Hi all, my apologies if I've left your messages unread or have been missing altogether. I'm pleased to say I've been spending my time launching a consulting business that helps artists uncover their strongest stories by using my interview skills as a journalist, and then I match those story angles to media publications most likely to cover them. I'm calling it "Editorial Strategy with Aidan McClain" and I already have my first client! This was such a needed win after losing my job all the way back in March. ALSO, my partner and I are competing to be AMERICA'S FAVORITE COUPLE, and we're a handful of votes from advancing to the next round. (The winning couple wins dinner with Jeff Goldblum — yes, really — and $20,000... unemployment who??) If you want to support us, you can cast one free vote per day here: https://americasfavcouple.org/2026/aidan-and-marcos Hopefully I'll see some familiar faces on the call!

Had to head down Pittsburgh way this morning to drop some marketing materials and a press release to review for one of my marketing clients. Luckily, I was able to do a side trip and have a great meet IRL with Syndicate member @Aidan McClain over coffee and breakfast. Besides feeling a lil old and short, (he’s a giant, lol,) it was a great chat and helped get my mind off of losing my friend. Aidan is a super smart digital creator and marketer and I loved bouncing ideas around with him. He is helping members @Art Smith and @Shanti Gold with insightful SEO optimization for their businesses and I can’t recommend him high enough, for hiring him for a one time SEO Audit. You get much more than just a ‘one sheet’ of “this sucks and do that,” you get a comprehensive plan for improvement. Thx for a great breakfast meet, and I can’t wait to meet with other members IRL sometime.

Good Morning Syndicate Fam. I hope you are all having a great start to the week. I've got some great DM's and positive feedback for our Pride Readiness Sprint. This was designed for you to work at your own pace and get your business or coaching ready for Pride Month this June. I had a great chat with @Bill Roberts about his goals and there will be open chats at 1pm Eastern Time, this Wednesday and Friday, for any questions. You can always DM in chat as well. Of course, although June is the official Pride Month in the US, Pride is celebrated at different times all over the country and the World, depending on individual cities and communities needs. Today's Sprint post and worksheet is all about creating an event, offer, or visibility hook for your business and the ideas can be for Pride, but hopefully be incorporated to your business all year long. Attached is the "Idea Guide" to get you thinking about how you can create your own individual projects for Pride and/or year round. This will be this Tuesday's "Tools For Growth." Now............Drumroll Please........... Here is the Success Syndicate Pride Event for 2026. We are going to have our own Virtual Pride Parade!! Over the next 4 weeks, I am asking members to CREATE YOUR OWN FLOAT for our Virtual Pride Parade. I want you to create either "A Still Photo," or "A Short '3-10' Second Video," of a float that BEST REPRESENTS YOUR BUSINESS. Make it Fun, Make it Gay, Make it Full of Pride, and Make it Represent Your Business, Coaching, Product or Service. You need to turn your float into me by May 26th, and I will take your photos and videos and turn them into a Virtual Video Pride Parade and post it here in the Syndicate and all over our social media accounts. I hope you will all get creative and participate. I can't wait to see what you come up with.......S

In his challenge for this week, @Scott Fullerton included: 'Leave a testimonial for a member'. On this platform there is no option to do that on their profile. So why not start a thread and allow everyone to comment with their testimonial about another LGBTQ Success Syndicate member who has made an impression on them? I'll start in the first comment. Please be sure to TAG the member you're applauding and let us all know how they impressed you. #testimonial #praise #shoutout

Hi all! The response to my SEO presentation last Thursday genuinely blew me away. Thank you all for the kind words! It's clear this stuff matters to you, and it matters to me too. I want to see queer-owned businesses winning on Google! So, I'm putting that into action. I'm offering 3 free SEO starter audits to businesses in this community. Here's what you'll get: → Site audit (crawl errors, speed issues, indexability) through Semrush → Google Business Profile review → Top 10 keyword opportunities with search volume, difficulty, and intent → Competitive analysis snapshot → Your specific on-page SEO issues → An actionable plan split into quick wins and long-term plays I'll get everything back to you and we can plan a call to discuss. For context, I plan to offer this as a paid service at $150. These 3 are on me. If you're interested, send me a message with your domain! Thanks, everyone.