing the money where it is. Otherwise it can leave you in a state of feeling very limited and that you have very few options and that there’s no way to get to anything.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:15:30] But that’s a mindset thing and that’s just something that how it just triggers and it can change everything. Now, if I really believe that it’s there, I just need to figure out how to get to it, then that changes everything you see. So that just totally changed how I can now feel a little freer about how I move. Otherwise I feel that my future is hopeless and I’ll never be able to do the things that I want to do in life. So I think that. Dealing with, you know, mindset because that is what’s going to help us to be able to get through some of those challenges that you just named off. And another thing that I do is I provide six weeks of goal setting, well, six sessions of goal setting. And in that, what it is, is so once you’ve discovered or decided what it is you need to be doing, you may not have a clue how to even get started. And so the six sessions of goal setting just sort of helps to get you on the right course, even connect you with people that you need to connect to in that regard if that is the case. So there are definitely some things you can do, but you’re going to have to if you don’t have the right people around you. That’s the biggest challenge. Getting past that and understanding that you’re going to hear so many negative things before you even get started, really. And that can keep us from getting started. And that’s the one thing we don’t want.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:00] Now, is there an ideal client of yours? Do you have a niche that you’re you’re really kind of good at, or is this for pretty much anybody? Like, do you work primarily with solopreneur or with big corporate people? Do you work with executives? Is there a niche that that your solutions are best suited for?

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:17:23] So I work mostly with small businesses for the content creation. I understand that time, you know, you just don’t have the time to put in to, you know, that type of work because there’s research involved. And so I, you know, help them with that and get a lot of that done to actually get the blog posts and things of that nature. And I’ve worked with businesses in just about any industry. My favorite industry, though, is finance, and I love writing about entrepreneurship in itself. So but I’ve worked in many different industries as far as the purpose. I’m looking more toward individuals who just do not feel fulfilled in life. And my guess is the reason you don’t feel fulfilled is because you’re not doing what you are meant to be doing. We all have a purpose from the moment we were born, just as I said, from when we were our smallest selves, there is something we were meant to be doing and if we are not doing it, then we’re not completely fulfilled. And I just want to help people to live their best lives.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:30] So if somebody wants to learn more about your practice, maybe get on your calendar for a chat. Is there a website? What is the best way to get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:18:43] Yes. So they can go to my website, which is Sims Hyphen Solutions Bill.com and that Sims with two M’s hyphen solutions bill.com. I’m also on Instagram. Sims underscore solutions and they can find me there and they can email me at business at. Sam Solutions BLOCK.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:16] Well, congratulations on all the success and the momentum. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Sylvia Montgomery: [00:19:24] But thank you, Lee. I appreciate being on your show today. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:28] Well, thank you for sharing your story. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Richmond Business Radio.