She Owns It

Celebrating, Connecting, and Supporting Women Entrepreneurs

Looking to Start (or Grow) Your Business, Start Here! by @jillmcabe

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by Jill McAbe

The pandemic’s impact on the U.S. workforce has left an unprecedented 30 million wildly talented and ambitious Americans jobless. But amidst the uncertainty, there are many “accidental entrepreneurs” who have discovered a silver lining — the gig economy.

Oftentimes, a layoff leads people to take the leap into creating their own business, either because they have to in order to generate income or this is the push they’ve been so desperately waiting for. Severance or unemployment pay can also give them the runway to get income through the door while in the initial stages of starting a business.

However, there is a widespread gap of knowledge about how to efficiently build a business that sells talent and time keeping solo entrepreneurs from achieving their potential. There is so much noise about what to do that it’s confusing for anyone to figure out what should be done first, second, third, and so on.

Well-meaning practitioners and coaches will tell you that you need a brand strategy, content marketing, social media, funnels, client journey mapping, public relations, systemization, advertising, graphic design – the list goes on. In a way, they are right; you may need all these solutions at various stages in your growth. But there is an order of operations that will make each project more successful as it builds on the last.

When you do the right work at the wrong time, you risk not getting the benefit you hoped. You’ll end up spending time and money on things you didn’t need, and eventually, you’ll find yourself needing to circle back and do it again when the time is right for you.

When it comes to being immeasurably better with your time, one of the smartest things you can do is pick the right project at the right time. To do that you need to figure out just where you are on the Gig-Economy Career Ladder (GECL).

 

Basecamp

Businesses do one of two things: they solve a problem, or they fulfill a desire. You have developed a skill that you enjoy and sell it to fulfill a need or desire, but your business is inconsistent. It demands too many hours from you, or you cannot step away from it and keep money coming in. If this is the case, then congratulations; on the GECL, you’ve made it to basecamp. The great thing about being at basecamp is that it means you are ready to leverage everything you have learned about yourself, your industry, and your clients, and turn it into your ideal business.

 

Exploration

The easiest way to think about the exploration phase of a business is to think of research and development. The exploration phase is where you take ideas and test them and see if they have merit before dumping all sorts of cash or time into them only to find out they’re not going to work out. Projects to focus on during the exploration phase include:

  1. Identify a target market you can predictably find and that you want to serve
  2. Develop a proprietary solution for a problem your target market will pay to solve
  3. Confirm that your target market will pay you to solve their problem
  4. Test your sales process and solution delivery
  5. Refine your marketing and sales until you can predict your sales volume
  6. Refine your marketing, sales, and solution delivery to ensure worthwhile profit

The things you are looking to prove in the exploration phase are that you have a target market that you can reach and who will buy from you, that you have a solution at a price that is profitable for you to sell, and that you have marketing or advertising channels that lead to a predictable volume of traffic and eventual sales conversions.

 

Exploitation

Once the viability of your idea is proven, you can advance to the exploitation phase. The types of activities that are the focus of this phase have to do with efficiency and expansion. Because you’ve locked down your service or product, you will finally be able to streamline your operations with tried-and-true standard operating procedures (SOPs). It makes sense that you will be positioned to create standards once what you sell is standardized. Standardizing your processes is a key to becoming the owner of a system that makes money with or without you. The exploitation phase is also where you pick up a megaphone and tell everyone what you do through activities including marketing, advertising, and public relations. The types of projects that you focus on during the exploit phase are:

  1. Clarify a business vision, mission, strategy, and structure
  2. Create standard operating procedures for marketing, advertising, sales, solution delivery, legal, and administration
  3. Continuously improve all your standard operating procedures
  4. Outsource everything you can
  5. Manage your systems, not your people
  6. Enjoy your newfound free time (or start the explore phase for another solution!)

 

You are better off going through the exploration phase five or ten times than jumping to the exploitation phase before you’re truly ready. Once you have successfully explored an opportunity, you can move to exploiting it very quickly.

