The Ultimate Small Business Idols

These sixteen (16) women redefined power by building their own businesses against all odds.  From tech giants to fashion designers to the 'Oprah Winfrey of China,' these powerful women are the ultimate small business idols.

Read more ...

Sweeping People Along by Great Leadership

According to James Bailey for HBR, great leadership is powerful, dominating, often overwhelming.  He goes on to say.

It can sweep people along through sheer animation. Great leadership excites, energizes, and stimulates. It’s a rousing call, shocking complacency and inertia into action. It’s one of the most potent pulls in human history, and as such accounts for much of humanity’s progress, as well as its suffering. 

Great leadership is not one-dimensional. As Bailey says, "It can be great and good, or one but not the other, or neither."

Read more ...

Never Lose Sight of Who the Customer Is

Bill Aulet, MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer and Managing Director of The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship has said "you need to keep calm and trust the process," when it comes to entrepreneurship.  He goes on to say:

“It’s much more important to figure out who the customer is; figure out the process and what makes that into a business,” adding that “it’s even more important to have a great team.”

Listen to the interview here.

The Me, We, Do and Be Concept

According to Randall Bell, Ph.D., there are four cornerstones to all our great pursuits -- whether the pursuits be starting a business, managing others, or setting goal.  How do we get grounded despite being pulled in a million different directions?  It starts with cultivating the right habits.

Read more ...

Awakenings That People and Business Owners Have in Life

Clinical psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud has discovered certain “awakenings” that people have—in life and in business—that once they have them, they never go back to the old way of doing things.  And when that happens, they are never the same. In short, they get it.

Here's an example:

1. Return to what hasn’t worked.

Whether a job [or letting an employee go], or a broken relationship that was ended for a good reason, we should never go back to the same thing, expecting different results, without something being different.

Read more ... 

The Women Presidents' Organization Celebrates 20 Years of Magnificent Growth

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

The Women Presidents' Organization celebrated 20 years of magnificent growth at its annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, which focused on Entrepreneurial Excellence: The Next 20 Years.  The event was a huge success.

Learn more here.

The Broadsheet Features the Women Presidents' Organization

The ever popular The Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women, featured the Women Presidents' Organization.  Here's the clip:

Read the entire newsletter here.  Read the complete Fortune article here.

Roundtable of Women Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

President Trump, Vice President Pence and Ivanka Trump met at the end of March at a roundtable of business women and entrepreneurs in the West Wing of the White House.  The president, reading from prepared remarks, offered promising comments and compliments.  Here are a few of them.

Read the article here.

WPO 20th Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida 2017

The Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) will hold its 2017 International Conference in Orlando, Florida from Thursday, May 4th to Saturday, May 6th 2017.

The conference encourages WPO members to share business strategies and experience with other successful women from all over the world, as well as learn from interactive seminars and speakers.

Additionally, it will provide potential members who qualify a unique opportunity to experience the impact the WPO has on women business owners professionally and personally.

To learn more and to register, visit here.  Conference schedule can be found here.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Do You Avoid Negotiating? No more

Does the prospect of negotiating with an employee, supplier, investor, or business partner make you a nervous wreck? Do you panic at the thought of sitting across a table from someone and driving a hard bargain or taking a tough stance?

You are not alone.  Yet:

A lack of negotiation skills and abilities essentially forces you to take what you can get. This leads to you putting more into a business relationship than you get back. In turn, you’re not able to produce or perform to your fullest potential.

Read more here.

How to Reduce and Treat Burnout

Preventing burnout requires being very deliberate about how we work but also why we work.  Yet as you run a successful business, it's hard to set limits or monitor actions.

I [Brad Stulberg] learned that burnout — a state of physical and emotional exhaustion often followed by apathy and illness — is ubiquitous across industries. Physicians, businesspeople, artists, teachers, and athletes all have high rates of burnout. As a matter of fact, most studies show that between 40 and 50 percent of people are experiencing burnout at any given time.

