15 SECOND FORTUNE

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"So, What Do YOU Do?" Workshop Recap at IGC

guest blogger: Laura Allen, of 15SecondPitch.com

You couldn’t fit another person in the conference room for the “sold out” In Good Company 15SecondPitch workshop on 9/16/08. I had such a great time and was so inspired by all of the amazing women in the room that I didn’t sleep at all that night!!

Whenever I present my workshop, I’m struck by how many women hold themselves back in business and fail to ask for the sale. I don’t want that to ever happen to any of my clients and I don’t want that to happen to you. Here are a few of the juicy secrets I revealed in the workshop, incase you couldn’t join us.

1. If I don’t know exactly what you do, I can never do business with you.

How many times have you been at a networking event and you’re talking to a woman who says she “helps people turn their dreams into reality” and you’re thinking to yourself, “I have no idea what this person is talking about.” It happens all the time and it’s one of the reasons why women don’t close as many sales as they could. I’ve heard financial planners, life coaches and interior designers tell people that they “help people turn their dreams into reality.” If you’re a financial planner, I’d love to know that right up front and then I’d be very excited if you told me something like, “on average my clients only lost 2% in the most recent Wall Street flame out as compared to many people who lost up to 50%.” That’s a completely made up example, however, with a little brainstorming, you can come up with the perfect one for what you do.

2. You need a pitch for Every Niche
If you are a Renaissance Woman—meaning you do several different things for fun and/or money—you must have what I describe as “a pitch for every niche.” For example, my client Karineh came to the IGC workshop and took some great photos of me and the group. Karineh is an incredible photographer who works with clients like Versace and Kenneth Cole. However, Karineh is also very passionate about baking her own home-made Biscotti. So I worked with Karineh to create a 15SecondPitch that is all about photography and another pitch that is all about biscotti. As a result, she’s getting more sales and has no fear cold calling. You can see more of her work at: http://www.karinehnyc.com/

3.The Power of the Third Party Pitch
Most people have a much easier time recommending their hair stylist, doctor or lawyer. Team up with someone that you know and trust. Agree to send business to them and they will send business to you. Make sure that they are crystal clear about what services you provide and why you are better than the competition. Be sure that you know how to promote their services effectively too. I call this system, The Third Party Pitch System. This is one of the fastest and easiest ways I know of to increase business. Just make sure you are working with people that you truly respect and admire.

I bumped into a woman recently who attended the very first workshop I taught when I started 15SecondPitch.com in 2002. She reminded me that I wrote “FUN WINS!!” on the dry erase board in BIG, BOLD, LETTERS. I was amazed that she remembered this because I had long since forgotten. “Fun Wins” was an little idea I came up with on the way to the workshop and I just put it up on the board to get people thinking about it. After seeing the crash on Wall Street last week, I think I may have been onto something with that ‘fun wins’ idea. When people are worried and they want to be sure that they are spending their money wisely, show them that you are the best person for the job, that you’ll give them 110% of your effort and also remember to show them that it will be FUN to work with you.

I’d love to hear what you are doing to have more fun and make more money in an uncertain economy, so please take a moment and leave your comments here!! I can tell you that teaching my workshop for such an amazing group of women at IGC was the most fun I’ve had in a long time!

Having a "Growth" Mindset

A friend recently recommended a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. Although I have not read the book in its entirety yet I like what I have read so far!

Read the Publishers Weekly Review:

[Mindset is "an established set of attitudes held by someone," says the Oxford American Dictionary. It turns out, however, that a set of attitudes needn't be so set, according to Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford. Dweck proposes that everyone has either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

A fixed mindset is one in which you view your talents and abilities as... well, fixed. In other words, you are who you are, your intelligence and talents are fixed, and your fate is to go through life avoiding challenge and failure.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one in which you see yourself as fluid, a work in progress. Your fate is one of growth and opportunity.

