What’s Your Best April Fool’s Joke?

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Last year my husband played this trick on me:

After the kids were in bed he asked me if I wanted a “brownie and ice cream”? And of course I enthusiastically responded, “Yes!” Then in a few minutes he presented me with a brown piece of cardboard cut out in an “E” on a plate with vanilla ice cream. It was very funny and harmless…my kind of joke.

I need some good ideas to get even! Got any good ones? Here’s Wikipedia’s link for inspiration!

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Where are the Women at College Business Plan Competitions?

Last week I attended the BYU Business Plan competition event. It was great to hear several teams compete and share their dreams/ideas/businesses…but I was disappointed that none of the top teams had any women members! I was in the top 10 here two years ago and was the only woman the center’s seen in the semi-finals for a few years. I competed at Wake Forest in NC (won 2nd out of 70 MBA schools) and Rice in Texas (won top 12 out of 160 Global MBA schools) and there were more women at those events, but still it’s clearly a male-dominated competition/field globally. One of my dreams for Start Up Princess is to have our OWN competition and/or to sponsor a women-only competitions. There are many, many talented women in business…where are they in the college business plan competitions?

My Ideas of How to Get More Women to Compete in Business Plan Competitions:

• Have competition organizers talk to women-based clubs, departments such as Music, Dance, Humanities, Graphic Design that have higher concentrations of women and get them excited about participating in the events as a team member or with their own idea
• Hold FREE workshops and seminars all year long on how to take an idea and transform it into a business plan
• Encourage students to begin boot-strapping their ideas so once the competition starts they can demonstrate that they are serious about it
• Create campus workshops where students can brainstorm with students who have previously been successful in business plan competitions and also professors/mentors/entrepreneurs. They can share their business ideas and learn from each other in a friendly/mentoring setting separate from the competition
• Offer Women Entrepreneur Lecture Series (BYU has one); then follow the lecture with a 30 min. optional workshop/brainstorm session where students can get feedback from the presenter about their own ideas
• When students are entering the competitions they need to be more informed what kinds of businesses are attractive to the judges/VCs/Angel investors (for example: starting an online children’s clothing store or developing a new baby product will not be attractive to judges, they want to see scalable, exciting businesses with high return potential)
• Offer a Home-based Business Plan Competition that will attract the attention of more women who have a family/plan to start a family and desire to find another stream of income by working from home as an entrepreneur

What are YOUR ideas? I want to know! I am talking with organizers of BYU business plan competitions and I hope to make a difference for women students all over the country that have great ideas for businesses and deserve to get mentoring and win some prize money too!

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The Idea Fairy

Fairy Godmothers Carrie and Danielle write about “The Idea Fairy”, they ought to know…they get loads of inspiring visits:

Richard Bach, author of the metaphysical classics, Jonathon Livingston Seagull and Bridge Across Forever, noticed that the Idea Fairy came to him when he was gardening, or flying in a plane. That’s when he’d get his storyline ideas and life solutions.

Call it what you want: the zone, the flow, the magical gap, the illuminating silence…there is a place in space and time where we tend to think and feel most clearly. And in that place, ahaa’s, creative genius, strategies, and revelations tend to flow our way.

Today’s Magic Wand: Identify when and where the Idea Fairy likes to visit you. Notice how solutions enter your being. Maybe it’s when you’re talking to a particular friend or associate (interaction). For Carrie, it’s in her car or on a morning run (movement). For Danielle, it’s in the bathtub or washing the dishes (water). We’ve heard other people’s Idea Fairies like to show up after a good meal,  first thing in the morning, or just as they’re drifting off to sleep.

The Idea Fairy can be slightly unpredictable. She won’t always show up when you’re in the zone. But she really appreciates being invited. And when she does appear, you can count on getting some custom-made magic.

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12 Tips to Get Your Products Included in Gift Guides All Year Long

New Member, Start Up Princess Margie Zable Fisher, Publicist of Zable Fisher Public Relations writes an outstanding article for women entrepreneurs who have gift products:

If yours is a product business, you know that certain times of the year are absolutely crucial to your sales.
For many product companies, sales opportunities increase during the Christmas holiday season, as well as other gift-giving times — Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Graduation, Back to School, Halloween, Thanksgiving and others, depending on your product. That’s why many businesses rely on a strategic Public Relations effort to boost sales during these peak seasons. And one of the most effective ways to kick up your sales is to get your product listed in a magazine, newspaper, or TV Holiday Gift Guide. Why is this so important? Because these holidays are when readers or viewers are READY TO BUY and eager to see what a media outlet recommends.

