As my term as president of Women in Consulting comes to an end this week, I find myself reflecting on all the incredible experiences I’ve had throughout the last two years.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2008 with not only a gala event, but a new look & feel for our website and a new blog. In 2009, we expanded our social media presence to include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

We expanded the reach of our organization, with strong and vibrant satellite groups in San Francisco, the East Bay and North Bay/Marin, as well as the South Bay and Peninsula.

We created a mentoring program and offered workshops to help consultants grow profitable businesses.

We expanded our Leaders Network to provide a venue for seasoned consultants to meet and exchange thoughts and ideas with their peers.

We expanded our profile in the community–partnering with a wide variety of organizations and associations, including the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, the Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), FountainBlue, Astia, IMC NorCal, NorCAL BMA, and others.

We provided benefits to our community from groups like People OntheGo, SD Forum, Cubes & Crayons, Vertical Response, MarketingProfs, Egnite, WeMeUs, Zoomerang, and PR Newswire. And we continued our partnership with Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting.

We held silent auctions to benefit Girls for a Change and collected donations for the Georgia Travis Center in San Jose.

Not only did we offer a top-notch set of outstanding speakers for monthly programs, but we launched teleseminar and webinar programs as well.

We continued to offer outstanding value to members and affiliates through our renowned mail list and other resources.

In fact, through the worst recession in nearly a century, we grew our community to be nearly 500 strong–with our ranks of full members swelling by nearly 40% this year.

And we did all this as an entirely volunteer run organization, with over 100 consultants taking on pro bono consulting roles for WIC.

Why, in a time when many organizations are struggling or even closing their doors, is WIC thriving? Because in addition to everything I’ve already mentioned, one of the most important things WIC provides is a strong, collaborative community–a place where consultants can come to learn as well as to socialize, to build their businesses as well as to connect with colleagues, to share experiences and develop referrals, to grow as individuals as well as part of a bigger whole.

For all of these reasons I feel extremely lucky to have had the privilege of guiding this organization over the last two years. And I feel extremely confident in turning over the reigns to the extremely capable and passionate Avery Horzewski to take WIC to the next level.

Thank you to all of you who are a part of WIC. WIC is community and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. Here’s to more wonderful WIC happenings in 2010 and beyond!

Okay, I was so jazzed about this evening’s meeting celebrating WIC’s 10^th anniversary that I had to write one more post tonight. Building on the “Secrets to a Successful Consulting Business: Know Your Strengths” in my last post, I thought I’d “chat” a bit about Kim Fulcher’s (mylifecompass.com) keynote address on Three Keys for Entrepreneurial Success: Passion, Strengths, and Purpose (see a theme starting here).

Three Ingredients for Passion

I loved Kim’s presentation, because she distilled down a lot of great information into a succinct, easy-to-digest-and-remember message (paraphrased by me here):

There are three ingredients for passion: strengths, values, and skills.

• Strengths: do what you’re innately born to do
• Values: find the things that light you up
• Skills: identify the abilities that you’ve acquired

She equated our belief in ourselves to a chair. And to hold up a chair, you need legs. The legs are your strengths, values, and skills. You create a new belief about yourself using these three legs. And you use this new belief to develop a level of confidence in the part of your business that you despise.

We all have something about our business that we don’t like; and what we don’t like, we avoid. To push through (and create passion), you also need leverage to motivate you. Ask yourself, what you would loose if you fail? Who that you care about would also loose if you failed?

The Power of Collaboration

Kim also reminded us that we don’t have to do this alone. The creativity of a group of women or a woman connecting with herself can achieve great things. But you know what? This part wasn’t news to me. I know first hand the power of working with a great group of women. WIC taught me that.

The success of WIC and the individuals who make up our organization is a living testament to this fact. Even tonight’s event is proof of the power of collaboration. An amazing group of women-Karilee Wirthlin, Angi Roberts, Gabriella Martinez, Erin Ferree, Melissa Stacey, Deborah Plumley, Jennifer Berkley, Susan Monroe, Kim Le, Sherry Prescott, and so many, many more-worked together to make it possible. I’m proud to be a part of this dynamic and talented team!

Now, I’m off to find my passion!

WOW! What a group of Wildly Outrageous Women (outrageously intelligent and insightful) we have at Women in Consulting, a.k.a. WIC! Having just arrived home from WIC’s 10^th Anniversary Celebration, I find my mind spinning from the ideas and energy that flowed throughout that room. I’m sure this will be the first of many posts on what I learned.

The first juicy tidbit came during the fireside chat (minus the fire) with WIC’s past presidents. Kate Purmal, WIC’s fourth president, shared how picking a focus for your business vs. being a Jack-of-all-trades, was key to success, especially in today’s economic climate.

Elaine Starling, the recipient of WIC’s first “Spirit of WIC” award (more on that in my next post) and WIC’s second president, seconded that advice, and told us all about a great resource for determining what our strengths are: “StrengthsFinder 2.0.” If you buy the newest version of the book, you also get access to the online assessment, which helps identify and measure your talents. I was so inspired that I bought the book on Amazon tonight. I’ll let you know next week what I find out.

If any of you have taken this test — or, like me, have ordered the book and plan on taking the test — I’d love to hear what you discovered and have to say.