Women and girls are uniquely and disproportionately affected by armed conflict.  In modern warfare, an estimated 90% of the casualties are civilians, and 75% of these are women and children. No Woman, No Peace

Wow, right? When I read this in an article today, I had to sit down and take a deep breath. It boogles my spirit and jumbles my heart.

Even though this UN resolution and the USA’s action plan to support the solution to this are great news, it is also mind numbing to imagine that the effect of war is so deadly to citizens in general, and to women and children in particular.

As we enter this new year with promise and resolve, let’s remember our sisters in arms. A friend of mind said it best today – Arms are for hugging.

For those of us in lands that are more peaceful, let’s give thanks for all the blessings we have. Let’s celebrate nations taking positive action. Let’s share with our neighbors the effects of war so we can no longer turn a blind eye to it. Let us remember that we are in this together.

If you are in a country torn by war, know that we are with you.

If this problem moves you to take action, take it now. Donate your time, your money, and your help in whatever way you can. Women have the power to eliminate poverty and war. If not now, when?

2012 is going to be a productive year here at SmartWomanGuides.com – we are going to host several Global Women’s Summits, produce several women entrepreneur products, and have much quality time together at training events. I am excited for all there is to come and I am inspired by every woman I meet.

We are going to expand our ability past our doorsteps and into the global commerce arena. We will be reaching out to our global sisters to better ourselves and our world.

As we do our work this year, we will come face to face with problems like the one in this article about women and war. It’s our responsibility to be both witness and relief. Start today by being thankful and aware.

Remember: No woman, no peace.

In love and gratitude,

Vicki @Smartwoman Flaugher

[graphic by DFID - UK Department for International Development]

Woke up this morning listed in a Forbes article as a top 10 influencer on social media – note to self – blog more often!!

Much thanks to Haydn Shaughnessy for the mention and to all who visit here today from the post. Let’s connect via social and get to know each other!

I like having fun and am about to launch a series of Global Women Summits throughout Texas. Keep an eye out and let’s do some good stuff together.

Many thanks again.

Vicki aka @Smartwoman

Here is the latest Pulse from commPRO.biz, where I write about social media. This is one of many, so if you like this one, be sure to click through to see the others.

I am proud to work on these SlideShare presentations for people who like short, fun, little blurbs of interesting. I share them with you here because I think it’s important as beginning female entrepreneurs to be curious.

You may not work in the public relations or advertising business but these features are a way to take a peek inside an interesting world where you can visit for inspiration. Enjoy!

I am resurrecting this blog and am glad to be back. I still have tons of spam comments to delete after almost a year hiatus, so please ignore those the best you can – I am working as fast as possible to clean it up. Thanks in advance for your patience.

With all of our attention beginning to shift to 2011 business planning, I wanted to focus a bit on something I believe we can all do to have a better business next year. I talk a lot – and frankly. think a lot – about how to maximize my time and revenue in my business. I read what many other people say about the best things to do, some of which I agree with and some not so much. I download the strategy planning apps, I read the e-books, I attend the seminars. I do everything I can to discover that edge that will work for me to make my business sing. I am guessing we all do (or wish we had the time to).

Even with all my research and learning, and all the advice I see out there, if I were to pick just one thing to share with you, it would be this: stop settling.

Yep, that’s it in a nutshell. Quit doing the things you do not want to do. Quit doing the things that are half-hearted attempts at the “should do”.  Quit servicing the customers that piss you off. Quit offering the services that give you low return and high headaches. Quit doing anything except your dead level, full out, take no prisoners, kicking ass and taking names BEST.

It’s hard to stomach, I know. It’s even harder to admit. It’s hard for me too – painful, disturbing, and much easier to deny than look at head on. But, the truth is, most of us are settling. How, might you ask? Here are some examples that I see, day in day out, of settling:

• We enter the marketplace with discounted or artificially low prices because we think that builds our client base when all it actually does is squeeze our margins, reduce our net profit, and condition customers to expect that price level into the future. That is settling.
• We take on a client who is a prima dona pain in the tush because they have influence and power and we spend the next month servicing them, hopping to their every whim, and doing more than contracted for (because they demand it in their disrespectful way) and want to shoot ourselves and the client when it’s all over with. That is settling.
• We refuse to digitally punch out (I might “miss” an opportunity if I disconnect…) when we spend time with our family but we’re happy to go speak at a luncheon somewhere bragging how we became an entrepreneur to have freedom and do the quality of life things we always dreamed about. That is settling.
• We focus on a niche that is huge yet totally uninteresting to us because there’s money in it and we show up like zombies because it’s “time to make the donuts” instead of going after that crazy niche that turns us on. That is settling.
• We think small, act small, pretend our outward appearance doesn’t matter, we hang out at events to get clients when the people who attend would never be our client, we don’t make the calls, we don’t take the leap….how many different ways can I say it? It’s all settling.

