She then turned her side hustle into a bonafide business, one that actively supports women and gives other companies the opportunity to join in the movement. How was she able to make the switch? According to her, these 5 steps were absolutely key to her growth. Read on to see how you can learn from her success.

1. Define your key vision

Deehring began with business canvases. Canvases are one-page visuals of your business model, which can describe, design, challenge, and drive your vision. A typical template organizes your plan into nine areas: key partners, key activities, key resources, value propositions, customer relationships, channels, customer segments, cost structure, and revenue streams. This was Deehring’s foundation, or blueprint, to support her dream.

“When you launch something,” Deehring says, “You’ve got to put it out there, then make pivots and adjustments along the way.”

With her business model in hand, she focused next on finding business partners and vendors.

2. It takes many “No’s” to get to “Yes”

In the beginning, vendors turned her down. They gave her two reasons: First, her company was unheard of and incredibly small. Too small for them to believe in. So she responded by crafting a marketing strategy. She approached vendors with a clear picture of how Bump Boxes would become the top pregnancy subscription box service in the country. She gave them the opportunity to not only partner with her, but to get involved in the vision by joining the board. Because she learned from the ‘no’s’ — rather than get crushed by them — she was able to communicate her vision clearly, and vendors became eager to jump in.

The next step was funding.

3. Plan for financial hurdles

Gender disparity in financing is real. The numbers paint a dismal picture, even after the slow progress we’ve made through the gender equality movement. These stats come from the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee:

• Women only receive 4.4% of small business loans, even though they own 30% of small businesses.
• Those that are approved are only receiving 16% of conventional loans and 17% of SBA-backed loans.
• Women only receive 7% of venture funds.

Even when women get approved, they receive smaller sums than men. We have to work harder to get the same access and opportunities as male entrepreneurs.

Deehring began by investing in herself and bootstrapped in the beginning. She also “took on a very small angel round,” she said. When you invest in yourself, she found, you take on “even more of a sense of ownership and urgency.” You focus on growing and scaling with this in mind, questioning each investment — whether that’s the direction you want to go, and whether the bet is one you’re willing to take.

“In starting your own business, there is a lot of sweat equity up front, and you may have to work a couple jobs to get things off the ground to sustain you or your family. But if you want something bad enough, you can make it happen regardless!”

For other women founders and small business owners, she shares this important advice: “CASH IS KING!”

“Pay attention to your cash and where it is going. Make sure you never run out and you have a reserve for a rainy day. You can’t grow and scale without it. It can be your best friend — or your worst enemy.”

4. Stand out in the crowd

Deehring built an uncommon aspect into her business plan for Bump Boxes that allows businesses to support working moms in a unique way: a corporate gifting service. A larger number of businesses today are doing better at supporting working moms by providing them with more assistance than the required-by-law break time for pumping. Businesses must stand out in the current culture in order to attract qualified candidates such as working moms. The Wall Street Journal reported that 3.4 million people quit their jobs in April 2018. People in the current workforce feel confident that they can find bigger and better. For working moms, better means companies that support families and a positive work-life balance. When a corporation adds the Bump Box gifting service to their list of benefits, it may help them stand out as a firm with unique maternity wellness perks.

“We’ve worked with so many companies, both nationally and internationally, to help them create a connection with their expecting parents,” Deehring explains.

An extensive study by Peterson Institute for International Economics and EY analyzed nearly 22,000 global, publicly traded companies, worldwide, and found that those that had 30% of women in leadership positions add 6% to their net profit margin. When businesses create an environment that supports women and specifically moves them up the ladder, it equates to financial success.

Bump Box service specifically creates an impact on employees, according to Deehring: through connection during a critical life event!

“By creating the connection,” she said, “you can increase employee retention and engagement extremely quickly, because you are there for the most pivotal point in their life: parenthood!”

5. Build other women up

Running a business in the pregnancy and baby space means that Deehring works with countless other mompreneurs. They’ve become part of her personal community. “We ask each other questions, help promote each other, and do what we can to help each other’s success in our industry.”

She believes in being a part of building women up and supporting their businesses. “It’s extremely important to send the ladder back down and help other women in an earlier stage with the knowledge you’ve gained along the way.” In this way, her story echoes the vision of HER Magazine: celebrating the contributions of women, learning from those who came before us, and lifting up those who follow after.

The post 5 Steps To Turn Your Side-Hustle Into A Full Time Business, According to Bump Box appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

“Nothing can be further from the truth,” Shelley Westman, Principal, Cybersecurity at EY said. “Cyber criminals today are well-funded, organized, and operate like a business.”

Cybersecurity, and other tech fields, are filled with misconceptions. And they are filled with gender biases, such as the image of a hacker in a hoodie, or the masculine language used in job descriptions. According to the Huffington Post, more than 800 cyber jobs used the term, “ninja,” when describing their possible candidates. What’s the image in your head of a ninja? Is it a man or a woman? For most people, the stereotype is male.

“We have to be careful that we stress the collaboration and teamwork required in cyber security — skills women in the workforce do extremely well,” Westman said.

Collaboration and teamwork matter in all industries, tech and cyber security included.

And women’s presence in these industries matter as well.

When you search online for “Women in Tech,” you’ll probably find events in your area that you could attend. Conferences are certainly helping make an impact bringing more women to be a part of the tech world, but we need to do more to help change happen. Interested in getting involved?

Here are seven organizations actively working to involve women and girls in tech. Consider how you might join in and support them in their incredible work!

1. Girls Who Code: The best place to start improving gender parity in tech is with the youth. This nonprofit focuses on teaching girls K-12 to code. Although coding isn’t currently part of the Common Core, or found on typical, standardized tests, most students can now find opportunities to learn and be involved through their schools. This organization’s focus is getting more girls involved as well. According to their website, they’ve reached almost 90,000 girls of all backgrounds in all 50 states.
2. 2020Shift: This organization creates opportunities for women to move into tech fields without the typical backgrounds. For instance, they have a Beginner’s Guide to UX/UI Design on their site, which is an area where the job expectations are expanding without the experienced applicants to fill them.
3. Codecademy: If you’re more of a self-paced learner and ready to take on coding when it’s convenient for you, this site is what you’re looking for. Here, you can learn to code for free, which will be an invaluable skill no matter the job as we use technology in every industry and every career.
4. Black Girls Code: As their name makes clear, this organization’s goal is to provide tech learning opportunities for young and pre-teen girls of color. Their mission from their website is “to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own future.”
5. AnitaB.org: This organization continues the vision of Anita Borg, a computer scientist who founded a digital community for women — and she did it back in 1987! Today, AnitaB.org “works with technologists in more than 80 countries, and partners with academic institutions and Fortune 500 companies worldwide.” Their focus is on helping women in tech succeed through connection, inspiration, guidance and organizations.
6. The National Center for Women & Information Technology: this non-profit focuses on increasing women’s participation in “computing across the entire ecosystem.” Their programs help in recruiting more women, retaining female employees, and providing advancement for women, starting in grade school and continuing throughout their careers. It’s an incredibly broad focus, but that means you may find the right fit for you in one of their many programs.
7. TechWomen: This worldwide organization is through the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, launched in June 2011. Their site explains that their intent is to provide “opportunities for women worldwide to participate in cutting-edge training, professional development and exchange programs, and pursue higher education.” You could find programs there to join networks, find a mentor, or connect with experts in public and private industries worldwide.

In addition to working with or joining these groups, women entrepreneurs are in unique positions to make an impact for women in tech. What can you do to be a part of this movement towards gender parity? How can you help?

Westman provides some excellent strategies.

“I think women and men lifting up women in the workplace is key in making sure employees overcome imposter syndrome. A good place to start is to make sure female employees have mentors and are fully aware of the contributions they make to their organization. However, I also think overcoming imposter syndrome will eventually need to come from within.”

The post 7 Organizations Supporting Women in Tech appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

I returned to work when my first son was six weeks old, dropping him off at daycare for nine hours a day, five days a week.

I was one of the lucky working moms, though. The company where I worked had a fairly family-friendly environment: private pumping rooms, hospital-grade pumps, onsite health clinic, onsite daycare, paid maternity, and still enough PTO days when I returned.

Even in that environment, it was stressful. I stressed about running out of meetings to pump. I worried about how many ounces I would get. I fretted over pumping in the car at a conference. I felt flustered about bringing a giant bag to work with me. I was frustrated when the pumping room was occupied during the only break I had. I felt plenty of anxiety about my goals: I wanted to pump and breastfeed until my son turned one.

A poster on the wall in one of the pumping rooms echoed the message that moms hear all of the time. It was a picture of a mom holding her sleeping baby. At the bottom, it read as follows:

“I want the best for my baby. I will give my baby mother’s milk for at least the first six months. I know giving my baby formula increases the risk of allergies, infections and visits to the doctor. My goal for a healthy baby is to breastfeed for one or two years.”

It’s really just a longer version of the commonly recited phrase, “Breast is best.”

But could I do this? Could I pump for six months? Could I make it for a year? Certainly not two! And if I didn’t, did that make it my fault if my baby got sick or had allergies? Thanks for the mom guilt, poster!

I vividly remember the day that the director of daycare called to tell me they didn’t have enough milk for my son’s bottles. I called my pediatric nurse practitioner for advice because, even though I regularly made serious decisions for a multi-million dollar software development project at work, I was worried about making the wrong decision for my son.

He began drinking both formula and breast milk.

I cried in the pumping room that day, knowing that I couldn’t possibly take more pumping breaks.

Working moms need all of the support we can get, from our spouses or partners, our bosses, our coworkers, other moms, and our own moms — anyone and everyone.

Kate Torgersen is the CEO and Founder of the company, Milk Stork, which supports pumping for traveling, working moms. She told me about her own stressful experience as a working mom, feeling overwhelmed as she tried to keep up with pumping and working simultaneously.

Her twins were eight months old, and she had a four-day business trip coming up. Her goal was also to make it to the one-year mark, but it had already been a struggle to get to this far — eight months in. Together, the three of them had worked through challenges such as tandem nursing, a tongue tie, latching problems, weight-gain issues, and relentless pumping. She wasn’t sure how she was going to manage four days away from them and still keep it up.

At the same time, she was committed to her career. Many women, when in similar situations, are forced to choose between the two — their family, or their job — because of a lack of support. Moms shoulder the weight of expectations. They have to be all in with kids, or all in with their career. Nobody gets to ‘have it all.’ If a working mom is a CEO, she doesn’t have enough time to be with her kids. If a mom stays home, she’s imploding her career and putting herself far behind with retirement, benefits, pay, and a chance at returning to the workforce.

We can do so much better for working moms. We can shut down these beliefs.

As Kate prepared for her business trip, she researched the logistics of providing enough breast milk for her twins for those four days. The best solution would be to ship it back, so she looked into making that happen.

“It was going to involve sourcing dry ice and shipping materials to my hotel room, and getting myself to a special FedEx shipping facility every day without a rental car,” she said. “It was too much to do on top of the conference and all of the pumping!”

This experience was the impetus for launching her own business a year later: Milk Stork. It’s the “first-ever breast milk shipping company for business traveling breastfeeding moms.”

Not only did Kate want something that would work for her, but she created a company with a mission to support working moms to succeed as the loving, caring provider of their kids — as well as hard-working career women.

Milk Stork provides services for shipping or bringing expressed breast milk home while traveling for business. They provide a letter that women can provide their HR that details the benefits of supporting working mothers better. Through their enterprise program, companies like GoDaddy and Athena Health offer Milk Stork as a benefit for employees.

Kate told me about the growth of her company, fueled entirely by word of mouth from mom to mom. “Moms have discovered Milk Stork,” she said, “and then shared it with their personal and professional networks—their friends, coworkers, family members, Mommy Groups online and in person, lactation consultants, pediatricians, etc.” The word is out.

Every week, Kate receives emails from working moms about how Milk Stork has helped them. She’s even had moms approach her to say thanks at the grocery store, or her son’s baseball practice, because she was wearing her Milk Stork hoodie. Milk Stork is the perfect example of moms supporting moms — because we really are all in this together.

The post Milk Stork: Make Every Ounce Count for Working Moms appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

We saw Tully.

I expected an adult comedy, but Karen, my doula, had warned me: the birthing community wasn’t posting rave reviews about this movie.

The trailers portrayed the humor: an exhausted mom passed out on the couch while her older children play in the curtains behind her; the dad spending his time gaming; spilled breastmilk; comparing a night nanny to a lifetime movie “where the nanny tries to kill the family and the mom survives and she has to walk with a cane at the end”; Marlo, the mom, taking her shirt off at the table and her fat postpartum spilling out.

Then Tully, the night nanny, walks in. The music switches gears and rolls in with happiness and hope.

The trailer then finishes off with another joke.

So yes: I expected a comedy.

It was…not a comedy.

In fact, this movie should probably come with trigger warnings for moms because of the constant baby’s cries and spilled breast milk! Also, maybe some reassurance that postpartum mood disorders are legit; moms need a massive support group; and a night nanny is practically a godsend for any mom, whether it’s her first or eighth child!

What I watched was a movie that was better in retrospect than it was while I watched it.

What I watched was a movie about the Haves and the Have-Nots.

What I watched was a movie that either missed the boat (by miles) on addressing postpartum mood disorders — or, in a roundabout way, dropped the message in our laps that Moms who Have Not don’t know where to go and don’t have access to the resources they need to handle the immense responsibility of caring for a tiny life.

Charlize Theron plays the mom, Marlo, who looks for help from a night nanny, Tully, played by MacKenzie Davis, when her life with her third baby steamrolls her. Her husband, Drew (Ron Livingston), fumbles through, helping with homework for the older kids, but staying hands off with the baby and retreating to his video games before bedtime.

Marlo is a Have-Not. Her husband is struggling to climb his career ladder. Their home is drab and dark. She’s barely put together, and wasn’t expecting to have a third child in her life.

Marlo’s brother, Craig (Mark Duplass) and his wife, Elyse (Elaine Tan) are some of the Haves, with money wafting through the air of their designer home. Their kids eat truffle mac and cheese in a separate area of the house with their nanny. It’s this brother who “gifts” Marlo a night nanny to congratulate her on the baby’s birth. Marlo’s lifetime movie response highlighted in the trailer simply shares the opinion of a mom who thinks, “Why can’t I take care of my own offspring myself?”

Initially, the night nanny feels like a true godsend for Marlo. As I watched, I started to relax as the cries of an infant in the middle of the night faded away, and the family woke to a clean house and homemade cupcakes on the table.

Then, things get twisted and uncomfortable. I squirmed in my chair. I stared at Karen next to me. She raised her eyebrows as if to say, “See? I told ya.” The plot seemed to take a serious dive into all of the reasons the film was rated R: language, drinking, adultery, and vulgar expressions.

