She Owns It

Celebrating, Connecting, and Supporting Women Entrepreneurs

How to Not Let Your Insecurities Derail You by @PhyllisReagin

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by Phyllis Reagin

Even with a successful business, credentials, or experience, some women can still feel unworthy. Somehow, there is a disconnect between reality and what they deem truth. They have rewritten or lost their value. When these doubts penetrate their lives, it leaves a damaging trail. It shows up as procrastination, being unfocused, and losing momentum. The cracks in their self-worth begin widening.

1. Make a list and think twice

Too often, women are vague about their accomplishments. Either due to being uncomfortable with drawing attention to themselves or they have spent so little time reviewing them that they have forgotten their successes. It’s important to list out all your accomplishments, big and small, that have occurred throughout your life. Every one of them. Strive to list 100 successes. This exercise can be daunting, but the process is revealing. The fact that this it may be challenging, is a good sign that you don’t spend enough time reviewing your accomplishments. How can you possibly feel confident when all your achievements are no longer on your radar?

Once you have your list, reread them and add, “I” in front of them. Instead of just stating “graduated with top honors.” Say out loud, “I graduated with top honors.” You need to connect yourself again to your accomplishments. It is important for you to realize that the one consistent occurrence with your successes is ‘You.’

2. Repeat and rinse

Look at your list and now create a storyline. When you were successful, what was your mindset? What were you doing to support yourself emotionally? What kind of self-care were you practicing regularly? Self-confidence often ebbs and flows depending on how well we are taking care of ourselves. Commit to bolstering yourself with the proper amount of sleep, excellent nutrition, supportive friends, positive boosting activities, and elevating spiritual practices.

Insecurities have a hard time rooting when you feel balanced, energized, and well.
Start to become aware of what time of day you feel your best and your worst. Which friends or colleagues make you feel encouraged or negative? What food makes you more focused and positive? What environment lifts your spirit? What books or television programs leave you feeling joyous? Elevating your mood is an excellent way to counteract any negative feeling, even insecurity.

3. Rewire your brain

After years of feeling insecure, you may have wired your brain to see yourself in a negative way. You have now established a neurological pattern that requires focused work to change. An example is when someone tells you that your idea is “great and with a few changes it will be fantastic.” What you hear instead is “you are not good enough.” You then feel overwhelmed with self-doubt. It can lead to a downward spiral of sadness and a loss of energy and focus. To prevent this, spend time creating a few sentences to say to yourself before these situations occur. You can create, “I made this happen!”, or “I deserve this.”, or “It’s not perfect but I still matter.”

Now, when someone compliments you or a negative situation occurs, say one of these statements to yourself. At first, they may feel foreign and unbelievable, but the increased frequency and focus will rewire your brain. Over time, your brain will be on automatic and start thinking these positive thoughts without too much effort from you.

Insecure feelings happen to everyone but if you find that you are experiencing them often, then it’s time to reconnect to yourself, practice better ways of taking care of yourself, and perform some thought rewiring. You deserve to live your life full of confidence and self-worth.

 

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Phyllis Reagin the Founder and Confidence Coach of At the Coach’s Table. A former leader for a Fortune 500 company, she teaches emerging and millennial female leaders how to uproot their insecurities, to assertively deal with others and situations, and to find their empowered voice. You can sign up for Phyllis’ free weekly Confidence Spark emails and receive confidence building tips.

Why many online entrepreneurs are showing up but not converting that into sales by @janebakerbiz

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Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

by Jane Baker

Sales it’s the one thing that all entrepreneurs desire right, of course without sales you don’t really have a business I mean you can’t pay those bills or live the dreams with likes and nice comments, but the reality is many entrepreneurs just don’t get the sales they desire even though they feel as if they spend their whole day working.

Particularly entrepreneurs in the online expert world i.e coaches, trainers, strategists who are just starting out and want to get seen and get those initial crop of sales through the door. They’re constantly told that you need to show up and get in front of your ideal client and so that’s what they set about doing.

  • They post in Facebook groups
  • They tweet
  • They post on Instagram
  • They ask questions
  • They join in conversations
  • They connect with people

But the sales?

Well they just don’t seem to come…no matter how many times a day they show up, no matter how often they get in front of their ideal clients sales don’t flow and that’s extremely frustrating.

So they set about changing their message, changing their ideal client, changing their freebies, changing their strategy, in fact many of them change pretty much everything in their business and yet still the same happens, they show up, they get in front of their ideal client and no sales flow!

But the big thing they’re missing
The big thing that could turn it all around
The thing that can make the sales flow

Is asking!

