Business Success: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Business advice for New York State women entrepreneurs
As the ball dropped in Times Square on January 1st with Ryan Seacrest, Florida Georgia Line and Taylor Swift watching, and a crowd of millions cheering on the New Year, I thought of these superstars’ individual successes and the hard work needed to perch them high above a crowd of adoring fans. It’s easy to think that fame, fortune and national success happens easily because the media makes it look that way.
The truth is every single person in this world, no matter what profession they are in, must work extremely hard to arrive at the pinnacle of success within their field. If we could flash back to these star’s early days, we’d find no cameras following Taylor around, less fans cheering on the handsome guys from a popular country band and millions less in their bank accounts. Basic, bare bone existence is where they started and also where the average person or a woman entrepreneur must start to make something glamorous occur in their lives.
Building a singing career or a business as a woman entrepreneur are similar because people aren’t handed money in the beginning of their ventures or adoring fans following them or the media profiling their stories. They must care deeply about their own success to do really well. Achievement only happens after years of hard work are completed.
But sometimes we get a little help from outside sources when our competitors, the marketplace or a shift in interest sets us back momentarily only forcing us to return to our roots to rebuild wiser with the knowledge and experience we have gained and with fans, media, and followers cheering us on.
Two steps forward, one step back doesn’t have to be an excruciating process; it can be an enlightening one. There are times on everyone’s entrepreneurial road when deconstructing a business to structure it again or jumping into our competitor’s mindset or re-evaluating our new goals empower us to strive bigger, better and higher than we imagined. This time the slow steps forward might just put us on the top of the highest building sooner than we think when the adoring masses from below and the bright lights of our success guide us forward.
As I watched the Today Show recap the moments of 2014, one commentator said when it was over, “I can’t believe how much has happened in one year.” When you watch glimpses of horrific, beautiful, sad, and exciting images from a full year you understand life is ever-changing. The most important message is to remember no matter what has happened in our personal or business lives in the past year, we are alive and well.
Being a woman entrepreneur means the images of 2014 includes personal highlights and corporate successes; as well as unexpected challenges. The faces in my “highlight reel” are of all the female speakers who have inspired the 1,200 women entrepreneurs who came to 30 events Women TIES produced this year. The highlights include both new and established women business owners who trust in our membership offerings and events and live our mission of buying from the women we promote year round.
On my desk is a quote that came from the most significant lesson of the year for me that was inspired at a four day event management contract in October. The quote says, “Don’t forget your roots.” It reminds me as I approach the 20th year as a woman entrepreneur that at my core I am an excellent event manager and promoter dedicated to improving the lives of every woman entrepreneur who crosses my path.
Today’s post is meant for you to take a few minutes to answer these questions: What are the core principles you live and work by? Truthfully why do you run your business? What have been the most significant business moments in 2014? What one lesson did you learn this year that must propel you in 2015?
As it is, and has always been for me, I love inspiring and educating women entrepreneurs in the hopes my actions, events and messages enable them to be more financially successful. It is the core of who I have been for 20 years and will continue to be. I wish you the most bright and beautiful new business year. May you shine and glow like you never have before.
Women TIES Inspires
If you have been a follower of our blog but wondering more about what Women TIES is about and how I’ve helped women entrepreneurs for 20 years, take a look at the special video produced at our annual Retreat for women entrepreneurs. We hope it inspires you to get more involved with Women TIES in 2015 especially if you are a women entrepreneur or women business owner in New York State.
3 Ways to Prepare For New Year Business Success
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small businesses
The warm winter weekend graced me with the opportunity to enjoy an unusual summer experience sitting at my pool deck, basking in the warm weather which overlooks our pond. The stillness of the pond water, lack of wind, and quiet environment since most birds have gone south, gave me an unexpected serene experience. This welcomed silence arrived like a quiet gift after a month of holiday songs, bright colors and joyous gatherings. The silence provided me what I needed most to move forward into 2015….reflection.
Depending on the type of business you own and run, fast paced and slow sales periods come and go throughout the year. Most businesses have peaks and valleys in their overall activities. For most businesses, this unexpected quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s, while everyone in America is enjoying an extended holiday, can provide an excellent opportunity to reflect on both successes and failures before a new year begins.