Here are some tips to prevent burnout, regardless of field or the type of business you run.

Read more ... here.

What Is Your Gender IQ?

Through PwC’s partnership with the UN Women's HeForShe initiative, they are working towards achieving global gender equality in the workplace and beyond.

Imagine a world where girls and boys have equal access to education. Where women and men earn the same for similar jobs. Where women have equal opportunities to reach leadership positions – and men have the same opportunities to achieve a fulfilling work-life balance. This is what global gender equality looks like.

What is your gender IQ?  You can take an online course to find out.  Begin the course here.

How Small Businesses Are Teaching Big Companies a Thing or Two About Growth

As the PwC network says, "The most successful companies find unconventional ways to bridge that [strategy to execution] gap, and while there is much to learn from the large companies that do this best, there is also a wealth of knowledge to be uncovered by taking notice of the strategies and practices of smaller companies."

In Three Growth Lessons Large Companies Should Learn From Smaller Organizations, three WPO Chicago members are featured.  This is an article you won't want to miss.

WPO Chicago Member Joanna Sobran Named a Top Business Woman in Illinois 2017

Oh we love to brag about our members because they are all inspiring, ambitious and successful women business owners.  But the purpose of this blog post today is to honor one in particular who just recently earned the award of one of the Top 15 Business Women in Illinois.  And she's Joanna Sobran, President and CEO of MXOtech, Inc.

Learn more here.

Congratulations to Joanna.  Keep up the amazing work.  We are so proud of you!

New Research Supports Women in STEM

Recently, Congress passed two bills designed to promote women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions, and presented them to the White House.  And on February 28, President Trump signed these two bills—The INSPIRE Women Act, and The Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act—into law.

The National Women’s Business Council’s latest research supports the need for solutions such as these that seek to address the disparity between men and women’s STEM workforce participation and commercialization efforts.

Read more here.

The Only Real Failure in Business Is Giving Up

Founder of SB Projects, Scooter Braun, manages superstars like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Kanye West and Usher, and has broken more new music acts than any executive in the last decade.  He was also ranked one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Below he talks about 9 golden lessons for success in business and in life.  One is never giving up.  But you already knew that, right?

Go here to read the article.

After the Success of Women's March, What Happens Now?

More than a million people who turned out on January 21st for women’s marches in all 50 states have put down their signs, taken off their pink hats and ended their calls to action after what was an extraordinary display of solidarity for women's rights.

A critical question remains: What happens now?  How do you channel all that passion and energy into action that produces political change?

Read more here.

For the Week of Action Toolkit, visit here.

Color Outside the Lines

How can you find or reignite that passion to start and grow a business?  It's not easy for if it were, everyone would be doing it. Success Magazine asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council what advice they would give themselves.  Here's what they shared -- there are , in toto, 9 lessons.

No. 1:  Color outside the lines.
No. 2:  Don't doubt yourself.

Read more here.

A President's Secret Weapon: Other Presidents

According to Leo Bottary, a thought leader, speaker and educator on the topic of peer advantage, we learn best in groups.

This is why it's so essential for CEOs [Presidents] to surround themselves with other CEOs [Presidents] who are committed to listening more than talking, learning more than judging, and discovering what being a great CEO [President] is truly all about. Joining a pear advisory ...

The Women Presidents' Organization serves such a purpose -- allowing you every month to be with people like you, yet different from you, with whom you can share common aspirations and challenges that allow you to take your business to new heights.

Read more here.

What Differentiates Successful Women Business Owners From Mediocre Ones?

Our friend and esteemed colleague, Dr. Sharon Hadary, a recognized thought leader on women's leadership and entrepreneurship, writes a wonderful article for the Beatrice Daily Sun on "Top Ten Characteristics of Successful Women Business Owners."

Discover whether you have any of these great qualities and if you don't, you have your work cut out for you!

Women March Worldwide in Solidarity

Hundreds of thousands attended Women's Marches around the world in solidarity on Saturday, January 21, 2017.  Worldwide, including in London, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo, an estimated 3 million people participated in the march, according to organizers.

