Saturday, January 23, 2021

Women Entrepreneurs Elevate Their Businesses With Access to SBA's New Platform

SBA recently launched Ascent, a brand new free e-learning platform that provides help with issues ranging from hazard pay to how to create a profit and loss statement. 

The agency partnered with the White House, the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury to develop the new tool.

When you get to a million dollars in annual revenue, pay a visit to the Women Presidents' Organization.  And when you need help going global, try out Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All these great organizations are here to serve your growth needs.

Learn more about Ascent.

Monday, January 18, 2021

Turn Your Ideas Into a Project that Feels Fun and Manageable

It’s the start of a new year (2021), which means setting goals and making resolutions. If that includes being more creative or finding time to work on passion projects, you’re not alone. 

Facebook creative director Ji Lee believes that side projects are critical to staying inspired and not getting burned out by work, especially when working from home.

Check out her ideas here because doing is everything.

Monday, January 11, 2021

How to Support Women Entrepreneurs In 2021 and Beyond

Supporting women entrepreneurs isn't something we should do just one day a year – Women's Entrepreneurship Day.  Here are seven practical ways we can celebrate and support female founders year-round.  We like No. 5:

Join a women’s entrepreneur organization [like the Women Presidents' Organization].  Hundreds of networking organizations support women in business and female entrepreneurs. Many are funded exclusively by membership dues, and joining them supports their mission.

Monday, January 04, 2021

Happy New Year! Let's Show Our Leadership Resiliency, Adaptability, and Strength in 2021

Only the tough will survive and thrive through 2021, so let's get started!  No need to set resolutions this year because we learned the hard way that sometimes curve balls come our way (COVID-19) and the only way to dodge or navigate through them is to figure out a new plan.

A handful of experts came up with 7 alternatives to setting resolutions for 2021 that will boost our confidence, happiness, and productivity throughout the year.

Check them out.  Meanwhile, let's show and practice our leadership resiliency, adaptability and strength in 2021.  Oh, and did I forget to tell you to be kind and help others?  Try.

Monday, December 28, 2020

Find Your North Star in 2021 from WPO Chicago

©2020 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.
Best wishes for a life you were meant to live in 2021:  happy, healthy, productive and prosperous.  It starts by finding your own North star.

Monday, December 21, 2020

Monday, December 14, 2020

The Light At the End of the Tunnel on the Global Pandemic

According to Bill Gates, the health emergency could end during the spring of next 2021.

"For the spring, the numbers are going to change drastically and it will be possible to return to normality," commented the tycoon [Bill Gates] during an interview for NBC. He also thanked people to become aware of the importance of wearing a mask and other necessary care for decrease the number of infections.

Read more about what else Gates said on predicting the end of the global pandemic.

Monday, December 07, 2020

She Roots Out Racism in the Construction Industry

Deryl McKissack is the fifth generation in her family to carry on the building business tradition. The roots of her firm date back to the 18th century.  

As a 59-year-old Black woman and the founder and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based architecture, engineering, and construction management firm McKissack & McKissack, Deryl's seen racism and sexism firsthand.  

Her firm is a 2020 Inc. Best in Business honoree and she is a leading voice combating bias in her industry.  

Read more about how she built her business with $30 million in revenue – and with a mission to root out racism in the construction industry.

Monday, November 30, 2020

Give Women Business Owners What They Need

Covid-19 has exposed the deep inequities women business owners continue to face, despite the economic dynamism they contribute to our country.

Women-run businesses make up 40 percent of all businesses in the country and their revenues invigorate our local economies. Last year alone women-owned businesses generated $1 trillion in revenues.

Winter has come and the crisis is far from over.  Let's give women business owners what they need.

Monday, November 23, 2020

Draw On Your Backup Plan

The U.S. recently broke a single-day record, with more than 160,000 new coronavirus cases. California became the second state with more than one million confirmed cases, joining Texas. And perilously, more Americans are now being hospitalized for Covid-19 than at any other point during the pandemic.

What's in store for small businesses?  A lot of uncertainty continues in the weeks and months ahead.  Draw on your backup plan:  new product or service launch, different strategy, more competitive pricing.  Whatever it takes to finish strong, do it.

Monday, November 16, 2020

Plot Your Company's Strategy in COVID Era and Beyond

Christian Stadler writes about strategy for Forbes and says, "If companies take an honest look at their strategic plans last year, how many factored in COVID-19?"  He goes on to say, "AI and forecasting work well for existing customers and markets in stable environments. Regardless of whether we get a vaccine or not, the era we are entering now is not one of them."

Read on to learn 3 ways Stadler believes a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) calls for new ways to plot the future.

Monday, November 09, 2020

Build Resilience

A recent report by the Entrepreneurs Network, in conjunction with Barclays, shows that female-founded equity-backed businesses were twice as likely to have faced significant disruptions — such closed premises or a delayed product launch — than businesses founded by men.

"If we want a complete recovery from this recession, we need to see as many entrepreneurs as possible innovate and create new jobs,” says Aria Babu, author of the report. “This means we cannot afford to keep barriers which prevent female entrepreneurs from realizing their full talents.”

