How to celebrate success – Spacemen, Mary Poppins, Celebrant, Cake & Magic!
Its not every day a business celebrates 10 years and possibly even more impressive when you consider that the Founder has Lupus, Fibromylgia, 2 other auto-immune diseases and 3 other permanent conditions and despite that has won international awards, visiting the House of Lords, 10 Downing Street, featured in the press and on national TV and raised thousands for charity with the help of the wonderful BWN business owners.
We wanted an event that would showcase what The BWN is really about.;
- Not just business card swapping.
- Not a glorified coffee morning.
- A room full of men and women (yes business men attend our events) actually exchanging opportunities.
- Making sales
- Learning new skills
- And growing their businesses.
To have Mary Poppins (Nicola Goodchild) A Spaceman (Lee from Spacesuit Rentals) Jack Kempton the Magician, Michelle Taylor the corporate celebrant and a cake designed by Adavista (Robyn Banks – yes, really her name! Topped off this exceptional event with 50+ people from 5 counties, including 5 men, 1 baby and Ben from BBC Essex Radio Breakfast show.
Thank you to everyone that makes The BWN as awesome, and exceptional for building confidence, raising standards, increasing sales and profit margins and be an awesome place to stay motivated, never feel alone and get the results you want from professional life.
Here’s to the next 10 years!
Help!
Help
A small word. If you were being chased by a tiger you would be screaming it.
If your house was on fire you would be screaming it.
And it would appear they are about the only times us business women say that word.
Why is that?
What stops us very talented, educated, successful women from saying four letters?
Why are we so frightened of saying help?
I’ve learnt recently that I don’t say the word at all. And its become natural just to “get on with it”. I’m capable and able so I just do it. That’s good right?
or is it?
You see going it alone is fabulous for so many reasons, however never saying help is dangerous when it comes to success. I worked on my own success 2 weeks ago with a mentor, because I am always looking for ways to power up my own success as I do for those of my clients and that of the women attending the BWN, and I realised working with this business woman that I just don’t ask for help. And even if its offered I tend to say “I’m okay, thanks for the offer.” So I set a goal to change that and ask for help. It’s already paying off dividends in my business. (I really recommend creating clear goals, you are far more likely to achieve them that way and they don’t turn into gaols, which is a goal gone wrong if you aren’t clear enough about it!)
I know you are mega busy so let’s look at why you should accept help and how to do it in easy quick top tips;
- If you ask for help then you can do the things you are good at, which means you can get through your to do list faster. Which means more brain space to come up with more creative solutions. More you time. And more time to do the money making bits of your business. All positives right?
- If you ask for help you are enabling someone else. Letting someone else be good at things is good for other people too. It’s not fair that you do all the work and get all the praise. Spread the work, spread the praise, spread the opportunities. If someone else does the work then could get an opportunity off of the back of it. Remember success is better shared. (It really is!)
- Create a strong enough sense of pain to make you ask for help. If you don’t ask for help what are you agreeing to? Less success? Less money? Less free time? Less family time? More work? More time in front of the screen?
- What are your long term goals? Are they really achievable if you do everything yourself? Can you physically do it all alone? Tot up the hours. When I work with clients its amazing how often they over or under estimate how long a task is going to take.
- Fear of what people will think of you could be stopping you from asking from help. What are you assuming people are going to be thinking? Power up your self belief and what you tell yourself about you. If you love yourself enough (and we are not talking about a big head here, just a genuine appreciation of doing what’s right for you) then you would respect you as much as you do anyone else at work, right?
- New skills and ideas could be yours if you take on board someone elses help. As brilliant as you are (and yes you are brilliant) by getting someone else’s input you could learn a new way of doing tasks that could make you more productive and give you new skills. There fore powering up your success.
- Success really is better shared. By letting someone else help you, you grow your network in a sustainable way. And by doing that, you grow a trusted network. If you really need help in the future, by having taking the leap of faith and trusted someone before you will know who you can rely on in the future.
A brilliant business woman reminded me of these points when I posted a public thank you. Because as people help you I think its always good to say thank you. (My thank you’s don’t tend to be thank you cards, I tend to give testimonials on LinkedIn and Facebook so that they can grow their business and use them powerfully in their marketing to gain more happy customers – just a thought for you there!) This lady said;
You’re very welcome – I’m pleased my diary allowed me to help. I can relate to the whole asking for help. I’m incredibly independent which is positive. There are times when working as a team gets much better and bigger results and you get to enjoy the journey so much more when you have great people around you (cheesy I know but true!!) Xx
You know what? I don’t think its cheesy at all. A Business woman with a powerful network is far more likely to be successful. See you at some BWN networking events this month, let’s help each other, network together and do business. It’s going to be an awesome month for business.
