The Women Entrepreneurs Blog @ Simon

Web tip of the week - Get Prepared

Getting back to business after a disaster depends on preparedness planning done today.  Small business owners invest a tremendous amount of time, money and resources to make their ventures successful, and yet, while the importance of emergency planning may seem self-evident, it may get put on the back-burner in the face of more immediate concerns. For business owners, being prepared can mean staying in business following a a disaster. 

Do you have an alternate location to operate?  Do you have back-up copies of all tax, accounting, and customer data? Is your insurance coverage sufficient?  What is your post-disaster communication strategy?  

There are many resources available to assist in developing your plan to recover from financial losses, business interruption and protecting your employees, community and environment.  SBA has developed a disaster planning guide which has great information for building your plan. The federal government has established an entire website to support disaster preparedness at www.ready.gov.  FEMA and The Institute for Business and Home Saftey are also worth a look as you begin to develop your business resumption plan.   

An estimated 25% of businesses do not re-open following a major disaster.  Don't let that be you!

*SBA's participation in this blog does not constitute an endorsement of the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration or any other person or entity.  SBA's programs and services are provided to the public on a non-discriminatory basis.

The Business of Fashion

Andrea has always been interested in fashion so it’s no surprise that when she started a company it was fashion-related. Andrea is only 23 years old but she is the proud owner of Studio 28 Couture, a website where consumers can design their own dresses and then have their one-of-a-kind pieces tailored to perfection by Andrea’s expert seamstresses.

Andrea started the business in February 2007 when she was just a junior in college and nope she wasn’t studying fashion, she was an Optics major at the University of Rochester. Andrea had few resources and contacts but she knew she wanted to start a business. Studio 28 Couture was the perfect answer. She could draw on her html coding skills to design the website, custom-made dresses meant there would be no need for inventory and best of all the business was in line with Andrea’s interest in fashion.

Are you ready to Lead? Part II

Last Wednesday, we shared some of Jess’ views on the qualities and characteristics of effective leaders...please visit last Wednesday’s post and return as we continue to share Jess’ views…..

Leaders facilitate idea generation

Leaders who are attentive, approachable, and compassionate make subordinates feel appreciated and at ease sharing ideas and soliciting feedback. Without such support, creativity, innovation, and productivity suffer. When I worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, the global consulting firm, I learned to emulate my manager who visited team members at client sites to demonstrate concern for their well-being while away from company headquarters. Have you ever felt that your contributions to a project were underappreciated and, as a consequence, felt like not contributing as much in the future?  As a leader, you will have an opportunity to be inclusive and considerate, helping to ensure that no one else is made to feel that way.

Web tip of the week - Pick-up the Phone, Get Out of Your Chair and Talk!

"The reason that we have two ears and one mouth is that we may listen more and talk less."
-Zeno Greek philosopher

This is an important concept pertaining to business communication. It is at the core of what is wrong with our growing over reliance on one-dimensional digital communication tools such as email, texts, IMs, Tweets, blogs, etc.  Yes, I believe these are valuable tools to enhance communication. My concern is that they only flow one way; they are open to misinterpretation and they make it easy to avoid creative or difficult face-to-face discussions.  In short, they are not replacements for good old fashioned conversation or dialogue.

The best managers are all great communicators. A strong interpersonal relationship with your employees, suppliers and customers will make you better at your job. Today, the best ideas, the best products and the best companies are the direct outgrowth of collaboration and teamwork that comes from communication.

The next time you start to email the person sitting next to you, get out of your chair and start a conversation instead. There is nothing like it!

Are you ready to Lead?

If you want to remain CEO of your company, leadership skills will be very important. As company head, you must be able to energize employees to produce excellence. But what makes an effective leader? Below, I invite you to read the thoughts of one of my colleagues - Jess Sadick - as he shares his views on the qualities and characteristics of effective leaders.

"Leadership is an important part of our education at Simon. At Orientation, we are invited to attend the Jensen Leadership Seminar and during the academic year the Kalmbach and Farash Lecture Series introduce us to accomplished executives with inspirational personal stories. 

In the classroom, Senior Lecturer in business communication, Dan Struble and the Center for Leadership Development teach us that effective communication is an essential component of leadership, and we complete three quarters of assignments intended to hone our public speaking, writing, and presentation skills.  We are fortunate to have more than a dozen active clubs in which to seek leadership roles.  With all of these experiences, we should be able to define the key qualities of effective leadership.

