The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute projects that women small business owners will create 5 to 5.5 million new jobs across the U.S. by 2018, transforming the workplace of tomorrow into a far more inclusive, horizontally managed environment.*

What’s more, women-owned small businesses are expected to generate more than half of the 9.72 million new small business jobs projected to be created, and roughly one-third of the 15.3 million total new jobs anticipated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics by 2018. If these predictions come to pass, it will be increasingly important for women entrepreneurs to excel in the executive chair. I recently interviewed Linda Henman, PhD, author of Landing In The Executive Chair, about how women can prepare themselves for these exciting challenges.

To listen to my 30-minute interview with Linda, and to put her insights to work in your business now, scroll to the bottom of this page and click the play arrow. If you don’t feel like listening right now, here is a high level summary of what Linda and I discussed, with time stamps in case you want to scroll forward.

1. Practice “F-squared” leadership (4:00). “Great leadership is about balancing concern for task with concern for people,” says Dr. Henman. Doing so requires “F-squared” leadership, meaning you must have “firm but fair” approaches to communication and leadership.

   You are in business to achieve specific results. This requires not only firmness and fairness, but it also requires a strong sense of self and self-worth, both of which are driven by excellence. Don’t do like many small and “boutique” business owners and sacrifice firmness (which leads to results), thus compromising their ability to achieve business goals. (If you have issues with self-esteem, be sure to listen to this section.)

2. Appropriately value your products and services (6:57). Dr. Henman says that her mantra is, “You’re not charging enough.” You should be fairly compensated for what you’re good at, especially if no one in the world is offering the same thing you are. She shares the story here of how she tells one of her female clients, who consistently undervalues her services, to add a zero after each pricing proposal before she sends it to the prospective client.

   Dr. Henman says she never has to tell her male clients to charge what they are worth. In fact, she says, her male clients often overvalue what they have to offer! (Take a tip, ladies!)

3. MasterMind and hire a business coach (13:30). Dr. Henman highly recommends working with an external coach and a MasterMind group. A coach provides more formal “big picture” feedback while your MasterMind partners are like-minded people who can support in the day-to-day trenches of business.

   Your MasterMind partners will help you do things like pull back when you’re getting too far away from your core business, or maybe telling you when you are not charting a high enough price for your product or service. They will even tell you when your feelings may be getting in the way of doing business, ie., when you are being fair but not firm.

   Linda’s business coach, whom she highly recommends, is Alan Weiss of Summit Consulting Group.

I have worked with a business coach and MasterMind groups for many years. I fully agree with Dr. Henman when she says that both will help keep you from “breathing in your own exhaust.” Love that!

About Dr. Linda Henman

Linda Henman, PhD, is a coach, consultant, speaker, and author. For more than 30 years, she has helped Fortune 500 Companies, military organizations, and small businesses define their direction and select the best people to put their strategies in motion. Linda holds a PhD in organizational systems, two MAS degrees in both interpersonal communication and organization development, and a BS in communication. A member of the National Speakers’ Association, The National Association of Corporate Directors, and Air Force Association, Linda works with executives and boards of directors to help them set strategies, plan succession, and develop talent. Visit her website at Henman Performance Group.

How to Listen to the Show

This post contains my paraphrases of the information Linda shared. To hear it from the horse’s mouth yourself, listen to the entire 30-minute show using one of these options:

• Download it on iTunes. (It usually takes a day or two for iTunes to feed the show there.)
• Click on the arrow at the bottom of this post to listen now!
• Because I have not had a chance to load all of my shows to this blog, you can listen to hundreds of interviews from 2005 to 2010, each one as relevant today as it was when I recorded it, at my Indie Business Radio site.

Question: What do you think of Linda’s advice to women?

* Source: Guardian Special Report: Women Small Business Owners Will Create 5+ Million New Jobs By 2018, Transforming The Workplace For Millions Of Americans (PDF).

I‘m no scholar. And it’s a pretty bold thing for me to say that I know what Dr. King would have said about anything at any time. He was a brilliant man, and I mean no disrespect with the title of this post.

My observations of Dr. King’s life, work, and words, some of which are depicted in today’s Google Doodle shown here, do lend themselves to a few conclusions, however, and one of them is that, if Dr. King were alive today, he would have a thing or two to say about small and independent business owners. Here’s how I think he’d put it:

1. Write your own emancipation proclamation.

   I come here tonight and plead with you. Believe in yourself and believe that you’re somebody. … Nobody else can do this for us! No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation can do this for us. No Kennesonian or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can do this for us. If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sing with the pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation.” (Watch the video where Dr. King spoke these words.)

   These words give me chills. I think they reveal that despite the oppression he fought against, he believed strongly in the power of personal responsibility.

   If you want economic freedom, you must specifically define and pursue it for yourself. Small and independent business owners across this nation are doing that.

2. #OccupyYourHOmeOffice. “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.” To me, this short sentence summarizes the strongest response to the “Fat Cats” on Wall Street. Yes, we can march and protest against their bad behavior, but why not also march for our own?

   I don’t see a one-for-one fair comparison to Dr. King’s marches and #OccupyWallStreet protests. Dr. King marched for measurable outcomes, including specific laws that would make specific behavior illegal.

   He did not march to say that what certain people did was wrong. He marched to empower people to do what was right, and not just in a general sense.

   He was specific, and everyone could tell whether the movement was a success or a failure based on whether his specific and measurable goals were or were not achieved. Dr. King wasn’t on the news taking up space and complaining about how others were treating him unfairly or were making it hard for him to make a living.

   He didn’t march to say, “Woe, is me … I am the poor 99%.”

   He marched to say, “I am a man! I am the 1%, and I demand that you treat me that way, and here’s exactly what I want you to do to make that happen, and nothing short of this will do, and I brought these millions of people with me to pursue the same specific outcome.”

   I think Dr. King would tell each of us to stand up for what is right, be specific about it, and then go home and work day by day, moment by moment to better our own situations.

3. Serve others. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” When I look out across this nation today, I see small business owners in communities everywhere, who are focused not only on how much money they can make, but on how they can serve others by building their communities and contributing positively to the American economy. This is what #IndieMeetUp is all about.

   In over a dozen cities, hundreds of people gathered physically and virtually to empower each other to succeed in small business. These men and women are answering the service question for themselves, and in so doing, are creating wealth on their own terms and paving the way for their children not ot have to rely on a traditional job to secure their future. That is service, to people alive today and to people who will be alive tomorrow.

I Mean No Disrespect

I hope no one is offended by my reference to #OccupyWallStreet (as some were in a prior post on the topic.) I mean no disrespect to the efforts that are being made to give a voice to people who are being ignored and disrespected by the establishment.

What I Do Mean

What I do mean is that, as we point out the flaws in others, we must also be honest about our own flaws, and then we must take it a step further.

We must specifically define what we want, and then pursue that. If we need the law to change to make that happen, then we pursue that too.

We must not allow ourselves to be victims of the despicable behavior of a few people.

We must be victors, using our talents and gifts — in community — to create the kind of lives we want.

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

I believe Dr. King would say these very words today if he were describing small and independent business owners across this nation.

You are laboring. You are uplifting. You are dignified. You are important. You are excellent.

Go!

Question: Thoughts?

Since I quit my job in 1995 to open a retail store, and later launch the Indie Beauty Network, I have known that small business ownership would eventually become the norm for women. My professional life today is built around this truth, as I empower women and their family members to embrace the entrepreneurial opportunities that are so abundant today. I am thrilled, and not at all surprised, to see these statistics.

One of the most telling pieces of information is the fact that between 2002woman-owned businesses increased by 20.1%, compared to 5.5% for men. That means women are starting businesses three times as fast as everyone else! Three times. Here are some additional highlights:

1. Economic impact in dollars. Woman-owned businesses account for $3 Trillion, and growing. This positive economic impact is serving not just our nation and the world, but individual communities at the grass roots level. Witness: Tomororow’s #IndieMeetup in more than a dozen cities nationwide.
2. Employment. Woman-owned businesses produce and/or maintain 23 million jobs. As more women lead businesses, more Americans will become employed.
3. Retail and wholesale growth. Just look at the huge percentage of woman-owned businesses int he retail/wholesale sector — a whopping 13.4%. Those are my Indies and the people who do business with them.

The sources for the statistics shown here are at the bottom of the graphic.

Question: Does this excite you as much as it does me?

This blog is not about sports. It’s about leadership. It’s about being your best. It’s about success. It’s about inspiring and being inspired. It’s about life. And that’s why I cannot let today go by without commenting on this important issue. This 31-second video message, apparently recorded on November 11, 2011, from Penn State’s president is simply not enough.

Like you, dear reader, I am unimaginably sad. My heart aches for vulnerable boys in our society. I weep for the sons of mothers I will never know. I write a lot about corporate greed and how we should respond to it, but what corporate greed led to at Penn State is something I never imagined or foresaw. The only honorable thing for the university to do is to forfeit today’s game. “But what about the innocent players?” you may ask. Well, here’s what about them.

My heart breaks as well, albeit to a much lesser degree, for the players whose careers could be ruined by something they had nothing to do with. However, that’s life. I’m sorry. I teach my two children that each of them could ruin it for the other.

When I promise them a treat, and condition it on good behavior, I remind each of them to hold their sibling accountable. I don’t want my daughter to think that she can behave, and sit by and watch her brother misbehave and do nothing because she thinks she’ll get a treat anyway. And vice versa.

