Lawson’s Store (Photo Credit)
It was the summer of 1968 when the Entrepreneur bug first bit Author and Entrepreneur, Sherry Carnahan. The local Lawson’s store, where her grandmother worked, had a fantastic candy and snack counter where Sherry and her friends loved to shop. The problem was, their parents said they needed to raise their own money to buy from it.
With this dilemma on her mind, Sherry set out to solve the problem. One day while she was watching her mother read her favorite “Good Housekeeping” magazine, she heard her mention how expensive magazines were to buy. That’s when the idea hit her!
If she and her friends were to collect used magazines from their neighbors, they could resell them for a quarter. The neighbors would get a chance to read a variety of magazines at a much lower cost and the girls would have money for their “snack fund.”
Much to Sherry’s parents’ surprise, the “magazine business” worked. The rest of the summer Sherry’s sales team would knock on doors once a week collecting and selling used magazines. After a small taste of success, business was in Sherry’s blood. She went on to start other businesses throughout her childhood and into her adult life that fed her entrepreneurial spirit.
Pioneering the Virtual Assistant Industry
In early 1990, long before the catch phrase “Virtual Assistant” came along, Sherry was working on a long-time vision of servicing clients all over the country while working from her office in Ohio. Personal computers and the internet were not readily available at that time and the word “Virtual” hadn’t been coined yet. How was it going to happen? God only knew!
Yet, on a colorful day in October 1992, with a typewriter, a box of business cards and an ad in the local paper, “Sherry’s Office Service” was born. By the end of the week she had her first client, a local contractor who worked out of his truck. He had no office or staff and desperately needed administrative help. When he saw the ad, he thought he would give it a try. As mentioned, he didn’t have an office so they decided that he would simply fax or mail his paperwork to her office, phone in appointments that needed scheduled and bids that needed to be typed, mailed and processed. They were essentially working “virtually.”
At the time, she had no idea that she was becoming a part of a very small, exclusive group of “Pioneers” that started the Virtual Assistant’s Industry or that she would go on to become the first to carve a niche in the Financial Advisory Industry.
By 1996, Sherry changed her company name to, Gal Fridays, and a month later her dream of working for clients all over the country finally came to fruition. With the help of the internet, personal computers and a new tool called a “website,” she was able to get the word out about her company. Within two months of launching the website, she landed her first out-of-state client and the rest is history!
Today, her company now named, Total Office, Inc., helps Financial Advisors all over the country manage their business and serve their clients.
Of course, as a true Entrepreneur, Sherry didn’t stop there. Sherry has two other companies, Flyhigh Media, LLC and Molly’s Wheels of Hope, a non-profit 503c organization that assists senior and special needs animals.
Business Writer to Book Author
Sherry’s ability to meet needs in sync with the trends and possibilities of the future are evident in both her services and her writing. She writes extensively on the fast changing landscape of business productivity, identifying methods for doing business better, faster, and easier through partnering with an off-site or “virtual” partner.
Sherry’s business writing career began with her innovative company newsletter, The Total Office Connection, which continues to enlighten clients today. In her signature storytelling style, she gained a solid clientele who began sharing her work with others, and soon word was out that she had insights and ideas other writers didn’t. In 1999, she was asked to write her own column in Industry Focus, a trade magazine for Office Professionals and became Editor and Publisher of The Kenmore Connection, her hometown newspaper, for nearly ten years. Her articles have appeared in Industry Focus and Sales and Marketing Monthly, Practice Lifecycle, ivillage.com, Inside Business, Technology Tools for Today, Entrepreneurial Woman, IVAA Cast, The Digital FA and others.
Today, she continues to write and contribute as a Thought Leader for industry newsletters, blogs and magazines.
But business is business. Sherry has found that the heart deserves it’s own expression. Encouraged by a lifetime of writing stories for family and personal pleasure, she never forgot her mother’s admonition that she also must write from the heart. When a beloved family dog was severely injured and received local notoriety and a newspaper article, Sherry knew she had to write the heartwarming story. Her first children’s picture book, Molly Gets Her Wheels, is based on the true story of her family dog, Molly, who is given a second chance to run again after a terrible accident left her paralyzed. The book was published in 2019.
Sherry has been featured by:
Outside the Office
When not writing, running one of her companies, or rescuing animals, you can find Sherry at Ultra Marathon Races as a crew chief for her husband, James, enjoying outdoors activities, or traveling in their motor home and spending time with family and friends (both animal and human kind)!
To learn more about her Companies visit:
