It's Our 1 Year Anniversary Blogging in Business

I was going to make an ever so long blog post about our 1 year blogging under Women Are Gamechangers as well as the ups and down. But I’ll save you the story, for now. I do want to share some obstacles we have overcome to be in a position where we are fully committed to creating Women Are Gamechangers into the premier connection company. Now you may ask what is a connection company?

No, we are not a referral company nor do we walk your business step by step. We, however, connect you to the right resources and people who can do that for you. Our company is based in teaching you how to network and all of our services will cater to that specific theme. You may ask how do we get paid for that. Well we don’t charge for connecting you. All connections are free. But know we don’t give them to you hundreds of times over. We host events, have select clients and have other services in the works to help you understand how to effectively network and connect with your ideal clients/customers.

Obstacle #1

We do have clients. These clients have agreed to us helping them gain exposure while connecting them to their target market and vendors. We now only take clients we pre-approve. We learned that not everyone can be our client and not everyone gets what we do. We will not do everything for your business to help you get off the ground. We’re not a marketing firm or do business development. We also cannot guarantee your overnight success via social media. It takes time to build a community and it took us a year to build the ah-mazing community we have. So walking away from several clients yes hurt financially but it only revealed that we are strongly committed to networking and do not want to dilute that.

Obstacle #2

Another obstacle is not doing as much research as needed on my ideal target clients. Yes, I spent a month researching blogging and social media before Women Are Gamechangers was created. But, I did not do enough research on networking as a business. I did some and we all know I got the idea from reading Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman for this business. But that was the research on the business side. Not everyone cares to learn what true networking and connecting is all about. So the lesson I learned from this obstacle was to stop doing what doesn’t align with networking and take inventory of the clients who do take advantage of our services. These are the clients who understand what we are doing and know we will help them use networking to open more doors for their business.

Obstacle #3

The last obstacle I want to share is understanding your finances should be taken serious. As a start up, I went to every event I was invited to. I wanted to get our name out there in the worst way. I did not think of the gas, time, energy or finances it took to attend 4-6 events per week. Yes, per week. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. And that has led me to rethink how I spend Women Are Gamechangers money. Every event is not ideal for everyone. I went with the idea to meet new people. Well most of the events did not have my ideal clients nor where they that interesting to me. Lesson learned. I need to choose each event carefully that I attend. I need to watch the bottom line on my books so I don’t overspend in one area carelessly. Now I’m to the point that I’m unable to attend events I truly want to attend that are out of state. I’ve exhausted my finances in that area. So I have learned that I need to carefully evaluate each invitation I receive. If it’s not what aligns with our mission and I know my ideal clients won’t be there, it will not be an official Women Are Gamechangers event. I learned a hard lesson the expensive way. Always, always, always watch your bottom line in everything you do regarding your business.

These are the hardest, most expensive lessons I learned in our first year. Now we’re headed into year 2. We still have a few events that were already planned and we’ll continue with them. But we are evaluating what works and what doesn’t. 2013 will be the year you see us take Women Are Gamechangers to the next level. We’re in it, to win it. And doing our work (like Iyanla says, lol) will get us there.

***For today only: We are giving you a discount on your WAGC Bootcamp ticket. Use gamechanger as the code to register. End midnight tonight (9/19/2012)***