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The Importance of “The Pivot” by @ENAMOURstyle

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by June Cruz | Featured Contributor

The Importance of "The Pivot" Often in business when we hear an individual has pivoted, we believe the person has taken their focus away from what seemed like their main goal or market, moved on to a new field or have given up. In most cases that’s the furthest thing from reality.

When we think about sports, especially basketball, and we speak about a pivot- its when you plant your feet down and one foot becomes stationary while the other has full motion to rotate. At this point from a business perspective this position means you understand your idea and your goal (in basketball the goal is to score). Although  you understand where you’re at and your goal is clear you may still be feeling roadblocks ( in basketball this would be the man guarding you) and you need to figure out a new avenue or way to get to your same end goal. Hence the pivot: as you take your sight away from the roadblocks you can begin to see new directions (in basketball you’re seeing  the floor  from a better angle).

In basketball the pivot is a fundamental move, and players use it often. As business owners and entrepreneurs we aren’t often taught the role of pivoting or exploring other options to get to our end goal. Many entrepreneurs are nervous to pivot because they begin with a business plan, product or marketing plan they believe is the key to success.  They  set out on one track with the belief that laser focus and their original plan will be how they achieve their end goal.  Even when the road blocks occur, they believe that this mapped out plan is the answer. A lot of times in business the initial plan was great as a  motivator  and a start, but pivoting and seeing the floor and the bigger scheme of things allows brands to move with the unknowns that may occur and to find less resistance in the pursuit of the end goal.

Basketball players pivot and are credited with being calculated. When brands or entrepreneurs pivot in a new direction there are often questions of why.  Although we may wonder why, most times when you speak with the entrepreneurs or brands they’re still pursuing their end goal; they’ve just found a new market, skillset, or a broader reach for their product. Below are some examples that illustrate brands and entrepreneurs that pivoted out of their original markets but whose end goals never changed.

  1. Pinterest:  The founders of Pinterest first began with the Tote app. An app that allowed shoppers to save their favorite items, be alerted to sales and to find store locations of items they had added to their collection of favorites. After a year and issues with the app, the founder – Ben Silbermann took the strongest portions of this app, which was the shoppers love of saving their favorite items and the design layout and introduced Pinterest.    (Read more here: http://www.fastcompany.com/3001984/pinterest-pivot)
  2. Chalene Johnson:  Chalene Johnson began as a personal trainer and fitness guru with the intent to help her clients and Beach Body community be their best physically. After much success in this field Chalene pivoted to expand her reach into entrepreneurial and lifestyle coaching.  ( Watch full interview here: http://thepursuit.tv/chalenejohnson/)
  3. Starbucks: Starbucks originally was a small shop that sold coffee beans and espresso machines. In 1983 after a trip to Italy, the owner, Howard Schultz pivoted to brewing and selling coffee in a European coffee house environment.  ( Read more here: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201406/david-kaplan/howard-schultz-reinvents-starbucks-constantly.html )

As entrepreneurs it’s important to always remember your end goal, your mission and when it may be time to pivot.

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June CruzJune Cruz is a mom to an active toddler and the Founder and designer of ENAMOUR. ENAMOUR is a women’s clothing line featuring designs for the transitions of a day, creating beautifully comfortable clothing for women to feel confident at work or home.

When June isn’t in the design studio she enjoys family outings to local Cape Cod events and beaches as well as long road trips to warm destinations. She is a music and movie lover and finds inspiration in both. After becoming a mom, fitness and healthy living has become more of a focus in June’s life, so smoothies, sugar/cream-free coffee and running goals are all a part of her weekly routines.

Holiday Ready by @ENAMOURstyle

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holiday ready

by June Cruz | Featured Contributor

As Thanksgiving weekend ends and the holiday season approaches with full force there’s no better time to take inventory of your closet to make the most of your wardrobe.

Here’s five styling tips to be holiday ready as you take your work wardrobe into the holiday party season.

