Web Business Woman

No, not the soap opera. (Some day I hope to do a research paper on soap operas and uncover why they’re still on TV – I mean, really… who cares anymore?)

As the world turns for women. We’re stronger, better, smarter, more confident than at any other time in history. We have a strong collective voice online via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and our many communities. We aren’t afraid to speak up nor are we afraid to stand up.

Women are what makes the world go round. Forget about ‘love.’ Without women here’s what would happen:

1. Churches would crumble. It’s women who drag the hubby and the kids to church every Sunday. It’s women who answer the call to worship. It’s women who build the community we know as religion.

2. Businesses would falter, some would die. Women make up the majority of support services. We’re the secretaries, the executive assistants, the lunchroom ladies, the nurses, the office staff and more. Sure, men are included in some of those jobs, but the vast majority are women. If they all called in sick on the same day… WOW!

3. The Green Movement, the non-profit sector, bookstores, malls, and more…would cease to exist. Women are the driving force behind the green movement and we are more involved in the non-profit sector than our counterparts. Women buy more books, we shop the malls, we share more information on what’s good and what’s not than…the other gender.

So, why does the world continue to either ignore us, berate us, neglect us, and abuse us?

Because we let it. That’s why.

Make this year the year you decide to stand up and be counted. Make this the year you join your sisters and create change! Make this the year you stop allowing the world to tell you how to think, act, and dress. 

by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia

I’m baaaack!

When things come up again and again, I have to believe that I’m not the only one experiencing it and so I write or speak about it in hopes to develop some sort of dialogue about the topic. This topic is particularly sinister, however.

Something happens when you start a business – people start to treat you differently. And, once that business becomes successful, people make oddball requests…and by oddball, I mean requests that ask you to lie on their behalf.

Oh, don’t be fooled…they don’t outright *ask* you to lie, they couch the request in a much more positive light. I believe PR folks call it “spin”? Let me provide you with some examples so that you’ll be able to identify these requests when they come your way:

• A “friend” whom I hadn’t heard from in *months* called me to ask if I could provide a work reference for her nephew. Now, I knew her nephew, but he had never worked for me in any capacity — not even stuffing envelopes (is that still done anymore?) I asked her if she meant a character reference (since that was the only reference I could possibly give on his behalf) and her reply was: “Right, a character reference…that would be the only one you could give since he didn’t work for you.” My reply, “Yep.” I told her that I was willing to provide a character reference if he called me and asked me himself (I believe youth should be empowered to ask for what they need as opposed to some adult always being their mouth piece). I never heard from her – or her nephew – again.

• A “friend” who was in the job market called and asked if I could provide her with a work reference. She, too, had never worked for me. Turned out, my company needed her help with some work so she was able to do the work and I was able to provide the reference, but she fully expected me to provide the reference without her doing the work first.

Here’s the *really* odd thing about the two above scenarios: when I received the request from the person in example B, I asked advice of the person in example A and she said that I shouldn’t do it because that would be lying — but she then turned right around and made the same request for her nephew a few weeks later!!

The reframe of all these “requests” is that I am fortunate. Huh??? Well, I look at these requests as my having the ability, on quite a regular basis, to recommit to my values and show the Universe that I operate from a base of truth. Or, as Suze Orman says, “Say no out of love rather than yes out of fear.”

What does this mean for your company and its marketing? Under the premise of how you do anything is how you do everything, the thought is twofold:

1. If you lie about these seemingly small things, you send the message to that person, yourself and the Universe that you’re willing to be untruthful about any number of things.
2. It will come out that you lied. In this social media enabled world, it will come up. It could be that the very person you “helped” gets mad at you one day and decides to pen a blog post about how you helped them to lie. I don’t know, but I do know what my Grandmother always told me, “What you do in the dark, will always come to light.” (She also said, “If you lie, you’ll steal.”)

Think about it. If it came out, how would that make you look? Your company? People would think, if you lied about that, what else did you lie about? Maybe your products aren’t 100% organic? Maybe you really *did* get that email when you said you didn’t? Maybe that invoice “error” wasn’t accidental?

