March 2019 - New Kapitus

Making Her Mark – Influential Women Business Owners: Lauren Leblanc-Haydel

Winning the Great T-Shirt Battle of 2010

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Source: bizneworleans.com

Lauren Leblanc-Haydel had something most single mothers with three young kids would love: job security. After six years as an on-air personality at a New Orleans radio station, she landed a position as the creative director of the Louisiana Farm Bureau, a solid job that provided her with benefits, a phone and even a company car.

But Haydel wanted more. “I had a belief that I could create a better life for my children,” she says. So when her 2009 tax refund arrived, she knew she wanted to start a business with the $2,000. Still, she was a little hazy on what the business would be. At first, she thought about selling makeup. Finally, she settled on making T-shirts, an idea her boss at the Farm Bureau thought was ridiculous, considering that there was a huge number of vendors selling T-shirts to tourists who flocked to the Big Easy. “Everyone thought I was crazy,” she says.

Getting ‘Fleurty’

Haydel, however, had a steadfast belief that she could stand out with V-neck shirts and other female-friendly cuts reflecting, as she puts it, “the culture of New Orleans.” It all came together when she was sitting on her porch and a name for her company came to her that embodied the spirit and zest she hoped to capture: Fleurty Girl.

Source: ClearWare

She rushed to her computer and registered the domain name. While the company didn’t have a business plan yet, it got off to a good start: After launching the company’s site, she sold out of her T-shirts within 30 days.

It wasn’t a quick rags-to-riches story, though. Haydel had to make plenty of compromises to pursue her dream, such as moving to a smaller house and having her children give up their individual bedrooms. She was working 14- to 18-hour days. But the biggest challenge came soon after she opened her first storefront six months later. Almost immediately, she found himself being sued by the National Football League. The New Orleans Saints were set to appear in the Superbowl. Haydel was one of a number of entrepreneurs who sold T-shirts emblazoned with the team’s slogan, “Who Dat?” The NFL rained cease-and-desist orders down on her.

“A woman who took a chance to make a better life for her and her kids by celebrating the city where she grew up” – Haydel has a chat with Harry Connick Jr.

Standing Her Ground

Haydel had no trouble with the idea of sending the NFL a royalty payment, but she was caught in a tug-of-war with another company which also claimed to own the phrase “Who Dat?” The origins of the phrase is debated in and around New Orleans, but it had been around for decades. For local football fans, it became a popular abbreviation of, “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints” when fans chanted for their team in the Superdome.

Haydel, who originally sold T-shirts from a building she rehabilitated after Hurricane Katrina, was something of a tornado herself. With her astute understanding of media, she managed to get an avalanche of publicity when the NFL came after her.

Stories appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, the Times Picayune. She appeared on national TV shows, which loved the David-and-Goliath story of the 4-foot-11 single mother standing up to one of the biggest sports league in the world.

Attorneys offered to represent her for free. Louisiana Senator David Vitter sent the NFL a letter telling them to back off. The NFL finally did, issuing Haydel an apology in the bargain.

Haydel says that people, especially independent-minded New Orleanians, admired the local who stood her ground. However, she bristled against the common belief that the controversy and publicity from the NFL lawsuit made her business. She says the suit hit her at a time when she had no money, and almost sunk her.

Onwards & Upwards

With steadfast determination, her business kept going — and growing. Today, the multi-million Fleurty Girl sells not only shirts, but also dresses, jewelry, books, wedding gifts, art and items for the home. Many have a unique, local flair, such as the “Mardi Gras Fan Tassel Earrings.”

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Source: fleurtygirl.net

Last year, Haydel opened her seventh location at the Louis Armstrong International Airport. At the same time, she bought fellow New Orleans T-shirt retailer Storyville. Storyville also got a cease-and-desist order from the NFL in the great T-shirt battle of 2010. In addition to purchasing the company’s line of T-shirt designs inspired by New Orleans, she hired her competitor’s three employees.

To top it off, the same year, Haydel married Ryan Haydel of Haydel’s Bakery. Haydel’s Bakery is a three-generation Big Easy institution. This union made them something of a power couple in the city. Haydel says her idea of being a power couple is both of them working 10-hour days — Ryan comes home smelling like king cake, and her arms are tired from folding T-shirts.

Editor’s Note: Megy’s story is one of a four-part series celebrating women business owners throughout the month of March. Take a look at the other inspiring stories in the series: How I Built My Own Business After Cancer and Launching Your Own Business as a Working Mom

Four Risks That Keep Business Owners Up at Night. And Your Defense Against Them.

March 13, 2019/in Featured Stories, Operations /by Bernadette Abel

Events like natural disasters, disruptions to your supply chain, legal issues, a cyber attack, or changing market trends aren’t entirely within your control. But, you can help mitigate the damage they might bring to your business with a proactive and strategic risk management plan.