USA had big city representation from New York, Chicago (grew from 75,000 to 250,000), Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, San Jose, Los Angeles and Seattle, to name just a few, to march together for equal rights, women's rights, and human rights in general.

Read more here.  Our country and the economy must prioritize women entrepreneurs for future prosperity.

A Look at Some Powerful Female Entrepreneurs

These sixteen redefined power by building their own businesses against all odds.  From fashion designers to tech giants, the following are power women who are the best of the best in female entrepreneurs.

Read more here.

What Inspires You to be a Great Leader?

As we move along in a new year, many business owners always want the $5 answer to the million dollar question:  How do you get inspiration to think differently and stir positive change within your organization?

It starts with lifelong learning.  And you've got to carve out the time.  Here are a few good books to read in 2017.

Happy 2017 from the Women Presidents' Organization Chicago

We wish you a new year filled with tremendous joy, excellent health, and great prosperity.

Join us in prioritizing the success of women entrepreneurs not just in 2017, but everyday throughout our lives.

Photo credit:  Los Angeles Magazine

Wishing You a Merry Christmas and Joyful 2017!

©2016 Laurel Delaney.  All rights reserved.

How to Translate Your Vision Into Concrete Actions

How do you translate your vision into concrete actions your people can identify with and get excited about? Here are seven proven techniques for building a solid team.

One of the most insightful tips I [Nido Qubein] learned about leading others is that people do things for their reasons, not for your reasons or for mine. So the goals, the plan of action and the strong conviction have to be communicated in a way that directly answers the question, “What’s in it for me?”

7 Ways Leaders Can Inspire Commitment to Goals

Unlocking Entrepreneurial Potential in Women

Women entrepreneurs face significant obstacles to growing and scaling their businesses, especially with accessing capital, education and resources.  They don't always have the same opportunities as men.  This is why Tory Burch started the Tory Burch Foundation, which empowers women entrepreneurs and provides programming designed to level the playing field.

Read more:  TB's Top Business Advice for Women

Screenshot courtesy:  Tory Burch Foundation

Effecting Change and Inspiring Others

Our U.S. election has been simultaneously inspiring and deeply challenging for women.

Chicago Inno reached out to several women founders, tech executives, and organization leaders to hear their reactions after the election. While many expressed frustration and fear, women also expressed resolve to push forward, and the importance of entrepreneurship and tech as a means to equality.

Here's what they had to say.

Entrepreneurs: The New Face of the Uninsured

Read the story of a 58-year-old entrepreneur who, over the past 20 years, had two bouts of breast cancer, is now cancer-free, but due to the change in the health exchange marketplace, is in a position of being wary as to who will insure her next.

Learn more:  Are entrepreneurs the new face of the uninsured?

It Ain't Easy Growing a Business Past the $1 Million Mark

According to Small Business Trends, entrepreneurship among women is on the rise. Women own 36 percent of all businesses. Yet, women get 33 percent less capital for their ventures.  Those numbers are according to the American Express report.

Women who start and run businesses, especially past the $1 million mark, do not let roadblocks get in the way.

Learn more:  The Truth About Women-Owned Business

How to Overcome Your Biggest Challenges

There are three (possibly four) primary lessons for small-business growth.  It starts with how to stay in business and revitalize the communities around you.  In addition:

1. Know your numbers
2. Engage in smart marketing.
3. Ask for help.

Read more:  Robert Herjavec's 3 Lessons for Small-Business Growth

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

You're a CEO.  How do you decide whether to give an employee a raise or lay them off?  The article below reveals the arithmetic companies typically use to access employees' value.  Just remember, value and compensation are inextricably connected.

Read more:  I'm a CEO -- Here's How I Decide Whether to Give You a Raise or Lay You Off

In Building a Business, Keep It Honest

Jessica Alba (pictured), founder of The Honest Company, may have earned her first fame and fortune on TV and in blockbuster films over the past decade, but her true talent seems to lie in building a business.

