Wednesday Wisdom: Follow the Bear
Wednesday Wisdom, Hump Day, Business Success Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners
Our world is slowly starting to expand again. It’s been a year of contraction, restriction, and self-preservation. We have been no different than a bear who hibernates through a long, isolating winter who eventually move forward slowly preparing for spring with abundant food and life again.
As we all begin to slowly re-enter our business world, going from restrictive ideas to expansive ones, I invite you to go beyond what you were used to before April 2020 into a larger, more connected world, where new opportunities exist and are ripe for the picking. At first it will be moving out of your home office or darkened office space, once full of staff and activity, at a comfortable pace, and back into your community re-engaging with other corporate owners and friends.
Beyond this first movement forward keeping going further into a regional or state-wide business mindset where travel on the wide, open roads, will feel free and unrestricted opening up business opportunities again. Then take the step beyond and broaden your national and international horizons – opening up wider than you ever have before. If the pandemic taught us anything it’s that we are in the same situation with global women entrepreneurs. Oceans apart doesn’t matter with an airborne virus
What wild dreams have you had about making new friends across the blue ocean? Have you even thought about how grander your life might be with an Italian friend, English vendor, or Australian mentor? Thinking that big, might not be something you are comfortable with, but I can tell you with certainty it can be accomplished and add unlimited value to your life and business.
This Wednesday Wisdom is to specifically invite you to join me and my English friend Dr. Juliet McGrattan on April 21st at noon to embark on a new journey of meeting and benefiting from female entrepreneurial connections across “the pond.”I want you to see and understand how easy it is to connect with women five hours away in another country where the similarities are striking and their wisdom and accents are worth hearing.
Starting this April, after the long winter of Covid, think like a bear. Come out of your cave, embrace the new light, and forge new vistas beyond your own four walls. Open back up to all the possibilities before you especially the brand, new expansive ones with limitless horizons. I hope to spend April 21st with you opening that door.
Tuesday Thoughts: Miracles in Entrepreneurial Life
Inspiration and Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners and Small Businesses
Five years ago I drove on a winding road through the beautiful lush green Adirondack tree lined roads. As I entered the quaint village of Lake Placid, Mirror Lake greeting me at its entrance. I had arrived just in time to catch the water sparkle before nightfall. The soft sounds of lapping water lulled me after the four hour drive; but the energy of being in a town of Olympic pride ignited me.
I was in Lake Placid to deliver a keynote speech entitled “The 5 M&M’s of Leadership Success” to a New York State Association of Tax Receivers to motivate them. I didn’t want to admit I had barely passed tax accounting in college so I concentrated instead on sharing the “sweet morsels” of leadership success which included one strategy titled “Embracing Your Personal Mission Statement and Miracle Moments.”
Obviously the city of Lake Placid can be a deep reservoir of inspiration if you imagine how many Olympians must have had personal mission statements in order to win medals there. Lake Placid was home to the 1932 Olympics and the 1980 Olympics. It is impossible to be in that historic town and not be inspired by the “Miracle on Ice” which occurred on February 22, 1980 when the USA defeated the Soviet Union. I wondered if each hockey player had a personal goal of making the Olympics and what that Miracle Moment did for those players that changed the course of their life.
As I encouraged attendees to think back to one or more “miracle moments” that inspired them to become leaders. I pose the same question to you today “Was there a moment of injustice, inequality, inspiration or a situation that actually was your own miracle moment?” We might not think about this question often but if we do and write down our moment and it can be inspiration on days when other people doubt or disagree with us, and we wonder why we do what we do every day to change the world with our business or life.
Today I encourage you to think about your own miracle moments which made you who you are as a woman entrepreneur, community leader or business professional. Take time on this beautiful spring day to think back on moments that shaped you. After you remember your moments craft a short personal mission statement that reflects the lessons from those moments and keep it on your desk for the next month to inspire you forward.
We don’t have to be Olympians to recognize the miracle moments in our own lives. When we do remember them it is as if we had a shiny gold Olympic medal hanging around our neck reminding us of the journey we’ve taken and the successes we have accomplished.
Wednesday Wisdom: The Entrepreneurial Race Track
Wednesday Wisdom, Hump Day, Success Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Female Athletes
It all began at the age of 7 when a younger sister wanted to try go-kart racing and her parents didn’t want her to do it alone. Although the girl eventually lost interest in the sport, her older sister didn’t and embarked on a joyful, solo journey that lasted thirty years in a male-dominated industry. The more uncomfortable the girl became, the faster she went, both around the track and up the racing ladder eventually becoming the first female to win an IndyCar Championship and to win the pole position for the 2013 Daytona 500.
