In our recent GUTSY WOMEN LEADERS retreat I showed a video of Isabel Allende when she was a presenter at a TED conference. She is one of my favorite authors; her novels are filled with the depth of what life is all about; love, sorrow, misunderstandings, and the courage to change. She mentions a conversation she had with her daughter who stated emphatically that feminism is … [Read more...]
My Girlfriends House: a New Opportunity to Give Back
This week we launched a new nonprofit organization serving disadvantaged girls ages 9-17 in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. I thought you'd be interested in seeing the press release for it. If any of you are in the DC area, please join us. Veronica Eyenga Was Looking for Friends. She Found a Cause Veronica Eyenga, President of VBP OutSourcing, recently launched My … [Read more...]
Federal Contracts Depend on Your Report Card
If you're a small business competing for federal contracts, your report card is critical: before a federal agency contracting officer (CO) considers doing business with you, he/she looks at your report card. No, not the one with comments from your English teacher about your studiousness (or lack thereof), but your federal report card. That report card, known as CPAR … [Read more...]
Mom’s The Boss
As an entrepreneur and a mother you need a steel resolve and almost epic determination. Running a business is a very scary thing and the unique challenges presented by motherhood have a tendency to further complicate an already complicated situation. This is a situation close to my heart, so I am always on the lookout for companies and websites that support mother … [Read more...]
When employee empowerment goes too far
Today I shake my finger at FedEx, because they should know better. Earlier this week, I was sending a laptop in for service and I needed to schedule a pick up. Everything was going great until I needed to change some information on the delivery bill. It turns out that I couldn’t make the changes on the website, so I called their customer service line. Well customer service was … [Read more...]
How to Fire a Client
Everyone in business will tell you that it’s time to fire a client when the work exceeds the pay. Well I’m here to tell you that there are five rules to follow when deciding when to fire a client and they have nothing to do with the client. Rule 1. Establish your target client. When you begin building your business every consultant or advice agency worth a dime … [Read more...]
Are you scaring off potential talent?
In this economy it’s easy to assume that all applicants are lucky to get interviewed, but when you carry that attitude into the hiring process it becomes a lightning rod for the talent you are trying to attract. There are certain fields where this is an exception, I can think of technical fields and the medical field where personality isn’t the most attractive trait, but for … [Read more...]
Increasing Market Profile With Women’s Initiatives
Women's Initiatives Focused on Business Growth Due to the challenging economy and increased focus on revenue generation and business growth the timing is right for women’s leadership initiatives to be a catalyst for increasing organizational market visibility. All corporate initiatives are called to directly support business strategy in the best of times and these are not … [Read more...]
What Holds Middle Managers Back from Leadership?
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at Harvard Business School’s Dynamic Women in Business Conference. Our panel discussion was titled, Working in Heels: Women in the Workplace today, and the focus of the discussion was the internal barriers and external barriers that women hold women back from advancing their careers and assuming leadership … [Read more...]
How do I keep high earning employees engaged?
As far as business is concerned you’ve hit the lottery. You have managed to lure the ‘rock star’ employee from the big boys and now you have your work cut out for you. How do you keep high earning employees happy? You know they are always looking for the next big thing, so how do you keep them loyal to your company? It’s fairly simple when you get down to why you hired them in … [Read more...]