Entrepreneurial Sisterhood
“Everyone has a twin in the world,” is a popular statement. Although the reference relates more about someone physically looking exactly like someone else, I also think the statement means possessing the exact same values, spirit and essence as someone else. Sometimes this “twin” is a close relative who displays similar characteristics; sometimes it’s a Kindergarten friend who has always understood everything about us; and sometimes it is a woman we meet during our professional lifetime who clicks with us the instant we meet them.
As women we are fortunate to recognize and embrace other women in our lives who make us feel at home with ourselves. Through their understanding, friendship and belief in our dreams, we can be who we are suppose to be, we can strive to be more than we thought we could be, and we can fail knowing they stand close by ready to get us back on our feet with encouragement. I think it is the most important part of being a female – this gift of oneness with each other – whether it is as friends, partners, business associates, or sister entrepreneurs.
When I started my first business in 1995, I knew I needed to find entrepreneurial women to support me. From that moment forward I have found strengthen and support from other women entrepreneurs. This eventually lead me to start my second company, Women TIES, which is dedicated to helping other women entrepreneurs expand their local, state and regional marketplace. A sense of sisterhood is felt at every event we host no matter where we are in New York State.
As we all know, life is constantly changing, just like our businesses change. New clients come in our lives; old business products are put to rest; fresh innovative ideas expand our company. Life wouldn’t be life, without changes. As women entrepreneurs we must remember even if the way we operate
our business evolves, our clients change, and we are faced with transforming times, we are always equipped with an intellect, will and desire to make sure the most important things in our life, like strong, business relationships with other women, never change.
The Saleswoman Who Could
Women entrepreneurs are the ultimate sales representatives for their companies. In order to sell and sell well, you must believe you can. Making sales calls is not always on the top of our to-do-list, yet sales are the lifeblood of a corporation. So what does a woman entrepreneur need to be the best saleswoman for her company? We’ve listed some advice to help you succeed in sales today.
Your Total Belief System: You must believe that you work for the greatest company in the world, that you offer the greatest products and services in the world, and that you are the greatest person in the world, or you are in the wrong job. High self-belief leads to high success. Medium self-belief leads to medium success. Low self-belief leads to low success.
Belief Drives Passion: Mediocrity steams from lack of belief more than lack of skill. Passion is the intangible in a salesperson’s presentation that makes the message transferable. Passion exhibited by the salesperson creates a desire to buy in the heart and mind of the prospect.
Have the attitude of YES: I think I can is a “yes” thought, not just a positive thought. It is a positive determination with a positive projected outcome. It is more than determination. It’s YES. A “yes” attitude is stated in terms of what can be done. Think you can.
Invest Your Time In Things That Help You Succeed: How many hours of the day do you spend in ‘non-success’ areas? Time wasters like TV re-runs, news for the second time today, or someone else’s drama? What could you achieve if you took half of that time and invested it in studying about your biggest business obstacle or biggest business opportunity?
Give Value First: Put valuable information in the hands of your most probable purchasers so that they may benefit, get to know you, come to respect you, and then call you wanting to purchase. This is not a theory, it’s a strategy that works.
Handling Change
Doing business today, means dealing with change all the time. Our clients change, the economy shifts, our vendors raise their prices. Nothing remains the same. Women entrepreneurs probably already know that the entrepreneurial career path is unpredictable. Nothing is stable and steady about running your own business. But there are some success strategies to help you cope with change.
Put Worries On Paper:
As an event planner, I have learned the only way to stay on top of all the details involved with managing and running an event is to create a list of everything that has to be done and putting it down on paper. When we try to keep details, important thoughts, and worries in our head, it can be overwhelming. Once those thoughts, plans and concerns are typed up, written down, or taken out of our head, we become relieved and more focused. When change is occuring, the best thing to do is to get it all out of your mind so you can create a plan and gain clarity.
Seek Counsel:
One of today’s growing business sectors is the coaching sector. There are so many educated, and inspirational professionals who coach other entrepreneurs through change. A session or two with a professional coach can help you talk out your worries about change so you can make a plan and take control of your destiny. Seek one out today to help yourself with your issues of change and to bring them some business.
Review Your Plan:
Sometimes sitting down and crunching numbers with our business plans, documenting the shifts in our client base, refocusing on our core products and services, or creating a new strategic marketing plan, can start us on a new path with our business. Planning isn’t always the most exciting part of being an entrepreneur but sometimes it is the most practical and logical way to address the emotional issues associated with our business.
Website Spring Cleaning
Women entrepreneurs get so busy during the year attending to client projects, creating innovative services, and searching for new customers, we sometimes forget to spend time “spring cleaning” some of our current materials, offices, and policies. Recently Veronika Freeman, a woman entrepreneur from the Mohawk Valley region who runs Dotcalm and Stress Free Design (http://www.StressFreeDesign.com), provided excellent tips on spring cleaning a website. Take some time this month to follow some of her excellent advice.
