Women’s History Month began Thursday, March 1, 2012, and ends Saturday, March 31, 2012. Women entrepreneurs are known to be successful and have differentiating characteristics to their male colleagues in fact Erotic Capital is one of the more controversial measures and gender arbitrage one of the most opportunistic.

That being said, everyone has challenges on their way up the ladder or success. A recent article by Lauren Carlson highlighted the 5 ways women sabotage their success. I thought it was worthy to bring them to your attention because by knowing what they are, you can avoided or at least minimise them.

Here is my take on the 5 ways women sabotage their success, using Bree Robbins Top Dog at Paddington Pups as a mini case study.

1. Being Afraid of Self-Promotion

The concept of self-promotion is an Exponential Marketing Strategy called preeminence whereby you create a professional persona that transcends who you are in a relevant context so people know who you are and what you’re about. if you are shy, let your results speak for you. Every time you accomplish something, you don’t have to scream it from the rooftops, but let people know what you’ve done. Everyone wants to deal with a “winner”.

Psst! Did you notice that Bree’s title is Top Dog – not CEO or Managing Director?!?! Hmmmm… Something to think about!

2. Undervaluing Themselves and Their Services

When you promote yourself and your products, you want to do it in a natural, fun way. As the short video below demonstrates. You don’t have to be flamboyant or provocative to sell yourself and your products. Do it naturally and authentically, just don’t sell yourself short by NOT doing anything.

3. Not Asking for Directions

This is where women can make the most improvement – to get the advice, coaching and mentoring that men have been getting for decades.

Listen to Bree’s experience with the devastating floods that swept through her doggy day care facility. She has been a coaching client for several years – you can hear the wisdom that defies her youthfulness because she has learned how to think strategically about business to deal with ANYTHING that is thrown her way.

4. Making Relationships the Priority

When Paddington Pups was flooded, 200+ clients came to the rescue helping get the business back on its feet in a record 8 days. That is priceless – not on financial grounds but because it shows that there is a real relationship withing the Brisbane dog-loving community so strong that it can overcome the worst of circumstances.

Relationships of course also extend to the commercial, advertising and promotion aspect of your business. For example, Bree nurtured a relationship with Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer and was ‘rewarded’ with a site visit and an extensive interview (shown below).

The lesson here is: Don’t be shy – follow your dreams and aspirations!

5. Being Afraid of Making a Mistake

Even though women do tend to be perfectionists, all successful entrepreneurs have this gene, it also causes an affliction called perfectionis.

Just remember that “perfection is the poison of profitability”. Trying to be perfect all the time is not only impossible, it’s not profitable. Perfection is NOT necessary for success. Seeking perfection is admirable and necessary for excellence, but there comes a time when “good is good enough”.

For example, blog posts. It’s better to get 1 or 2 out every week with timely, relevant information than to try to create perfect prose only once a month.

I always tell my clients that with more than 3,000 pages of content on the Internet (including 7 blogs) I have more content with typos and grammatical errors than most people have IN TOTAL CONTENT. Of course I do go back and edit them when they are pointed out, but I don’t hesitate to blog and try to get it perfect each and every time… I just do it as best I can – like this blog post. It’s not ‘perfect’, but good enough to give you some solid advice you can put into practice!

So there you have it – my take on a great article by Lauren Carlson that I hope helps you run up the ladder of success two rungs at a time!

As a reader or subscriber to this blog, you know that I teach public speaking skills to business owners and executives as well a Persuasion Presentation Principles that Unleash The Speaker Within You.

One of the most popular presentation tools is Powerpoint. That being said, Powerpoint can often KILL rather than improve a presentation.

Watch this short video to make sure you’re not killing your presentation attendees!

DEATH BY POWERPOINT

My blogs are all about showing you examples of antimimeticisomorphism – the goal setting video below is a classic example. I agree and disagree with it, because there is a subjective element to it, but for now – watch it and make up your own mind.

This is the kind of video I will have my clients watch and we’ll discuss it in a MasterMind Session to reveal key nuances and distinctions. If you’d like to participate at this level, give us a call.