Whether it’s a family, a church, a business organization or a neighborhood, the acts of one person can and do ruin it for the whole family or organization. Consequences are not just visited on upon those who directly bring them about. They are visited upon everyone. it’s sad, but it’s true. The world works that way.

We need look no further than the current state of the American and world economy to see that universal truth in full operation.

Those young players could learn first-hand today that there are (not that there should be, but that there ARE) consequences to doing nothing in the face of evil. What better way to teach them than to forfeit the game? They’d think twice their whole lives before turning a blind eye, ever. And one day, it could save someone’s life. Maybe even a child’s.

A single smiling face in the Penn State showers today if they win will be a travesty. A single tear shed if they lose would be another travesty.

Either way, the showers and the field they are connected to are places of great evil. No honorable sportsman could be the least bit proud to abide there today.

“All that is needed for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

Question: What do you think?

Newsflash Indies! You are leaders! I have to shout it because some of you don’t know it. You think you are just small business owners. Well, of course your are, but whether you know it or not, you are also a leader. You may not have a million FaceBook Fans, but if you have sold a single product, then you have nurtured and led that sale from start to finish. That makes you a leader. Now, let’s go with that, shall we?

In order to move your business forward, you must take turn that single act of leadership into a series of leadership experiences that, over time, remarkably transforms your life and your business. But that can happen, you’ll need to know what barriers you will face, and how to cover come them. There are three that that can sink your ship faster than any others. Here they are, along with strategies to overcome them.

1. Lack of clarity. You cannot lead a business if you don’t know where you want it to go. You must know where you want to take the business, and where you want the business to take you. Yes, it starts with planning, but before that, it starts with knowing what you want; not for the business, but for yourself.

   To overcome this one, get crystal clear on what you want first, and nearly every step you need to take after that will become crystal clear as well.

   (You also need to actually take the steps, but that’s another blog post.)

2. Fear. Once you know what you want, fear can set in to sabotage everything. I’ve seen it a million times. I’ll start working with a client, and she’ll tell me precisely what she wants. We’ll set up a basic plan of attack, and what happens? Fear sets in. Fear of spending too much money. Fear of not succeeding. Fear of the time it will take. Fear of not being able to execute the plan. Fear of adding more overwhelm to an already full plate. Fear that she won’t be able to handle the life changes that success will ultimately bring her.

   To overcome this, identify the source of the fear. Call it what it is, and recognize that it’s probably due to some past experience that’s holding you back from the future you want. Either allow that fear to define your future, or refuse to allow that fear to define your future. The choice is yours.

3. Lack of support. No entrepreneur is an island, yet time after time, I see women going it alone. Oh, they’re active on FaceBook and other online tools that facilitative supportive interaction. But that’s all surface stuff.

   The kind of support I’m talking about is the deep, penetrable kind. The kind that gets under your skin and invades your tissues. The kind that opens wounds and then puts salve on them so they can heal and you can move forward. As a woman entrepreneur, that’s the kind of support you need to lead yourself and your business forward. But many people don’t seek that kind of support, and I’m here to tell you that, without it, you will go nowhere fast.

   To overcome this, explore MasterMinding. Find a coach. (I offer a personalized program here.)

   If you’re not ready for MasterMinding and coaching right now, then start making yourself ready — because you will eventually need both. Start by joining one of our Local Groups at Indie Social (it’s free!), or come to the next Heart-To-Heart With Donna Maria — that’s free too! Just don’t make the mistake of doing nothing to get the support your need to develop, sharpen and leverage your leadership skills.

So there you have it. Lack of clarity, fear, and lack of support — and what you can do about each.

Don’t end 2011 without a plan of attack for 2012. Begin to approach life and business on purpose, and as an integrated whole. Know what you want, and then, step-by-step, move toward it. The time to lay the groundwork for 2012 is now.

Prepare yourself to step into leadership in 2012, and if I can help in any way, I’m here to serve.

Question: How can I help you step into leadership in 2012?

As we sprint toward the “spookiest” season of the year, why not use the opportunity to eliminate some deadly small business mistakes? Like most of you, I make a lot of mistakes in business, but after 11 years of doing some things wrong and some things right, I have incredible depth of insight when it comes to avoiding the mantras that cause the biggest pitfalls.

As you contemplate how to make your business more effective and efficient for 2012, here are some of the deadliest small business mantras and how you can say say “Boo!” to them once and for all.

1. Deadly Mantra No. 1: Build a website and they will come. You need a website, but no one really cares about it. People can get what you have to offer from a billion other places so don’t be deceived by fabulous website designers who want you to spend a lot of money on a website. You need a website, yes, since that’s usually where your secure shopping cart is. But more important than your website is what you do to get people to go there.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “I need a fancy, splashy website so I can look really good online.”

   Say “Boo!” –> Launch an ordinary website, and do extraordinary things to get people to go there.

2. Deadly Mantra No. 2: Follow your passion and the money will come. It’s important to love what you do. If you don’t love what you do, you probably won’t do it. But that alone does not translate into a profitable business. Avoid loving what you do so much that you don’t pay attention to whether or not it’s actually making money for your business.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “If I follow my passion, the money will come.”

   Say “Boo!” –> Indulge your passion, but don’t fall into the passion pit, where you love what you do so much that you don’t insiste that it actually love you back.

3. Deadly Mantra No. 3: The more fans and followers I have, the more sales I’ll make. While numbers matter, they don’t matter as much as the emotions behind them. If you don’t believe me, ask Netflix, which lost 800,000 customers in a few months when it decided that profits were more important than the feelings of its customers. (Reported in today’s New York Times.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “I have lots of followers to sell to, so not much else really matter.”

   Say “Boo!” –> Count numbers, yes, but pay more attention to the real life emotions of the people behind those numbers. Those are the “statistics” that matter most.

4. Deadly Mantra No. 4: I don’t need a real business plan. If you are a small business, especially a micro or handmade business, and you are not seeking to become a billionaire, and you are not seeking investors, you won’t need a fancy business plan in a 3-ring binder with pie charts, bar graphs and spread sheets every page. But you will need a plan. You need to know where you want to go, and then you need to have a plan to get there. Your plan may will change, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need one.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “I’m behind the eight ball already, and I don’t have time for a plan, and even if I did have time, I don’t need one because I’m not going to make that much money anyway, and if this business doesn’t work, I’ll just do something else, and if ….”

   Say “Boo!” –> Get serious! Don’t waste your precious life time doing something if you are not 100% committed to making it successful.

5. Deadly Mantra No. 5: I can work while my kids nap. OK, so your kids will sleep for an hour or two during the day. But that’s only enough time to get your head together. It’s not enough time to actually do anything.

   They’ll fall out of the bed and need your attention the minute you pick up the phone to make an important sales call. They’ll contract a cold just when it’s time to publish your first newsletter. They’ll guilt you into playing with plastic interlocking blocks on the floor instead of scouting out a product photographer. And the list goes on and on. I’m a mom, and I know this one well.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “I can work while my kids nap and when they are sleep at night.”

   And by the way, if you’re married, I’m not even going to get started on the reason why you might not be able to have all that late night work time you think you’re going to be able to get to …

   Say “Boo!” Get some help with your children so you can devote 100% of yourself to your business during specific hours of the day. You’ll accomplish more in your business, and you’ll be fresher, happier, and less stressed out during the time you set aside for your children.

6. Deadly Mantra No. 6: I don’t need to pay myself. It’s tempting to think that people will choose your products over someone else’s just because the price is lower because you’re not paying yourself. And you’ll probably get some one-time sales using that logic. But you can’t build a business by refusing to respect yourself enough to pay yourself a salary — even a small one.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “I can charge less now and raise my prices when my business really gets going.”

   Say “Boo!” –> Respect yourself! If you don’t, no one else will either. If you don’t respect your work enough to pay yourself, how can you expects others to respect it enough to pay you for it?

7. Deadly Mantra No. 7: I can’t afford help. The reality is that you cannot afford not to get help. You may not have a lot of money, but do you think you go into business thinking you have more time than money, you are going to be really disappointed. Time is much more precious than money when it comes to leading a business. In order to have the time you need to chart the course for your venture, you are going to need some help.

   Deadly mindset mantra: “I don’t have enough money to hire anyone.”

   Say “Boo!” –> Start small. Start by bartering. But start. If you don’t get help in your business, don’t ever complain to me that you don’t have time to do important things you know need to be done.

There are plenty of unforeseeable pitfalls waiting around the bend to sabotage your small business. You can handle all of them, so long as you avoid the most obvious deadly mistakes, like those listed here.

Question: Which of these deadly mistakes speak most to you? What others can you share?

I‘ve blogged previously about how business blogging has enhanced my life and how to use social media as personal development tools. Today, I’d like to share three examples of people who are increasing their confidence and self-esteem through small business ownership.

These are real people, so I am not using their real names.

1. Caroline. As the leader of the Indie Social Community, I made an executive decision that participants must use their real name and a photo of them at their profile page. Not only does this virtually eliminate spam, but it also helps people be successful.

   Caroline emailed me to ask if I could make an exception for her because she thought she was not photogenic enough to use a picture of herself.

   I called Caroline and explained why I thought her photo was important, not just for the site, but also for her business. I shared some of my thoughts on community leadership, and soon after, Caroline created a Profile Page using a picture of herself smiling. Today, Caroline is being welcomed into the community, and is using one of her best assets — her smile — to engage people and nurture meaningful business and personal relationships.