I encourage you to take time this week to do the following to prepare yourself for a new business year:
* Reflect on your 5 best achievements of 2014. They could be growth related, new product development, new customer contracts, hitting a 1,000 likes on Twitter or finally beginning the book you’ve wanted to write. Before you step into 2015 plans, tally up what you’ve done best this year.
* Pull out your January 2014 goals. If you’re like most people, you wrote down some resolutions or big bucket items you wanted to experience. Did you? Most people don’t achieve all the goals on their January list so now is a good time to review what was important to you a year ago, keep some of the same goals or bucket items you didn’t achieve and add some new ones to the list.
* Set 3 big, bold major goals for 2015. I hope they are totally new goals – maybe ideas that have arisen in your spirit or mind just recently or in the last half of the year. Write them down. Take some time to analyze what it will take to accomplish them and then pull out a calendar and write down specific goals with dates now! Goals are always more attainable when they are written down and viewed periodically.
Reflection is synonymous with manifestation. The truth is we can’t manifest any dream – big or small – unless we take time to reflect on where we have been, where we are now and where we hope to be next. Here’s wishing you one of the most prosperous years ahead.
My Christmas Wish for Women Entrepreneurs
A majority of Christmas shopping is done, the dinner menu is planned, family gathering times are set, and traveling days starting; but for women entrepreneurs the busyness of the holidays also must include finding time to work, answer customer calls, prepare end of year business tasks and setting plans for a new year. Tucked in the silence of the morning, when everyone else is cooking, cleaning, planning or traveling, women entrepreneurs have a choice to work on their business or not.
I find working periodically during this busy holiday week gives me a sense of calm in the mix of the high pitched sounds, sights and emotions it brings. I don’t have to look to commercial store events, shopping extravagances or holiday performances to receive peace and joy because the best gift I receive year long is my commitment to my business and the customers I serve. The gift doesn’t come wrapped in a beautiful package with expensive wrappings; it comes in the simple every day dedication to make the world a better place by what I offer.
My wish for women entrepreneurs this holiday season is quiet work time to make your heart sing and to remind yourself that your decision to become a woman entrepreneur is one of the best gifts you have given yourself and continue to give yourself each year. Be joyful for the intellect to run your business, your energy to keep it innovative and your heart for making it matter.
I hope you find silence tucked in one morning this holiday to soak up the joy and peace of being a dedicated, successful woman entrepreneur serving the entire world with your business gifts. Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to those and the ones you love.
Business Advice: The Inspiration of the Color White
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small businesses
On snowy days like this when the view out the window is the most perfect Norman Rockwell painting, you might find yourself inspired by the clean white atmosphere of drifting snowflakes, snow laden branches and a cloudy white sky to reminisce and softly dream forward.
Did you know that before Isaac Newton, most scientists believed that white was the fundamental color of light? It wasn’t until Newton passed a white light through a prism, breaking it up into its composite colors, and then using a second prism to reassemble them that he discovered it value. It’s interesting that white – although it appears to be colorless by vision – is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.
The color white is also the color most often associated with innocence, perfection, the good, purity, cleanliness, and beginnings. Sometimes the beauty of an all white day can remind you that you can grab a blank, white sheet of paper or time to reflect, renew and realize the colors of a new future.
Mid-December can be a time of both busyness and quietness. We rush around finalizing end of the year sales, preparing paperwork for our taxes, signing holiday cards for clients, attending social functions and yet tucked within the hoopla is quiet time to contemplate colorful changes we want to create for ourselves.
Today’s post is to inspire you if you feel you are ready for changes to your future, to take out a white, blank sheet of paper and start jotting, journaling and dreaming. Use pockets of quiet time in the hustle of this season to think about your three best moments of the year and also the 3 hardest lessons of the year. Create a way to capitalize on the positive experiences and to change the hard ones so they don’t happen again; and at the same time dream of change – fresh, clean white change.
