The world’s largest advertising holding company has a new strategy aimed at the world’s largest consumer group — women. As Stuart Elliot writes in the New York Times, Omnicom Group Inc., has created an all-female-run strategic consultancy called G23, “G as in Group, 23 as in the pair of chromosomes that carries the sex differences between women and men.”
Laura Lutter Cole was ready to start living what she’d been witnessing for years. She had a business partner, a plan, and a network of support to open a new men’s business casual clothing store on Brady Street in Milwaukee.
It was about a year in the making, but it was finally time to quit her job at Ernst & Young and live her dream. Her last day at the firm was Sept. 10, 2001, one day before the terrorist attacks on the United States.
“I thought, ‘what did I get myself into?’ Lutter Cole said. “What was really unnerving was when the economy just tanked. It was really hard.”
But her store, Aala Reed, 1320 E. Brady St., opened on schedule two months later, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal.
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The leaders of the Senate committee that oversees the Small Business Administration urged the agency to broaden its pending women’s procurement program or else delay issuing final regulations for it until next year.
Austin Mader-Clark’s new fueling station and convenience store in San Mateo is in the red, yet she makes time to confer with her competition weekly. That collaboration is critical to the success of the fledgling industry, she said.
Three women-owned biodiesel stations — Mader-Clark’s Autopia Biofuels LLC, BioFuel Oasis Cooperative Inc. in Berkeley and Dogpatch Biofuels Cooperative Inc. in San Francisco — are establishing a consortium that could help them improve pricing, government regulation and public opinion, according to the Silicon Valley-San Jose Business Journal.
As busy women, sometimes cooking meals is not on the top of our list of things to do and we hit the fast-food restaurants. And many of us feel guilty about that. I can’t give you more time, but I can tell you to stop feeling bad about it—you’re not alone.
A new report from Research International USA, “Fast Food Nation 2008” says that so many Americans regularly eat fast food that these restaurants are still thriving even in today’s recessionary times. The average American spends $500 a year on fast food. Read the rest of this entry »
When Terry Hornsby came up with the idea for a promotional advertising firm in 1995, she was determined to start the venture on her own. But when she went to a bank to ask for an SBA-guaranteed loan of $10,000, the bank initially told her she would need a co-signer.
But Hornsby wasn’t interested in having a co-signer, so she asked how much they were expecting her to pay back on a monthly basis, and the answer was $218.
“I told them that if I can’t make $218 a month, then I shouldn’t start a business,” Hornsby recalls. “If they could not trust me, then I would pick up my business plan and take it to another bank that would be willing to work with me.”
The strategy worked, and over the years, Hornsby has turned Houston-based TLC Adcentives LLC from a fledgling home-based business into a profitable, full-service, promotional advertising company that notched $581,000 in revenue in 2007, according to the Houston Business Journal.
These are stressful times we’re living in. As business owners we’re struggling to do more with less, which leads to even more strain on our employees. And that pressure is costing us.
Phyllis Dillinger, a chief financial officer with 23 years of experience, is used to being one of the only women in the room. That’s especially true for a female who works in biotechnology.
“Many times I’ve been one woman with 30 men” in a meeting, she says. Dillinger, CFO for life sciences company KPL Inc., is not alone anymore. She has found good sisterly company in biotechnology as a board member of Women in Bio, founded in October 2001 to bring together female entrepreneurs and executives in the life sciences. The 300-person group is expanding into other cities, including Boston and San Diego, according to the Washington Business Journal.
Pioneer social worker of Fulton, Mo., now in her mid-80s, titled her spring commencement speech to graduates of the College of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri “Catching the Baton.” She included a poem that she wrote for her staff when she retired:
Since I launched my business, SMB Connects, in April I have been burning the proverbial candle at both ends. The problem: Both of those ends are consumed by work, not partying, playing or shopping, which is usually one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve never needed much sleep (well, not since my college years) but lately I’ve been getting about 4 ½ hours a night, which is rapidly approaching Martha Stewart territory (she says she only needs two to three hours).
Sunday, I returned from Chicago, having spent the previous four days at eBay Live. My friend and business partner picked me up with her minivan full of her three kids. The youngest (she’s 6), curious to see if I’d brought her back a gift, asked me if they had any “good stores in Chicago.” And I had to confess that while they have many excellent stores in Chicago, I hadn’t had the time to shop. A lifetime first I believe.