Here are four common risks to your business. Along with some simple ways to help manage how exposed your business is to each.

Risk: Business Interruption

Would you be able to financially survive the process of rebuilding your business if damage deemed it inoperable for months? Even with insurance coverage to protect against events like floods, fires or earthquakes, FEMA reports that about 40% of businesses disrupted by natural disasters are forced to close permanently.

Your Defense: Business Interruption Insurance

Business interruption coverage replaces business income lost if you’re forced to cease operations. This insurance can be used whether the interruption is due to a natural disaster, cyber attacks, or a massive disruption to your supply chain. Often added as a rider to a commercial insurance policy, the Insurance Information Institute says business interruption coverage may pay for a business’ fixed expenses, financial obligations to creditors, and expenses associated with establishing a temporary business location.

While access to such funds could be the difference between rebuilding your business post-disaster or closing it permanently, the Insurance Journal reports 66% of small businesses do not have business interruption coverage.

Risk: Loss of Intellectual Property

Your business’ intellectual property (IP) includes your business’ name, logo, products and services, taglines and any inventions you’ve created. Experts at Deloitte estimate intellectual property accounts for more than 80% of a business’ value.

If you have not formally claimed ownership of your intellectual property with patents and/or trademarks, do it ASAP. Or, a competitor might (legally) steal your business name, inventions, likeness and ideas.

Your Defense: Secure Legal Ownership of IP

Make a list of all the elements that make up your business’ goods, services and brand identity and formally claim ownership of them with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. For a few a hundred dollars, you can file an online trademark application to secure ownership of brand assets. Securing a patent for an invention is a more intensive (and expensive) process. But it’s critical if your business is based on a unique product, technology or solution that you’ve created.

If you hire freelancers or contractors to produce marketing materials, designs, or code for your business products, secure a signed work-made-for-hire agreement before projects begin. Unlike a full-time employee, you do not own contractor creations. A work-made-for-hire agreement should detail the scope of work and deliverables. It should also state that you own the finished product a contractor creates.

Risk: Cyberattacks

Cyber criminals have their sights set on a target: 58% of breach victims in the past year were small businesses, according to the Verizon 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report.

Your Defense: An Internal Cybersecurity Action Plan

Protecting your business begins with identifying your business’ most important assets and systems. Because these “digital crown jewels” are most likely to be the target of any cyber attack on your business, the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) says they should be the focus of your security efforts. Once you’ve identified them, the NCSA suggests creating a list of all the hardware and software your business uses. This list should include the makes, models, serial numbers, and versions of software you are running. You should also include on this list where you store your data. Use the latest version of security software, web browsers and operating systems. Using the most updated versions will help protect against viruses, malware, and similar threats. They can also activate automatic update features to keep you secure.

Perhaps most importantly, educate employees. Train them on best practices for handling sensitive data. And set clear parameters for how they are to use mobile devices and computers to do their jobs. Many cyber attacks originate from basic human error. Clicking on an email attachment or downloading an app on an unsecured mobile device can make you vulnerable. Using weak passwords also provides an easy in for hackers. Because they have dictionary-based systems that make it easy to crack passwords that include a word or name, cyber security company Symantec suggestspasswords be misspelled, “As much as possible, or insert numbers for letters. For example, if you want to use the phrase ‘I love chocolate’ you can change it to @1L0v3CH0c0L4t3!”

Risk: Cash Flow Problems

You can’t control your sales or the competitive environment. But, you can manage their impact on your cash flow by ensuring you have access to cash before you need it.

Your Defense: Plan for Cash Flow Shortages Before They Happen

Retained earnings are like a business emergency savings fund, and they empower you to prepare for cash flow challenges. When these funds are readily available, you aren’t forced to borrow money, or default on your own business obligations. In addition to building your retained earnings, establish relationships with a few reputable funding partners so you know you have the financial support you need to maintain cash flow if sales decline unexpectedly. Risk is an inherent aspect of owning a business. But, that doesn’t mean you have to be vulnerable to uncontrollable circumstances. Use these tips to help ensure your business is equipped to survive, despite any disaster that may strike

How to Stress Test Your Small Business

March 12, 2019/in Featured Stories, Operations /by Bernadette Abel

In the banking world, advisors often talk about stress-testing portfolios — determining the effect of different scenarios on an individual’s or business’s holdings. The same should be done for a small business.

How prepared are you if the economy changes, and you need to dip into your reserves? How will you manage your cash flow? Do you, as a small business, have the resources to survive heavy losses if the worst-case scenario happens?

Here are six ways to help stress-test your business if there is a downturn in the economy.

