The #2 Question I’ve Been Asked While Working With Women Entrepreneurs

The number 1 question I get asked all the time is, “Michelle, How do I find more clients?”  We’ll talk about that another time in an upcoming marketing series.

What I really want to talk about is the second question I get asked the most:

“How do I have a thriving business without sacrificing my personal life?”

I used to answer ,”If you find out, let me know!” and I was supposed to be the expert!?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed?  Unfulfilled?  Out of balance?  At the end of your day do you wonder where all that time went?  Have a list of to-dos that seems to get longer instead of shorter?  Have you tried to “balance” your life, but easily slip back into old routines?

You aren’t alone! I’ve been coaching small business owners through Startup Princess for the last 3 years.  I discovered that when there is a problem at the office, there’s usually a personal problem as well.  Especially for women.  They’re trying to balance growing a business and raising a family or have a satisfying personal life and wondering, “What’s the secret?  Other people seem to have it all, why can’t I?”

Then it happened to me.  In January of 2010 I was running 3 businesses, heavily involved in my church service, and I had just had my second child.  I was trying to balance having a toddler and a newborn, maintain a happy marriage, keep my businesses afloat and still have time for service and myself.  I kept looking around at other successful women entrepreneurs who seemed to have it all together and I went in search of what they had.   Frankly, things got worse.  Then through trial and error and honestly trying every life balance and time management program on the planet, I still felt like something was missing.  I realized life balance is a MYTH (gasp!) and I decided I needed to create a program that did a better job of focusing on my most important roles and responsibilities.

After tears and inspiration, I created the Life Priority System.  When I share this with clients and friends they love me for it and I’m dying to share it with you, my Startup Princess friends.  I’ve created an event to help you manage your life’s work.  You’ll also learn how to get your loved ones on board with your dreams!  Whether you’re a full-time parent, a full-time entrepreneur, a full-time employee or some mix of the above, my system is designed to help you to bring greater meaning to the things most important to you.

I share these secrets with my coaching and business clients for hundreds of dollars, but in this introductory workshop, I’m sharing my best stuff for $25.  It’s NOT introductory in content.  It’s introductory in price and offering to you.   And really, what is your life worth?  How much would you spend to learn tools that can bring you happiness and fulfillment?

In addition to rich content, you’ll receive the Life Balance Myth Workshop workbook, and additional conference materials.  I want you to have the tools you need to be successful when you leave so I’m pulling out all the stops and putting my best stuff in the materials.

BONUS #1 – I’m hosting a “pre-party” with Stand Up Speed Networking.  It’s been a while since we’ve had an event in Utah County, so I thought it would be fun for all of us to catch up!  Register for the event and get the Networking add on for FREE!

BONUS #2 – The first 30 people who register by Monday, October 17th will receive a 10 page Joy Journal starter kit (both in print and in digital format).

FINALLY, if you enter code: startup you’ll get 20% off.  Since all of this was inspired by Startup Princesses across the country, I want you to get a deal!

AND, if you’re not completely satisfied with the content and tools I share, I’ll give you your money back, no questions asked.  Simply see me or one of my event staff members at the end of the event and we’ll refund your money.

Reserve your spot and register today!

Event Details: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (Will be available for out of towners the coming weeks.)

Tahitian Noni Visitors Center – Provo, UT – Outrigger Conference Room (No, there will not be a network marketing presentation.  They offer affordable meeting space available for community events and I like their location!)

Michelle McCullough is the Managing Director for Startup Princess.  Michelle is speaker, strategist, success coach, and serial entrepreneur.  Before Startup Princess, Michelle has spent the last 12 years working in marketing and advertising. She’s worked in all aspects of the industry from production to creative and sales to management. On top of her full-time jobs, Michelle has cultivated her love for entrepreneurship by running a successful business, Doodads, a promotional products company.  Michelle and her husband are the parents of two children ages 3 and 1, and live in Utah.  Follow Michelle success tips in her personal site speakmichelle.com

Six Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

Guest Author Peri H. Pakroo J.D., writes:

More women than ever before are grabbing the reins and starting their own businesses. The number of women-owned small businesses is growing approximately twice as quickly as the national average for all start-ups.

For entrepreneurs of all stripes — women and men included — the pre-start-up phase is typically characterized by a flood of questions about what exactly it takes to make it in business. Are there different answers to these questions for men versus women? Not really. Every business needs to be based on a solid idea, aimed at a profitable market or niche, have solid systems in place, and market itself effectively. And of course, the legal and bureaucratic rules facing women entrepreneurs are exactly the same as those facing men.

But as many women business owners will tell you, the road to success for women often involves its own unique set of curves. Surveys of women business owners show that women’s business concerns tend to skew towards issues such as finding work-life balance, start-up (or expansion) financing, and marketing. The following tips address some of the issues and concerns that are most commonly faced by women entrepreneurs.

1. Start a business that works for you and fits with your personal life. There are no rules as to what a “real” business looks like. For some businesspeople, success might mean an international operation with hundreds of employees and annual revenues in the tens of millions. For others, a small consulting firm or artisan business that pays a healthy salary and allows generous personal freedom might be considered the pinnacle of success. The key is to take the time early in the planning process to consider this question and decide for yourself what your ideal vision is for your business and your personal life.

