Savvy and Sassy Tips to Start and Grow a Successful Business
What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur in today’s economic climate? What are the greatest challenges that women face when starting their own business? Today’s guest, business coach Wendy Hanson, will offer her expertise on how to start and grow your business. Wendy and her partners, Michelle Girasole and Miriam Perry, created The Sassy Ladies for the purpose of guiding women through the process of starting and growing successful businesses. Tune in for some great practical advice on how to make your new business a success.
Featured Guest
Wendy Hanson has been a business and executive coach since 1998. She has worked with companies such as Google and has coached CEO’s. Her passion is about small business and helping women succeed.
In 2006, Wendy co-founded The Sassy Ladies’ with her two fantastic partners, Michelle Girasole and Miriam Perry. The three of them have written a book, The Sassy Ladies’ Toolkit for Start-Up Businesses and have a club and many other ways for women to share ideas, mastermind and learn tips about growing their business. Wendy has had a public access TV show, blog talk radio show and is a recognized speaker – a member of The National Speakers Association and a passionate entrepreneur.
Listen to the November 3, 2009 show, or visit our VoiceAmerica archive to hear any of our previous shows.
The Double Bind Challenge: Bitch or Bimbo
The common belief that leaders should be competent and assertive (typically traits associated with the male gender) often presents a challenge for women in leadership positions. The double bind challenge is that when in leadership roles, women must not only be competent and assertive, but they must also demonstrate that they are nurturing and selfless. Why? Because they are women.
On the one hand, if women are assertive, they are considered pushy: the bitch, and their like-ability factor is low. When they show their softer feminine qualities, they are labeled a bimbo and their competence is questioned.
Case in point: Carly Fiorina experienced this when she was CEO of Hewlett Packard. “In the chat rooms around Silicon Valley, from the time I arrived and until long after I left HP, I was routinely referred to as a “bimbo”, or a “bitch” – too soft or too hard, and presumptuous, besides.”
Dominance and assertiveness is accepted in men, less so in women, and so, the challenge for women leaders is that the doubts about their competence or about their perceived warmth lead to a resistance to their leadership authority.
How do we deal with this double bind? We, as women, need to embrace a leadership style that shows not only our competence and strength, but also our warmth and caring nature. We need to be aware of how we communicate and consciously modify our message to the target audience and/or culture of our organization.
What is the culture of your organization and what does the culture support in terms of leadership style?
How do you effectively promote yourself in your organization?
Sometimes it is appropriate to step up and take credit. In other instances, the best way to increase your credibility is to spread the word through other key people in your organization. Build strategic networks and feed information to your network contacts. Win over the skeptics and do the strategic behind the scenes work to promote your credibility.
Closing the Leadership Gap: Add Women, Change Everything
Women and men each bring value to the table, but it is their combined effort that creates the strongest foundation for innovation and prosperity. Today’s guest, Marie Wilson, founder and President of The White House Project and leading women’s advocate, will join us for a stimulating conversation about the current state of women as leaders in both the public and private sector, why we need more women at the top, and what we can do to advance the goal of women’s leadership.
Featured Guest
An advocate of women’s issues for more than 30 years, Marie Wilson is founder and President of The White House Project, co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work ® Day and author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World, and Closing the Leadership Gap. Add Women, Change Everything.
President Emerita of the Ms. Foundation for Women, Wilson founded The White House Project in recognition of the need to build a truly representative democracy – one where women lead alongside men in all spheres. Since its inception, The White House Project has been a leading advocate and voice on women’s leadership.
Listen to the October 27,2009 show, or visit our VoiceAmerica archive to hear any of our previous shows.
What’s Your Story?
We all have unique stories to tell about our careers and our businesses. I did a presentation last week on self-promotion in Boston to the Downtown Women’s Club and heard many great stories from the attendees and I was reminded again how truly wonderful all our stories are. Each story reveals something personal about us.
What is the story behind starting our business? Where did the idea come from? Why did we choose to start this particular business?
What’s been our personal journey thus far? How have we taken our passion and turned it into a business?
What attracted us to a particular company and career?
When we incorporate stories into our promotional message, it creates a message that attracts listeners. People love stories so why don’t we tell them? Why do we hesitate tobe personal in our approach to self-promotion? Often we get so hung up on presenting a “professional” persona that we end up with a promotional pitch that falls flat.
If, in fact, the goal of a promotional pitch is to attract interest and be memorable, it only makes sense that we should infuse more of our personality and passion into the message.
What is your unique story and how might you include some of that story in your conversations about your business and career?
Telling your story can make a huge difference in a job interview. It’s certainly an improvement over just reciting your resume. Think of an appropriate story about your accomplishments that will set you apart from the other applicants.
At a networking event, how do you answer the question, “What do you do”? Keep the conversation lively by revealing something personal (o.k. maybe not too personal) about how and why you chose to start your business, about your passion for what you do. People will remember you as they also tune out everyone else’s boring elevator pitches.
In our quest to be professional, we create messages that are dull and forgettable.