1. Solicit advice from key advisors.

Do you have an advisory board or a brain trust of reliable partners? SCORE, a nonprofit that is a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration, offers a network of volunteers including retired C-suite executives, who can help mentor.

Find your local chapter, which is typically done on a county by county basis, and attend a workshop or listen to a live or recorded webinar.

You can search for a SCORE mentor online or have the local chapter pair you with an expert who can help mentor you on your business goals. Some mentors bring in additional mentors to help with various aspects of your business, such as preparing for a potential downturn.

2. Create a plan for worst-case scenarios.

One of the more effective ways to prepare for a sluggish economy is to forecast trends. Look at what a dramatic drop in sales or a dramatic uptick in expenses might do to your business. Ask yourself what would happen if you lost a major vendor, product or service. What might this loss do to your company? Then decide where you could trim expenses, potentially increase profits or diversify your client-base.

3. Identify all your best customers.

Not all customers are created equally. That’s because some are more profitable than others. Once you’ve pinpointed who your best customers are, begin nurturing those relationships by continually adding value for them. Build brand loyalty for them by making sure it’s easy for them to do businesses with you. If a change in the economy affects your business, loyal, high-value customers may help sustain you until the market changes.

4. Review your financial cushioning.

Although the general recommendation for businesses has been six months, Hal Shelton, a SCORE mentor and angel investor says to look at how much you cash you need. Ask yourself these key questions:

How much cash have you been using?

Look at your “net burn rate,” the rate at which you spend your cash holdings. For example, if you are bringing in $10,000 but you are spending $4,000 in expenses, your net burn rate is $6,000

How much cash do you plan on using in the next 12-to-15 months?

Be conservative, but look at your monthly budget or the financial forecast in your business plan. Separately, look at actual cash expenditures as well as the cash in (sales) and cash out (expenditures).

What stage is your business?

If you’re a start-up, or ramping up your business and going to have big expenditures, that’s different than being in the middle of a more-established place.

How long will it take you to get more cash?

For many businesses, this is an unknown factor. Getting a loan from a bank, if they are willing to lend, can take several months. It usually takes at least a month to find a bank who might be willing to lend money and another month to fill out the paperwork. That’s contingent on already having a bank-ready business plan and an already established relationship.Shelton says pitching and presenting to potential angel investors takes significantly longer, usually at least six months or possibly nine months to a year.

5. Consider your borrowing options.

You don’t want to have to borrow money when you desperately need it. You want to borrow money before you anticipate you might need it, or at least have a good enough financial footing to be able to secure a line of credit or a business loan. Stephen L. Nelson a CPA in Redmond, Washington, offers some tips on how to forecast 12 months out using excel workbooks.

Shelton’s advice is to “Seek cash when you are in a position to explore options and negotiate from strength.” Then ask yourself: Can you still operate if your funding disappears?

6. Consider alternative funding options.

Besides traditional term loans, you may consider opening a business credit card or a business line of credit. There’s also equipment financing and grants for small business owners. If you have less than perfect credit or if you need money quickly as a business owner, a short-term loan may you be your best option.

By stress-testing your business’s finances and proactively planning now, you may help mitigate potential problems down the line.

How to Hire the Right Candidate

March 11, 2019/in Featured Stories, Human Resources /by Bernadette Abel

Sizing Up a Prospective Employee

When Chase Hillenmeyer takes a job applicant to lunch, something usually goes wrong — on purpose. For instance, Hillenmeyer, who runs a landscaping business in Lexington, Kentucky, will quietly go up to the server and ask that the applicant be brought a salad instead of the cheeseburger he ordered.

Hillenmeyer isn’t playing games; he’s determining how the potential hire deals with adversity. If the applicant treats the server with respect, and handles the mistake well, Hillenmeyer knows he’ll fit with the culture of his fifth-generation business.

Sizing up potential employees is one of the hardest and most difficult tasks for a business owner. A good hire can take the company to the next level, but a bad one is costly. “For a small company, a five-figure investment in the wrong person is a threat to the business,” writes entrepreneur Falon Fatemi in Forbes.

Ask Behavioral Questions

Knowing the importance of hiring well, some companies are shifting to “behavioral interviewing”. This approach bypasses vague questions, like “What are your strengths?” that often lead to canned answers lacking any real substance or insight. Instead, applicants are quizzed on how they handled actual situations.

For example,Inc. Magazine suggests saying: “Describe a time when you recognized that you were unable to meet multiple deadlines. What did you do about it?” If you want to check an applicant’s communication skills, pin them down by saying: “Give an example of a time when you persuaded a boss, customer, or peer to your point of view, even when that individual may not have agreed with you.”

While this is a better approach than standard interview questions, you should still keep any eye out for any potential pitfalls or problems. Ron Friedman, a social psychologist and author of the Best Place to Work, found that 81% of applicants lie in interviews because they give the answer they think is expected. “In many cases, job interviews are entirely disconnected from the reality of people’s day to day job,” he says.