Lest you feel I am criticizing, know this. I do it too. And, I’m sick of doing it. Call this a rant, call this advice, call this Vicki’s crazy talk because she has a blog and she’s using it – I don’t care. I feel like some of the best moments in my life happen when I dare to do, when I dare to be different, when I decide it’s OK to follow exactly (and only) what I completely and truly believe in.

It doesn’t have to make sense – the best new inventions, new ideas, and new lives were built from that crazy woman space inside our heads and hearts that tells us we can do whatever we frigging please. With all the amazing freedoms and advantages we have in our lives, if we don’t use them, we are wasting the very gifts we’ve been given.

I have health, I have skills, I have love, and I have moxie.

You do too.

I am no longer going to settle for anything less than the best.  Discounting the yearning of my spirit is no longer an acceptable mode of working, even when compromise seems like the way to get along and smooth things over.

What about you? Is it time to put you first?

I am willing to accept that I am the person I need to please, because if I am engaged and happy, I will have more energy and value to give to my clients. Period, end of story, no explanation needed. (And yes, a rush of fear does rise up as I write this, but screw it – no fear is going to get the best of me!)

Can I get a hell yeah from the power women in the house, please?

For 2011, I am taking this business tip for all it’s worth. No settling. If it’s not a perfect fit, I’m moving on. If I cannot put my motives and actions on a billboard on Time Square, it’s not going to be on the agenda. If I can’t find a way to plug into the joy, the satisfaction, and the reward of my tasks, I commit to pulling the plug – for my sake, for my family’s sake, and for my customer’s sake.

It’s scary, it might get hard to do, but I’m doing it.

Wanna join me?

I have another great everyday marketing example – this thrilled me almost as much as the Buy the Hyatt example I gave you. Let me know what you think…

Recently my sweetheart came home with a boatload of toilet paper – two 12 packs. As a two person household, one that is frequently out of the house during the day, toilet paper isn’t something we use that much of. It’s not like we have a household of kids making forts with it or shoving it down the toilet just to see what happens, or needing their sweet little noses wiped with it, so two 12 packs will last us for many months to come. I wasn’t even completely sure where I’d store it all.

He proudly told me that he got this massively great deal and couldn’t pass it up. Our local HEB (my favorite grocery store already) offered a free 12 pack of their house brand if you bought a 12 pack of the high end, and much more expensive, national brand. Dramatic difference in price and, thanks to their amazingly clever promotion, I could now decide for myself – side by side – if the house brand competed with the quality of the national brand.

Smart thinking, right? So, let’s break it down. Both me and my sweetheart (who is now calling himself the mighty toilet paper hunter because he enjoys getting a deal so much) love HEB’s more because of their generosity. Their move certainly makes it less likely that I’ll be buying toilet paper at the big box store Costco, which I normally do. Score one for store loyalty and visit frequency.

I also get to compare their product head to head with a national brand. Score one for differentiation and competitive positioning. And, I”m here to tell you that the national brand is slightly better but not so much that it’s worth the huge difference in price. I will buy HEB’s house brand next time (next year?) I need to buy toilet paper.

Since I rarely buy toilet paper in more than a 4 roll pack if I buy it at HEB’s, they also got me to consider a larger pack for the future. Score one for raising per customer transactional price, one of the holy grails in retail selling.

All together, here’s what HEB’s got with their promotion – a reinforced loyal consumer who is there more often, only to their store, who is buying more than they used to per visit. Check, check, check – score all the way around. Call me a marketing dork, but I think what they did is brilliant.

So, what we can learn and apply from this? Is there something in your business you could do to offer a sample, head to head, with a competitor? Are you using clever ideas to validate your costing? Are you giving your already loyal fans a way to brag on you and to feel good about being loyal to you? Can you be as smart as a toilet paper scheme? I bet you can….share what you do!

Vicki Flaugher, CEO
SmartWoman Guides

As a consultant, I find that much of my time spent in business is about drawing boundaries. If I set a project based price, which I typically do, I have to drive to the original project deliverables and protect against what project managers call scope creep.

Scope creep is when the encompassing goals of a project – that could be a writing assignment, a web redesign, an office re-do, or even your overall job requirements – begin to broaden outside the original agreement. It could be something as innocent as “Hey, while you’re at it, could you also give me these XX figures too?” to something larger to “We want to add on 4 people instead of just 2 – it’s just doubling up what you’re already doing right? It’s nothing – you’re doing the same thing, just add a few zeros.”