“It was being at the right place, at the right time as well as being extremely passionate and dedicated to the sport,” Danica Patrick explained on a live Zoom webinar on Monday sponsored by Morgan Stanley. The interviewer asked her, “Does winning a race have more to do with the quality of the car or the guts of the driver?” I thought it was an interesting question like comparing what comes first the chicken or the Easter egg? “For me it was about being at the right place at the right time and someone acknowledging my ability to race well and sponsoring a top-rated car for me which was essential to winning,” Danica continued.
Another intriguing question by the expert interviewer struck me. “How were you received being the first female in the ranks when you first started racing and winning?” Danica summed up her wisdom with four answers, “First, everyone has to prove themselves to both themselves and others by achieving success. Second, being a woman definitely took extra effort to be seen and acknowledged.
Third, if a man’s ego got in the way of congratulating me, I just banked my own success in my mind knowing the issue was about them not me. Finally, being a woman brought some advantages and opportunities the men didn’t have. I also learned it is difficult to tone yourself down because others want you to. It takes away ‘you’ and I never let that happen. In the end, never hide what is different about you because it is your advantage.”
Although today’s Wednesday Wisdom might appear to be about race car driving and excelling in sports, it is meant to have you soak in Danica’s career lessons because they should resonate as a woman in business. In fact, Danica is now a successful entrepreneur of two wineries, a podcast, and author so her racing career lessons helped her transition into the next phase. She says, “Joy is in the journey and it took me a long time to realize this and stop my career because the joyful part was over.”
Her final advice, which I loved was, “Buckle up it’s going to be a ride if you want to be an entrepreneur!” Isn’t that what we all hope for – enough excitement, success, and passion to keep us going around the entrepreneurial race track until we are ready to move on to a new ride?
Wednesday Wisdom: Big vs. Small Differences
|
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Business Success Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs & Female Business Owners
|
Wednesday Wisdom: Glam Up Your Marketing
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Marketing for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses 
The box sat on my office couch for a couple months, always beckoning me to open it. The package arrived on time just like I hoped but for some reason I let it maintain its pristine appearance until the day came when the contents were finally going to do their job.
This past Sunday in celebration of my mother’s 80th birthday dinner, the box was opened and the contents placed perfectly on my eyelids to enhance my alopecia look for my mom’s special day. It was a gift to her to have her daughter return to normal for a couple hours. Being more of a sporty gal than a glamourous one, the thought of wearing falsies went against my grain. I remember seeing an aunt’s friend wear such long fake eyelashes that they almost touched her forehead. I’ve never wanted to be or look fake so I’ve avoided replacing my eyelashes for three years.
Amazed that eyelashes could affix themselves well to a bald eyelid, I read closer how the black eyeliner was magnetic and so were the eyelashes. They easily attached together and held in place even on a windy winter afternoon. Who ever thought about innovating such a specific product in such a scientific way to assist women who lost their eyelashes to alopecia or cancer? Were they playing with magnets one day and the lightbulb went off? Had they been specifically ‘thinking out of the box’ to create this type of product? It is amazing what our imagination can foster.
At the end of the evening before taking the eyelashes off, I looked one more time in the mirror catching a previous glimpse of my physical self and thanking the inventor of MoxieLash for their brilliance in designing such a product for women like me.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom should inspire you to ask and answer this question, “Does my company provide the type of services and products that make customers grateful for our offerings?” How often have you thought about how helpful your business truly is to the people that utilize what you offer? If you don’t have an idea, consider reaching out to a few clients for testimonials, not only for your curiosity and satisfaction, but for marketing purposes too. If you get their approval to share their comments, it will help drive others to buy from you just like the positive comments did for me when buying eyelashes.
Sometimes in life and business we need to try something new to enhance ourselves and our work by shining a light on the “glamour” our services offer to the marketplace.
Wednesday Wisdom – We Shall Shine
Wednesday Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Women, Girls
The room grew dark as the lights dimmed after the dignitary spoke. All eyes readjusted and focused on the light now emanating from the big square screen. Music began playing from a video being shone on the canvas. Bright, bold colors adorned the heads and bodies of women of all ages, cultures and skin tones, some of them playing native instrumental music, smiling – some with teeth and some without – and all with a depth of character of lives well, or not economically, lived well.
“One Woman: A Song for UN Women” played for 4 minutes enlarging my heart vessels as the positive vibes struck my feminine blood flow. I remember being instantly moved sitting, and then swaying, in the ballroom where I was invited to celebrate and speak at the 2012 International Women’s Day in beautiful Saratoga Springs, New York. Unity with other women has come easy for me but in that moment seeing the images of women from all over the world struck a new desire to connect with global women but I had no idea how to do it.
