#47-Coping with Failure and Challenge
It’s been about a year since my last post in this series. Part of the reason has been: It’s been a tough year.
You know when you have those years, and December 31 rolls around and you are just so looking forward to the clean wipe of the previous year?
2011 to 2012 was like that for me. And carried over a little bit in 2012.
I was beginning to lose my power to press re-start when I remembered a story. It was inspired by a question from one of the attendees from #SisU2012 (the Hot Mommas Project Women’s Leadership Academy).
Tell us about a big failure, what happened, and how you recovered?
Read the rest of this post on our main blog, HERE.
#46 – How to Build a Million Dollar Business Part Time
By Kathy Korman Frey for the series Building a Million Dollar Part Time.
Do you think it’s possible to build a Million Dollar Business while working part time (the premise of this insider’s series within the Hot Mommas Project blog for business junkies?)
Welcome, my home slices, to a new (or renewed) belief system.
In yourself.
The short version: If you want to Build a Million Dollar Business, Cameron Herold is the man to help you do it. If you can’t afford Cameron in person, then just buy his book Double Double and his DVD sets based on this and his first book: BackPocket COO. (And, for the jaded… no, I am not Cameron’s sister or something).
The long version: Entrepreneurs are basically nuts. You’ve got to be to handle the ups, the downs, the doubts. But it’s tiring. After leading, innovating, fire fighting, and getting up the next day and to do it all over again, there is the desperate need for guidance, structure, and an answer. Cameron gives entrepreneurs that answer. To that, many of you will say:
&*$^#@ finally!
Read the rest of this post on our main blog, HERE.
#45 Escaping the Email Vortex of Death via Auto Responder
By Kathy Korman Frey for the series Building a Million Dollar Part Time.
There’s a trend in our country: We’re busy, but we’re not accomplishing anything. This trend has actually been researched and written about. Could you have been part of the research? I could have been.
The Email Vortex of Death
My worst enemy in this battle over time is the “Email Vortex of Death.”
Setting: My computer in the Garage Mahal
Me: Oh, I’ll just check this one email.
Me (35 minutes later): What was I checking again?
Email Vortex of Death: Ha ha ha ha ha ha
Me: D*&m You Email Vortex of Death! D*&m You!
Read the rest of this post on our main blog, HERE.
Good one – Low cost biz resources for entrepreneurs on @NFIByef c/o @GradeAFresh
Here are the top free and low-cost online resources for small business courtesy of our young entrepreneur profile from April, Grade A Marketing founder Amanda Fischer. If you don’t read on, you’ll be missing out.
“How to” Resource for Small Business: www.Web20blog.org
The Web 2.0 Blog focuses on sales and marketing tools and topics that are useful for small business owners and marketing managers. This blog is very much a “how to” and “how we’ve done it” source of information. I have to admit that I, along with a few of my strategic partners, sponsor and contribute to this blog.
Preferred CRM: www.Batchbook.com
Batchbook, a robust customer relationship management (CRM) software with small business prices, is a good alternative to the incumbent Salesforce.com. This solution is best for a sole-proprietor, consulting business. This product is marketed as “the social CRM”, but unfortunately, it does not live up to its potential…
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#44 Pimp Your Pitch – 10 Words to Turn Bo-ring into Cha-ching with Sam Horn- Building a Million Dollar Business Part Time
DO PEOPLE DROOL WHEN YOU TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS? (But, not in a good way. More like a catatonic way.)
Have you ever told someone about your business, and they give you the “doe in headlights” look?
They may even look at you like you’re saying this:
Solutions Start NOW
In this post, you will learn along with HotMommasProject.org as we undergo messaging bootcamp. Gone will be the days of the unsavory reactions above!
Enter, Sam Horn
Below, legendary “Intrigue Expert” Sam Horn uses the Hot Mommas Project as a guinea pig and provides six tips that all of us can use to revise a pitch.
Read the rest of this post HERE.
#43 You’re Cheap, I’m Lonely, Let’s Hang Out
By Kathy Korman Frey as part of the MDPT Series
Being a solopreneur can be lonely. Today my day – and probably year – was brightened when my husband moved into my office. Well, officially he moved in last week, but today we made it look like a place that could be inhabited by humans. Here he is:
He has fully outsourced every part of his business, and let go of his office space saving $18,000 a year. Nice honey! He’s launching another business basically teaching people how to run a million-dollar-plus business from one desk. (He’ll be on CBS national radio on Friday…I’ll update with the link here if they stream). Because he is my husband, and we’re sort of heading toward this business/women’s education empire together, I have welcomed him into my home office: The Garage Mahal.
Loneliness and isolation is something women entrepreneurs deal with all the time. Maybe other entrepreneurs (e.g., “male,” “wookie”, etc.) also feel isolated. Here’s something I learned recently when prepping for a presentation to investor/advisors: According to the US Census…
Read the rest of this post HERE
#42 Stress Solutions, Drag Queens, and Putting Fun Back in Business – Building a Million Dollar Business Part Time
Today I watched performers from RuPaul’s “Drag Race” show on a reality show 
“The Arrangement” which is about floral designers. It’s basically Project Runway meets flowers. You know what struck me, in addition to how gorgeous these drag queens were: They were having FUN. (Please note, blue dress is Gigi Levangie Grazer – a noted screenwriter and author who hosts the show).
So here’s what drag queens have to do with me: I realize I’m not having fun anymore with my business.
