The Myth of Global Marketing
Many business leaders delight at the vision of international recognition and size and can’t wait to "market globally." Becoming a worldwide, internationally successful business is doable. Marketing globally, however, is a myth. People and cultures vary such that marketing globally is not only an imp...
Author: Jean Lewis
Help for Busy Professionals Who Like to Cook
Time savings is a benefit because after you put the ingredients into the pot, all you have to do is turn it on and let it sit. You can go to sleep and wake up and have several days’ worth of meals prepared. As long as you have handy containers ready to use, the meal is ready to pack.
Maintainin...
Author: Jean Lewis
An Alternative to Win/Lose Negotiation
Many people believe that negotiation means coming to the table like a tough guy, ready to squash the other side. True that it has happened many a time. Necessary however? No.
Is there an alternative to win/ lose negotiating? There is. Win/win negotiating does not mean being passive and losing. It s...
Author: Jean Lewis
Cash Flow is King in a Business Plan
Of the many ways to tell if an entrepreneur has a good idea, one of the best is its ability to generate cash flow. Although profit is the difference between income and expenses, cash flow is the difference between incoming and outgoing cash. A cash flow forecast or analysis shows when cash goes out ...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite: Women Leaders CAN Have It All
"My husband Victor surprised me on Valentine’s Day with a pair of Manolo Blahniks that he picked out himself," says Mercedes LaPorta, President of Mercedes Electric Supply, an over $25 million dollar a year company with more than 48 employees. Mercedes is the guest for this w2wlink.com Spotlight Int...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Shelley Stein
Shelley Stein is chief operating officer (COO) of Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd – one of the six global accounting, tax and business advisory organizations. She is a leader of thousands of people and w2wlink is delighted to have the honor to have Shelle...
Author: Jean Lewis
Self-Quiz: How Productive Are You?
Being productive is night and day different than being busy. How productive are you? Could you be more productive? How can you become as productive as you're actually capable of being? Find out by taking the quick 12-question w2wlink self-quiz.
Directions:
Fill in the blank beside each stateme...
Author: Jean Lewis
5-Q Managerial Decisions Quiz
w2wlink Self-Quiz: The "Opportunity Cost" Factor of Managerial Decision-Making -- How thoroughly do you weigh costs? Do you consider all of the pertinent costs when you make important business decisions? Find out how thorough you are with w2wlink.com's Opportunity Cost Managerial Decisions Self-Qui...
Author: Jean Lewis
Negotiation Styles
There are three commonly known negotiation styles: aggressive, passive and principled. Professional women encounter and are known to be capable of utilizing each of the approaches. Professional women waver from passive to aggressive often in an attempt to find a happy middle. That middle is principl...
Author: Jean Lewis
Advice on Becoming a C-Level Exec for Women
Becoming a C-level executive is reaching the top of the apex in the business world and most employees do not hit that height, let alone do it as a woman in her mid 40’s.
Joni Floyd started out as a customer service representative working at Affiliated Computer Services (NYSE: ACS), and ultimately b...
Author: Jean Lewis
Corporate to Entrepreneurial Journey
Lisbeth McNabb, 47, founder of w2wlink.com, the first of its kind and best in the online networking community category that custom matches members into peer network circles of common interest, has an amazing entrepreneurial journey experience to share. W2wlink, her new venture, is for professional ...
Author: Jean Lewis
Porter's 5-Force Strategy Model
The classic strategy framework of Michael Porter of Harvard Business School refers to five primary forces that can generally be applied to any industry, and hence have become widely used and adopted. Knowing it and how to apply it not only helps any businesswoman lead more effectively.
The five for...
Author: Jean Lewis
Strategy Self Quiz
Do you enjoy strategy? Test how well you know the main forces of business strategy, as taken from the classic Porter Analysis. Learn or brush up on the Porter Analysis and be even better.
Put a check beside the correct answer.
1. What are the classic strategic forces of the Porter Analysis?
__A...
Author: Jean Lewis
Self-Quiz: How much do you value customer loyalty?
How much does your business really value customer loyalty? You may think you do, and that your business does. Answer the eight questions below to find out and also learn about building customer loyalty more effectively.
Directions:
Circle an answer, true or false, beside each question.
T ...
Author: Jean Lewis
Self-Quiz - Brand Strategy
You work hard to earn your business a good reputation. Good will and a respected name take dedication and hard work. Are you fully reaping the rewards? Take the w2wlink.com Brand Assets Quiz and find out if you monetize the full value of your brand.
