Entrepreneurs: Let 2014 Be Your Year of Risk
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
For the Chinese culture their New Year revelry originated with end-of-harvest celebrations when people would offer thanks to gods for good harvests and entreaty for a good crop in the following year. Traditionally, this holiday encouraged families to thoroughly clean their homes to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck.
Each New Year is named after one of the twelve zodiac animals for example on January 31, 2014, the Year of the Horse will begin. As women entrepreneurs planning for the start of a new business year, we have an opportunity to name our year; I challenge you to name it the Year of Risk.
For the past four years we have been living in a frightened economic climate – one which produced worry and trepidation in the hearts of business owners. Most women entrepreneurs I know have survived this period but not with alot of gain. While staying in a conservative, holding pattern can keep a company afloat; it can’t stay that way forever. Being static eventually produces feelings of failure. Being too conservative in business for too long is like having the flu, if you lay in bed too long waiting out the pain, you lose the strength you need to get back on your feet. The longer you stay down, the harder it is to get up.
I believe it is time for women entrepreneurs to claim 2014 as their year of risk – the kind of risk that makes you get out of bed with a little bit of nervous energy to move forward in a direction you’ve really wanted to go in. We each know what risk we have been avoiding – it could be small, it could be large – but it’s there standing in the way of feeling like we are moving, growing, expanding, breathing. Going backward has never felt fun, not even on a roller coaster. Forward movement is the only way to be exhilarated and progressive.
Today’s post is to encourage you to risk in 2014 – risk small and risk big. Hire the person you’ve always wanted to hire. Take the extra educational courses you’ve needed to move your company forward. Invest some resources in improving your company. Add new product or service lines. Have more honest communication with your clients. Travel and meet new prospects. Add new technology. Attend bigger conferences. Expand your business network. Let Women TIES help you.
You can’t be in a holding pattern forever and either can your business. Maybe we need to do what the Chinese do and thoroughly clean our “house” sweeping away ill-fortune and worries in order to make the way for good incoming luck, riches and opportunities. Make this year the Year of Risk and challenge yourself every day to get up on your feet with new entrepreneurial energy and zest to grow your business. Do it without worry, fear or trepidation
Getting the 2014 Business Ball Rolling Before New Years Day
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
If you are like most small businesses you might be experiencing a lull in activity, a quietness in sales efforts, minimal communication with customers during this week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It’s normal. It’s American. It’s part of being an entrepreneur. The last week of the year typically produces less commerce than other times of the year unless you prepare taxes, run a retail store accepting holiday return items or host New Year’s Eve bashes. I’ve learned after 19 years in business, it’s perfectly okay to embrace a quiet business cycle.
By definition a business cycle is the upward and downward movements of levels of gross domestic product and refers to the period of expansion and contraction in the level of economic activities around long-term growth trends. If you have been an entrepreneur for awhile, you should be aware of the upward and downward movements in sales of your business over the year. This week might be one of those down sales periods. The question then becomes, “What should I be doing right now to prepare myself for business when the period comes to an end and the New Year’s Eve ball drops in Times Square?”
Here is a list of tasks to perform if you are looking to prepare your business for 2014:
1. Just like Good Morning America did this morning, review 2013 highlights and low points to capture the essence of the year. Write down what your company performed really well, how you succeeded beyond expectations and then try to replicate those high points in 2014. Then look at what didn’t work well in 2013. Take note. Take responsibility. Then make a plan to do those tasks better in the New Year.
2. Pull out your 2013 business plan and update it. Goals change. Revenue streams ebbed and flowed. New marketing opportunities presented themselves, Competitors entered the marketplace. Pricing changed. These are just a few of the elements that affected your overall plan. Do some research if you must and then make adjustments for 2014 so you are better prepared to succeed.
3. Create a list of strategic partners, organizations and individuals and align yourself with them this January. During the height of a busy season, it’s hard to find time to reach out and strike up new, beneficial relationships. The perfect time to set up new alliances is before the year gets underway. Look at your business cards. Review business organizations you belong to. Make a list of people to meet and set up appointments before January 15th to discuss how you can work together.