It’s actually asking for the sale in the first place.
I speak with entrepreneurs in this situation every single day and the one thing they’re not doing is actually selling in the first place

They do consult calls or strategy calls but they don’t ask for the sale
They don’t have CTA on any of their valuable stuff
They don’t sell to their mailing list
They don’t actually let people know that they have something for sale

The simple secret to getting sales is as follows:

1 – Show up
Yes you can’t escape it you’ve got to show up in front of your core ideal clients, this could be on Facebook lives, through blogs, through posts, webinars, videos etc whatever it is you need a strategy for showing up in front of them and adding value

2 – Ask for the sale
You have to let people know you have something for sale if you don’t they won’t buy it’s as simple as that so be sure to combine your showing up strategy with actually asking for the sale.

3 – Your environment
If you’re operating from an environment where by you don’t believe you’ll make sales or you don’t think anyone will be interested then guess what that’s exactly what you’re going to get, likewise if you’re operating from a place where you’re frustrated and desperate then again you won’t make the sales. Your environment is important, you need to ensure you’re operating from your genius zone the place you get your best results

4 – Consistency
Now this part is key, you won’t get results if you ask for the sale once a month or once every 90 days, you have to be consistent with it and I believe you should be asking for the sale daily in one way shape or form. It’s also a case of sticking with it, if you’re consistent for one week but then not for the next 3 again you won’t get the desired sales

5 – Detach from the result and have some fun
Now this might seem like a strange one while you need to be asking for the sale you also need to detach from the result, so ask for the sale then trust that it’s going to come in don’t sit there obsessing over it, when you do that you don’t get the sales. You’ll get more sales the more fun you have and the more you live life too, so ask for the sale then detach from the result totally trusting that the sales will come because you’ve fully played your role in enabling the sales to happen anyway

Of course as you grow and as you aim for bigger goals then things like sales funnels etc come in but if you’re looking to get seen, get your feet through the door and get your initial crop of sales in so you can push on and start your climb to the top then this is as difficult as it needs to be.

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Jane Baker is a successful business owner, strategist and coach. She specializes in helping online service based business owners create high end packages and combine them with marketing strategies and sales processes that bring in daily leads and convert into consistent five figure cash months.

The Easy Way to Improve Productivity

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by Jess Penesso

As I left the office, the street outside was dark. A feeling of exhaustion washed over me as I thought about the night ahead and I thought to myself “I better go straight home”. It was only 5pm but I didn’t have an ounce of energy to keep going. This pattern repeated for months until I finally said no more and added this game changer into my routine. Once added – I found more energy than I could ever imagine & moved up in my career while growing my side hustle business. I was happier & more energized than I had ever been in my life!

What is this game changer for my mental game you ask? The answer may surprise you – It’s exercise . Now stay with me – we can use all kinds of tools to shift out mindset to be more productive and one of these is physical exercise that can have immense mental benefits. Which is pretty cool once you realize.

We know exercise is good for our bodies but for our minds it has INSANE benefits. Let’s talk about the top 2 today:

1. Increases Productivity

You can sky rocket productivity when you make exercise a non-negotiable in your week. Exercising increases the amount of endorphins that are released into your body and that in turn increases more energy & productivity. You’re more excited to get back into work when you have a workout high. So when you think you have no time to exercise – schedule it in and you’ll be more productive for it & get everything you need done.

2. Increases Memory

Do you put a ton on your plate every week? Yeah me too. And remembering every detail and staying organized can be a challenge! Exercising increases the production of cells that are responsible for learning and memory allowing you to put more time into learning development & remember all of the details you need to.

So next time you’re leaving the office and you stare at your gym bag with disdain think about this – you’re going to get more done in the next day if you show up & make this time for yourself. Cheers to a more productive & memorable week ahead!

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Jess is a mindfulness strategist and yoga teacher in New York City. As an advertising executive and side hustler, she teaches women how to be happier and more successful at work using mindfulness and wellness strategies. You can sign up for Jess’s Mindful Monday newsletter and listen to her podcast.

A Big Fish in a Small Sea by @VentureMom

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by Holly Hurd

She was a big fish in a small sea. In her local high school, she was a cheerleader. She was a member of the girls’ high school charity group. She was on the board of the student council. She came from a wonderfully supportive family. She had good grades. And that fall after graduation, she would attend an excellent college in her home state.

She was on her way.

