Have you ever had a mentor — or been one? I never thought of myself as a mentor until recently, when I congratulated a former employee of mine on handling a management situation particularly well. He replied something like, “I just thought of what you would do in the same situation and channeled you.” Read the rest of this entry »
How did two moms who liked to swap recipes build a half-million-dollar catering and pantry food business?
According to Sysco Corp. marketing executive Robin Collins, it’s because Jeannine Holland and Julie Rhyne, owners of Tres Market Pantry, Bakery and Catering, are “two smart businesswomen.”
“They know their customers by name,” Collins says. “They only accept premium ingredients even if they are offered discounted goods. And they choose to work on cash on delivery even though they could get credit if they want it.”
Tres Market, which makes and sells entrées, salads, side dishes and desserts to people who have too little time to prepare meals for themselves, had its origins in a trio of women living in Houston who loved to cook.
Are you feeling negative? If you answered “yes” you’re not alone. According to a just-released survey of small business owners, entrepreneurial women are not feeling very optimistic. And that’s not the only bad news in the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor survey, which is conducted twice annually.
It’s easy to understand why so many of us are feeling this way. We’re bombarded every day with newspaper headlines, TV and radio news reports and online articles telling us how bad the economy is. That negativity is reflected in the Monitor survey: 53 percent of the women business owners surveyed report that their outlook over the NEXT six months is “more negative.”
The Forum of Executive Women found little change in the number of women in top-level corporate and board seats in its annual report released Tuesday.
Many women entrepreneurs are great at networking in person. But when it comes to getting comfortable networking online, many of us may not be up to speed. Sure, I know you know about the major social networking sites out there – LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace — and you may even have profiles there. But do you use them as well as you could be to maximize your business benefit? I’m guessing not.
It all seems a bit overwhelming to me, which is why I liked this article from Advertising Age, which handily summarizes the different benefits of the major sites and what you should focus on to succeed on each. Here’s a quick takeaway: Read the rest of this entry »
Thirty years ago, Deborah K. Borland’s two toddlers were the motivation behind the single mother’s drive to land a better-paying job in the electric utility industry.
Those toddlers — Frances Riley, now 35, and Melanie Miller, now 33 — work for Global Quality Assurance Inc., a company their mother formed nearly seven years ago that is projected to earn nearly $5 million this year, according to the Orlando Business Journal.
“I don’t know if I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t had two hungry mouths to feed,” said Borland. “They drive you to make enough money to feed and care for your family.”
Among all the other things I’m doing in my new role as an entrepreneur is serving as editor of Winning Bids magazine, a biannual magazine that helps small business owners compete for government contracts. From hearing the success stories of entrepreneurs who have successfully landed government gigs, I know how much a government contract can help a business grow. That’s why women business owners should know about a new partnership between Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), the nation’s largest bipartisan women’s business group, and American Express OPEN.
Federal agencies could set aside contracts for women-owned businesses in up to 31 industries under a new rule issued by the Small Business Administration.
That’s an expansion from the four industries originally proposed for the set-asides, but groups representing women-owned businesses contend the rule still falls far short of what is needed to give women their fair share of federal contracts, according to a report from bizjournals’ Washington Bureau.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is not my only regular writing assignment. Now that I’ve been writing this and other columns for several months I am getting pitched by public relations companies and business owners to write about their clients or companies. The interesting part is for this column, I get lots of what I call “soft” pitches. “Here’s an interesting woman business owner…” or “have you heard about our new skin-care product…?” or something similar.
On the other hand for the column I write for a general SMB Web site, I get pitched about breakthrough management strategies, the latest technologies or sales-boosting secrets. I didn’t even notice this until the other day when I actually had a few moments to page through my email inbox to sort through the pitches.
I may be jumping to conclusions, but the evidence seems to indicate that writers for women’s business sites care only about women’s issues while if you write for a general small business site, you’re concerned about business issues. It’s as if people out there think women aren’t serious about being business owners. Read the rest of this entry »
Cheryl Howe loves challenges.
She is executive vice president of operations for BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York and recently began a new challenge as chairman of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s board of trustees. Howe is the first woman to chair the board since 1935.
