The Wild WE is one year old! As we enter our second wild year, we celebrate with an interview with, founder Ja-Nae Duane. Discover how Ja-Nae and her childhood friend and co-founder, Kate Powers, turned an inspiration into a growing national organization dedicated to supporting women business owners. We even managed to dig up this rare photo of Ja-Nae and Kate (circa 1995), when they were wild teenage entrepreneurs!

I was running events for another networking group. I realized that men and women network differently. I wanted to provide a resource for women to all work together as a unit. I noticed that in most of the networking groups I was involved in, women were simply not networking effectively. I also felt strongly about finding ways to give back and help the women's movement. We've come a long way, but it's by no means over yet! In 2001, I created an organization called the National Artistic Effort, a volunteer organization which unites artists in order to facilitate positive change within our communities. After nine years in academia and lots of experience leading school-related functions and promoting myself in my music career, starting an organization dedicated to women entrepreneurs was a natural for me.

First, I talked about the idea with Kate Powers, treasurer and co-founder of The Wild WE who has been my friend since childhood. Before I knew it, we had attracted a few other friends who loved the idea and we were meeting regularly around the kitchen table to shape the fledgling organization. Kate has a well-cultivated instinct for coaching small business owners after starting her own business that later failed. She was grateful for that experience and eager to use her knowledge to help other women. Kate "got" my vision and was in it for the long haul.

I wanted a name that was inviting to the common woman, the small business owner just starting out without a lot of resources. So many of the names of the existing women's organizations out there seemed either boring or intimidating. I wanted something fun, creative, and inviting. The word "entrepreneur" has a creative connotation and I knew entrepreneur should be part of the name. "Wild" came into the mix after lots of brainstorming. When we came up with the word wild, we knew we had a winning name. "Wild" gives female entrepreneurs permission to be a little goofy, to take chances in a safe place. It gives us permission to make mistakes and be individuals. Individuality sells and as creative entrepreneurs, we are all wild in different ways.

1. Wild WE Boot Camp - Wild WE Boot Camp is an intensive training program that teaches critical skills for business and life success. The Wild WE Boot Camp is a combination of live teleseminars and recorded presentations, which can last over several weeks or one hour long session. The teleseminars are led by an expert instructor and include a question and answer session. There is also a discussion board where you can interact with your campmates. Wild WE boot camps feature business gurus who are ready to help you and your business succeed. Each training session provides concrete and proven advice and addresses how to adopt the best, most cost-effective solutions to directly and positively impact your business.


2. Wild WE Member of the Month - Later this summer, we plan to add a new feature to the Wild WE monthly newsletter. In this column we will highlight a gold or platinum member who has shown great resourcefulness, creativity, and wisdom in her growth as a Wild WE.


3. Wild WE Database - The Wild WE database will only be available to gold and platinum members. If you've ever networked on Ryze, you'll understand the concept. Members will log in with a user name and password. Each member will be able to provide basic information via a member profile. Once you're in the database, you will be able to search for information about other members (you can search on categories such as interests, geographic location, type of business).

These are just a few of the ways The Wild WE is making networking easy, fun, and WILD for you in its second year.

To some online business owners the thought of specializing is terrifying. They think that if they specialize theyll miss a huge part of their potential market.

The reality is that if they don't specialize then their target market will be way too broad. Marketing to a general audience can put a huge strain on a marketer's budget and reduce a campaign's return on investment.

It's important for every business to find its niche, so it can market to those who will use its products or services, not to those who can't.

Let's face it, you can't be everything to everyone - and you shouldn't try to be. The best marketing experts know that the more they keep driving down to their niche, and right for that specific group, the more success they have. That's because they focus their message.

So how do you find out what your niche is and who the people are that will use it?

1. What people or businesses use my services and/or products the most?


2. What are the common demographics of my customers? What income level are they at? Do they rent or do they own their own homes? Are they young and single, middle aged with children, or older and retired? Are they male or female?


3. What are the commonalities that my best business-to-business clients share? Are they e-commerce companies? How many employees do they have? Are they large profit or not-for-profit?

By determining what your customers have in common and what common products or services these customers purchase, you've just discovered your niche and the market you should be targeting.

If you're just starting out and need to discover what your niche is and whom you should be marketing to, then you first need to ask yourself two questions: what are you best at doing and what do you like doing the most. Your answers to those questions should determine what your company specializes in.

To find out who will use your services or buy your products check out your competition to learn how they do business and what customers they attract. You should also conduct a survey to profile and build a database of potential clients/customers to market to.

Specializing might be a terrifying thought, but throwing money into a marketing campaign that only focuses on the possibles - not the probables - is even scarier.

About the author: Shannon Cherry, APR, MA helps women-owned businesses & entrepreneurs to be heard. She's a marketing communications and public relations expert with more than 15 years experience and the owner of Be Heard Solutions. She is also the publicist and board member of Wild Women Entrepreneurs. Subscribe today for Be Heard! a FREE biweekly ezine and get the FREE special report: Be the Big Fish: Three No-Cost Publicity Tactics to Help You Be Heard. Go to: http://www.beheardsolutions.com/freestuff_3.htm

by Charlotte Maddox

Stuck in a beauty quandary? Can't pull yourself out of your fashion rut? Feeling like a Glamour "don't"? E-mail your beauty and fashion questions to our expert beauty consultant, Charlotte Maddox, at ask@thewildwe.com. If we publish your question, we will offer you a free text ad in our newsletter. All questions will be published anonymously.