A year later, she was riding in the passenger seat through a dangerous neighborhood on the outskirts of town. It was after midnight on a rainy Saturday. The driver was her college boyfriend, and he was angry with her. After exchanging words, he barely stopped the car, pushed her out, and told her to find her own way home. Cell phones didn’t exist. She didn’t have her wallet. And she was an hour from campus.

How did she go from a popular, confident high school student to an abused college girlfriend?

It happened easily enough. In her first months of college, her best friend introduced her to a guy named Eddie. He was a rising senior. An accounting major. On top of that, he was handsome and smart and funny.

She fell for Eddie fast and hard. Things were great…at first. But he soon wanted more and more of her time. Gradually, he came to dictate who her friends were. He told who she could hang out with. And soon he even dictated what she could wear.

Her friends began to drift away. And when her roommate became difficult about all the time she was spending with him, Eddie told her to get a single room. To stop hanging out with her own roommate.

As time went on, Eddie became more and more possessive. He wanted to know where she was every minute of the day. And then he became critical of her: her clothes, her weight, her body.

The confidence she had in high school disappeared. Ever so slowly, her identify became completely wrapped up in what Eddie thought. He had become her only friend.

Professional football was a huge thing to Eddie. Each Sunday he insisted that she watch the football games with him all day long. He told her he bet on some of them and could make money to buy her things and take her out. But his teams didn’t always win. In fact, they rarely won. And when he lost a bet or multiple bets, his anger kicked in.

His obsession with football worsened. The more bets he lost, the more explosive his temper became. He asked to borrow money from her. By this time, she was so insecure…so worried about disappointing him that she emptied her savings account to help him make more bets. If she wasn’t properly supportive of his teams, he got mad. And when he lost, he took it out on her.

And then there were his lies. She found out he wasn’t actually a senior. Ever since he’d been a freshman, he had been using the money his parents gave him for school to pay off his gambling debts.

Eddie was determined to control her—and in weird ways. He took away her makeup. It seemed like a funny thing to confiscate, but he didn’t want her to look attractive to other guys. Next, he refused to let her read magazines. He didn’t want her to gain confidence from the articles.

When she went home to see her parents, he had rules: no bars, no friends, and no magazines. He began pushing her to secretly get married. He said he wanted to be tied together forever.

The violence started…with a shove. Shoves soon became strongholds and yelling in her face. And soon, there was more.

It got worse. He began sending the bookies looking for her to pay off his debts. And they were asking for things other than money. She was in big trouble.

A reasonable person might ask, “Why didn’t she leave him? Break up with him? Tell her parents? Tell her friends?”

She did none of those things—because Eddie had complete control over her. Bit by bit, he had worn her down. He had completely destroyed her self-esteem. She felt she had no choice but to stay with him.

Until that night when he shoved her out of the car.

What happened next? Where is this young woman now? You might think of Yeardley Love and countless others like her when you hear this story. You might be wondering what happened to that young woman. How she got out of the relationship. How she got away from this angry, abusive guy.

You may ask yourself how she found her way back to who she was.

What happened to the young woman sitting on the curb?

Well, as you may have guessed, I am that young woman.

As I sat on the curb in the rain, in the dark, miles from home, I finally realized that what Eddie was doing was wrong. How he treated me was wrong. Making me place bets for him was wrong. Pushing me, shoving me, strong-arming me, and worse—was wrong.

How he made me feel was wrong.

How had I not seen that? The deterioration was so gradual that I had been blind to what he was doing to me. But now I knew I needed to get away from him. I needed to get out of this relationship once and for all.

That night, Eddie came back and picked me up, but by now, all I wanted to do was escape.

I went home and told my parents. Recognizing the situation I was in, they helped me transfer to a school in the Northeast. They gave me the support and understanding I needed to get away from Eddie, both physically and emotionally.

It wasn’t easy. But over time, I regained my confidence. I learned that no one should ever treat you that way—no matter how much you care about him.

Yeardley Love, the UVA athlete who died after her boyfriend shoved her against a wall, probably found herself questioning her relationship like I finally did. If not for that fatal push, she, too, may have gotten out. But she and so many others like her stand as reminders to all of us.

What can we do to prevent abusive relationships from dragging young women down?

I am a mother now. I have two daughters in college. They are smart, talented young women with promising futures. And this is what I tell them:

You must respect yourself. Recognize your own strengths. Never let anyone undermine your confidence, take control of you, or threaten your sense of who you are.

That is my message for my daughters. And it’s my message to anyone in a relationship. Find a relationship built on mutual respect. My litmus test for a good relationship is to think about how you feel about yourself. Give your heart to someone who recognizes you for who you are and respects you.

