Giving Tuesday Thoughts: Ride the Marketing Wave
Tuesday Thoughts, Giving Tuesday, Marketing Ideas for Women Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses
Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday are successful marketing campaigns aimed at consumers to expend money for deals, sales, and good causes. In the 1960s, Philadelphia was the origin city of Black Friday, where a large number of shoppers gave police and cab drivers headaches trying to keep up with the traffic and pedestrian crowds. It also stood for changing red ink to black ink profits making it a financially successful day for businesses.
As time and technology progressed, Cyber Monday became a hot marketing tool in 2005 to create customer excitement over the internet. Small Business Saturday followed in 2010 when corporate giant American Express desired a way to support small businesses and their community efforts. AMEX’s smart thinking generated a 23% increase in transactions for itself while inspiring 103 million Americans to support the small business community.
With all the greed and attention aimed at commercial enterprises, it made sense in 2012 that the simple idea of people doing good for others was created – Giving Tuesday. There are now 80 countries that participate in the cause on a random Tuesday in November with an estimated $2.7 billion donated in the United States alone. Pure proof an amazing marketing campaign can change the world.
So today how can you as a woman entrepreneur learn from the marketing success of these campaigns?
First, you need to be creative, always thinking of something that could spur your customers to buy from you or the marketplace to come to your store or website.
Second, actively promote these extremely popular advertising campaigns and get involved by participating, offering specials, and letting local media know what we are doing to get highlighted.
Third, be inspired by these concepts and create your own unique marketing campaigns during the year – maybe around the launch date of our business – to entice the public to spend with you.
We can ride the wave of success of global and national marketing movements. It isn’t hard to do so grab your 2023 calendar now and start plotting your course.
Wednesday Wisdom: Thanksgiving Edition
Wednesday Wisdom, Thanksgiving, Inspiration for Women and Women Entrepreneurs
Sitting as still as a human being can, I peered into the depths of the woods in front of me as the sun rose. When you can’t speak, only listen and see, details pop into life bolder and livelier. We got to our perfectly scouted camp spot in the darkness of early morning with only the brightness of the moon and a few flashlights.
As sunbeams started to pierce the dark forest, I noticed things you wouldn’t typically notice unless you were in the woodland at 6 a.m. I was mesmerized by a tree sapling covered with moss changing differing hues of green as the sun hit it, by two droplets of dew hovering for dear life on a branch never falling or evaporating, and by the wind changing directions every twenty minutes rustling cinnamon-colored leaves on a small bush. I wondered, “Why does the wind change direction so often?”
Annually, I join my husband and sons on the opening day of deer hunting season, mostly to be with them since I’m not interested in shooting an animal, and to experience this mostly male ritual since being a female typically excludes you from learning to hunt. If I’m a feminist then I want to experience some of my life from a male perspective.
As a four-point buck, so silent you didn’t hear him, walked into sight of our hunting blind, my son slowly lifted his gun for a shot, but before the blink of an eye, the super-keen-eared deer hopped up and over fallen trees through the forest until all we saw was his white tail rejoicing in winning the day. We were so close, and yet so far away, from hitting this superior creature aware of every single aspect of his surroundings.
As my son grumbled having not taken a shot, I sat for a moment thinking how hard it must have been for the pilgrims and Indians to forge for food. With so much ground to cover, with animals knowing their terrain better than humans, it is amazing there was food for the first Thanksgiving Day meal. I imagine I would have starved to death as an early pioneer woman if I had to rely solely on my hunting skills.
Finally, the chilly day came to an end as the sun started to settle itself. Pleased I made it through another year, I walked out of the woods grateful for the beautiful abundance of nature and the Thanksgiving lessons it taught me. I will never take for granted the hardship the pilgrims had to live through to hunt and feed themselves during the early days of our country.
This Wednesday Wisdom – Thanksgiving Edition is hoping you remember the challenges the pilgrims had leading up to their first gathering including how they caught and prepared their meal, the beauty of nature that surrounded them, and eventually the land they left us. Our ancestors had to work so much harder than we have today, so let us not forget that as we contemplate our gifts.
I send you blessings for a bountiful and beautiful meal with the ones you love. I am grateful to you for reading my Wednesday Wisdoms all year long.