Which mindset do you possess? Dweck provides a checklist to assess yourself and shows how a particular mindset can affect all areas of your life, from business to sports and love. The good news, says Dweck, is that mindsets are not set: at any time, you can learn to use a growth mindset to achieve success and happiness. This is a serious, practical book. Dweck's overall assertion that rigid thinking benefits no one, least of all yourself, and that a change of mind is always possible, is welcome.]

I am particularly intrigued by the applications of this “mindset” to entrepreneurs. Come to think of it, in many ways, having a growth mindset may be a key ingredient to entrepreneurial success. If you are an entrepreneur, whose ultimate goal is to yield business success, using a fixed mindset approach in response to business challenges will likely result in greater challenge and failure.

For example, if you have a conflict with a client, you could just say that the client is difficult and therefore the conflict is the client’s fault. That would be a fixed mindset approach, which may prove to be detrimental if you loose the client’s business. A growth mindset would be to take responsibility for your part of the conflict, see how you can fix the situation, and learn from it so that you may avoid similar conflicts in the future.

To learn more about your current mindset and tips about how to change a fixed mindset to a growth mindset – check out Dweck’s website http://www.mindsetonline.com/.

Posted by Amy

Catching Clients

Starting this fall, we have decided to focus on a particular theme each month and reach out to our fabulous community for their thoughts, ideas, experiences and stories about those topics. Since many of us are experiencing the 'back to work' mentality that the end of summer often brings, and many of us are thinking about Q4 numbers as we stare down the end of the year, we decided that September's focus should be innovative ways to land or "catch" clients.

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Here are a few of the stories that our members have shared with us: Lynn Berry, Field Manager of Atlantis Health Plan (646-421-8717) stood outside the Union Square movie theater while "Sicko" was playing, handing out flyers and wearing a backpack sign. A man and his two boys stopped to talk, and she ultimately signed up the family.

Sarah Leah Gootnick, Founder Secretary in Israel LLC considered ALL of her connections and resources when looking for new business. "When I launched my business I sent an email to my Rabbi asking him if he would email his synagogue about our virtual assistants. I got an unexpected email back from him letting me know that he needed a virtual assistant for his congregation! Not only has that worked out great, but he introduced me to some of his other Rabbi colleagues, too. So you just never know who might be a potential new client!"

Galia Gichon, Founder of Down-to-Earth Finance was trying to reach a few strategic large organizations to present seminars to their employees. She didn't have any contacts so she cold called them. When she reached one Executive Director, she was not able to bring Galia in on to present seminars at her organization BUT she signed up for my individual services right away! A few years later, the Executive Director brought Galia in to present seminars to the organization!

Christine Janssen, denken Research & Consulting just developed and launched "The Recession Special" to enable entrepreneurs to keep moving forward with their businesses despite the crazy economy. She is offering 25% off all of her services during September and October, plus if you refer a new client to Chris during that same time period and they also subscribe to her services - you will BOTH get 30% off any services that commence between Sep 1 and Oct 31!

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And, how about us?

Well, Amy met delightful IGC member Dages of Delicious Dialogues at a sample sale last August. And we also recently began working with a fantastic video producer who was tasked with shooting IGC for a clip on Current TV (yet to be aired). Another of our members, Christine Courtney of C3 Agency, represented the drink sponsor for the launch of Galia Gichon's My Money Kit.

Moral of the story? Shop and go to sample sales. Well, more to the point...be open to meeting people and talking about your business whereever you go. You never know where new clients may maternialize but resourcefulness, creativity and persistance can pay off! So, think about what creative outlets YOU can use to find your next client.

Hijacked: When your business goes off course

One of the most appealing aspects of going into business for yourself is that you are finally your own boss. You can make your own schedule, work when you want, on your own terms. As an extension, your job can take into account what is important to you. Whether it be income, hours, flexibility, autonomy, the creative process, etc. How exciting! How refreshing!

Fast forward to weeks, months or years after you launched your business to find yourself working 24/7, with no flexibility in sight, making less than you'd planned, managing operations instead of creating, knee deep in the weeds. And did we forget to mention, not feeling very happy, productive or successful?

What happened?

You have officially been hijacked, yes hijacked - by YOUR own business.

