Thoughts from the Chair

Well, what another great meeting we had last night.  Not only did we have 16 of our members attend, but another 4 new faces and very welcome they were too!

Kirsten talked us through the results of the work we did in the June meeting about developing the WiB brand.  She spent a long time analysing our notes and produced a document that represents what we stand for, how we behave and what we offer.  What struck me most was a recurring theme that so sums up the spirit our group – generosity.  How many members, this year, have given so generously of their time, energy and commitment.  They have not been paid, but have willingly made their contribution to help the group flourish and grow. 

For me, that’s what sets this group apart from all other network groups.  We really are a cohesive team, working in collaboration for a greater good – that of the Women in Business group.  What’s more, it’s genuine.  We love being part of this group and it shows in the increasing numbers month on month.  I’m very proud to be part of such a supportive, generous team and I love the fact that we laugh our way through the meetings, whilst maintaining a business focus.

Quite simply, we rock!!

Next Meeting

Following the success of the fantastic June meeting, I am delighted to let you know that the next Women in Business meeting will be held on WEDNESDAY JULY 7th from 7pm to 9pm.  I can confirm we will be meeting again at the University:

University of Kent
The Medway Building
Chatham Maritime
Kent ME4 4AG

Room M1-22

 We will be continuing the great work we began at the last meeting, developing our unique group brand and we will also be learning about how to get the best out of LinkedIn, a fantastic online networking site for business people.

 I hope to see you all there.  If you would like to get organised and put all the dates of our meetings in your diaries, here they are:

WEDNESDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER
WEDNESDAY 6TH OCTOBER
WEDNESDAY 3RD NOVEMBER
WEDNESDAY 1ST DECEMBER

Best regards

Sarah

June make-over!

Our June meeting promises to be a scorcher – let’s hope the weather matches! 

I’m excited to announce to our members that we can expect some new faces this month. At least 3 ladies have told me they would like to come along and see what we do and there maybe at least another 2!  Although this meeting won’t be run in our usual way, with a guest speaker, it still promises to be a brilliant evening.

To follow on from the hugely successful marketing meeting we had in April with Barnaby Wynters from The Brand Bucket, we thought it was about time that we re-launched our group and this month Kirsten Gibbs will take us through a fascinating process called the Brand Galvaniser.  It will help us think about who we are, what we stand for as a group, who we are trying to attract and how we market ourselves.  Included in this process I want us to think about what we want from a website and I’m hoping our resident marketing expert, Andrea, will be attending and guiding us towards something of which we can be proud.

If there’s time, we can think about a pull-up banner and what could go on it – image & slogan etc.

I am looking forward to hearing from our potential new members because I think they could really bring useful insights into how we market our brand in the future.  For example, I’d like to know what would persuade them to join?  What would they need to read in our leaflets?  What would have to be on the website?

So:  if you want to have a say in how we evolve as a group and continue to attract new members, come along and share your ideas!

As usual, we want to start promptly at 7pm on Wednesday 2nd June and here’s the address:

University of Kent
The Medway Building
Chatham Maritime
Kent ME4 4AG

Room M1-22

Hope to see you there!

Best wishes, Sarah

Be an Amazing Business Builder Show

Hi everyone,

I thought you might like an update about my day exhibiting on behalf of WiB MNK at the Be An Amazing Business Builder Show.  After a relatively slow start, it was an excellent day!  I managed to secure a very respectable amount of leads and met some lovely people.  I have already heard from one or two ladies who have confirmed their attendance at the June meeting and many who were very positive on the day. 

But I didn’t stop there!  I also managed to chat up a few unsuspecting gentlemen and hopefully some of them will come along next year to speak at our meetings.  I think it’s great to hear from non-members, talking about their area of expertise, so I’m hopeful we will continue our high standard of talks.

Business Link were very pleased to hear about us.  The gentleman I spoke to had not heard of us and he felt our group would be ideal for many of his clients who are just starting up their businesses and a little nervous of the stricter networking groups.  To hear how much support we give and how informal we are, was music to his ears!  So we may see quite a few new members in the months to come.

I know you will all extend a warm welcome to anyone who comes to visit and I’m looking forward to see our numbers rise again.  It’s all good!

Best wishes
Sarah

May PR News!

Hi everyone,

If you couldn’t make the May meeting, you really missed out on a vibrant and energising evening.  PR expert, Jane Dickson, led us through the finer points of writing for the media and then got us to come up with our own news items or features!  As we were divided into 3 groups, we took the opportunity to come up with some news about our own group and it was a great feeling, leaving the meeting having accomplished 3 pieces for publication!  Well, OK, some pieces need a bit of finalising, but on the whole, it was great fun. 

