Words That Work

Should women be as ambitious as men?

Leon Panetta put a sizeable dent in the gender gap for American women last week by announcing that the U.S. ban on women in combat positions will be lifted. Top military leaders were in accord with the decision, and there seemed to be very little opposition -- can Board seats, C-suite executive roles and equal financing for women-owned small businesses be far behind?  In this short video Tory Burch talks about how women entrepreneurs should find their passion and be just as ambitious as men:

 

 

Swedish business woman and global writer Catarina Alexon looks for answers to the question:  Should Women be as Ambitious as Men? in her reporting from Davos' World Economic Forum where for the first time a discussion was held on involving more women in economic decision-making.  Click here for the whole article:  via catarinasworld.com

 

Davos: Women are important to the world economy

In Davos this year the World Economic Forum, for the first time, had a discussion on getting more women into economic decision making.  Prominent women such as Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust, European Commissioner Viviane Reding, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and Saudi business leader Lubna Olayan took part. They discussed how the gender gap at the highest levels of business can be closed.

Their conclusion was that ambitious women are often regarded as aggressive. The Harvard president pointed out that’s because women are judged according to the stereotypes we grow up with. It was also said on the panel that successful women are frequently disliked by both men and women. Why? According to them it’s again all to do with  the stereotype of a woman. It’s hence essential that we move away from such old fashioned stereotypes.

Lubna Olayan pointed out that King Abdullah has now appointed women to 20 percent of the seats in the shura council. (that’s as close to a parliament they get in Saudi Arabia). Immediately the objection was that the women were not qualified but appointed just because they are women. Their CV’s were published and that clearly showed that they were indeed qualified, not only highly educated but experienced as well.

We need more female business owners

Tory Burch who you watched in the video, started her company in 2004 and nine years later her clothes are sold in more than 800 stores all over the world.

She also leads the Tory Burch Foundation that offer mentorship and provide micro loans to women entrepreneurs. Her advice to female entrepreneurs is “don’t give up. There are so many times it seems insurmountable but keep the hard work going. It’s worth it and you and your hard work can make a difference”.

There is a need to make more woman start up their own companies and succeed. And get more women to sit on boards. Tory is not alone in having a foundation that makes a contribution in this respect. There are an abundance of such programs and with the European Union making it clear they want  to get more women into high level business it makes sense.

In the World Economic Forum panel discussion, Viviane Reding talked about how the EU first tried to persuade companies to get 40% women in leadership positions on a voluntary basis. Nothing happened. The EU hence legislated to get talented, educated women into top positions in companies. The law is intended to allow women to make a breakthrough into business, taking into account that 65% of university graduates in Europe are women. The first year saw 3% more women in senior positions in corporate Europe.

About the Author:

If you are ready to move your career or business vision forward, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you explore the new media marketing solutions for personal or small business branding, and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for advancing executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

 

Related articles

Davos: Women leaders call for gender equality

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg attacks gender stereotypes at work

Davos women diminished as male discussion skips essential views

Equality matters to women in the military: Guest opinion

Map: Which countries allow women in front-line combat roles?

Why Coach K “Coaches Like a Girl”

Coach Mike Krzyzewski has won four NCAA college basketball titles as the head coach of Duke, a gold medal as an assistant coach of the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona and a gold medal as head coach of the U.S. mens team in the 1998 Olympics in Beijing.  He’s a servant leader who works on making his players feel connected to him and to one another. In an article in the New York Times magazine writer Mike Sokolove says he coaches "like a girl" because Coach K cares about people and results.

To learn more about Coach K’s leadership style check out this New York Times Magazine  article entitled “Follow Me.”   You’ll learn how a guy from an all boys Catholic high school, West Point and the U.S. Army evolved a very effective leadership style that is not command and control, but mimics women leaders' focus on relationships.

 

Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for advancing executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Could the Key to Innovation be as Simple as String?

Even though I'm not in a technology business, being a communications coach requires staying up to date on the latest in personal technology.  So this morning I was watching an informational video about "the cloud."  I'm sure you have heard of it and are using it, whether you know it or not.