2. Tobie. Tobie came to me a few months ago almost in tears because she could not figure out where her confidence had gone. She’d had a successful career as an executive assistant in a past life, but now that she had her own business, she didn’t have a boss to stand behind anymore.

   In her prior professional life, Tobie always represented herself as representing her boss, thus deflecting the focus away from her as a person. Now that Tobie has her own business, those days are over.

   Since we talked, Tobie has begun to put herself out there — and guess what comes with her? Her products! She blogs consistently and has even been a guest on a podcast (not mine, so don’t go looking ….).

3. Lily. Because of cruel comments hurled at her in elementary school, Lily was convinced that loading a photo of herself to her website would turn people off and prevent them from buying her products. Over time however, she began to see that others were gaining business ground in part because they displayed their photographs wherever they went online.

   Lily could tell that, when a person used their picture, they enjoyed more engagement and influence. She didn’t want to miss out, so over time, she came to accept that while some people may consider the color of her skin to be an issue, whatever they think is their issue, not hers.

   Lily now confidently displays her photograph at her website, Twitter and everywhere else she connects online, and she does it without a second thought. Lily tells me that she remains convinced that she loses business because of her color, saying
   

   I know some people don’t want to do business with me because of my color, but that will happen anyway, no matter what I do. Today, I think I earn more business than I lose because people can sense how friendly I am when they visit my website and see my smiling face.

How’s that for pushing fear out of the way!?

And what’s the common denominator here? These women are leading businesses! (Well, “women” is also a common denominator, but that’s for another blog post!)

Were it not for Caroline’s, Tobie’s, and Lily’s businesses, all of this self acceptance and confidence may not be happening. Sure, making a profit will always be a central focus of entrepreneurship. But there’s so much more to it than that.

–> It’s about stepping up to the plate when you’re terrified of what others will think, like Caroline.

–> It’s about learning how not to hide behind the accomplishments of others, and being proud and outwardly communicative about your own, like Tobie.

–> It’s about putting yourself out there when you’ve previously been mercilessly teased and taunted because of the color of your skin, like Lily.

Question: Do you see yourself or someone you know in Caroline, Tobie, or Lily? How has your business enhances your confidence and self esteem? Tell us in the comments!
Question

When I was a young girl, Mr. Eddie Kennedy was my tennis coach. He always made me feel special and helped me develop the confidence I needed to eventually compete in the Mid-Atlantic Lawn Tennis Association and to lead my high school tennis team. One day, Mr. Kennedy was chatting after a match with some of his friends. I approached to greet him and he introduced me to his buddies as his “Protégé.” I had no idea what that meant, and when I asked him, he said it meant I was his special student.

I’m not sure how special I was because Mr. Kennedy taught hundreds of Washington, DC, area kids to play tennis. I was just one of them. Even though I was one of many, Mr. Kennedy’s use of the term, “Protégé” to refer to me made me feel like I was the only student that mattered. It just sounds so fancy and all. Mr. Kennedy cheered every passing shot I made, and he lifted my spirits when my best efforts only resulted in balls going into the net. Mr. Kennedy is part of the impetus for my new program: INDIE Protégé Network. Let me tell you more.

As founder and CEO of the INDIE Beauty Network, I meet a lot of people who are excited about entering the beauty business, but they don’t know where to start. They want to join IBN as a full member with products liability insurance, but aren’t quite “there” yet. They want something they can bite off in smaller pieces — something that will allow them to get the “low down” on what it takes to be successful in business — in bite-sized chunks.

I have been thinking for a long time about how I can make myself and my expertise available to people who fit this description. INDIE Protégé Network allows me to do that. Not only that, all IBN members enjoy INDIE Protégé Network benefits as a new IBN member benefit, at no additional cost!

Who Should Join INDIE Protégé Network?

Remember: If you are an IBN member, you are automatically an INDIE Protégé.

If not, you are a prefect candidate to become an INDIE Protégé:

- would like to enjoy one-on-one mentoring with me, and are not ready full commitment to full IBN membership
- you want to launch a business, but are a bit tentative about what is involved
- you are overwhelmed by the amount of start-up business information, and want something bite-sized and easy to understand and embrace
- you are a seasoned entrepreneur who enjoys ongoing learning and networking with like-minded business owners
- you have a job and want an easy way to begin to embrace cutting edge entrepreneurial principles so you can prepare yourself to start a business of your own

Does any of this describe you? If so, I invite you to be my Protégé!

What Do You Get As An INDIE Protégé

As my Protégé, you learn at your own pace what it takes to be successful in business. You have full control over the process. There’s no long-term commitment and it’s easy to benefit, even if you are still working a traditional job.

Several times a month, you’ll enjoy cutting edge teleseminars, video “how to” screencasts and recorded tutorials to equip you with the tools you need to take the action (at INDIE Protégé, we focus on ACTION, not knowledge) you need to grow your business. You will have fun networking with others, and from time to time, my special, hand-picked guests will join us and mentor you alongside me.

Topics will include such things as:

- embracing your entrepreneurial mindset
- using your blog to build your business and your personal sphere of influence
- creating an effective FaceBook Page without spending excessive amounts of time
- easy tips to take good product photos yourself and on a budget
- how to use video to generate more sales
- how to build a network of supportive people who can help your business grow
- and so much more!

Note that INDIE Protégé focuses on essential, fundamental business principles, while INDIE Beauty Network membership focuses, as it always has, more specifically on running soap, beauty, aromatherapy and cosmetics business. There are amazing synergies for everyone!

How to Join INDIE Protégé Network?

It’s easy! Note: the $9.97 monthly rate is introductory, so join now and be grandfathered in before the rate goes up! (Remember, if you are an IBN member, the INDIE Protégé Network is included in your membership!)

To become a part of INDIE Protégé Network today, just click here to enroll. It’s only $9.97 per month and you can stop at any time (but you won’t want to …)

What Happens After You Become My Protégé?

You’ll receive an email from me welcoming you, and letting you know about the next event. If it’s a teleseminar or webcast, you’ll receive at least a week’s notice by email. If it’s a “how to” screencast, it will be recorded in advance of course, and you’ll receive a link to enjoy it at your leisure.

In all cases, the information is recorded so if you cannot attend live, you will be able to stream and/or download the content later. Recorded screencasts will remain available to you indefinitely. Recordings of live teleseminars and webinars will be available for 90 days.

I’m excited to offer this new benefit to my IBN members, and to begin serving my new Protégés! Remember that the $9.97 monthly price is introductory and will end soon. Here’s the enrollment form!

I look forward to working with you!

I enjoyed watching The Secret World of Ants this morning on CBS. Watch this fascinating video trailer from the show. (Sorry for the commercials before and after the video — but it is worth watching.)

It is interesting to see what ants can teach us about the benefits of cooperation and collaboration. Here are three things ants can teach us about how cooperation and collaboration make us all better.

1. Smarter together. Ant expert, Mark Moffett, said that, even if you hate ants, if you watch one alone long enough, you’ll feel sorry for it, and want to help it. Similarly, if you observe a person long enough, you’ll see all of their flaws and shortcomings, and if you have any humanity at all, you will want to help if you can.

   Consider, however, the positive power that a group of like-minded people experience, both individually and collectively, when they come together unselfishly to help each other succeed. This is the force that allows ants, as dumb as they are individually, to create elaborate living structures, feed themselves, and destroy their enemies — all things none of them could do alone.

2. Don’t overthink. Have you heard of analysis paralysis? Of course you have, and so have I. In fact, I was (lovingly) accused of it by one of my MasterMind partners just yesterday. Once I got over it, I realized he was right.

   According to the CBS story, ants don’t spend time planning and organizing every little thing. Instead, they have a specific jobs to do, and they do them.

   As business owners, we can’t afford to be quite so carefree, but we all need to remind ourselves about the value of going for it, and figuring out the details as we go. Yes, it’s a bit scary. But so is planning forever — and ending up with nothing.

3. The wisdom of the crowd creates efficiencies. The aluminum castings of ant colonies displayed in the video provide a fascinating glimpse into what collaboration can accomplish. So long as everyone cooperates toward specific goals, and so long as everyone has the best interests of the group at heart, there’s no stopping — or predicting — the amazing things that can be accomplished.

According to the story, Southwest Airlines’s decision to board flights without pre-assigning seat numbers to passengers is based on the observation of ant colonies. Turns out that if passengers giving passengers pre-assigned seat numbers slows down the boarding process. But when passengers are allowed to board in an orderly fashion, and sit where they want to sit, there’s more cooperation and the whole process is more efficient.

Clearly, ants are one of nature’s greatest mysteries, but what we know about how they work together gives rises to interesting ideas about how we can work together in community. As Moffet said in the interview, “Basically, all those little ants with their mostly ignorant choices, out of all that emerges a smart society.” You can read the story here.

A rising tide lifts all ships, and the more we keep that in mind, the better off we’ll all be.

Question: What do you think about what ants teach us about collaboration?

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know how passionate I am about teaching young people (including my own children) about empowerment through technology. This morning, I had the distinct honor of speaking at Entrepreneur Camp at Johnson C. Smith University here in Charlotte. Sponsored by the Pride Entrepreneur Education Program (PEEP), Entrepreneur Camp is designed to foster an entrepreneurial spirit in young people between the ages of 15 and 25. My topic was Relationships, Respect, and Results: How to use social networking as a personal development tool and avoid pitfalls that could destroy your opportunities!

