Business Women Organizations

Here's how you can learn more.

They are hosting an Intro to Whale Hunting at 12:00 - 1:00 pm.  This is a free event with light refreshments served.  You can register for this event here: Open Registration--Free Event

Later in the same day you are invited to cocktails and hors d'oeuves at Capital Grille from 4:30-5:30 pm.  This event requires a $30 registration fee for food and beverages.  You can register here: Open Registration

 

Rosemary Brehm, president of turningpoints2results, is an entrepreneur and expert in helping organizations accelerate their potential into profitable results by focusing on five key shifts in their businesses: strategic business performance; leadership alignment; team dynamics; customer intimacy, and competitive positioning.   In addition to her consulting services, Rosemary is certified as a Professional Facilitator (CPF) through the International Association of Facilitators.

Rosemary was founding Chair of the Tampa Bay Women President’s Organization and served that group from 2003-2009. She is a member of the International Association of Facilitators; the Senior HRD Forum; ASTD; and the Organizational Development SIG.  She holds a Certificate in Training and Development from New York University and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the State University of New York at Geneseo.

With over 22 years of experience in leading business development and sales efforts for Technology, Software, and Outsourcing solutions, Brian Zaas has a background in business operations optimization, systems integration, custom application development and technology leadership.  He has been responsible for driving global business development and professional service efforts for leading Fortune 500 corporations including Fujitsu, CA, and MCI-Worldcom as well as start-up growth for Pilgrim Software, Best Programs Telcordia, and most recently is leading efforts for Enterprise Solutions with Avineon.

He has led strategic and innovative solution areas for Fortune 500 and emerging growth customers in need of IT, technology, outsourcing and the infrastructure management.  Brian has also consulted with market leaders across a number of industries on leadership, pipeline development, innovation, and sales in new product development and market penetration focusing on large, complex deals. 

The Whale Hunters are proud to introduce these new Certified Whale Hunters Patners who will provide services to the Tampa business community.

 

By their nature, whale-sized accounts are complex. Invariably, delivering your products and services requires the coordination of many people in your company with many more people in the whale company. You have an opportunity to greatly improve your internal processes and controls each time you serve a new whale.

The most important thing for members of your team to remember is that their counterparts on the whale side are accustomed to a very high level of formal communication, which is the norm in a large, most likely bureaucratic, organization. In contrast, communication at your company is likely to be much more informal and delivered in meetings or emails rather than formal memos or documents.

Even if you do a good job of managing the account, failing to manage the formal communication of your control processes can do you in. Here’s how to plan:

·         Determine the key people on the whale team who need to be informed of progress on the account

·         Establish a regular reporting schedule, weekly or bi-weekly, with an internal “owner” on your team.

·         Ensure that each team leader on your side reports key progress, issues, or hold-ups to the internal owner on a clear deadline.

·         Develop a simple template for the “controls” report or project update.

·         Distribute to your team and to the whale team on a predictable, regular basis.

This discipline will accomplish two very important things. First, it will keep your team on track with the deliverables and on the same page regarding the entire deal. Second, it will communicate to everyone on the whale team that you are a professionally managed company that understands and accommodates their need for information. 

When problems are called out in a regular, routine report, they become routine—not cause for alarm but simply for action.  It's one more example of how the sale will not result in business development unless you deliver at the highest level.  Your business growth requires a balance between the sales cycle and the delivery.

 

• who will be impacted by your decision?
• will you introduce us to them, bring them to the table?
• who are the people upline to whom you will present your decision/recommendations?
• how can we help you present our solution internally?  What materials, formats, or meetings do you need?
• what are some reasons that this project may stall even if you are prepared to move forward?
• how can we help you mitigate those potential pitfalls?

• ease of transition--how many things will NOT change if they hire you
• short term ROI--what benefits can they expect to realize in the first few months that will make the buyers' team look good
• safety factors--what qualities of your company are persuasive that you are solid, predictable, stable, and financially sound
• how much your company and the whale company have in common re: sales and implementation processes, standards, systems etc.

 

• everyone believes that they are responsible for business development
   
• work habits reinforce speed of decision-making and action
   
  • at every level people are empowered to make good decisions
  • there are good tools for fast collaboration without busy work
  • leaders set the example of fast-growth habits  
    
• reward and recognition foster efficient, effective collaborative behaviors
   
• resources are allocated fairly to support new work required by new sales

• First, Frances Hesselbein spent years at the Peter Drucker Institute, helping to translate Drucker's business principles into leadership strategies for nonprofit and public organizations.  I believe that leadership lessons for your company are best derived from lessons learned in each economic sector--from the private sector we learn best about markets and competition, from the public sector we learn best about national interests and service, and from the nonprofit sector we learn best about social responsibility.  The better we can become at aligning these lessons, the more powerful and successful we will be as leaders in every sector.
   
• Second, it is very good to see the US Armed Forces continuing on their path to a broader definition of "leadership" -- one that goes beyond military strategy to embrace a deep understanding of language, culture, and place as key elements in a military engagement.  Increasingly, these are key elements of a business engagement in the global economy.  We should expect lessons learned from this alliance that will enlighten business leaders in new ways.
   