By getting the ball rolling before the New Year’s Eve ball drops is the best way to add motion and movement to your company as a new business year begins.
Special Holiday Message: Live Life to the Fullest
Business advice for women entrepreneurs
I received an unexpected Christmas gift last year on this date – one I could have never imagined or ever hoped for.
A good friend of my husband and I who battled ovarian cancer for five years was admitted to Francis House in Syracuse. Understanding the Francis House provides a beautiful home and an extended family to people with terminal illnesses so they can die with dignity and experience the unconditional love of God, I knew our friend had a week to live. The news came as a shock although we knew she was still battling the disease.
Debbie was a woman who had a very large spirit and joyful personality. She was tenacious about beating the disease and not letting the disease beat her. So when we received a special invitation from her husband to join him for a surprise “celebration” at the Francis House one evening we accepted immediately. Knowing how much she wanted to see all the people she loved, he threw her one last party and invited 40 of her closest family and friends.
I’ll never forget the smile on her face and the joy that radiated from her as she entered a room full of loved ones. She had the grace and dignity to thank everyone with a powerful speech that couldn’t have been written better by Hollywood writers. Everyone had a chance to celebrate with her one more time and with each other, to take a photo with her, to say good-bye to her when she was alive and not at a funeral home, to say all the things that mattered, and to leave with a lighter heart than when they arrived.
I said to her husband as I left, “You have given everyone here one of the greatest gifts of all time – you gave us the gift of being together to celebrate her while she was still alive and to see her happy one last time.” I will always remember her in that happy moment.
Two days later Debbie passed away with her husband by her side and 40 people very grateful for the amazing memory of her last celebration filled with pure love and friendship. It was an early Christmas present and a gift I will never forget.
This special blog post is to remind you to live life with as much joy as you can. To take the time to tell the ones you love, what they mean to you. To celebrate the good and bad times together with those who mean the most to you. It’s truly a gift for the ages and one we must give ourselves every day of our lives.
I wish you and your loved ones a very blessed Christmas and prosperous new business year.
A Better View of Your Business for 2014
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
Every once in a while we need to lift our eyes from the work on our desk to look at the horizon to ensure we are heading in the right direction. Sometimes looking up and out to see where we are going is difficult, especially on a cold and snowy Central New York morning like today. In order to catch a glimpse of the horizon this morning, you might just have to stand up and glance past the foot of fluffy lake effect snow that has accumulated outside your office window.
But the snow is a good reminder that sometimes our view gets blocked; either by something physical or something mental. Often the hectic pace of a woman entrepreneur’s business cycles can block the view as she focuses on immediate work and issues. Other times relationships or circumstances have clouded the crystal clear view of ourselves, our work and our future and only by terminating those relationships can we regain clarity. Many times we simply forget that although today or maybe next week’s work demands the most attention, we need to focus on the future to lead us forward.
Cold snowy days like today in the Northeast, when you might not be able to travel too far due to hazardous road conditions gives you the perfect opportunity to think about what blocks your view and needs to be removed. It might require ending unproductive business relationships, hiring a business consultant to help fix corporate problems, restructuring corporate pricing, or focusing on additional education to make you more knowledgeable.
The view may have also gotten cluttered if you haven’t paid attention to your business plan, financial situation, or the marketplace in awhile. Often times we really don’t want to see what is standing in our way, we want to just keep trudging through.
Today’s inspirational blog entry is to make you realize that the foot of snow sitting outside your front door, in your driveway or on the roadways, can be a reminder that your business view may be barricaded and you must take time to remove it. You know what’s been impeding you. It’s been there for awhile.
Remember life’s limitations are the ones we make. Grab your business snow shovel and clear the path right now. Look beyond the shroud of white and make concrete plans to get to where you want to go in 2014. If you can’t see the horizon from where you are seated, stand up, seek support, motivate yourself and do what you know you have to do. I promise a crisp, clean exhilaration and sense of direction will guide you to the horizon.
The Ingredient to Business Success: Remaining Inventive
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
A mint truffle 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 confectionaries 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 peppermint 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.
