Yesterday was a nice change of pace. I attended "Lessons in Growth" organized by the Women's Enterprise Centre in Manitoba instead of tackling my never-ending"to-do" list or hand labeling these (all six cases fund raising samples for the upcoming Paws in Motion).
It was a day long session on how to grow your business and yourself. The speakers were fantastic. I appreciate the talent that goes into telling a good story on stage that not only entertains, but also teaches you new things and gets you pumped up to take on the world.
I can't possibly summarize the whole day into one blog but I'll give you a couple highlights and summer reading suggestions.
Ellie Rubin, authour of Bulldog and Ambition plus dynamo speaker, talked about being an "ambitionist". This is the career of harnessing your desires, your skills and your resources to accomplish anything you set your mind to. She told a wonderful story of how she tackled heli-skiing as a way to achieve a cover story in a magazine while beating down fear as it stared back at her in the form of a pristine, white mountain bowl in the Andes. Having stood at the top of a double black diamond run with no way out except down, I can completely relate to that fear. Instead of looking at the whole mountain she tackled it one foot at a time, as we should tackle all monumental tasks.
Our lunch speaker was Dr. David Foot of Boom, Bust and Echo. As a marketing person, I am a bit of a David Foot groupie. It was his appearance at the conference that motivated me to sign up. And I was not disappointed. You cannot ignore demographics. Mass numbers in one age group changes the way the world operates. The "boomers" have been an incredible market and government policy force. One thing Dr. Foot confirmed in his talk was that all the boomers will be spending LOTS of time with their pets over the next couple decades. We knew that - and so did the other 30 dog treat companies. Our challenge is to prove that we are the best choice for those customers.
And to help us with that message, Anthony Stokan, author of Naked Consumption, talked about being a micro-niche specialist. You are either really big (Wal-Mart sized) or micro-niche. Anything in between gets lost in the constant stream of advertising and marketing messages. Anthony was a dynamic speaker, entertaining, full of fun facts and fantastic hints on how to create a strong brand image.
There were lots of other speakers but those three were my highlights. The other highlight was these three quotes:
"ride the horse in the direction it is going"
"be successful on your own terms"
and my absolute favourite...
"half-assed is better than no ass".
Great day Women's Enterprise Centre. Sign me up for the next session like that!