Read more how startups by female founders are the most affected by the pandemic

Monday, November 02, 2020

Stay Positive

Stay positive.  Why?  Because negativity can have toxic effects on you and your business.

In fact, Christine's [Porath's] research has shown over and over that we falter when exposed to negativity or rudeness. Witnessing rudeness interferes with our working memory and decreases our performance. Mere exposure to rude words reduces our ability to process and recall information. We tend to shut down, stop communicating, and cease being helpful to others. Dysfunctional and aggressive thoughts (and sometimes actions) skyrocket.

Learn more about how to thrive when everything feels terrible.

Monday, October 26, 2020

How to Prepare Your Business for the Next Crisis

Faced with the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s and a global economy that’s expected to have shrunk by 4.4% by the end of the year, a team at PwC have come up with a five-point plan to ensure businesses are not caught napping by the next global crisis.

PwC says:

  1. The global economy is expected to shrink by 4.4% by the end of the year.
  2. Businesses need to be better prepared for the next crisis.
  3. A new five-point plan to achieve this includes conquering our fear of AI and data analytics.
  4. It also includes finding a way for people and machines to work in harmony.

Read more about the 5 things businesses could do right now to prepare for the next crisis.

Monday, October 19, 2020

Suddenly the World Wanted Only One Product

As business owners know, speed and agility are it.  If you don't have those traits going for you, well, let's just say 2020 has crushed you.  

Case in point:  Etsy is a U.S.-based e-commerce company best known for connecting individual crafters and artisans directly with consumers. But when CEO Josh Silverman heard in early April that face masks would be a key component of the general public’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic, he mobilized sellers — fast. 

Within days of the release of public health guidelines, Etsy had more than 20,000 sellers with masks ready for purchase. As Silverman put it, “It’s as if we woke up and it was suddenly Cyber Monday, but everyone in the world wanted only one product, and it was a product that basically didn’t exist two weeks before.”

Read on to see how this ties back into the importance of speed and agility to survive in 2020 and thrive in 2021.

Monday, October 12, 2020

Don't Let People Speak Over You

USA Vice President Mike Pence interrupted Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for his current job, a total of ten times over the course of their recent debate, double the times that Harris interrupted him. 

Pence’s interruptions at the debate, however, were seen by many as a particularly obvious example of the way gender and interruption often interact, especially in the workplace, something that was noted by Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.

This episode just further drives home the point:  Don't let people speak over you, especially when you have the floor.

Read more:  'Mr. Vice President, I'm Speaking.' What Research Says About Men Interrupting Women—And How to Stop It

Monday, October 05, 2020

Men Have It Easier

More than half of female small business owners say men have it easier.  Fifty-four percent of women-owned businesses feared they’d have to permanently shut their doors because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research.

The study, commissioned by Groupon and conducted by OnePoll, aimed to understand how women small business owners are meeting the challenges COVID-19 presents.

Learn more here.

Monday, September 28, 2020

Take Your Work Seriously But Be Joyful in Your Play

What follows below is a wonderful tribute by Ryan Park for The Atlantic on Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Ryan is an attorney based in Durham, North Carolina, and a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

As Ryan says, Justice Ginsburg’s legacy belongs to all of us.  He goes on to say, "But no matter how seriously she took the work, she was always joyful in her play."

It buoys me to see people inspired to carry forward her vision of a more equal and just society. She would have expected no less. And if she were still here, she’d reassure us with a smile and a hug, and tell us to get to work.

Read the entire article, "My Friend and Boss, Ruth Bader Ginsburg."

Monday, September 14, 2020

17th Annual WPO Chicago Summit 9/10/20 a HUGE Success!

©2020 Women Presidents' Organization.  All rights reserved.

A big shout out of thanks and gratitude to all the people who worked their tails off for our 17th Annual WPO Chicago Summit that took place Thursday, September 10th from 1:30-6:00PM CT.  Yes, you read that right on the time. Don't ever let people tell you that you can't run a virtual meeting – a 1st for our Summit! – for more than an hour and keep people engaged, enthusiastic and informed.  Our Summit was a HUGE success!

We had more than 50 people participate from all over the world from the Women Presidents'​ Organization and even had the great pleasure of our CEO joining us, Camille Burns.

The theme this year was "Create a Powerful Advisory Board" and our experienced presenters were Barbara Ford, Mary Elworth, Ann S. Deters, Sandy Marsico and Patricia Miller. Thank you all for sharing your experience with us! You guys rock!

Thank you to our Steering Committee members: Margo Jacquot and Ann S. Deters. And to Laura Fairman for her great design work, as always.

Special thanks to the WPO sponsors who attended – can't mention them all but I'll bring in two who spoke briefly: Kathleen Christy CPA, CTFA, CEPA, PNC and Kerri Adams, Financial Wellness Account Executive, Prudential - we appreciate your support.

Finally, thank you to the entire WPO family who signed up for our Summit (you know who you are) because you made our program that much more vibrant and informative. With gratitude ...
(#WPO, #CreateAPowerfulAdvisoryBoard).