Unilever started to express interest in buying The Honest Company, Alba’s five-year-old purveyor of plant-based diapers, organic dishwashing detergent and other “green” household products, but ended up acquiring Alba's rival Seventh Generation for as much as $700 million.

But the fact a multinational conglomerate would consider buying Honest is being cheered as a victory for women entrepreneurs. After all, Alba and her company may have turned down a 10-figure offer for their baby.

Read more:  Billion dollar baby:  Jessica Alba's Honest Company is her real entrepreneurial star vehicle

Where the U.S. Candidates Stand on Business Ownership Issues

Karen Kerrigan (pictured), president & CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, says:

"Entrepreneurs are critical to getting the economy back on a strong growth track, and successfully starting and growing a business is an important path that helps individuals achieve financial security and prosperity. Small businesses are responsible for the bulk of job creation, and their innovation and dynamism is what makes our economy so unique from the rest of the world." 

In the article below, she outlines the candidate's known or new positions on taxes and tax reform, health care reform and Obamacare, regulation and regulatory reform, trade, immigration, and energy.

Read more:  So, where do the candidates stand on small business issues?

Why Diverse Teams Perform Better

According to Harvard Business Review, "diversity — both inherent (e.g., race, gender) and acquired (experience, cultural background) — is associated with business success."

Find out why.  Diverse Teams Feel Less Comfortable -- and That's Why They Perform Better

Follow Your Heart For Your Next (Ad)venture

Birchbox co-CEO Hayley Barna (pictured) decided to walk away from the influential beauty-subscription-box startup that she cofounded in 2010 (she remains on the company’s board).  Why? She says:

"I loved it, but it turned out the beauty industry is not my lifelong passion. It’s [exploring] innovative business models."

You never know where your next adventure will take you.  Follow your heart.

Read:  Birchbox Cofounder Hayley Barna On New Ventures, Glamping, and Her Filthy Fridge

13th Annual WPO Chicago Summit a HUGE Success

We were delighted to have the following speakers at our 13th Annual WPO Chicago Summit held on Thursday, September 8th and hosted by Foley & Lardner.

• Paul Leinwand, PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory
• Sandy Marsico, Sandstorm Design
• Joanna Sobran and Karen Burneister, MXOtech

This year's theme was Create a Winning Business Strategy and all speakers knocked it out of the park on substance and delivery.

Thank you to all who participated and until next year's Summit, keep growing!

Photo credit:  ©Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

From Homelessness to Running a Multimillion Dollar Enterprise

For more than a year Arlan Hamilton (pictured) had been pursuing her dream of starting a venture capital fund focused on female, minority, and LGBT entrepreneurs. But she realized early on that it is tough to get a fund going when you don't have any money to invest.

For months, she'd been homeless, making ends meet in whatever away possible, when she finally got the oxygen she needed:

"I'm in," read the text from Susan Kimberlin, a tech veteran who made a name for herself at Salesforce and PayPal. Kimberlin was ready to bet on Hamilton to bring more diversity to tech--and her check was the lifeline Hamilton needed to get Backstage Capital up and running.

Read more:  How This Woman Went From Homelessness to Running a Multimillion-Dollar Capital Fund

More Women of Color Are Starting Businesses

It's time for all women to see themselves in a new light.  Consider the following:

For every 10 women-owned businesses launched since 2007, eight were started by women of color, according to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. In the past nine years, there’s been a 137% increase in Latina-owned businesses, a larger rise than that among any other demographic group in the U.S., the report found. (3.5 million women-owned businesses were founded during that period, according to the report, compared to 1.6 million firms owned by men.)

Read more:  Why More Women of Color Than Ever Are Starting Their Own Businesses

Join Us: 13th Annual WPO Chicago Summit (9/8/16)

Reshaping the Contemporary Global Economy

The drive to produce more women-owned enterprises is not just to develop women from an economic perspective, but the bigger picture of reshaping the contemporary global economy. This is the case for South Africa.