Everything is marketing.

Tom and I took a trip into Boulder, yesterday. Most of you know by now that we’ve moved from Upstate NY to Colorado. We live outside of Denver, not too far from Boulder. I can honestly say this is probably the best move of my life. While I miss my family back home very much, we love the weather in CO and we’re making tons of new friends.

I sometimes discuss the prairie dogs, over on my petblog, Scratchings & Sniffings. They’re the cute, adorable part of being out in the Colorado country. The worrisome part of being here is all the nightly news stories about rattlesnakes and bears. Friends and relatives tell me not to worry about rattlesnakes and bears, but I do, anyway.

Beyond that, there’s Boulder. I love Boulder. If we could afford to live in Boulder, I’d give it a shot. Maybe down the road… For now, we seem to go into Boulder once or twice a week. We’ve been to Boulder to meet with the talented folks at Lijit – we especially love Grace. Smart, intelligent, fun-loving, and personable; she really made us feel welcome when we first got her.

We’ve been to Boulder to meet with Kyla Duffy – tres’ talented young woman who is also a pet foster parent to Bill, her adorable Boston Terrier. We’re working with Kyla to bring her astonishing aerial act to BlogPaws. Hope you pet lovers out there will be at BlogPaws. Hop over and enter our contest to win a free trip to Blogpaws West, in September in Denver (but Donna already told you about that!).

Yesterday, we went into Boulder to meet a group of bloggers who are either attending Blogher or are interested in learning more about Blogher and blogging, in general. Fantastic women! I will tell you about two of them… as these two actually gave me business cards.

This does not mean the rest of the women weren’t just as fantastic – it just means, networking works that way, sometimes. A big shout out and thank you to Gwen for arranging the meet-up at 4580 – a really wonderful restaurant that I can’t wait to go back to.

The woman I spent most of my time talking to was Casey Hibbard. I’m very impressed by her. Visit her site, Stories that Sell, and you will be, too. I have hopes of convincing her to write some blog posts here, so stay tuned. The things that I liked about her was her can-do attitude and her book. She is clearly someone who has the background and expertise to help the rest of us understand how to “turn satisfied customers into your most powerful sales & marketing asset”…

After Casey, I did manage to get Ed Donahue to chat a bit. “Ed” is really Erin Donahue – but Ed fits her to a T. She was bubbly and happy and enthusiastic about life, blogging, WordPress, and Blogher. I’m always eager to talk with people who use WordPress (since I don’t, much) and Ed will be teaching a session on WordPress at Blogher. Tom and I plan on attending – well, maybe Tom will. We will likely divide and conqueor at Blogher.

Speaking of Blogher – who else will be there? If you’re planning to attend, let me know. We MUST meet up and get Face-to-Face! The two best conferences you should attend this year are Blogher and BlogPaws. Blogher if you’re a woman looking for more information on blogging and women bloggers and BlogPaws if you’re a blogger who loves pets!

See you there!

I will admit to always being a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to organization. I am a believer in “A place for everything and everything in its place.” While I am not quite certain whether my being organized makes me more prolific than someone whose desk looks like a cyclone hit, but I sometimes wonder.

I’ve read that office workers whose cubicles are an eyesore are looked upon by fellow employees and even the bosses as being unorganized (obviously) but even as maybe not as productive as the neatnik next door. But on the flipside, some employers think if a desk is too organized, the employee may either spend too much time organizing and not enough time working. It’s a conundrum. To further complicate matters, some experts think a messy desk is the equivalent of an ordered mind.  

I admit to working with people who had desks that were stacked sky high with scraps of paper and myriad books, folders, magazine pages and post its, but they could find anything you asked for in moments. There are times, even though my desk is neat as a pin, that it takes me a few minutes to remember exactly where I filed a particular piece of information.

I’m not saying any work style is better than another but I wonder, whether the organized writer is a more productive writer. I have my calendar scheduled out for the week of who I will interview and when. Once I have an assignment I put in it my calendar along with reminders of when certain pre-prep tasks need to be completed — I am talking down to day-to-day details. Maybe I am a bit anal AND OCD but it has worked for me.