Someone who isn’t threatened by your talents and strengths.

Someone who loves you for you.

That’s what a real relationship is. And when you have that, you won’t find yourself being pushed out of a car in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. You’ll find a life fulfilled, and your dreams realized.

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Holly Hurd is the founder of VentureMom.com, a web site devoted to profiling women who have their own businesses. Holly has interviewed hundreds of women with their own ventures, making her uniquely qualified to speak on entrepreneurship for the small start up. Her web site shows women how other women have created businesses out of thin air so they can do the same. The VentureMom Marketplace curates and sells the luxury goods these women offer
When she was only twenty-five, she was featured in Futures Magazine, USA Today and in Fortune’s “People to Watch” column for her exceptional work managing her own fund on Wall Street. She has put her life experiences to excellent use by creating VentureMom.com to provide women economic freedom.

5 Tips For Organizing Your Social Media Over the Holidays

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by Chelsea Tobin

We all know that getting everything prepped in time for the holiday season (both in life and in business) can get a bit overwhelming and hectic. One of the last things you want to be thinking about is making sure your business’ Instagram channel is updated over this period! So here are 5 tips for preparing in advance and organizing your social media marketing over the holidays.

1. Schedule in advance
Make use of a scheduling tool to plan out and schedule all your social media posts in advance. Popular tools include Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Sprout Social and CoSchedule – to name a few. Taking the time now to get these all your posts in place means you’ll only need to check in on your social media channels ad-hoc to make sure everything is running smoothly.

2. Minimize the amount posts
If your regular posting schedule usually involves 5-10 posts per week, your business probably doesn’t need to be posting this much over the holiday season. This will of course depend on your kind of business (and whether you have an e-commerce store making the most of holiday specials!), but I recommend cutting the posts back to 3-5 per week if you’re a small-medium business.

3. Factor in key dates
If you’re stuck for social media content ideas during this period, don’t forget that you can utilize the key dates over the holiday season (e.g. Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years) and create posts around these. Even a simple “Merry Christmas” post will likely be appreciated by your audience – and will help keep your page active to keep the social media algorithms happy!

4. Let your audience know you’ll be less active
You don’t need to tell your audience exactly when and where you’re going on holiday, but a courtesy notice to let them know that you (or your business) will be less frequent and available on your social media over the holidays will set expectations for if/when some people do decide to get in contact with you.

5. Set time to respond and engage
Even though you’ll be enjoying a break from business (and even social media), make sure you designate a bit of a time each week to not only check your channels, but also to respond to any comments and messages. It’s important not to abandon your social media entirely; a little of engagement will go a long way when it comes to maintenance and growth of your channels.

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With the desire to go “digital nomad” and help businesses with their social media marketing, Chelsea founded her boutique social media agency, Queen of Swords Media, in 2018. She attended Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Business (Marketing major) and a Bachelor of Communication Studies (PR major). She enjoys speaking and writing about her journey so far in the world of business, self-development and mindfulness as a young millennial woman navigating her way through life, and of course social media. You can find her on Instagram here – https://www.instagram.com/queenofswordsmedia/

Women in trading: Why I talk about my achievements by @HitherMann

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by Hither Mann

I became a self-made millionaire by the age of 25. I have forged a successful career in Forex Trading. I am a life coach with years of financial expertise and business experience, and I am unafraid to be bold about my achievements.

I want to state these facts because as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I have continually faced challenges to my authority and skills, and I have needed, more often than I’d like, to prove my acumen to my fellow traders.

Growing up in a highly conservative Asian family in the Midlands, it was a fight to realize my dreams of becoming a successful Forex trader, and I have worked incredibly hard across my career to become the entrepreneur and life coach I am today. I’ve often felt the pressure to conform to the hidden rules imposed upon women in business; whether that’s keeping my head down in the boardroom or hiding my success, and I have seen first hand how this can affect the trajectory of a promising career.

Within the trading world, women are often surreptitiously steered towards sales focused positions, faced with casual or overt sexism, and consistently go undervalued despite the profits they generate. Despite some advances in changing the culture of the workplace, only ten percent of the UK’s private Forex traders are women1, and the image we retain of a trader continues to be a man in an expensive suit shouting rapid commands into a phone.

However, with the advent of increasingly user-friendly software and online trading, women are finding real success within the private, virtual sphere. Research has shown that women consistently outperform men in this arena largely because of the very traits that are often denigrated in the industry; being risk-averse, cautious, and considerate when trading2. Women are more likely to take a cautious approach to trading; buying when the markets are falling and prices are low, and trading with smaller amounts. Whilst the initial short-term returns are lower, this approach ultimately generates increased profit as losses are minimized should the currency continue to fall, and gains are maximized in the event of a rise. Significant losses are often the result of ego-driven trading, and in my professional experience, female traders excel due to their predilection towards stable risk management.

