| When Laura Nesby, owner of Mor Mor’s Bistro in Poulsbo read our article celebrating retailers in the February issue of the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal, she called to say thanks and lament how much she missed talking with other women business owners.
She is not alone because women entrepreneurs in Washington State mean business, and a lot of it.
According to research conducted in 2006 by the Center for Women’s Business Research, there are an estimated 234,197 privately-held, 50 percent or more women-owned firms in Washington State, generating $44 billion in sales and employing 256,253 people.
I proposed to Laura we offer the 90 Minute Branding and Marketing Plan Workshop For Women, and she immediately offered to hold it in her restaurant. I contacted fellow entrepreneurs Dee Coppola, publisher of Westsound Home and Garden, and Laurie Brown, co-owner of Blue Sky Printing, and they became co-sponsors. Constance Gooding of the Historic Downtown Poulsbo Association enthusiastically agreed to help with promotion and we set a date for the women’s workshop.
On March 19, at 8 a.m., hot coffee and pastries courtesy of Mor Mors and with a full house of entrepreneurs, we distributed the 20-page workbook, single page marketing action plan and went to work. The goal: help these women business owners and entrepreneurs write a ‘simple, practical and affordable’ custom marketing action plan for their business or enterprise and get them back to work, with plan in hand, in 90 minutes. They do not have time for an all day workshop.
After working with more than 3,000 business owners and managers, in workshops with 70 or more, to working one-to-one in private consultations, the cry of ‘not enough time, too many marketing choices’ is heard over and over.
Our workshop solution is to suggest a tight focus, a ‘simple, practical and affordable’ plan that keys in to targeted customers, to best prospects, a plan based on making the point of difference clear, the marketing message consistent, the business brand name driven home by keeping a promise. These local women entrepreneurs are not alone in needing a simple plan and their challenges are not unique.
This is a fast paced, hands-on workshop where the focus is on selecting one key marketing tactic in each of six areas. We work on a branding promise, identify one customer retention step, look at how to improve sales, use advertising effectively, come up with a news information plan, discuss getting the buzz going using word of mouth and then discuss implementation of the plan, all on the smallest possible budget. Our mission in these workshops is to help small business owners learn to make good marketing decisions and we concentrate on helping them evaluate options, make good choices, think more like a marketer.
We see, over and over, small business owners, those charged with marketing and sales, need this all-important framework, an understanding of what marketing can and cannot do, what to expect when you invest in a marketing program (measurable results).
When they have the opportunity to do this woman-to-woman, so much the better. In 90 minutes, everyone develops a plan, a better understanding about how to think about marketing their business.
Then we typically take a break and have a lively question and answer, a chance to exchange views and ideas, compare notes and do what women business owners and entrepreneurs seem to really cherish: take the time to talk business, woman to woman.
I invited State Representative Christine Rolfes to join this post workshop discussion and she was quick to accept.
“I really honor the small business owners and especially working women who must juggle so much. One of the best parts of my job as a legislator is have the chance to sit with entrepreneurs, listen to their questions, ask for their opinions, offer what help and assistance we have. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to hear real-world entrepreneurs,” Representative Rolfes said. “Small businesses are the heart and soul of our local economies and are the key to building sustainable communities,” she said.
Among those 50 percent of privately held women-owners in our Poulsbo workshop were Julie Poston, owner of ReJuv Spa in Bremerton who reported her marketing challenges were setting a budget and maintaining it and found the workshop could get her ‘from point A to point B’. Better, she said, “I’m learning to think like a marketing person and that helps me a lot.”
Debbie Campbell of the Lemolo Market said the workshop helped her make specific plans and helped her focus on how best to allocate her marketing resources. “I am not a marketing person and I value this perspective,” she said.
Nancy Rees Austin of the Wolfe Law Office in Bremerton said sharing the marketing process with other women was very helpful.
The owner of Harbor Healing Center in Kingston, Nancy Knode, said the workshop and exchange of ideas was a great starting point in developing her marketing strategy.
And then the group talked business.
It was no surprise that the number one topic of discussion was the issue of health care, and how it is usually not affordable to offer it to employees, and the worry and heart ache that results from that. While attracting more customers, managing cash and employees, juggling the myriad demands of small business ownership are always an issue, nothing ignites discussion as much as affordable health care. It’s an important issue, clearly on everyone’s mind.
Being a successful entrepreneur in today’s fast-paced business world is not for the faint of heart. Every minute counts and marketing must be reduced to simple action steps, simple tactics that can be implements with the minimum amount of precious time and financial resources.
Our marketing workshop is just one of many resources offered to local entrepreneurs, local business owners, home based, retailers service companies and professionals who, more than ever, need strategies and tactics to maintain share of market when confronting so much information, the competition from national retailers and the growing global economy, beginning with 12 women entrepreneurs in Poulsbo, Washington on a sunny March morning.
(Editor’s Note: Patricia Graf-Hoke is a life-long entrepreneur. She started a Seattle newspaper at age 19, owned a large regional advertising agency, provided strategic marketing planning to hundreds of companies and is offering the ‘90 Minute Branding and Marketing Plan Workshop for Women.’ It provides one-to-one marketing planning and offers similar workshop for non profit organizations. She can be reached at pgh@sbmarketingpartners.com.)
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