I’m on TV speaking about issues impacting on women in business and at Mums Net Work Fest national conference. And we have a very special BBC Essex Radio 30th Birthday show being broadcast live from my house on the 13th May. So much good stuff for business!
To get my book to help increase sales, confidence and success the 6 week course or learning about coaching and training visit. www.mandieholgate.co.uk and do say hi on social media too (all accessible via my website) its great to connect and grow my network!
Charity of The Year – Why We Bother – And Why You Should Too
Every year the BWN year is choosing a charity to give a little extra love to.
If you are a charity that we haven’t chosen this year, that doesn’t mean we don’t love you. As a charity you will always get to attend our events for a discounted rate (even on the day on the door!)
We will retweet, like and share all of your content that you share with us.
(All of our social media is accessible via our website – top right.)
And when we have room we will happily let you bring your banner along to our events.
You can also write for our blog whenever you wish.
(Just ping us the details)
Got an event coming up? We are happy to mention it in our business ops slot. Just email it to your local coordinator.
(Because we really do love everything local!)
However we want to do more (well that’s typical us!) and so we thought how great it would be if we could make every business woman from across a whole county talk about one charity. One charity that works tirelessly to make a difference. As founder of the BWN Mandie Holgate has worked with lots of third sector organisations and so knows first hand the obstacles that they face. And the pots of cash are not so easy to get to any more.
But fear not, charities don’t want just your money. Here’s our top ways to support our charity of the year. If you attend our events we would adore it, love it, and thank you forever if you would do the following for our charity of the year in your county;
Retweet, like share and talk about the charity of the year on line. That way we can like your comments, and share them too. That way your followers and your brand awareness goes up too!
Want to get in the local press? (The answer to that one is yes you do!) Raise a few quid for our charity of the year, mention us and together with the charity there is good chance your smiley face and your bit for charity could get your business in the press. And that is not just good for them, its good for you too. Charities aren’t daft, they know why businesses get involved. Yes we love the warm fuzzy feeling that it gives us, but its also good for business, stands your business a part from the rest, shows you care, and a ton of other things. All good. All worth doing. So fancy sitting in a bath of beans? Giving a £1 for every sale next month? Doing a nude calendar? (We’ve done that…twice!) then go for it!
And its worth remembering your gestures don’t need to be huge. Just talking about the charity, really does help them.
Attending an event? Could you carry a few fliers for our charity of the year?
What about having a 1 2 1 with a member of the charities team, so you could understand what they do, what they need, who the would love to talk to. Knowledge is power and big powerful networks are very good for charities. Could your network be helping our charity of the year?
Add a logo to your website? Remember for charities if you knew the extent of the work that they did you would probably want to be able to do more. Could you add a logo, a mention of The BWN’s charity of the year to your website, social media, business literature. Help us, help our charity of the year.
Write a blog article? Could you write an article sharing what you know, care about? Anything. Remember a charity is not just after money. It’s after staying power. Charities are created all the time, which means that the ones that are already here have to work twice as hard. What could you write about to support our charity of the year? Raise their profile and give them staying power and ensure their future? Charities live on a knife’s edge, never knowing how they will fund the following year. Scary right?
Every £1 spent on a charity in the UK is being fought fiercely over, so if you can raise the profile of a local organisation that is helping in your community you just became a really nice person. Good feeling right?
And here are our loved up Charites of the year;
Essex – Colchester Community Voluntary Services – CCVS
The title may suggest they only work in North Essex, however their work supports groups 
and organisations across Essex. So by supporting them it means Essex business women really are supporting community groups. And get to attend events meeting third sector, public sector and private sector. Their Banking on business events are proving a great success and Dawn Moss our Saturday Essex events coordinator is already signed up as a Volunteer. And with over 600 volunteers, that’s a lot of good happening in Essex. Can you feel how good that is!
Shirley is the business woman from CCVS that you can expect to see at our Marks Tey Hotel 
events. Get in touch with us to share your ideas to raise money, raise their profile and get your warm fuzzy feeling that makes Essex that much better.
Suffolk – Age UK Suffolk
Our Bury St Edmunds events are hosted at Age UK Suffolk’s HQ and so how perfect to support them.
Kinsey Foster and Susan Pope host our Suffolk events and would be happy to talk about how you could get involved to support Suffolk’s charity of the year
Learn more about Age UK Suffolk here and please do let them know that we said they were awesome and deserve your support. You can contact your local Suffolk coordinator direct via your page. However feel free to contact us if you wish to.