Women are thriving in the Forex community, and according to a recent study, 48.1 percent of female traders self-describe as trading at a professional level, higher than the 45.5 percent of men who said the same3. Professional, private trading is generating a consistent and viable source of income for thousands of women, and these statistics highlight the discrepancy between our pre-conceived notions of the gender bias within trading, with women reporting a quiet self-confidence and high levels of skill.

Whilst people may dispute the necessary personality needed to trade, ours is an industry that relies solely upon delivering results, whether you’re a man or a woman. With an increasing proportion of trading taking place in the home environment, there are however fewer opportunities to be openly and visibly successful amongst peers. This means that the professional achievements of countless successful female traders are going unacknowledged, and this is a real issue if we are to attract more women into the field.

I therefore decided early on that I would not be quiet about my achievements. Not because I want to boast or find fame, but because I want other women to know that there are countless successful female traders, entrepreneurs, and property moguls busy succeeding financially, as well as in their careers and personal lives.

I have also made the decision to be vocal about the mistakes I’ve made along the way, including losing tens of thousands of pounds in a single day of trading. This is not because I believe this shows weakness, but because I want to demonstrate that success is born of failure and a willingness to learn. I want to help women gain the confidence in their own judgment and skills, and to be a role model for the next generation of traders, and this is why I founded the Fortune Academy in 2016. We offer clear, experience led coaching in all aspects of trading, and whilst my course is mixed gender, I have a particular interest in making sure that the courses we offer will appeal to, and deliver returns for women. I benefited greatly from mentorship in my early years, and a strong female trader being outspoken about how she has succeeded is a powerful tool for inspiring future entrepreneurs.

All of my students, male or female, bring their own unique life experiences to my courses at Fortune Academy, and it’s my job to help them use their past to build a strong foundation for success in the future. I want to demonstrate that you do not need to change who you are to create success; and that the only rules that exist are self-imposed. I am determined to continue to raise the profile of successful women making headway and generating profits in the trading world, and I will not do so quietly.

You can meet Hither at her next event in London on Nov 25th – Find out more details here www.lifetimesuccessmastery.co.uk/

 

1.Figures provided by BrokerNotes web analytics, with a sample size of 12,807 traders, 2016

2. Barber and Odean, ‘The behaviour of individual investors’, 2011.

3. Figures provided by BrokerNotes web analytics, with a sample size of 26,000 traders.

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Hither Mann became a self-made millionaire by the age of 25. I have forged a successful career in Forex Trading. I am a life coach with years of financial expertise and business experience, and I am unafraid to be bold about my achievements.

I want to state these facts because as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I have continually faced challenges to my authority and skills, and I have needed, more often than I’d like, to prove my acumen to my fellow traders.

The 4 Benefits of Hiring a Business Coach

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by Cheryl Garrison

Are you considering hiring a coach or mentor to help you start and grow your new business? Well, below are a few things to consider as you make this decision. I know for me, working with a coach made all the difference in being profitable and pretty much falling flat on my face. A few years ago, I was literally at the point of closing a business because I was doing so poorly. I had invested thousands of dollars in starting the business but wasn’t making any money. In fact, I only earned $2000 my first year in business. Disaster!

After many sleepless nights of tossing and turning trying to figure it out, a fellow business owner recommended that I hire a coach. It was a foreign thought to me, but I wanted things to work out and I didn’t want to lose all my investment so I did just that. To make a longer story short, the next year I ended the year with over $200,000 and I never looked back. The lessons I learned helped me in multiple businesses and I have made a substantial amount of money being an entrepreneur

Here are some of the benefits of hiring a coach:

  • Unbiased Support – a coach will tell it like it is. Friends and family want to spare our feelings and will tell us that we have a great idea or are doing great when conditions are totally opposite. A coach will give you an unbiased assessment of how your business is doing, what you can do to correct it and then support you as you turn it around.
  • Accountability – a coach will hold you accountable for the goals you set for yourself and your business. A coach will help you create an action plan with goals and objectives that can be measured. Accountability will hold you to making the sales calls you have decided to make, create programs that need to be created, stick to a social media strategy that works! Accountability is the biggest benefit you can get when working with a coach.
  • Motivation – there is nothing like having a positive and spirited fan club. A coach will be the head cheerleader when it comes to keeping you motivated to reach your goals. When things aren’t going well, a coach will help you affirm positive thoughts and take action to get back on track.
  • Expert Advice – a coach will have the knowledge and experience you need to start and grow your business. A coach will help you write a business plan, lead you through the steps needed to legally set up your business with the state and federal government, create a marketing plan and do all the tasks necessary to go from zero to profitability. How better to learn than from someone who has already achieved the success you are wanting to achieve.

