Dare To Be Different on Feb 7th!
Female entrepreneurs are being reminded to register for the February event of the Dublin City Enterprise Network for Women, which has the theme of "Dare to be Different", featuring guest speaker Jill Hincks of Passion for Creative.
Non-members are welcome to attend one event as a Guest.
Theme: “Dare to be Different”
Speaker: Jill Hincks, Managing and Creative Director of Passion for Creative
Venue: Clarion Hotel, IFSC
Date and Time: Monday 7th February, from 19.45-21.00
Having a clear marketing strategy is critical for small businesses to win market share and grow their companies.
On February 7th, Jill Hincks, an expert in brand development, will share her ideas on the importance of having a clearly defined brand.
You can reserve your place by emailing the Network Manager, Pauline Logan, at network@dceb.ie, before Friday 4th February at 6pm.
Overview of January Event
The January network event of the Dublin City Enterprise Network for Women took place in the Mansion House on January 10th, with the theme of “Setting Goals for 2011”.
The Guest Speaker was serial entrepreneur and lecturer in Innovation in TCD, Patricia O’Sullivan.
The session was very interactive and involved the members working in pairs to set out their chief goal for 2011, the main obstacles faced and the first step they would take the next day to achieve the goal. Patricia’s approach gave members fresh insights into what a goal really is.
The talk was followed by networking. Two members took resource tables and gave members an overview of their products/services:
v Pascale Van Riet of Phoenix Delite (www.phoenixdelite.templates.ie ) displayed her range of Belgian chocolates, including some suitable for diabetics
v Karen Brown of Karora Cosmetics (www.karoracosmetics.com) displayed her new range of natural and organic tanning products.
Photographs from the night are now on the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DublinCityEnterpriseNetworkforWomen
This is a summary of the talk:
Setting Goals for 2011
Speaker: Patricia O’Sullivan
Patricia started off by saying that there is help and funding out there for start-ups that have clear goals. If you don’t have clear goals for your business, you’re depending on luck.
You can often set goals but there may be a small overlap between what you intended to do and what you did. This is more a wish list than real goals.
Goals should be big enough to mean real change, for example, starting to sell in the UK or only working mornings. It should be very clear when you have achieved your goals! Something major will have happened.
Goals should be so clear and attractive that they really fire you up. Find what matters to you emotionally. What do you daydream about?
Goals can scare us and confuse us, for example, what will it mean to your lifestyle? This is normal. You need to get perspective on how to overcome the issues you may have concerns about. Write them down and look at your options. For example, can you subcontract or delegate areas outside of your skillset or comfort zone? You may need to set down certain rules that will allow you to maintain some work life balance. This could involve exercise a number of times during the week, turning off the laptop at a set time, etc.
When you have overcome your main concerns, your dream can become a goal.
THIS IS ONLY THE START!
You need to visualise your goal. Write it down and talk about it.
Talking to people may result in you changing your goal; it will become more distinct.
Now you need to get buy in from the people who will make it happen. This could be employees, business partners or your family and friends. Having a group supporting you greatly helps to maximise your success. If you’re on your own, you need to get support from friends and family. (If your partner is not as driven as you, you need to find what does motivate them and agree common goals. It might be worthwhile doing team analysis such as Myers Briggs or Socionics to help to understand yourself and who you should work with).
You need to identify the tasks required in order to achieve your goal.
What are the first 8 major events that need to happen? Put names against tasks if possible. Do it in stages – the tasks will become clearer as time goes on and new sets of tasks will emerge. Make sure to review your task list every day so that you know what you need to do. You need to set delivery dates and have a task manager in place for each one.
Patricia mentioned some useful tools, particularly gQueues, Cohuman and Manymoon for managing your task list. All these integrate with Google so tasks will appear on your calendar task list.
Now you need to make things happen! Tick those boxes on your task list. Achieve steps along the way.
Be sure to celebrate success. This is crucial. Identify milestones and reward yourself and others when things are achieved.
Final messages
v May the Force be with you: Take energy from the people around you and have faith that it will work out.
v Let it flow: Things happen that you can’t control, don’t get too down.
v Don’t give up: This is key for entrepreneurs!
She set the group the task of working in pairs to define:
1. Key goal(s) for 2011
2. Concerns about challenges faced to achieve these
3. Tasks to tackle the next day
The mark of a good entrepreneur is an ability to find your way around challenges. Your enthusiasm should be contagious!