Bright eyed and bushy tailed, I attended The League of Extraordinary Women Breakfast event last Tuesday morning (thanks Sammway Brand Management for the invitation!) at Rooftop Terrace of The Glenmore Hotel in The Rocks in Sydney (which by the way, with our awesome Sydney Harbour views, was a glorious place to have breakfast). The event was hosted by The League of Extraordinary Women NSW Crusader, Georgia Nides, who also shared a little bit about her personal experience of how she ended up with The League, her lessons learnt from ‘selling her soul’ to corporate life and how she has now taken back control. I love going to events where speakers, whether it’s the host or the guests, have real life stories to tell. I love to hear stories about how ordinary people build something they have always been passionate about from scratch. Their stories connect with you because you could have the same drive and passion, you also are wanting to build something into a big success and be recognised for it. You feel connected to the speakers because their stories give you the feeling, the real possibility, that you too can do it. The guests at this event did just that.
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| League of Extraordinary Women NSW Crusader, Georgia Nides with Samantha Dybac from Sammway Brand Management and Helen Lear, Freelance communications consultant |
Sali and Julie Stevanja, originally from Adelaide and founders of Stylerunner, connected with us by telling us how they started their business from scratch, the challenges they faced, the lessons they learnt along the way in building Stylerunner into a business, which achieved extraordinary growth in revenue (something in region of 596%) last year. These stories resonate because they demonstrated how anyone with a vision, the right strategy and importantly, the right attitude can do it. Stylerunner should be congratulated not only for the success of the business they have built but also for taking the time out to help others by sharing their own experiences at The League of Extraordinary Women Breakfast event.
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| Sali and Julie Stevanja, Founders of Stylerunner. Photo reposted from Instagram @stylerunner @yoga213 |
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| Photo reposted from @stylerunner Instagram |
Sali and Julie imparted a lot of good practical advice at the event, which will be invaluable for those seeking to start up their business. For those who were not there, I have blogged the top 10 tips Sali and Julie offered for those aspiring to also make extraordinary revenue from their business.
#1 Get started. Good advice – execute, just do it. It’s always easy to say I’ll wait for so and so to happen first before I start this. Just thinking about my own experience of setting up my Blog, I had no idea how to set up a website at first, but as Sali and Julie said, you don’t need to be an expert in everything. There are always ways of finding out how to do things. Google it for example. That’s what I did when I first started blogging and I watched quite a few You Tube clips. I just did it because I wanted to know how to. There is one other critical thing I think before you ‘get started’ and that is, you need to know what you want to do – what is your passion, what’s your vision? Once you know this then execute it.
#2 Stay lean as possible. When deciding whether to go to market with the product, start small and test it out first and the market so that then you can improve based on what your customers actually truly want. Same with staff running a business, stay the one or two man or woman show for as long as possible even though it may mean you are working long hours. If you are passionate about what you are doing, it shouldn’t feel like work.
#3 Partnership agreement. If you are entering into a partnership with someone, enter with someone with complementary skills and enter into a partnership agreement. It’s like entering into a prenuptial agreement as a business partnership is like marriage – just in case things go wrong but also to clarify things such as if the other partner cannot work for 5 months and the business is 50:50 share, what happens. The partnership agreement avoids any misunderstandings down the track.
#4 Social Media. If you haven’t worked out that social media is a powerful marketing platform by now, you’ve had your head buried in the sand. The cofounders offered some useful social media tips – the key one is always be authentic and engage with your customers or followers.
- Instagram has been Stylerunner’s number one social media platform. I can see why. I’ve learned that Instagram is powerful platform for those wishing to market something if used correctly. As Sali and Julie noted, with Instagram, being picture based platform, you can create your own vision board of what you are about. For Stylerunner they focussed on creating a personal training mood board to tell the audience what they are about.
- Don’t buy followers as people will notice through the regular lack of engagement on posts. You have to give your real audience some credit. If you create and post good content, you will build a real audience organically.
- Engage with your audience and be ‘social media tactful’. Stylerunner makes a conscious effort to repost or regram a post of their customers using their product. It’s a ‘shout out’ and a way to thank customers for supporting your business.
- Connect with people on LinkedIn. Network by offering to have coffee with them.
#4 Hire based on attitude. When you are looking to expand your team, hire for attitude and train for skill. Also, make sure you give people recognition when they positively contribute to the growth of your vision and go above and beyond.
#5 Who are your real supporters? Associate with those who are supportive of your entrepreneurial pursuits and add value to your journey. Minimise time with those who aren’t, those with tall poppy syndrome and just drain your energy – you don’t need them.
#6 Be creative. When sending things to magazine companies, don’t just send them a package – be creative as these agencies receives hundreds of stuff every day. Make your product standout. I like the idea of sending helium balloons with your product. Over the top but it will stick in someone’s head.
#7 Read a lot. Take every opportunity to read in your spare time on things that can help grow your business. Utilise your lunch hour. Some great reads include- ‘The Lean Start Up’, ‘Lady Boss’, ‘E-Myth’ and ‘9 laws of attracting profit’ (a downloadable e-book)
#8 Get up early. Get up that little bit earlier everyday and take a moment to remind yourself of your key goals and vision before you get out there and go kick some butt – remember for the extra hours you are still in bed sleeping there is every possibility that your competitor is out there already working!
#9 Wear 3 hats. As an entrepreneur you will have to wear three hats:
- Having the vision (i.e. an entrepreneurial spirit)
- Having the technical expertise (i.e. knowing how you want things to be done including processes. You need a ‘manual of process’ e.g. where should the sticker go on your packaging)
- Being able to lead and manage people (i.e. being able to build and foster a positive working environment and culture)
#10 Right attitude. It’s all about having the right mental attitude and clarity on what you are working towards. Stay positive.
There you have it. For those with a vision and entrepreneurial spirit…what are you waiting for?
Website
To keep up to date on more extraordinary events, go to:
www.leagueofextraordinarywomen.com.au
To keep up to date on more extraordinary events, go to:
www.leagueofextraordinarywomen.com.au
Here are some more photos from the event.
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| I was fortunate to be seated on a table with these lovely entrepreneurs from Isagenix, Kayla Rose Ellison and Helana McKenzie Jewellery design |
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