Bad Ass Business Day
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs
As I lay on my exercise mat at 5:30 a.m. having just finished the last of a four week intensive Jillian Michaels workout series, I heard her say, “You are a bad ass for finishing this work out and you are going to make it a bad ass day.” I chuckled with the remaining breathe I had – which wasn’t much – loving her descriptive. I don’t believe I’ve used a swear word in the years of writing my popular blog but I must admit I was inspired today to use that one!
This morning was one of those mornings. I woke up with extra energy and felt I could take on a hard workout just like mornings when I arrive at my desk with the same feeling. I’m not sure where the swell of confidence and energy comes from but it arrives unexpectedly but never without notice or appreciation. As women entrepreneurs, we need “bad ass” attitudes periodically to kick through our leadership duties and workloads.
Can you imagine what amount of work we’d get done if we had Jillian Michaels standing over us every day at our desks. We’d hear these phrases, “You aren’t a baby. Get up. Keep moving. You are stronger in the places you are broken. It takes all your energy. Just do it!” I know we wouldn’t relish the thought of having her yelling over our shoulder, but you must admit we might accomplish more.
Today’s business blog post is meant to motivate you to be a “bad ass” business woman today. You know what I mean. You know what you need to do. You’ve been avoiding sale calls or hard tasks for awhile. Just do it. Pick up the phone or tackle the toughest thing on your list right now – right this very minute. Stop wishing the activity away. Remember you are stronger than you imagine. Nothing can break you – especially nothing in business.
I could end today’s inspiration by promising you the tone of my next blog post will be calmer, but then again in the words of Jillian Michaels, “I can’t make any promises. We all must kick butt to succeed in life.” I hope you make it a “bad ass” business day.
The Best Female Business Quality
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs
In the sea of green and gold colors facing a stage settled under track lighting with television cameras rolling, I listened intently to a panel of 5 national media experts at the biggest on-campus event at my Alma Mater. The Media Summit was founded 10 years ago by a SUNY Oswego broadcast major name Louis Borelli, whose long successful journey as a pioneer in the world of mass media and broadcasting, created a media summit on campus showcasing today’s media luminaries as well as the Oswego communication students who produce the event.
It was an intelligent discussion between media leaders in print and television that shed light on the debate of traditional media versus online media in today’s world. The brightest light shining from the panel was the only female participant Connie Schultz, a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate and a regular essayist for Parade Magazine. She also contributes to the New York Times and Washington Post. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for columns that judges praise for providing “a voice for the underdog and underprivileged.”
When Connie spoke, the air was filled with positive energy, human connection and women’s equality. Although the audience was filled with 50% men and women, the room erupted in applause every time she spoke. Amazed that the men on the panel, like Al Roker of Good Morning America and Charlie Rose, a legend in night time television, couldn’t get quite the response from the crowd that Connie did, I contemplated why. My conclusion led me to what I already know to be true.
Women are not afraid to speak from the heart, move people with emotionally stories and inspire others to do better for themselves and the world. It could be because of the two X chromosomes we carry within us. It must make us see the world differently and express our thoughts more passionately. Every woman I spoke with after the panel commented on the exquisite personality and comments from Connie. As one body, we heard and felt the same sentiment.
Today’s post is to remind you that being female means we have the ability, to move others through our own hearts, emotions and successes. We should never back down from our best female traits. It is what we need to make the world a better place. Our voices must be heard to give another perspective across the nation. Embrace the fact you are a fantastic female with an intelligent and emotional view on subject matters and then proudly share them.
The Value of Business Development: Maybe Now Is The Time
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
As I rode my bike on the new beautiful biking, running and walking path along Onondaga Lake high above the water during a beautiful 82 degree fall day, I noticed the development work that has been done along the shoreline since the path opened in early spring. You can see the works that’s been done to build up the shoreline and improve the water quality.
What a gift this new development is to the Syracuse community. Along the path there were signs announcing the Empire State Marathon being held there this Sunday for the first time. I thought to myself, as I enjoyed the breathtaking views during the 8 mile round trip excursion, this “new development” was the vision, hard work and success of a multitude of people and agencies. I’m thankful to whoever funded, created and implemented this new outdoor gift.
As women entrepreneurs we forget that we need to keep developing our own companies. We need to think about what we have currently, how it can be improved, how the improvements will enhance our customer’s experiences with us and the positive impact it can have in the marketplace. We are so busy working all the time on immediate items there is limited time to consider new innovative ideas that need development.