May is crammed full of celebrations; there's Nurse's Day, Teacher's Day, Mother's Day, Armed Forces' Day and Memorial Day. What these "professionals" have in common is their contributions to society. And their purpose in life makes them "beautiful."

In my opinion, one day isn't enough to honor nurses and teachers and mothers and soldiers for their efforts but it's a start. Each one of us has a memory of a nurse who helped ease a small or huge crisis, a teacher who made a difference, a mother's love and a soldier who sacrificed his or her time or life to serve this country.

If we recognize some professions with an official day, in fairness we should remember others. What about a day for the doctors who mend us, the police officers who protect us, the intelligence officers who work behind the scenes to guard us, to name a few? Each one of them deserves a special 'thank you' for what they do.

Labels: beauty inside and out

by Dina Giolitto

Your web site sales barely dribble in, and you have reason to believe that sub-par copy is the culprit. In fact, you know it's the copy because your stats reveal the click-and-flee phenomenon. Click and flee is a rather sad state of affairs. Traffic funnels in with a fury... and then funnels out just as quickly, washing away with it a ton of potential customers. Yikes.

But what's so bad about your web copy, anyway? You spelled everything correctly. You didn't commit any heinous grammatical crimes. So then... what's the missing secret ingredient in the copy sauce? How will you turn on the juice that caffeinates your writing, wakes up and shakes up your readers, and ultimately brings more profit?

The missing copy ingredient is the Human Touch. Hit it right, and your copy bristles with life and fuels your customers with the purpose to purchase. Miss the boat, and you're just another webmaster, dragging his readers into the Groan Zone.

Give your copy an instant caffeine lift using this simple, step-by-step strategy as soon as tonight. Stop talking about it and just DO IT. Your website will thank you!

1. Visualize the ideal customer. Is it a little old lady who calls you a whippersnapper and chucks you under the chin? A smart-alecky hipster who uses words like "snarky"? Swim around in this person's brain for a few minutes. Which colloquialisms does she use in everyday conversation? What's her problem, and how can you solve it? Who IS she exactly; and more importantly, who does she WISH she was?

Pretend that you and your future customer are one and the same. Yes, you're speaking TO him, but you're also speaking THROUGH him. Carry this visualization with you because you'll need it for Step 3.

2. Flip the perspective. If most of your web copy informs your reader of what "we" do and what "we" have, then make the perspective switch. Give the copy a run-through, and tick off all those we's and us's. Let your trusty red pen guide the way.

Let's say you wrote a sentence that says, "We have over ten years of experience in the design industry." Revise it to something more envigorating and customer-focused, like: "Imagine how much more you can accomplish with a 10+ year professional designer on your side."

3. Turn the passive to aggressive. Action begets action. Passive lacks passion! Replace your passive verbs with action verbs and your copy comes alive.

Passive: I am a copywriter.

Active: I write copy.

Passive: We are a collection of web professionals who specialize in copy, design and marketing.

Active: We provide exceptional web copy, design and marketing services for clients large and small.

(Active voice eliminates clumsy phrasing so you can express more ideas in less words. Notice I was able to squeeze an additional thought into the second, active statement.)

4. Write conversationally. How can you learn to write in a conversational tone? Ditch the robot-speak. Imitate that "voice" we talked about in Point One. "Perform" your web copy - read out loud as you review. Then, do the following:

5. Perfect the pacing. Listen to the way your copy moves. Vary your beats. You might have two or three short, choppy sentences in a row and then one longer sentence that begins with a prepositional phrase. Three questions in sequence flows much more smoothly than five. Even so: don't think about the rules so much as develop an "ear" for the flow.

6. Insert emotion and opinions. Unlike journalism which requires total objectivity, web copywriting calls for emotion and a distinct point of view. Express yourself! Defend the argument with verve and spice.

7. Involve the reader. Speak directly to him or her, just as you would in an email conversation. Ask questions: "Sounds like a pretty exciting offer, huh?" Make suggestions: "Top with fresh blueberries for added flavor and health benefits!"

8. Slip in those colloquialisms. Who's talking? The voice of your ideal customer, of course. Run through every bit of your copy and tune it up with human-to-human expressions (but please don't say 'bling,' okay? That one's my personal pet peeve.).

9. Don't forget contractions. Which sounds like someone's natural speech: "I'd like to welcome you," or "I would like to welcome you." If you guessed choice one, give yourself a gold star. Turn the "do not's" into "don'ts", the "would not's" into "wouldn'ts", etc. If I catch you using the long form of these conversational expressions, I'll be putting in a call to the Contraction Police for certain. So DO NOT-- I mean, DON'T do it!

10. Chop it down. Poorly written copy sounds like a mouthful and a half. You'll know it when you read out loud and stumble. (Please do read aloud... it really helps.) Trim away prepositional phrases like over, under, with, about, to, along with, into, out of when they occur several times in succession.

11. Call your readers to action. You're ready to take the final, critical step toward web copy perfection: the call to action. If your ultimate wish is for the customer to contact you, then add that instruction to the end of every section on EVERY page of your website. Shuttle him there on a direct link. "Contact us for a custom quote today!" (and include the URL).

Like anything, writing professional marketing materials takes years of practice and application of tried and tested techniques. This lesson is only the beginning. If you have ANY questions, or need a helping hand/pro copywriter to relieve you of this burden, email Dina AT Wordfeeder.com.

Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

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Labels: communication corner