What’s your style and does it work well for you? I’m wondering if maybe I need to lighten up a bit!

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna’s Promo Talk

It’s been a very busy week so I apologize for missing my usual Wednesday guest post here on the Lip-sticking blog. Yvonne has been even busier. We’ve all been working on the BlogPaws 2010 West event which is taking place in Denver on Sept. 9-11.

The first BlogPaws 2010 event was held in Columbus, OH in early April. To help promote the event and get the word out about it we developed the BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes which offered two lucky winners a travel package to attend the event and three others free passes.

So for the Denver event we wanted to run another promotion, but wanted to do something a bit different. So yesterday we launched the BlogPaws West or Bust Video Contest. We’re again using the Wildfire Application which enables us to run this promotion both on our BlogPaws Facebook Page and well as off the BlogPaws website. It’s a great tool that allows you to run these type of promotions without having to host and build a database yourself.

The contest invites the pet loving community to submit a video that describes why they really need to get to BlogPaws West or Bust. The video must include the person who is submitting the video along with at least one of their pets and should be no longer than two minutes. So we’re hoping to get some very creative videos.

Submissions will be accepted up untill August 4th. Our panel of judges will review all the videos and select five finalists who will be announced on the contest website on August 12. We will then open the contest for public voting. The two videos with the most votes will receive the grand prize which is a travel package to the event. This includes round trip air transportation to Denver, three nights at the Grand Hyatt Denver, where the event is taking place, and a ticket to attend BlogPaws 2010 West. The remaining three finalists will receive free passes to the event.

Developing and managing this contest is part of my company’s Social Sweeps^TM interactive promotional services. These promotions combine the benefits of running a sweepstakes or contest with social media to help generate awareness and buzz! Social Sweeps promotions are highly measurable and can be very effective when integrated with the right incentive. By combining them with the right social media platform they can easily be shared enabling others to help spread the word and create buzz. 

Once someone enters the contest they then have the option of posting their video along with the fact that they entered the contest on their Facebook wall. This then shows up in the news feeds of all that person’s Facebook friends who can then chose to enter the contest or just view the entries. The participant is then asked if they would like to invite up to 6 of their Facebook friends who will receive a direct message from the sender  about the contest. Here’s an example of what the invitation says that I sent to six of my friends after I entered. Of course I’m not eligible, but I had to test it out. So this is really a great way to take advantage of the viral nature of social networks.

So I invite you visit the contest and since I know we have many pet lovers that read this blog, we’d love to have you submit a video. If not come back on August 12 to view the finalists and cast your vote.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

If you haven’t heard yet, Simple Truths for Women Entrepreneurs will host the fabulous Yvonne DiVita (that’s me!) of the Lip-sticking Society on the MONDAY July 19th at 3:00 p.m. (PST). Along with four intriguing, insightful and well-informed women entrepreneur panelists from all across the country, we’ll discuss all things small business related.  (Think Oprah’s XM satellite radio show “Oprah & Friends” – only we’ll be talking about women-in-business stuff!) It’s the ultimate source for information AND inspiration for women entrepreneurs!

Don’t miss this month’s topic: Marketing for Women by Women.

Whether you market your product or services exclusively to women or you want to gain more insight on how to engage women consumers, you don’t want to miss Yvonne’s insight. (couldn’t have said it better, myself!)

The Lip-sticking brand, created in 2004 with the writing of Dickless Marketing, originally existed to promote “smart marketing to women online.” Today, the Lip-sticking brand stands for that and much more: supporting and promoting women’s issues, supporting and promoting women in business, supporting all small businesses via education and innovative ideas and sharing new technologies and tools.

If your target market is women consumers, don’t miss this show! We’ll discuss the power behind marketing and networking with women entrepreneurs!

Join us LIVE for interactive and dynamic small business dialogue as my POWERFUL and DYNAMIC panel of co-hosts and I share our insight, knowledge and experiences – after all, it’s a show FOR women just like you!  Here’s where you can learn more about the panelists and get info on how to listen in.

We hope to hear you on the call!