The story took viewers to a huge building, down a long hall, and into an enormous room where the ceiling was ribboned with thick yellow cables.  The reporter explained that inside these yellow tubes were thousands of tiny cables that carried the movie you were downloading, or the family photos or new business plan you uploaded to "the cloud."  As he spoke, in the background, was a technician tying these huge thick cables to a support grid on the ceiling with -- I kid you not -- string.  The kind of string that used to hold together a brown paper package from grandma that came in the mail.  The kind of string you could hold carefully, anticipating heaven, when your mom let you carry the big white box home from the bakery. 

What genius recognized that very flexible old-fashioned grandma string was just the thing to shore up gazillions of streaming bits on the cloud's data highway?  It made me laugh, and seemed an apt metaphor for the way we work and live now.  Only the gifted few truly understand the technologies that connect us to information and people that make the unimaginable possible.  Can't remember who starred in a film you must tell a friend about?  In 2 seconds Google will remind you.  Looking for a particular kind of part or packaging for an ingenious new product?  Search engines will lead you there.  Boutique businesses and small restaurants use social media to quickly create an avid following .  A company called Lumos Labs draws together cutting edge neuroscience from all across the globe to create interactive brain games anyone can play over the internet and improve their mental agility.

These amazing accomplishments and many more are brought to us by innovative working teams and that's where the grandma string comes in.  Leaders who establish a culture of old-fashioned integrity and lead with heart open the way for innovation and creativity at their companies. The ability to understand the needs and emotions of others that we began to learn in kindergarten is key to the emotional intelligence that makes business relationships work and draws the best performance from teams.  EI training was "trendy" for awhile, but it's not something you learn once.   Those skills have to be polished regularly.

I worked with two clients this past week who have never used LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter and don't really want to, ever, but feel they must.  We are being pushed and prodded daily to learn new tech skills for the office and home -- at least at home we can call on our kids for help!  Happy as we are to acquire a new smart phone or iPad app, I'm guessing almost everyone feels intimidated and overwhelmed with the constant waves of Social Media sites, gadgets, and software upgrades just when you were getting comfortable with the old version.  I think grandma string might just be the key to staying connected and balanced.  i.e. expanding emotional intelligence, using the principles of servant leadership, modeling fair and ethical behavior even when others cave, building networks of mutual support -- these are the old fashioned things that tie us together, create environments of trust and nurture the kind of innovative risk taking and collaboration that leads to break-through ideas.  Good ol' string -- don't leave for work without it.

 

About the Author:

If you are ready to move your career or business vision forward, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you explore the new media marketing solutions for personal or small business branding, and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for advancing executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

 

A CEO Navigates the Twitterverse

It's the rare executive who doesn't think LinkedIn is a good idea these days, but what about other Social Media?  Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube just fluff sites for shallow strivers with little import for serious business relationships?  I believe the jury is still out on this question, but found these comments from the CEO of ING Canada to be very enlightening -- particularly the idea that Social Media gives ING a platform to share their brand in, as he says, a real-time and authentic way that competitors can't copy!  That opportunity to connect with prospects in a more authentic way, to get them a few steps closer to doing business with you,  that is the real power of social media.

Peter Aceto, CEO of ING Direct Canada, has been using social media for three years as a means of establishing relationships with consumers and building the ING brand organically. He recently spoke with the Financial Post:

Q: Why did you feel it was important for you personally to get engaged in social media instead of just having an institutional Twitter handle?
A: One of the reasons I’m active and continue to do it is because I enjoy it and I can see there are tangible benefits to our organization. We felt social media was a fantastic place for us to invest time and money where our competitors wouldn’t be able to copy us. We knew social media was a place we could gladly go and allow people to see the inside of our business in a real-time and authentic way.

Q: Part of the reluctance among executives to engage in social media is the fear factor. They’re afraid to relinquish control to consumers of how their brand is seen and shaped. Why aren’t you scared?
A: I won’t say there isn’t some concern. Our view is that your brand is whatever your customers think of you and they make the decision of what they think of you based on their interactions with you. Marketing is one thing, but the key to branding is delivering on the promises you make every day. And if you deliver on those promises then people will believe what you tell them. I think the challenge for most businesses is that you have to look inside your organization first to decide how social you really can be. People are going to call you out on the things you’re not doing well, and you have to be willing to confront those issues and even change some elements of your business… and if you’re not willing to do that, then social media can be a problem.

via business.financialpost.com

About the Author:

If you are ready to move your career or business vision forward, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you explore the new media marketing solutions for personal or small business branding, and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for advancing executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

 

 

Small Business + Internet = Marketing Miracle

I know you are busy, but pause for a moment and consider the miraculous history of marketing and branding for business, because I think it is going to help you.  The very first Internet domain name was registered just 27 years ago in 1985, by a company called Symbolics.com.