Run a Job Audition

Instead of interviews, some entrepreneurs favor “job auditions” where an applicant handles the actual tasks of the position. For example, a sales rep position will come in and sell to the company’s team. Or a web designer may be asked to create a landing page.

Friedman’s research shows these tryouts are a better indicator of success than job interviews. This is because they show how a person actually does the job rather than simply what’s on their resume.

Observe All Actions

Candidates are typically on their best behavior when being interviewed. This makes it difficult to get a true feel for their personality, attitude and demeanor. Since one very important aspect of the interview process is determining whether a candidate will be a positive addition to your team, it’s important to figure out if the person is an “unsavory character” prior to bringing them on.

To help get a better idea of whether a candidates “in interview” personality is fake or authentic, observe how they are interacting with individuals outside of the actual interview – those who aren’t involved with the interview process. Were they pleasant and friendly with the receptionist? Were they cordial to other employees they passed along the way to and from the interview room. Closely watching their interactions with others, when the candidate doesn’t feel as if they are being closely watched. Doing so can give you an idea of their true colors.

Hold a Brainstorm Session

Similar to a job audition, conducting a brainstorm session during an interview can indicate how a person can actually do the job. In addition, it can showcase how well you and the individual can effectively work together to complete projects and solve problems.

Before the Interview

The above tactics are great options once you get someone in FOR an interview. But how do you go about narrowing down the candidate pool to determine who you should bring in to interview? With job postings sometimes receiving hundreds of applications, culling through resumes and cover letters can become extremely time consuming. Here are two ways to save time in assessing top candidates to interview.

Request a Video Introduction

Consider requesting a video introduction as part of the application/resume submission process – especially if presentation is a key part of the role. Video introductions can allow you to quickly gauge a candidates personality, skill set and enthusiasm for the role prior to bringing them it. Remember to note in your job description and directions for submission that the video does not have to be great quality and remember be sure to set a time limit on the video.

Nix the Cover Letters

Instead of requesting cover letters that are often templated, consider requesting candidates to “describe in 100 words”. You can ask them to describe why they’d be a good fit for the role. Or you can ask why this opportunity excites them. Or you can have them describe how they’d tackle a specific aspect or responsibility of the role. Descriptions of this nature require candidates to showcase their ability to think creatively (you can’t template unique thoughts!). It can also show you bits of their personality and how they communicate. And, it’s a lot less time consuming and can be a lot more entertaining for you.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Income Statements But Were Afraid To Ask

March 9, 2019/in Accounting & Taxes, Featured Stories, Financing /by Bernadette Abel

Editor’s Note: This is one of an eight-part series about key financial terms all business owners should know.

Chances are you’ve heard the word “Income Statement” at some point during your entrepreneurial journey. Maybe you’ve even reviewed one from your CPA or CFO (If so, bonus points!). But, if your eyes glaze over a bit when you hear the term. Or, if you’re not entirely sure how an income statement is different than a balance sheet. You’re in the right place.

What is an income statement?

It’s a financial report that shows a company’s financial performance over a specified period of time. Typically income statements are reported on a monthly, quarterly, or annual bases. However, a report can address any time period. An income statement shows revenues and expenses from operating and non-operating activities, along with net profit or loss. Income statements are sometimes referred to as “profit and loss statements.”

Why are Income Statements Important?

Income statements provide an easy-to-review report of your company’s performance over a period of time. Comparing multiple income statements for multiple periods of time can give you insight into how your business is doing overall. For example, if sales are up but expenses are up even more, your net profit may be down.

How can Income Statements Impact Financing Options?

Because they show performance over a period of time, many lenders use income statements to assess how a business’ sales and net income are changing over time. For this reason, many potential lenders require multiple income statements to review. They could potentially request three or more years’ worth, depending on the sum you’re financing or raising.

If you’re an entrepreneur exploring financing options, start reviewing your income statements. It’s best to review with your CPA or CFO, but if you don’t have one, use your accounting software to generate the monthly, quarterly, and annual reports now so you’re well-versed on your company’s financial health before you begin conversations with outside parties.

Ask An Expert

Bradley Klingsporn is a practicing CPA and Co-Founder/Co-Owner of Aardvark Wine Lounge in Green Bay, Wisconsin, so he knows a thing or two about why income statements are important to entrepreneurs.

Why is it important to have a handle on your income statement if you’re looking to raise capital?

Klingsporn: Not every company is a tech startup that can operate in the red for years and keep raising capital. Most businesses need to show profits or at least growth to convince investors to give you their money. Keeping close tabs on your income statement can help you know when it is a good time to raise capital and when it might be best to wait a few weeks if you expect some significant improvements.

