Saturday, April 29, 2006
This week's featured woman entrepreneur or executive is Tatiana Byron, President of 4PM Events and The Wedding Salon (New York, NY), a full-service special events company.
about 4PM Events
Boasting $5 million in annual revenues, 4PM Events is a dynamic, full service special events company, concentrating on high-end charity fundraisers, private parties, fashion shows, corporate functions, and luxury bridal shows. 4PM Events has produced numerous high-quality events for celebrities such as P. Diddy and Britney Spears; noteworthy charities including the Elizabeth Glazier Foundation and the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation; and events overseas at the Cannes Film Festival. Prior to starting her own company in special events, Tatiana Byron was the Vice President of a trade show company and had produced over 300 shows nationwide.
Tatiana's Top 10 Tips
1. Love what you do.Life is short and so much time is spent working that loving your job is essential. When you wake up in the morning, you should be excited about the dawn of a new day. It's crucial for success and peace of mind.
2. Balance is key.Finding time to work out, attending social events and spending quality time with loved ones is something that must be put on your schedule. Without the right balance, you will inevitably burn out.
3. Be passionate.You need to have passion for the endeavors you take on. Whether it be a project at work, an idea you want to execute, or a relationship in which you're involved in, you must enter into each venture with a zealous interest to learn, achieve and create more out of life.
4. Set time aside for yourself.Taking time to do things for yourself can alleviate stress and aid in overall well-being. Pamper yourself by indulging in necessary luxuries. Take a bath, go for a walk in the park, or simply sit back and listen to soft music. Relax and clear your head, even if you spend a few minutes just staring at a rose.
5. Choose active over passive: execute your brilliant ideas!So often we fail to develop the great ideas that fill our heads. The difference between success and failure is your actions. By failing, we learn and increase our chances of success; not going after something is the biggest failure.
6. Explore.Travel the world and indulge in the beauty that exotic lands have to offer. Plan that trip you keep putting off. If not now then when?
7. Consider cooking.There is no better way to entertain then to be able to whip up a fabulous dinner in minutes from scratch. After all, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Invite friends and colleagues over for a tasty home made dinner and a great bottle of wine.
8. Reading nourishes the mind, body and soul.Subscribe to not only industry trades, but to fashion and lifestyle magazines that will keep you fresh and in the know. Read a good book on diverse topics from Buddhism, to Tantric Sex to Thinking like a Billionaire.
9. Do not overlook the importance of recreation.Diversify your interests and meet new people. Take belly dancing lessons or tango classes. Open your mind to new ways of thinking by adding layers of experience. Participate in activities that do not directly affect your job, but will directly improve your enjoyment of life.
10. Join a networking Association.The Young Entrepreneurs Organization is a great worldwide association where you can meet fantastic people and make great connections. If you cannot find an organization you like, start your own!
Contact Information
Contact Information:
Tatiana Byron
President and Founder
4PM Events
www.4pmevents.com212.631.7777
A big thanks to Tatiana for her wise words.
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Saturday, April 22, 2006
This week's featured woman entrepreneur or executive is Karen Leland, CEO of Sterling Consulting Group (Sausalito, CA), a company that specializes in helping organizations become more customer-focused.
about Sterling Consulting Group
Founded in 1986, Sterling Consulting Group is an international management consulting firm, the first American consulting company to win a major contract for service and communication training within the British government. Today, Sterling's clients include American Express, Apple, Marriott Hotels, Johnson and Johnson, Microsoft and many others. Since 1993, Inc. Magazine has chosen Karen and Sterling co-founder Keith as the primary judges for the Inc. Positive Performer Award, an award program that honors companies that have achieved an outstanding level of quality service. Each year, Karen and Keith are responsible for selecting the winning finalists from among 500 applicants.
Karen's Top 10 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints
Given the billions of daily interactions that take place both by mouse and mortar, it is to be expected that a certain amount of misunderstandings and errors will occur. The following tips will help you craft an approach to dealing with complaints that encourages your customers to communicate with you and assures them that quick and reasonable actions will be taken:
1. Make it easy for customers to complain. Your customer complaint policy should spell out in detail:
- How customers can contact the company when they have a complaint or problem
- Where in the organization to make complaints relating to specific areas
- Who is responsible for dealing with complaints from different areas
2. View complaints as gifts. Complaints can be a great source of information, innovation and inspiration. They can help you gain valuable ideas for new products/services, recover a customer who might have otherwise decided to go elsewhere, fix problems that could be the cause of other customers leaving, or gain a customer for life by resolving the complaint quickly and efficiently.
3. Thank the customer. A simple "thank you" is one way to let the customer know that you appreciate the time and effort that they have taken to inform you about a problem with your company's service or product that you need to know about. Let the customer know why or in what way the complaint has contributed to you or your business.
4. Let the customer vent. Trying to resolve the situation without first listening to the customer's feelings almost never works. Only after your customers have vented can they start to hear what you have to say and begin the process of problem solving. Remember, if you try to stop a customer from expressing their feelings, you will push them from annoyed to irate in a matter of moments.
5. Sincerely apologize. Here are some guidelines:
- Apologize even if you are not the person who made the mistake. Remember, your customer relates to you as the representative of the company and takes your apology as a corporate mea culpa if not a personal one.
- Apologize even if the customer is in the wrong by saying something like "I'm sorry you are having a problem." What difference does it make if the customer is right or wrong? Ultimately the solution comes down to fixing the problem, not assigning blame.
- Don't use your apology as a preemptive strike by making it the first thing you say to an upset customer. Give them time to provide the necessary details so you can make the apology more person and specific to their circumstances.
6. Identify the elements of the complaint. It's easy to assume you know what the customer's problem is within their first few sentences, because you've probably heard it all a hundred times before. Often, however, how a problem appears at first glance changes upon closer examination. In order to resolve a customer's complaint, you need to understand exactly what elements are contributing to their dissatisfaction.
7. Fix the problem. Often you can easily remedy the situation by changing an invoice, redoing an order, waiving or refunding charges, or replacing a defective product. At other times, however, fixing the problem is more complex because the damage or mistake cannot simply be redone. In these instances, mutually acceptable compromises need to be reached.
There will be times when, after gathering the facts of a situation, you will be unable to resolve an issue immediately. In this case it is important to let your customer know an estimation of how long it will take to take action on the complaint and what you will be doing to resolve the issue in the meantime.
8. Give a care token.A care token is a specific action that you take as a way of letting customers know that you are sorry for the mistake that was made, regret any stress or inconvenience they were caused and that you care about keeping their business. A few examples:
- An airline gives you a coupon for a free drink and movie on your next flight because by the time they got to your row, they ran out of that spicy tomato drink you like.
- A restaurant buys you a glass of wine on the house because you were not seated for your 7:30 p.m. reservation until 8:00 p.m.
- The one-hour photo shop gives you a free roll of film when they take longer than an hour to process your holiday snaps.
9. Follow Up.Calling or emailing your customers after you have taken steps to solve their problem is an important part of bringing closure to a customer's complaint. Contacting a customer after a service breakdown has occurred helps ensure that the problem has been completely resolved to the customer's satisfaction and that no other action is required. The personal touch also helps re-establish your company's credibility while reinforcing your sincere concern that the problem has been resolved.
10. Practice Prevention.The information you gather from customer complaints can be a valuable source of process improvement for your company. In order to capture this information and make sure you are using it to prevent future problems from occurring, create a formal procedure for recording all incoming customer complaints.
Over time, complaint logs can be analyzed by management or an employee task team to determine patterns, trends and root causes that need to be addressed within your company. In addition, this type of log allows managers to spot check the system and follow up to make sure complaints are being handled quickly and fairly.
Contact Information
Contact Information:
Karen Leland
CEO
Sterling Consulting Group
website:
www.scgtraining.com415.331.5200
A big thanks to Karen for her wise words.
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Saturday, April 15, 2006
This week's featured woman entrepreneur or executive is Claire Guthrie Castanaga, National VP of NAWBO Public Policy, founder and Principal of CG2 Consulting (Richmond, VA ), a company that specializes in public policy advocacy.
about CG2 Consulting
CG2 Consulting brings big ideas and strategic thinking to business and public policy advocacy for women and minority-owned businesses, trade associations and grass roots organizations, and to the political campaigns of women candidates. The company's client services include business advocacy, government relations, and political consulting. Ms. Gastanaga currently serves as National Vice President for Public Policy of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She was selected by the Small Business Administration as the Virginia Women in Business Advocate of the Year in 2003 and received the NAWBO Chapter Public Policy Advocate of the Year award in 2004.
about NAWBO
National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) is the voice of America's 10.6 million women-owned businesses. Since 1975, NAWBO has helped women evolve their businesses by sharing resources and providing a single voice to shape economic and public policy. NAWBO propels women entrepreneurs into economic, social, and political spheres of power worldwide.
Claire's Top 10 Tips for Becoming an Effective Grass Roots Advocate
Here are ten tips for any active and engaged woman who wants to be an effective grass roots advocate, whether you choose to focus on issues pending in Congress, your state legislature or your local school board or governing body:
1. Learn the culture - staff vs. member. In Congress, you have to build a good relationship with staff before you'll get to see the member. In the state legislature (particularly those that are classified as part-time or citizen legislatures) and in local governing bodies, this is less likely to be true. Regardless, find time to meet with legislators and officials in their home offices and in the "off season."
2. Learn the procedural rules (formal and informal). If you want to make something happen, you need to know what process you must follow to get something done. Is there a particular subcommittee or committee that will hear an issue first? How is legislation or an ordinance introduced? You need to know how the game is played before you take the field.
3. Find your allies and identify your opposition. Build coalitions with other organizations and people who share your goals and objectives. Find out who's likely to be against you on an issue, and determine whether there is any common ground.
4. Look for win/win or acceptable compromise. If there's a balance that can be struck, strike it. If you can move your ball forward a yard, take it. You'll be closer to the goal even if you can't score in one play.
5. Prepare, prepare, prepare. You are presenting a "case" to a difficult jury. If you don't know your stuff, no one will pay any attention to what you say. Want to know more about how people align on issues? Check out
www.pollingreport.com. Want to become a better speaker? Read
Leading Out Loud by Terry Pearce. Want a handbook that'[s easy to follow? Get
Women for a Change: A Grassroots Guide to Activism and Politics, Thalia Zepatos & Elizabeth Kaufman. Use the Internet to become more informed.
6. Educate yourself about the double binds faced by women leaders and advocates.Learn how to capitalize on your assets and minimize your weaknesses. Remember that guys can lie and get away with it, women can't. A woman who loses trust can never regain it. Kathleen Hall Jamieson describes the double binds faced by women in her book,
Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership:
- Women can exercise their brains or their wombs, but not both.
- Women who speak out are immodest and will be shamed, while women who are silent will be ignored or dismissed.
- Women are subordinate whether they claim to be different or the same.
- Women who are considered feminine will be judged incompetent, and women who are competent, unfeminine.
- As men age, they gain wisdom and power; as women age, they wrinkle and become superfluous.
7. Pay attention to how you are marketing yourself and keep things professional. Like it or not, how you dress, wear your hair, talk, all affect how you are perceived. Develop relationships by providing information and opportunities and making yourself indispensable.
8. Be fearless. Don't hesitate to be assertive. As Robert Grudin says, "the years forget our errors and forgive our sins, but they punish our inaction with living death."
9. Recognize your limits. Don't make promises that you can't keep. Don't over commit. As in business, under promise and over deliver.
10. Don't take yourself too seriously. Use humor to defuse "difficult" situations.
Contact Information
Contact Information:
Claire Guthrie Gastanaga
National VP Public Policy -
NAWBOFounder & Principal
CG2 Consulting
website:
www.cg2consulting.com/blog:
http://changeservant.blogspot.com804.521.4067
A big thanks to Claire for her wise words.
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Saturday, April 08, 2006
This week's featured woman entrepreneur is Jill Blashack, founder and CEO of Tastefully Simple (Alexandra, MN), a company that offers easy-to-prepare gourmet foods for people who like to eat - even if they don't necessarily like to cook.
about Tastefully Simple
Founded in 1995 by Jill Blashack, Tastefully Simple was the first company to market its line through home taste-testing parties hosted by consultants nationwide. The company achieved $110 million in sales last year and was ranked #44 on the 2004 Inc. 500 list - the fourth consecutive year the company has occupied a spot in the top 10% of the list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Tastefully Simple offers more than 30 upscale, easy-to-prepare gourmet foods from appetizers to desserts and everything in between, including the company's top seller, Bountiful Beer Bread MixT. The products are open-and-enjoy or require only one or two ingredients to prepare. Company CEO Jill Blashack was named one of the 25 Top Women Business Builders in the U.S. and Canada by the Women Presidents' Organization and Fast Company magazine in 2005. She has also received the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award for Minnesota and the Dakotas in 2000 and was a finalist in its Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2003.
Jill's "Tasteful & Simple" Top 10 Tips
1. A lack of clarity and focusing on too many things can paralyze us. Writing down goals, then prioritizing and ordering them accordingly can give us direction and a sense of empowerment.
2. Life's tragedies can also be life's greatest gifts. They can allow you to live more freely, with more intent, and with fewer regrets.
3. Entrepreneurship is not about getting rich; it's about creating something bigger than yourself, something lasting, something effective in this world.
4. Business - and life - is all about choices. We are more in control than we think, and what we are not in control of, we can often let go (and find ourselves better of as a result).
5. One's fears are often more paralyzing than the actuality of those fears. When fear kicks in, we need to ask "what if" to diffuse it. With the fear that remains, we need to assess its value - and then, trust in our intuition and keep on keepin' on.
6. Usually intuition - the innate feeling that something is right - speaks volumes more than all the data and forecasting one (or one's advisors) can accumulate.
7. Naysayers can easily squash our tender dreams. We need to surround ourselves with people who fuel our dreams. Likewise, when we encourage others' dreams, we become more excited about our own dreams.