ARPANET, which came online in 1969, was its grandfather,  connecting large computers at four universities in California and Utah; it was only used by computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians. By 1972, ARPANET users had a form of email, and file sharing in 1973. ARPANET expanded and inspired other networks over the next decade as more and more academic and government institutions developed and adopted this networking technology.

Each had a string of numbers as their address which were hard to remember and update if the site moved to a different IP — Internet Protocol — address.  So domain names like maggieanderson.com were a BIG advance.  Associating IPs with a domain name made it easier for people to memorize, and changing the  location of a site only required changing the numerical address associated with that name -- the name remained the same and the internet address could become part of the company's brand. The early domains were tech companies like IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard.

Here's a startling timeline: In 1985, only six companies held .com domains. By 1992, there were fewer than 15,000. In 2010, there were 84 million separate domains, pouring $1.5 trillion USD into the global economy.

Less than three decades ago only large technology companies and research universities could afford the investment in internet technology.  Today one third of people across the globe -- including the remotest corners of the Outback, the Andes mountains, the poorest African villages, seldom visited islands of the Pacific -- one third of all people in the entire world, over 2 billion,  use the Internet, could obtain a domain name and begin their own company marketing their products and services for minimal cost over the internet. The "glass half empty" types will see this as competition run amuck, of course.  But if you are in the "glass half full" camp it signals an opportunity for global prosperity that lifts all boats.

To put the astounding development in marketing communications the internet provides in perspective...

In 1041, movable clay type was first invented in China.  Over four hundred years later in 1450 Johannes Gutenberg made his first printing press, and print completely dominated communication for the next 500 years, until radio and television began to capture viewers' attention.  I grew up a couple of miles from the   KDKA Radio tower East of Pittsburgh which was the first radio station to play music over airwaves on November 2, 1920.  The first television program?  Hit the airwaves in July 1941.  In the 900 years from 1041 to 1941, anyone who owned a business and wanted to promote it in any of these media -- print, radio or tv -- had to be doing quite well, because the cost of these technologies was high. Marketing communications took a significant percentage of revenue.

By contrast, the internet took less than 30 years to expand access to its vast communication network from exclusively well-funded corporations and universities to any entreprising individual operating from their basement or kitchen table, gondola, thatched hut or yurt. 

If you don't feel you are fully leveraging the marketing miracle of the internet -- with a Website, blog, social media and email platform -- I'd love the opportunity to spend a day with you to come up with a strategy for how to boost your brand visibility.  My VIP One Day is designed to help you clarify your niche,  capture attention and come away with a strategic plan to bring in your ideal prospects.  If you are doing fine, I'll be honored if you pass on my information to an entrepreneur or executive who could use a short-term partner to bring new perspective to their branding or marketing.

About the Author:

If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

 

 

Over 55? You've Got the Small Business Edge!

Ah spring is here!  We're outdoors and more active... with renewed energy... and new optimism.  If you are over 55 you may not have bounced back yet from this recession, or you are happy to have a job that is paying much less than what you were making.  It's a good idea to remember that your personal resources are no less than they were when you successfully landed just the right job or client.  It's more of a challenge now, hard to maintain your balance and optimism?  Maybe, but your strengths are still there, and undiminished.  It's only your perspective, the thoughts you wake up with and carry through the day,  that create hurdles to soaring.  Here's something I hope will boost your optimism from a recent article in the Harvard Business Review:

...for 11 of the 15 years between 1996 and 2010, Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity of any age group. The National Journal reports that 9 of the nation's 15 million small-business owners were born before 1965.

These findings fit another area of research as well, which shows that creativity and innovation spike for many in later life. In his study of artists, University of Chicago economist David Galenson has shown that genius clusters into two categories. Conceptual geniuses tend to do their best work while young, producing breakthrough ideas early in their careers. But experimental geniuses, by contrast, need a long period of time to reach their peak, moving forward by trial and error, slowly accumulating the elements that will be integrated into their fully realized work.

