How to talk to little girls - a business girl's perspective

Oh gosh, this one's tough.  Friend of mine posted this article from the Huffington Post on Facebook today...inspired me to yammer.  The article is all about talking to little girls less about their outer beauty, more about their inner beauty.  I agree with the article's point about talking to girls about their minds first.  Agreed, little girls should grow up with an inner confidence only the comfort of knowledge can offer.  With that being said, I will firmly argue that women who does not recognize the power of their external beauty are sadly missing out.  You just can't argue with nature, women ARE beautiful.  To encourage a little girl to develop and care for her outer beauty, in my opinion, offers her an tremendous advantage in the future.  A woman that's in shape and well groomed will garner a certain level of respect that an overweight poorly groomed woman can not.  I was raised by a man and grew up believing looks didn't matter.  I was never encouraged to take care of my body, my skin or my hair.  I was however encouraged to study hard and never let them see you sweat.  Today, I can go head to head with any corporate dude in any board room with my eyes closed. It's however been the largest struggle of my life to embrace and celebrate my femininity.  The good news is that once I understood it, I became twice as powerful in the corporate world. They don't see me coming.  As women, beauty is indeed the secret weapon many women do not even know they have

Skwikee Shadows the Vanity Girl Herself!

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activities for Skwikee.  We attended the Pipeline Summit in NYC, interviewed Mr. Kim Vo in Orange County (CA) and this weekend we're hanging out taping interviews at IMATS with the professional makeup artists of some of the hottest shows on the air.  

All sounds like delicious cake, but the icing on this cake is the opportunity to professionally shadow founder and creator of the Vanity Girl Hollywood brand, Maxine Tatlonghari.  This dynamite girl humbly calls the Kardashians, Mariah Cary and Jennifer Love Hewitt, her clients.  I'm super stoked to watch her in action simply because she's a no fear LA business gal, gets right in there and makes it happen!  We can all learn a thing or two from this Girlpreneur ;-)

China's here and they're ready to invest in American companies

This morning’s business broker meeting shed a bit of hope and light on the economic state of small businesses in America.  Now, before I get into this, let me just establish something.  I’m a commerce girl and rarely even think or care about politics.  I'm a silly Canadian with zero power to even vote, so why ruin a good soy latte morning by listening to all the talking heads?  I don't but I’m sure there’s lots of opinions about China’s ownership of US Bonds, the national deficit and so on.  That’s all great and you’re welcome to post your opinions.  As far as I’m concerned, I’m all about ways to grant people the American dream of owning a small business and retiring with options.  That's what I like to talk about and if that means borrowing money from China or any other country for that matter, let’s go!

Now, on to my nuggets of possibilities.  China’s in da house!!!  And they bring cash people.  The institution is called the Chinatrust Bank and they’re actively looking for American enterprises to vest their kung pow dollars.  How do I know this?  Let's just say there's some buzz about it in the office.  Regardless, I say “pony on up to the bar...let’s get a round of funding going on.” Those who look into Chinatrust, please be sure to share your findings...

Customer Review Sites: Is it the way of the social commerce future?

This week, in PR 2.0, the professor asked us to give feedback regarding customer review sites and viral their impact on their peers.  I thought about getting into all the physiological aspects of the practice, but then realized, it's really all about the WIIFM factor.

Observations of Current Trends to Encourage Consumer Feedback:
Over the last several months, retailers are leveraging the power of community sourced content such as personalized YouTube videos and photo uploads featuring their products.  As a form of incentivizing the consumer to participate in these efforts, they offer various forms of prizes and rewards.  One online retailer that does an amazing job at this sort of thing is ModCloth.com.  In fact the founder of ModCloth, Susan Gregg Koger recently talked about her 2011 focus on social commerce programs in Entrepreneur Magazine. A $50M retail business based out of her closet, the girl must be doing something right!

In my opinion, this is a win for all.  The retailer gets direct consumer feedback regarding ways their customer is using the products.  The viewing audience receives ideas and suggestions about ways they could potentially use that retailer’s product and the contributor (person engaging in the act of uploading content such as videos and photos) is up for some sort of reward in exchange for her contribution.   Love it.

Future Projection:
I predict there’s going to be much more of this sort of thing in the future.  In fact, I predict retailers will find a way to turn community sourced content into social games.  I’m actually pretty obsessed with the concept, think it’s going to be a brand new way of marketing and advertising.  To test camp my theories, I built the first social commerce game and based it on shops in LA, but the idea can pretty much be implemented within most industries.  It takes community content (in this case YouTube videos) and turns them into social games.  I call it Skwikee.com.  Thoughts?

