Wow what a fabulous time I had at Women On Their Way on Friday! Jo Cameron (past contestant from The Apprentice) and her business partner Lisa Ibbotson created an amazing line up of speakers for a room full of eager to learn ladies. I don’ think I’ve shared a room with so many millionaires – who were ladies! Listening to their strategies for success was such an opportunity. Being in a room full of women celebrating and learning from women was an unusual but great experience – the warmth and camaraderie was intoxicating, the wish for the greater good – completely different from the usual mixed sex conference I’ve been to.
Listening to Gill Fielding talking about strategies for success being like following a proven recipe I felt the buzz of ambition resonating through my being. She discussed ways we could overcome the pension crisis we are heading towards… empowering knowledge. Her statistics showed that in the 2008 list of the richest 1,000 people in the UK only 98 were women (and two of those are in couples) – however women are the fastest growing wealth group. By 2020 it is predicted that the majority of millionaires will be women.
Emma Wimhurst who built an incredible business supplying own brand colour cosmetics to the major UK high street chains and sold it for a well deserved fortune.
Deirdre Bounds a lady who created a hugely successful company from scratch – without commercial experience but a passion that drove her to help others to duplicate her English teaching back pack days.
The message I heard over and over was – find something you love doing (then it’s not like work), decide your value and vision for your company – keeps you in alignment when you need to make decisions. Write a business plan (amazing how so many people choose not to do this) which will keep you on track when some days become foggy – you can get back on track. Know your customers – know their ‘wants’ not necessarily their ‘needs’ after all, us ladies my need a coat because it’s cold but if a pair of shoes (of which we may have hundreds) catches our eye – we’ll go for that, because we want it. De-clutter you workspace and home – it clears your mind and allows new ideas and business to flow in (Marie-Claire Carlyle presentation was fascinating). Know your finance – monitor regularly. Learn from your mistakes and dare to be different (your USP). Trust your intuition and don’t share all your ideas and thoughts with everyone – they will often talk you out of them – but do talk to your team and communicate with your customers. Remember, life is supposed to be ‘fun’! Enjoy it!
As I left I spoke to Jo and to thank her for an extraordinary day. I said it was life changing which sounded a bit cliché but on reflection of course its only life changing if I take action based on what I’ve learned. So here we go!
If you were setting up a business what would you like to be doing? What do you feel passionate about? Who could help you to get started? What would be important to you? Clutter/hoarder? When will you begin to de-clutter? How much fun is your life? What could you do differently to make it more fun?