The truth is, being a mom is beyond hard. It’s a struggle every day with glimpses of beauty and brief sleep thrown in.

Watching Tully was a bit like this. In the midst of it all, motherhood is uncomfortable: the midnight feedings, the dirty diapers, the laundry, the lost sleep, all of the times you question if you should do it like this book says or like that book says (I threw a sleep training book across the room. Sigh.). But when it’s over, when you look back and review the movie with the information you have at the very end, you can see the pieces come together and it all makes sense. When you have the opportunity to step out of the trenches and see the good people your kids are becoming, it’s more than worth it to get through the uncomfortable times.

In our Western culture, moms are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. We are strong, independent women who can pursue a career and have children, playing the role of being everything to everyone, from the long list of “careers” that Moms do, to being the strong woman in the boardroom.

And yet, as Paulina Porizkova, a Swedish immigrant and model, writes, “The American woman is told she can do anything and then is knocked down the moment she proves it.”

Many moms have told me, “It gets better.” They’re trying to offer perspective, which can never be handed off to another person. You have to gain it yourself, but it can be so hard — not just for mom, but for the whole family.

It’s always a struggle for a family to adjust. And when a night nanny or postpartum doula comes in, their role is to support healing and bonding within that family. They come to help the parents get sleep. They come so the parents know their babies are safe.

Tully is a movie about motherhood. I walked out of the theater thinking about all of the strategies I use to embrace motherhood and take care of myself. I walked out thinking these things — the things I wish I could have taught Marlo. Things like:

1. I need to talk about my struggles and NAME THEM. Hiding my hard times or skirting around the issues doesn’t benefit me or lead to getting help when needed.
2. I am not ashamed of telling people that I dealt with postpartum depression and anxiety with my kids.
3. It’s okay that I often question my ability to do this, to be the mom, to get through the day, or through the night, and try to give my kids stability, nourishment, safety, and love.
4. I need to better thank my husband for his constant support as my partner.
5. I need to ask for help because people can’t read my mind.
6. I need to hold on to my identity because I want my kids to see me as a person with hobbies, likes, and dislikes. It matters to me that they see me doing things that make me feel alive.
7. I am more than my body, after the physiological changes of growing, birthing, and nursing two children. And I will treat my body with love.
8. My kids are part of me, walking around with some of my DNA — and leaving some of their DNA in my body, from my brain to my heart to my kidney.

Motherhood changes you, but it doesn’t erase you.

Overall, if you want to give Tully the benefit of the doubt, then I recommend seeing the movie. But just be aware — it left me feeling disappointed in how they chose to portray motherhood. You’ll get what I mean at the very end. If you walk away thinking to yourself, “Wait! They can’t just fix it like that!” then you and I will definitely agree on something.

The post Tully: The Movie About Mothers Who Have And The Mothers Who Have Not appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

Stand up.

Speak up.

This is how we snag ourselves seats in corporate boardrooms, according to Sheila Ronning, CEO and Founder of Women in the Boardroom  (WIB). I talked to her about the most important thing women can do to be on a board, and those three directives were top on her list.

“They can’t just sit back and wait for corporate boards to come looking for them,” she says. “It takes more than a credit card.”

So what does it take? How exactly do we show up, stand up and speak up?

Show up

You start by doing the work. Work hard in your career. Add skills to your resume. Volunteer. Take on big projects. Work with diverse teams. Be involved in opportunities at work and in the community. Be a part of your industry.

As you do all of this, make sure you know and articulate what your value add is. It’s not a term that’s particularly common and it may have misconceptions, so let’s break it down by what it is, so you know how to articulate your value added activities.

Basically, it’s the tangible contributions you make to help your organization succeed, whether that’s your business, the company you work for, a group you volunteer with, or even your family. Your value add is more than getting tasks done. It’s about what you have done to make your group better.

If you’re looking to qualify for a promotion, you won’t get far by simply saying, “I’m doing a great job with finishing all of my projects on time. I’d like a raise.” But walk into the room and say, “I’m doing a great job on my projects and helped improved the process for completing monthly reports, which saved the company x amount of dollars, thanks to automating much of it.” Bam. You’ve got yourself more money.

In order to understand what your value added activities may be, ask yourself these four questions:

1. What have I done to help my organization save money?
2. What have I done that customers have loved?
3. In what ways have I increased sales?
4. Have I helped save time for people by improving processes?

With an understanding of your value add and the ability to articulate it, you can find boards that you are qualified for. This is all part of showing up.

Stand up

“Knowing who the people are in [your] network to reach out to, as well as when and how to reach out to them is crucial,” says Ronning.

Get out of your seat, out of your comfort zone, and connect with others. You have to put yourself in positions to make these connections if you want to have them. Are you attending industry events? Are you a part of groups within and outside of your organization? If it feels awkward to try and join something, start by volunteering. Offering your time and service makes it easy to feel okay about jumping into a group.

You can also check out these articles from HER Magazine, with more tips on building relationships.

