Transcript
I’ve seen some trends lately – and I’ve actually also jumped on one of those wagons myself – so the one trend I’m seeing is that women are collaborating much more. There is some friendly competition, but it is structured in a way that women really bring their best intentions, but also their best business solutions to one place. And then it’s combined with other people’s abilities and solutions. And then all of a sudden it becomes a portfolio of solutions that as a customer or as somebody who is a potential customer, you have multiple options to pick from.
And first of all, you might think that’s not helpful because then I’m exposing myself to other similar people. And then maybe they won’t, you know, pick my services. They will pick somebody else’s, I’m even inviting them to look at other people’s offers. Yes, but on the other hand, if what you do is unique – and probably it is – then you will find your customers anyway. The way how you speak to your customers, the way how you address a certain problem, the way how you look at the world is uniquely you. And that is nothing somebody else can copy. So you will find the customers that are attracted to your style of solving problems, to your wisdom of life, to the way how you look at the world.
Maybe sometimes just to the fact that you are a mom, a working mom, I’ve seen that a lot. People get drawn to me because they say, “You’ve been in my shoes. You know exactly what I’m going through”. And I say, yes, I do. And I wouldn’t want to coach, you know, working dads, I can to some point, but then it becomes unreal because I don’t know what they’re going through. I can imagine to some extent – in quite vivid imagination – but I have not walked in their shoes.
There is a concept in the US army – or maybe it’s a general concept in the army – of having a wingman. So the minute when you look at those aircraft pilots, when they fly maneuvers, they have their engine and aircraft, but then there is somebody by their side, who’s giving them protection and shelter because they have a different bird’s eye view on their side. Then there was a wingman on the right side, and they look at protecting the entire sphere that you’re in so that you can do what you need to do.
If you transfer this to business, that’s exactly what you’re looking for. You can’t be everywhere. You can’t always keep an eye on your competition. You cannot always keep an eye on whether your family is doing okay and sticking to the timelines you have given them for maybe not disturbing you on Friday evenings, you know, to not get on your nerves because you have an online show running. So there will be things where you need other people protecting your space and your sphere. And I found that latest trend of other women being in that group and being your wing-women really very, very powerful.
The minute you expose yourself and you get the feedback and people tell, wow, I’ve never looked at the world this way. That’s amazing. That’s helpful. Yeah, let’s put some emphasis on it and you start cross-promoting. This is when beauty really unfolds because all of a sudden you have 10, 15, 20 women all rooting for you. You’ve never worked with them before and you do the same. And it multiplies, it really, really multiplies. And it takes an effect – like you couldn’t probably drive yourself – and it takes an effect into areas because those people have additional skills or maybe other business niches that they work in. Business areas, regions, geographies, cultures, you name it. All of a sudden it starts rippling and it starts rippling into domains you’ve never even explored even being potential business areas for you.
So that’s certainly a trend I would encourage if you haven’t tried it yet. It is super powerful. Look out for women who are starting also sometimes a freebie giveaways. They invite you to meetups. They do a little shows where they look for speakers or any sort of engagement, put yourself out there and offer it. And if you’re one of those multipliers, then please invite women who are not as obvious yet and seek them out and give them a bit of a platform and say, why don’t you talk about your business? And let’s see where it takes us.