1. Layer:
By this we mean your necklaces.
For work: Wear one of your classic pieces. This could range from a simple single gem charm to a monogrammed or name plate necklace.

For holiday festivities: Add 1 or 2 necklaces of different lengths to your classic work necklace to add some interest to your outfit.

2. A Little Black Dress

The Little Black Dress (or LBD) is the perfect transitional outfit to go from your work day to any holiday event.
Be sure when choosing your LBD that it’s appropriate work attire; because it’s your accessories that will take it from work to after hours.

3. Blazer vs. Cardigan

For work: To achieve a power look pair your LBD with a tailored blazer that accentuates your personal style.

For holiday festivities: Swap the blazer for a more casual look with a cardigan that best suits your style and compliments your LBD.

4. More is better
When it comes to your wrist and hand adornments that is.

For work: the same concept applies to your necklaces as it does to your rings and bracelets. At work, keep it simple and only wear your staple pieces.

For holiday festivities: Add to your wrists with some bangles or a nice cuff. For your hands add a cocktail ring or  a fun ring or two that you may not get to wear on a day to day basis.

5. Step it Up
From your flats to heels

For work: A comfortable but stylish flat or bootie are perfect for the hustle and bustle of the work day.

For holiday festivities: Switch out your work shoes and make the night feel special and wear your favorite pair of killer heels.

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June CruzJune Cruz is a mom to an active toddler and the Founder and designer of ENAMOUR. ENAMOUR is a women’s clothing line featuring designs for the transitions of a day, creating beautifully comfortable clothing for women to feel confident at work or home.

When June isn’t in the design studio she enjoys family outings to local Cape Cod events and beaches as well as long road trips to warm destinations. She is a music and movie lover and finds inspiration in both. After becoming a mom, fitness and healthy living has become more of a focus in June’s life, so smoothies, sugar/cream-free coffee and running goals are all a part of her weekly routines.

The Key to Career/Motherhood Balance? by @ENAMOURstyle

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The Key to Career/Motherhood Balance?

by June Cruz | Featured Contributor

This is exactly the type of article I would have clicked on a year and a half ago, while six months pregnant, trying to figure out how I was going to balance a newborn baby and a burgeoning fashion career. As I was excited to welcome our baby girl into the world, I was also realizing that as a person I still had a passion for my career and I was excited about the course it was taking and I still wanted to be actively pursuing my dream while being a new mother. I wanted to be successful in my career while still being successful as a mother. As long as I can remember and for as many women as I’ve known, before tackling this subject for myself, this question of career/motherhood balance has always been a struggle.

The struggle and questioning of: Can you have the successes in your career and the thing you are passionate about and still have the same success as a mother?  After reading multiple blogs and articles on this very subject and seeing these questions and the subject of “mom guilt” addressed over and over, I decided to ask successful mothers and career women their opinions about the balance.

Each woman had their own take on the balance and how they “mastered” the conflict in their own lives.

The first woman was in Corporate America and her advice:

Hire a Nanny or Find a Great Day Care

Entrusting someone with an extensive background in childcare and with the interest in taking care of your child during the time you are away allows for a bit of ease in helping with the balance.  Although this advice was helpful and the idea was one I wanted to explore in the future, childcare services are quite pricey and I couldn’t afford a nanny or day care at the time I spoke with her.

So I spoke to a professional who hadn’t used early child care next. She had recently retired from 37 years of running her own company and her advice:

 Begin When Your Children are School Age

Starting a business when your children are in school allows for an automatic allotment of time for you to have free to work on growing your business. As your business grows and your children get older it allows more freedom for travel and to attend work related events. Her advice gave me something to look forward to, but the truth of my situation was, I had begun the business before my daughter was born, so waiting for her to go to school meant a five year hiatus I didn’t want to take.