In any moment of time, we can create a blank slate and start again. Use the beauty of the fresh falling snow, the snow laden tree branches and the colorless sky to remind you there is always a way to add vibrant color to your life and business. As my friend Gwen Webber-McLeod always says, “Enjoy the beauty of this day” for it is rich in true color and knowing.
Ingenuity Brings New Flavor and Revenue Into A Business
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
A cherry cordian Hersey kiss sits on my desk a sign of business ingenuity. This season the shelves were lined with a multitude of choices from this candy icon – kisses filled with almonds, raspberry filled options, sensational peanut butter varieties, and white chocolate too. Next to this shelf of chocolate varieties were assortments of multi-colored, multi-flavored candy canes. I wonder why and when the producers of these two traditional confectioneries decided it was time to change it up. The change in color and flavors of these staple holiday candies didn’t stop me from buying the brand; it just gave me scrumptious new options.
Every where I hosted events this year, women entrepreneurs were announcing additional service or product developments. A cookbook producer added an exquisite line of cookie products shipped in a beautiful golden tin to capture a corner of the gift buying market. A woman who invented an inside plastic hanging garden window box now produces logo etched artwork for other businesses. The creator of a personal organizing business added new services and workshops to capture a corporate audience. Why did these business owners decide to change it up?
There are diverse reasons for sprucing up or adding on to one’s business staple offerings. The top reasons are to create additional revenue streams, to answer consumer needs, to expand into a new market, to utilize existing resources in a new way and maybe even to delight customers with scrumptious new varieties of a popular product they didn’t even know they wanted yet. Entrepreneurs must be inventive to begin their ventures, it only makes sense they remain ingenious during the life of their enterprise.
Today’s post is to encourage you to remain inventive in your entrepreneurial endeavors. Make sure you are tapping into ways to keep your company fresh and interesting not only for yourself but for consumers. Before this year draws to an end, contemplate additional products or services you could add in 2014 or twisting a current offering into something a little more exciting to market and sell. Look around and notice what others are doing and spin off something unique of your own.
Scrumptious new offerings aren’t always found wrapped in cherry or chocolate, they can be draped in our own ingenuity and creativity and offered as a delightful new revenue source and creative new spark for ourselves and our customers.
Getting Past the Sales Terror Barrier
Advice for women entrepreneurs and small businesses
The phone rang, it startled me. It was the first time it rang after I opened my business in 1995. I answered the call nervously knowing I had a potential “sale” on the line. As I stuttered through answering questions about my new event planning business, I feared the dreaded question, ”How much do you charge?” Sure enough, the person on the other end asked it and I sheepishly said “$40 an hour” not knowing if that was the right amount or not. As you can imagine, I didn’t get the sale.
Fast forward twenty years later to today and I can tell you with certainty I don’t fear receiving phone calls or stumble through answering questions or guessing at my hourly rate. Sometimes though, I must admit when I’m asked to quote a very large event, I can still have a small “terror barrier” that makes me question my final projected fee.
Only after years of great sales training through educational program and personal one-on-one coaching have I worked through the fear of sales to a place where I love it. I know I’m not unique in acknowledging sales can cause a terror barrier to success as a woman entrepreneur. The only way I’ve learned to push through anything terrifying is to do what terrifies me most until it’s not scary anymore.
Today’s post has some quick tips to overcoming some common fears in sales. I hope when you are done reading them, you pick up the phone and confidently call some top sales prospects.
* Understand the “benefits” your company brings to your clients. When you realize what you sell helps people, you will be more confident in selling what you have to offer. Understand you are aiding customers in a service or product that makes their lives easier.
* Start scripting your sales calls and practice them before you pick up the phone. Practice makes perfect and deflates the fear factor. Pretend you are already speaking to someone and work through your answers before you actually pick up the phone and place calls.
* Block three hours off at a certain time and day every single week to make sales calls. Make it a routine part of your work week, not an exception. Once it becomes second nature, it will be less intimidating.
* If you are truly paralyzed making sales calls, do yourself and your business a favor and hire a sales coach or consultant. Work with them to overcome the terror barriers you have about making sales.