What’s the biggest misunderstanding about income statements that you see from other entrepreneurs?

Klingsporn: Many small business owners have a difficult time differentiating regular ebbs and flows from trends. There is no hard and fast rule to determine whether a bad month is just a bad month or if it’s the start of a trend (the same can be true of good months). The income statement is a starting point that is used to begin understanding where the business is, but requires additional information to determine what that means for the future. For example, restaurants and bars will often see increased sales in months that have five weekends – to interpret these increases as growth could lead an owner to make capital improvements or hire additional staff that they may not be able to afford when the following month sees a decrease with only four weekends.

Give Me More

Just like it’s easier to travel in a foreign country when you know the language, it’s easier to raise capital (or secure any kind of funding for your business) when you’re familiar with key financial terms and their real-life applications. Want to get up to speed on your finances? Check out the other articles in this series which cover: turnover ratio, debt to income ratio, payables turnover ratio, debt service coverage ratio, current ratio, cash flow statements, and inventory turnover ratio.

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Beyond the Exam Room: How a Top Chicago Cosmetic Surgery Practice Manages Payment for Care

March 8, 2019/in Uncategorized /by Bernadette Abel

Most cosmetic surgery practices operate far from primary care’s recurring billing models. Patients come and go and are often one-and-done, creating a practice that’s more transactional than built on repeat business. But, the care these surgeons provide is anything but transactional. It’s highly personal, often reflecting on a patient’s sense of self and worth.

With this in mind, how can cosmetic surgery practices keep payments as personalized as the care they provide while operating a transactional business model?

Lori Pascal is the office manager and patient coordinator for Dr. Thomas Mustoe and Dr. Sammy Sinno, two of Chicago’s most prominent cosmetic surgeons. Having spent over 17 years in patient coordination for cosmetic surgery practices and the past four-plus years managing Mustoe’s and Sinno’s, Pascal offers some insights to help other medical practices add a personal touch to their payment procedures.

“Patients don’t think of medicine as a business, but whether you’re a heart surgeon or a dermatologist, it’s still a business,” says Pascal. “If the practice isn’t well run, patients will pick up on that, and that’s what makes them feel less like a person and more like a transaction.”

Create a Structured Financial Policy

Pascal’s first recommendation for any medical office operating on a transactional billing model is to have a structured financial policy in place. “For our practice, this means having set procedures for how we present financial information, and we present that information in a highly transparent way,” says Pascal.

“Patients don’t get on a surgical schedule without a surgery deposit,” she says. “This policy prevents our surgeons from having gaps in their surgical schedule. The deposit is refundable. To cancel or reschedule, patients need to give us notice no later than four weeks before their surgery date. I’ve found that with windows shorter than four weeks, surgeons have less chance to fill those surgery times and we don’t want our surgeons to have holes in their surgical schedule.”

Without a structured financial policy, practices like the one Pascal runs might quickly be in trouble. “From an office standpoint, we have to think about how we’re going to create an efficient schedule for the physicians. We want to make the surgeons’ time useful, and that includes thinking about how many new patients can be seen on a weekly basis. A transactional practice like ours has people waiting for consults and surgery. If there weren’t any penalties, we’d end up with an empty flight which wouldn’t leave us in business very long. ”

But there always has to be room for leeway, and it’s not all about penalties and cancellations. Discussing financial information may make or break a transactional practice. Here’s how Pascal makes payments personal for patients while maintaining a high level of professionalism.

Making Payments Personal

In practices like the one Pascal manages, procedures typically cost thousands of dollars. Insurance rarely comes into play, which means the burden of payment rests with the patient.

“There has to be an appreciation that this is a lot of money,” says Pascal. “Naturally, having the wrong person discussing finances with patients could make a patient uncomfortable.”

At Pascal’s office, she’s the single point of contact for all financial discussions with patients. As the single point of contact, Pascal may also offer flexibility on a case-by-case basis.

“When people need a little bit of leeway, I’m the only one negotiating that flexibility. Being the single point of contact for finances helps the patient have a smooth surgical and in-office experience. Whether it’s receiving a final payment a few days later than our financial policy dictates or paying cash to save a bit of money, I’m always going to try to accommodate the patient.”

Pascal is committed to keeping a structured financial policy to maintain the human touch in the practice she manages. In Pascal’s office, patients and the practice are equally important. This allows both to work towards the same goal: incredible outcomes that generate referrals because of the excellent work throughout the patient experience.

5 Ways to Increase Productivity at Your Business

March 7, 2019/in Featured Stories, Living Your Best SBO Life /by Bernadette Abel

Do These 5 Easy Things Today to Be More Productive Tomorrow

As a small business owner, do your goals include becoming more productive? If so, these five tips and techniques may make a difference.