Wednesday Wisdom: Bittersweet
Inspiration, Motivation, Attitude for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners
Walking in the chilly November morning, I walked past a bitter-sweet plant whose orange seeds caught my eye. Some of my female relatives would collect and then decorate with them in their homes. Their color, the same color as autumn leaves and flames from a fire, made their presence warm and inviting, something I needed trying to shake out my legs from the weekend’s half marathon race.
Bittersweet the word, not plant, can refer to sentimental and nostalgic in the dictionary, words reflective of the upcoming American holiday of Thanksgiving. Gathering around a table with family and friends in the present day can often remind us of old familiar faces not at the table anymore. Certain recipes, songs, drinks, and even football-watching can create bittersweet memories as we remember good times and good people that have disappeared into the past.
Even my chilly walk was bittersweet remembering the thrill of the marathon race knowing it was done and over after four months of training for it.
As woman entrepreneurs, we can get bittersweet when we lose favorite customers or staff members who have to move on because they’ve outgrown us. We can also feel bittersweet about the mix of successes and defeats we’ve experienced doing business the past year. Bittersweet is akin to Yin and Yang, a Chinese philosophy describing opposite but interconnected, mutually perpetuating forces.
So, as you prepare for Thanksgiving this year or the end of another business year, I hope you realize that both the missing and the present, or the good and the bad, can be interlaced to give you a balanced, appreciative view of the whole picture of life and work.
This Wednesday Wisdom is to wish you a vibrant and bittersweet glow of appreciation, of who is around you, who can’t be there; what is good in your life, and what can be improved, and an overall sense of gratitude for all the pieces of it that make your life or career whole.
A mosaic window is most beautiful because of the shards of varying colors and patterns of the glass, much like our lives and companies.
Monday Motivation: Half Marathon Moments
Inspiration, Wisdom, Monday Motivation for women
As I walked under crispy golden-lined trees to the tent to find my friend, a field of people of all sizes, colors, ages, and sexes filled my view. Some of them were chatting, others stared forward quietly, and many stretching or running up and down in place. All of them gathered like I was, for the start of the Boston Athletic Association’s Half Marathon race. The 39-degree temperatures indicated it was an autumn event.
The last time I was in Boston in a similar situation was April 17, 2017. Instead of golden leaves, there were small budding green leaves along the route where we gathered, spring was in the air, and the temperature was unusually warm and muggy with a predicted high of 75 degrees. The morning felt glorious as it often does when a cold New England winter is over with warming temperatures on the way. It lifted the mood off of the anticipation of a 26.2-mile Boston Marathon – the most historic running event in United States History.
Not only was the air warm and the sun shining on the historic Hopkinton start area, but I was with over 100+ women (and a few men) along with Kathrine Switzer, “Marathon Woman” herself to run. I was anything but alone. I also had about six of my closest #261Fearless friends running with me – Deb Mills, Katina Wolfe, Dawn Foreman, Mary T. Callahan, Jolene Hong, and Inga Fanney from Iceland. It was a sorority-like feeling as we waited for the gun to go off.
Yesterday at the chilly Boston Half Marathon, I was excited to start the race with my friend Deb Mills, whom I’ve run with several times since meeting in 2015 – in Boston for the marathon, overseas in Devon, England for the Women Can Marathon, in San Antonio for the Rock and Roll 5K, and now again in Boston for the half marathon. There is something truly joyful about running with a friend. It takes all the anxiety out of one’s system leaving just the juices flowing in your legs.
We hugged goodbye at the start line realizing we would each run our own race and time. We high-fived each other twice during the race as our paths crossed, and then hugged at the finish tent. We both knew that each of us had to run our own time, and pace, and plan to finish in time.
As we gathered for our own personal photos, a photographer came up to me and singled me out for a lot of quick photos. I couldn’t figure out why until he said, “You are a pacesetter for the Dana Farber team and I’m their photographer,” oh, I thought I understood why he was taking only my photo. I thought for a second, he thought I had cancer as my alopecia head sparkled with sweat from the run.
I wish I pulled out the paper I was carrying in my flip belt, the one with the 32 donors who raised $1,800 for my charity the Dana Farber Cancer Center. I typed up the list not only to carry them but to give me strength through their generosity. I kissed the list before I ran and mentally went through the list of names when I was in a quiet part of the race.