Technical professionals have a unique challenge when faced with presenting technical subjects. How much technical jargon should you include to build credibility versus leaving it out to maximise clarity and understanding?

Here is a great example of someone explaining a very technical subject in a way that any lay person can understand. He did it by looking at the audience and keeping it simple and accessible.

In my cornerstone event, Unleash The Speaker Within, I teach people the art and science of how to speak in public. This is the antithesis – How NOT to speak in public. That being said, this was an elected official in the United States – can you believe it?!?

You simply have to watch this video to realise that we all have an accent – the only question is which one?!?!

Today’s post is from a new book I’m reading… It’s so valuable, I’m keeping the title secret for my most trusted clients – to make sure they stay ahead of their competitors… But there was something in it I wanted to share with you since we’ve been focusing on engineers this year, making sure they develop their business skills and aptitudes to succeed in their businesses and/or careers. It’s about an engineer, Bill Phillips who came up with the MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer) also known as the Phillips Hydraulic Computer and the Financephalograph, in 1949.

It models the national economic processes of the United Kingdom, while Phillips was a student at the London School of Economics (LSE), The MONIAC was an analogue computer which used fluidic logic to model the workings of an economy. The MONIAC name may have been suggested by an association of money and ENIAC, an early electronic digital computer.

The reason I’m posting this is to show you that as a professional engineer, you need to get access to stuff like this to realise that your talents, skills, abilities and aptitudes have their use in a wide variety of situations. As The Exponential Growth Strategist, that’s what I do for my clients – I teach them to THINK DIFFERENTLY. I’ve designed special courses just for engineers to make sure they learn how to leverage their superior analytical skills to their advantage in their business, projects and/or careers.

Here is the first video that introduces the Moniac.

This second video explains it in more detail…
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Every once in a while, an opportunity, a chance to make a big decision that can and will alter your destiny comes around. It requires guts, courage and belief in yourself to take it. We’ve all been there.. Anthony Robbins states that “it is in our moments of decision that our destiny is shaped.” I actually think the reverse is even more true, telling and frequent: “It is in our moments of INdecision that our dreams are destroyed.”

Watch this video and get inspired by taking that leap of faith that will help you cross the chasm to your new destiny, the life you want to be living. In your career, you will face crossroads and challenges that will force you to take a leap of faith. Don’t forget… when you get to the fork in the road… take it!

The Career Making Move: The Leap Of Faith

In our Professional Mastery Programs, we teach professionals and executives how to conquer their fears and apprehensions with practical strategies that work within their environment and context so they can start to make career-making moves and avoid the career limiting moves that often paralyse even the most brilliant technical geniuses.

I’ve been presenting a special 3-hour workshop called Slide Rule Thinking In The Internet Age for Australian Engineers. It’s a collaborative effort with Engineering Education Australia, a wholly owned division of Engineers Australia, the governing body for the engineering profession. The best part of it is exposing my Exponential Mindset to such a smart, educated and analytical audience of specialists and experts who really know their stuff – you’ll see a few blog posts in the next few weeks that reflect the fun we’ve been having.

One of the concepts of an Exponential Mindset is having fun doing out-of-the-ordinary things… Like sharing good jokes that make use laugh at ourselves so we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Stan Lawrence, a Mechanical Engineer at Verve Energy sent me the video below that Gavin Altus, Executive Manager Development at Engineering Education Australia also shared with me…

I can’t share with you all the bonuses and gifts included in the Slide Rule Thinking event, but this one was just too good to resist!

Enjoy it as you laugh at us – we don’t mind, after all we’re proud to be engineers!

What It Feels Like To Be Diagnosed With ‘The Knack’

Psst! If you want the special 3-hour workshop called Slide Rule Thinking In The Internet Age, just click on the hyperlink – we’d love to have you!

This short 1-minute YouTube video says it all. Failure is a sign you’re stretching beyond your comfort zone and expanding what I call your Sphere of Influence – a concept I explain in my Entrepreneur’s Success Book. Anyway, for today and right now, I just want you to take 1 minute out of your busy day and be amazed at all the super successful people and how they failed before they hit the big time. It’s truly inspiring.