I think we realise that, as a group, if we are to re-gain our presence in the community, we need to have something in the press every month.  We are a great group, with lots to offer other like-minded women who are running their businesses and it would be fantastic if more ladies decided to join us.

So, I’m hoping our 2 PR specialists will accept the challenge and get us published every month!  Hope to see you all soon.  Until then ……..

May meeting! Become your own PR Expert!

Hello Everyone,

Make sure our next meeting is in your diaries as it promises to be another great one.  Not content with goal-setting, creating our own inspiring futures and marketing know-how from experts in their field, we continue our fantastic 2010 agenda with a session on promoting our businesses.  Learning from PR professional and expert, Jane Dickson, we will be treated to a highly practical session on how to use PR techniques for our businesses.

Jane has told me more about what she intends to cover and I can’t wait to hear more!  I could tell you, of course, but I really don’t want to spoil it for you.  So don’t miss out on this excellent opportunity to learn how to raise awareness of your business and reach out to your prospective customers.  Come along to the WiB meeting next week at:

The University of Kent
The Medway Building
Chatham Maritime
Kent ME4 4AG

Please arrive at 7pm, help yourself to a tea or coffee, grab a biscuit and a seat and we will start the meeting at 7.15pm.  I’d like to talk to you about the May exhibition (Be An Amazing Business Builder Show) and then Jane will take over from about 7.30pm. 

At 8.30pm I would like to hold a “Problem Corner” session, so if any of you are experiencing a problem or issue connected with your business, then bring it along and share it with the group.  Lots of brains are better than one and perhaps we can help you solve it!  Look forward to seeing you!

Best wishes, Sarah

Marketing Magic! Secrets from the April Meeting

Hi everyone and welcome to the update from the April meeting that took place on the 7th April at the University of Kent.

If you weren’t there, you missed a very special night as we were in the fortunate position of being visited by marketing expert, Barnaby Wynter, MD of The Brand Bucket company, www.thebrandbucketcompany.com.

Apart from the fact that Barnaby is a hilarious speaker, highly entertaining and engaging, he also gave us invaluable information about creating our brand.  In all honesty it’s difficult for me to capture everything Barnaby covered, but I will do my best to give an overview, if you weren’t able to come along.

Firstly Barnaby took us through the process of creating a one page business plan.  As he said, having such a plan gives us direction and of course, shapes our future marketing.  He urged us to read our business plan every single day. I know that for me, that will keep me focused and help me internalise my brand so that if anyone asks me what my business can offer them, I don’t have to give it a second thought!
Barnaby outlined the key headings for the business plan – Vision (i.e. who is your business aimed at, what is it about?), Business Strategy (detail some business objectives here about how you will achieve your vision), Business Plan (which really means identifying some key performance indicators) and finally Financial Plan (where you work out how much you should charge each client and what your targeted income is.)

Moving onto the brand itself, Barnaby said no-one could agree what the definition of brand really was.  His company define it as:  “Every experience that affects the relationship between a product or service and its consumer.”

Building the brand:

Barnaby advised us to build a relationship with our potential customers, i.e. let them know who we are and what we do. He advised us to become our consumers, so that we could envisage what they want from us.  Many companies make the mistake of listing their capabilities instead of focusing on the value of their service or product to their customers’ lives.

On your website, for example, you must answer the question, “why do I want to buy from you?”  So find out about your consumers in terms of what they want and what they are looking for.

Another key lesson from Barnaby was to communicate regularly with existing customers, the people who have already bought from you. He said that 68% of customers changed brands because no-one had spoken to them. Make sure you communicate regularly with yours via email or a newsletter.

Barnaby then took us through his brilliant Brand Bucket process of attracting prospects and converting them into loyal customers:

1. Raise awareness of your brand. (Ensure people have heard of you.)
2. Create an image match. (Identify what appeals to your consumers and create that image.  They need to know how you fit into their life.  If you are a good fit, they will like you and buy from you.)
3. Create the Facts match.  (Tell people what you do and stress the benefits of your service to them.)
4. Create a Response. (Somehow let people test your product – take a test drive.)
5. Usage.  When people do start to buy from you and use your product, you must replicate the promise you created at the image match and facts match stages.  Be as good as you said you would be.
6. Loyalty.  This is the final step because it has been built from the relationship and the experience of your service. You can encourage customer loyalty further by incentivising referrals but make sure you reward the person who refers you just as much as you reward the new customer, otherwise people will resent making future referrals.