How did this happen?!

Mostly likely, you haven’t paid proper attention to the way in which you have grown your business.

Let's back up a few steps and explain.

We all know that most businesses grow and change over time...production used to be in-house and is now outsourced... It used to be 100% service, and now there is product... You used be in one location, and now you are in several... You have added all sorts of fancy communication tools, or programs, or classes, or staff, or additional lines...

But it is hard to think about what changes will come when, instead, you are focused on what is immediate - going to market, getting the first client or account, paying the bills.And, during this heavily focused phase we are inclined to think that any growth is good. That means it is working, right? It is what many of us want, right?

Often, yes - Growth is Good!

BUT, what we neglect to recognize is that we have choice over HOW this growth occurs, WHAT direction our business takes and WHY.

We forget that we actually have control over these things. And, that instead of growing in the direction of least resistance (the next easy client, reemploying tactics that have worked in the past), we can actually chart the course of our business and make sounds decisions that continue to account for our individual goals and needs.

You can continue to run and grow a business that gives you the flexibility, income, autonomy that you desire by being very clear about your business goals and needs right up front and all along.

Your specific needs should be at the top of the agenda right up there with making money!Doing this is the only way that you can make your business WORK FOR YOU!

And, considering all the work and sacrifice you have given to your business doesn’t this seem only right?

Don't let yourself be hijacked by your business.

shared by Adelaide & Amy

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Check out our post on the New York Women Social Entrepreneurs' Blog (NYSWE)!

This Strength in Numbers article is an adaptation of a concept piece that Amy and I wrote when In Good Company was just a teeny tiny idea that we had. It is so exciting to think about how far we have come and how much we have grown! IGC is now a real place with 175 dynamic members. Thanks to you all for your support, feedback, and most of all company (since this article is about peers and relationships)! We are honored that you choose our community as a source for collaboration, support, inspiration, and expertise.

And, if you haven't heard of NYSWE before, take the time to get connected. They are a wonderful group of women who are doing very good things in the world.

(NYWSE is the New York Chapter of Young Women Social Entrepreneurs (YWSE). In addition to events, such as member-led workshops, a group of ten to twenty women meets monthly to share stories and support each other. NYWSE members include seasoned social entrepreneurs, women transitioning from one career to another, and/or adding a social venture idea to their already full plates. NYWSE supports and promotes women social entrepreneurs through workshops, networking opportunities, and a book club forum.)

We have reprinted the article below:

Small and woman-owned. Few, if any, employees. Creating meaningful, flexible, and successful work. We know these women well. We are these women. Our clients are these women.

The good news is that we are in good company. Media and news sources continue to site the staggering rise in women business owners. A whopping 42% increase in the last 8 years, according to Center for Women’s Business Research!

Despite the sheer size of our community, however, we are always surprised to find out how isolating being a business owner can be. We have consistently found that while our clients interact heavily and frequently with their clients and industry colleagues, they have relatively small networks of other women business owners. One the whole, we are very disconnected from one another.

Why is this the case?

Perhaps it is because many of us work from home; perhaps it is because we are stretched for time and don’t prioritize connecting with others outside our business; perhaps it is because we all fear competition; or perhaps we find it hard to believe that as a professional services consultant we can learn from or help another type of business be it a store owner, designer, or freelancer.

Perhaps it is a combination of all these reasons that prevents us from investing the time to cultivate strong women business owner communities.

So we ask, ‘What is the cost of not cultivating strong peer relationships?’

Our experience has shown that our women business owner colleagues have an abundance of valuable and helpful expertise, experience, feedback, information, and resources. These relationships have enabled us to trouble-shoot and creatively solve problems, make stronger and wiser decisions, create new business opportunities, and forge strategic partnerships and alliances.

At first it might not seem as obvious the value that other businesses have to offer you. However, once you dig a little deeper you may find for example that an independent lawyer has lots of advice on how to increase your margins, that a designer can offer feedback on the best ways to delegate and outsource tasks, that a consultant can share advice about how to create solid customer relationships, that a store owner can teach you about product line expansion, or that a freelancers can help you feel more comfortable selling yourself. There are countless things to learn and ways to leverage our collective experience and wisdom…if this information is shared.

