Ladies Who Launch

New York Business XPo Recap

Yesterday, I attended the New York Business Expo which was held at the Javits Center. The expo focused on services for small and mid-sized businesses. I ran into fellow Ladies Who Launchers Elisabeth Kovacs and Nichole Wright. Here are some of the resources that may be helpful in you business.

Banking:
Washington Mutual offers free business checking with no balance requirement. Plus, you can sign up for free enrollment into the WaMoola For Schools Program where you can benefit your local school with Debit Mastercard purchases. You can get downloads of your banking account information into Quickbooks.

Healthcare:
Atlantis offers affordable healthcare with no co-payments if you use one of their outpatient centers. Atlantis is doctor owned and managed.

Payroll:
I met a sales manager from Prime Pay, a payroll service. They handle all line items associated with payroll including flexible spending accounts, payroll taxes and 401K deductions. They have account executives who are assigned to their payroll clients so you have a consistent person who you contact for your payroll needs. I also met someone from CHS Payroll which does payroll including union benefit reports and job and labor costing reports.

Website:
Microsoft Office Live offers a free basic website with free domain name registration, email accounts, 500 MB storage, and free site reports.

Incubator Dose NYC Style

by FashionMista

Ah, the LWL Incubator dose! I've been dealing with SQL injections for the past couple of weeks (a yucky form of a website attack), and I warmly welcomed my Incubator Injection! Always, and now this is the 5th consecutive time, on the days of or one day after an Incubator meeting, worlds open and new opportunities or sales happen. It's so wierd.

I forgot about this phenomenon, so when I got a website order from Mississippi today for a pale pink jewelry pouch (a result from a Google search for "cute jewelry pouch," I might add, so thanks to long-worked-for SEO techniques, the pale pink Katie James jewelry pouch came up first for that term), I was just thrilled. When I got an unsolicited wholesale inquiry, I took a step back and realized that I was going to an Incubator meeting, which means that my mind opens to all possibilities and things happen.

And to top it all off, I got picked up on the subway platform tonight coming home (the second time that happened...the first time led to a job interview). This man did...now let me remember...he was a "structured finance lawyer." Now if THAT is NOT what we talk about when we talk about "the feminine" way of working and launching, I don't know what is. I might have had Godiva chocolate on the corner of my mouth from the yummy Godiva chocolate covered pretzels that I couldn't stop eating while talking to a fashion designer/stylist/future founder of libraries for working communities in Africa or South America (the groups she works with actually don't get new reading materials after their final years of school). So all in all, it was a pretty full night. Plus, I'm writing this on the subway so that I can maaaaybe sew some sleep masks for the LWL trunk show this weekend in Garrison. Yay LWL!

Giving Thanks: FashionMista

FashionMista is the blog of designer, Katie James. It tracks the progress of the Katie James label, as well as spotlights other designers, quarky products, and includes an occasional boyfriend story.

I had a long car trip to reflect on this (several, actually, in the course of this Thanksgiving which involved Columbus OH and TN with a little bit of DollyWood, pictures of which are to come on FashionMista). Here's what I'm thankful for:

• My job, which has given me Day Job Dollars to partially finance my business.
• My skills and wacky Gemini tendencies to be involved with many things, to combine them into successful things.
• My apartment. Sometimes I forget that I myself and paying for my apartment, its funky colored walls, solid furniture (with extra thanks to my mom who provided strategically placed IKEA, and to a former co-worker who used me as GoodWill to unload beautiful pieces of furniture from her sister-in-law's upper-east-side apartment).
• My boyfriend, who is solid as a rock and always supportive despite times I act a little nuts or find silly causes to roll my eyes.
• My pets of course, who seem to love me despite the fact that I give them the same food for their entire lives (although it is top of the line).
• My family, and specifically my grandmother, who before Alzheimer’s seized her brain, gave me some of the greatest advice. I was tormented with making the decision between writing and graphic design, and she simply stated to do both. Which I now do, happily.

Giving Thanks: Jen Singer

Jen Singer is the creator of www.MommaSaid.net and the author of 14 Hours ‘Til Bedtime.

I’m thankful for technology, because it makes it possible for me to work-from-home around my kids’ schedules. Thanks to the Internet, I can e-mail an editor at midnight or on weekends when I have a moment to work. She won’t hear my kids singing the “Beans… beans..” song in the background, because e-mail doesn’t have a soundtrack. I can create a web site that’s as attractive and content-heavy as a large corporation’s site, and I can take phone calls, forwarded from my Internet phone to my cell, while I’m waiting for the kids to finish their piano lessons. What’s on my Christmas list this year? A smart phone, so I can get that important e-mail while I’m finishing up a sand castle at the beach with my boys.

 

Giving Thanks: Tracey Montgomery

What I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving is my lack of fear. I
moved from Australia to the USA just over two years ago and there is
something about being away from home, that leaves me less fearful of
failure than when I am at home. I think that when I am near my family,
I have them there to support me if things go wrong, but being 12,000
miles away means there is no pillow to land on so failure is not an
option. Nor is dreaming small. 

