Good Morning Syndicate Fam, Happy Monday. I hope you all had a great weekend. I am ready to get back to it this week after being pretty un-engaged this past week after mourning my friend. But I know @Jonathan Shuffield would not want me or us moping around and would be sharing his bright spirit with us all to keep on going. Everyone has a rough week... Maybe it tested your patience, your plans, your energy, or your belief in what you’re building. But here’s the truth: one hard week does not erase your progress. As LGBTQ entrepreneurs, creators, leaders, and dreamers, we know what it means to keep going when the world feels heavy. We’ve survived, adapted, created, and risen again. Sometimes with glitter, sometimes with coffee, and sometimes with nothing but stubborn determination. So today, give yourself some credit for still showing up. You don’t have to conquer the whole mountain this Monday. Just take the next right step. Send the email. Make the post. Check in with one person. Reclaim one small piece of momentum. This week, we move forward together. More Pride. More Profit. More Power. ⚡ Newsletter Updates: Congratulations to @Art Smith for getting even more recognition for his Gay Barchives project. He had a touching story about a post that went viral in the community and a friend of mine up here in NW Erie PA area, had a nice story about it. @John Morley has some exciting events coming up for the men in the Syndicate if you are in his New Jersey neck of the woods. Look for his posts and updates, like the upcoming breakfast and others. Two members have taken advantage of @Aidan McClain's SEO audits & Optimization, and it really has given them some insight into making their interwebs and social presence known, reach out to him for getting your digital footprint "findable" in all of that traffic online. Also I have re-listened to @Andrew Edwards great Thursday Success Chat on bringing your LinkedIn profile up to speed and have set some time away for wednesday to get my profile adjuested.

Good morning Syndicate Family. I need to start out with some very sad news, and I will keep this week’s newsletter short. Our Syndicate member, and my friend, @Jonathan Shuffield passed away in his sleep Saturday night. I am devastated by the news. I’m sure you felt his energy here in the Syndicate and believe me outside of it, as a personal friend, his energy was just as electric. Jonny was one of the most creative people I knew and it was an extreme honor to be his friend these past 5 years. We created podcasts together, traveled together, and created new projects together. His latest project, his indie sitcom he wrote, produced and starred in, I was honored to be a Producer for and a Mentor. Jonny’s talent will certainly be missed, but his heart and friendship to his family and the chosen family around him, will be missed the most. I will keep you updated if his family and friends need anything. After such great feedback from the survey and talking to member individually, I am excited for the content we are slowly moving toward here in the Syndicate. Our CORE VALUE PILLARS are; Sharing tried and true business methods with each other, Support through referrals, messaging and communication with each other, and having fun together. This past weeks 5 day Sprint to get our businesses ready for Pride Month in June was a great success. If you haven't looked it over, it's on the "Classroom" tab and the steps you need to make sure your business is ready for Pride. Our Thursday Morning Success Chats have been a successful way for members to add true value to the conversation, sharing their passion and innovation. Coming soon we will be talking about “AI and Ethics In The Workplace” “Influencer Marketing” “Mental Health in Business” and much more. If you can be there for the LIVE chat, it’s Thursday mornings at 10am Eastern Time, right here on the Syndicate’s video page. DM me if you would like to give a presentation sometime. We are definitely upping the fun here in the Syndicate. Be sure to check out and try to participate in our Virtual Pride Parade, that we are creating floats for this month. We also recently had a Success Syndicate Bingo that helped you do things to move your business forward, while winning prizes along the way, (congrats to @art ). I also shared a fun “Success Syndicate Trading Card” template that I have used in other parts of my business over the years. I hope you are finding value in being a member here and I look forward to more participation from you all in the future………..Scott