Finally, If you live around Central New York and are free on Tuesday, December 9th, join me for a special Women TIES program in Utica geared at helping your prospects say “yes” more often thus eliminating your sales terror barrier immediately.
We all need help from time to time. Realizing we need help and overcoming what we fear always benefits us in the end.
“Commit” to Business Change
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
The quote, “The hardest part about making a decision is the time leading up to the decision,” has always been something I’ve said to those I’ve loved or counseled when they had a big decision in front of them. The “knowing” of needing to make a change festers in our soul ready to escape the moment we give in to a resolution. Whether in life or in business, decisions can be difficult.
For a couple months I have pondered making some changes within my business. When the uneasiness or the “knowing” struck me in mid-October, I knew I needed to give myself enough time to ruminate about it, speak with a few trusted people and then when the time was right to begin the change. I think we all wish change could occur at the snap of our fingers but meaningful change takes introspection, time, and commitment.
So yesterday when I finally committed to doing something concrete about a positive move forward, I felt extremely confident about the decision. The months of wavering dissipated and a sense of calm took its place. A confident “I have a lot of work to do” kind-of-calm enveloped me. Change is always going to keep happening so we have to decide if we want a “say” in what’s changing.
Entrepreneurship is always about change. Nothing about running a business ever stays the same. It isn’t a permanent, concrete structure that doesn’t bend because to be successful we must be flexible over time to thrive. Sometimes we need to change our brand look, mission, business plan, target market, pricing or policies. Other times we need to be innovative or decisive about ridding our company of wasted resources. Periodically we need education and inspiration to change our own minds to take things to a higher level.
Today’s post is to remind you that you must be willing to keep changing to survive happily in business. Ask yourself “What have I been stubbornly holding onto for too long that needs a change – my sales skills, my pricing strategy, my staff, or maybe my own attitude?” Get help if you need help. We can stay stuck spinning our wheels in the same place for too long and waste valuable time we can’t retrieve. Move forward. Decide. Commit. Feel better.
Remember in the end any decision you make that doesn’t work out, can always be changed again. You are never permanently wed to anything you do; but you must constantly try to transform and revolutionize your business and at times your life.
Cyber Monday Marketing Suggestions for Women Entrepreneurs
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
As I entered my office on a gloomy overcast Monday in Central New York, I decided I needed to create some sunshine of my own today so I created some simple Cyber Monday specials and marketed them to my customers and the public. I love running a business where I have the ability to create a positive, brighter atmosphere for myself and my constituents quickly.
Cyber Monday was created as a marketing strategy the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. The term “Cyber Monday” was created by marketing companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005 and it’s quickly become one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.
So when the grey sky appeared behind my bright computer screen, I decided to create two Cyber Monday special to offer savings to women entrepreneurs and to also spark my marketing spirit.
Today’s blog post are simple tips on how to create and market a Cyber Monday Special today even if you haven’t thought about doing it until this moment. I hope these easy suggestions help you:
* Review the list of your business services or product offerings. Decide which you’d like to post as a special – maybe one of your most popular ones or perhaps one you’d like to have more customers consuming.
* Create the “offering” by deciding on a certain percentage discount off the regular price or giving 2 items away for the price of 1. You could also offer a bonus product or service if someone buys from you today.
* Market the Cyber Monday Special on your social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, your blog, etc. and share it with your friends and hopefully theirs.
* Market your Cyber Monday Special through a personal email blast to your current customers making sure they are aware of the deal.
* Most importantly, follow through on what you offer by: making sure you grant the discount, billing properly or mailing the bonus item immediately. You want to be honest, fast and successful in delivering what you market on Cyber Monday.
If you are waking up today not knowing what kind of marketing you should be doing, take my advice and bring some light into your business by creating and marketing a cool Cyber Monday Special for the customers you love and the new people you want to attract to your company.
NOTE: If you are a woman entrepreneur (women only) interested in my company’s Cyber Monday membership deal, simply visit www.womenties.com/join.cfm and join at the premium level and receive 3 months membership for free to your annual membership. It’s that easy! We’d love to have you brighten up our growing New York State organization too.
Women TIES 