Schedule Sleep and Exercise First

Prioritizing non-business activities such as sleep, exercise, spiritual practice, and time with family and friends may improve your physical and emotional well being. And, being both physically and emotionally healthy can lead to a more productive day. For example, one MIT study found that exercise helps us better process information. A University of Arizona study found sleep-related symptoms negatively impacts daily productivity.

Schedule non-business activities in your digital or paper day planner before anything else. Then when business calls, you’ll be in the best physical and mental state to work efficiently and increase workplace productivity.

Track Your Daily Energy Levels and Distractions

Your energy levels rise and fall throughout the day, although energy level patterns may vary from person to person. At the same time, the level of distractions around you also varies. This combination can significantly enhance or impede your productivity.

Recently, 75% of respondents to a study by online course provider Udemy said they get more done and are more productive when workplace distractions are reduced. And yes, this includes social media.

Record your energy level as high, medium, or low every couple of hours during the day. While doing so, make sure to note when distractions to your workday are highest. Then simply rearrange your workday so you’re performing tasks requiring high concentration when you’re feeling energetic and distractions are low.

Batch Your Tasks

Although being more productive means getting more done in a day, performing several tasks at once (multi-tasking) could actually hinder your memory and reduce your productivity. According to recent findings from the Stanford Memory Laboratory, you may boost your productivity by scheduling your time to avoid multi-tasking and incorporate batching, performing similar tasks together in one time block.

Consider your typical weekly or monthly tasks and how they could be batched.

Template, Replicate and Automate

To maximize the impact of batching on productivity, create a template to cut the time required to perform each batching activity. For example, filling in a report template may save time versus creating one from scratch. You may be able to replicate the time savings by using the outline template as a base for other similar activities, such as writing case studies or white papers.

Today’s business world is full of repetitive tasks. Automating those tasks can boost productivity, helping you get more done in a shorter time. According to a 2017 study, 69 percent of surveyed workers say that automation’s biggest benefit is in reducing time spent on repetitive tasks. Study your own repetitive tasks, such as data entry, creating reports, and even paying bills. Look for opportunities to use technology to automate those tasks, such as setting up recurring bill payments through online banking. The more you’re able to automate, the less chance you have of wasting time.

Delegate or Dump

What are you doing that someone else could do instead? And what are you doing that could be scrapped entirely?

When you delegate important tasks to other team members, you free up time to tackle other tasks, increasing your personal productivity and earnings. In a Harvard study of law firms which practice delegating routine work to associate lawyers, partners earned between 20-to-50 percent more than they would have without delegating the work. These partners can take on more clients and produce higher quality work on difficult cases without the distraction of the more routine cases.

Review your most recent “To-Do” lists and identify at least three activities that can be delegated or dumped. Then allocate the time saved for growing your business, pursuing new clients, or developing new product lines.

Making Her Mark – Influential Women Business Owners: Megy Karydes

March 6, 2019/in Featured Stories, Making Her Mark - Influential Women Business Owners /by Bernadette Abel

Launching Your Own Business as a Working Mom

As the managing director of marketing at Chicago’ massive Merchandise Mart, Megy Karydes knew she wanted a change. She spent almost every month traveling, overseeing some of the biggest

Megy Karydes in Cyprus, August 2018

trade shows in the world.

“I felt like I was at the point where, I’d done everything I needed to do,” she says. “It didn’t feel challenging anymore.”

With two children under the age of two, Karydes left her job and launched her own business. Karydes Consulting is a C-corporation in Chicago. It offers marketing, communications, public relations, and media relations services to corporate and nonprofit companies.

At the same time, she also launched her careers as a journalist. Learning how to balance being a journalist, a marketing and public relations consultant and a mom is a lot. Here’s how Megy does it.

Making the transition

Start by identifying your audience and your unique selling proposition to let potential clients know what you can offer based on the kind of work you want, Karydes says. When she decided to start her own company, the first thing she did was email her entire network of contacts to let them know.

“As soon as I sent out that email letting people know what I was doing, I immediately signed two clients.”

Over the past decade, Karydes’ business has grown to include major clients such as The Morton Arboretum, Union of Concerned Scientists, Heartland Alliance, McCormick & Company spice, and Meredith Corporation.

Vetting potential clients

Her advice to new business owners: hone in on both the type of clients you want and don’t want. It’s important to interview potential clients to make sure they are a good fit for you. Just as much as the other way around.

Although Karydes wanted to focus much of her work on nonprofits, many didn’t have a large enough budget to make some potential clients a good fit. To ensure business viability while fulfilling her need to work with nonprofits, Karydes began focusing only on mid-to-large organizations with budgets of a million dollars or more.

