Research from The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute, as outlined in “Women Business Owners to Lead the Nation in Job Creation ” by Rieva Lesonsky, shows that by 2018, women entrepreneurs will be responsible for creating between 5 million and 5.5 million new jobs nationwide,” more than half the new jobs expected.

According to the article, Guardian’s research shows that when women become their own bosses, they’re more likely than male managers or entrepreneurs to:

• Diligently engage in strategic and tactical facets of their business
• Proactively focus on customers
• Incorporate community and environment into their business plans
• Be receptive to input and guidance from internal and external advisers
• Create opportunities for others

When I read the list above, my first reaction was, “Duh, we’ve known that at WIC for years!” In fact, these very characteristics are what set WIC apart from so many other networking organizations. It’s these very characteristics that underscore WIC’s collaborative organizational structure and drive our members and affiliates to readily share their advice, experience, and insights with others in the WIC Community who solicit help with a particular business problem. (NOTE: Ms. Lesonsky was also not surprised by these findings.)

I particularly liked the quote from John Krubski, futurist and research advisor to The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute:

“This women-led management approach will have a profound impact on the employees and customers connected to these businesses. Women small-business owners will ultimately create more opportunities for employees to grow in their jobs and inspire others to start their own small business–all while providing customers with superior service.”

So to all of my fellow WIC colleagues and associates, I say, “You go girls!”

Read the full “Women Business Owners to Lead the Nation in Job Creation” article 

Welcome back to work, everyone…hoping that everyone took some good family time off over the holidays since it sure seemed like our clients did!

The great thing about taking a little break is that it gives perspective–and I come back optimistic and eager about the new year…I saw trends over the holiday that are quite promising…I was asked to submit 3 different proposals, which doesn’t normally happen…I have 3 projects booked for this month, which doesn’t normally happen.  With those kinds of things happening, it’s easy to forget about all that doom and gloom ‘R’ word talk…

But I’m not going to get TOO comfy even with such good signs–this is a year to go back to basics and to really get clear on my target customers and how I can help them…especially in times like these.

Some thoughts that I’m having and have already begun to implement:

- Update my website (it’s been awhile…and it’s looking dated, especially re: resources I have links to as well as my products/services sheet which doesn’t represent my most favorite new service I’m providing!).  Check out the topic of the S. Bay WIC Luncheon on March 9: 10 Tricks for Updating Your Website.

- Keep my eye out for news/trends that would be helpful for my customers to know about–and tell them (I did this over the weekend and got a big thank you from my customer for keeping them in mind–talk about immediate gratification!).  Check out www.marketresearch.com for inexpensive research reports or www.findarticles.com to find current news items for an industry, your client’s competitors, etc.

- Do some prospecting–I have been reliant upon the steady stream of referrals that I’ve gotten over the past 10 years to feed my business, but in times like these, doing some intentional, deliberate prospecting makes a lot of sense–it will expand my pool of prospects beyond my personal network which increases the odds of finding someone who needs my services incrementally.

- Partner up with others–I’m a broken record on this one (see my first blog entry!), but working closely with some of my trusted colleagues to brainstorm, share successes, keep one another focused on what we all need to be doing, looking for opportunities to refer one another, and looking for ways to help one another overcome barriers are all the benefits of partnering with other consultants.  There is never a BAD time for collaboration, but a tough economy is a GREAT time for collaboration.

Let’s hear from you about what you are planning to do differently this year–either to overcome the impact of the shaky economy or to get you to your next goals for your business…we have so much to learn from one another!

Jen

I just finished reading an article on Raintoday.com (yes, their weekly newsletter just came out, featuring five of the year’s best articles on better serving your clients) that focused on “the power of taking your clients interests to heart.”

I found this article interesting on a number of levels, but I’ll limit my discussion to two:

Motives Matter a.k.a. Doing What’s Right

First, the whole concept is a no-brainer to me. It’s how I operate. When I was employee, I made decisions based on what was best for the company, not necessarily what was best for me. Sometimes this didn’t result in the best situations for me, but in hindsight I’d make the same decision again — because it was the right thing to do. It’s what I owed my employers, and it’s what I owe my clients.

