WBEC Pacific, Bold Success: Amplify Her Voice, 2024
Topics Covered: Entrepreneurship, Women in Business, Ai Tools for Marketing, Resilience Strategies, Business Growth, Empowerment
Conference Overall Ratings: Venue (4/5) - Food (5/5) - Speaker Content (4.5/5) - Networking Opportunity (5/5) - Likeliness to Return (5/5) - (for more details, see the end of the blog…)
Initial Conference Overview - Why Attend? This event I didn’t know what to expect. Their online presence was very solid, but also I felt like that raised a flag that it may be a bit “commercially” in some way. I suppose it was, because they were promoting becoming a member the whole time - but I think that ended up being really genuine and beneficial. This event was at the UW Botanical Gardens, a location I’d never been. This event, itself, was focused on women entrepreneurs and leadership, but wasn’t too sure what to expect. I was delightfully surprised by the content and stories from this overall experience.
Photo Collage & Commentary
Notes from the Event:
Their staff/team was super friendly and welcoming. I arrived late but there was just hardly enough food for me to grab a last minute breakfast. Then the staff made lots of jokes with me, so it helped put me in a good mood (after having traveled over an hour and I was, honestly, in a grumpy mood that morning.)
Resilience & Mindset
Learn how you clients’ values align with your own values with theirs.: Be so prepared that when you go into meetings that you can’t be ignored. Get to know their story so thoroughly that they forget you’re just simply in a meeting and they’re captivated by your conversation.
Always approach the companies you use and love, see if they want to work with you.
Every lesson becomes part of your process; every process mastered becomes a part of your success.
Abundance mindset is key. Not living out of desperation.
Resilience isn’t just something you rely on in tough times. It’s a skill you learn to rely on consistently.
Gratitude in Leadership
Foster an environment of gratitude.
Gratitude = your attitude
Grateful = share things you’re grateful to set the tone into positive each morning. But before that, recognize everyone that you can be grateful for.
When gratitude is your foundation, resilience comes naturally
Commit to lifelong learning and ask for help in your community. It’s easier to face problems with the help of others.
Stay adaptable in an ever-changing world. Adaptability means evolving. Stretch the boundaries of what’s possible and be ready to grow as needs/demands shift
Stay flexible. let it be the foundation of your current relationships: flexibility
align our process with your goals, stay responsive and adapt to changing needs
Lead from strength, not desperation
Go back and tell yourself, “One day, you will be amazed with what you’ve accomplished. You will look back with pride and awe;”
Gratitude is the fuel in you
resilience is the foundation beneath you
community is the strength around you
This speech got a standing ovation!!! I’ve never seen hat before, but tbh… I was almost crying, hahaha. And I wasn’t even there for the whole thing. It was a really good speech. IDK what about it was so great. I’ll go ask AI so quick: let’s see what it says - “What makes this speech particularly moving is how it weaves together personal development, professional success, and human connection. The standing ovation likely came from this perfect storm of emotional resonance, practical wisdom, and inspirational messaging that touches on universal human experiences while remaining specific and actionable.” 😁
I love how the emcee came and said, “Okay, so here are some of the highlights I noticed from that speech:
Choose growth, be willing to grow
Invest in yourself, your continued education (I feel like attending these events is a creative way to do just this. you’re spending money and truly learning amazing crash courses, networking, and gaining experience. I adore this type of education I’m getting. Hearing this makes me feel strong in this decision to keep learning from these events and growing my knowledge of business, finance, etc)
“Certification is a tool to take your business to the next level” it builds legitimacy and trust.
Get certified and join a board.
Women Business Entrepreneurship Council - BEBEC National, run your own business with hope, not fear of hope
Run on HOPE: Happiness, Opportunity, Profitability, Excellence
Give customers more than they expect when they expect it. How much can you give away at this price fairly?
Your hardworking will reward you.
The emcee made a joke during this little awards ceremony: “Where else can you get a baby blue sash, and a crown… all before lunch?”
Guided by Values
Core Values: Where is your happy place?
“Seems your priorities have changed” now that you have a toddler… “No, my priorities were always my family and now I need to pick up my daughter by 6pm.”
She had been so loyal for so long to this company, but now she felt set up to fail.
Other business colleagues would take ideas right from their conversations and run them over to the boss. Claiming them as her own.
Learn to say “no”. Prioritize yourself and protect your mental and physical health first.
She gave up corporate and career for her kids… but the older they got, the less they needed her help. Now what are you left with?
She started a company…
“You can’t just google: US Manufacturing “ and get a list of options” - who knew?
It’s helpful to get certifications and networks.