Check Out Five Competitors Websites: They don’t have to be local, just businesses doing the same things as you. Have a good look at the inforamation they give to their customers, and what features your website could incorporate.
Update/Review Your Content: Make sure to review every word of your website and check to make sure it is still relevant. Check all your outgoing links to make sure someone’s elses site has not changed links and created a broken link. Make sure you are still speaking to the right customer market.
Start a New Website Section: Add a blog, forum, quiz, survey, tips section…anything to keep it new and fresh.
Change Your Look: Websites change their designs too infrequently. Consider changing your online image every second year. Just keep your navigation similar so people don’t get confused.
Sell Something: Start generating a revenue stream through your website if you don’t already. Service-based businesses can create an e-book or extension of their current services.
Passwords – Do you have them? Do you need to change them?
Domain Names: Make sure you know when they expire and register them for longer periods of time if you can.
404 Pages: – Do you have customized 404 or general error pages? If something’s broken, these can help people stay within your website, even if they happen to stumble upon something that is no longer there or was never there in the first place.
Are You Using Your Images – If you need to clear away some disk space, then look at which images you are or are not using and clear some away. Keep your images fresh too.
Check Your Metatags and Keywords – By reviewing your SEO efforts, you can create an opportunity to priortize and focus on keywords that have the most potential to deliver the greatest results.
Review, Test and Reconsider Your Contact Form – Often, the only thing standing between you and a valuable lead is a cumbersome contact form. Make sure your contact form is easy to find. Is the information being asked really necessary, or can it be trimmed down? Do you automatically and immediately receive a professional and engaging messsage from the attendant? Get clear about what fields are required and why. Confirm who receives the form, who responds to the form, and in what time frame.
Telling Your Story To Increase Sales
Women entrepreneurs can “sell” their companies, products and services much better if they remember when, how, and why they created their businesses and then incorporate these reasons into their sales efforts, bios or coporate histories. After being an entrepreneur for awhile, we tend to forgot the passion that fueled our entrepreneurial aspirations. It’s important from time to time, to remind ourselves why we started our businesses and its main purpose.
If it has been awhile since you thought about your corporation’s origins, ask yourself the following questions to help recreate your own story to highlight the beginnings of your enterprise and reasons for starting it:
* Did your idea come to you in a dream? While you were walking? While you were reading? While you were running? While you were sailing? While you were on vacation?
* Did you have a loved one who suffered because they didn’t know something or have something and you wanted to save someone else from the same pain?
* Did your idea gain speed and mass over the years as you accumulated observations and then a pivotal event compelled you to share it with others?
* Did you observe individuals doing something counterproductive and you knew you could show them an easier way?
* Did you design a tool because the normal one was clumsy and uncomforable to use?
* Did you believe so passionately in your idea you simply couldn’t rest until you made it a reality?
Update your advertising materials and your pitch if there are answers to these questions which will enhance your current marketing or sales materials. Our emotional passion for our business can help drive more people towards buying our products and services.
Productivity Tips
With Spring Break occuring this week, many women entrepreneurs are juggling business demands with kids off of school, employees on vacation, and the business community on a bit of a hiatus. Staying productive when everyone else isn’t and the marketplace is slow is difficult. Here are some success strategies are ways to be productive in your business no matter what everyone around you is doing.
Evalutate Your Business and Personal Activities
All of us are busy and we rarely take time to evaluate and reflect on our personal and business lives. Periodically we should be analyzing what activites are energy builders, what great moves are taking us in the right direction, what activites drain our energy, and what achievements are moving us in the wrong direction. By taking a few minutes to write down answers to these four questions, we will realize that 80 percent of our enjoyment in life and business comes from 20 percent of our activities and achievements.
Adjusting Your Attitude
How does your current attitude help you attain your highest and smallest goals? By embracing a feeling of natural productivity, optimism and a commitment to certain responsibilities, we can be more effective at our workplace. Every woman entrepreneur struggles from time to time with productivity and when we do, we must realize it and then seek guidance from a close friend or advisor who can keep us on the right track. Also remember to spend 20 percent of your day being positive and it will most likely impact the other 80 percent of your work and life.
Setting Time Goals
When productivity is at a low, stop and take time to list your most important goals. Block off time each day to attend to activities that move you closer to those important goals. You do not have to achieve an entire goal on one day but by simply acting on plans to move closer to the goal, you eventually will achieve it. Goal setting can produce amazing results. Set some goals today!