Welcome Syndicate to our Weekly Newsletter, I hope you all had a fantastic last week and are ready for even bigger and better things ahead. We had 9 new members join us last week, so we hope you will have fun here, learn some things and teach us some things. First, I appreciate those who took the time to answer the survey on what we can do to make the Syndicate better for everyone. You will start to see some changes over the next few weeks to take your suggestions into action. I am starting by adding TWO NEW CATEGORIES to the page near the top. “Testimonials” is to acknowledge another member of the Syndicate for their work, wisdom, help, or just to say, “I See You!” The next category is for “Referrals,” and this is where you should be putting in YOUR information on who would be a great referral for your business, coaching, or creating. This will make it an easy place to find others in the Syndicate who may have the skills we need to improve our work and business. Next, I would love some more input on our Coffee Chats. I have made a few decisions and am looking for more of your thoughts. The Monday afternoon chats have not really had many of us available to jump in, so I have suspended them for a while. The Thursday Morning Success Chats at 10am Eastern time, HAS had 4-7 members usually able to attend, and we have had some great member chats lately, so that will be remaining. Currently the Thursday Chat is only available to Premium and VIP Tier members to join. I do not know if that is limiting the chat or making it more exclusive and would love your comments. If we want to keep it exclusive and a perk, I am going to either not posting the replays for everyone, or make the replays delayed a week for free members. If you think everyone should be able to attend, I will take off the Tier Restrictions. If we keep them premium, I want to arrange another day and time for an ALL MEMBER Chat, so I would like to know what would work best for most of us. Look for Poll Below.

Hey Syndicate Fam, hope you are ready for a most excellent week ahead. Here's a few things I thought I would recap from last week and what's coming up. First I hope you all had a fantastic Easter/Passover weekend. I enjoyed with some extended family and a trip to the movies. Today we are having a Gratitude Success Chat at 3pm US Eastern Time, where we will just catch up and be thankful for the friends and colleagues we made here in the Syndicate. Be sure to bring any wins you have had and any questions or requests for upcoming or future projects to the group. If you missed @Pk Kulasegram talk last Thursday on "What If Things Go Wrong," they gave an excellent presentation and it is available for re-watch under the "Discussion" tab. https://www.skool.com/successsyndicate/success-chat-replay-with-pk-getting-things-wrong Congratulations to member @Richard Jones for returning and hosting the second season of the Bear World Podcast. If you haven't checked it out, his interview with Ravi Roth, be sure to check it out. https://bearworldmag.com/podcast/ If you haven't checked out @Aidan McClain revamp of his "Hollywood Rebound" website, it really was done so great and looks professional, artistic and I really love the articles and interviews he does. https://www.hollywoodrebound.com/ I am thinking about doing a new podcast. It would be a "Re-watch" style, that is pretty popular right now and I want to use my "Gay of a Certain Age" status to review movies from the 70's, 80's 90's and 200's that some of our younger gays, may not be aware of. I also wanted to include some "straight films" that may have lead to a gay awakening, lol. My first thoughts are "Beautiful Thing," a UK classic and "Newsies" because guys singing and dancing..um ya! I would LOVE to have some recommendations from you what movies I should put on my list. I would really appreciate it.

Hello Syndicate Family, it's time for our Weekly Newsletter. Thanks for being part of this amazing group of LGBTQ entrepreneurs, business owners, creators, organizations and thought leaders. First up, I had a fantastic interview with Ben Zumsteg, brand strategist by day, beverage innovator and new company founder by night. His new product came to market 3 months ago after two years of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears to bring his DISCO FIZZ Energy Drink to the lgbtq bar and lounge scene in New York City, and across the nation soon. This was a fun interview talking about the development of his product from that first inspiration, to market. I know you will enjoy this interview and hopefully come away inspired in your own lgbtq business journey. If you missed last week's Success Chat on Thursday, member @Aidan McClain did a master class on SEO, (search engine optimization), and it's available on the "Discussion Forums" tab. If you are looking how to get your website or social media noticed, learn these tips and tricks of the trade, from someone who has made digital marketing a profession. If you haven't checked out Aidan's own passion project, the online "Hollywood Rebound," magazine, be sure to check it out and his fantastic website he built over at https://www.hollywoodrebound.com Coming up on this Thursday's Success Chat, member @Mike Bennion-Rowe, from Torn Box Productions will be sharing his story and background in video production and more. This Thursday, April 23rd at 10am Eastern Time. I also posted this weekend, my interview with Syndicate Member @Jonathan Shuffield, who talks about his new lgbtq sitcom that goes into production this Summer. The entire production will take place in Spokane, Washington, and will truly be a labor of love from that community and our lgbtq community, as Jonny starts his crowdfunding campaign soon to raise funds and offer fun perks on this exciting new project.