Enterprising Moms Network Inc

We are gearing up for  a very exciting event happening on Friday, November 5th from 7  - 10pm at the River Rock Hotel in Richmond, BC.

The event is the Enterprising Moms Fall Networking Social.   It's a great opportunity to meet members from other chapters, network with other women business owners and take the time to celebrate your accomplishments!  This event is for both members and interested guests as well as spouses, friends and supporters.

Speakers for the evening event include:

Kelley Scarsbrook, President of Enterprising Moms Network - "Busting the Myth of the Perfect Mom".

Felicia Lee, Business Development Director/Vancouver Chapter Director of Enterprising Moms Network and Ghost CEO Coach - "3 Tools for Entrepreneurial Time Mastery."

Kasia Rachfall, owner of Fresh Perspective Coach - "Your Values: The Unconscious Tool that Moves You Forward or Holds You Back."

Tickets are $25/pp and includes appies. 

The Grand Prize Draw at the Event is a Girl's Getaway Package provided by the River Rock Hotel.

DON'T DELAY - get your tickets soon to avoid disappointment (as we sold out last year!)

TO SECURE YOUR TICKET - CLICK HERE.

Take some time to celebrate you and your business - you DESERVE it!

Name: Lisa Williams

Business: Optionelle Fashion Consultant

EMN Chapter: Sunshine Coast

Looking back I can see that turning forty was a bigger deal to me than I realized at the time. It was about that time I started to really pay attention to where I was in life and where I was going. It was also the time I realized that I was not where I wanted to be and if I didn’t make some changes I was never going to get there. I chose motherhood rather than the career route in life and although I did graduate from high school I did not carry on academically. I think there are many women out there just like me and for this reason I am happy to share my story of where I am today and how I got here. In my early 40’s I had entrepreneurial hobbies; I ran a small photographic business, I was a bed and breakfast owner/operator, I worked with my husband as a home inspector and I started a website maintenance service, all of these gave me freedom but not enough pay check so I worked for others in jobs that gave me a pay check but they took away my freedom and the pay checks were never big enough to get me closer to my dreams. It was out of frustration of not having both, money and time that put me on the path I walk today.

After a few years of beating myself up for falling short of my dreams I began my journey of identifying my strengths and clarifying my wants and needs. Our 3 grown children, now 17, 21 and 23 years old, still need me to be a mom but not in the way they did as younger children so I was now free to do what I wanted. What I wanted was to earn a comfortable living doing something I loved! I wanted to be one of those women who say “I love what I do” and mean it. My advice for other mom’s in business is – don’t wait until you are over 40 to do what you love and love what you do, start earlier if you can. Your family will thank you for it.

For me it started with being approached by a woman I knew casually, she invited me to consider a career as a fashion consultant; my first response was no thank you I am not interested. Respectfully she gave me an informational package to read in the off chance my interest changed. I did read the material and realized that a fashion consulting business did fit into my newly formed list of criteria better than I thought and the question “why not?” came to mind. I started my new career as a fashion consultant March 2009 and as I gain experience I gain confidence and the realization “I love what I do!” One challenge I have is treating my business as a business and not a paid hobby, working from home with flexible hours requires discipline and practise. Dropping everything when a girlfriend calls “to meet for coffee” has a direct impact on my bottom line and my ability to earn a comfortable living. The most rewarding part of my business is seeing the sparkle in women’s eyes when they discover how beautiful they look with the right clothes for their body type. Watching their confidence grow and seeing their outer beauty matching their inner beauty; their transformation is intoxicating to me.

As part of my business I offer a Wardrobe Makeover Service specifically for women who hate to shop or just don’t know what to shop for. I help women minimize their wardrobe, organize and coordinate their closets with clothes that work well together taking the stress out of daily dressing; filled with the right outfits; helping them look fabulous on every given day. Typically 80% of the clothes in our closets just hang there taking up space because they don’t fit, don’t appeal or just don’t go with anything else in the closet. Why are we still saying “I have nothing to wear?”

I am an Optionelle fashion consultant, working from my home boutique on the Sunshine Coast through home parties, private consultations and educational workshops. I have the freedom to take my services anywhere in the world and I do! I can be reached at: lisa.optionelle@gmail.com. To learn more about Optionelle go to: www.optionelle.com. Who knows? This could be a career for you too; we are always looking to build the Optionelle team with women who love what they do.

Many fads come and go, but there is one certainty and it is that social media is here and is here to stay. It's also a no-brainer that if you are in business, you need to be connected to social media in one way or another. Traditional media such as TV and newspapers now are connected via social media, along with a few million other businesses - it is the way to go. "Word" of mouth used to be one of the best ways to promote a business. That term has now been re-coined to "World" of mouth. Food for thought! 

If you are not currently utilizing social media with your business, it is time to start. It's not hard, not difficult, you don't need a university degree to master your way around Twitter and Facebook and when you think about it, you are really taking the time to educate yourself. This in turn will help you with your business... big time. 

 And if you're not sure where to start, ask around some of your friends, family, co-workers, employees, do a Google search... the answers are all out there. Take a look at some of these interesting facts about social media, they're pretty interesting.

Today's blog post is a little different - it's a video post. This video comes courtesy of "The Economist". (No, it's not your grandpa's paper anymore....)  This video is about the pace of change, about how rapidly the media landscape is changing. And it's about how the way people communicate is changing the way marketers have to think about how to reach consumers.

Take a look:

No matter where you live, big city, small town or somewhere in between, there is one vital link in your community that you share with every community around.  Your local paper.  Community papers usually are a small publication that is published once or twice a week.  They cover everything from major news stories that affect your community to event listings and garage sales that are happening around the corner from you.

There is a lot of value in a local community paper, alot of unrecognized value.  If you are running a business and want to be connected to your community in any way, a vital part of knowing what’s going on and of knowing how to get others to know about yourself and your business is as simple as a weekly news publication. 

Many times local newspapers are dismissed as being “too small” to be of any value to businesses.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  For example, if you were hosting an event such as an open house for your business and you wanted to get the people that live in your neighbourhood there, would you go to a daily paper that has a huge readership that covers the entire province?  You could, but chances are if you did get any coverage, it would be a small blurb that’s easily looked over.  You could pay for a display ad in a big daily paper, but that would likely eat up most of your advertising budget for the month. 

However, small community papers thrive on small community events.  That is their bread and butter.  That gets their readership growing and that gets them advertising revenue.  Send a press release to your local newspaper about that same open house that you sent to the daily news and you are more than likely to get much better coverage.  And you are also reaching your target market for your business.  And while a display ad in a local paper can still be expensive at times, the cost is likely much less than a daily paper and again, think about the target market you are reaching.

Even if your business is booming and you are about to “go national”, don’t forget the place where you live-where you started it all, and the people and businesses that supported you in the beginning.  Your community.

Above all, no matter where you are with marketing your business, when that local paper comes to your door or you see it in the local coffee shop, make sure you take a few minutes and read it cover to cover.  It’s your community, you never know what might catch your eye!