Do you need a coach? Only you can answer that. As you can see, the benefits are worth the investment.

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Cheryl Garrison is a business coach, speaker, author and champion for women over 50. Her desire is to help women re-invent themselves through business ownership. She encourages women over 50 to take their decades of skills and expertise and turn them into a thriving business.

For more than 30 years, Cheryl has been an entrepreneur and has earned well over a million dollars from her various ventures. As a business owner, she was awarded numerous Business Excellence awards.

She has been a featured speaker at several women’s conferences and networking events including 2015 Womanpreneur conference which was live-streamed to over 15,000 women, Women Who Prosper 2016, Women’s Information Network Summit 2016, Sisterhood TeleSummit 2016, Be-Well Mastermind 2017 and 2018, and numerous workshops including Don’t Retire, Refire! and Passionate Purpose.

As a coach, Cheryl works one-on-one with her clients in addition to doing group workshops.

Cheryl created 50Something Lifestyle to help women deal with the ‘now what’. “Just because we are 50Something, it doesn’t mean that we are ready to be done. We are strong, vibrant women ready to create the lifestyle of our dreams.”

9 Female Entrepreneurs on the Biggest Obstacle They Faced by @mere_wood

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by Meredith Wood 

For many women who start their own business, their venture is everything—according to SCORE, 62% of female entrepreneurs say their business is their primary income. This isn’t a hobby and it’s crucial that they succeed.

From navigating the nature of meetings to the struggle to be taken seriously, female entrepreneurs face obstacles that are sometimes beyond the typical roadblocks to success for business owners.

A major part of overcoming obstacles is knowing what to expect. Here are stories from nine women on the biggest obstacle they faced when starting out.

Note: These responses have been edited for length and clarity.

 

A lack of network within the entrepreneurial community

“When I got the idea for the business in 2016, I had established a fantastic network as a personal assistant as well as in advertising, but I needed mentorship and support in how to grow a tech and service startup.”
—Valerie Donohue, founder of ChatterBoss

 

Setting boundaries for professional meetings

“I view every meeting I have as professional but I have experienced the opposite when interacting with male clients, investors, or potential partners… I learned how important it is to set boundaries. After a while, people will learn what they are and only come with serious offers.”
—Ladan Davia, founder and CEO of Beeya

 

The opinions of friends and family

“Society tells everyone they have to go to school, get a 9-5, work until retirement age, then collect Social Security. If you try to break the mold, people will tell you it is dangerous, risky, not possible, or something that should not even be tried.”
—Stacy Caprio, an online marketer, designer and growth expert

 

Being taken seriously

“I live in a conservative area, and I often felt that other business leaders (typically men) thought it was ‘cute’ that a woman was ‘playing at business.’ I’m stubborn and don’t accept discrimination, for myself or for my employees, so I managed these experiences by excluding them from my business practices and hustling every day to show that I was a serious businesswoman. Several years later, when I hired my female developer as I scaled and received comments from male clients regarding her good looks, I immediately fired them. I am protective of my own boundaries, but am even more so for the employees I spend time and money to train and who trust me to support their careers.”
—Veronica Kirin, author, speaker, and coach to LGBTQ entrepreneurs

 

My confidence

“I was so sure I had something great, but the way I talked about it delegitimized my business. I made it sound like this little side project instead of this thing that I work on day and night and have grown out of nothing. Women are taught to couch their successes and to not act confident. And even though in my head I knew what I had was great, I had the hardest time talking about it and really selling it. I had to change my language, and as soon as I did that everything changed.”
—Julia Nusbaum, creator and curator of HerStry

 

A lack of funding opportunities

“98% of funding goes to male founders, yet incubators and angels continue to court women with the promise of investment but who have a statistically zero chance of getting it. And we play along because we don’t know… Because no one pays attention to the fact that even female founder funds give women-owned companies proportionally less money.”
—Paula Muto, CEO and founder of UBERDOC

 

Not knowing when to take the leap

“My co-founder and I were self funding the beginning of the company and we always struggled with the ‘dance’ between when you need to quit your full time job in ordering to allocate the right amount of time to help your business succeed, while also balancing the fact that we both needed an income to order to live. Because of this struggle, we never fully made the job into quitting our full time jobs and I were speculate that played a part in our lack of success.”
—Hannah Stoppelmann, co-founder of Suit and Sweet.