 

 

Jill McAbe is a Business Coach, High-Performance Expert and the #1 Amazon-Best Selling Author of It’s Go Time: The ALL-IN System For Unstoppable Success in Business and Life. By focusing on success-skills that are grounded in the contemporary sciences, Jill helps talented creatives, coaches, and professionals design and build purposeful, six and seven figure service-based businesses that work on-or-offline. Jill carries a Master of Arts in Leadership from Royal Roads University, is a faculty member of York University’s Schulich Executive Education Centre and is a Top Teacher on the global career-skills platform, Skillshare.

How Could A Mobile App Help Your Business? by @XLConsultingGro

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mobile app

by Elaine Slatter | Featured Contributor

If you are a Starbucks lover you know the drill.  You can order your Starbucks coffee and treats via the mobile app and as you arrive at your local store, there is your order waiting for you, no muss, no fuss.

The Starbucks mobile app is booming. Starbucks Rewards has 13 million active members, a 16 percent increase from last year, Forbes reported. Mobile order and payment makes up 7 percent of total Starbucks orders in the United States, double its percentage this time last year.

But, wait a minute, you aren’t Starbucks, right.

The cost of developing a mobile app used to be huge.   Starting at $15,000 to over $100K, for a Starbucks type app. This is way out of the reach of most small businesses.

Times have changed, thanks to new technology.  Apps can now be custom built using a similar template technology that revolutionized website building.  A template-based mobile app is now much more affordable.   Somewhere in the range of $3K from app developers such as Like Us Communications.

Why Should You Think About A Mobile App

  1. Customer Loyalty.

Nothing helps customer loyalty more than creating processes that keep your customer thinking of you first

  1. Convenience.

Customers are pressed for time, always.  You just can’t get more time, therefore the alternative is to find ways to make the best use of your time.

  1. Mobile is King

We are attached to our mobile devices as never before. Nobody leaves home without their cell phone.  It doesn’t matter how old you are. So why not use a mobile app to deliver a customer experience, whatever that would be for your business.

What Could A Mobile App Do For Your Business?

If you are a yoga studio, you could use push notifications to tell your members when the next yoga class is starting 45 minutes prior.

If you are a meal prep/delivery service an app could send coupons, advise delivery, send meal suggestions.

If you are an event organizer an app could be applied in multiple ways to keep your event top of mind for the attendees, before, during and after the event. In addition, a mobile app can help attract and give value to sponsors, advertisers, and speakers.

If you are a restaurant a mobile app could offer many solutions for prospective customers, from reservations to meal ordering, take out services etc.

If you are a dress shop think about the possibilities. From flash sales, showcasing new products, ordering online, and sending messages to the store with just one tap.  It also could show customers the top-selling items, check the stock/size of an item they are thinking of purchasing.

In short, a mobile app can help you solve customer pain points in a fast and efficient way.  Artificial intelligence is the way of the future to deliver low-cost solutions for increasing customer engagement. It personalizes the customer experience while lowering the per cost transaction.

Still not sure of the applications?  Listen to our podcast with Tricia Belmonte and you might be surprised at how you could use a mobile app for your business.

 

Do You Dream Of A Business With Over A Million Dollars In Revenue? by @XLConsultingGro

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7 Strategies To Reach a Million Dollars in Revenue

Business Success

by Elaine Slatter | Featured Contributor

Did you know that less than 2% of women-led businesses reach over a million dollars in revenue?  In researching for my follow-up book to “Fabulous Fempreneurship” a business startup guide, I have been interviewing women founders to see what it takes to move up from a startup business to a superstar organization of over a million dollars in revenue.

Here are some of the highlights of these interviews.

 

Don’t over analyze and paralyze yourself into taking action

Victoria Sopik founder of Kids and Co. is a visionary and her partner is an accountant and a detailed person.  As a visionary Victoria says it’s her role to think big and expand the business (originally starting in Canada and now spreading across North America).  Her partner’s role is to find holes in the vision but not stop the vision.  Victoria will listen to her partner but unless there is a great reason why the company should not go forward with its plans, she takes the risk, because she knows from her past experiences, with the risk comes the reward.   She has seen and heard a lot in her 15 years of business, but nothing she says is insurmountable. After all, she has survived the trials of being the mother of 8 children all of whom she says are still alive to-day!