Why Older Entrepreneurs Have an Edge - Marc Freedman - Harvard Business Review  via blogs.hbr.org

So, unless you are one of those boy or girl geniuses like Mozart who completed a magnum opus in your 20's, you've got the edge.  Get back out there and find it.

Wishing you your best work yet...  Maggie

 

About the Author:

If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

David Petraeus on Optimism

"A pessimist sees a challenge in every opportunity; an optimist sees an opportunity with every challenge."  This is one of General David Petraeus' favorite Churchill quotes.

Petraeus has an indefatigably positive attitude, and he lives this admonition to others: give energy – don’t be an "oxygen thief" – doing so through praise and encouragement, mentoring and example, all the while ensuring that he conveys forthright assessments and reports to those above and below.

The mantras he uses in his counterinsurgency guidance are also useful: live our values; be the first with the truth; in the absence of guidance, figure out what it should have been and execute aggressively.

These are values-oriented leadership principles for CEOs, line workers and even parents dealing with their own insurgents (toddlers) at home says Paula Broadwell, author of All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, The New York Times bestselling biography about one of the most transformational military leaders of the past 20 years.

 

Quoted from Womenetics, February 16, 2012   http://www.womenetics.com/

How Ideo Revamped The Common Mattress For Sealy, And Made It Stand Out

An article in Fast Company revealed how Sealy revamped its business by changing old perceptions about its mattresses.  The challenges of this established brand are surprisingly similar to yours, and who knew the mattress factory could be a source for so many good ideas.

If you’ve ever walked into a mattress showrom, you know that the only way to buy a mattress is to lie down on it. For the most part, they all look the same--like flattened marshmallows.

That’s also your challenge, right?  How do you convince a customer to pay for a service before they see the difference you can make in their organization?  How do you differentiate your services from other firms like yours so you don't look like just another flattened marshmallow?  A client in a firm with very specialized insurance brought up the issue just this morning.  The word insurance is barely out of her mouth when she can see the listener start to glaze over, because they assume they know what she does. Bombarded as we all are with opportunities, we have to shut out as many as we can quickly, or be totally overwhelmed.  Sharpening your message is the key to cutting through those assumptions, to let people know what is different about what you offer and how it will solve a problem or a need they actually do have.  That message needs to build from a simple, clear beginning, with dime, not dollar words -- becoming more detailed and complex only when the listener signals what interests them.

The iconic design firm Ideo did a successful refresh of Sealy’s mattress collection. “Like a lot of solid, long-term brands, they eventually lost their drawing power,” says Michael Hendrix, an associate partner at Ideo’s Boston office.

Even great brands eventually lose momentum if they don't change to improve performance.  More importantly you have to consistently communicate what's new in a way that maintains a positive perception about what you do.  Having descriptions on your Website is not enough, even if they are well-worded. 

[Ideo added] extra features like a wraparound handle for easy lifting and a rubber surface on the bottom of the top mattress to grip sheets and keep them from creeping up over your feet. To further differentiate Posturepedic from the sea of mattresses in Sleepy’s, Ideo used color, a light blue for the foundation and white for the top comfort layer -- inspired by the classic light-blue men’s shirt, and white was chosen to evoke fluffy, fresh clouds.

Often we make the mistake of making big changes to stir things up, and don't put enough focus on the communication about them, and it needs to be the opposite.  If you can step back and look objectively at your self, your company, your services and products, the way Ideo did for Sealey, and make small refreshes that actually fill a need for customers, then doubly focus on the messaging, you'll have more visibility for less effort -- just what we all need for our non-stop working lives!!

In the end, a lot of the design work came down to figuring out ways to make the benefits visible to the consumer. “A mattress is kind of ironic: It’s a black box...” Hendrix says. “The key is to bring features into a bed that a customer can see to understand the value.”

Prospects see value through a lens of what they need.  They have their own problems to solve, and if your messaging speaks to their needs, and shows how you can provide a solution, suddenly you are no longer perceived as a flattened marshmallow, but a fluffy source of comfort -- and who doesn't love that? 

                If you would like to read the article in Fast Company you can find it here:   www.fastcodesign.com

 

About the Author:

If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

Turning Marketing Strategy Into Action

To me getting clear about strategy is the most important challenge business owners face ... John Jantsch said this in a recent post.  His Duct Tape Marketing blog is very practical, and so useful for Small Busines Marketing.  I say this in my blog and my programs, but John says it so well!  I’m going to challenge them first to look inward. I’m going to ask them to choose a marketing strategy that is infused with who they are, why they do what they do and how to use that story to attract opportunities and clients.