Much like the students I addressed at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University in Atlanta, my audience today was very interested in how young people can use social media and social networking to do more than just socialize. My goal was to impress upon them the fact that, in addition to helping them socialize with their friends, social media are at their core personal development tools. We discussed blogging for college admissions success, as well as how social media in general can be used to create opportunities to advance your professional goals long before you think of yourself as a professional. One of the critical concepts I shared was the importance of reserving your name as a dot com.

Start Creating the Future Today

To maximize social media and new technologies, you must put a platform in place today, so it’s available to you in the future. If you wait for the opportunity to come to starting putting the platform in place, you are going to be too late.

Likewise, if you are not using technology to help create the opportunity, you are putting yourself out of the game, possibly without even knowing it.

Reserving your name as a dot com, and reserving your name as a vanity URL at every social space you can find, is a powerful and effective way to ensure that you can capitalize on the most opportunities now and throughout the rest of your life. I enjoyed seeing how engaged the students were when I told them they could reserve their name for less than $10 a year, and that they could reserve their vanity URLs at dozens of social sites for free.

Why Be Late To the Party?

Unless you don’t have $10 a year, you have no excuse for being late to this party.

Their eyes were opened to the importance of this concept when we went online during my presentation to find that many of their names were already in use by people who are building wealth by doing everything from blogging to selling ads to posting their resumes. Many of them promised me that they would, within the next 24 hours, reserve their names and start thinking about how they can leverage who they are to create new and exciting opportunities.

Two Minutes on May 7, 1998

When I first discovered the Internet, the first thing I did was reserve my name as a dot com. Looking back, I wish I’d reserved many more domains than that, but at least I claimed who I am as my own little corner of the Web. That was May 7, 1998, and it only took two minutes and a few bucks for me to take a step that has paved the way for multiple opportunities for me, my family, my business and my members. can tell you from experience that there’s nothing more empowering than creating and leveraging opportunities that simultaneously strengthen and increase the power of your name.

Call me crazy (and my husband did), but I even chose our children’s names based in part on whether they were available as top level domains. Do you think that was overkill?

We’re talking about this at the INDIE FaceBook Page today. If you haven’t already, go and reserve your name as a dot com.

Click here to learn more about the Pride Entrepreneur Education Program.

You can reserve your name at any one of a number of domain reservation services. I use Domains Next, Blue Host, and Go Daddy, with the latter two being my favorites.

Question: Have you reserved your name as a domain name? If not, what are you waiting for? The cost is about $10 a year. Your name is worth much more, don’t you think?

In my entrepreneurial coaching sessions, even with brand new clients, it quickly becomes clear that we are not going deal just with business issues, we are going to deal with. As women entrepreneurs, we view our businesses as organic extensions of our lives. In part because of the work-life merger, we weave these dual aspects of our lives together like peanut butter and jelly. They are separate, yet interdependent, whole parts.

As we prepare for the future of business, it is critical that we have a single solid mission statement — one that embraces both business and life. This post shares a high level overview of how you can craft your own life-business mission statement. In a minute, I will also share a limited time opportunity to work with me one-on-one to do this. But first, here’s my mission statement:

To empower and encourage women to maximize their potential through small business ownership.

This statement first encompasses my approach to life, and secondarily, my approach to business. My business changes constantly depending on many factors. The economy, technology, consumer preferences, etc., require that I reinvent it from time to time. Having a mission statement that is bigger than my business helps me to remain consistent and focused despite external personal and professional pressures.

I reinvent myself and my business to adapt to changing times and life seasons, but through it all, my mission, which is divinely inspired, remains unchanged since 1998 when I crafted it. Here are some tips to help you create a mission statement that embraces your life and your business in this powerful way.

1. Start with your life. Write down your core values and all of the things you enjoy about your life. Include things you like to do, as well as people you like to be around. Consider what you are doing when you feel most useful, when you are making the most meaningful contribution to the world. What do people say to you when you are doing the things you love to do? What are you doing, saying, and being when you feel most vibrant and alive?

   Ponder this list. Meditate on it. Pray on it. Do not rush this!

   As you read your list out loud, to yourself, and to others, specific passions that tanscend your life, your family, your friends, your spiritual beliefs, and your business will emerge. These core areas are the ones you want to focus on as you create your mission statement.

2. Consider your business. I wrote my mission statement before I started the Indie Beauty Network, and it has helped me to weather many business changes through the years. It’s my light post, and when I’m close to it, I shine. When I move away from it, I become dim and ineffective.

   If you don’t have a business, you can use the information gleaned in Step 1 to start one. If you already have a business, you can use the information to strengthen it, reinvent it, and create new platforms for growth.

   Focus on how you can expand the things you enjoy doing to create profitable business opportunities that will help you enjoy your life as you also generate a fair profit.

   If it helps, think of my slogan: Enjoy your life, build your business, have your way, as you ponder the issues involved here.

3. Create your mission statement. This is where you bring your life and your business (or your business idea) together to form a single statement that embraces both. It should be short and to the point. (Mine is just 13 words!)

   To create it, use a separate sheet of paper to record action words that describe how you envision behaving as you fulfill your mission. How will people be impacted as a result of an encounter with you? What effect do you want to have on them?

   As you can see, the action words in my mission statement are: empower, encourage, and maximize. You may have more, you may have less, but three is generally a good number. String the words and phrases together to create several drafts of your statement. Marinate on them for several days and they will begin to crystallize to form a single phrase that so clearly describes your life that you cannot but conclude it’s the perfect mission statement for you.

The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life by Laurie Beth Jones, was instrumental in helping me create my mission statement. I highly recommend it.

To learn more, join me on Monday, June 20, when I will be a guest on Laurie Beth’s weekly podcast. I’ll be chatting with her about my my mission, vision, and path. We’ll be live, and you can join us here.

Limited Time VIP Coaching!

For a limited time, I am available to help you women craft a mission statement. In addition to the techniques described in this post, I will share ideas that will help you plan the next level of your business and personal growth and addressing any road blocks that may be hindering your success.

Read more and register for your one-on-one session here.

Question: What is your mission statement?

I devote a substantial amount of time each week to advancing my personal development and leadership skills. I use many resources to do this, including connecting around INDIE Business Book Club, reading leadership focused articles, books and magazines, and inspiring and encouraging my members.

In so doing, I have discovered that while there are plenty of leadership resources for people who lead very large companies, there are surprisingly few resources aimed directly and specifically at micro-business owners who lead companies without any employees besides themselves. Often, these people don’t think of themselves as leaders simply because they have no staff members. After all, without a staff, who are you leading? Well, let’s see.

You are leading yourself.

Even Tiny Businesses Have Leaders

No matter how small a business is, it has a leader. It may not have a good leader, but it does have a leader.

Just like a home, a class room, a marching band or birds flying in formation, every organization is being led by someone. That person is at the helm making moment-by-moment decisions, prioritizing tasks and planning for the future.

As solo-preneurs, micro-business owners, very small businesses, INDIEs, or whatever we call it ourselves, we often forget that we are leaders! We are so focused on pursuing our passion or serving the very next customer that we don’t take the time to zoom out and take a look at the big picture.

In order to influence customers, clients and other stakeholders to take us seriously, we must learn to take business by the horns and make decisions that guide and direct it in the way we want it to go. We must learn to be women of influence. We must learn to be leaders.

Practice Being a Woman of Influence

No matter what kind of business you have, and whether you have 20 employees or it’s just you at your kitchen table, take some time each day to take measured steps to advance your leadership skills.

Record your goals in a journal and read them to yourself regularly to confirm your forward motion and to make sure you don’t lose momentum.

Publicly announce your goals and the steps you intend to take to achieve them. To do this, use your blog, your newsletter and your FaceBook Page, among other social media that double as personal development tools.

Privately share your goals in more detail with trusted women business leaders, MasterMind style, to get feedback and suggestions. Speak up for yourself in group settings so people can see the you are making progress and know that you are serious about .

Network and learn from others. Share what you know and soak up other people’s experiences

These tasks may seem like a strange combination of mundane and overwhelming if you’ve never done them before, but they make a huge positive difference in how you perceive of yourself and your business.

If other people see you as pursuing excellence and achievement, not only are you setting a good example for them, but you are also by default expanding your sphere of influence. When that happens, more business opportunities come your way, and more importantly, you are uniquely positioned to take advantage of them.

Question: What steps are you taking to advance your stature as a woman of influence?

What do you see when you envision the successful business of the future? Do you see billion dollar empires maintained by nameless, faceless corner office executives who earn money by negotiating the best overseas manufacturing deals? I don’t.

I see real people making real products and providing real services to people with whom they have a real relationship. I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but I don’t think I need any. I see it happening all around me, in towns and cities across the country. I see it on FaceBook and Yelp. I see it on Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. I see it at my social networking site and I see it when I go to conferences like Chick Fil A Leadercast and meetups here in Charlotte and in other towns. So what does this mean for micro-businesses like yours? It means you must brand not only the products and services you sell, but you must also brand yourself. Here’s what I mean.

In addition to the brand name you use to market your products and services, you must brand yourself. For example, the Starbucks brand has helped make Howard Schultz a wealthy man, but it’s the Howard Schultz brand that will help create new opportunities for Howard Schultz — opportunities that transcend the coffee franchise.

The product is a platform for the person. Not convinced?