Read rest of this post HERE
#41- “If My Head Explodes, You Guys Need to Hold Down the Fort” – Building a Million Dollar Business Part Time
I think I’ve finally discovered the ultimate delegation plan for women: Your head explodes. If your head explodes then, clearly, you are other otherwise occupied and the people around you have to start doing things that you previously did. Right now my head is at risk of exploding. I am unsure if these are real adult-onset migraines or if I was too overwhelmed some revenue projections I ran last week. With the two brain cells I have left, I started delegating stuff to my team since the headache seems to be moving in like John Belushi, the over-stayed houseguest in the old SNLs.
Note: Building a Million Dollar Business Part time is the Hot Mommas Project “insiders” blow-by-blow series recently moved to our main blog.
Here is how it’s going (the delegating, that is). Click HERE to read the rest of this post.
#40c-On dealing with business crisis
"I'm still throwin' the HEAT!" Kenny Powers, Flama Blanca
So, here’s where the last post ended: In the copy room at Funger 315 I realize my Powerpoint presentation displays as Gobbledygook, I have no workbooks (“printer warming up”), there’s a lobby full of attendees downstairs, and I have two minutes until I’m supposed to begin speaking.
Oh, yeah, and a bunch of the folks in the audience are social media folks.
This failure is about to go viral.
8. 58 am With the Gobbeldygook presentation pulled up on the screen in the copy room, I text downstairs to my team and said,
My txt: “Does the PPT look normal?”
Team txt: “It looks fine!”
Whew.
8.58 am I can wait no longer.
My txt: “Someone needs to come up here to wait for the workbooks with the security guard.”
I figure I’ll give the intro, and pray the workbooks are printed and brought down as I’m talking. If they don’t print, I seriously don’t know what I’ll do. Oh wait, I know:
Shirley MacLaine Freaks Out in "Terms of Endearment"
8:59 am I walk out of Funger 315 and head downstairs to the lecture hall. The printer hadn’t even started, but Sis U must go on.
9.01 am When I step into the lecture hall, everyone is seated. Their backs are to me, and I see what they are viewing at the front of the room on the large screen. The WRONG presentation. It’s dated June 2010. So when my team was texting about the presentation that “looks great”…it was not the right presentation. I am not quite sure how this happened, and, at this point I don’t care. Action mode continues.
9.01 and 30 seconds: I go over to the camera guy, “How much additional time do you need to set up?” I ask. A delicious five minutes of time. I feel like a character in a video game (sound effects) “By stapling papers in the hallway earlier, YOU earned FIVE bonus points to cash in with the CAMERA MAN!” (Sound effects)
9.02 am I make an announcement in my calm Stepford voice,
Me: “Welcome to Sis U! We need about five extra minutes while the camera finishes setting up, so please, relax, chat, and here’s a little music for you!” (Smile, hiding inner panic, of what I will find on that Powerpoint).
9.03 am From the podium control panel, I blank out the LCD, and look for the USB drive in the computer menu. It’s not there. The USB with my presentation is not showng up. I remove the USB from one socket (or whatever you call these things) and plac it into another. Bingo. It shows up.
9.03 am and 15 seconds. I hold my breath and double-click the document to open it. Will it be Gobbletygook? One of my adorable team members tries to ask me something and I respond in my robot voice, “Can’t talk. Crisis mode.”
9.03 am and 30 seconds. Cha ching! The presentation comes up and the fonts are readable. I quickly page through the presentation, all okay. They are not perfect, but they are readable.
9.07 am I fire back up the LCD screen, look at the camera man – who gives me the thumbs up – and turnoff the music.
9.08 am
Me: “Welcome to Sis U! Today, you are participating in a pilot where you will engage in exercises, learning never-before shared. Our goal is to produce measurable results for your career in three hours.”
I know I can handle it from here if my team walks in with those workbooks. I keep on with the intro.
9.18 am My team walks in with the workbooks. (dot, dot, smileyface)
I breathe a sigh of relief. A big one.
So – fast foward: Ultimately, Sis U was a success and exceeded my and my team’s expectations in terms of results (measurable results). Here is a fantastic write up from WUSA Community Content Producer Leigh MacDonald (@NiceShuzNoDrama) and LiveYourTalk.com’s @JillFoster
But in those moments, where I was one step away from severe failure, I was not confident about success. And afterwards, my knee-jerk reaction to chaos or disappointment is always to say, “How can I prevent this from happening again in the future?”
1. You can’t. One viewpoint is that I CAN’T prevent all crises in my life and work. They ARE going to happen. Accepting myself as an imperfect person, who cannot manage everything into perfection like a cyborg, is a big part of my learning here. I just breathe into it, feel happy it turned out okay, and know that I can survive this…and probably other things that will surface in the future.
2. Time management. When I first thought about this crisis, I was convinced the “answer” was time management. Ideally, I would have done everything early, tested the PowerPoint, had the workbooks printed days before. But, in reality, I had – perhaps – one spare hour during the week. This is not to make excuses. This was just reality. I ask you, what should I have said “no” to of the below items to give myself extra prep time? The White House Council for Women and Girls Conference, my two classes launching that week, my husband’s guys golf trip (planned to coincide with a music fest in Austin).
3. Delegation. And, of course, the zinger of all lessons for me here is “delegation.” If I did it over again, I’d have people I trust involved earlier in the process. I cannot cap my own business by my limitations as one person. I need to EXPAND my vision of the business, and I believe that more people and partners is the way to do that.
Parting Thought: Is Your Business Fat or Thin?
A local business owner down here has described the “Fat / Thin” theory with business. He says, “Sometimes you business is fat. You have a surplus of staff and you are waiting for the business to support them. Then, there are the thin times. You’re spread too thin and need to hire staff and bulk up to handle what you’ve got on your plate.” This experience showed me that, despite the ultimate success of the event, we’re in a thin time.
Building A Million Dollar Business Part Time 