Another good reason to get your product featured in Holiday Gift Guides is because media outlets almost ALWAYS list the ways for readers to order the product (usually a web site, telephone number and/or retail store location), while in many standard publicity articles, contact information is not included.
As you might imagine, getting into a Holiday Gift Guide is not all that easy. There’s lots of competition from hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other companies that are also pitching their products.

Here are a dozen tips to help you get your products covered in Holiday Gift Guides:

1. Send your pitches at the right time. Timing is critical. Know the deadline for each Holiday Gift Guide. Magazines, for instance, have long lead times, and newspaper and TV have shorter lead times (more specific information about deadlines is covered later in this Special Report). And remember, while sending product samples out too late is obviously a wasted effort, sending them out too early is also not a good idea, because the products can get misplaced.

2. Determine the category of gifts that each media outlet covers. For example, Southwest Airlines’ in-flight magazine covered only technology gifts in their Christmas Holiday Gift Guide this year, while Alaska Airlines’ in-flight magazine covered upscale items.

3. Pay attention to your packaging and shipping. I’ve been told many times by media people that products often arrive broken, or with unappealing packaging, and the media people often won’t even consider those products for coverage in the Holiday Gift Guide.

4. Submit Gadgets/Technology if you have those products. Most business magazines, men’s magazines, and in-flight publications cover gadgets (technology) in their Holiday Gift Guides, as do many consumer magazines. Family Circle, for instance, covered Family Technology in their 2005 Christmas Holiday Gift Guide. Family Circle will also cover tech gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads in their Spring/Summer 2006 issues. U.S. News & World Report is another publication looking for tech gifts for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

5. Offer inexpensive products. Many media outlets cover gifts under $50, $25 or even lower cost stocking stuffers. Good Housekeeping’s 2005 Christmas Holiday Gift Guide, for example, was titled “Great buys under $50.” Redbook’s 2005 Christmas Holiday Gift Guide was titled “40 gifts under $40.”

6. Send in your most colorful products. Most media outlets are visual, and color looks better in the pages of a magazine or on TV than drab colors do. If you flip through magazines with Holiday Gift Guides, you’ll notice that most of the items are bright colors. So, make sure that either your product or your packaging has eye-catching color to capture their attention. Read more

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Kelly and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

If you’re familiar with this book you’ll appreciate this title. The premise of the book is that Alexander wants to go to Australia to escape his challenges at home and school and at the end of the book his mom says, ” Some days are like that…even in Australia.”

I feel like Alexander today. I want to escape to somewhere exotic too…my day started at 3am with my baby vomiting all over me (fortunately this time she didn’t get my laptop, I just got a new one 2 weeks ago since she ruined my last one in January from this same trick!) and then it just seemed to be down hill from there…it seemed like I couldn’t do or say anything right today. Ugh. So what am I doing about it? My kids watched Peter Pan and ate popcorn for dinner (instead of the stirfry planned). Yep. No veggies, unless you count popcorn as a veggie. GASP! I don’t even feel guilty about it. After they’re in bed I’m not going to work…GASP! I’m going to read and then go to bed! I can’t wait.

Today’s Magic Wand: I think it’s ok to recognize that “some days are like that” and just throw in the towel. Of course, there’s work to be done, but it’s no use. I just need to go to bed, pull the covers over my head and dream about Australia. We all have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days and fortunately … we get to start fresh tomorrow.

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USA Today Descibes the “Alpha Mom”

If you’re creating products or services for moms, or if you ARE a mom, you should read this article from USA Today. The term Alpha Mom was coined by a mom herself…Constance Van Flandern, a graphic designer to describe today’s top trendsetting moms.

Alpha Moms are:

• Highly Networked
• Trendsetters
• TechSavvy
• Kidcentric
• Don’t have to have a lot of money
• Mulit-taskers
• Do it all, but don’t forget about themselves
• Influencing major branding/marketing decisions by corporations such as Nintendo, Huggies, and more
• Health-conscious

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Starting Your Own Business is a Pure Act of Faith

Fairy Godmother Janet Meiners, Newspapergrl shares this entrepreneur profile from BusinessWeek:

Janet Hanson

Corporate experience: Left Goldman Sachs, where she was a rising star, in 1987.

Current venture: Started Milestone Capital, a six-person asset management firm with more than $2 billion in assets.

Advice: “Starting your own business is a pure act of faith in yourself and trust in the partnerships you can create. Have an unwillingness to compromise or be less than what you know in your heart you can create–regardless of conventional wisdom or the expectations of others. Tune out the other voices and tune in your own voice.”

