Our Northern Hustle spotlight series focuses on inspiring citizens whose hustle and heart uplifts our communities.
Melanie Bucar and Melissa Maltais are the sister co-founders of She’s Connected! This dynamic duo is driven by a passion for helping Canadian women connect with new audience growth opportunities and potential income generation.
She’s Connected aims to increase women’s visibility and access to the opportunities they need to grow their businesses. Their innovative match-making program connects opportunity seekers and providers for the purpose of speaking engagements, facilitating workshops, hosting retreat experiences, providing workplace personal or professional development experiences, providing team wellness benefits or team appreciation experiences, providing event entertainment opportunities, or being a guest on a podcast or other media interview/feature. They share an authentic approach to marketing, focusing on building strong relationships and understanding the unique needs of their clients. She’s Connected also has a community-centric mission that fosters a sense of belonging and inspiration, and creates an environment where women can thrive and uplift each other.
Read below to learn more about She’s Connected and sign up to get involved! PLUS stay tuned for details a special giveaway from She’s Connected!
She’s Connected
Tell us about yourselves and your connections to the North:
We were both born and raised in Timmins Ontario, but with a seven year age difference, we didn’t really spend much time together unless we had to. Even after graduating post-secondary school, we both found our way back to Timmins. Melanie pursued a career in the legal field for nearly 20 years; and Melissa spent most of her working career employed at local golf courses before exploring a career in event planning in Victoria BC. Coming from a rural northern community has instilled within us a passion for community growth and innovation. We want to see Northern Ontario flourish for generations to come.
How did She’s Connected come to be?
In the fall of 2022, Melissa had discovered a pain point for women throughout the north. Women of various passions, expertise and talents were having a difficult time finding audience growth opportunities. At this time, Melanie was exploring return to work options after dedicating 16 years to raising her children and caring for her family. Melissa proposed a business idea to Melanie whereby she could offer support to these women and help connect them with the opportunities they were seeking. After a couple of months of convincing, Melanie found her courage to take the leap into entrepreneurship and begin the process of creating She’s Connected. Ultimately, Melissa decided that she was so excited with the development of the business idea, that she wanted in as a partner.
What is your innovative connection strategy with women residing throughout Northern Ontario and beyond?
She’s Connected has developed an innovative match-making platform called COUNT – Connecting Opportunities by Unititing Networks Together. This platform will automatically connect Canadian women with opportunities such as speaking engagements, facilitating workshops, hosting retreat experiences, providing workplace personal/professional development experiences, providing team wellness benefits or team appreciation experiences, providing event entertainment opportunities, or being a guest on a podcast or other media interview/feature. All of these opportunities give women access to new audiences, potential income generation and increased visibility. COUNT will transform the landscape of women-led representation across all global industries, and provide increased opportunities for their voices to be heard.
In what ways will you help women establish a community and find their people?
We are excited to start hosting a recurring Sip and Chat Mastermind event whereby we invite women to engage in an easy, relaxed conversation to discuss various auidence growth strategies. Each Sip and Chat Mastermind will highlight different connection strategies such as Community Building, Cause Marketing, Cross-Platform Presence, Collaborations & Partnerships and even how to utilize AI technologies to improve one’s communication processes. Each event will feature a guest speaker who has experience in these areas and will lead a discussion with all event guests. We feel that these experiences will help women who may need assistance in finding support from within our local communities, they will help foster new friendships and new potential opportunities with like-minded women.
How will you help women find the courage to chase their passions and share their voices?
We are both starting this new chapter in our lives at later stages. Melanie just turned 50 and never thought she would begin a new career at this stage of her life! We are hoping that by telling our stories, sharing our experiences and bringing women together will help show that we can do this at any age, at any stage of our lives and be successful. We understand how daunting and intimidating new opportunities can be and how many women may also feel isolated and discouraged from pursuing their dreams.
We hope to provide women with a safe space to explore their potential, and a user-friendly tool that will connect them with the opportunities they are seeking, all the while fostering meaningful and authentic relationships.
How can we get involved?
At this time, our greatest challenge is getting the word out! We are actively looking for Canadian women that are seeking audience growth opportunities such as:
- Speaking Engagements;
- Facilitating Workshops or Retreat Experiences;
- Providing Workplace Personal/Professional Development Training;
- Providing Employee Wellness Benefits or Team Appreciation Experiences;
- Podcast/Media Interviews/Conversations and Features
- Or even opportunities to provide Event Entertainment.
Additionally, we’re also looking for folks that have these kinds of opportunities to share! Without Opportunity Seekers and Opportunity Providers, our match-making platform simply won’t work. If you are either or both an Opportunity Seeker or Provider, we would encourage you to consider signing up. All pre-launch registrations will be receiving exclusive membership offers.
We would be beyond grateful for anyone’s support with following us on our socials and simply sharing our business with anyone you know that would benefit from using our services. It’s time to level out the playing field for women and provide everyone with an equal opportunity to be seen and be heard.
We’re also always open to opportunities to speak at events, guest on a podcast or other media outlets to further spread the word about how together, we can transform the landscape of women led representation for Canadian Women.
What is next for She’s Connected?
We are in the final stages of preparing our match-making platform – COUNT – Connecting Opportunities by Uniting Networks Together. In the meantime we have so many other exciting things on the go! In January 2024, we hosted our first Sip & Chat Mastermind with guest speaker Sylvie Lamothe of Rebel Soul. Our mastermind sessions are intimate virtual experiences where we share, discuss and brainstorm ways to help women increase their visibility and grow their audiences by means of Connections Strategies like Community Building, Collaborations and Partnerships or Supporting a Cause that is near and dear to your heart.
In March 2024, you’ll find us MC’ing the Girls Night Out fundraising event hosted by Timmins Festivals and Events Committee.
We’re also in early development of an Affiliate Program!
Follow She’s Connected:
Website: www.shesconnectedwecount.ca
Facebook: @shesconnectedwecount
LinkedIn: @shesconnectedwecount
YouTube:@shesconnectedwecount
Do you know of someone whose hustle and heart has helped uplift their community? Let us know!
