We had the good fortune of connecting with Shekira Piard and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shekira, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Starting my own business came from the fact that I didn’t enjoy working for other people. Every time I had a job, I would find myself either dreading the entire job and having anxiety or wanting to outwork management. I always wanted to be the boss or the person in charge and that can get hectic when you’re working for a company that isn’t yours.

What should our readers know about your business?
S&L Event Productions bridges the gap between our clients visual concepts and ideas with our creative eye for execution. The company’s goal is not only to curate events in a professional manner, but to also provide a memorable experience for all of our clientele. Our slogan is “Some plan events, we create memories.” We spent years planning events for family and friends with little to no budgets and always made the event look different from what other planners had going on. With there being two of us running the business, we went through creative differences, pricing battles, etc. but we figured out a way to work through our differences. Instead of both of us being founder and CEO, we decided to have two major roles in the company. I, (Shekira), became the COO (Chief Operating Officer) and Laica, is the CCO, (Chief Creative Officer). We came up with these roles so that we both knew exactly what we were in charge to get rid of confusion about what we were supposed to be doing day to day. In any field one enters, you don’t know what you don’t know. So finding tools to help us grow was imperative for us. We are based in New York City and found out that the city offers a lot of free classes for small business owners and entrepreneurs. We took a Women Entrepreneur class (WE NYC partnered with FastTrac) and were able to get a lot of free resources and knowledge. It was a 6 week course and we learned so much from it. By the end of the course, we completed our LLC and have been going full throttle since then. Something that we’ve learned in our journey is that you must always be solution based. When something goes wrong (which tends to happen often), never let it defeat you. Step back, recalibrate your energy and find the solution!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In my city, when friends visit, I always take them to 1 of 2 places. West Bar & Lounge in Springfield Gardens or Dirty Taco & Tequila in Rockville Centre. Great food, drinks and music in both places.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My bestfriend and business partner Laica Clerge has been with me every step of the way. Although we go through many hardships in our business, I couldn’t imagine doing it alongside anyone else.

Website: sandlevents.com

Instagram: @sandlevents

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/s-l-event-productions

Facebook: S&L Event Productions

Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC-afwTWDtP2y90Rx4vgIN1w

Image Credits
@therealkphotoz @jabariguerra

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