• 5 people you need to take the next step in business
• How to cultivate community when you work from home
• Why female relationships are vital for your success
• The power of a mastermind group
• Not another Facebook group

Speak up

Be vocal about your willingness to serve and know your reason why. Ronning suggests asking the following questions to both define your why and to determine if you’re ready and able.

“What is your motivation for serving on a corporate board? Does the company you work with allow you to serve on outside boards? Are you willing to put in the time and effort it takes? In addition to knowing your value add, do you have a board portfolio?”

Reasons for your WHY

If you feel unsure about why you would want to serve on a board, why it matters, check out these statistics Ronning shared.

1. Companies with women on their boards are financially outperforming those with low representation, according to a census done by UC Davis of the 400 biggest public companies with headquarters in California.
2. According to Deloitte and the Alliance for Board Diversity, African-American women gained only 19 seats in Fortune 500 boardrooms between 2012 and 2016.
3. A PwC 2017 Annual Corporate Directors Survey reported 41% of respondents agreed that gender diversity was “very important” to bringing diversity of thought to a board. This was a higher response than results for age, board tenure, international background, and race.

Ronning also shared specific reasons that serving on a board an benefit you. Add these to your WHY list. “Those benefits could include the intellectual challenge of board service, the satisfaction of helping a company get to the next level because of your knowledge and gifts, the compensation, being connected to board influencers and connectors, or the enhancement to your resume or reputation.”

“You don’t get on a corporate board by attending an event,” she says.

So what are you doing today to show up, stand up, and speak up?

The post How To Get A Seat in the Corporate Boardroom appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

One of the tools that has had the greatest impact on my success has been a Kanban board. Here’s why it can help your business, what it is, and the basics of creating one.

To begin with, think of attention like a commodity. Whether you’re selling your business to clients, investors, potential employees, or yourself, you want to deliver your strongest message right away. Making it visual is a powerful way to tell your story. Would you rather read a lengthy post or a professional image? Think of a Kanban board like creating a professional visualization of your business processes. You’ll grab people’s attentions (including your own), and you’ll keep it, because you’re getting to the core of your business without inundating with details.

Prior to launching my own businesses in writing and the music industry, I spent a decade working in IT departments where I learned and certified in Agile methodologies. When I left that career, I launched into solo project work as an entrepreneur. I worked with and for others, but it wasn’t in the same context. As a former Certified Scrum Master, I considered myself an expert in Agile methodologies and they worked very well for software development teams. As much as I wanted Scrum to organize everything in my new career, it wasn’t the best match.

That was when this Scrum Master dabbled in another Agile methodology and grabbed onto Kanban.

Kanban is a Japanese term that means “visual signal” or “card”. Is roots come from the way Toyota managed production lines. Their process was merged with ideas from varying thought leaders, creating today’s project management methodology. It’s often referred to as a “just in time” method. For an entrepreneur, its values are its visual organization, its resource limitations, and its flexibility.

One of its tools is the task board, or ‘Kanban’ board.

1. What it isn’t: it’s not complex; it’s not minute in detail; it’s not a one-size-fits-all template; and it’s not set in stone.
2. What it is: it’s a visual representation of work as it progresses, from left to right; it’s organized by columns, representing a stage of the process; in its simplest form, it’s a set of cards, representing tasks, and it displays what state they are in.

An example of the most basic board would be made up of three columns: to do; doing; and done. The “doing” column would be narrow, a visual representation of limiting that column. You are only allowed to have a specific number of cards/tasks in progress at once. This limitation rule is a big deal for me. My personality is a “starter.” I get really excited about new ideas and jump in with a lot of energy. Then, when things get messy and I’m in the middle of the hard stuff, I am easily distracted by other shiny, new things. The requirement of completing my work before moving on keeps me focused and on-task better.

Once you have your basic board setup, you can add complexity to it as needed. For my board, I added swim lanes to further organize my cards into “weekly,” “monthly,” and “project.” There are a number of tasks that I always do each week as well as each month. Then, there are bigger tasks that are a one-time effort and those get dropped into “project.” For example, every week I send out an invoice for hours worked on a current project, which is (obviously) billed hourly. Monthly, I send an invoice to a different client for the content writing I’ve completed for them. Under “projects” are the jobs we hire in the local music industry. This is what works for me.

When Agile methodologies were widely adopted, it would have been a good time to buy stock in 3M. Project teams managed their work using post-it notes. Many teams continue that today, using the tangible paper and pen to organize and communicate their projects.

There are also many software tools available now. For me, I use a cork board hanging on my office wall for my high level task board. For more specific details, I create Trello boards. It’s a good tool that’s free to start. Other alternatives include Wrike, Taskworld, Monday, Asana, Basecamp, even Microsoft Project or Team Foundation Server.

My final advice is to revisit your board frequently.