Consider:

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, brands himself via Delivering Happiness, the book and the movement;

Carol’s Daughter founder Lisa Price brands herself on HSN as Carol’s Daughter Beauty by Lisa Price;

Spanx founder Sara Blakely brands herself through sarablakelyfoundation.com, which points to a page at the Spanx website;

Sir Richard Branson points the richardbranson.com domain to his personal blog at the Virgin site.)

In each case, the leader of the company is intertwined with the branded products the company sells.

The Product is a Platform for the Person

And consider that Howard Schultz and Tony Hsieh have both authored best selling books — each with covers featuring the logos of the companies they lead, as prominently as their names.

I believe that each of these people will eventually create a personal website or blog of some kind that is separate and apart from the brands they lead, and they will use it to leverage their work experiences to create new opportunities for themselves — write more books, enjoy more speaking gigs, offer services based on their expertise, etc.

At least that’s what I’d recommend they prepare to do if they were my clients, and I think you should do it too.

The business of the future is successful because it offers quality products, yes. But it is also successful because its leader puts his or her authentic self where the business is.

The brand lays it on the line for the leader, and the leader lays it on the line for the brand.

The successful business of the future is led by a person who figures in at least as prominently as the brand. At least that’s what I think.

Question: What do you think?

Have you ever hit “reply all” in an email message, sending your note to a group of people when you intended it only for one or two of them? Have you ever Tweeted something, thinking it was a private direct message, only to discover a few seconds later that you actually sent it as a reply, and it’s visible to everyone? I have done both of those things. Fortunately, most of my Tweets and email messages are business related. If they are personal, they are of such a nature that, I would not be ashamed if the whole world eventually saw them.

Unfortunately, Rep. Anthony Weiner has not been as discrete. As a result, not only is his future filled with humiliating jokes, but his career, his integrity, and his personal relationships have been badly damaged. In the intensity of conversation on Twitter and FaceBook, it is easy to push the wrong button and send something publicly that is meant for private eyes only. While the nature of private messages range from harmless chatter to inappropriate or even illegal activities, let this be a reminder to all of us as small business leaders to think twice — even 10 or 12 times — before sending ANYthing to ANYone online. Here are a few easy ways to ensure that certain messages don’t end up in the wrong hands.

1. Don’t send certain messages at all. If before sending a message, you get a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach that maybe you shouldn’t send it, don’t send it. Some things are simply not meant to be said. Ever.
2. Pick up the phone. If you get the queasy feeling, but you still think you must communicate your thoughts, pick up the phone and do so, or go see the person so you can discuss things face-to-face. Yes, people have memories, and they can repeat what you said, or at least what they thought you said. It’s not 100% full-proof, but at least there’s no Twitter or ISP trail for people to go digging around in.
3. Sleep on it. If, for whatever reason, you need to use technology to send one of those “queasy” messages, sleep on it first. Chances are you will decide in the morning that it’s not necessary to send it at all.

Some of this may seem entirely impractical and unrealistic in today’s world of fast-paced everything. Yet, as a small business leaders, we have to think twice before we do just bout everything, so why why not do so when it comes to things that need to be communicated, but which must be communicated in a certain way in order to avoid trouble for yourself or harm to others?

There have been many times, both personally and professionally, when I could have saved myself and others a lot of trouble had I just slept on a draft message before I hit the SEND key.

Sleep On It

I don’t mean to oversimplify, but it works. I have read about studies showing that sleep helps our brains weed out information we don’t need so we can make better decisions. If this is true, then “sleeping on it” allows us to wake up with the ability to better process the information we need to decide whether or not to hit the SEND key.

I have experienced this myself. I have never once regretted listening to that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that said, “Draft it, but don’t send it until tomorrow.” Nine times out of 10, when the dawn came, I hit DELETE instead of SEND. And life worked out just fine.

By the time Rep. Weiner had exchanged multiple texts, Tweets, phone calls, IMs and chats to multiple women over a period of months, a simple “sleep on it” strategy may not have worked.

But I wonder what would have happened if he had done it the first time ….

Question: Have you ever slept on a message before sending it? Wished you had? How did things work out?

Last month in this post, I shared my excitement about being featured in Black Enterprise’s celebration of “20 of the bloggosphere’s best,” and the most influential thought leaders online. The editors created this video to showcase all of the featured bloggers. My few seconds of fame start at 1:46.

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Yay bloggers! You’ll find links to all of the featured bloggers and their stories at the Black Enterprise site. I also want to recognize each blogger at my blog, so here’s a complete list of the 19 other bloggers featured, with their site links:

Demetria Lucas: A Belle In Brooklyn
Danielle Belton: The Black Snob
Natalie McNeal: The Frugalista
Ahsmi “Eskay” Rawlins: Nah Right
Johnica Reed
Clare Sulmers: The Fashion Bomb
Lamar and Ronnie Tyler: Black and Married With Kids
Patrice Yurski: Afrobella
Wayne Sutton: Social Wayne
Necole Bitchie
Meka Udoh: 2DopeBoyz
Bren Herrera: Flanboyant Eats
Denene Milner: My Brown Baby
Natasha Eubanks: The YBF
Kitty Bradshaw
Damon Young and Panama Jackson: Very Smart Brothas
Mario Armstrong
Glen Johnson: Full Figure Plus
Gabi Gregg: Young, Fat and Fabulous

Question: Do you blog? If so, please share a link so I can check you out too!

Ihave never been a fan of the Oprah Winfrey Show. While I’ve enjoyed snippets over the years, I’ve never watched an episode all the way through from start to finish. Since I am an avid reader (I lead a Book Club), I have gotten my doses of Oprah from either her magazine or books she recommends.

But not being a fan of the lady’s show does not mean I am not a fan of the lady. I am. I even tried to earn a slot on the new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). (You can watch my entry video here, and for a laugh, catch the blooper reel here.) I wanted to catch the last episode yesterday, but then I remembered that I could probably buy it in a year or two. So instead, I’ve been pondering the awesome power of a woman intentionally changing her life without knowing what is going to happen next.

Of course I know that even if OWN is a colossal failure, Oprah will be fine. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve props for intentionally scripting an uncertain future.

For a woman who has scripted everything for the past 25+ years, including the lives of women around the world, not having a script must be a little unnerving. But she’s doing it anyway, and I am watching …

… because I’m currently working on an unscripted future of my own.

Question: How, if at all, is Oprah impacting your life now — for better or worse? Are you confidently walking forward into you unscripted future?

Customer service has always been important, but today, there seems to be a reawakening of its importance to small business success. As we lead out business out of a brutal economic downturn, we can see that the companies that fully embraced providing stellar customer service are the ones that are not only doing well today, but also did well during the worst parts of the recession. So says Jeanne Bliss, my guest on INDIE Business Podcast. Jeanne is the author of “I Love You More Than My Dog”: Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad (See all Customer Service Books).

For a high level overview of what Jeanne told me about how to create customer love, read on, using the time stamps to find what interests you most. To go beyond listening and start applying, scroll to the bottom, click the gray arrow, turn up the volume and enjoy the full 30-minute conversation. You can also download the podcast to your favorite mobile device or via iTunes. Here are 5 things companies do to create and drive what Jeanne calls “extreme customer loyalty.”

1. They suspend cynicism (12:36). Instead of building policies and procedures that manage the minority, companies with extremely loyal customers build policies that support the majority. This focus on building up the positive (instead of managing the negative) sets these companies apart.
2. They have clarity of purpose (12:55). These companies anguish over their higher purpose to serve and support their customers’s lives. They’re not just providing a commodity. They are providing an experience. For example, one business offers you a hotel room while another business offers you a retreat.
3. They are real (13:22). When you deal with these companies, you are made to feel important. There is a humanity about them at every level. Customers are treated with respect, as are employees, who are encouraged to bring the best version of themselves to work every day.
4. They create moments of contact (13:40). By consistently creating reliable connections — one by one — that enhance their customers’s lives, these companies actually earn the right to grow.
5. They say, “I’m sorry” (14:06). These companies capitalize on their mistakes by quickly repairing any damage by apologizing in meaningful ways. Companies that do this well and consistently often create more customer loyalty than they would have created if they had made no mistake at all.

Don’t miss the part starting at 15:43 where Jeanne shares a bit about how Lush Cosmetics creates extreme customer loyalty around their “fizzing bath bombs” and other handmade cosmetics. And scroll to 21:13 to enjoy case studies of specific things companies have done to deliver great customer service. (One company spent $1,500 to save $150,000 in business!)

About Jeanne Bliss

Jeanne Bliss began her career at Land’s End as a customer service pioneer and went on to serve as the chief customer e served as the chief customer executive at Coldwell Banker, Allstate, Microsoft and Mazda. She is now the president of CustomerBliss, her own consulting firm where she guides companies large and create extreme customer loyalty. Visit Jeanne’s website and follow her on Twitter here.

How to Listen to the Show

This post contains my paraphrases of the information Jeanne shared. To hear it from the horse’s mouth yourself, listen to the entire 30-minute show using one of these options:

• Download it on iTunes. (It usually takes a day or two for iTunes to feed the show there.)
• Click on the arrow at the bottom of this post to listen now!
• Because I have not had a chance to load all of my shows to this blog, you can listen to hundreds of interviews from 2005 to 2010, each one as relevant today as it was when I recorded it, at my Indie Business Radio site.

Question: How do you create extreme customer loyalty at your small business?