New Media Women Entrepreneurs

The McCormick Foundation has a great site aimed at women entrepreneurs. Recently they awarded three outstanding women $10,000 each as winners of the New Media Women entrepreneur's contest for innovation and creativity in new media.

The site caught my eye on a recent search in Google to see what's new in this space. I love the dark red background resembling a lip-stick slash (reminiscent of my own marketing to women blog), and the lipstick font used in their title [NMWE]. Very creative and female friendly.

Here are the three winners' blogs:

Web tip of the week – capitalize well

Most often the greatest challenge facing the entrepreneur is a ready source of capital. No doubt you have scoured all of the available sources and have come up short to launch your enterprise.

In today's severe economic environment, borrowing from a commercial bank is going to be even more difficult. It will be hard to secure an uncollateralized loan even if you pledge receivables and inventory. You may have to pledge stock and most likely, sign personally for any loans.

Don't be surprised if your spouse is asked to sign as well and if you have a partner, she/he will be asked to sign personally. A bank note in that form will often permit the bank to pursue either partner to collect on the loan beyond the corporate entity.

In a nutshell, try not to launch the enterprise until you are capitalized to reach specific hurdles.

Make sure you don’t lose the lesson

I run the school magazine – the World According to Simon (WATS) – and let me tell you, “it ain’t no walk in the park.” Don’t get me wrong, I love the magazine to death but producing it definitely isn’t an easy task, especially since we increased frequency from quarterly to monthly. That being said, I wouldn’t change a thing about the experience because it has been so educational from an entrepreneurial perspective. These are some of the lessons I’ve learnt during my time running the magazine:

Choose your team very wisely. These are the people who will support you. They should be excellent at what they do, very committed and complementary to each other. If they aren’t, you will find yourself overburdened with work and putting in longer hours than you expected.  Choosing a great team requires evaluating people on what they bring to the table and forgetting relationships like friends, family, significant other etc. In re-organizing and expanding the WATS team I had to pass over friends who could do a reasonable job for persons who could do an excellent job.

Make sure you have excellent time management skills. There just aren’t enough hours in the day so you better know how to effectively manage the ones you have. I am currently doing three courses, working on this blog, working at the school writing center, managing a magazine, producing a newsletter, helping to run the entrepreneurship club and still working on my business plan. Beyond these duties there are still breakfast, lunch and dinner events to attend as well as guest lectures. Of course you can’t work all the time so I still need to hang out with my friends. My appointment book and Outlook calendar have become my greatest allies. They help me to effectively manage my time so I don’t break commitments left, right and center.

Have a “can do” attitude. Something unexpected will always pop up - someone can’t complete an article on time; someone can’t find the photograph you wanted; someone can’t interview the person you wanted or someone can’t lay out the magazine. As an entrepreneur you’ll have to put out lots of fires so you better think you can handle them. If you don’t, you’ll spend too much time worrying and complaining instead of looking for ways to rectify the situation.

Twitter, Tweet, Twurl: The New Online Connector

If you're like most women who want to become successful at their entrepreneurial venture, you're wondering how to get the most value out of being on the net. That could mean hiring a web designer to design a website (yes, there are web designers who will do this for a reasonable price), or it could mean starting a blog, which can be easy...or not. Depends on your comfort level with web design and HTML.

Or, it could mean...something else.

Here are some options for website creation, if you want to explore that option: GoDaddy - where I recommend you purchase your domain name, or tap into Cazbah (a local site that offers simple design, SEO and marketing) and not break the bank.

Web tip of the Week – "Don’t be afraid to talk about your idea"

In my entrepreneurship class, we often have to get up in front of the entire class and talk about our ideas. You may think it’s absolutely crazy to tell an entire classroom full of people your idea, but it’s really not. These exercises have three great benefits:

• They force you to express your idea very succinctly and communicate it in a way that people can   easily understand. If they aren’t getting it, then maybe it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense or maybe you aren’t quite clear on what you want to do.
• You get to listen to if your idea sounds like the craziest thing in the world. It’s quite easy for things to sound normal in your head but completely insane when they escape your lips.
• You open yourself to getting some great feedback. Telling your ideas to others can help garner some new perspectives that can help you develop your idea even further.

So, next time you’re thinking of holding your idea close to your chest just consider all the great benefits that can be derived from sharing. And for those of you worrying about people stealing your idea remember one thing – ideas are simple, it’s the execution that’s the tough part.