Continual improvement is big with agile, but it doesn’t happen simply because you set up your board. It happens because you use it as a communication tool and you check in. When I was a Scrum Master with an effective team, our retrospective meetings became my favorite meetings. I mean come on; who likes any meeting?! I enjoyed them because they were effective. We created serious change, which led to real improvement. I wish every other team could have been privy to our meetings. They worked so well because we found the format that fit our team the best. I could write an entire book on how we got there, but there are already great books on retrospectives. Why did ours work so well? Everyone gave input, everyone voted on our biggest wins and hardest challenges, we then focused on only the hardest challenge to create a focused plan to improve in that area, and we finished with specific recognition, thanking team members.

Retrospect your board. Whether you’re using it with others or yourself, take the time to check in and ask these questions.

1. What’s working well?
2. What’s not effective?
3. How can I fix the things that aren’t working?

I’ve revisited my board and changed it. I used to have a “daily” swim lane. A daily review was a must-have with large teams, but I found that it was overkill for my solo work. I moved those tasks from cards on the board to scheduled items on my calendar. That’s what works for me.

One bonus bit of advice: if you need to add a little spunk, pizzaz, and enjoyment… give yourself some stickers when you move a card to done. It works in preschool and guess what? That kid is still inside of you! Give yourself some motivation.

The post Creating a Kanban Board for Entrepreneurs appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

Why Your About Page Matters

The About Me page is a marketing document. It’s purpose should be to attract people who are searching for you. They want to pay you money in exchange for a service or product. Your competition is fierce. You can’t afford to lose their interest if they’ve made their way to your site. Grab them and sell them on you and your business with this page.

How To Rock It

Begin with purpose

Before you write your content, answer these questions:

1. What’s the most exciting offer you have for customers?
2. What’s your purpose? What do you stand for?
3. Why are you the best person to offer these products or services?
4. What do you promise your customers?

Understand your audience

Know who they are and write for them. Whether you’re promoting yourself as a freelancer or your business, you can only build your brand well if you understand who you’re talking to. Start by understanding basic demographics. Do you cater to a specific age? Gender? Socioeconomic status? Now, dig deeper and pull out meaning for why the above persona wants to work with you. What quality are they attracted to in your business? How does it make them feel or look?

Make it about your customer

The easiest mistake to make writing your About Me page is to make it a list of your accomplishments. “Work with me because I’ve done this…” Don’t do that. Instead, turn it around and make it about your customer. What do your customers gain from working with you? Why should they buy your product or service instead of a competitors? Then, don’t simply list it, but explain it. Is your service “faster”? How? What does faster mean for the customer? Be specific. Try to imagine yourself as your customer, reading your site, and picture what questions come up. Answer those.

Share your story

We connect with stories. They grab our attention. Tie in strong visuals to your story. Use pictures of you and/or the real people in the company. Keep it relevant, though. If the number of pets you own isn’t pertinent to the business, leave it out.

Tell them what you want them to do

Give them a call to action. Give them clear instructions with what you want them to do. Tell them to check out your portfolio, contact you for a free consultation, order the latest product on sale, and so on.

Make it easy to connect

Provide your preferred ways to connect, whether through email, phone, or social channels.

Keep it brief

Last, remember to keep it brief unless you’re incredibly talented at keeping their attention!

Have you ever been to one of those sites that threw copy after copy at you, putting certain phrases in bold, and reiterating how life-changing their product is? I went to one of those the other day to sign up for a fitness challenge. I wanted something to give me a little spark as I prepared for the onslaught of newbies at the gym in January. However, getting through all of the junk text was such a turn off. DON’T DO THAT!

If you search “attention span” online, you’ll find a number of links referencing a Microsoft study that determined our ability to focus had dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2017. Clever copywriters compared that to the average attention span of a goldfish, which is nine seconds. The article headlines were great, comparing our social media obsessed world to tiny, scaled vertebrates swimming around in glass bowls.

But, when you dig a little deeper, there’s an excellent story by the BBC that busts this myth. What it comes down to, really, is whether you CARE to spend your attention on the site in front of you.

Referring back to the fitness challenge I wanted to sign up for, did I care about all of the stories of the others who tried out that program? Did I care about whether I had “bigger and more important things to do with [my] life than worry about the size of [my] thighs”?

Guess what? I totally didn’t.

Guess what else? I had to scroll through 21 paragraphs of that before I found the “next steps” section. Did I read any of it? No! Not until I started writing this article and went back to see what kind of stuff they filled those paragraphs with.

And then, get this! Do you know what the next steps were? I’m not even kidding here, people. Step 1: watch your inbox for “an email introducing the day’s activities.” Step 2: Have somewhere to write it down. It was 31 paragraphs total in order to tell me: “The challenge starts within the week and get yourself ready by having a place to write things down.”

If you create an entertaining About Me page, with clever graphics and relevant information, people will read through the end, whether it’s four paragraphs or 31.

This article originally appeared in our SPRING 2018 Issue — read it for free here!

The post Hitting it out of the park with your website About Me page appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

“Humans don’t mind hardship,” Sebastian Junger writes in his book, Tribe. “…in fact, they thrive on it. What they mind is not feeling necessary.” When you feel like you’re struggling, you might ask, “Does my business matter? Do I matter?”