This week, my life as a mom and as a CEO collided in spectacular fashion. The fact that my two lives collided is not unusual. In fact, it happens all the time. But this time is a little out of the ordinary. As you know, I planned to attend the 2011 Conference of Handcrafted Soapmakers in Miami this week. I was one of the first people to buy a ticket after last year’s conference and I was very much looking forward to it. My husband is there now, serving as the official vidoegrapher for the event, as he has done in the past. But events of yesterday morning confirmed that my plans mean little when compared to other forces at work in my life.

This picture shows what happened after I dropped my children off at school yesterday morning. I’m a little shaken up, but happy to say that no one was hurt. Cars are repairable (I am told mine is not totaled), and for those of us who choose to be moms and CEOs at the same time, the photo is a metaphor for what our lives look like at times. Let me tell you what happened.

After arranging for 4 days of nanny child care, a ride to cheer leading practice Friday evening, a play date for the school “Spring Fling Thing” Friday night and a return flight that would bring me home late Friday night so I could drive (in a car I would rent) to cheer leading competition on Saturday afternoon, after the car accident, I decided to stay home with my children.

I am so thankful that I work from home. It’s making this whole thing a lot easier on all of us. I waited until I was 100% sure of my change in plans before I announced it to my kids. Their reaction surprised me.

Both of them immediately cheered and started jumping around and hugging each other. They told me how happy they were that I was going to stay with them. They told me how nervous they were that I was leaving. My daughter was especially concerned because this week, she is taking 3 days of North Carolina-imposed standardized tests. She’s quite anxious about it — more anxious than I knew.

I asked each of them why they hadn’t told me how concerned they were before. They said they didn’t want me to cause me to miss a business-related event, because they know how much my business means to me.

Tears and hugs all around. When I zoom out and look at my life, this was not a difficult decision.

Collide

I have attended this particular conference nearly every year since 1998, so you can imagine what a change this is for me. But life is about change, and thanks to my general innate proclivity to be energized by change of all kinds, I am looking forward to how this experience will play out in my life.

The dictionary defines collide as “to strike one another or one against the other with a forceful impact.” What a perfect way to describe what is happening right now.

My business plans collided with parenting plans.

Parenting wins, hands down.

I know it will be another super conference, and I will miss all the fun — especially the official debut of my friend, Kayla’s new Melt & Pour soap book. I hope everyone has tons of fun. I’ll be excited to see all the great pictures! If you’re not going, you can follow the conference activities with me on Twitter using the #soapconf11 hash tag.

Question: If you are a parent CEO, what do you do when your roles as mom and CEO collide?

Last evening, I enjoyed the great pleasure of speaking on Expanding Your Entrepreneurial Mindset at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. Pictured here with me is Marlon Smith and Veronica Giles, the Executive Director of the Charlotte Mecklenberg Black Chamber of Commerce.

If you are a member of the Chamber, even if you did not attend, you can enter to win a free one-hour consultation with me. More about that later, but first, I want to tell you a bit about my presentation. I shared my opinion, developed after working for over a decade with small business owners from all walks of life, that the best asset you have is an entrepreneurial mindset that is focused yet adaptable, and always open to new opportunities. Here is a high level overview of how to expand your entrepreneurial mindset in this regard:

1. Brand yourself. No matter what you sell, and no matter who you sell it to, you must wrap your mind around the fact that your business’s best and most valuable asset is you. You are the only thing about your business that no one can duplicate. Ever. Today’s business environment offers unprecedented opportunities for you to create new opportunities based not only on what you sell, but also on who you are.
2. Have a laser focused business model. Gone are the days when anyone could make money online. Today, you must make up your mind to pursue and maintain laser sharp focus in order to stand out in the crowd. It’s not about making money. It’s about making a contribution, and if you are doing that, you won’t have to worry much about money. Command the attention of people who are interested in your products by offering some precise thing that will help them solve a specificproblem.
3. Allow technology to maximize your strengths. Every successful entrepreneur has specific strengths, and nothing can bring them to the fore like technology.
   

   A strong keynote speaker uses video to show off his speaking skills.

   A talented soapmaker who makes beautifully swirled handmade soap uses photos on a FaceBook Page to showcase the color and artistry that makes her soap so special.

   A sought after writing coach uses a blog to share tips on how you can improve your writing skills.

   A personable communicator uses a podcast to host and publish conversations with interesting people.

Fully embrace technology and all it can do for you, and help you do. The entrepreneurs who know their strengths, and who use technology to showcase them, stand out every time.

My presentation time was short so we could only scratch the surface of these important issues. I had so much fun and met so many wonderful people. I wanted to stay longer so I could learn more and soak up the buckets of positive energy that filled the room.

How To Enter To Win A Free One-Hour Consultation

Several people had more questions than I had time to answer about how to apply the principles I shared to their own businesses. Because I want to share even more, I am offering you an opportunity to win a free one-hour consultation with me.

All you have to do to enter to win is leave a comment in the comment area below, either the FaceBook comment area or the blog comment area, sharing a comment or question you have about my presentation.

Leave your comment by 5:00pm EST on Monday, May 2, 2011. A winner will be chosen at random to win the free consultation. Include your name and your business name with your comment to make it easier for me to notify you if you win!

And if you miss the deadline, but you’d like to leave a comment or question, please feel free!

Here are the slides from my presentation, for those who are interested.

How To Expand Your Entrepreneurial Mindset

Questions: What ideas or tips most impacted you? What will you do differently after hearing some of the perspectives I shared?

Yesterday’s post, Don’t Break Your Life, continues to generate a lot of heartfelt discussion. As micro-business owners, we all want to grow our businesses, and be profitable, but we don’t want to compromise our lives, our marriages, and our families. I started my business eleven years ago to make money, yes, but more importantly, I started it because I wanted to enjoy an independent, flexible and fun lifestyle. I wanted to be available to my husband and my children, and that was not going to happen in my traditional corporate job.

I realized that if I was going to have the kind of lifestyle I wanted, I was going to have to create it myself, especially as I started a marriage and began having children. Today, while I manage a thriving business, I am far from being a candidate for the Secret Millionaire reality TV show. Maintaining this integration of life and business is not always easy, but I’m happy to say that I do have a big enough company, perfectly sized for me and where I am in my life right now. Like you, I must be profitable, but not so profitable that I lose the lifestyle I have worked so hard to create. If you find yourself struggling to strike this balance, here are six tips I hope will be helpful.

1. Maintain a manageable product line. If you have too many products in your line, especially if you make most or all of them, you will not have the resources (time and money) to photograph them well, package them well, label them well, and market them well. If you want growth to remain steady and measured, resist adding new products unless you have a plan in place to sell them without destroying your life.
2. Use technology wisely. Once your marketing strategy is planned, much of it can be systematized using today’s amazing technologies. As a bonus, most of these technologies won’t break the bank. While they will cost you time, these costs can be managed once you have a plan in place. As long as you know which pieces of technology deliver the most returns (this will be different for each business), you can focus your efforts there. In this way, you can market well without having to employ fancy bells and whistles everyone says you have to use, when those fancy things suck your time with no corresponding financial reward.
3. Get some help. There are a million little things that have to be done in your business that someone else can do, freeing you up to do things that only you can do. While you may not want to outsource manufacturing, for example, you may be able to outsource a monthly “keep in touch” phone call to all of your wholesale customers. Calls like those help keep you “top of mind,” but having someone else make them for you allows you to focus on tasks only you can perform.
4. Grow intentionally. In his new book, Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul (affiliate link), Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says that, at one point, Starbucks was growing just for the sake of growing. After a few years of this, the company took a nose dive. The book chronicles how Schultz guided the company through its darkest days … how he put an end to the corporation’s “grow for growth’s sake” mentality.

   When you add a new product to your line, do it intentionally. Don’t do it only because it’s fun. Do it because fun, and have a plan to market it so it does not become a source of additional, unnecessary and negative stress.

5. Scale down “big business” advice. While you may not want to become a “big” company, you can still learn a lot from their experiences. By reading blog posts, books and magazine articles by people who lead big businesses, you will learn about how they manage everything from human resources to money to technology. When your business faces similar issues on a smaller scale, you can refer back to those resources for ideas on how to handle things efficiently. There is much to be learned from the mistakes of large companies. (See Starbucks above.) Just scale down their experiences to fit your business, then add your own personal touch as you follow their lead to address your own challenges.
6. Plan your financials. Sad perhaps, but true is the fact that you cannot run a legitimate business without keeping track of the money that goes out and the money that goes in. Simply stated, if you don’t take in more than you spend, and make enough to beat inflation, you are managing a hobby. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as you own it as what it is, and conduct yourself accordingly.

Decide What You Want To Do, Then Do Only That

If you want to be a hobbyist, be a hobbyist. Remember though, that a hobby should be fun. It should not make you pull your hair out. If you find that your hobby is stressing you out, it may be that you are trying to treat it like a “sort of business,” thus adding pressure that neither you nor your business (and probably, your family) can sustain over the long term.

No, It’s Not Easy — And I’m Not Making Light Of It

I don’t mean to oversimplify any of this. These are tough issues, and they are made tougher by the fact that there is no blueprint to follow. Just because something works for a friend who shares your interests does not mean it will deliver the kind of lifestyle you want for yourself and your family.

What makes it even more challenging is the fact that there’s no real way to find the balance that works for you without trying out some things that are eventually going to stress you out. You won’t know you don’t like leading a “real business” until you run it long enough to know you don’t like it.