You can start to build and cultivate a strong peer community with a few simple changes.

1. Get involved with other women business owners!
Instead of exclusively focusing your time and energy on those with whom you transact business, ask your peers for help and feedback on current business challenges, growth goals, business vision, and long-term plans. See what you can learn from their experiences and perspective. What is validated? What is challenged? What is solved?

2. Create cross-industry partnerships!
Instead of relying on your existing industry networks and contacts, reach out to women business owners in other industries to see what you can learn and leverage. Perhaps, together, you can craft a joint offering, referral system, or learn from each other’s typical business challenges and strategies.

3. Forge strong within-industry relationships!
Instead of fearing and shying away from your competition, you should know these businesses and make it a point to have a positive relationship with them. Carving out your own niche and being clear about your areas of specialty will enable you to comfortably work and collaborate with those you might otherwise see as competition. Consider the ways that you and successful others in your field could leverage your joint value and different areas of expertise. These relationships can also serve as great sources of referrals and trouble-shooting solutions.

We have made it part of our core business values to connect with our peers by creating a collegial community and fostering collaborative business relationships. This not only contributes to our bottom line but also enables us to better manage, grow, and enjoy our business. As peers, we encourage all women business owners to make it part of their business to connect with others, and to recognize the strength and wisdom that comes in numbers.

GETTING COMFORTABLE, OPRAH STYLE

I wanted to let you all know about a fantastic upcoming event sponsored by O at Home and O, The Oprah Magazine on Thurs., August 21st from 7-9pm.

The theme, Comfort at Home, is taken up by experts who will be addressing those most essential home elements: finances, food, and furnishing!

Financial expert Jean Chatzky will be speaking about finding your financial comfort zone.

Interior designer, Thom Filicia from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, will be giving advice on how to create a comfortable home.

And, last but not least, Chef Art Smith (Oprah's former personal chef) will be performing comfort food demonstrations.

Being an interior design junkie, I am particularly excited to hear what Thom has to say. I saw the pictures of Thom's cottage home in a recent issue of Domino magazine and absolutely fell in love. I saved in my folder of home inspirations, but Domino is also nice enough to keep a slideshow online so you can see for yourself. I mean, the windows, the stairs, the floors - wood and flagstone, the lake, the dog! what is not to love.

Anyhow, I didn't want you all to miss out on this awesome opportunity to get up close and personal with some really amazing folks. It is sure to be a terrific evening.

Oh, and as an added bonus, a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales are going to Teach for America. So, you can feel really good about going.

To purchase tickets click here.

The Confident Entrepreneur

There are many different ideas and thoughts about what qualities make for a successful entrepreneur: fearlessness; inability to take no for an answer; tenacity…maybe just plain luck.

Lately, I have been giving a lot of thought to the role of confidence and its impact on success as an entrepreneur. I first began thinking about this when I responded to a call for a book that discusses successful women who attribute their success to having an uber-positive attitude, high level of self-confidence, or a willingness to take risks. Ever since then, of course, the subject of confidence continued to present itself in my conversations.

Why does confidence matter? For an entrepreneur, confidence comes in many forms. First, you must believe you can do it - build a business, go out and hang a shingle. This kind of confidence is not only important but it essential to making the initial leap. Hopefully this ‘I can do it’ feeling will continue to grow over time.

Beyond the belief that you can hack it on your own, you need to have confidence in yourself, your skills, your abilities, your products, and service offerings. For example, if you are a gifted mediator and you believe in your ability to help people in a unique way, that confidence may be the most important asset to your business.

Perhaps most importantly though, is another ‘core’ level of confidence – an entrepreneur’s ability to trust your instincts. That may translate to sticking to your guns about a design, a way of approaching an unexpected problem, or the rate of your business growth.