Step out of the box and say something that will set you apart.
Isn’t that the goal after all? To have a message that people remember?
I’m offering a teleclass in November on “Promote Yourself to Success”. This class will be 3 consecutive Wednesday evenings 7-8 pm EDT starting November 4th. Three one hour sessions $99. Class limited to six.
Participants will:
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create a new promotional message
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develop an action plan for self-promotion
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practice delivering their message
http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/november-teleclass-workshop-registration/
Negotiating the Conditions for Leadership Success
What are some common mistakes women make as they take on a leadership role? As women assume more leadership positions, they still face many challenges including intense scrutiny and testing. Today’s guest, Deborah Kolb, PhD, an authority on gender issues in negotiation and leadership, offers women leaders invaluable advice on how to avoid common traps and negotiate key challenges for their leadership success.
Featured Guest
Deborah M. Kolb is Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Professor for Women and Leadership and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons School of Management. She was Executive Director of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Program where she co-directs The Negotiations in the Workplace Project.
Dr. Kolb is an authority on gender issues in negotiation and leadership, especially how women can negotiate the conditions of their own success as they also contribute to the effectiveness of their organization. She has authored several books and over 100 articles on this subject. Her new book, Her Place at the Table: A Women’s Guide to Negotiating the Five Challenges of Leadership Success, describes how successful women negotiate for what they need to be effective in leadership roles.
She received her PhD. from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, has a BA from Vasser College, and an MBA from University of Colorado.
Listen to the October 20, 2009 show, or visit our VoiceAmerica archive to hear any of our previous shows.
Taking on the Work of Others
Let’s face it. Women are often busy doing the grunt work while men spend more time building their careers. We have a problem with taking on too much responsibility and it limits us from doing what needs to be done to advance our own careers and take care of ourselves.
No only do we do our own work, but we also take on the work of others. We have difficulty saying “no”. As a result, we are often overwhelmed and stressed.
When a direct report comes to you with a project and they tell you they don’t have time or they don’t know how to do it. What do you do? Do you take it on because it will get done faster if you do it? Do you allow your direct reports to delegate up?
Instead of automatically assuming responsibility for something new, perhaps it’s best to pause a few minutes and think through what other possible options exist.
Perhaps your direct report can work with a co-worker on this project?
Maybe you can use this as a teaching opportunity. If you invest the time now, you won’t have to address the same issue in the future.
What do you do when a peer tries to delegate to you inappropriately?
The important message here is to stop and think about potential ways to manage the issue and also to learn how to say “no” when appropriate. Stop yourself before you launch into solving the problem for someone else. Just apologize and say “no”. “I’d love to help you out with this, but I have way too much on my plate right now.”
Sound good? Try it next time someone tries to delegate a project inappropriately to you and you will eventually feel less stressed, more in control of your own work and career.
How Mentors Can Improve Your Professional Performance
What is mentoring and how can mentoring help women improve their professional performance? These are questions that my guest, Kim Vappie, CEO of Menttium Corporation, will address on our show today. Menttium’s innovative mentoring programs have helped companies and individuals harness the power of personal connection to develop their leadership, increase productivity and achieve organizational goals. Learn the powerful benefits of mentoring and how to find a mentor best suited to help you advance your career.
Featured Guest
Kim Vappie, Chief Executive Officer and co-owner of Menttium Corporation, invested in Menttium with a vision to help companies meet today’s workforce challenges through mentoring.
Kim entered law school to study labor and employment law and to explore the way societal structure impacts and perpetuates inequalities at work. She believes Menttium to be the catalyst for change in workforce challenges.
Prior to joining Menttium, Kim worked in human resources and employee relations for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, including Target Corporation and Prudential. She worked in Liberty Mutual’s law department, served as fellow in the Hamline University School of Law and on the Executive Council of the American Bar Association Labor and Employment Law Section.
Kim received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Management from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, and her Juris Doctorate from Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul.
Listen to the October 13, 2009 show, or visit our VoiceAmerica archive to hear any of our previous shows.
The Benefits of Assertive Communication
Assertive communication is speaking up appropriately for oneself while considering the needs, wants, and rights of others. The verbal characteristics of assertive communication are clear, direct, and honest statements of feelings and the use of “I” statements. We feel good about ourselves when we communicate assertively, but also, we must feel self-confident and good about ourselves to adopt this style.
Often a lack of self-confidence and limiting beliefs around being assertive get in our way and hold us back from this direct approach. When we choose other styles of communication (passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive), the impact of our message can be diluted or perhaps even misunderstood.
Assertiveness teaches us:
- The clearest most productive and effective way to communicate is honestly and openly.
- It is OK to be powerful (in control of my life) and self-validating (a friend to myself).
- When I act assertively, others can relate to me assertively (open, honestly).
- Listening and expressing myself are equally important
- Assertive communication is based on clear information and not assumptions
What is your communicate style? Can you assert yourself and communicate in a direct manner? Assertive communication is an excellent way to own your personal power and create the credibility that you deserve in the workplace.