• Finally, I am pleased to see Frances Hesselbein recognized in this way for her phenomenal career's work.  Formerly head of the Girl Scouts of America, she has been a beacon for leadership education that embraces women and girls yet is not exclusive to women and girls.  She is a powerful role model for women business owners and entrepreneurs, demonstrating that collaborative, team-based strategies have their own source of power and can supersede top-down directive strategies.

• First thing you need to know is how the government defines "small business."  In most industries, the category includes businesses with as many as 500 employees.  So if you are much smaller, and much newer, than the competition, the odds are heavily stacked against you unless you have a product or service that the government wants and no one else offers yet.
   
• The idea of presenting yourself as a subcontractor rather than prime is especially relevant.  Prime contractors need to demonstrate their inclusion of small businesses including women-owned and minority-owned firms.  Companies in those categories that are professional, reliable, and knowledgeable about government contracting are at a premium.  Rather than working directly for a local, state, or federal government, you work for the contractor.
   
• If the subcontractor route interests you, build a sales process that targets prime contractors, not government agencies.  You will need a completely different approach and message.
   
• If you have not done business deals with public agencies, understand that there is a great deal to learn.  Everything from how to respond to the RFP to how to invoice and track expenses will be new and foreign.  If you are not ready, the requirements can  undermine your company seriously.  Even as a subcontractor, you will need to contribute meaningfully to the proposal.

• put the RFP through your Target Filter to be sure it's worth answering
• learn how to critically read and evaluate the RFP
• calculate the cost of losing and the value of winning
• identify primary ways you can win
• identify most likely ways you can lose
• determine your theme and key points of your message
• make sure the capture team has organizational support to complete the best possible proposal on time

An excellent article in the Sunday, July 12 Washington Post called Fixing the Economy?  It's Women's Work.

It's a good one because it references a number of responsible studies, and because it is more about why companies need a leadership team that includes women than it is about women taking over.  I have been observing and saying for a long time that women often demonstrate superior skills and talents that are required for the 21st century economy.  Nice to be pointed to more research supporting that observation.

In my whale hunting practice, companies with women owners and/or CEOs have been especially successful in implementing the collaborative, team-based process that we promote.  I have also had very successful engagements in which women and men are both represented at the management table.

Conversely, I have been involved in very frustrating engagements in which there were no women in leadership--no women on the executive team, no women on the board, no women with serious P&L responsibility, no women in sales management, no women or only one or two women on the sales team.  It was also the case that these leadership teams had no other kind of diversity, either--no people of color, no international people, few people who were born or raised or educated in different parts of the country. In some cases there was a diverse employee group, but it didn't extend to the leadership/management team.

What characterized the all-male teams was a top-down view of leadership--the view that only a few people in the company had the knowledge, experience, and wisdom to lead.

What characterized the more diverse teams was a desire to embrace more collaborative, team-oriented process to draw on all their employees' talents for business development and sales.

Now I want to pay attention to what it's like when the entire leadership team is female.  Haven't had that engagement yet, but I suspect that if there is insufficient diversity of experience and opinion and gender, it would be a flawed team--just flawed in different ways.  Today's business needs, however, will certainly favor an all-female team over a team that is all male.

So all you small and mid size business leaders who are whale hunting--read this article and consider how your company can accelerate its growth through a more diverse management and governance team.

Has the recession affected your spending habits?

These are not questions that affect my business life or even my "balanced" life.  Ladies Home Journal cornered that market a long time ago, and People covers the dirt on public figures.  If these are questions of interest related to business, they are not gender-specific.  Could you possibly imagine an invitation to male business owners based upon questions like these?

The Forbes Fiasco comes right on the heels of Dell's incredible faux pas in launching the "Della."

But this blog is about sales and business development, so I need a link from my real anger at Forbes to some positive ideas or actions for business owners and sales leaders.  Especially women, but this is equally important for men.

In the jargon of my business, Forbes is a whale--a big company with a big reach, a big media reach.  It matters when major businesses screw up like this.   Business people around the world--owners, entrepreneurs, executives, employees, students, wannabe's--they look to Forbes for insight, support, advice, and current events, and not incidentally, the current business environment in the United States.   What is the message?  The message is that in the midst of a very difficult global economic climate, the American business women are busy standing by their men who cheat and lie, focusing on their office outfits, buying make-up and shoes, and making their daughters rich.  That is not a good message or a remotely true message!

I am an advisor to small and midsized business about how to grow by doing bigger deals with bigger clients.  It is ALL about understanding your target customer and presenting yourself in a way that is attractive to them, meets their needs, does not annoy them, and does not frighten them.  This offer I received from Forbes violates all of those criteria.

So before you make the Forbes mistake, my advice is to consult with your target audience about their business interests, their business needs, their business challenges and their perceived opportunities. 