Take trainings, get google ratings, get qualifying services, have courage and grit
show up to opportunities, it opens doors and makes progress.
Entrepreneurial Strategies:
Don’t be afraid to be a small fish in a big pond.
Take risks. Opportunities and experiences help you advance your skillset.
You need to lose money to make money.
Always be listening, learning, and reading
Learning to say “no”
Prioritize yourself
Your mental and physical health, your family… they come first. Let others take the back seat
Tenacity + audacity = entrepreneur
BAD = Be audaciously daring (consistently)
Continuously dust yourself off and keep going.
Consider every year, to do one pro-bono project. One full scale project.
They must have a clear objective on their goals and how money will e speant
The company comes to you
This gives you a very helpful opportunity, while also you have a chance to be generous. The business can test and train things. Employees can work on things they dont’ usually try. IT’s a good opportunity for the team to collaborate, research, design
When people use your site, your website, what do they experience? Are they able to do what they want to do?
Mentorship programs pair people in the same industry. People want to help and support new businesses that they like and see potential in. This can be tremendous help, to get successful people to give advice and help with business development.
You can reach out to universities and get students projects to help. Bring in 4-5 MBA students and an advisor to look at a problem in your business and its actually kinda fun.
Lots of education opportunities avilalbe
Many programs help train kids, sponsor their travel, housing, food - to get them ready to go for work. Over 500 students were trained at TMOBILE since 2021.
This helps support the needs of businesses
Ai in Business: This session as on content creation. It was practical.
It’s possible to create audience experiences with AR.
Artists will come in and say the experience they want for the audience to have. You can brainstorm with Ai to see what this looks like.
You can literally use Ai to make content (ChatGPT allows the most branded content, mid journey is more arty), then animate with runway. )
Midjourney isnot goo at logos or branded things. It can do odd shapes, aspect ratios, banners
Midjourney deomnstration - does well with mystic and artistic
They are doing this now, incorporating Augmented reality into the screens behind the artists. You can’t tell what is real and what is projected.
Use Ai to help you write prompts. Use Claude to help you write the prompts and use Ai to succeed with Ai. Let ai write it for you based off your notes.
Use Ai to help you write your end of year small business strategic plan. Let Ai help you with strategy, sales strategy “act as if”
Let it help you come up with ideas, SWOT Analysis, Marketing Strategy, Sensory Experiences
Chat GPT can scrape the web, it builds context and you can have more refined details added to images (than with mid journey or some other image creating generators)
Image generators dont’ understand context
Someone asked if websites can tell if your art is Ai generated. The speaker said “no” he was with another woman, he said they can’t tell.
I ended up raising my hand, because things were loading on the screen for a bit longer, and I shared what I learned at the event in Portland. How google definitely looks at your content often and if it sees things that were generated on Ai or have multiple locations, it knocks you down. So, that was one of the first times I’ve spoken up in an event in a long time. But, I felt like it was useful information. I even shared the info I learned about the homepage. You can just search that keyword to see the notes on the other blog. But three people thanked me for sharing that info after the speech. You know, they can look into it. I told them, I’m not an expert, but I did seem to understand that Ai created content can be detected and the best-received content by crawlers is original homemade content.
Do people care about socially conscious companies?
The data says “yes! definitely”. It gives the sense of meaningful connection. You’re proud to enable this kind of source. Ethically sourced supplies and items. Where every product makes a positive difference for the planet and the people of the planet (peace by piece company)
Make sure you have great quality and storytelling well
Storytelling successfully of the people whose lives are transformed by this work and the ailbity to become self reliant
NAVIGATING CORPORATE CONNECTIONS
The emcee stumbling on words right before lunch, “look at me, I need a break” hahah
Corporate Sponsors & their Suppliers
Suppliers are usually locked in for multiyear, auto-renewing contracts. The suppliers don’t often change and they don’t want too many because they want consistency in their products.
Know the business you’re going after: can you solve a pain point, innovate new business
It’s all about timing and when the opportunity presents itself, being on the bid list
Find the connection and be particularly persistent. “can I follow up with you in 30 days’
“don’t be annoying”
Understand how to make connections and learn how corporate makes connections and choices.
Leverage your connections and come to events. Having conversations is just the beginning of making decisions. Making deals can really take a long time (years). The reality is it can take many touch points to connect with businesses and be memorable
Contact and opportunities have to sell business - leverage it. Publicly traded companies are talking to the public with keynotes all of the time.
“I’m certified but still not getting contracts” = common complaint
well, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. there are exceptions, but most contracts are 3-5 years each with 1-2 auto renewals.