My friend Kathrine Switzer said it best, “If you want to see the good in the world, watch a marathon.” It is true. Not only do people support you before the race with donations if you run for a charity, but strangers support you along the way with signs, shouts, and high-fives. One man singled me out a couple times during the race to tell me, “I’m proud of you, keep going.” I don’t know who he was but it felt like I had a special friend with me on the course.
At the end of the race, as my husband, son, and daughter-in-law hugged me, I felt the biggest support of all.
No wonder humans run marathons, half-marathons, 10ks, or 5ks for charity, there are no downsides, only the feeling of doing your best to help and support others. Give it a try if you haven’t already and I’ll be there to support you if you ask.
Wednesday Wisdom: Onboarding, Training, Leading
Wednesday Morning, Wednesday Wisdom, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses
Sitting in the back of a volunteer training room this week, I realized it had been quite a while since I was in an educational setting being instructed. For the past thirty years, I have been in the front of rooms teaching, inspiring, and introducing business content to others. With the roles reversed, I sat quietly and took in the information.
It was insightful being on the other end of the spectrum – a bit uneasy because I am a natural leader. I was the one raising my hand in sixth-grade class to go to the blackboard, raising it to take on the treasurer’s position of the honor society in junior high school, and raising both hands to take on my businesses. Sitting and doing nothing but listening just felt odd. The trainer was excellent, with the perfect disposition of humor, clarity, respect, and attitude to be leading the class, and an expert in her professional position of onboarding volunteers.
Onboarding is learning how to acclimate new hires into an organization’s culture and providing them with knowledge and resources to succeed. I only onboarded ten people in my 30-year entrepreneurial career because I loved working alone but I am positive I was not as professional as this organization which trained me since they onboard 300 volunteers a year.
The experience opened my eyes to the importance of training. Many women entrepreneurs have little or no staff, so the thought of onboarding might be foreign to them unless they are being onboarded themselves into a new leadership or volunteer role. It honestly shouldn’t have taken me 3-decades to sit and listen as opposed to always being the one leading and talking.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is a small reminder to you, as the leader of your own business, that you should be attending training and leadership opportunities to enhance your skills so that when the time comes for you to onboard volunteers or staff members, you are well prepared. We might think we don’t have time for our own training, but it is an essential element of personal and leadership growth. Also, take a look at the materials you use to onboard staff or volunteers for your organization and update them if you need to.
Onward movement and onboarding lead to upward growth for you and your enterprise, so consider doing more of it in 2024.
Monday Motivation: “It’s for Them, Not Me”
Monday Motivation, Inspiration for Women and Female Athletes
It is the break of dawn as the rose glow emits behind the eastern hill in my backyard. Checking the temperature, I see it is only 37 degrees. The warm wood-burning stove inside my home makes it feel much warmer than that – 73 degrees in fact – as I strip down to a t-shirt. Oh, I’m ready to get out there and run right now but my limited cold-weather asthma breath says, “Just hold on.”
It has been four months since I signed up to run the Boston Half Marathon on a whim after seeing another post about a friend with a cancer diagnosis. I was mad and felt helpless in the moment so I clicked on the “Join the Dana-Farber Cancer Center Team” in the blink of an eye and keystroke. “I’ll show cancer what I think of it by running a half marathon! There is no messing around with me.”
The dried red rose bush, my son and daughter-in-law gave me after one of my closest friends passed away from complications of breast cancer, is shriveled up outside my kitchen door as the rose light dawns on it. “Hey Teresa’s rose, are you coming along for the run with me on Sunday in Boston?”, I asked it as if to expect an answer. I knew my friend was smiling down from heaven thinking I was downright crazy but tickled by the idea I would be remembering her this way.
Humor has always been a way I’ve dealt with life. I’m a pretty joyful person – always have been – and even the subject of death can’t sadden me too long. I have strong faith and believe good people end up where they are supposed to be and being a good person in life sets the tone for all things to come. If running for a cure for cancer helps someone else, I love in the future then I’m glad I’m up at 5:30 a.m. ready to run in the soft pink glow of morning.