 

Juggling children and entrepreneurship

“I think a huge obstacle (and blessing) for me was learning how to juggle having one child, and then two, while still getting everything done. Waking up earlier and nap times were my times to hustle. I think time management is huge. I learned that most of my work I get done after I drop them off at school in the mornings. That first hour or two is golden.”
—Karina Michel, owner and producer, Tallulah Films

 

Defining my ideal client

“When I began coaching, I took anyone who would pay me because I felt desperate for the business. But I quickly realized that some clients energize me more than others. I made a decision after the first year to be more selective in choosing who to work with. I now turn down business because I know I am not a good fit… My business doubled once I got clear exactly who I was marketing my services to.”
—Claire Pearson, life coach

 

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Some obstacles are external, some are internal; some are specific to women in business. If you’ve faced anything like the problems above, know that you’re not alone. Overcoming barriers is part of the entrepreneurial journey, especially for women.

 

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Meredith Wood is the Editor-in-Chief at Fundera, an online marketplace for small business financial solutions. Specializing in financial advice for small business owners, Meredith is a current and past contributor to Yahoo!, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, SCORE, AllBusiness and more.

Ask, Believe, Receive – The @VentureMom Formula for Making Things Happen

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by Holly Hurd

It was a busy summer Saturday on the Cape and the entire family, my son’s friend, and our 90 pound Airedale were piled into the Suburban. We’d already had a mishap with bags flying off of the top of the car on Highway 95. My husband was not happy. Now we were stuck in the traffic on route 6 in danger of missing our ferry which we had to book months ahead of time. If we missed it, who knows when our car would arrive. Things were not looking good.

My daughter said, “Ask, believe, receive and we’ll make the ferry.” So without a bathroom stop, only one bag of chips for 6 hours and a cranky driver and panting dog, we asked to make the ferry, we believed we’d make the ferry…. we made the ferry with about one minute to spare. The “Ask, Believe, Receive” mantra really resonated with me and I began to think about it as a tool that I could use for other things in my life.

So many successes begin with a question. A question opens the door to possibility. I’ve always told my kids, “You don’t ask, you don’t get.” Asking can take many forms. It could be a written list of goals. It could be a prayer you say every day. It could be a wish you think of each night before you go to bed.

But how ever you ask, when you make it real by writing it down, thinking it or saying it out loud, you make it a real possibility. When you put a wish, a desire, a goal out into universe, the universe goes to work on that ask. Your mind goes to work on it.

So many of us are afraid to ask. Maybe by asking, you’re afraid you’ll be disappointed. Maybe you don’t want to wish for something you think you can’t have. Maybe your desire is so deep you cannot speak it. But in order to receive, you must first ask. By writing, thinking, or speaking the ask, you are setting the wheels in motion. This is the beginning of the path to the get.

What are you asking for? Maybe you have a health issue you’d like to solve. Maybe it’s a relationship that needs repairing. Maybe it’s a business goal. Whatever it is, it’s time to get specific and write it down, wish it, speak it. The first step in Ask, Believe, Receive, is to ask.

If you keep a journal, write your asks. If you are a thinker, wish it in your mind. If you like to speak your desires, say it out loud. But you must continue to ask each day for what you desire. The purpose of expressing your ask, is to place the seed in the universe and in your subconscious. Your mind will work on your asks while you sleep and do other things. Opportunities will come your way that move the ask closer to fulfillment and sometimes you won’t even know why or how.

Believing you will succeed is the second powerful tool that you have with you now. It’s available to you 24/7. No one can take it away from you. When you believe you will succeed, amazing things happen. When you believe you’ll get better, you will. When you believe you’ll get a promotion, you will. When you believe you’ll find a mate, you will.

When you state your asks in the affirmative as if they’ve already happened, you are awakening your mind to the power of positive thinking. It’s a simple theory that’s been around for a long time. When you activate that power, you begin to bring the universe in alignment with your asks. Incredible things pop up in your path to guide you toward your goals. You being to receive the things you’ve asked for.

Now you are ready to receive. Sometimes I’ll go back in my journals and see an ask or a goal that I’d forgotten about and it has happened. I’ve received some amazing things much bigger than making the ferry that day.