To take the leap to
move to a new country, re-marry and start the business that I dreamed
of all in two years, is a leap of faith that challenges me everyday. It
is not about having the great American dream, or becoming rich, but
rather having filled my life full of the things that I deserve - and
because I believe I deserve an amazing husband and a career that makes
me jump out of bed because I can't wait to start my day. So this
Thanksgiving, I  am thankful that fear is not a factor for me.

Thankfulness

The blog topic of the week is thankfulness.  What are you most grateful for on this Thanksgiving?  What does launching give you to be thankful for?  Please tell us about that and tell us about yourself! 
Happy Thanksgiving!

Giving Thanks: Nichelle Stephens

Lucky Strike Cigarettes Thanksgiving Ad, 1950, originally uploaded by Roadsidepictures.

This year the stars and (dinners) have aligned so that I can attend 3 Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday.  Traveling across 2 boroughs,  I will sup with friends who agree that dinner with people who share some of the genetic make-up as you is  SO 1950's.

Last year, I wrote a piece for The Black List  about Orphan Thanksgivings and I still would love to get a new name for the term. Please leave suggestions in the comments!

ORPHAN THANKSGIVING: Having Thanksgiving dinner with your family is like feeding tacos to a toddler. After a few pleasant moments, there will be a explosion of crap. So this year, I avoided the crap by staying here in New York and having Thanksgiving dinner with friends. It was so nice to eat, drink and swear as much as I want without criticism from family members. Plus, none of my friends asked me why I wasn't married yet. The only problem I have "Orphan Thanksgiving" is the term itself.  It totally blows.  It sounds like my friends and I are bunch of characters from Oliver Twist sitting around the table with cockney accents begging for more porridge.  In fact, we had more food on Thanksgiving than any Orphan Annie could ever imagine. So I suggest a new title like, "Avoid A Meal With Your Family Thanksgiving" or "Thank God, I'm Not At My Folks Thanksgiving."  It's wordy, but oh so true.

Thanksgiving with Friends: A.
The term "Orphan Thanksgiving": D

Giving Thanks: Deb Stanzak

Deb Stanzak is a member of the Atlanta Incubator and a Independent Senior Sales Director forMary Kay Cosmetics

I am thankful for God allowing my mom to be in my life for the last 5 years.  5 years ago, the doctor told us she had 3 months to live; maybe 6 months.  Then, a year later, we were told 3 months.  Then 2 yrs later she went on Hospice for one full year, then taken off this past January 2006, due to her 'doing so well'!  My mom, Mary, just died October 29th, and she lived right up the street from me in assisted living, so I could take her places and do things for her.  She was alert til the end, and I was with her when she died...as I had prayed for.  I thank God for my mom, her extended life, and her Christ-like example she showed us all.  Mom...I love you, and thanks you, God, for picking Mary to be MY special mom!

WSJ: Top 50 Women to Watch

The Wall Street Journal Releases Its Second Global “Top 50 Women To Watch”

NEW YORK ( Oct. 31, 2005) — The Wall Street Journal, the world’s leading business publication, today announced the results of its second global “Top 50 Women To Watch” ranking, which is designed to recognize women who have achieved noteworthy successes in business in the past, as well as those who are poised to play important roles in business in the years to come.

The ranking includes women from the U.S., Europe and Asia, and is divided into seven diverse subgroups:

• “Running the Show” — Women who are chairwomen or chief executive officers.
• “In Line to Lead” — Women who stand to move up in their own companies or elsewhere in the years ahead.
• “The Inheritors” — Women who could be running the family business in the future.
• “The Policy Makers” — Women in government and central banks having a significant impact on business.
• “The Owners” — Women who run their own companies.
• “The Advocates” — Women who are working to improve career opportunities and everyday lives of women.
• “On the Sidelines” — Women who recently have stepped down from high-profile corporate positions and are expected to play a major role in business in the years ahead.

“We are proud to be honoring, once again, the 50 women who have made an indelible mark in their respective professions,” said Karen Elliott House, publisher, The Wall Street Journal, and senior vice president, Dow Jones & Company. “These women, who come from a wide range of companies and locations around the world, are in a class by themselves and their accomplishments are evidence of this. I congratulate each and every one of them.”

The entire ranking is listed below.

List of Nominees Includes Women From Virtually Every Industry, as Well as From Countries Around the World

Review of the AmEx Open Forum: Hattie Parker

Hattie Parker, MS Ed (www.changeyourfortune.com) commenting the webcast of the Amex Open Forum.
Summary: Great for inspiring thinking big.   I was struck that media training for women is important.
The Forum  was quite a wonderful shot in the arm about "The Sky's the
limit!" I found it really interesting and recommend to those who did
not see or attend it watch the webcast download. I thought they did a
very nice job of making these very successful entrepreneurs human and
accessible. I had heard The Blue Man Group founders were really good
guys who know how to talk about their creative process and they lived
up to their reputation. Mario Batali, is a character and this quality
makes him really hold his own.  Liz Lange is very impressive
in who she is and what she has done.  And I would say, from the stand
point of really being discriminating about women making it in the world
(she is certainly successful in business) that more media training
would serve her.  I will explain below.