Today’s blog post is to remind you to conjure up a few new developments for your business next year. What services or products have your clients asked you for? What are your competitors doing that you could tweak and personalize to go with your brand and implement? What major overhauls have you wanted to conduct but haven’t found time to do? Maybe now is the time.
Keep in mind the Onondaga Lake bikers, runners and walkers who are inspired every day because they get to view the beauty of this new lakeside view. What do your customers deserve to experience through your company that will inspire them as well?
Recognizing Female Leaders
Business advice and inspiration for women entrepreneurs
I have always been inspired by women in leadership roles. It doesn’t matter if the role is in business, education or politics. When I see a successful female leader, I know women are continuing to advance in a once dominant male world.
I have always had strong female role models who were leaders. The first woman who inspired me was a woman named Olive Spargo, the first President of the Oswego Alumni Association, who tapped me on the shoulder when I was 16 to lead an admissions project to recruit more Rome Free Academy junior and senior students to go to SUNY Oswego. She was a prominent woman in Rome, New York, a school board leader, a businesswoman and a pure inspiration. Her tap on the shoulder set me in motion on a course of leadership that has lasted 35 years.
I also remember listening to Hillary Clinton’s speech online after she lost the Democractic Presidential nomination and this is what she said, “Although we were not able to shatter that highest and hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it has 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time, and we are going to keep working to make it so, today keep with me and stand for me, we still have so much to do together, we made history, and let’s make some more.”
I have had the honor of shining a light on successful women to inspire other women for 20 years. All it takes is identifying female leaders and asking them to help, they are always gracious and accept my invitation. So I’m honored on October 29th to have Saratoga Springs first female mayor, Joanne Yepsen, agree to share her success strategies with Greater Albany and Saratoga women entrepreneurs at Women TIES event. We can always learn from women who are entering new horizons because it means we are right next to them and the generations of women to follow have more opportunities.
I’m proud to have cracked the glass ceiling for women entrepreneurs for 20 years and to showcase women like Joanne and other successful female leaders to inspire other women. We must continue to gather together to celebrate all the current successes and potential golden horizons for women today and for the girls and women to follow us.
Business Advice: Location, Location, Location
Business advice for women entrepreneurs
Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our members Rachel McClean, Owner of Terra Organic Spa in Fayetteville, New York, who has owned a massage business for 7 years. We were talking about her success when she said, “In the 7 years I have owned my business, I have moved its location 3 times. Each time I moved it, I ended up with more new customers while retaining current customers. One of the keys to my success is continuing to find the next best location for my business.”
As she stated this fact, I drifted back in time to 1982 sitting in my first business marketing class at SUNY Oswego when the instructor taught us that “location, location, location” is the key to marketing success. It’s one of the reason’s McDonald’s conducts extensive traffic surveys before buying property on the left or right side of the road. They want to make sure they choose the best side where more traffic will pull off to buy from them.
In an Internet focused world where businesses can obtain and service customers anywhere around the world, you wouldn’t think location would matter anymore but it does. It especially does for retail businesses like a massage therapist or a retail store. I also know it matters when a home based service business decides to finally find a new home in a new retail space. The demographics of the neighborhood, image of the town, traffic surrounding the business and marketing exposure they can gain from opening shop does matter.
Today’s blog post is meant to remind you that if you are looking to grow, expand, revise or re-launch your company, do your due diligence and consider the location of where you want to work for the next five years. You may find, like the member I spoke to yesterday, that making a move that helps you service clients better will flood your business with new vitality and a new creative space to work in. It might just be the next best thing for your company. Don’t be afraid to move if you feel doing so will help your business.
Sometimes no matter how great the products or services we offer are, we need to make sure we have our companies positioned and located where our customers can find us best and where we can service them even better.
8 Wise Pieces of Advice for Women Entrepreneurs
Business Advice and Tips for Women Entrepreneurs
As I walked away from our annual conference with a renewed spirit, energy and mindset, I decided to do what I asked 150 other women to do, to write down at least five success strategies, wisdom or advice from the event that resonated with them.
Women entrepreneurs go to networking events, educational programs, conferences and meetings all the time gathering viable information from others. At the moment we hear a new business tip, we need to write it down on paper and etch it in our mind.
Today’s blog post is a list of some of the valuable business advice given out at last week’s “Inspiring Success: The Women TIES Retreat.” I hope it inspires you in your own business today and helps you become more successful.