“It’s important to me to determine that early on,” she says. “I don’t want to fall into the trap of just accepting a client and find out when we begin working together that we’re not seeing eye to eye.”

To vet potential clients, Karydes starts by asking “What are you trying to achieve by trying to hire someone like me?”. To do her job right in media and public relations, Karydes needs access to sources, imagery, B-roll video and the ability to quickly get in touch with an executive if a reporter wants to do an interview.

If Karydes feels like she has the expertise to work and help a potential client achieve their goals, she then asks the following questions:

How available will you be for me?
How do you prefer to be contacted?
Are you prepared to provide me with the necessary material in order to do my job?

“These questions are so basic. But when you ask the questions, it puts the onus on them to understand that I can only do my job as well as I can if I get what I need from them,” she says. “They almost forget that. They almost feel like if they hire someone like me, they can just hand over everything to me and wash their hands from having to do any more work. That’s never the case. We need to be a team for this to work.”

“If executives are difficult to reach, because they are constantly traveling or don’t check their phones, it makes it a lot harder for me to do my job,” Karydes says. “That’s a problem. If I have a reporter who needs to do an interview, thenI’ve lost that opportunity and potentially alienated that reporter.”

Managing motherhood

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Megy and her son, Alex.

Karydes’ son Alex, who is now 12, was only 10 months old when she started her own business. Her daughter, Chloe, who is now 14, was less than 2 years old.

Running her own business has given Karydes the flexibility to work the type of hours she wants and still be available for her children.

“I was fortunate that my mother was able to take care of my kids full time while I worked. I realize that is not something that’s common, but it was so integral for me,” she says.

Her advice: Since finding affordable (and safe) daycare can be difficult and time consuming, it’s important to do it early on.

“It’s easier said than done, because our country doesn’t necessarily value that kind of role,” Karydes says. Because of this, she suggests involving your children in your work when possible. For Karydes, that meant bringing her children, even when they were babies and toddlers on business trips. She did this especially when she was writing travel stories.

“For the longest time they didn’t even know about kids menus,” she says. “We went to so many restaurants we just let them try the food from our plates. They couldn’t read the menu so they didn’t even know kids’ meals were even an option which has made them become much more adventurous eaters.”

More importantly, it’s helped open her children to different cultures and other ways of life. Even if it’s just in another neighborhood in Chicago.

“It’s a good reminder for them that they don’t live in a bubble,” she says. “But they’re part of a bigger community.”

How Retailers Can Perfect an Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

March 5, 2019/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing /by Bernadette Abel

Retail has undergone a substantial makeover in the last decade as more Americans shop online. Staying competitive in the e-commerce era is a challenge. However, it’s one many retailers are adapting to by focusing on an omnichannel commerce strategy.

Omni channel retail, or cross-channel retail, aims to create a unified, multi channel experience for shoppers by expanding a brand’s presence beyond a brick-and-mortar store and traditional marketing tactics. It includes selling and other touch points through e-commerce sites, social media, mobile devices, SMS messages and email. The combination of these allows business owners to create a recognizable digital footprint and a seamless experience for your customers.

Ninety percent of retailers have an omnichannel strategy in place — but they’re not necessarily realizing its full potential. These tips can help you kick your omnichannel efforts into high gear.

How to Implement an Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

Go Where Your Customers Are

Before you can get serious about cross-channel selling, you first have to understand where your customers are spending their time. That includes the websites, search engines, mobile applications and social media channels they frequent.

One way to find out where your customers are online is by using Google Analytics to break down from where the traffic to your website is coming. You can also ask your in-store shoppers to fill out a quick survey online detailing their digital habits, as well as sending out the same survey to your email list subscribers.

Once you know where your customers are most often, you can focus your omnichannel strategy on those channels that have the most potential to generate new sales. For example, you may not want to waste time on a Twitter marketing push if most of your customers hang out on Facebook.

Check Your Tech

Having the right technology in place can make it easier to promote an omnichannel strategy. If your store doesn’t use a customer relationship management (CRM) system, that might be a wise investment for 2019.

A CRM allows you to collect customer data, but perhaps more importantly, it can help you transition from one sales channel to another smoothly, creating a seamless shopping experience. For example, you could use a CRM to analyze customer behavior to create individualized, automated marketing campaigns based on customer preferences, regardless of where they prefer to shop.

Other omnichannel tech solutions you may want to consider include point of sale systems that integrate automatically with e-commerce sites, cloud-based inventory management tools, and monitoring tools that can help you pinpoint what’s working with your online storefront or what’s not.

Not Sure How to Get Started?

As with pretty much everything in life, a simple way to get started is to learn by watching others. Hubspot provides some great examples of brands with an excellent omni channel customer experience. Some of these examples include brilliant strategies from Disney, Virgin Atlantic, Bank of America, Starbucks and Chipotle.