Surround yourself with mentors

No-one can be an entrepreneur on their own.  The successful women founders I interviewed all said they had mentorship.  For some it was mentorship by other women in CEO networks, for another CEO it was earning a spot in the Quantum Shift leadership series, partly sponsored by KPMG

Have a strategic plan

If you don’t know where you want to go, how can you get there?  All the women leaders stressed that as your business gets traction you have to plan the next phase.    Using SMART planning to define your strategy was a unanimous choice.   Breaking the strategic plan into 5 year, 3 year and 1 year visions is paramount to success.  Sharing the plan with all your employees is another essential element because everyone on board has to be part of your plan says, Shantel Feltman, CEO Sitiris Research.

When putting the strategic plan together it should include the total structure of the company.  As you grown, your company structure will change.  What will that look like?  Identify employees that can grow with your company says Shantel and push them to take on the responsibilities.   Shantel knows this only too well.  Having to take a couple of years away from her business for breast cancer surgeries and recovery, she learned that people will step up to the plate if they are empowered and encouraged to do so.

Joni Lien, franchisor owner of Supperworks also found out the same thing as she was forced to take a break from her business to look after her terminally ill husband who was the chief operations officer.  Her team stepped up to the plate and now Joni has been getting back to her business but in a different role.  She is focusing business growth, while her team handles the operations side of the business.

Listen to your customers

For Debbie Gracie-Smith, founder of Cretos an International IT business that she has since sold said “it was listening to the customers of American Express when I worked there was the whole premise of starting my own successful company”.   Cretos filled the gap for her customers that American Express was not interested in filling.  Debbie says “Do the right thing and do work you are proud of”.

This also means making things right even if you make a loss and it’s not your fault. Having respect for the client.  In the case of Michelle Bailey, CEO of Blazing The Agency, this also meant covering up the mistake of a manager in her client’s business who signed off on a $60K print run with an error.  The error was fixed, the print run reworked and Blazing The Agency footed the bill so the client’s employee could save face.  Not every company would go that far, but Michelle believes the client is always right (even when they are wrong).   Michelle suggests making sure your clients are partners, not users.

And how does Michelle get it right for her clients?  Without a doubt, it’s “by active listening”.  “ How can you make sure your solution fits the client’s needs if you don’t understand what the problem is?” says Michelle.  Mirroring back to the client in their own words clarifies the problem.  If you don’t have the solution, recommend another company who can solve the client’s problem.

Hire for cultural fit and teach the skills

All the female founders stressed that building a team that gets what you are trying to do and buying into the strategic plan is paramount to success.  Don’t hesitate to remove toxic employees from your company.  It’s not the right fit for you or the employee.   They will be happier at a different kind of company.

Use technology to expand your business

This can mean so many different things.  It could be app based software to manage employee projects, it could be software to make the quoting process more efficient.  Or it might be database management to keep track of your strategic metrics.  Whatever it is, information at your fingertips is paramount to efficiency in all areas of your business.   Technology can also change your business focus from offline to online giving you more areas of growth towards a million dollars in revenue.

Read, read and read some more

Whether you are reading for ideas, productivity, business structure, success stories or client engagement, keep reading. Or to-day should we say watch videos, listen to podcasts and attend webinars.  But like anything else, keep the end goal in mind and educate yourself only on items that fit your strategic plan.

Keep focused and head on up to the million dollar club.  Let’s get the million dollar club up from 2% to 3% of women-led businesses in the next few years.   If your business already has a million dollars in revenue, and you would like to be interviewed for this new book “Startup to Superstar”, drop a comment below.