“Communication is everything and everything is communication” when you run your own business. – Lisa Giruzzi, Transformational Conversations
Trust is the glue that keeps your business together. People having low or high trust in your company is the hidden variable to success. It’s essential to gain marketplace trust in your business. – Gwen Webber-McLeod, Gwen, Inc.
A business plan is essential to have and revise. If you don’t have one already you create one because it is an eye opening experience. Revisit your business plan frequently so it can guide you forward. – Eileen Brophy, Brophy Services
I was hyper-focused on revenue and not profitability when I first started my company and I shouldn’t have been. You have to “stop worrying about doubling your numbers all the time” and concentrate on the profitability of your firm. – Theresa Slater, Empire Interpreting Service
We really needed to look at our customer base to see how to attract more revenue from existing customers. We didn’t have to go out and find new customers to increase our sales, we needed to educate our clients on other services or products they could buy from us to increase revenue and it worked! Diane Schmid McCall – Rudy Schmid Total Car Care
By having a financial plan, entrepreneurs are conducting intense planning to lead their companies forward instead of always working to put fires out. – Mary Rodgers, SUNY Oswego
Remember, people cannot hear you, until they know you. Create transformational moments in your communication. – Lisa Giruzzi, Transformational Conversations
Everything happens in your business rises and falls on you since you are the leader of your company. – Gwen Webber-McLeod, Gwen, Inc.
Entrepreneurial Inspiration: “Job Well Done”
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
Tuesday’s Syracuse Post Standard’s newspaper title read, “Oprah Inspires at SU, Honors Real Hero,” and the photo below it showed Oprah with her arm around a woman named Mary Nelson who wrote to Oprah about the youth center she created to give away backpacks to children on the South side of Syracuse and provide a safe environment for them too. With the belief she would meet Oprah when she came to Syracuse, Mary set into action intention, purpose and communication to set the stage for the visit. Little did she know, Oprah would accept her offer and end up writing her a check for $100,000 for the youth center as a gift back to Mary for a “job well done.”
Reading the words Oprah shared with Syracuse University students earlier in the day also resonated with me as it reminded me of similar thoughts I shared at last week’s Women TIES Retreat. Oprah said, “Being able to move through life with a sense of vision, with a sense of purpose, a sense of passion and love for the stories you tell is essential. The world is in great need of knowing and being able to discern what is the truth.” She also said, “Work from the interior of your soul and allow the passion of your heart to lead you to do great work.”
I know women entrepreneurs are successful because the companies they create and the work they do have a deep meaning and greater purpose. Women start companies to change the world for the better with our products or services. We keep going because we work from a place in our soul and a passion in our heart that leads us to do great work.
It doesn’t take much to inspire others whether you are another Mary Nelson working in your community for the good of those in need or like Oprah with wisdom and wealth. Women love to be inspired and they equally love to inspire others.
Today’s blog post is to remind you that you are living a purposeful, goal directed, meaningful entrepreneurial life where you inspire others. You might motivate people with your work ethic, your commitment to a cause, your outlook, your strong belief in producing a meaningful product or your customer service policy. You might inspire your staff, vendors and associates with your actions. I also hope you stop once in awhile to let yourself be inspired by “you.”
As Oprah said so beautifully, “let the passion of your heart lead you to great work.” It’s what makes life so remarkable.
Choosing How to Fill Your Business Day
Business Advice and Inspiration for Women Entrepreneurs
The image out the back window of my house so early this fall morning is of a slightly orange horizon peaking through complete darkness. It sits like a shimmer of hope as a new dawn breaks holding unlimited potential. How will we fill this new day? Will we miss out on its beauty by packing our calendars so tight we can’t take a moment to enjoy it? Could we decide before black night turns to blue sky to promise ourselves to enjoy some part of the day whether we have a hundred tasks ahead?
I love the fact every breaking dawn gives us a moment to choose how we want to spend our day. We can pack it with goals and tasks and accomplish a great deal which makes us feel wonderful when the day ends. We can also decide if we have an open day to decide early how we want to fill the empty hours with goal setting, planning or customer service calls. We could even on a beautiful September day with temperatures in the 70s decide to take an extended lunch hour because our calendars aren’t packed yet. What will you do with today? Have you thought about it before it begins?
The only way I have ever stayed organized running the size company I do with the amount of members I have and sheer size of events I run is to always have a plan for the day that I set the night before with at least an hour of time scheduled for either exercise, enjoying lunch with someone or simply sitting outside taking in nature. Even when I have the biggest event of the year happening the next day, I make sure I keep myself organized with a timeline of tasks and an hour of free time nestled in my schedule.