I decided to ask an entrepreneurial mother who had been in business for multiple years and was about to have her first child; and her advice:

Scale Back and Delegate:

Look at the scope of your business plans for the coming year. If your business could only have your undivided attention 50-75% of the time what portions of your plans for the year would need to be eliminated or brought down to a smaller scale? Does this mean waiting 6 months for new clients/partnerships? Participating in fewer shows and events? Next figure out which areas of your business could be delegated to someone else to do. Could you hire someone part-time, look for a virtual assistant, work on a barter system, or even find a great intern? I liked this advice for myself and definitely implemented many of her ideas into my current business plans, but  I was interested in hearing from the professional mother who I spoke to last.

The last mother I asked was an entrepreneur who had a nice analogy of how she viewed the motherhood/career balance because she felt she had never mastered the balance as much as it became a natural part of her life:

Prioritize and Plan:

Look at your calendar of events for the month and decide what events are most important both professionally and personally, then plan accordingly. She felt being a mother and entrepreneur was like juggling. If you juggle three balls there will always be one ball in the air and two in your hand. The ball in the air has sometime and doesn’t need your immediate attention, but the two in your hand need the attention. She felt that is how her career and personal life balanced. Sometimes she gave her children more attention and sometimes her career.

After speaking with all of the professional mothers I admired each of their solutions and how they made their career/motherhood balance work for them. What I learned most from speaking to each woman is that there is NO KEY to the balance. We all have to find the methods and services that suit our lives/businesses and our children’s needs best.

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June CruzJune Cruz is a mom to an active toddler and the Founder and designer of ENAMOUR. ENAMOUR is a women’s clothing line featuring designs for the transitions of a day, creating beautifully comfortable clothing for women to feel confident at work or home.

When June isn’t in the design studio she enjoys family outings to local Cape Cod events and beaches as well as long road trips to warm destinations. She is a music and movie lover and finds inspiration in both. After becoming a mom, fitness and healthy living has become more of a focus in June’s life, so smoothies, sugar/cream-free coffee and running goals are all a part of her weekly routines.

 

 

Not your typical Follow-Up by @ENAMOURclothing

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Not your typical Follow-Up

by June Cruz | Featured Contributor

When most of us think of a follow up, we immediately think of an email or phone call to a potential business client or collaborator. But for this post, we are going to talk about the in person follow up to your online brand. Often times we spend a lot of time and energy perfecting our online brand and forget that the brand we are putting forward online is simply an extension of our real companies, services, or selves.  There are only  two major things to remember when working on your in person follow up:

1. Don’t Talk About it Be About it

This seems self explanatory, but is important to always keep in mind especially when your brand grows beyond a solopreneur operation.  Your brand should always reflect you,  your core values, beliefs and general lifestyle.  So let’s say you are an organic brand, its important to know the field, your customers, and any innovations or changes to products. Then be sure your personal life falls in line with these aspects  and especially the portions of your brand you promote within the market.  As you build your team its important that they are passionate about your brand and also fall in line with what your brand stands for. Being about it is much more important than talking about it because when your brand is actively doing what your online image describes you create a lifestyle that is transparent, trustworthy and ultimately successful.

2. Know when to Drop the Pitch

Being genuine is so important, it’s the key to being a good representative for your brand. Often times when networking people think of sales instead of relationships. If you approach each networking event from an honest place of wanting to build relationships, and to have clients and collaborations that are in line with your brand, it creates a long-term effect rather than just a quick one time sale. One of my favorite quotes (and honestly I’ve heard it from so many entrepreneurs I’m not sure where it originated from) about networking is:

People do business with people they know, like and trust”.

I like this quote so much because it embodies what it means to be genuine and what we look for in other businesses and brands. We like engaging with brands that are genuine, transparent and honest, so as a business owner/ entrepreneur we ourselves should always try to model that same feeling of engagement for our clients, customers and fan base.