The author (Charles Green) of the article wrote that this isn’t a matter of ethics, but rather a simple fact of trust. However, I’d argue it is a matter of ethics, or at least a matter of doing what’s right. This is so hardwired into my system that I get very annoyed when people don’t do what’s “right.” And isn’t doing what’s right a matter of ethics? For me, it goes back to the golden rule, “Do unto others….” I simply treat my clients the way I would like to be treated. I treat their business as if it were my own. It’s what’s right.

Now that said, does that mean I never make mistakes? That I never get irritated? Heck no. Anyone who knows me would tell you that. But my governing principal is doing what’s right by my clients — and that includes telling them when it doesn’t make sense to have me do something for them. And since 99 percent of my business is word of mouth, it also is a good business practice — I’d argue the best best practice you can follow. This echoes Charles Green statement that “being trusted is a very low-risk, high-return strategy.” But doing it just to boost your profits is false.

Relationships and Fake Trust a.k.a We Cannot NOT Communicate

In Charles Green’s article, he writes that “When client focus becomes a tool for seller profit improvement, clients notice and become cynical. Lately, the language of client focus is adopting the language of relationships, fostering yet another layer of cynicism…. If we can’t trust the meaning of the words a company says, then we can’t trust the company saying them.”

I don’t disagree. To me, this is a no brainer. But obviously it isn’t so simple, because many companies do seem to take a seller-profit-improvement approach to client focus. The reason I found this component interesting is probably due to my communication background, studying how humans communicate and why some rhetoric works and some doesn’t.

We cannot NOT communicate is why fake trust or seller-profit-improvement approaches don’t work. It’s a phrase I fell in love with in my first interpersonal communication class; it’s also my company tagline. It says a lot, really. We’re always communicating, even when we’re not saying anything. What we don’t say can often be more telling then what we do say — that’s why fake trust doesn’t work.

Words alone definitely don’t carry the message. All the nonverbal “stuff” says a lot more. There are a lot of studies (sorry, none quoted here, all my books are packed away) that show that if words say one thing and tone or body language say another, the audience will believe the latter over what’s said. So it stands to say that just speaking client-focused language isn’t enough. Most people are astute enough to see past what you’re saying to how you’re acting. If they don’t match, they don’t trust you. And if they don’t trust you, they won’t buy what you’re selling.

Anyway, it’s a good article to read, great food for thought. I’d love to hear what all of you think.

Read, “Motives Matter: The Power of Taking Your Client’s Interests to Heart“

…it’s a philosophy I’ve always followed. And it’s one that I know has made a difference in the quantity and quality of work that I receive. Well, as it turns out a small survey (Ensuring Sustainable Value from Consultants) conducted by UK-based Management Consultancies Association (MCA) supports my party-of-one “research.”

Act as if You’re an Employee
RainToday.com (you’ll begin to see a regular thread in my posts, as I often read articles by them that I think others would find interesting), had a short article in their October 8 Rainmaker Report: “Good Consultants with Bad Reputations? How to Leave Clients Satisfied with Your Quality of Work” by Fiona Czerniawaska.

One of the two key reminders I took from this article is the concept of blurring the consultant/employee line:

• Among consulting projects that have gone well, it was hard to find a single one that didn’t involve a joint client-consultant team
• Integration wasn’t just a question of people working together or being based in the same physical location
• 66 percent of satisfied clients thought teamwork was so effective that it was hard to tell whether someone was an employee or a consultant; 72 percent of dissatisfied clients disagreed

Look Beyond Just the Decision Makers
The other key reminder was the importance of the lateral relationships between consultants and members of a client’s staff who were involved in the project. These relationships were key in determining the success of an undertaking.

Often we, as consultants, talk about how critical it is to have access to decision makers — and it is. However, I argue that how we collaborate and partner with the other team members is equally important, a point that MCA’s research underscores:

• The eighty-one percent of satisfied people were those who believed their work with consultants represented a genuine partnership ; in contrast, just two percent of those dissatisfied felt that way
• The consultant who builds into his or her proposal an understanding of the need to engage people at all levels, and a plan for doing so, has a better chance of overcoming client skepticism and is more likely to deliver greater value in practice

Share Your Thoughts
I’d love to hear what your experiences are in this area. So, let the conversation begin.