Emarsys also provides some great examples through Sephora, Crate and Barrel and Walgreens. While these large brands may have a bigger budget and more resources than you, it doesn’t mean that you can’t use them a prime source for inspiration.

You can also check out research reports published by companies that focus on existing and future trends. For example, Big Commerce has published the The Global Omni-Channel Consumer Shopping Research Report which provides insights into:

How Americans shop across an omni-channel environment, including how much they spend and what they buy.
How generations shop as compared to each other, including the multiple channels they each you, which payment options/technologies they prefer.
Insights on how to increase conversion rates on all of the channels that make up your omnichannel experience.
The things that motivate your audience to purchase.

All of this information can help guide you in enhancing your onmichannel strategy and ultimately increase your customer engagement and improve the user experience for your clients.

Make It Simple

An omnichannel commerce strategy shouldn’t be overly complicated. Ideally, you want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to shop either in-store or online. You also want to ensure that slong with athat ease, you are still giving them a personalized experience. And make it so they keep coming back. These relatively small updates to your existing sales strategy could make a difference in your retail success.

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Making Her Mark – Influential Women Business Owners: Michelle Mekky

March 4, 2019/in Featured Stories, Making Her Mark - Influential Women Business Owners /by Bernadette Abel

How I Built My Own Business After Cancer

“I don’t think I would have ever had the courage to start my own business, if I didn’t have cancer,” says Michelle Mekky, the CEO and founder of Mekky Media Relations.

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Credit: Michelle Mekky

Michelle Mekky dreamed of owning her own business, but the financial risk always felt too great. For years, she’d held senior positions at various public relations firms. She was a loyal employee, she says, who worked late nights and weekends, running international business campaigns.

She’d been working 80-hour weeks, raising two kids, and putting off her annual exams. When she finally went to the doctor, she was told they’d found something, possibly a fibroid mass.

“But I was told it was probably nothing,” Mekky says. But after seeing an oncologist at the University of Chicago, Mekky was told there was only a 10 percent chance the growth was benign.

Mekky underwent a seven-hour surgery and awoke to learn she had ovarian cancer and a full hysterectomy. “It was such a traumatic experience for me, but it was the turning point. I didn’t immediately start a new business. But it gradually led me to wake up that I had to take more control over my life and go down a new path.”

After returning to work, she switched agencies in the hopes of finding a better work-life balance. In less than a year and a half later, she was laid off from her new position.

“I went home and looked at my family,” Mekky says. “I don’t know which was harder, recovering from cancer, or being told that I just lost my job and having to decide what am I going to do next.”

Life After Cancer

For the next seven days, Mekky’s husband would ask her, “Did you think of a name for your business?”

“Finally I said maybe just maybe I need to do this.”

She went to see a mentor to figure out why, with over 20 years of experience in the business, she felt tentative. Mekky knew she had connections within the industry and could achieve great things. Her mentor asked a simple question: “What’s holding you back?” Then Mekky’s mentor wrote her a check for $10,000, as a loan, and told Mekky to start her business.

“I thought, if she believes in me this much, I’d better go find a bank and start a business account,” Mekky says. “It was the birth of Mekky Media.”

Building Her Business

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Mekky used a lean canvas model to reflect on her unique value proposition and how she could provide solutions to client problems she was seeing. She created an S corporation and hired what she says was the key to starting her business: a great accountant and attorney.

Mekky did competitive research on what other people in the industry were saying about themselves. From there she had to figure out how she could stand out in a crowded field of agencies and consultants. She knew from years in the industry that her personal attention and creative storytelling made her stand out.

“I quickly realized people hire people,” Mekky says. “They don’t necessarily hire a business. It’s the human behind the business that people are hiring.”

It led to 800 percent growth in her business in two years, she says. This growth netted an invitation to join Forbes Agency Council, a well-known organization of business owners and executives of advertising, creative, public and media relations agencies.

Mekky soon began netting clients such as Abt Electronics, nonprofits like Susan G. Komen Chicago and GiGi’s Playhouse, as well as companies and individuals in the hospitality, fitness and financial service industries.

In November 2018, Mekky was awarded the 2018 Stevie Award for Women in Business with a bronze medal for Entrepreneur of the Year.

“I’ve always had the entrepreneurial bug in me, but I always felt too much obligation that I had to support my family, pay the bills and this was too risky. Having cancer forced me to do something outside of my comfort zone and now I’m also able to take care of myself and create the environment I’ve always wanted to create.”

Michelle Mekky Accepts her Stevie Award

Editor’s Note: Michelle’s story is one of a four-part series celebrating women business owners throughout the month of March. Take a look at these other inspiring stories in the series: Launching Your Own Business as a Working Mom.