While every industry has a unique set of clients, a unique language, maybe even an unusual distribution model, the way that customers come to know, like and trust them is fundamentally the same.

John goes on to outline a core set of practices that every business can use to communicate their simple, clear, marketing strategy.

Build and tell stories –

Sell by teaching –

Become a platform –

Reverse the experience – this one is especially interesting to me.  It's worth looking at the whole article for this and other genuinely useful marketing ideas for small business.

To borrow from a well-worn bit of wisdom, if you want to deliver an exceptional experience you must start with the end in mind. You must begin the entire process by considering what you will do 90 or 180 days after you make a sale and then work backwards to the point where you first meet.

via www.ducttapemarketing.com

Wabi Sabi Small Business Marketing Ideas

What's holding your business back?  Some days its cranky prospects and customers; occasionally it's employee, supply chain, or financing issues that get out of control -- but some days it's just YOU.  Successful executives, it is sometimes said, are motivated by a grandiose belief in their own abilities;  successful entrepreneurs, by a desire to prove their abilities to themselves and the world. 

Many great entrepreneurs come out of dysfunctional families, UC Berkeley's Lean Launch Pad  professor Steve Blank points out.  Their chaotic childhoods help them learn a resilience that works well in the chaos of a start-up:

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone, Blank says —investors, customers, friends, family, and employees, to name a few. The founder takes his or her vision of the opportunity—one only he/she may see...to execute against all rational odds ... product development and customer input collide, the facts change, the business model changes, and stuff happens.

Anyone who can’t manage chaos and uncertainty, isn’t totally oriented for action, and has no sense of urgency, is in the wrong business.

via www.inc.comDysfunctional Family? You'd Make a Great Entrepreneur | Inc.com

There's a downside when things start going well, though.  If you are energized by crises and uncertainty, success can seem boring.  You may not even recognize it when you come up with new ideas, or disrupt the smooth flow of your business, because chaos is your comfort zone.  Currently I'm watching one entrepreneur whose genius I've admired completely dissassemble a successful brand and head in a new direction.  In his wake is a tribe of loyal, committed customers scratching their heads wondering what services the company offers now and where do I fit?  A woman who has been extremely successful brokering national media for her organization advertises new services so often it's hard to tell which is what -- creating a paralyzing confusion for prospects and leaving existing subscribers in the dust.  Both are brilliant entrepreneurs who seem to be getting in the way of their own success because they don't think they are good enough, or growing fast enough.  As marketing strategies for small business, they seem disruptive.  Hopefully their brands and messages will get clear before their customers wander off.

Want to look at your own company in this light? Here are some questions to get your thinking started:  Look back at interactions with your employees or contractors -- are you allowing them to do their jobs, or micro-managing and getting in their way?  Do you hire experts to coach or advise you in areas that are not your expertise, then ignore or argue with their advice?  When things are rolling along smoothly, do you tend to come up with a new idea or new direction before your customers, contractors or employees are ready?  You might need a good dose of Wabi Sabi.

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese notion that beauty is not perfect. It is seeing the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete -- modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional... So what is Wabi Sabi for a small business?  Taking a deep breath, recognizing and accepting with humility your own imperfections and those of your team.  Seeing them as the right kind of imperfection, like asymmetry in a bowl that shows the handmade craftsmanship, instead of a perfect, but soul-less, machine-made bowl. Celebrating your successes with the team who helped you achieve them and dialing back on striving for the much more you think you "should" be achieving.  "Sabi" in Japanese, is the kind of beauty that can come only with age, such as the patina on an old bronze statue.  For you it means recognizing that building a business requires time -- 3-5 years say the retired C-level advisors at Score.  Discounting yourself, your support team and your business for not achieving great things within that first five years only drains away your momentum.  Whether you are a sole practitioner, leader of a large organization, or doing small home business marketing, Wabi Sabi is that balance point between keeping your operation energized and getting your anxieties and need to be seen as brilliant out of the way.

 

For more on Wabi Sabi look at:  Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren ISBN 1880656124

or http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WabiSabi

 

About the Author:

If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how: