Women Together Inspiring Entrepreneurial Success

Women Together Inspiring Entrepreneurial Success (Women TIES)is successfully creating a regional marketplace for women entrepreneurs in Central New York. Women TIES is dedicated to promoting, educating and inspiring women entrepreneurs not only in CNY but nationwide. Women TIES provides a vehicle for the exchange of success strategies through a quarterly publication, weekly emails, seminars, luncheons and online directory.

Monday, October 17, 2005

A Tip On Business Growth

At a recent Women TIES Success Seminar (www.womenties.com) held in Syracuse, New York, our program focused on growth for women owned businesses. The group of 50 women entrepreneurs wanted to know how to start growing their enterprises. From that seminar a couple of great thoughts were shared, which we'd like to share with you.

Most women entrepreneurs who grew their businesses grew by adding staff. Many one person operations end up creating viable businesses but once their companies become well established their ability to perform all tasks to keep the business growing becomes impossible. These entrepreneurs started growing by hiring support staff and delegating all non-revenue producing tasks to them. As the owner, they concentrated their efforts on sales and client relationships.

Eventually, these entrepreneurs added a sales person which helped to make their companies grow faster. By adding staff, the owner was able to spend more time on recruiting large clients, fostering business alliances, and creating more products or services. Lastly, these entrepreneurs could only add staff by obtaining financing, taking a temporary cut in their salary, or selling more in order to pay for a new employee.

Bottom line, growth takes risk and costs money, but so does starting a business. Most of us have already accomplished that so growing shouldn't be too much harder.

Successful Women Entrepreneur of the Week

Kathy Kobliski is the owner and operator of Silent Partner Advertising in Syracuse, New York. Kobliski is an accomplished writer, having authored three editions of "Advertising Without an Agency", a monthly column for Entrepreneur.com, and articles for National Business Association, Startup Journal.com, Sales Masterminds, BankRate.com, HomeOfficeMag.com, and Canadian Women's Business Network, to name just a few. To find out more about her company and services contact Kobliski at media106@aol.com.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Selecting Right Clients

Depending on the stage and life of your business, taking on every possible client or project that comes your way can be good or bad for your company. It is much easier to turn down work when business is booming and you have a number of projects under contract. It is also very tempting to take on the wrong client or project when times are slow.

Our blog focus today is aimed at making your business more successful by selecting the right clients and projects at the right time.

Consider Referring Work
If you are already under pressure with current client projects and new work comes your way, consider saying no to the project. Instead refer this potential business to another women entrepreneur who might have the time or expertise to handle this project now. This referral could land you future business the next time the person you referred business to is too busy to handle a new client or project.

Consider the Impact of Taking on A New Client
If you are offered business that is not quite right for you or your company,
consider whether it's worth the risk of giving up valuable business that might come your way tomorrow. Make sure you don't take on business just to fill time or to make money. Make sure you understand the time this new project takes can potentially force you to turn away repeat customers or bigger clients who might call you next week.

Be Careful About Quick Deadline Dates
If you are asked to perform work that needs to be done within a very tight schedule, pay attention to the possible negative effects that might result. This new business might not be worth the price you'll pay by putting other contracted clients on hold, performing a lower quality of work due to time constraints, or putting unhealthy pressure on yourself.

Successful Women Entrepreneur of the Week
If you know someone getting married and they are looking for unique, handcrafted, beautiful invitations and stationary, check out http://www.bridedesign.com to see their fabulous work. Bride Design also designs baby shower invitations, business stationary and much more! No matter where you live, owner Erin McKenna Nowak ,can help you create art as invitations.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Success Habits for Women Entrepreneurs Part II

In the September 26th blog, we mentioned half of the habits we use to be succesful in business. Here are a few more habits you might want to consider implementing to make your business more successful.

Learn and Love PR

Women entrepreneurs should understand PR, practice it, and be creative with it in order to be more successful in business. There's a knack to getting publicity and mostly it involves taking what you are trying to promote and becoming creative with the information to make it interesting to the media's readers, viewers, and listeners.

If you don't know much about PR, take the time to learn about it. There are great books on the subject and great educational programs as well.

Learn how to write a press release. Make sure you have a professional headshot. Get use to sending press releases and your headshots in regularly. You'll notice the top advertising agencies in your area always have their news listed in the business section. Follow their lead.

Remember the media is looking for news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Look at sending in your news from different story angles and pitch these angles to the media for a better chance of coverage.

Excell at Customer Service

Be an excellent customer service provider. Make sure your customers know they are important to you and prove it to them every time they ask you to do something for them.

You can't put a value on the importance of customer service and how it brings clients back to you time and again or how their referrals will help your business. Make sure your clients understand how important they are to you. Deliver what you promise and go beyond the call of duty if you can.

Surround Yourself with Business Advisors

Consider creating an advisory board of accomplished business professionals to help you lead your company in the right direction. Choose advisors who are:

* diversified in experience and talents
* believe in your company's mission statement
* know the business community well.

Be respectful of what you ask them to do for you, promote them, and their businesses as much as possible, and help them in return.

Here are a few more women entrepreneurs we think you should check out:

Barbara Molvar, owner of DeRegis-Walser Monuments, has been creating a buzz in the monument business. Her personal touch and knack for working with her clients to memorialize their loved ones has helped her to grow this business which began in 1897. For more information on Molvar's business, visit their website at www.dwmonuments.com.

The holidays are approaching and if you are interested in shopping online while having a percentage of your purchase amount donated to a museum, park, zoo, aquarium, nature center or related organization of your choice, check out www.shopformuseums.com. Karen Birsner McMahon, President and CEO, has created relationships with over 200 national retailers and 300 musuem partners to develop this fascinating new business.