If you’re overwhelmed, frustrated, or feeling down about running a business, it’s quite possibly rooted in the pressure of running a one-woman show. It’s all on you. This often equates to working long hours, juggling multiple projects, feeling too overwhelmed to come up with new ideas, and forgetting to take time for yourself.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to build your tribe. Every business owner needs to be a part of at least one tribe.

Junger’s book takes an in-depth look at the subject of war veterans and PTSD, showing how some of their struggles stem from the lack of a tribe when they return. It’s a stark contrast, as he saw throughout his career as a war journalist, to the tightness and “tribeness” that men and women experience while on duty.

Reading this book, I couldn’t help but resonate with Junger’s points. I realized that tribes have been the key to my own successes — throughout every step of my journey.

Nearly twenty years ago, I finished high school with perfect academic scores. I went on to a good university with an academic scholarship, but transitioning to college classes was hard. As I struggled through my first semester, I realized I did better in classes where I had people to study with.

My second semester, I enrolled in 17.5 credits, 4.5 more than the previous semester. Let’s feel challenged, hey? My classes included an intense 6-credit Spanish class, along with Biology, History, Religion, and Karate. If you ever take a tough semester of classes, take karate — excellent outlet!

I went in with a game plan. I found people. I found tribes. For Spanish, I teamed up with a study buddy, plus I spent time with teachers’ aides in the school’s language lab (I also watched episodes of the Simpson’s in Spanish. Talk about immersion, right?). For History and Religion, I joined study groups and signed up for the classes with friends and roommates.

I struggled with Biology, because I was alone there. I failed to reach out to another classmate or two and create a tribe. Biology, as it turned out, was my only C that semester.

After that, I was pulled away from school and lived at home for a year and a half. When I finally returned to college, I earned four C’s and dropped out of two classes. The following semester, I had two D’s and a C. The pattern continued until I was on academic probation and threatened with expulsion.

I needed my tribe.

I sought out an English professor who helped connect me again. I recovered and graduated a few semesters later, eventually going on and earning a master’s degree, graduating from that program with honors.

Many times, you learn the hard way what you need to succeed.

Three years ago, as I prepared for a career transition from working as a Business Systems Analyst to starting my own businesses in writing and music contracting, I knew what I needed to set up for myself. I worked with my spouse to create our game plan, which included creating very specific tribes. These covered both business support areas as well as personal interests. And guess what? They’ve worked.

Tribes matter.

They matter even more when you’re going it on your own as an entrepreneur.

Junger writes that “human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered ‘intrinsic’ to human happiness and far outweigh ‘extrinsic’ values such as beauty, money, and status.” These are the three pillars of the self-determination theory: autonomy, competence, and community. Who do you have in your community?

Sometimes the hardest part about this is finding your tribe. Try attending conferences, taking a class in your industry, or joining online groups like the HER Circle VIP Lounge. Join a sports team or attend a meetup — put yourself out there. When looking for tribes, you’ll need to kick shyness to the curb. When you meet others you’d like to connect with, summon the courage to ask. How? Simply remember this: people love hearing that someone respects and admires them! So be bold — and connect with someone you admire.

Click here to learn more about HER Circle

The post Why Your Tribe Matters appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

If you’re looking for a trait that can help you succeed in business, it’s this, according to Dr. Jody Foster and Dr. Michelle Joy.

Drs. Joy and Foster are the authors of The Schmuck in My Office: How to Deal Effectively with Difficult People at Work. Joy and Foster have strong backgrounds in psychiatry. Foster is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Joy works as a psychiatrist in outpatient clinics, emergency rooms, court rooms, and jails. They’ve seen a broad range of relationships over the span of their careers. After meeting and working with a lot of frustrated workers, they knew they wanted to write a book about dealing with “schmucks”.

Have you ever had one of those days where you don’t think you can handle another frustrating conversation with a difficult coworker?

Have you ever struggled to deal with your own “schmuck” in the office?

One of HER Magazine’s goals is to champion and support women in business. There are enough hurdles for women to overcome in our industries so when we encounter schmucks, it can feel even more frustrating. How should you deal?

Start with honesty.

Be honest in how you asses the problem. Step back and try to remove yourself from the emotions of the relationship. You need to communicate problems in a direct, but non-confrontational way. If you’re wrapped up in negative emotions, you can’t do this. It may feel frightening or challenging to take this step. Joy and Foster explained that when we’re afraid to do this, we “let things form and norm into festering office places full of dysfunctional behavior.” Instead, it’s necessary to use “clear communication and early intervention based on honesty.” Your goal is to move to a more efficient and calmer environment.

Have you read our Winter issue yet? Access it for free by clicking here. 

Be honest in how you view yourself. “The successful worker will be able to ask herself what she might be contributing to the problem and take some responsibility for working to make the office a better place.” If the “schmuck” is particularly bad, this can be an incredibly difficult step to take. Take note of this important advice from Joy and Foster: “there is almost always something each of us can do if we make an honest assessment of our workplace relationships.”