The "Boomers Buying Retirement Businesses" Trend

Be sure to tune in this Saturday morning at 11AM PST to KMED's Real Money show with Doug Stone, Financial Analyst and Host.  I'll be talking about an interesting and new Boomer trend: "The Retirement Business".  I'll also be sharing TWO easy financial strategies Boomers can use to buy a small business, as a form of supplemental income.  Don't miss it!

Listen LIVE!

Traditional PR in contrast to PR 2.0

Public Relations is the active process of maintaining an image by projecting and sustaining the story around a brand, person or place.  Public relations takes shape based on the positive or negative opinions and endorsements of key influencers.  Originally, these influencers were described as the media; however, today public relations can be performed by any number of people who capture and hold the attention of the public. 

These people are known to be key influencers based on the attention they place to the brand, people or places they talk about.  This kind of influence is now deemed be described as public relations 2.0 because of the large platform social media lends to everyday influencers via the internet.  This is how PR 2.0 is changing the way we communicate with our audience as well.  It directly relates to how we use the tool as marketers because we must now recognize the power of everyday people, sharing everyday thoughts regarding the brands, people and places we’re responsible for positioning.

How has PR 2.0 affected your business?  Please share...

Skwikee.com invited to 2011 Pipeline Fund Fellowship (PFF) Pitch Summit

It’s been a journey of long hours, intense deadlines and incredible sacrifice.  Worth it?  You betcha!  Skwikee.com a for women, by women social site and game was just selected to be pitched at the national Pipeline Fund Fellowship Pitch Summit on June 17^th, 2011 in New York City. 

The Pipeline Fund Fellowship is one of the hottest startup angel investment groups to hit the women in tech landscape.  Touted in publications such as ForbesWoman, Businessweek, Mashable and The New York Times, we’re crazy excited to be invited to participate in pitching to this panel of rock star women.  Pardon us while we do the happy dance!!!

Sponsor?  Invest?  You Betcha!
In the spirit of maintaining the integrity of this social experiment we thought it would be awesome to invite our fellow Skwikee supporters to join in the suspense, adventure and potential profits prior to its grand TA-DA!.  We decided to open up a crowd source fund allowing micro investors (ie. all our non-millionaire buddies) to sponsor as much or as little as they'd like, from now up until midnight of pitch day: June 17, 2011.   Payoff could be as big as super duper or as small as nice “thank you” on fancy paper.  Donno where this crazy ride will end, but we hope you’ll join us anyway ;-)   Next Stop:  NY City!!!!!

Sign Me Up!

Duly Noted: PR 2.0 is nothing new in Beverly Hills

Spent the day meeting and exploring small business sale opportunities with shop owners throughout Beverly Hills yesterday.  Now Beverly Hills, one might think they’re all swimming in money, perhaps have an unrealistic perspective as to what the rest of the world deals with, in regards to operating a small business - not so.  These small business owners are just as down to earth and connected to reality as any other client I’ve ever dealt with.  Sure they’re dressed well and have a keen eye to detail, but at the end of the day, the face the same challenge any other business owner: profitability.  And when your rent is sometimes over $10K per month, it’s not always a 90210 happy ending.

There is one difference in the Beverly Hills mindset.  Image is king.  Good times, bad times, there is no exception and the show must go on.  The store fronts are pristine, the people are dressed well and they are there to elevate their customer’s experience beyond all expectations.  These people are determined to create raving fans and evangelists out of their clientele; PR at it’s finest if you ask me.  However, it’s not traditional PR that is making these places extraordinary.  In fact the media and reporters are rarely around during regular 9-5 hours.  Noooo, this is PR 2.0 or social media’s doing's.  It’s word of mouth advertising that keeps these shop owners' businesses top of the mind with their clients.  They've been practicing PR 2.0 for decades now and believe me, they know it.

So in speaking with these small business owners (potential sellers for me), I quickly realized that not just anyone can or will be able to buy these businesses.  I must be sure to look for the kinds of buyers who appreciate the value of presentation and “personal” public relations.  My ear must be to the heartbeat of the social media drum and I must pay very close attention to what’s being said;  I must also try to read into what’s not being said in the social circuits too.

I very much look forward to the next six months of focusing on the Beverly Hills market.  I think the culture fits right in line with my latest MBA studies as we’re exploring all the facets of PR 2.0.  TWO reasons to hang out in BH...I'll take it!