Circle Y or N for each question.
Y N I...
Author: Jean Lewis
Maximizing Differentiation Opportunities
Is my business’s good or service being presented to maximize the value of our offering in a cost effective and profitable way? Answer these eight key questions below to find out and improve results:
Circle Y or N for each question.
Questions:
Has my business observed and adjusted to:
Y ...
Author: Jean Lewis
3 Tips to Improve Your Communications
There are many different communication styles, and your communication style determines how you manage your projects and your people. Communication styles are categorized in a multitude of ways. Various personality type indicators are one way communication styles are classified. Neurolinquistics labe...
Author: Jean Lewis
What is Your Communication Style?
Take a quick self quiz to determine your communication style today --
Directions: Circle A or B
Do you prefer to:
1. (A) Send an e-mail or (B) Make a phone call.
2. (A) Send an announcement or (B) Have a meeting.
3. (A) Send a text message or (B) Leave a personal voicemail.
4. (A) Receive an i...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Michelle Taylor
Sitting in Michelle Taylor’s home, observing trinkets from all over the world as I enjoy a spinach pastry hors d’oeuvre, she tells me enthusiastically about her background, starting from her first job as a Commodities Broker for Paine Webber and earning her Series 7 and then Series 24 licenses with ...
Author: Jean Lewis
Strategy Tips from an Industry-Leading Professional Woman
Mary Beth Garber was the recipient of America's Best Broadcaster trophy in 2008, a Radio Ink Radio Wayne award from the radio industry’s established authority, Radio Ink Magazine, awarded at the Radio Advertising Bureau Conference in Atlanta last week following a tally of reader and select industry ...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Becky Johnson
Becky Johnson, member of the CMO Top 50, a by invitation only marketing organization comprised of well accomplished marketing executives, has made it to the top of one of the most competitive functions in business today. She says, "Most important to the position are leadership with courage and integ...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Mary Lee Kammer
Mary Lee Kammer, CPA , is the President/CEO of American Nursing Services, a 25 year old company, doing $50+ million providing nurse and allied health staffing in 10 states with 18 locations throughout the country. After over 20 years of healthcare experience, she was appointed President/CEO in April...
Author: Jean Lewis
Former Match.com Exec Uses Matching Formula to Place
For immediate release:
March 17th, 2008 Dallas, TX Lisbeth McNabb, 47, former CFO and strategist of match.com, in founding w2wlink.com online women’s networking community for professional women in times of growth, has created a women’s networking magnet even beyond her best forecasts. In its firs...
Author: Jean Lewis
Guide to Assessing Opportunity Costs
In meetings, when someone refers to opportunity costs, attendees pay attention and engage with interest, as a careful assessment can usually make a difference, regardless of endeavor, between good and great. However, since opportunity costs are considerably speculative, the risk of tangential unprod...
Author: Jean Lewis
Tips on Building Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty is an area about which professional women have a special understanding. Women being generally relationship oriented and social in nature have an inclination toward maintaining and building good relations. For more information on relationships as a factor of importance to women in t...
Author: Jean Lewis
Maximize Value Through Differentiation - Porter Strategy
Differentiation is one of the classic Porter strategies and it means creating an offering that is percieved as unique in a way that is superior to competitive offerings. This allows the price point to be more flexible as customers show more brand loyalty.
Costs to differentiate usually include core...
Author: Jean Lewis
Self-Quiz – Should my business hire a consultant?
New markets vary in similarity to the one in which your business currently exists. Market research may be the best way to find the current climate. Or perhaps you should hire a consultant. Or both. To see if your business has considered the main factors to make its best decision, take the following ...
Author: Jean Lewis
What Does It Mean to Work Smart? - Quiz
Have you ever known someone who just seems to "have it all together?" Maybe that someone is you and maybe you could do even better. "Having it all together," is what many perceive as "working smart." But what does it really mean to "work smart?"
Is it a mysterious quality that some of us are born w...
Author: Jean Lewis
Strategic Planning: Find More Opportunity
A well established best practice in business planning is the SWOT analysis. It stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and is a relatively quick and fairly informative way to assess your business in the marketplace.
Each industry will have its own unique factors, yet the gene...
Author: Jean Lewis
Pacing Yourself for Improved Productivity
Many professionals who have the independence to determine when and how long their breaks will be, find themselves forgetting, or even worse, deciding not to take their breaks.
Marianne Legato, cardiologist, Health Advisory Board member, and author of Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget, s...