As I head outside, I see the quote by my door that says, “What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.” Amen, I think as the last week of training begins today and will be over one week from this morning. I’ll wear Teresa’s name on my arm and a list of people who donated $1,500 to the Dana Farber Cancer Center as I run the 13.1 miles in Franklin Park in Boston being grateful for every step and breath I take.
“It’s for them, not me that I’m running,” I say as I head out the door into the pink abyss.
Wednesday Wisdom: Stretch
Wednesday Morning, Wednesday Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Athletes
I liken taking the time to stretch before a run to filing papers piling up on my desk – not fun and not what I love to do. Most of the time it is because I have too high of an energy level to sit still and file or stretch, I just want to do or go! Is this you too?
But I’ve learned that in athletics, life, and running a business, we must do the things we don’t like to do, as much as the tasks we do like. It really makes a difference when we can prepare, catch up, get organized, or lean into those daily or monthly tasks we tend to avoid because they aren’t exciting or in our energy wheelhouse.
Half the time when I am doing stretching, recording financials, filing, or sitting still to read something, I am clamoring to be done; but I have learned the past couple of months as I prepare for the Boston Half Marathon on November 12 that I must, truly must, stretch and take some slow time to be prepared properly. It reminds me of gathering my company’s receipts for my annual tax appointment. “Just be patient, it is once a year,” I tell myself.
Although stretching might not be on your daily agenda, I have learned that it has made a huge difference in the activity of running, just like staying on top of our filing and mundane tasks makes “running” our companies easier. It’s the small things – the daily things – that add up to feeling confident and prepared.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to motivate you to tackle some mundane tasks you’ve been avoiding, or commit to finishing a project that is almost done so you can feel proud. Push back the high energy and rest for a day or two to get what must be done so that when the items have been completed, you can rest assured you are prepared for the next more important project.
A Real Truth About My Announcement
Thursday Thoughts from a Retiring Woman Entrepreneur
As I swept golden leaves off my pool deck yesterday, the first day since announcing the closing of the major part of my 2-decade business at the end of the year, I felt different – almost like a kid on their first day of summer vacation on a beautiful, blue sky, warm day. I questioned why.
When I glanced back at the public launch of my company, I remember wanting to announce its formation at the SU WISE Conference the third year in a row I was asked and agreed to emcee it for free. I assumed it was the perfect place to exclaim my new business venture focused on promoting, marketing, and uniting women entrepreneurs around the state. Why would anyone mind after my three years of service to the event?
I was literally tinkled pink until the male in charge of the event told me I couldn’t. In fact, he insinuated I copied the concept and he’d do something about it if I mentioned it at the podium. How ironic, I thought being threatened by a man I was sitting next to at the head table who was supposed to be helping women business owners. Being the ever-dutiful person I am, I didn’t mention my company’s new formation at the podium.
WISE had promised me an event table as a gift for my emceeing time, but to no surprise, this man made sure my table was placed in the worst location out of foot traffic to ensure it would be hard to find Women TIES corporate table. A mix of anger and sadness came over me as I left the conference but with a steely determination to never allow a man to control my entrepreneurial path again, ever.
After the WISE event ended, I was also kicked off its advisory board by two close friends who had been part of an organization called WBOC I grew and led for 9 years. It wasn’t so much being kicked off the board, but by who kicked me off – women who had succumbed to the pressure of this man. Here I had volunteered my leadership time for nine years elevating women in Syracuse only to have two of them take over my position as leaders of WBOC, and release me publicly from the WISE Board.
With $10,000 invested in my new enterprise, I couldn’t do anything but advance my plans amid contempt in my own city. It was hard. It was painful. It was all I could do to not want to give up, but I didn’t. And when no one came to my first Women TIES Syracuse event, I still didn’t take no for an answer. I planned another one and another one and another one until Women TIES was popular and expanding – mostly due to women entrepreneurs in other regions of the state.
I write of this now because yesterday as I raked those golden leaves, I realized the internal and external pressure was finally off my shoulders – 18 years of defending myself, my actions, my company’s mission, and my personal purpose finally dissipated. I wondered if my hair would suddenly pop out all over as to scream “Halleluiah!”
I have so many more truths and lessons to share with women entrepreneurs based on my own 30-year history as the founder and owner of two companies and I plan to in time, but for now, I am going to enjoy the release of the pressure, I didn’t even know existed, while raking leaves during a beautiful season of the year and thanking God for the positive women who lifted me up and contributed to the success of my company all over New York.