Sometimes our typical business days can feel similar filled with current projects, future innovative thoughts, people to meet with, customer to service and staff to manage. But always, we must find time within each calendar day to enjoy what we do and be grateful for this life we lead. Deadlines will come and go. Demanding priorities will build and subside. Pressure will accumulate and dissipate. So make sure today you give yourself some time to enjoy the day whatever “enjoy” means to you.
Today’s post should remind you that every breaking dawn you have a clean slate of time in front of you to do what you want to do. You get to set your own calendar everyday – that’s why you run your own business. You have the opportunity to pick and choose tasks. Only you can slip in time to relax and give your spirit and mind what they need most.
Cherish this new light orange dawn with enthusiasm knowing you have plenty of time to both work and rest. As my dear friend always says, “Enjoy the beauty of this day.”
Business Success = Service to Others
As I watched 41,000 red bandanas swirl in the air on Saturday night as the crowd roared on the Boston College Football team to a miraculous win over #9 ranked USC, I remembered why I love the Jesuit Mission of “Service to Others” so much.
The red bandanas were a symbol of support for a young Boston College man named Welles Crowther who saved 12 lives in the North Tower on 9/11 and then perished as the building collapsed. His parents weren’t positive of his demise until 12 strangers’ recounted tales of being saved by a young man wearing a red bandana. Welles always carried a red bandana in his pocket since elementary school.
The young businessman had told his father a few months prior he wanted to leave his corporate job to become a firefighter when a plane hit the building he worked in. Instead of saving himself and exiting the building, he stayed inside climbing many floors multiple times to guide people down stairways to safety. A symbol of his heroism is displayed in the new 9/11 memorial museum- a red bandana – and his story told by Presdient Obama at its dedication.
I am certain women entrepreneurs don’t outwardly wear red bandanas like Welles did that tragic day; but we feel a similar commitment to ‘serving’ others especially our customers. Perhaps we each have an invisible red bandana wrapped around our hearts when we work every day.
Women start businesses not for the millions of dollars they can make, but for the changes they want to make in the world. By owning a company we are allowed to serve womankind through our efforts. Would we really be in business only to make money? I haven’t ever met a woman who said that was the sole motivation behind becoming an entrepreneur. It is one reason but it wasn’t the only reason.
The truth is happiness comes from helping others. I know my happiest days are when I am helping a member, a woman entrepreneur or someone thinking of starting a business through advice, inspiration or wisdom. I have a feeling if you are reading this editorial today; you feel the same way about the people you serve.
Today’s blog post is for you to realize that because you are an entrepreneur you are impacting hundreds of lives with what you offer, what you write, what you make and how you care. We want to make a difference. We want to be in service to others. If you can do anything this week, embrace service to others.
Sales Magnetism
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
You probably remember a day in High School Science Class when you learned about magnets. Those pieces of metal that have the power to draw iron or other steel objects toward them and then to hold onto them. You might have been mesmerized by their draw and attraction. Then when class was over you walked down the hallway to your next class and felt another kind of magnetism when you passed by a handsome young guy.
There have been many bestselling books on the “Laws of Attraction.” In fact when I looked online to find the titles of some popular ones, they were plentiful like Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret,” Wayne Dyer’s “Wishes Fulfilled” or Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.” If you want to be educated by the law of attraction, you don’t have to look too far.
Wouldn’t it be remarkable if every time a woman entrepreneur needed a new client, the law of attraction worked and customers were pulled like metal pieces drawn to a magnet to their company? How great it would be to not make phone calls or attend networking events to entice new business since magnetism would be doing all the work pulling business towards us. We know that can’t really happen but what if there was a sales model you could use that actually helped your prospects arrive at your doorstep on their own terms ultimately removing the need for you to sell. Wouldn’t it feel like magnetism?
Today’s blog post is to encourage you to think about ways you can be “pulling” clients to your business to buy something from you. Perhaps there are new marketing methods you could implement or attractive new services or products to entice them. Maybe rebranding or repositioning yourself in the market will do the trick. You might want to try non-traditional business means like meditating and visualizing abundance to have it knock at your door. If you feel like your magnetism hasn’t been working lately, what can you do to activate it again?
“Getting Prospects to Act” is one of the key presentations at this year’s Inspiring Success Retreat. I made sure to include it in this year’s program since the first time we conducted it we drew 75 women on a cold February day in Rochester. I hope today’s wisdom inspires you to think about ways of re-charging your sales magnetism to attract more financial success to your business.
Women TIES 