Our careers will always be built on relationships. Tools that can help us create strong ones and handle the bad ones well are valuable and their book includes these. Here are a few of the highlights of great tips I received from interviewing the authors. Find more information by visiting their site, www.schmuckinmyoffice.com.

1. Evaluate yourself. “No matter what the problem is, we ask that readers look inside to find at least part of the solution.”
2. Find empathy. “…the bad actor… is struggling with their own problems.”
3. Listen. “Time and time again it’s about listening for what any person is worried or anxious about and how that makes them difficult to be around.”
4. Be flexible. “Our whole approach revolves around figuring out how to work with difficult people based on what their flavor of bad behavior is.”
5. Support each other (especially other women!). “Women workers feel they should be more supported by other women and end up surprised and hurt when they aren’t.”
6. Keep learning. “It’s about understanding other people, which is a skill most everyone can work on—even psychiatrists.”

The hardest part about dealing with “schmucks” may be recognizing our own part in the relationship, but if our focus is on continual self-improvement, there are many great tools for doing this. In recognizing our roles in bad relationships, we can also recognize our own capabilities. We have the capability to listen. People want to be heard. Even the “schmucks” want somebody to listen. Can you do so with the intent to understand?

The post Six ways to deal with toxic relationships in the workplace appeared first on HER Magazine ™.

Amy Cuddy is on my list of “famous people I’d like to have lunch with”. Have you seen her TED talk?

For over 15 years, she studied the first impressions we leave on people. This is NOT an area in which I excel. My college roommates would have to agree. They called it the “Lauren Friendship Curve”. When we first became roommates, our relationships were amicable. It took time before we moved beyond that. Today,nearly 15 years later, we’re good, close friends. I hope that means it’s not a bell curve!

Today, as an entrepreneur, I can’t afford to do business with the Lauren Friendship Curve getting in the way. I’m long overdue for taking this weakness and transforming it.

In her years of research, Cuddy discovered patterns. When we interact, there are predictable responses to specific situations. When we meet a new person, we look for answers to two questions based on that first impression.

1. Can I trust this person?
2. Can I respect this person?

Think about the last time you met a new person. What kind of impression did they leave? What kind of an impression do you think you left?

You can access this article for free, in HER Magazine’s Winter 2017 edition. 

Would you use the words warmth and competence for either you or your new acquaintance? Ideally, the answer would be both. If you only felt like you pulled off one then guess what? You know what area you can work on.

For me, it’s lack of warmth. I grew up in a loving family, but there was a lot of sarcasm. Might be because I have five brothers (I tell you, sarcastically). Of course, I don’t blame my family for my lack of warmth. I blame my nervousness. I come across as hard and unapproachable, but really, I’m nervous about the social situation. Add in my sarcasm and it’s a vicious mix.

I understand that if I need to come across as someone you can trust, I need to work on being warm.

How about respect? That’s tied to competence, which is tied to self-esteem. Cuddy said, “the source of secure high self-esteem is internal.” Do you love and respect yourself?
This one is tricky, however, because it backfires if you’re over competent. If your sole focus is on coming across as smart and proficient, you might come across as arrogant or brash instead.

Cuddy said, “If someone you’re trying to influence doesn’t trust you, you’re not going to get very far; in fact, you might even elicit suspicion because you come across as manipulative. A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but only after you’ve established trust does your strength become a gift rather than a threat.”

I’ve made a short list of three things I’m currently working on to improve my warmth. What would you add to the list?

Ask questions

I read a book not long ago with a great title: You Are Boring, But You Are Uniquely Boring. It’s a book about writing memoir. Guess what? Everyone has a story. You have to ask the right questions. People are fascinating. For me, I consider it a challenge: can I get someone to share with me something unique, funny, poignant, and all about them?

Listen

When I get nervous, my fall back is to talk about myself. I mean, I’m interesting! I have great stories to tell. About everything. About whatever you’re talking about. I don’t mean to try and one-up my story with your story. I need to stop and listen. To parrot back what they’re saying and show that I’m listening and understanding.

Touch

I didn’t grow up in what you might call a “touchy family”. After a few years in college, I realized that my roommates hugged. I went home over the holidays and suggested an experiment with my mom: giving her a hug goodbye. It’s my own mother, I know! But that first hug was as awkward as running into someone at the grocery store that you already said goodbye to in aisle 12. It may be a handshake or it may be a hug, depending on the situation and the person, but appropriate contact shows warmth.

I am anything BUT the expert on this, but do you know what I’ve learned? There’s a lot of authenticity in people who share their journeys, not simply their destinations. I’m on a journey to become a warmer, more trusting person. I want to do it to be a better friend, and I want to do it to be a better entrepreneur. Cuddy found that “humans constantly make biased decisions based on first impressions.” Are you sitting down with venture capitalists? Are you networking to grow your business? Are you hiring employees and striving to impress them with your company culture? The list of situations for women in business where first impressions matter can go on and on.

Be trusting. Be competent.

Be warm. Be competent.

Rock your first impression.

The post Two proven strategies for rocking your first impression appeared first on HER Magazine ™.