Seed for Success | Empowering Women Entreprenuers

What a day! It all started at 8 a.m. and ended at 4:30 p.m. Last week Yahoo! contacted me about a film crew that would be coming to my home to watch me “in action.” The producer on site, Gordon McGee, wanted to cover 4 aspects of Head2Toe: personal interview, work on products, speech therapy with child, and meeting with Eric Yonge regarding the logo and website. To be honest, as I was preparing myself for this day, I was more nervous about the therapy session because one never knows how the child will respond; however, when I sat down in front of the camera and lights, everything changed. Normally, I can talk all day long about my company, mission, goals, products, and targeted markets, but not today. All I wanted to do was stress is that Amy and I are passionate about working and helping special needs children overcome challenges so they become successful individuals and using our products will help them achieve that goal. Secondly, I wanted to make sure I stressed that we could not be accomplishing our dream if it weren’t for winning the Yahoo! small business grant. I hope that those two things were clearly stated.

Overall, it was a great day! The little girl I worked with today was a star! I ended my day with a meeting with Eric Yonge and I’m pleased to announce, “I have a logo!!” When he turned the paper over, I knew as soon as I saw it! It POPPED! Now I feel like I am making progress. Time to get my trademark, and our website will be available soon. www.head2toepub.com. Crossing these business items off my “to do” list allows me to concentrate on helping Amy with products.

I am excited about the four aspects of the Yahoo! grant but most about receiving the mentoring advice. This week I have been introduced to two more mentors: Rosemary Coates, manufacturing and importing, and Jeannette Peten, BigAustin. Rosemary and I have already had a beneficial phone conversation about manufacturing in China. Here’s advice she gave me about communicating with Chinese manufacturers: 1. Be very literal; 2. Use short sentences and small words; 3. Always stress “high quality”; 4. Request samples; 5. Never accept the first price quoted. Bargain! She also told me to use www.alibaba to source the products I need. I already feel more confident. I will be talking to Jeannette on Friday, and I can’t wait to hear and learn from her.

So much has happened in the last two weeks. I have been awarded this fabulous grant; I have resigned from my job and am getting ready to start a new one; I have been interviewed by the Birmingham News, and I have been filmed all day. It is easy to get overwhelmed by it all, but there is one bit of advice that I am trying to live by that my brother-in-law gave me. He said to focus on one area of my company each day. If I try to work on marketing, manufacturing, etc. at the same time, I become distracted, and I am not able to complete an area well. Life is not perfect, especially as the owner of a new company, but his advice has helped me stay focused and get organized.

Let me share three things I have learned recently from three ladies I highly respect. Carolyn Kepcher writes that you must be passionate about your work, Cathie Black stresses that you need to work very hard but have time to have a life, and Bobbi Brown reminds us to not expect success overnight. Terrific advice!

As soon as I know when the video is available for viewing, I’ll let you know. Amy and I appreciate all of your kind comments and excitement about Head2Toe Publications. We would love to hear any product suggestions you have because we are here for YOU!

Have a great evening and keep moving forward even if it is small steps!

Karla

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Posted by kduncan