Exclaiming Your Business Mission Time and Again
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
With the passing of Nelson Mandela came thousands of voices exclaiming what the man represented to society. Through taped interviews, old news stories and print pieces, Mandela’s personal mission was broadcast loudly for all to hear again. If Mandela had been a man of few words, he might not have made the significant impact he did around the globe. What wouldn’t have transpired if Mandela was silent about his personal mission.
Preparing for a recent business speech, I almost cut out what I thought was a repetitive statement – my company’s mission statement. I assumed a majority of women in the audience knew it already. But after deciding to state my personal mission to help women entrepreneurs become more financially successful by urging other women to spend as much of their money as possible with other women business owners locally, regionally or nationwide, my program’s keynote speaker who runs a $150 million dollar company spoke and said these profound words:
“I have never once stopped to think about the major impact spending my corporate dollars with other women owned businesses could create and yet I struggled in a male dominated industry for thirty years.” Right after the statement, she looked at her assistant and said, “From now on, make sure we are subcontracting out as much work as we possibly can to other women owned companies.”
This particular woman has more buying power than most women I know so hearing her words produced an amazing swell of emotion. It was a gift. It was confirmation. It was a sign to keep pressing on and to always share my entrepreneurial message with others.
Today’s business post is to encourage you to never stop sharing your entrepreneurial message and passion with others even if you think they have already heard it. You don’t know who is listening and how your message could impact them, your mission and others for the good.
Remember Nelson Mandela never stopped exclaiming what he stood for and neither should entrepreneurs.
Bringing Your Company to Life Through Video Marketing
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
Through the lens of an old black and white film projector, my sister and I reminisced over our 1960’s holidays with our parents, two sets of grandparents and cousins. After watching the historic reel, we took a VHS tape from one of our sister’s weddings which captured our father dancing with us six months before his passing. What a treasure grove of memories seeing loved ones in action opposed to still shots. It brought life back again.
In today’s times, I go to YouTube to pull up my favorite Dave Matthews Band concert moments including Woodstock ’99 which I attended. My son used YouTube to teach himself how to play guitar and my husband watched a YouTube video on how to install electricity in a new room. When I peruse Facebook, I see video links of my friend’s children enjoying the holidays, performing in a musical or baking.
With this long history of using moving pictures to capture life, it only makes sense women entrepreneurs should be using video to embellish their businesses. A video welcome on a home page, a demonstration on how to use a product or a taped seminar are just some of the ways businesses are intriguing visitors to their websites and social media marketing sites in today’s world.
Statistics show women entrepreneurs are not using this medium as much as they should. With a hundred other tasks on their to-do-list, taking time to learn, implement and showcase video marketing is not rising to the top; but if used correctly video can bring a website to life because it excites the senses, engages the eyes and ears to understand a message better.
Today’s blog post is for you to consider adding video to your business in 2014. Start considering the option now as this business year comes to an end. Take a cruise around the internet to see how other businesses are using video. Start researching the costs of including video on your website. Learn more about how it can help your search engine optimization rankings. Talk to a marketing expert on how to start using video more in the New Year.
The world does not stand still and either should your online messages. This might be the perfect time to bring your company to life and provide potential customers and current clients with another view of who you are, what you offer and to create your own treasure grove of marketing memories.
Giving Tuesday: Helping Women Entrepreneurs Who Create Nonprofits
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
“It is better to give, than receive” proclaims a popular quote. I’ve always found that sentiment to be true. Now a new avenue to encourage charitable giving and highlighting worthy causes is being celebrated today, December 3, 2013. The movement was launched by the New York’s 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation a number of years ago.
The world might expect women entrepreneurs to only own profit companies but a handful in Women TIES have created non-for-profit organizations as their entrepreneurial endeavor. Some have created them out of the loss of a loved one, after a breast cancer diagnosis or due to a need in the community. Many of these women work diligently to raise funds and awareness for their causes year round while taking very little compensation for their time. They give from their heart and bless the lives of others in the process.
Today, I hope you learn more about Giving Tuesday and learn more about the women entrepreneurs in our network who created or run a non-for-profit organization that could use your donation today.