Wednesday Wisdom: Ending a Business Venture
Wednesday Thoughts for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses
My son who is in the medical profession said to me once, “Mom, everyone has their own personal death story, just like their birth story.” I quickly said, “I hope my story is being hit on the head by a pineapple that falls from a tree while sitting under it on Sanibel Island.” I suppose thinking of how my life would end one day needed some humor to deal with the thought.
Yesterday, when I left my home for the last live event for my company of 18 years, I knew it was the end of that part of my business since I was keeping the women’s athletic division open for recreational purposes, but I wasn’t sure how I’d feel since no one discusses ending a business, but rather the start-up or growth years. Who wants to talk about the literal death of a business? No one in my 30 years of bringing together this community of female entrepreneurs.
As the event ended and I walked out the door of my favorite woman-owned business coffee shop in Rochester on the way to a 10th-anniversary celebration of another female business owner, I looked up at the blue sky and smiled. “Aah, this is the way it is ending – peaceful, content, calm, and joyous.”
As I drove down the familiar highway that has taken me to Albany, Saratoga, Ithaca, Cortland, Binghamton, Oswego, Watertown, Utica, Rome, Skaneateles, and Auburn to gather thousands of women together, I realized that not only was the major part of my business ending but my sons were married and on their own. I felt free – free from three decades of my life that have brought me countless blessings, people, opportunities, cherished memories, and so much more. It was like reading the last chapter of a great novel.
“What’s next I asked myself,” an enterprising woman who has worked all her life. I responded, “I’ll just see,” with a twinkle in my eye as the sun streamed in my sunroof.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is meant to have you think of planning for endings – or not – it is totally up to you. Your choice. Your story. Your life. Your next chapter or two depending on your age and zest to continue a career. I know many women entrepreneurs who work until their mid-80s, some stop at 63 to retire with their partners, and others earlier.
In fact, I’ve heard 80 is the new 40 – so keep on’ keeping on’ if you want or like me take a break and then let something else fill you up until you feel it’s time to sit under the proverbial pineapple tree.
Wednesday Wisdom: Ramping Up or Ramping Down Your Business?
Wednesday Wisdom, Hump Day, Inspiration for Women Entrepreneurs, Women Business Owners
The Advisory Board for Women TIES was an array of well-seasoned female business owners with unique knowledge in differing aspects of entrepreneurship. I carefully chose them based on the scale of their companies, business acumen, and talents. I trusted and respected them. Every six months we gathered to review Women TIES’ successes, obstacles, and growth plans.
At one meeting we got into a discussion about growth and expansion. I remember stuttering through their questions because I still had one son left in high school and wasn’t sure I wanted to expand until he was at college. “Tracy, would you prefer to ramp up or ramp down?” one board member asked. It stunned me at first as if the status quo wasn’t an option.
I often think of that question within every business year as I think of ideas to add services and products, or delete services and products, and when my accountant gives me a quarterly analysis of my financials. “Hmm, seems like revenue is going down, so I must ramp up” or “Wow, you hit new revenue goals, are you going to add staff or keep the status quo?
Running a business in an unpredictable world and economy can have a see-saw effect unless you are an excellent planner and perhaps a clairvoyant. Most of the time business owners keep their plans to themselves only confiding in certain advisors or people.
I have not been one of those entrepreneurs since losing all my hair to alopecia five years ago and the Covid-19 pandemic which shattered the event planning industry. I gave all my members a plan about my retirement of Women TIES, over a year and a half ago, only to have it continue because some members wanted me to, and because I wasn’t quite ready to walk away from what I worked so hard to grow.
But now it’s time to ramp down the business event side of Women TIES and keep the Women’s Athletic Network Division open, continuing to bring women in business together through sports and adventures, as I move into semi-retirement. So, the ramping down is underway.
This Wednesday Wisdom is not to be vocal about my plans but rather to have you look at your business and ask yourself, “Am I ramping up or ramping down or am I okay with the status quo and where I am right now?” If you feel like a change is coming, make sure you have a plan, communicate it to the right people, seek an advisor if you need one, and ensure your most loyal customers know what’s happening.
Don’t put the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign on your door without proper notice.
Women TIES 