2. Don’t sweat the bureaucracy. A lot of would-be entrepreneurs, women and men alike, find themselves stuck on the verge of taking the leap into starting a business, but confused about how to tackle the legal rules of getting started. This hang-up is always grounded more in fear than reality; the truth is that clearing the bureaucratic hurdles isn’t usually big deal.

You can usually start a sole proprietorship (the legal term for a one-owner business) or a partnership (a business with more than one owner) by registering with just one government office. And for business owners who want protection from personal liability for business debts — often referred to by the legal jargon “limited liability” — the simplest corporations or limited liability companies (LLCs) require only a couple more registration tasks to complete.

Of course, there’s a lot more to launching a successful small business than dealing with bureaucratic requirements. For starters, you’ll need to have a sound business idea, and you’ll need to be able to develop good management skills to guide it to success. This is where you should put your mental energy and good ideas; don’t waste precious brain cells worrying about the legal hurdles.

3. For businesses with moderate to significant overhead, it is crucial to start the business with adequate funds. Starting a business without enough money to ride out the early lean days (described as “undercapitalization”) is the most common reason that businesses fail. Undercapitalization is less of an issue with small service-based businesses that don’t have many fixed expenses. But businesses with overhead such as rent, salaries for employees, utility bills, inventory, equipment, insurance, or other fixed costs absolutely need to plan carefully and pull together enough funding to support the fledgling business as it works up to speed.

Also, though it’s important to start your business with enough capital, that doesn’t mean that every business needs piles and piles of money to get off the ground. Plenty of mega-successful businesses were started on a shoestring: Apple Computer started in a garage; Hewlett-Packard started in the dining room of the Packard home; the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, a business that can find creative, thrifty ways to provide its product or service — especially in its early days — will typically find more success than a business that adopts a “spend more money” approach.

4. If you need start-up or expansion financing, consider sources other than traditional banks. One of the concerns most commonly cited by women entrepreneurs is difficulty finding start-up financing. And it’s little wonder: traditional banks typically don’t lend money to new ventures that don’t have a track record of success or creditworthiness. Instead of focusing on conventional big-chain banks, start-ups should instead look for local community banks, credit unions, and other local financial institutions that have a vested interest in the health of the local economy. Often, their application processes and criteria are softer than the big banks.

Two resources that women should definitely look into are Women’s Business Centers and community development financial institutions. Women’s Business Centers (WBCs) exist nationwide and focus on supporting women entrepreneurs through business training and counseling, and access to credit and capital, among other services. Community development financial institutions (CDFIs), which are certified by the U.S. Treasury, are a fast-growing segment of the business financing market specializing in loans to underserved communities and populations. CDFIs usually — but not always — have a specific focus such as improving economic opportunities in blighted communities or supporting women- or minority-owned entrepreneurs. Both WBCs and CDFIs can be especially helpful for start-ups, businesses with poor credit, and businesses seeking relatively small loans, generally up to $100,000. Even better, they often offer guidance and expertise to your business in addition to financing, which will help your chances of success.

As an example, the fabulous nonprofit where I teach entrepreneurship classes — WESST in Albuquerque — is both a WBC and a CDFI. It offers a wide range of high-quality classes on business planning, financial management, and marketing, plus offers loans and one-on-one counseling. With an organization like WESST on its side, a business gets a major boost in its chances of success.

5. Network like a social butterfly — it is one of the best ways to market your business and create profitable opportunities. Networking involves actively cultivating relationships with people, businesses, community leaders, and others who present possible opportunities for your business — not just as potential customers, but also as vendors, partners, investors, or other roles. Remember, networking is not the same thing as sales! Rather than the simple goal of making a sale, a huge goal of networking is to inform other businesspeople and influential people about what you do in hopes that they will recommend your business to their circle of contacts.

I look at networking more as a self-employed lifestyle than a specific activity. You are “networking” every time you attend an event held by a local trade association, get to know other business owners and community leaders, send an email introducing two of your contacts to each other, write a letter to the editor, participate in an online discussion group, or have lunch with another local business owner.

6. Forge relationships with contacts before you need help from them. For example, if you need the support of a local politician on an upcoming city zoning decision, you’ll have a better chance of getting the politician’s vote if he or she already knows you and thinks favorably of your business than if you place a call to his or her office out of the blue.

Peri Pakroo is a business and communications consultant, specializing in legal and start-up issues for businesses and nonprofits. She has started, participated in, and consulted with start-up businesses for 20 years. She is the author of The Women’s Small Business Start-Up Kit (Nolo) and top-selling business books. Her blog is at www.peripakroo.com. For more information, please visit www.nolo.com and follow the author on Twitter and Facebook.

Go to http://bit.ly/Nolo_WomensSmallBusinessStartUpKit to access an e-galley of The Women’s Small Business Start-Up Kit on NetGalley. It can be read on the Nook, Kindle, Sony e-reader, or on your computer.

Why Twitter and How to Add Value

Last week I had the opportunity to speak about Twitter, my beloved social network (yes, Facebook fans, love it more than Facebook). Here’s a video from the presentation at What’s Up Down South, St. George, Utah. There’s other great social media presentations by the co-presenters on our You Tube Startup Princess channel.

Sales: Building Rapport with Potential Customers and Clients

Building rapport is one of the most critical aspects of sales. You will surely repel those whom you desire to have as your customers if you are unable to build rapport. There are many different approaches to rapport building. You can do it by having an advertisement that resonates with your target market. You can build rapport with your tone of voice, the language that you use, with your appearance or with you body language. One of the most important rapport building concepts is Read more