The only way to know whether business ownership is for you is to own a business long enough to find that out. That kind of stinks, but it is what it is.

Question: Does any of this resonate with you? Is this helpful? Or does it just stress you out more?

Seth Godin’s blog post today screams INDIE! You can read it here. The idea is that if you’re a micro-business owner today, you may or may not want to grow your business beyond a certain point. In other words, you may want to “scale small” instead of “scale big.”

Yes, it’s great to grow. And yes, you have to grow in order to make a profit. But growing for the sake of growing can be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. And if you grow without the intention needed to support and sustain that growth, eventually, your life will break.

Don’t Let Your Business Break Your Life

If you make most or all of the products you sell, you have to be realistic. You cannot make the full line of products that large companies do. They have financing and employees and big buildings. There’s nothing wrong with those things, but if you’re INDIE, you don’t have them.

And you may not want them.

To what extent you grow should be up to you, and it should be an integral part of your business plan. You don’t have to grow big or fast. As long as you stay ahead of inflation, you can make a profit and not have to turn your whole life over, forever, to your business.

By creating a product line that you can both make and sell, you get to keep your life.

The great thing is that you have a choice. You can choose to scale small. You can choose to scale big.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Not everyone.

But everyone does want to be happy and enjoy life. Everyone does want to make a living — to support themselves and their family members. Everyone does want to be engaged in daily tasks that fulfill them and make the world a better place.

Merging your basic life desires with your work, whether or not you scale big or scale small, is one of life’s greatest blessings. Don’t ruin it because other people say you need to take out loans, hire a lot of people and make a bunch of money.

By the way, if you’re a soapmaker and the ideas here resonate with you, you’ll enjoy this post from Michelle Gilbert.

Question: Are you scaling small or scaling big? Why?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that FaceBook has recently added several new ways to help you interact with your friends and business associates. Recently, I interviewed Dan Zarrella, co-author of The Facebook Marketing Book (affiliate link), about some of those changes.

In this 30-minute podcast, I quizzed Dan about the 3 things I think are most important for small business owners to use FaceBook effectively: marketing a business, marketing a self and using photographs to do both. To get all good stuff, scroll to the bottom of this post, turn up the volume and don’t miss a second of Dan’s advice. You can also download the podcast to your favorite mobile device or on iTunes. If you prefer to read, here is some of what Dan told me, with time stamps so you can easily find what interests you most.

1. Market your business (1:47). Now that we can interact on FaceBook as our businesses or our personal selves, Dan says that the most important thing to do is make sure that your marketing efforts are focused from a Business Page and not from a profile page. All the “cool tools” for businesses are available through Business Pages only, so if you’re not using Business Pagae, you may miss out on some positive marketing benefits. Dan also discusses (at 5:50) that you can set up a Business Page without a Profile Page, but there are some drawbacks to doing so.
2. Market yourself (9:23). If you want to create a personal brand beyond the products you sell, in addition to a profile page and a Business Page, follow Dan’s (and my) example by setting up a Business Page in your name. For example, Dan has a Business Page for his book, a Profile Page for his friends and family members, and a self-branded Business Page for him. This is a really good way to brand yourself if you want to expand your business beyond products, to things like books, consulting or speaking engagements.
3. Market with photos (16:20). Dan says that while FaceBook limits the display of photos atop Business Pages, you can use the five photos you have to “draw out” what your brand stands for. This is a super way to give your brand visual personality. Studies show that when people see their friends take an action, they often believe that action to be correct. So as you share photos of yourself connecting with customers and business colleagues, you increase the positive images of you and your business.

In line with point number 3, consider how I use photos at the top of my three main Business Pages. The top of the INDIE Business Page features photos of my IBN members. The top of the INDIE Beauty Network Page features photos of IBN member products. The top of the Donna Maria Business Page features photos of me as a speaker, advocate, and collaborator. (The latter page is actually part of a recent experiment.) I also maintain a Profile Page where I connect with personal friends and family members. This 4-pronged set-up is meant to be dynamic and will change as my business evolves, but you get the idea. The same sort of logic can be applied to your business.

About Dan Zarrella

Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist at HubSpot and author of author of The Facebook Marketing Book . He has spoken at numerous conferences, including PubCon, SXSW, Search Engine Strategies, SMX, Iowatasmic, Convergence ’09, 140 The Twitter Conference, The Cool Twitter Conference, WordCamp Mid Atlantic, Social Media Camp, Inbound Marketing Bootcamp, and Social Fresh. Follow Dan on Twitter here. Dan is married to Alison Zarrella, an interactive copywriter and social media marketing consultant, and Dan’s co-author. You can follow Alison here.

How to Listen to the Show

This post contains my paraphrases of the information Dan shared. To hear it from the horse’s mouth yourself, listen to the entire 30-minute show using one of these options:

• Download it on iTunes. (It usually takes a day or two for iTunes to feed the show there.)
• Click on the arrow at the bottom of this post to listen now!
• Because I have not had a chance to load all of my shows to this blog, you can listen to hundreds of interviews from 2005 to 2010, each one as relevant today as it was when I recorded it, at my Indie Business Radio site.

Question: How can you employ Dan’s simple tips for using FaceBook to attract more people into your sphere of influence?

As small and independent business owners, we juggle a lot of important balls. If we are not doing all the juggling ourselves, we are leading others who are doing some of the juggling for us. That means that when unexpected family hardship rolls around, if we want to continue in business, we have to find a way to deal with the trauma and without dropping the balls.

But how do you do that? How do you continue to lead your business when unexpected tragedy strikes? Tony and Linda Cole know what that’s like, and they joined me to share some tips you can pack away for future use if, God forbid, you ever need them. Tony and Linda are a husband-wife business team and the co-authors of Resurrecting Anthony: A True Story of Courage and Destination (affiliate link). When their son had a sudden heart attack, followed by 90 days in a coma, they nursed him, maintained their marriage and relationship with another child, and kept their business going. How did they do it?

You might be tempted to skip this podcast because there’s currently no trauma in your life. But this is the kind of information you need to collect BEFORE you actually need it. Get the scoop now by scrolling to the bottom of this post, turning up your volume, and clicking on the gray arrow. If you’d rather read a high level overview, I have paraphrased Tony and Linda’s remarks here.

1. The importance of relationships (5:10). One of the things that helped Tony and Linda survive was the depth of relationships they had previously developed with their clients. They cared about them intimately. While they didn’t give Tony and Linda a “hall pass,” they did give them the freedom to drop business for a while so they could tend to their family. This gave them the breathing room they needed to organize a new life around their son before they had to get back to making money.

   (Be sure to listen to this section for tips on how to cultivate meaningful business relationships.)

2. Failure is not an option (15:30). There are no books for handling life and business when your child has cardiac arrest. Tony and Linda say they were absolutely overwrought with their situation, but they had a good team of nurses for Anthony, good family support, and a healthy daughter.

   Still, in order to function, they nearly stopped communicating in order not to make it worse for the other person. Underneath it all, giving up the business was never an option for them. As a result, failure also was not an option, and since it wasn’t, they just kept plodding away.

3. Take responsibility (18:20). Tony says that a lot fell through the cracks when their son became ill, but rather than pick at the omission or blame others, they just picked up where they were and got it done. Tony says:

   My gut tells me that one of the challenges for businesses today, especially over the last couple of years and moving forward with economic challenges, is it’s become easy for people to make excuses and blame the economy or blame something else, and so they kind of throw up their hands and say ‘too tough, I quit.’ And so they file bankruptcy or do this that or the other thing. And you know, everybody faces some sort of tragedy in their life, but when you take responsibility and say, ‘it’s not an option to this thing fall, it’s an option to take care of Anthony, it’s not an option to get nursing in line,’ then nothing gets in the way. And if businesses are going to survive, that’s the mentality they have to have, I don’t care how big or small they are. They are 100% responsible for the results that they are getting.

And don’t miss the part starting at 2:14 where Tony talks about how, no matter what your business is, and no matter what tragedy strikes, if you have a business, your real job is generate sales — and that never changes. Even when tragedy strikes, Tony says, “You can’t lose sight of the money machine.”

(Please accept my apologies for enjoying this show so much that we ran out of time at the end, and I had to interrupt Tony to conclude the show before our time slot cut off.)

About Linda Cole

Linda founded Alexandra Publishing in 2009 to bring stories of personal courage to those who are enduring difficult times. Her goal is to provide real life experience, insight and useful strategies and resources, empowering readers to meet and overcome their challenges. Linda is also CFO of Anthony Cole Training Group, a successful company that builds sales cultures within organizations nationwide. Follow Linda on Twitter.

About Tony Cole

Tony graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in Education. A scholarship athlete, upon graduation Tony leveraged his experience to coach Iowa State University and University of Cincinnati athletic teams. Tony is CEO and President of Anthony Cole Training Group which serves companies nationwide, bringing new life to sales organizations. Follow Tony on Twitter.

How to Listen to the Show

This post contains my paraphrases of the information Tony and Linda shared. To hear it from the horse’s mouth yourself, listen to the entire 30-minute show using one of these options:

• Download it on iTunes. (It usually takes a day or two for iTunes to feed the show there.)
• Click on the arrow at the bottom of this post to listen now!
• Because I have not had a chance to load all of my shows to this blog, you can listen to hundreds of interviews from 2005 to 2010, each one as relevant today as it was when I recorded it, at my Indie Business Radio site.