Whether you’re a consultant or an employee within a larger firm, scope creep can be infuriating in business, but it’s your job to set the boundaries. Most people are not particularly aware of what they are asking for – they hired you as a specialist for a reason, right? Sometimes it takes some education, sometimes it takes some conversation, and sometimes it takes just saying no.

Here are some suggestions as to how you can minimize any negative effect on you:

1.  Work to be clear upfront and set expectations.

Do your best to talk through the exact report, task, product or service you will provide. Include realistic dates for delivery and stay in touch with everyone involved. Know going in what might be a stopping point and be sure to make everyone aware of the parts of the project that are most crucial, the deal stoppers for all the other tasks.

If, like me, you set project rates, include approximately how many hours are included in that project and tell your client upfront how many physical meetings, phone calls, and extra support hand holding that includes. Also communicate how long those meetings will last. And, to cover any last minute requests, include an al a carte overage charge schedule, so that if they want more meetings, they can pay for them. Do all this going into the project, not in the middle or later at invoicing.

2. Speak up and push back.

Don’t think a person realizes what they’re asking for – they probably don’t. And, if they do, they may fully expect you to push back and challenge them. Compulsive negotiators – the type who always, no matter what, think it’s their job to negotiate anything presented – are accustomed to that game. Play it skillfully. Some people will always ask for more. Personally, I try to weed those people out ahead of time and not take them on as clients, but if you didn’t or your industry is packed with them so you can’t avoid them, then it’s your responsibility to speak up and push back.

If the new requests impacts the schedule, say so. If the new requests takes more hours than the original method, say so. It’s their project, you can let them choose. If they want a delay and they feel their request is required, then that’s their choice to make.

What you don’t want to do is nothing. You don’t want to volunteer to absorb the costs. You don’t want to agree to be part of a project where you don’t mention how the changes impact the quality and then end up with a hot mess that you’re ashamed to put your name on. What you don’t want to do is say nothing, the schedule slips, the budget flairs and you get blamed. Speak up and push back!

3. Get it done

If you dawdle in your project completions, of course more stuff is going to get piled on top of you – time is marching on! Create a project plan with small enough milestones that you can complete something, “put it to bed” so to speak, and move on to the next thing. Not only does this help create urgency, but it also makes it very clear that you are going back and doing rework if you have to go back and add work to that task. If all of your milestones are huge, it’s easy to lose motivation, lose momentum, and have additional requests placed on your work. Chunk it down small enough to have completions and large enough to not make managing the project itself another full time job.

Managing scope creep in your business is about managing expectations. It’s also about being confident enough in what needs to get done and when to take a stand when it’s necessary. Always remember that you have to put your name on the project when it’s through. It’s the only way to build a business through referrals and it’s the only way to build a portfolio of work. Stick to your guns, make choices based in reality not ego, and understand that scope creep is a natural phenomenon of the job. Deal with it and you’ll be fine.

Together, we are stronger!

Vicki Flaugher, CEO
aka @Smartwoman

This week I am focusing on entering a new niche in my marketing consulting. It’s a high end business to business niche and I want to really know my customer. So, I am seeking out and enjoying luxury experiences.

I have scheduled a facial. I will likely get a fancy haircut and pedicure. I will go hang out at some swanky hotels and clubs. I want to begin vibrating at the tone of luxury and high end service so I am going where my customer goes. I want to walk a mile in their Manolos.

How can this help you? Many of us don’t  necessarily live the same lives as our customers. It’s not required to be your customer but it certainly is a prime opportunity to improve your marketing message as well as your products and services if you know them intimately. Much like parents who say you just don’t understand what it is truly like to be a parent until you are one, you aren’t going to know everything by doing what they do, but you will learn a lot.

So, what could you learn? Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

• How your customers consume customer service – do they expect valet service or do they like do it yourself?
• Do they enjoy more choices or would they prefer a one-stop, turnkey solution?
• Do they shop during the day or at night?
• Where do they go for lunch? With friends or without?
• What advertising do they notice?
• What do they read?
• What is the attitude they walk through their life holding?
• Is saving money a godsend or do they think you have to pay more to get better?

There really is no one answer and it’s better to ask the question, immerse yourself in your customer’s world, and see what they say rather than work from stereotypes or assumptions. So, I encourage you to give it a try – how could you walk a mile in your customers’ shoes this week? I’d love to hear what you come up with!

Together, we are stronger!
Vicki Flaugher, CEO