The support is planned 3-7 years out at least. They like relatable suppliers and consistency.
They don’t want suppliers to overlap in the marketplace
Tier 1 spend: direct company with company
Tier 2 spending: t-mobile (for example) vendor supplies service, you support that service
These are great to help you build up and learn what the tier one is looking for. You grow and know how to be seen as a viable Tier 1.
Competitors and Connection
Competitors talk to each other. Microsoft will call up Google and ask for help finding a supplier. Supplier diversity is not in competition with each other. The businesses want to support each other.
Corporations love systems and metrics to show success in contact, safety, insurances, access to capital…
It takes time, but congrats come
matchmaking in tier 2’s
project leaders provide info, the small firms come to have face-to-face meetintgs
diverse strategic partners
Ask corporations/businesses: what does the company have that can support your business growth
How do you learn who tier 1 is? Not everyone will take your calls —- connect at events like this, check out partners of the company
What are you doing? How can you make connections to get where you’re trying to go? Where else may there be more opportunity and access to potential work? Relationship ulbing means reaching out and lokoingfor a connection. What are the prices to connect? Not everyone wants to share their information?
When you meet someone, it might not be that signification. But you can’t give up that element, be patient.
What are your keywords to describe your business? Keep your profile updated, use many keywords. Build up your business and keep it current. People will research you and see if they can get a clear picture. If not, they’ll move on to a replacement.
Certification Advantage
Certifications make you stand out - you are confirmed to be what you say you are (women owned business). No extra review needs to be done.
Join the “billion dollar round tables”
41 members of corporations meet annually
WEBEC is very prestigious and valuable for corporations. Companies prefer to take certified companies, it brings value to the business owner to be certified.
Getting certified, connect, show up, get involved. Companies are looking for “women owned”, “small business” - trusted validation for reports
Certifications open doors, but getting to those doors means networking with peers.
Conference “Overall Rating” Further Elaboration:
VENUE - 4/5
Room for Improvement: The UW Botanical Gardens are extremely beautiful, with lots of natural light and great places to have an event. However, this location is really inconvenient by public transit from my apartment… it takes longer to get here than downtown —- and this venue is technically a lot closer… but also the uber/lyft is like $45 each way minimum… so, yeah. Not the most ideal venue for me personally (but soon I’d love to move downtown)—- just cause it limits how early/late I can arrive/stay on days that I have to pick up my daughter from daycare.
FOOD - 4.5/5
Room for Improvement: I thought the food was great and was so happy to still have some breakfast. The catering staff was also super friendly and nice too. Then the lunch was really good, and the afternoon snack was nice… but I think having healthy afternoon snack options is good, too. I just don’t like having that much sugar as my only option. Cause then I get a sugar high and then I get grumpy, hahaha. And then you’re also having lots of drinks all day, sometimes adding sugar or honey to tea and coffee, so - it’s good to have things to snack on that are healthy choices. Even boring vegetables, you’re like “okay, i’ll eat some raw broccoli” alongside other stuff, just cause it is good to do in collaboration with cookies.
SPEAKER CONTENT - 4.5/5
Room for Improvement:Overall this event was great and provided a lot of quality information. I felt that Q&A was not prioritized, though. It is so fun to hear peoples questions and then answers on the fly. I didn’t notice it till I notice it, you know? Now I thin Q&A is often “never enough” —- of course sometimes no one has questions… and then thats good feedback too… what happened? haha. Ask Ai maybe. They also had the best emcee carrying everything through - and the crowd/attendees/eveyone was so welcoming and supportive. So I felt it was a very warm, ambitious, and powerful community.
NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES - 5/5
Room for Improvement: They nailed it. There was no way not to network haha. There was so much strategic and useful networking here… a bingo you could use to meet people and then win prizes, lunch for networking, a full 1.5 hours to “speed network” etc etc etc. I skipped out on this because I had to pick up my daughter, and again… i’m still not exactly sure how I want to define what I’m doing right now… so much is up in the air. It’s interesting and fun to take this time to be more quiet and observant.
LIKELINESS TO RETURN - 5/5
Allow me to Elaborate: This group was really nice and I can see the value in it. It reminds me a lot of what I like about the “women in toys” group, and the in person networking. So much useful information comes up that you just don’t get access to in your usual day. I think this was a great event and I’d be interested to keep an eye on there future events. I am curious to learn more about their resources.
Kelly’s Remaining Questions:
What types of events has this group hosted over the years?
What are the fees to join?
What types of opportunities are offered to women own businesses?
How long does the process take to get certified? ‘
What types of ways could this group help your business (surely A MILLION!)
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