Three years later, not remembering the Saratoga experience, I joined female running icon Kathrine Switzer in a New York City brownstone for a weekend with unfamiliar women from Iceland, Australia, Malaysia, Austria, England, and New Zealand, along with five women from around America to learn about and help launch a new global running organization for women. Was sitting in the Saratoga ballroom, being moved by that song, the reason I agreed to go to New York? Was it serendipity or fate? I’m not sure but what I know for sure is it was one of the most exhilarating opportunities of my lifetime which opened my relationship with international women some who have been amazing supporters of mine even though they are oceans away.
In 2018 without a thought, I flew over to beautiful Devon, England to run with a team of international women in an all-woman’s marathon with team members from Malta, England, and Switzerland. Sitting in the warm, English field after the race was done in a circle of teammates and other international friends from New York City, we toasted to our success with Prosecco reminding me of the song I heard in 2012.
Opening Monday’s Women TIES International Women’s Day Celebration with women from around New York State, I played the same video that moved me nine years ago hoping to move the women at the Zoom event, and perhaps opening a place in their minds and hearts to secure business connections with female entrepreneurs across our world’s vast oceans. To help with this mission, I committed to inviting my international friends to be speakers in upcoming Women TIES programs to have business women contemplate international connections. If not now, when? The coronavirus has proven we are a world-wide community.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to inspire you to think of ways you can connect with international women in your own industries and networks. Do you already have strong female relationships across the oceans? If so, can they turn into networking and economic opportunities? Could you update your business marketing plan to expand globally? What will it look like or take to accomplish?
If you need some inspiration to move forward, click here to listen to the “One Woman” song and remember some of my favorite lyrics, “We are one woman. You sing, and I sing along. We are one woman. Your dreams are mine, and we shall shine. We shall shine. We shall shine, shine, shine.”
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women, Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Females
The original meaning of the word “purse” was a small bag for holding money. In Britain, this definition of purse still stands and the term for a larger bag that holds more items is referred to as a handbag. Purses weren’t always convenient fashionable bags worn by women. In fact, the first purses in history were more utilitarian and worn by men. The usage of a purse continued this way for a long time before women started using them.
The US presidential inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 when Eisenhower’s wife Mamie wore a pink dress as her inaugural gown is thought to have been a key turning point to the association of pink as a color associated with girls. Mamie’s strong liking of pink led to the public association with pink being a color that “ladylike women wear.”
Pink has continued as a color associated with girls and women as evident at baby showers, playgrounds, and magazines. Many women have told me they don’t wear pink because it seems ‘too girly or feminine.’ I have boldly embraced wearing pink to represent women. I believe there is a power to pink that gets missed by women today who only envision it for babies and young girls.
One of the things I collect are pink purses – not necessarily to wear when I’m shopping in public – but displayed as statues, ornaments, sentiments, and reminders of my greater purpose on earth – to help women put more money in the purses of other women first and foremost and to help with pay inequality. By highlighting the image of a pink purse, I hope women see the power their buying decisions make for other women today. We have choices every single minute where to spend our precious ‘pink’ money earned leading our companies. Do we stop before we spend contemplating how the power of our buying decisions make a ripple effect in our local and great communities? Or do we spend and hire without understanding we have the power to make a difference in another woman’s life?
On this significant 3rd day of March during Women’s History Month, when Women TIES was created 16 years to the moment you are reading this Wednesday Wisdom editorial, I remain committed to strongly encouraging women to spend their money with other women as often as they can by putting their money in another woman’s hands, bank account, or pink purse. We have a duty during this month, of all months, to do something to make pay inequality less stark by deciding for 31 days to hire another woman, buy a commercial product from a woman entrepreneur instead of a national store, purchase a service provided by a female business owner, and go out of your way to share our message of supporting women financially. Will you do it? Will you join me in this pink pledge? 
I call living this ‘pink purse’ mission my dream and our organization’s purpose. With you help, we can continue to make a difference in 2021 like our foremothers did to make some big and small positive pink impacts in our world.
Women’s History Month Inspiration for Women, Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Females
The yellow pages of history – which I love referring to as herstory – had a lot to do with landing me exactly where I was supposed to be. I was born in 1964 during the second wave of feminism when women of all ages began to fight to secure a stronger role in America. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 included Title VII that prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of gender. Members of the National Organization of women strove for equality breaking down social and legal norms. I believe coming to life in 1964 sparked my feminist spirit.
My mother, born to traditional Italian immigrants, broke conformity by fighting for her own individual future by going to college where she worked numerous jobs to pay for school for her future independence. Graduating in 1963 with a four-year college degree gave her choices to begin her career – the first woman in her family to do so. I am positive some of her feminist genes landed in my body being born a year later to her dismay as an interruption in her professional future. I was raised to be a very independent girl.
