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Saturday, April 16, 2005


This week's featured woman entrepreneur is Jennifer Warwick, Founder & CEO of jenniferinc (Los Angeles, CA), a company that offers success coaching to gutsy women.

about Jennifer Warwick and jenniferinc
Jennifer Warwick, MA (www.jenniferinc.com) is a women's career strategist and coach based in Los Angeles, with clients in the US, Canada and Europe. Whether you want to get gutsy and step into living a bigger more fulfilling life...or you have found your current gutsiness isn't getting you the results you want...Jennifer and the team at jenniferinc coaching can help you achieve success on your own terms. Jennifer specializes in career transitions, including transitioning to self-employment; overcoming underearning; navigating office politics; and reviving stalled careers. She is also an award-winning speaker, and offers both teleclasses and on-site workshops. She's currently at work on her first book of career advice for women. Sign up for her free monthly e-newsletter at www.jenniferinc.com.


Jennifer's Top 10 Tips


1. Contemplation: Know Thyself.
If it were easy to spend time on ourselves, my little angel food cakes, there'd be no one to buy microwaves and 8-minute abs. The fact is we live in a busy world with lots of other human beings, and with all the demands on us, it can seem self-indulgent to stop and look inside. It's not. It's actually the ultimate gesture of self-respect to stop and explore what makes you tick. You can significantly increase your personal effectiveness by better understanding your own style, knowing your strengths and focusing on specific goals. So write in your journal, hire a coach, take the MBTI again, do a 360 look inside first.

2. Curiosity: Get Smart.
Call out your inner Nancy Drew, and use your innate curiosity to dig up information you can use to help you communicate more effectively. Is your partner or key investor a stickler for details? Give information in bite-sized chunks with plenty of fine print, and provide regular written updates for their thoughtful review. Are they a "summaries only, please" type? Provide an overview, perhaps with bullets; update them on long-term plans with broad strokes, and keep the details handy in case there are specific follow-up questions. And as Maya Angelou says, "When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time." Don't ask if you aren't ready to listen.

3. Clarity: Know What You Want.
As women, we learn to go along to get ahead. And, judging by what I hear from my clients, after a certain point, we can lose ourselves. We tolerate abusive co-workers, inflexible schedules, and lack of opportunities for advancement. We tolerate mind-numbing work and chairs that give us backaches. We tolerate poor leadership and we tolerate doing extra work because others cannot handle the load. Stop the madness! You are the only one who can get clear on what you need to have a fulfilling life and business: is it financial independence? Your name on the door? A respectful environment, interesting work, the chance to learn new things? If you are stuck and don't know where to start, remember that complaints are unfulfilled requests...so what are you complaining about? Find its opposite, and seek it out.

4. Confidence: Be Bold.
Gail Evans, author and former CNN exec, once said that "Perfect is for fourth-grade spelling bees - business is about making good choices." (I actually won my fourth-grade spelling bee in Anchorage, Alaska, and despite the promises from that guy who learned all he needed to know in kindergarten, I guarantee you it did not prepare me for running my own business). In my practice, I regularly work with high-achieving women entrepreneurs whose idea of basic competence equates to flawless performance - as in, "I'm not ready yet; when I'm good enough, I'll raise my rates" or "I can't expand into that area ' I haven't totally mastered this one." Once in this spiral, they start to doubt themselves; they second-guess their worth, and negotiating skills suffer. They charge less than they should, are reluctant to raise prices, barter too much, give too much away for free, and so on. I beg you: take a deep breath sometimes, trust yourself - and stop when something is 80 or 90% "perfect." Just STOP. Once you regain consciousness after hyperventilating, you'll find it's enormously liberating.

5. Choice: Self-management.
It's hard to be confident if you don't believe in your abilities, so start by focusing on the areas where you're a natural superstar: so you aren't the best public speaker. You are a genius at writing easy-to-understand and entertaining PowerPoint presentations for investors, or you do put together outstanding flowcharts and reports, or press releases and promotions. Own your talent and your impact. And take responsibility for the less fun stuff, too: in your heart, you already know if part of the challenges you face are your own missed deadlines, your perfectionism, or your impatience. Concentrate on addressing your own limitations, with a coach or other support, and get to work. Take a chance, fail fast, dust yourself off, and do it again.

6. Creativity: Play!
It's no accident that the second place I look on re:invention's site - and, yes, sometimes the first - is the dreamy "Shoe of the Week" feature. It's fun! You can turn anything into play with the right perspective...take self-promotion, which for many women entrepreneurs is like hearing Paris Hilton's finely manicured fingernails on a chalkboard. Break through the dread by choosing the activities you enjoy. If networking events give you a stomachache, cut back to the ones you enjoy. If you hate public speaking, so what? If you love to write, write - and don't limit yourself to the occasional press release. Take a writing class that piques your interest and write articles or a column, publish an e-zine. You'll know when you've found your strength (and your place to play) when the next time you need to do it, your reaction is not "ugh, more marketing" to "Hell, yes! Let's play!"

7. Community: Build Your Life-Support System.
A mentor told me as I was starting my practice, "If you can realize your dream all by yourself, you're not dreaming big enough." Every entrepreneur knows that lasting success is not a solo journey. So remember that it doesn't serve you to be good at everything - it leaves you no time to focus on what you do best! Learn to delegate and ask for help, and to recognize and accept help when it's offered. And make the decision to surround yourself with positive people, thoughts, music - you name it. If that means no longer having lunch or drinks with the same complainers (and you know who they are, my little cheese puffs), so be it. You deserve to have your environment support you, not weigh you down.

8. Compassion: Love Yourself as You Love Your Neighbor.
No, I didn't get this backward. Women are superstars at advocating, negotiating and fighting for others...yet a recent study reported that up to 80% of women's self-talk is negative. If you would not say it to a child or a loved one, don't say it to yourself. Period.

9. Conviction: Ask!
A 1988 study reported that little girls are often assigned routine chores that emphasize dependence, are done indoors, and do not pay (cooking, cleaning, washing dishes). Little boys' chores regularly encourage independence, are less frequent, and often occur outdoors and for pay (mowing the lawn, shoveling the driveway, washing the car). Girls who do "their" chores outside the family are rarely paid, and boys who do "theirs" for others most often are paid. In this way, many boys are taught to work for payment - and girls to work for love. Standing up for ourselves, assigning a fair value to our work, and then (gulp) negotiating for it - that's new territory for many of us! If you have gotten this far and are still not comfortable asking or negotiating on your own behalf, it's time to get gutsy, and quit leaving money on the table! Read a book, take a class, find a mentor, hire a coach - invest in yourself and your future by learning how to ask for what you deserve with grace and confidence.

10. Charity: Give Back.
And remember that the surest way to attract support and abundance is to share what you have. What knowledge do you already have that you can offer other women entrepreneurs? Genuinely offering your expertise with those following in your footsteps, and seeing your hard-won wisdom and stories ease their journey, is one of the most validating, esteem-building experiences you can have.


Contact Information

Jennifer Warwick, MA
Founder and CEO
jenniferinc coaching
www.jenniferinc.com
310.695.7889

A big thanks to Jennifer for her wise words.


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ARCHIVED FEATURES
Click HERE to read previous 10 Tips for 10 Million Women features.

WISE WOMEN WAITING IN THE WINGS
April 23 - Yvonne Brown, CEO JAD Communications Intl (Chicago, IL)
April 30 - Gail Zelitzky, CEO Silver-Robins Consulting (Chicago, IL)
May 7 - Jill Konrath, President of Leap Frog Strategies (Minneapolis, MN)

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