From Our WEGG Partner: Women Entrepreneurs Are Crushing It

If there’s anything that defines women entrepreneurs, it’s their ability to figure out everything from how to write a business plan to launching an app to taking a business global.

When you are ready to launch and grow your business, keep these six tips in your back pocket from women who’ve done it before.

Read:  What Women Entrepreneurs Have Done Without Regrets to Crush It

Why I Joined the Women Presidents' Organization: A Member's Perspective

Doing Business With the Federal Government

As Annie Pilon for Small Business Trends points out:  "The federal government is awarding more contracts to women owned small businesses than ever before. There’s still a long way to go. But for women who haven’t ever considered doing business with the federal government, it might be a good time to reconsider."

Check out her article providing tips for women business owners looking to navigate the world of government contracting.

How to Stay Strong and Healthy While Growing Your Business

The New York Times-bestselling author, Bethenny Frankel, is the founder of food and beverage company Skinnygirl, which sold to Beam Suntory for a reported $100 million in 2011.

Frankel also launched a television production company called B Real Productions in 2015. This fall Frankel is going to share her experience with aspiring business owners as a guest judge on ABC’s Shark Tank and she was a speaker at Advertising Week New York. 

But her latest venture is the one that is closest to her heart. Read more ... secrets to building a multimillion-dollar brand.

Jim Collins Delivers What Makes a Good Leader

What To Do With Employees Who Rub Others the Wrong Way

No matter the specific behavior, your employee is rubbing people the wrong way. As the business owner, you know it’s your job to address the issue, but you’re not sure how to start the conversation because it's awkward. What should you say? How do you broach the topic?

Experts weigh in here but before you begin the conversation, prepare what you want to say and how you plan to say it.

Why Do People Love to Hate “Process” but Rail Against Disorganization?

Why do people love to hate “process” but rail against disorganization?  Elizabeth Doty, a former lab fellow of Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and founder of Leadership Momentum, a consultancy that focuses on the practical challenges of keeping organizational commitments, writes an excellent piece for strategy+business on Liberate Your Team With Clear Processes. 

But back to why people love to hate process:

It is because most people associate processes with checklists, forms, and rules — the overseer breathing down their necks. Not surprisingly, leaders wanting to foster innovation and creativity are reluctant to institute such rigid controls and procedures.

Learn more ...

Who Is the Mysterious Aureta Woman?

In this post we focus on how women are leveraging Instagram to build their brand and their following.

Take Aureta Thomollari.  With no last name on her account and captions barely longer than three words, she could be anyone. But as it turns out, Aureta Thomollari is a woman with an incredible eye for beauty and Instagram is her hobby.  In fact, Thomollari's main focus is on her career as an entrepreneur and investor.  She takes images from locations around the world.

By simply looking at her Instagram account, a mysterious feeling arises. Who is this “Aureta” lady with the beautifully curated, colorful account chalk full of fashion, art, design and yes -- a few selfies?

Read more here to learn how you can build your image with not so much work and garner thousands of followers too.

Screenshot courtesy here.

Become a Chicago WPO Member!

Not a member of the Women Presidents' Organization and based in Chicago?  No problem.  We are hosting our 14th Annual WPO Chicago Summit on Thursday, September 14th and if you join before then, you can attend.  Contact Laurel Delaney at ldelaney(at)globetrade.com to get signed up.  Look forward to your membership and the possibility of you joining us on 9/14.

Congress Is Looking to Revamp the Tax Code

For the first time in 30 years, Congress is looking seriously at revamping the tax code, which means we have a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the code into a tool that empowers women entrepreneurs. The question is, will Congress seize this opportunity?

A new report by Caroline Bruckner of American University's Kogod Tax Policy Center and the national advocacy organization Women Impacting Public Policy (WPP) found that women business owners can't take full advantage of more than $255 billion in tax incentives because of how they are legally organized and the industries they serve.

To access the report, "Billion Dollar Blind Spot: How the U.S. Tax Code's Small Business Expenditures Impact Women Business Owners," go here.

Read more ...