Image Key To Success
As you prepared for work this morning, you probably made sure your clothes matched, your makeup was on, and you looked presentable as you walked out the door. Women should “look” the way they want their business represented. For some of us, that means a suit, for some a dress, for some a uniform. No matter what we wear, we know we make a statement about the professionalism of our business by our personal look.
Not only is it important to personally reflect the style and image of our company, it is also vital our marketing materials do the same. It all begins with the right logo, colors, style, and design that reflect our enterprise. Then for branding purposes that logo and message needs to be on every piece of promotional materials consumers see including business cards, websites, blogs, flyers, clothing, and much more. Our signature look should be consistent and appear on every single communication piece.
With the surge of social media, innovative communication methods and novel ways to promote our businesses, women entrepreneurs must remain consistent in utilizing their brand today. If it has been awhile since you’ve taken a hard look at your corporate image, now is the time as the marketplace continues to become saturated with multitudes of new enterprises. Hire someone who can help you brand your image, attend an educational event to learn more, or study other companies with excellent marketing materials to help you update your look.
Women TIES Seminar Appears on YouTube
On March 25th, Women TIES hosted our monthly Syracuse luncheon where member Veronika Freeman, President of dotcalm (http://www.stressfreedesign.com), shared her expertise on updating a website. Another member, Eileen Kent, President of Stories of a Lifetime, (http://www.storiesofalifetime.com) taped the seminar and now it appears on YouTube!
Any women entrepreneurs interested in learning more about sprucing up your website for Spring and learning more about our seminars can check out the video and pass the information on to other women entrepreneurs. Click on the link to see the first part of the seminar, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b43WbkJIynE. There are five parts in all which span about 40 minutes of viewing time.
We hope this blog entry and YouTube video lecture reminds women entrepreneurs to bi-annually review their website to update it with proper links, content, photos, tags and much more to keep their businesses “face to the world” current.
Easing Cash Flow Problems
In today’s sluggish economy, I have heard from numerous women entrepreneurs who have customers who are becoming slow to pay their invoices and banks who are limiting their business line of credit. These women are seeking advice on how to best manage their cash flow.
I have always believed a direct approach regarding a problem is the best way to handle hard situations. When customers have been slow to pay, I simply call them and have a conversation about the payment issue and discuss how it can be remedied. I try to see the situation from their perspective and see if I can offer flexibility to the problem. Honest communication has helped me maintain loyal customers for fourteen years as an entrepreneur. I would also suggest entrepreneurs have a candid conversation with their bank as well to ask for flexibility on their end.
Secondly, when I created Women TIES four years ago, I made sure to create multiple services which produced numerous revenue streams so my cash flow ran smoothly all year. Sometimes service businesses are so limited in what they offer, they can’t generate enough revenue consistently to maintain a steady cash flow. If you own a service business consider offering multiple revenue opportunities or stagger service contract payments with clients to manage cash flow better. It may take some extra planning on the part of the entrepreneur, but in the end the forethought and action should create an effective plan to help cash streaming into the enterprise all year long.
The Tale of Excellent Customer Service
The title of Charles Dickens popular novel, “The Tale of Two Cities,” came to mind recently as I experienced two drastically opposite customer service policies in two local businesses. Within a half hour, I experienced an unacceptable customer service experience back to back with one of the best. The businesses were located fifteen minutes away from each other but their customer service policies were light years away.
For seven years I have used one office supplier and source for copying promotional and event materials. They are one of my major vendors. Most of the employees know who I am because I’m there frequently. I would consider my account one of their important small business accounts. So when one of their employees refused to copy my headshot I needed for the Girl Scouts Cookie College flyer, I was stunned. Citing new copyright policies the employee and the night manager threw their new copyright policy brochure on the order desk and told me to read it. There was no room for discussion, no flexibility, no way to get the work done. The only option was to walk out the front door.
Fifteen minutes later, when I entered the front doors of a brand new vendor to our family, I was sincerely welcomed by their front desk clerk. The visit continued with a discussion by their manager who was working for the second time on repairing our car since we had experienced reoccurring problems with their repair work. Their policy was to “make everything right” no matter how much time it took them or what it cost. Instead of sticking to a written policy, they threw cooperation and understanding into the mix making sure we wouldn’t walk out the front door disappointed.
The tale of these two businesses are a tale of today’s business times. When frigid economic times hit small businesses they have two distinct choices. The first is to seek, serve and retain clients. The second is to disappoint, reject and lose clients. It’s not complicated. It’s a simple and clear choice by the owner of the company. The owner’s policy, whether it’s good or bad, always trickles down to the front line employees.
Today remind yourself to review your customer service policy and make sure all your employees know what it is and follow it. I can guarantee you customers will sing your praises if you treat them well and they’ll leave if you don’t. Make sure you work to retain loyal customers through excellent service so they keep coming back through your front doors.
Women TIES 