Confidence can come in many forms and certainly it can increase overtime but it must be present on a core level from the beginning.

posted by Amy

CONSULTANTS CONNECT!

Last Wednesday, we had a our first Consultants Connection Affinity Group lunch meeting. This meeting was designed for IGC members who are consultants and coaches and who want the additional support of a peer group who can share, discuss, and brainstorm topics that are particularly relevent to consultancies and service businesses.

Such things as how to handle difficult clients, pricing, word-of-mouth and referral marketing, leveraging strategic partnerships, training, continuing education, resources, best practices, etc.

A really wonderful opportunity for members from a variety of industries to come together to share challenges, strategies amd network together.

The turn out was amazing, the discussion was lively, and the exchange was rich!

Here are a few take aways:

Q. How do I avoid giving away all of my ideas in my proposal but at the same time demonstrating my value which will help secure the client engagement?

A. Have the client pay for the proposal if they want one that is more in depth than an overview of the project. This will allow the client to get an idea of how you work and how you will work together! Their is work involved from your end, however, if they do not use you (but like your ideas), everyone has been compensated fairly. The client demonstrates respect for you from the beginning which will start the relationship off on the right foot! It is actually a wonderful way of working together in a limited capacity before signing any agreements or long term committments!

A few tips on how to grow your network to help secure your next client and improve your business development efforts overall!

1. Make a committment to meet a certain number of new people a month - this can be in a variety of capacities (social and business) but this will help you expand your network for future work.

2. Unless you want people to walk away thinking you are a generic "consultant" clearly articulate the types of projects you work on, the types of clients you seek to work with! This way, people can be better equipped to help you or hire you!

3. Keep in touch with new contacts - find create ways to make multiple impressions with new contacts - for example, send annual holiday cards, monthly newsletters, a follow up emails, interesting articles, research, findings, and trends, etc.

Join us for the next one. We are looking forward to it! Tuesday, September 23rd; 2-4pm

OVERLY SOCIAL? MAKING SENSE OF THE MADNESS

Social Networking has been and continues to be all the rage. But for someone who is coming late to the party, the whole web 2.0 landscape can be pretty confusing and intimidating. I imagine that it is a full time job just keeping up with everything new. Never mind about catching up on the already well-loved tools.

However, I do want to share two things with those fellow resisters out there.

First is the a Business Week article by Auren Hoffman, The Social Media Gender Gap, where Hoffman discusses how women are outpacing men in the use of social media tools. Although initially surprising, the rational seems to make sense.

Hoffman writes, "Women's behavior online, on the other hand, is less transactional and more relationship-driven. They spend more time on social networks building relationships, communicating with friends, and making new friends. Married women use social networks to share pictures and treat their network profiles as family home pages to share with friends and relatives. And because they use social networks to be social, a dollar spent marketing to acquire a female user goes a lot further than on a male user.".

This seems especially important given that many of us (women business owners, at In good Company in particular) have businesses whose target market is women.

Seems like it is time to get on the bandwagon! But, how?

Enter my second resource, a book called Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, and recommended to me by IGC Member Frances Spark of Spark Consulting.

Authors Li and Bernoff use Groundswell to decipher and describe various social media tools and link them to business goals and outcomes. Thank Goodness. Fears about stumbling around in cyber space are assuaged and time can be can be spent productively.

I imagine the key to success is to focus on a few tools that meet your business goals and to use them well rather then open an account on everything available. Hopefully Groundswell can help me pick the right ones....ah, more homework.

shared by Adelaide

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

I am very excited to attend the next Entrepreneur Training Session facilitated by Golden Seeds on July 30th. It seems like an amazing opportunity to learn about pitching your company to angel investors, raising equity capital, and company valuation. I am including the event information below in case anyone wants to join me.

What a wonderful way to learn from these incredible women! I am interested to meet the other participants as well...

Entrepreneur Training
Half day educational training session to prepare you to successfully raise equity capital from angel investors

WHEN: July 30th, 9am-1pm
WHERE: 750 Lexington Ave. NY, NY
COST: $280
TO REGISTER


Shared by Adelaide