Women TIES is proud to have the following nonprofit organizations affiliated with us:
Father Champlin’s Guardian Angel Society
Girl Scouts of NYPenn Pathways
Alzheimer’s Association, Central New York Chapter
and
a company started by Karen McMahon called ShopForMuseums.com where you can shop at hundreds of your favorite national online stores through ShopforMuseums.com- places like Amazon, Ebay, Target, Best Buy, Staples, etc. and at no extra cost, have a percentage of your purchase donated back to your favorite museum or related organization.
Giving from your heart and wallet to a worthy non-for profit organization is just one way to give yourself one of the best holiday gifts of all. Live generously.
Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
The top news story this morning is the frenzy of Black Friday shoppers storming major retail stores in hopes of landing major price breaks on the largest gifts of the year. Cameras captured people standing in lines for hours eager to land mega sales deals on hot season products. I would love for just one day to have that many people waiting at my doors and I’m sure other entrepreneurs do too.
So instead of waiting for the masses to call our stores or place online orders, entrepreneurs need to conduct some marketing tasks to attract customers to holiday specials. With a little ingenuity small business owners can create a few Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and holiday sales on their own. Here are some of my tips to help get the marketing ball rolling to bring customers knocking:
* Use Social Media Marketing – Business owners should be using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterst and even LinkedIn to create a holiday sales buzz. All it takes is creating a hot, holiday special and posting it on all social media channels to attract customers. Business owners can even create a Facebook event to promote the special and then share it with their friends and ask them to share it with theirs. Viral marketing is an excellent way to get the word out about holiday specials.
* Send Retail or Service Specials to Your Clients – Create an attractive marketing piece, like an event flyer, email note or e-newsletter highlighting Black Friday, Small Business Day Saturday or holiday specials to your entire customer list. Encourage them to shop for themselves and others and to share the special with their circle of friends. Offer the “Friend of a Client Special” to anyone your customer shares the marketing piece with to increase your reach and revenue.
* Produce a Special Open House Event – Sometimes the old fashion approach of hosting a holiday open house can produce enough sales to make the time and expense of planning the event worthwhile. Make sure the event has character filled with music, food, drink decorations and sales specials to entice attendees. If you can find time in the next two weeks to host a simple event – it doesn’t have to be elaborate – produce the marketing piece by December 2nd and start inviting everyone you met and networked with in 2013.
Just because we are considered “small” business doesn’t mean we have to think small when it comes to holiday marketing. Take the pledge today to start acting like the big retailers so you can produce a long line of customers at your doors in December.
If you are looking for women entrepreneurs to buy from this holiday season, take a look at the Women TIES online directory and online store too. We market some fantastic New York State women business owners.
Sales Calls During a Holiday Work Week
Business Advice for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
If you live in much of the nation today, you probably think its too cold to do business. It’s also the Monday of a holiday week when so many people are getting ready to travel somewhere for Thanksgiving. You might be thinking “why would I conduct sales calls today of all days?”
Having spent a majority of my morning conducting sales calls – although they were more warm calls, then cold calls – made me feel like I already accomplished more than most entrepreneurs might this holiday business week. If you have two or three days of business this week before you embark on a family trip or to over the woods to grandmother’s house, why not take me up on the idea of performing sales calls before you take off for the festivities.
Here are some tips on making sales calls this holiday business week:
* Don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking you need to spend an entire day making sales calls. Allot two to four hours one day this week. The key to sales calls isn’t the length of time you conduct them, but rather the fact you do them at all.
* Create a short sales script if you struggle with sales calls. Make sure you sales script includes first asking the prospect if they have ten minutes of time to talk about their company and its services or products so you can learn more about them; and then telling them you’d like to share how your company might be able to help them further. Remember it’s useful to find out more about a prospect’s needs before you start pitching what you offer.
* If a sales call goes well, follow-up immediately with an email “thank you” note. The note can contain information on when you’ll contact them again, how the two of you will precede working together or any other details that arise from the sales conversation. Immediate follow-up shows professionalism and a commitment on your end to make sure the sale will be completed.
Before you head off for a wonderful, relaxing end of the week frivolities with family, friends, and football, take care of business by making sales calls so you have new business waiting for you when the wonderful holiday is over.
Women TIES 