If you work the process of Ask, Believe, Receive, you’ll see results. Asking is the same as goal setting and prayers. Believing is having faith that you will succeed. Receiving is the reward for asking and believing. What are you asking for?

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Holly Hurd is the founder of VentureMom.com, a web site devoted to profiling women who have their own businesses. Holly has interviewed hundreds of women with their own ventures, making her uniquely qualified to speak on entrepreneurship for the small start up. Her web site shows women how other women have created businesses out of thin air so they can do the same. The VentureMom Marketplace curates and sells the luxury goods these women offer
When she was only twenty-five, she was featured in Futures Magazine, USA Today and in Fortune’s “People to Watch” column for her exceptional work managing her own fund on Wall Street. She has put her life experiences to excellent use by creating VentureMom.com to provide women economic freedom.

Three Steps To Getting More Done When Working From Home by Erin Smith @TheStartersClub

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by Erin Smith

Working from home seems like the ultimate wish where you never have sit in horrible traffic, talk to people who you really don’t like to, and spend hours getting ready (and even dressed).

When I initially started working from home, I’m going to be honest, I got a little swept up in an ‘E -True Hollywood Stories’ marathon that I had to slap myself out of. Work wasn’t super busy, and I felt like the Sarah Jessica Parker story was calling my name.

After snapping out of it, I got the groove down and have found working from home to be a definite art, that when done right can take advantage of the hours you’re gaining from no daily travel and prep time.

1. Don’t Skip the Prep Time

Believe me, I understand how tempting it is to roll out of bed and work from your pajamas, but there have actually been studies that have shown how we dress has a direct impact on how we think and perform.

One 2012 study showed how simply wearing a lab coat could affect how people performed and how they perceived themselves.

Your performance matters, probably, even more, when you’re working from home and out of the daily eye of your clients. Therefore it becomes even more important that you do all that you can to give yourself the advantage of performing at your best.

2. Set Intentional Timers For Yourself & Have a Separate Space

I found this the hardest when I started almost exclusively working from home. At an office, it’s a typical practice where you shut down a computer, and you’re officially done for the day. That doesn’t happen when you’re in an office setting. There’s never that shut down moment where you get to walk away and officially be done.

Because of that, it becomes harder to create that line when work is officially over. I would work through all hours of the night because work was just there, and I tend to have work-a-colic tendencies.

I had to create boundaries throughout my house. Although it was tempting on cold and rainy days, working from my bed wasn’t going to happen. I had to get up and head into my office. The computer stayed in the office and work wasn’t something that happened whenever I felt like it

This also helps with all of your home’s to-do tasks staring you down while you’re trying to get work done. Working from the kitchen? Ah, you’ll find that sink full of dirty dishes will call your name more than you would like. Working from the living room? Well, the dust and the need to vacuum will become much more important than that one last task you really should finish.

Not only will your space boundaries help you to say no, but time boundaries will also help you get more accomplished AND get the dishes done if that’s what you decide to do. I love setting 50-minute time slots, a trick I learned from a mentor of mine. I set 50 minutes to focus on getting specific work completed, with the intention set before those 50 minutes begin of what I’m going to work on.

Then once it’s over, I give myself a 10-15 minute break to walk around, work on the house task that’s been driving me insane, or just even to go out for a walk and clear my mind.

The amount of work I can accomplish during those short sprints is pretty amazing, especially when I’m not allowing myself to take on the tasks that are distracting me.

3. Get Out of the House

Warning: Working from home may cause loneliness.

I know what you’re thinking. We’re talking about working from home, and I’m trying to encourage you to actually leave your home. But the house, if you’re not careful, will become all-encompassing and really begin to wear on you.

Plan lunches with friends and/or co-workers. See if you can work from your favorite coffee shop for a few hours. Take a 30-minute break to take a walk outside. If you have an office to go to, plan a trip to stop in every now and then just to take that break. This time away will become crucial to your sanity (see the E-True Hollywood Stories reference above).

I personally know that working in new areas spurs my productivity and creativity, so it’s something I schedule several times per week, especially if I am heads down on a project.

It’s crucial that you find some sort of balance and routine to truly optimize getting work done, and the best way to do this is to schedule time outside of your home and office.

Working from home can be an incredible way to save time and money, but if not done carefully, you could end up unshowered for weeks, never leaving your office, and feeling alone. So make sure you seek out the balance!

 

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Erin Smith is a serial entrepreneur who has started and sold several businesses and now teaches business owners how to amplify their business through digital marketing and basic business fundamentals.

She is the owner of several businesses, best-selling author, speaker, podcaster, dog rescuer, and mother of 2.