For me, these two keys keep me consistent, transparent and constantly looking for the most genuine connections, collaborations and teammates for my business. I hope they help you do the same.

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June CruzJune Cruz is a mom to an active toddler and the Founder and designer of ENAMOUR. ENAMOUR is a women’s clothing line featuring designs for the transitions of a day, creating beautifully comfortable clothing for women to feel confident at work or home.

When June isn’t in the design studio she enjoys family outings to local Cape Cod events and beaches as well as long road trips to warm destinations. She is a music and movie lover and finds inspiration in both. After becoming a mom, fitness and healthy living has become more of a focus in June’s life, so smoothies, sugar/cream-free coffee and running goals are all a part of her weekly routines.

You have 30 seconds to make a good impression. by @ENAMOURclothing

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You have 30 seconds to make a good impression.

by June Cruz | Featured Contributor

So often when building our brands, unless we are the service provider ,we forget that we are our brands, so even the smallest of things, like your avatar image on social media, are important.

When thinking of your social media headshot or bio image here are ->

4 key things to keep in mind:

1. Steer Clear of the Car Selfie:

Is that a seatbelt strap in your selfie? Or a headrest? Although car selfies are great for Instagram and letting your audience have a glimpse into your life, when thinking of your brand there are two key aspects you should keep in mind in regards to your headshot background.

– White or Neutral: choosing a neutral colored or white background gives your headshot versatility to be used across all social media accounts and for PR purposes. It also keeps the focus on you as opposed to distracting background objects that could leave your audience asking questions that don’t pertain to the services you provide or purpose of your business.

– Related to your brand: If you must have a background it should relate to what you do. If you run a catering company it would make sense to see something food related in your background, if you provide personal training it would make sense to see activity or you in an active environment as your background. Although this is common sense, I have seen so many people make the mistake of having an unrelated background in their headshot.

2. Keep It Classic:

In fashion it’s always better to know the trends and what is coming to stay up to date, but when it comes to your headshot the opposite is true. Picking classic staple pieces from your wardrobe, or a recognizable uniform in your field will do more good than making too big of a statement with your clothing. It is better to make your statement with your accessories, pick a great necklace or pair of earrings to make your look standout. Headshots are usually updated when your hairstyle or haircut changes, you have had a significant change to your face (weight loss, new eyeglasses or lack of etc.), or you rebrand your company . For most of us this isn’t too often, so keeping your wardrobe more classic allows your headshot to stay up to date, until you are ready to shoot your next one.

3. Be Yourself:

Have you ever seen a headshot of a keynote speaker or someone you may be meeting, and you arrive and aren’t sure who they are because they look nothing like their image? Photoshop is great and definitely helps with unplanned blemishes and even fly away hair, but don’t go wild and look to creative an image so “perfect” it doesn’t reflect who you are in real life. Your headshot should be a professional glimpse at who your customer or clients will meet in person.

4. Angles Matter:

We all know we have them and its okay to use them. If you know your best angles be sure to use them in your headshot. If you haven’t experimented with your best angles, definitely take some practice shots of yourself and find them out.  It helps to have a photographer or even a friend take your photo. Selfies and pictures with obscure angles don’t seem as professional as a shot that is centered and focused. Also having another person photograph you gives you the space to try different angles and poses for your shot.

With these 4 things in mind your next headshot should be an easy photo shoot experience and an excellent representation of your brand.

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June CruzJune Cruz is a mom to an active toddler and the Founder and designer of ENAMOUR. ENAMOUR is a women’s clothing line featuring designs for the transitions of a day, creating beautifully comfortable clothing for women to feel confident at work or home.

When June isn’t in the design studio she enjoys family outings to local Cape Cod events and beaches as well as long road trips to warm destinations. She is a music and movie lover and finds inspiration in both. After becoming a mom, fitness and healthy living has become more of a focus in June’s life, so smoothies, sugar/cream-free coffee and running goals are all a part of her weekly routines.