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Elaine Slatter is a Small Business Expert, founder of  XL Consulting Group and author of the popular book, “Fabulous Fempreneurship”, a complete business guide for women.  XL Consulting Group helps entrepreneurs with market planning, strategy, branding, web design and social media. She has over 30 years of executive business and marketing experience and is ready to help you rocket your business to success.  Elaine is passionate about mentoring women to become successful women entrepreneurs.   To find out more, visit XL Consulting Group or join the Fabulous Fempreneurship mastermind.

You can connect with Elaine on social media at:  Facebook Group | Twitter | Facebook

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How To Get Your Man To Support You Building Your Business by @DeniseDamijo

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by Denise Damijo | Featured Contributor 

On your climb to success, you are going to come up against a lot of obstacles, naysayers, and people that just plain want to see you fail. It can already be cold on your entrepreneurial climb but it can be even colder if your husband doesn’t have your back. You may think that it would be something that your Fairy-God-Mother would have to make happen in order for it to happen to you but there is a way to know how to get your man to support you building your business.

As a married woman with 5 children, early on in my journey; I felt like my husband was giving me mixed messages about me starting my business. Before I actually began my journey of starting my business, my husband used to give me hints as to what business I should start. In my mind, I thought he had not a clue about what my passion was and I always just brushed it off. Finally, I found the direction in where I wanted to go and I got up enough courage to make that big jump. Well, I thought that my husband would be delighted and automatically give me the support that I so much desired.

It did NOT happen that way at ALL!!!!

Even though my husband wasn’t mean or openly negative, I felt a little resistance and definitely a lack of the supportive communication that I needed. My husband wasn’t a troll or anything but he definitely wasn’t my biggest cheerleader.

I had no idea what I had done wrong when I thought he was practically leading me to the entrepreneurial lifestyle before. Eventually, we were able to get on the same page but it wasn’t until I discovered these MAJOR hidden secrets that changed the game.

Ask his honest opinion

Before you even decided to start your business, you along with many others have probably gone out to gather your support system. Your spouse was most likely on that list because you care about their opinion and also want to experience your journey together. Just make sure that you ask them to tell you their honest and non-biased opinion. Listen to what he has to say even if it isn’t what you wanted or thought you needed him to say. Despite what he says, make sure that you thank him and let him know that you appreciate his honest opinion because it helps him to know it is ok to be open with you. This will help to keep the lines of communication open and relaxed.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

If your husband didn’t say the things that you wanted and needed him to say, DON’T GIVE UP and certainly don’t take it personal. There can be a numerous amount of reasons why he went left when you wanted him to go right. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to support you or will not support you in the future. Instead of letting this frustrate or disappoint you, gather more information on what is the underlying root to the reason why he was not supportive.

Know what to look for

While your gathering information, keep an open and understanding mind. Your husband may not be supporting you for resolvable reasons. It could be because he doesn’t understand how to be an entrepreneur or the journey of one. It could also be that his thoughts about business are a little outdated. Or it could possibly be that he doesn’t know where he stands in the equation and it intimidates him. His natural instinct is to make sure to take care of you and the family. If you are like many other women that dream BIG, you may become the breadwinner and he may feel like that can take away his ability to perform his natural instinct. Another huge reason why your spouse didn’t support you building your business is that he is clueless on how to support you.

Make it easy for him

Your husband had to get to know you and observe you in order to know what you liked and what he needed to do to make you happy. It took you being transparent and some time. With your business, drop the good stuff by being transparent about your business. Catch his interest with things that you know he would want to know. Some of those things may be how passionate you are about your business, will you be helping people or the world, what other people are saying about what you are doing, and how much money you will make compared to how much expense and time you will have to invest in order to build your business.

Reassure him that he will not lose his wife and friend

The last thing that your man wants to do is lose his wife and friend while you are busy building your business. Let him know how important he is, how you value his opinion, how you appreciate any help and support that he gives you, and how you are so grateful that he is on this journey with you. Also tell him about the fun you will be able to experience together because of the time, income, and opportunity your business will bring. While you are dreaming big, make sure that you are dreaming with him. Paint the most attractive picture for the both of you and then go after it proactively together.

Building your business is already exciting. Building your business with your husband completely on board is one of the best things that you can ever experience and cherish.

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