Author: Jean Lewis
When a Short Request Is Acceptable
In the work place short requests are not uncommon. There are many times when a short request is appropriate and necessary, but would seem rude in a social situation. William Swanson, well-known for being the CEO of Raytheon Company, and author of Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, stated a goa...
Author: Jean Lewis
The 5 Basic Principles on Managing Up
Managing up means focusing on the relationship with your boss to obtain the best results for yourself, for her and for your organization, according to Joanne Murray, Managing Up, An Overlooked Factor in Career Success (2008). Michael Watkins, in Harvard Business School article: How to Succeed With ...
Author: Jean Lewis
Career Advice from a Stand Out Success
Wanda Brice heads up one of the most prestigious organizations in the world; she is the CEO of The Women’s Museum, Smithsonian affiliate and only comprehensive women's history museum in the United States.
How did she position herself to be appointed to this highly sought after position?
Her caree...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview: Nina Vaca
Nina Vaca, CEO of Pinnacle Technical Resources, Inc., one of the 27 winners of the w2wlink 2009 Ascendancy Awards for Business Women, two-time winner of Hispanic Business Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award as well as Ernst & Young’s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year award for Technology and Commu...
Author: Jean Lewis
Self-Quiz: How Ready is Your Business To Go International?
Many businesses are profiting from the vast opportunities that international business affords due to the increased convenience, ease and access to which the online era has opened the floodgates. Have you considered taking your business international? To better understand what issues your business ne...
Author: Jean Lewis
Choosing a Personality Test to Improve Your Career
Many people swear by personality tests as aids to help maximize their abilities and improve their careers. They find that the tests help them understand and identify areas of hidden or lesser known talents, and provide insight into how they may work better with others. The Myers-Briggs test by Mye...
Author: Jean Lewis
Determine the Lifetime Value of Your Customer
Often when businesses look at a customer they see and focus on only the value of the first sale. When Alice buys a product worth $20, many companies see Alice as being worth $20 in revenue. They do not see her as worth more than that unless she purchases more at a later date. They do not predict tha...
Author: Jean Lewis
How to Monetize Your Brand Assets
What are your brand assets and how can they be monetized fully? Many think marketing and branding are nebulous intangibles that cannot be profitably managed without the risk of opening the floodgates to endless creative activity with no correspondent revenue stream.
While true in fact that the rela...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Lesley Harris
As president of Travelocity Business, former w2wlink Ascendancy Award winner Lesley Harris leads one of the fastest growing travel management companies in North America. From its origin in 2003 serving unmanaged business travelers, Travelocity Business now has more than $800 million in travel spend ...
Author: Jean Lewis
The Golden Opportunity to Go International
Due to the availability of the Web as a sales and marketing channel, the cost of offering goods and services to broader markets has dropped significantly. The administrative burden of expansion to international markets has gone down. Companies like e-Bay have shown that consumer-purchasing behavior ...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Faith Moore
Events build business by connecting people in a splendidly rich communication context in which they freely express and bond over nuances, ideas, and subtleties that other forms of communication simply do not afford. Faith Moore, CEO of Faith Moore and Associates, Ltd, Special Events, Tours, and Dest...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview With Nina McLemore
Designer Nina McLemore Trail-blazes New Fashion Distribution Channel Especially for Professional Women
Nina McLemore grew into an internationally acclaimed, trail-blazing fashion success from humble roots. She first learned design with her mother growing up in Mississippi making all their own clot...
Author: Jean Lewis
C-Link Suite Interview with Patricia M. Cloherty
Patricia Cloherty is chairman and CEO of Delta Private Equity Partners, LLC, and manager of The U.S. Russia Investment Fund and Delta Russia Fund, L.P., two venture capital funds with over $500 million invested in 54 Russian companies. On March 17th, 2008, President of the Russian Federation Vladimi...
Author: Jean Lewis
Mompreneurs
There’s a new sheriff in the business world – mom.
More and more mothers are starting companies, because they can set their own terms. The boss can take the afternoon off to go on a class field trip without having to explain her actions to anyone. Nice gig, huh?
Lots of professional women think so...
Author: J.C. Conklin
Ladies Who Launch BYOB (Be Your Own Boss) Event
Ladies Who Launch, THE source for entrepreneurial-minded women who want to live their dreams and love their lives. Ladies Who Launch is the first company to define entrepreneurship as a lifestyle choice and connect women online and in person to foster creativity, community, and support. Join Ladies...
Author: Site Contributor