14th Annual WPO Chicago Summit 9/14/17

Finding Synergies and New Ways of Doing Things

©iStock/emyu

Ever wonder how you can get the most out of absurd ideas while running your business?  I do too. Let's face it, every day we are bombarded with cool ideas that come from our employees, suppliers, advisors and customers.

As we wait, our own mental wheels start spinning. When we hear an outlandish idea, most of us have a rapid reaction: We dismiss it. It sounds stupid, like nothing our company would ever do. Worse still, it sounds like something that the head of the department would never consider.

So how do you let go and free your imagination to take in new ideas and possibilities that might grow your business beyond your wildest dreams?

Here are two ways that can help you discover new ways of doing things.

Getting the Most From Absurd Ideas

Baby Boomers and Millennials Should Unite

According to Taylor Brown for the Kauffman Entrepreneurs, "Baby boomers are micromanagers, work hard, do not understand technology, are stubborn and want to destroy the planet. Millennials are lazy, entitled, tech savvy, want to save the world and don't know how to communicate in person."

What's a business owner to do?

Although the generalizations of baby boomers and millennials vary, they do share one similar characteristic, they both share particular entrepreneurial characteristics. Millennials crave freedom and earning potential. Baby boomers have a desire to build something.

Why then don't baby boomers and millennials co-found together instead of focusing on their differences?

Read more ...

Support Women Entrepreneurs: Here's How

Supporting women entrepreneurs goes far beyond purchasing their goods and services, sharing expertise to help their businesses grow (e.g., through WPO chapter meetings), or attending the events that other women organize.

As Lisa Abeyta for Inc. Magazine goes on to say:

Those are actually the easy ways we can support women in business. The real challenge is continuing to support women when it requires that we hold them accountable for bad behavior or intercede when we see them making decisions that could damage their reputation or company.

If you care, read on ...

The Ultimate Secret to Success That Women Must Share

What do you get when you problem solve with a group of women entrepreneurs? Well I know just the organization that has the answer.  Keep reading.

Geri Stengel, contributor at Forbes, gives us a bird's eye view into what members of the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) found.

• 77% of members do business with each other.
• 67% of members’ businesses have grown since joining the group.
• With growing businesses, 75% pay themselves over six figures annually.

“Entrepreneurs learn best from each other,” said Marsha Firestone, Ph.D., President of our WPO.  And that’s why you join a peer advisory group.

Learn more ...

Why You Need Food, Sleep and Exercise to Run a Successful Business

How many of you take care of yourself in a way that you are proud of?  Let's face it.  Most of us put our business first and everything else last, which is a recipe for disaster.

But whether it fits into your schedule or not, maintaining great health should come first, before our daily to-do’s, before our work. Why? As the article below says:

Because if we aren’t healthy, we can’t be successful, either—at home or at work.

Read more ...

How Do You Scale Your Culture?

In running a business, we all know its the little things that matter -- from acknowledging achievements to being unafraid of failure.  That's how you build an incredible culture.  It starts with values and works its way toward creating a framework for what's important when making decisions.

In the article below, scaling your culture is addressed along with how to be deliberate about it.

How to Scale Your Culture While Growing Your Company

Be Bold and Scale Big

Through the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ program, the EY folks have gained a unique understanding of how to help women entrepreneurs succeed.  Its competition and executive leadership program identifies a select group of women entrepreneurs in the US and Canada whose businesses show real potential to scale — and then helps them do it.

In this article, they cover scaling big:  3 force multipliers for growth, which are contributing substantially to accelerated growth for women-led companies.

Are Small Business Tax Expenditures Operating as Congress Intended?

Research shows that policymakers and stakeholders have a blind spot when it comes to understanding how the tax code impacts women business owners and raises new questions about whether small business tax expenditures are operating as Congress intended.

This issue has a dramatic impact on the economy. The percentage of firms owned by women has soared from 4.6 percent in 1976—the first time the Census released a report on women’s business ownership—to 38 percent today. There are more than 11 million women-owned businesses with 9 million employees and they contribute $1.6 trillion to the economy.

As the article states, we need to know what in the tax code works for firms and what doesn’t.

Read more ...

Be Comfortable in Business, Not Arrogant