Christina Sullivan’s Ladies Offroad Business Experience
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Christina Sullivan’s Ladies Offroad Business Experience

Author: Christina Sullivan

2017-LOC-BusinessIt was a whirlwind experience attending the Ladies Offroad Business Training event hosted by Charlene Bower! It was an intense and insightful training session. In 48 hours I learned that there was still a lot I don’t know about becoming a business guru. Let me tell you a little about my business, I am Christina Sullivan the Owner and Founder of Lyft Offroad. Lyft Offroad is an online outlet for aftermarket parts and accessories specializing in the off-road industry, along with an installation shop and an affiliated off-road club. Phewww, it took me some time to work with Charlene to brainstorm that statement! Who would have thought that it would be so difficult to put everything your business entails into one simple statement?

I started my company, Lyft Offroad, two years ago after attending the 2015 Red Rock 4 Wheelers Labor Day campout.  I was so thrilled about the off-road community and lifestyle, that I wanted to find a way to become a larger part.  Originally, Lyft Offroad was simply an Offroad Club centered on providing family oriented events and trail runs. At its core is aiding charitable organizations such as Operation Nine Line New Trails to benefit Veterans, Set Them Free International which fights human trafficking, and Crawlin to a Cure to help raise funds to fight cancer.

2017-LOC-BusinessLyft Offroad later evolved into an E-Commerce site, catered to selling aftermarket parts and accessories to the off-road community on a national level. Along with the online store, Lyft has also evolved into a small, brick-and-mortar installation shop. The installation shop is currently outside of Glenwood Springs, CO, along the I-70 corridor, and is seeking a larger permanent home in the Roaring Fork Valley so we can better suit the needs of our clients.  

We have a team of admins across the nation who help me with social media and act as ambassadors for Lyft Offroad.  Locally my multi-talented brother, Richard Liggett of Liggett Photo, handles my content as well as donates his fabrication skills. My husband, Shawn Sullivan, often jumps in and helps with the shop when he’s not busy running his own construction and remodeling company, Element Home.  

2017-LOC-BusinessMy ideals and goals for Lyft Offroad for the long term have grown and flourished. I just needed to know how exactly I should translate everything that was going on in my mind for my company and use it in the real world to create a thriving business. That’s where the Ladies Offroad Business Training came in. Charlene Bower selected a small group of off-road women that she recognized to in a similar stage and would benefit from intensive training.

Charlene offered us the business training opportunity of a lifetime! We were selected from the pool of women who entered the Ladies Offroad Challenge to attend a special training session which Charlene built around the needs of us 5 ladies. We were invited to the big comfy couch in beautiful California, where we learned about how to become social media queens, how to navigate Facebook, Instagram and more. We were shown new ways to utilize marketing tools within social media to become more visible which translates into engagement then conversion…sales!   

Charlene shared how to work with marketing partners, and how to write proposals.  We were also informed about the importance of press releases and how to make them look fantastic! We ate lots of goodies and drank coffee and stayed up late working on how to define our business goals.  I personally realized that in my mind I know exactly what my business does, but does my customer? We discussed two, five, and ten-year plans, which really gave us an opportunity to focus in on what we want to achieve with our companies.  

2017-LOC-BusinessAlong with the awesome intellect she provided that was all catered to off-road businesses, she also took us on an amazing field trip.  Anyone who has attended SEMA knows how fantastic it would be to visit SEMA headquarters! The SEMA show is the creation of the team at SEMA headquarters. We toured the building in which all the magic happens. From the renderings we see in advertisements, to business classes, and event product testing and design with state of the art equipment. SEMA is a business owner’s best friend!  Did you know that SEMA offers to its members access to a team who helps you build your website? Did you also know that SEMA will take your product designs and 3D print them for testing! Yeah, cool stuff!  

I never would have imagined that I would have had the opportunity to work with Charlene Bower on building my business.  After all she has been in the off-road industry and marketing for racers and large companies for years!  What a treat to be chosen as one of 5 women who got to be a part of her Business training.  Thank you again Charlene Bower and Ladies Offroad Network for the incredible experience for myself and Lyft Offroad.  

Click here to read more about Christina.

See all the action from the 2017 Ladies Offroad Challenge Business Training!


Author: Christina Sullivan