8. Taking things personally leads to self-defeat and an angry, bitter attitude. The ways of those around us - and the world itself - usually have nothing to do with us personally. It is very freeing and energizing to realize this.
9. Acknowledging someone's value does not make you less valuable. It is not a sign of weakness or an admission of incompetence. Rather, it shows you are tuned in, mature, confident and appreciative.
10. The unexpected can put us into a kind of philosophical chaos that often yields positive growth. The trick is to feel okay with feeling not-okay, while the process works its magic.
Contact Information
Contact Information:
Jill Blashack
Founder & CEO
Tastefully Simple
www.tastefullysimple.com/320.763.0695
A big thanks to Jill for her wise words.
Share your knowledge! Submit A REQUEST to have your company featured along with your 10 Tips For 10 Million Women.RETURN TO TODAY'S RE:INVENTION BLOG POST.ARCHIVED FEATURESClick
HERE to read previous 10 Tips for 10 Million Women features.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
This week's featured woman entrepreneur is Carol Frohlinger, Esq., co-founder of Negotiating Women (NYC, NY), a company that offers negotiation training for women.
about Negotiating Women
Negotiating Women, Inc. offers negotiation training for women including the only e-learning courses on negotiation (either online or CD ROM) designed especially for women. Based on award-winning research, Negotiating Women focuses on special negotiation challenges women face that are unlikely to affect men. Co-founder Carol Frohlinger is an attorney and consultant to corporations on the retention and advancement of women. Her book, Her Place at the Table: A Woman's Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success (co-authored with Judith Williams, Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, 2004), examines the challenges women face when they assume leadership positions and how negotiation skills help them to meet those challenges.
Carol's Top 10 Tips
1. Recognize that not every negotiation is a "Big N" negotiation. It's easy to know when you are in a formal negotiation but many people fail to notice that negotiations are not always formal. In fact, it is the "little n" negotiations - the quick call from the client who wants just another little bit of work done but doesn't offer to pay for it - that are more problematic. You may agree in the moment and live to regret it. Be on the alert for opportunities to negotiate.
2. Know what you want. You can't be an effective negotiator if you are not clear about your interests. Think big; you may not get everything you want but at least you are starting your preparation in the right frame of mind.
3. Get out of your own way. We have learned from our research that sometimes women are their own worst enemy in negotiation. For example, many women have a tendency to focus on their weaknesses - "This a big company; I'll have to cut my prices or I won't get the business." Watch out for self-defeating behaviors that will undermine your ability to get what you need out of the negotiation.
4. Do your homework. With the right information at your fingertips - such as information about how to differentiate your products or services from the competition. You can build a solid case, confident that the demands you are making are reasonable and that you have the ammunition to support them.
5. Develop alternatives. Ask yourself what you will do if you can't reach an agreement that meets your needs with this person at this time. What other options do you have? If your alternatives are good - say, you've interviewed another candidate who is also a good fit for the position you want to fill - you will not be tempted to give in to the leading candidate who is making demands that are too rich for your blood just to fill the seat. And don't forget to consider that other person's alternatives too; they may be worse than yours.
6. Create multiple proposals. There's more than one way to skin a cat. You can be flexible on the means of achieving your goals without compromising those goals. Be creative and come up with multiple proposals that satisfy your needs. Given only one proposal, the other party has a single choice: yes or no. Increase those options and you improve the chances of reaching agreement.
7. Make your value visible. For your value to influence a negotiation, you must take concrete steps to ensure that it is right there on the table to see - a solid business plan and a strong track record, for example, if you are seeking capital, ways you can reciprocate if you are asking for someone to mentor you, etc. When a woman's work disappears - as it often does - so do influence and bargaining power.
8. Expect challenges. Everyone wants an edge in a negotiation. Challenges are intended to put you on the defensive - and keep you there. They are also predictable. Anticipate how the other person is liable to react and think of specific ways to respond.
9. Engage the other person. The best negotiations are exercises in two-way communication. Needs exist on both sides of the table. Perspectives, feelings, and ideas differ. By showing appreciation for these differences, you put the other person more at ease in talking about them. As shared understanding increases, you stop pulling against each other and start working together toward a mutual solution.
10. No is only the beginning. Many negotiations begin with a resounding "No." To get past that no, you must first see the possibility of a yes. Seemingly no-win situations can often be turned around. Negotiation is always, or almost always, a possibility.
Contact Information
Contact Information:
Carol Frohlinger
Co-Founder
Negotiating Women
www.negotiatingwomen.com631-462-1530
A big thanks to Carol for her wise words.
Share your knowledge! Submit A REQUEST to have your company featured along with your 10 Tips For 10 Million Women.RETURN TO TODAY'S RE:INVENTION BLOG POST.ARCHIVED FEATURESClick
HERE to read previous 10 Tips for 10 Million Women features.
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