The people at Forbes are obviously trying to get on the very popular and lucrative women-in-business bandwagon.  I applaud their motives and hope they will find a way to be successful.  But here's just a quick laundry list of topics that would be oh-so-much more interesting to business women:
 

• who are the lenders and investment bankers targeting women-owned businesses?
• how can your company get involved in the federal stimulus package?
• How are female leaders and employees responding to downsizing and outsourcing? 
• What can you do when you are downsized or outsourced?
• How can business owners mitigate the recession influence on their employees?
• what are the most promising new business fields or opportunities of particular interest to women?

1. Clearly defined responsibilities and outcomes-based performance expectations, in writing, and agreed upon in advance.
    
2. Agreement on the time line of deliverables and the consequences of failure to meet performance expectations.
    
3. Separate business conversations from family conversations.  For example, during the business day, all conversations are about business.  Family conversations are for after-hours.
    
4. Never talk to other family members about business issues until you have first discussed with each other.  No surprises!
    
5. Frequent, scheduled review of how things are working.
    
6. Identification of an agreed-upon mediator that either can call if an issue can't be resolved.

• "Creative Class" cities with lots of entrepreneurial activity, well-networked, open to new ideas and hungry for economic development, business growth, and community engagement.
   
• Local representatives/Chapter Chairs.  Key people with good community connections, strong sales and business development experience, entrepreneurial spirit, to assist in convening the Whale Hunters Launch in your region and to populate and lead one or more local chapters of 12-15 members.  You may be an independent consultant, a coach, a trainer, an entrepreneur? 
   
• Members of local chapters and prospective attendees at local workshops.  You don't want to lead but would like to see Whale Hunters services delivered close to you at prices you can afford. 
   
• Sponsors.  National and local business owners, executives, and marketers who want to be in front of The Whale Hunters target audience of small to mid-size business owners, sales executives, and development officers.  We are grateful to Bose McKinney & Evans for sponsoring the Indianapolis summit  and delighted to announce the National Bank of Arizona as our lead sponsor for the Phoenix launch.
   
• Communication Partners.  National and local organizations that can help us market Whale Hunters events and related opportunities.  Chambers of Commerce, TV and radio, digital broadcast programs, business journals, for sure.  Also local/regional businesses willing to co-sponsor and share their digital database in a mutually beneficial fashion.

I posted the first of a series of blog posts today on the topic of "competition" and "collaboration"  at the Women on Business blog.

I believe we are operating in an economy in which the skills of collaboration are even more important than the skills of competition.  But I have been challenged to better define where competition comes in, for business success and for motivation to excell.

I'll be exploring this topic in the next few days as it relates to sales and business development.  Please log in to Women on Business for the first take.  Thank you!

 

• make a warm introduction to someone you want to meet
• refer you and your company to others of their acquaintance
• serve as a reference for you
• be "on your boat" in pursuit of a deal, when appropriate
• tell your story to the right people
• put you in front of groups who are interested in your message
• advise you about your approach, your message, your strategy or tactics

The Whale Hunting Women Summit in Indianapolis was a great success on Thursday June 4.  More than 175 awesome business and professional women attended, with some very self-assured men in our midst!

In a new format this year, we had two sessions of "voices and vignettes," each featuring three women talking about one or more big deals in their lives and how they handled both the adversity and the opportunity.  We also had two keynote speakers (plus me!).

I wanted to share my most memorable take-aways from these women, who spoke from their hearts and their experiences about how they've done deals in big business and small business and sales and community, as entrepreneurs, philanthropists, sales professionals, speakers, and educators.

The deals they've done are very diverse--taking on new careers, launching new businesses, building and turning around nonprofit community organizations--building things, raising money, creating powerful partnerships.

These are five themes that I heard over and over, from the lives of whale hunting women:

1.  "Can't" is a catalyst

When someone else says "you can't" -- whale hunting women have transformed that negative feedback into a fierce motivation to complete a goal.  The closer to you that person is, perhaps the stronger is your motivation to prove the prophecy wrong.

2.  "Shouldn't" is a spark

Often the people closest to you are afraid of what will happen to them if you succeed; hence they encourage you not to try.  Whale hunting women have transformed the "should not" into a powerful "must."

3.  "Boat" is a blessing

The Whale Hunters use the metaphor of "the boat" to indicate those co-workers, friends, and supporters who are on board to support you in landing a big deal.  Whale hunting women populate and launch their boats.  You cannot hunt whales alone!

4.  Learning is Leverage

Our speakers have a very wide range of formal education, from almost none to a whole lot.  Most of them have changed careers several times.  In every case, they sought out new learning opportunities, applied to their needs, and self-directed--including formal and informal learning and training.

5.  Despair breeds determination.

We heard some stories of times of true despair--women who faced physical danger, who dealt with economic ruin, who were betrayed by people they trusted.  In these stories of survival, women were able to channel their despair into a determination to change their circumstances.

As I look back at these lessons, I am struck by how often there was a very negative event or circumstance that inspired a woman to take a bold new step, regardless of her fear or negative feedback.

So in these scary economic times, if you are grappling with any  demons or big-stretch opportunities,  take heart from the whale hunting women who shared their stories to inspire others.

Soon we will have video and still photos of the Summit to share with you. 

• business growth strategies
• sales development
• marketing and social media

• Molly Gordon
• Monica Flores
• Brooke Green
• Lorraine Ball