Question: If you’ve faced family tragedy, how did you get through it and maintain your business? Can you related to the experiences shared by Tony and Linda?

While I am as excited as ever about the rise in the number of American entrepreneurs, I am concerned that too many are starting businesses without knowing what they’re getting into. They run on adrenaline for a while, and many even have some cash saved up. But eventually, the creative high gives way to the reality that while making a profit doing what you love includes having fun, it’s also about putting (boring) systems in place that make doing what you love profitable.

In other words, you have to ask the question, “Should I have a business?”, and not just “Can I have a business?” Recently, I interviewed John Bradberry, author of 6 Secrets to Startup Success: How to Turn Your Entrepreneurial Passion into a Thriving Business (affiliate link). John is the founder and CEO of Ready Founder, where he helps business owners go from passionate to prepared. To get a real flavor for what John shared, I strongly urge you to listen to the entire 30-minute podcast by scrolling to the bottom of this post, turning up your volume and clicking the gray arrow. You can also download it to your desktop or mobile device so you can enjoy it later. If you prefer to read, here are some of the high points of what John shared about avoiding what I call, “the passion pit.” I included time stamps to make it easy for you o a particular point.

1. Avoid the “passion pit” (3:45). While entrepreneurial passion is critical, it often gets in the way of success. When you become emotionally attached to, or fall in love with, your venture, you can fall prey to emotions and biases that lead to behaviors that cause you to underestimate what is needed to get a business off the ground. John says that the “just do it” mindset, without planning and preparation, set many up for failure.
2. Discipline your passion (6:40). John points to three universal fundamentals that are inherent in the process of running a successful business. First, be honest with yourself, identifying your strengths and your weaknesses. Second, “No market, no business,” so be careful not to create a product in search of a market. While you can experiment yourself to success (love this!), be sure to shape your business form the outside in and not the other way around. In other words, do what you love, but don’t fall in love with what you do. Thirdly, make the numbers work. In other words, make sure you can sell what you offer in a way that allows you to make enough margin, over time, to generate the profit your business needs to survive.
3. Know your risk profile (23:48). Evaluate how much risk you (and your family) are willing to live with. Answer the question: “What will my life look like if my business idea does not work out?” Answer honestly, and be ready to live with the outcome, good or bad.

Oh, and be sure to enjoy the part of our conversation where John talked about “founder readiness,” or taking an honest look at the situational factors, especially family, that will affect your success as an entrepreneur. (8:55).

About John Bradberry

John is the founder and CEO of Ready Founder, where helps business owners go from passionate to prepared. John earned a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Richmond, where he was honored as the Psychology Department’s Outstanding Graduate Student in 1991, and is a 1983 graduate of Davidson College. He has worked with companies like Sun Microsystems, Novartis, Coca-Cola, and Bank of America. Learn more at his website, and follow him on Twitter here.

How to Listen to the Show

This post contains my paraphrases of the information John shared. To hear it from the horse’s mouth yourself, listen to the entire 30-minute show using one of these options:

• Download it on iTunes. (It usually takes a day or two for iTunes to feed the show there.)
• Click on the arrow at the bottom of this post to listen now!
• Because I have not had a chance to load all of my shows to this blog, you can listen to hundreds of interviews from 2005 to 2010, each one as relevant today as it was when I recorded it, at my Indie Business Radio site.

Question: How do you avoid “the passion pit?” What do you think of John’s suggestions?

As you know, along with my INDIE Business Book Club partners, I’m currently reading Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness. Chapter 5 details how Tony led Zappos’s creation of the company’s Core Principles, the first of which is Deliver WOW Through Service.

As I comb through Tony’s book with my book club group, I am delving deep into the psyche of a successful CEO. I’m identifying the key building blocks of the company he built into one of the world’s most successful and beloved. You know what I’m finding? It’s not rocket science, but it does take hard work and a good team that is dedicated to creating WOW. Here’s a first look at how I’m translating what I’m learning as my team and I continue to lead the INDIE Beauty Network.

1. Be honest. I almost hate to include this because it’s so obvious. Unfortunately, I see people behave dishonestly every day, even in public places like their FaceBook Pages where thousands of people are watching, and where a record of dishonesty is forever sealed into the time capsule of their lives. If you screw up, admit it. That alone will create WOW. Your supporters will go to great lengths to forgive, even applaud you, for your integrity.
2. Be consistent. Life gets in the way, yes. Family members become ill, website designers go on hiatus, and you have products to make and people to manage. Still. If you have a newsletter, publish it regularly. If you have to skip a while, do that, but don’t skip so long that you never ever get back to it.

   Consistency is hard, and not everyone is committed to it, and that’s why it makes WOW!

   Consistency breeds familiarity. Your customers will only be as consistent as you are. If you want consistent business, you have to make WOW by being a consistent business owner.

3. Be present. If you have a blog (and you should), don’t let it be a ghost town. Be there enough to let your customers know you want them to join you there. This is a big WOW factor if for no other reason than it shows your dedication to putting yourself and your brand out there for your current customers and for the customers you will have in the future.
4. Be decisive. Make tough decisions and then stick with them, even when you’re afraid and even when others criticize you. Decisiveness makes WOW because so few people are decisive. An old proverb says that, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” So is a double-minded entrepreneur. Consider the options, make up your mind, and decide.
5. Be fun. Perhaps this should really say, “Have fun,” because so many people don’t have the confidence to say they “are” fun. Either way, the point is to have a good time and behave in ways that spread your happiness throughout your customer base. If you are making WOW for yourself, by default, you are also making it for your customers.
6. Be teachable. No one knows everything. Allow people, even those with less experience than you, to teach you how to do things they are naturally good at. Always being willing to learn. Not only will you attract more customers, but you’ll also learn more, and the more your know, the more WOW you’ll make.
7. Be humble. As a subset of being teachable, don’t let a massive ego cloud your personality so much that people cannot appreciate who you are as a human being with faults, fears, and frailties. Yes, you can make WOW simply by being your humble, approachable self.

   By the way, don’t confuse an overactive ego with confidence. This is the downfall of many an entrepreneur. There’s a difference between, “I excel at this or that,” and “I can do better than everyone else at this or that.” A monstrous ego is unappealing and just plain yucky. Be a confident entrepreneur, not an egotistical one.

In addition to Tony’s book, I also enjoyed reading about creating WOW at Michael Hyatt’s blog.

Question: What WOW blog posts or articles can you share with us? What are your tips for making WOW? What do you think of mine? What did I leave out?

If you’re new here, you may not know that, in addition to managing this blog and providing a variety of small business coaching services, I am the founder and CEO of the INDIE Beauty Network, a trade organization providing advocacy, networking, and learning resources to small manufacturers of soaps, cosmetics, fragrances, jewelry, and other health, beauty and lifestyle products. One of the first things I did when I started the organization in January 2000 was create a set of Core Principles, to which all new and renewing members agree.

I shared my personal Core Values here, and lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about corporate core values because my INDIE Business Book Club partners and I are currently reading Delivering Happiness. (Read and grow with us on Twitter by following @indiebookclub and the #indiebookclub hash tag.) In it, author and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh emphasies the importance of Zappos’s core principles to the culture of the company. While IBN is not a company with hundreds of employees like Zappos, it is a membership-based organization which, since its inception, has maintained a set of Core Principles. Here they are:

1. Cleanliness in manufacture. To abide by the highest standards of cleanliness and quality in the manufacture of my products, in order to promote superior quality products and the safety of the consuming public.
2. Truth in marketing. To provide the public with useful, reliable and truthful information about the benefits of the products and services I offer.
3. Respect of intellectual property. To compete within the bounds of the law, respecting others’ ownership rights in their intellectual property and the expression of their ideas.
4. Follow state and federal laws. To abide by all federal and state laws concerning the manufacture and sale of the products and services I offer.
5. See note below.
6. Compliance with cosmetics laws. (This section applies only to members that manufacture cosmetics.) I understand that compliance with the Fair Labeling & Packaging Act and the US Food, Drug & Cosmetics Act is my responsibility, and that I can find information about both at the FDA’s website at this link. I understand and agree that failure to comply with these laws may result in termination of my IBN membership and/or insurance without any refund.

(Core Principle #6 is a subset of Core Principle #4, and was added last year.) IBN’s Core Principles do not supersede or in any way replace the law or the standards that IBN members convey to their customers in the ordinary course of their own businesses. They add to the confidence IBN members’s customers already have in the products and services IBN members offer.

Infusing meaning into IBN’s Core Principles is a responsibility I take seriously. I enjoy standing by our Core Principles with IBN members who are doing all they can to uphold high industry standards as we all learn and grow together.

Standing For Something

In Chapter 5 of his book, Tony describes Zappos’s Core Values as “a formalized definition of our culture.” I love that description because it’s exactly how I view IBN’s Core Principles. IBN is more than just a bunch of “members.” We are a family, a community; a network of people who are proud to create American-made products on a small scale. Our collective aim is to enhance people’s lives and make the world a better place.

If you’re interested, you can see how IBN’s Core Principles are wrapped into our new member application and our member renewal application.

(NOTE: Core Principle #5 is a bit different from the rest. It’s there because it’s the best way to inform members of how to renew their products liability insurance policy before it lapses. The insurance renewal process will soon be changed, and when that happens, Core Principle #5 may be removed.)

Question: What are your company’s Core Principles, or as Tony calls them, Core Values? Do you share them publicly, like at your blog or in your company receiving area?