This blog cannot do Barnaby’s talk justice but I hope it gives you an idea of what was covered.  If you are not a Women in Business member yet, I hope you can get a sense of the kind of quality talks we regularly hold for our members as we strive to support them in their businesses.  As usual, this meeting was lively and fun and very informative – all this for £7 a meeting and coffee and biscuits thrown in!  We provide a high value meeting, which truly aims to support you and pass on useful advice to keep your business on track.

If you would like to join the Medway & North Kent Group, contact our Chairwoman, Sarah Christie, at sarah@effectiveoutcomes.com.  Alternatively, come along to our next meeting on Wednesday 5th May, from 7pm to 9pm at The University of Kent, The Medway Building, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4AG.

See you there!

WiB March Meeting – Create a Fantastic Future!

Although I wasn’t able to attend our March meeting, I am told that Pam Ibanez treated the group to a very inspirational talk about building yourself a fantastic future.  Pam knows better than most how to do this, having  run a very successful business, and enjoyed a wonderful lifestyle, only to lose it all when the economy plunged into crisis.  Pam explained how she experienced the devastation of losing her business, becoming bankrupt and losing her home.  Yet despite these enormous setbacks, she picked hersefl up and fought for her future and now runs a very successful business as an Arbonne Consultant. Pam has invested a lot of time and effort in her own personal development and it is certainly paying dividends.  Who better, then, to help us build our own glittering futures?

Here are some of the hot tips Pam shared at the meeting:

• Create a dreamboard that contains visual reminders of your goals.  Perhaps this could be a picture of your ideal lifestyle, or a representation of what you want to achieve.  It doesn’t matter what it contains, as long as it is meaningful to you.  Pam stressed the power of looking at your dreamboard every day, reminding yourself continually of the things you want from your future.
• Create a list of 100 things you want to do before you die, then work backwards from there. Break the list down and work out what you need to be doing today to get to that place in your life of accomplishing the things on your list.
• What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?  This will help you work out what you want to achieve before your time is up!
• Create some positive affirmations and make sure you say them daily.  Say them out loud and in the present tense.
• Start mixing with positive people who inspire you.  Whoever you spend time with will influence you, so make sure they are positive!
• Adopt positive and open body language.  Our mind and body are connected and our posture can directly affect our feelings.  Keep yourself motivated by using open body language and remember to smile!

If you like what you’ve read, perhaps you’d like to come along to future meetings?  This blog is regularly updated with meeting notifcations,  and we always love to see new faces!  We currently meet at Kent University, in the Medway Building, on the first Wednesday of every month.  If you are running your own business or thinking about doing so and would like to meet like-minded people and listen to the advice of our expert speakers, then please join us.  You’re very welcome!

Thoughts from the Chair #1

I was conducting some leadership training in Rome in March, which focused on the complexities of managing a remote team.  The client was convinced that traditional leadership models would not fulfil the needs of a team that is not sharing an office, but located in various countries around the world.  The head of the project demanded real life examples of remote teams that work well together and how they are managed.  My first idea was to draw comparisons with the England football team, or any national football team for that matter.  These are a group of individuals who rarely get to play together and yet they are expected to achieve spectacular results on a given occasion.  How do you keep them motivated, enthusiastic and collaborative?  As a group we talked about team branding – how their colours set them apart and give them a sense of identity. We talked about practising together, even if it cannot be regularly, but how any chance to get together can greatly add to a sense of team unity.  We concluded by talking about the football manager and how he can do a lot to encourage a team spirit by the quality of his behaviour and communication.

Searching for another example, I realised that I lead a remote team!  The Women in Business group is exactly like that!  We are a group of individual ladies who share a common purpose – we are all running our own businesses and, as such, we enjoy the support of each other and learning about how we can do better.  We are based all over North Kent and we only get to see each other once a month.  In many ways this makes my job as Chairwoman more complex.  As I see it, part of my duty is to maintain a sense of team spirit and I do that through communicating regularly (yes – some would say too regularly, I know!)  However, I am a strong believer that people want to be communicated with.  They welcome information.  I have been told countless times, by my delegates, that their manager never communicates with them and they hate it!  They feel disempowered and de-motivated.

I see my role as that of the glue that binds the group together.  I want all our members to feel that they belong to a supportive group of like-minded ladies and so I communicate at least twice a month to maintain that united feel.  I hope it works!

March 3rd – Planning your Financial Year and Create a Vision for your life and then Take Action!

We don’t yet know where we’ll be holding this meeting – we’ll keep you posted. What we do know is what it’s about.

This month we have 2 topics that follow on perfectly form last month’s session:

1) Planning your Financial Year with Julie Angell of Clinker Little Ltd.

2) Create a Vision for your Life and then Take Action! with Pamela Ibanez of Arbonne

email Sarah at sarah@effectiveoutcomes.com if you want to be advised of the meeting location…