“Women are underestimated powerhouses of an economy. This is not a fact that is relevant only to South Africa, but it is a global phenomenon. South Africa needs to not only build entrepreneurship, but to encourage and develop female business owners. 

WPO operates four vibrant chapters in South Africa managed by Anni Bodington (bottom) and Miranda Isaakidis (top).  We are well on the path of helping women business owners grow there.

Learn more:  Small Business Friday aims to produce more women-owned enterprises

Pathways to Success

According to Javier Palomarez, President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, women are leading in corporate America, not only in title or position, but also through collaborative, purposeful actions that influence the state of women in America and around the world. When it comes to commerce, it’s clear that women are good for business.

Here's a look at a few (e.g., one is Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, pictured) who are changing the landscape of corporate America for the better.

Read:  10 of the Most-Influential Women in Corporate America

How To Bring Your Best Selves to Work

If you haven't discovered HBR Press at Harvard Business, now's the time to take a moment to learn about their Insight Center, “Building Resilience."  They explore how you can bring your best selves to work and how you match the demands on your time with your ambitions to succeed.

Tin addition, they look at motivation, work-life balance, and knowing when you're approaching your burnout thresholds.  All good and important stuff.

Here's a sampling on some of the articles featured at "Building Resilience:"

1. 5 Ways to Boost Your Resilience at Work
2. Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure
3. Battling the Physical Symptoms of Stress

Innovative and Tenacious Women Entrepreneurs

In addition to WPO members the world over, there are other innovative and tenacious women entrepreneurs.  The producers of ABC’s hit business reality show Shark Tank hunted down 12 of them below who are under the age 30 who’ve pitched on the show. They all share a talent for finding niches of unmet needs and an unabated drive to succeed.

Take a look.  If they are not already WPO members, they will be, soon.

12 Of The Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs Under 30 from Shark Tank

Are You a Good Listener?

If I were to make a bet with you and ask whether you are a good listener with my bet placed on you not being a good listener, who would win?  That's not a trick question.

Most people when asked whether they are a good listener typically say "yes."

But, according to Harvard Business Review, here's how you really access whether you are a good listener.

Read more:  What Great Listeners Actually Do

Now, tell me, who would have won our bet :-)?

Businesses Owned by African-American Women Are Soaring

The number of businesses owned by African-American women in the United States has been soaring, according to a new government report.

In fact, the number of such [referencing several different business owners in the San Jose, CA area] businesses in the United States has more than tripled since 1977 to 1.9 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 Survey of Business Owners, released last December. Of those, about 12,000 are in the Bay Area counties of Santa Clara, Alameda and San Francisco. Few other groups of minority women are starting businesses at a faster clip, according to the report, which is updated every five years.

Black female entrepreneurs are determined to fill a neglected niche and choosing to invest in themselves.

Learn more:  Black women take lead in starting new businesses

WPO Has Been Leaning In Together Forever

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, after encouraging working women everywhere to lean in, now wants you to lean in together.

Sheryl and her LeanIn.Org nonprofit's newest campaign, Together Women Can, is dedicated to women helping other women in the workplace.

Note:  The Women Presidents' Organization has been helping women business owners lean in, work together, and grow businesses for more than a decade.

Read more:  Sheryl Sandberg's new message to women:  'Lean In Together'

Screenshot courtesy:  LeanIn.org's Together Women Can

Women Make Significant Contributions in Our World

Women have been starting businesses at a higher rate than men during the past 20 years.

Forecasts indicate that by 2018, there will be more than 9.72 million new small business jobs created and women are expected to create more than half of them. This is a remarkable increase since 2010, when women-owned businesses created only 16 percent of U.S. jobs.

Our friend and colleague, Dr. Sharon Hadary (pictured), former executive director of the Center for Women's Business Research, said that successful women business owners tend to share some characteristics that set them apart.

To find out what those characteristics are, visit:  Women business owners:  What sets them apart?