From the slideshow that goes with this article (look for the button under the woman’s image on the left)

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Free Website eBook by Seth Godin

Today’s Magic Wand: Here is Seth Godin’s FREE eBook on how to create a good, effective website that provides the answers your visitors are seeking. What I liked about it is that Seth emphasizes that your website cannot/shouldn’t be all things to all people, for example, if you are a summer camp, you shouldn’t sell the camp on your home page, rather, you want to “sell trust” by saying, “come visit us” or “get our free video”, because parents who have never heard of your camp won’t be very likely to sign up their child unless they first can trust your camp. He also talked about how you can create a different homepage for unique visitors and returning visitors. It’s packed full of good examples and insight, enjoy!

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Finding a Different Approach to Solving Problems

Four and a half years ago we miraculously were able to buy a brand-new home in Utah County. We loved the neighborhood, the floorplan, and the beautiful canyon setting. The only thing I wasn’t so fond of was the home’s wood. I was able to paint walls, change out lighting, even switch from brass knobs/door handles to pewter, but the 80’s golden stained oak wood greeted me everywhere and I didn’t like it. I thought maybe perhaps one day we could switch it out or maybe I would paint it, but it seemed a shame to paint new wood, even if I didn’t like it…someone made it beautiful, so I should just be grateful for my house and enjoy the parts I did love. But it still bothered me…

Last month I was at a home improvement store and I happened to notice the wood stains available and there was a wall display showing almost 100 different stains for oak wood. Suddenly I saw that it wasn’t the wood’s problem at all–it was the stain! I realized that what I didn’t like was the “golden oak” stain, that actually a “dark walnut” stain was gorgeous on oak. I was so happy that I now had some options and I could see things in a new way–literally like I flipped my perspective like doing a headstand. Why hadn’t I ever thought of changing the stain? It was exhilarating to realize that I didn’t have to rip out the wood…just change the color. We’re currently in the process of striping the wood in our living room (staircase) and fireplace mantle. When our painter lifted the golden oak stain from the wood and re-stained the new dark walnut color I was so pleased with the results! I think the painter thought I was nuts because I kept saying how much I loved it.

This experience taught me some valuable lessons–I think we often think get stuck on solving our problems in one particular way (and in my case waited 4 years to solve it), but when we are open to other suggestions and step away from it, there just might be a different approach that we never saw was possible and we just might be really happy with the results.

My experience as an entrepreneur has been this way… for 2 years I thought I had to launch my business, “sweet & charming” in a mall setting…I had to “go big or not do it at all,” and I dismissed many mentors and Fairy Godmothers advice about trying a different approach until I finally realized that it was better to try something than to just keep planning for the perfect way to start my business and I listened to one of my Fairy Godmothers Kristen Lamb who said, “what can you do well with your limited budget?” I decided to be ok with starting small and took the little cash I did have and bought $2500 in product and planned a couple of over the top holiday children’s events, then suddenly another opportunity to share a kiosk at the mall opened up and I was able to get going with my idea and gain insights that I would not have experienced otherwise and you know what? I realized I’m not ready to have a store at the mall! As much as I prayed for it for so long and thought it was what I wanted… it isn’t what I want right now, the responsibility, the time, the expense, etc. So, I’m glad I got a taste of it before I made a huge commitment financially with investors, signing my life away with a five year lease, etc. and I’m SO glad I listened to my mentors’ advice!

Now I’m trying not to be so stuck on doing things “my way,” and be more open to the possibilities…including listening to others’ ideas on how to solve my problems!

Today’s Magic Wand: If you are “stuck on a problem” and aren’t sure how to solve it in a new or different way, take it to your small business development center or ask one of your mentors/friends/or one of us here at Start Up Princess and perhaps we can help you see things in a new way.

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Mall Kiosks vs. Weekend Boutiques

After the Holiday kiosk at the mall I was left with over $2500 in product for my business, sweet & charming and I had a dilemma…what do I do with it now? Another kiosk? eBay? Start an online store? Garage sale? Keep it for gifts for the next 3 years? Then an ad from a local boutique caught my attention one day…”Holy Cow Boutique seeking crafters for Spring boutiques.” (I thought about Seth Godin this week…he’d call it The Purple Cow Boutique.) I called and while I’m not a “crafter”, they liked my princess items and accepted me for their Spring boutique, it was this week–Wed-Sat.

I paid $150, plus 13% of sales for my 10×10 ft space. I had to provide the structure/grid/booth set up and I spent $150 on grid wall and components, I lucked out because I found used materials at Advanced Display in SLC and saved a lot.

I really didn’t know what to expect, but the producers have had this event for 22 years and they said they get 15,000 people over a 4 day period. They weren’t kidding! I was absolutely shocked at the turnout. There were women of all ages shopping like mad. After I stocked my booth I didn’t come back for 1 1/2 days and my booth was nearly empty. I had to restock it a couple of times over the week and only took home a couple of boxes after cleaning up tonight…items priced between $5-10 were especially hot for my niche, but home decor items where higher. Read more

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