Feisty at the core from the beginning of life, I’ve never backed away from a chance to lead others – mainly women – as evident by putting together an all-female election slate in 1979 for student government. Although we didn’t win, I continued to lead and push forward female issues in becoming a woman entrepreneur, serving only women business owners the past quarter-century, creating an all women’s sports network, and women’s equality division to my company. Women are first in my life and will be forever.
During Women’s History Month, I encourage you to look at your “herstory” starting with significant events that occurred the year you were born. Examine the women in your life who sparked your interest in pro-female beliefs and attitudes. Dive into your core to find “pink-related issues” that move you today like equal pay, electing female political candidates, protecting women’s reproductive rights, buying from women in business, and filling the stands at women’s sporting events. This is the month to get in touch with your feelings on women’s issues and get more involved in 2021.
Commit to doing something every single day in March 2021 that supports women in your life or community. Don’t be afraid to speak from your heart and soul about female issues that must change in your eyes. We need you to get more involved. Don’t back down – rev up. Women’s past history shows you why. Let’s make a difference in our generation too.
Don’t Let Your Revenue Flow Freeze in February
The flow of revenue for a small business is a make or break situation much like the necessity for free-flowing water in frozen pipes. Sometimes water falls out easily and abundantly doing and other times water turns to ice creating backups, dams, and lack of this vital resource.
Sometimes trying to collect on receivables in a small business in the middle of winter, especially during a pandemic, can feel the same way as water flow. Most times clients pay on time and the flow of cash is steady and plentiful; but other times for unknown reasons reliable customers stop paying on time which causes a drought of different sorts for small business owners.
Here are three tips about the most challenging aspects of cash flow – invoicing – to help you if you face this issue as a small business owner:
* Invoicing isn’t always straightforward. The basics are simple if you have an invoicing system in place, but other commitments and interruptions can sometimes get in the way. It is essential to get invoices out on time when you are busy. This is a common problem small business owners and especially solo-entrepreneurs face. When your business is thriving and you are busy working to make money, it can be hard to stop and take time to send invoices. It is essential for a healthy cash flow to make invoicing a regular part of your work week.
* Following up on overdue invoices is essential for getting them paid. Although time is always at a premium in a busy small business, you have to commit to following up on outstanding invoices once a week. Sometimes it might take 3 to 5 pieces of communication before someone pays an invoice. Use both phone and email communication alternatively until you are paid.
* If your customers ask for more time to pay their bill, ask them to commit to paying 50% today and give them another 2 weeks to pay the other 50% if you can wait that long. You might have to do this if you are working with loyal customers. Make sure if you give them more time to pay the second half of the bill you automatically followup with them when the second payment is due.
Invoicing is just one part of business that isn’t always a top priority for a solo entrepreneur but since cash flow is the life blood of a business, invoicing and collection of revenue is vital for corporate success.
Wednesday Wisdom: What’s Your Personal Brand Image?
Wednesday Wisdom, Business Success Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses
It is 11:30 p.m. on any Saturday night. What’s the first image that comes to mind? Watching a movie with your significant other? Getting in from a night out on the town (pre-Covid)? Simply reading in bed? For me, it is Saturday Night Live because I was a teenager in the mid-1970s. The show first aired on October 11, 1975, and has been in my life a long time, much like Lawrence Welk’s weekly Champagne Room performances for my grandparents.
Saturday Night Live is known for creating characters, sketches, musical performances, and parodies by poking fun at current or past celebrities, athletes, politicians, and international leaders. Iconic SNL characters have been formed around the brand of popular people. In case you didn’t know, according to Google, “a personal brand is the image that people see of you. It can be a combination of how they look at you in real life, how the media portrays you, and now even the impression that people gain from the information about you available online.”
As Women’s History Month approaches every year my inbox gets full with requests for speaking engagements, sponsorships, and ways to support female programs in and around the state all because of my corporate and personal brand image. It never ceases to amaze me how far reaching the requests are based on my company’s mission, my long-time feminist business image, and almost three decades of public outreach in many things “women.” Just like living in my house for thirty years, I’m unmovable when it comes to my passion for supporting women.
So if Saturday Night Live was creating a ‘flattering’ sketch, scene, or character replica of you, what would it look like or what would be highlighted? What images, props, costumes, colors, verbiage, and secondary characters would be around you? Can you clarify your own business or personal image in your to answer the question? If not, you need to work harder on your brand image.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to inspire you to think deeper about the paragraph above because I believe not only our companies, but each of us personally, should have a brand image easily identifiable to potential customers, collaborators, media sources, and business partners to draw them to us. There is plenty of time to create and market an old, current or new brand image. A great way to start is to Google your name and sees what comes up. Read through the articles and identify your public image. Ask staff, other female business owners, and some clients to help you in the process. If the brand they identify isn’t the one you want, get to working on a new one.
There are 31 days in March to not only celebrate Women’s History Month, but to create a stronger personal brand image .
Women TIES 
