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Monique Danielle

Business Etiquette for Women

I just attended a networking function for business women and saw a breach of business etiquette that really made me cringe.  This was one of those events where everyone has a chance to stand up and deliver a brief “elevator speech” about her business.  One of the women (identity protected) stood up, and everything she wore/said/gestured screamed, “I’m not serious about myself or my business.”  While the Pacific NW is known for its informality, there’s a limit.

First, she was dressed for the beach, not a professional dinner event.  I know it’s summer and we in the Pacific NW aren’t used to so much sun, but please.  We were in an air-conditioned hotel, not poolside.  Next, she had chewing gum in her mouth.  She must have tucked it somewhere in her cheek, like chewing tobacco, when speaking, but I could see her chew, chew before and after.  Finally, her introduction was difficult to hear since she spoke quickly and didn’t project her voice (and no doubt that gum was in the way.)

I’m glad she’s attending events for business women because she can really use help polishing her image.  It’s hard to take someone seriously when she doesn’t appear to be taking herself seriously.  Business women have enough obstacles without needlessly erecting barriers and appropriate business etiquette is far from rocket science.  Dress professionally, communicate clearly, even in the Pacific NW.

One of the trickiest business etiquette areas is when a woman is the boss.  Many women are instinctively relationship-oriented and seek to maintain bonds at all costs.  But, in the same way that a mother is not necessarily her child’s friend, a boss is not necessarily a friend.   As the boss, you must maintain professional integrity with your employees and business partners.  

For more thoughts on business etiquette for business women, read journalist Dawn Sagario’s article “Put Down Powder Puff, Grab Weapons of Success” <www.debraleigh.com/girltalk/PutDownThePowderPuff.htm>.  The article originally appeared in a Iowa newspaper, but it’s ideas apply everywhere...even the Pacific NW.

Monique Danielle

Independent Businesswomen in the Northwest

If you’re an independent business owner in the Pacific NW, you know how hard it is to get everything done.  As I heard some smart woman once say (forget who), “There’s the business...and then there’s the business of the business.”

Acknowledging you can’t do everything is the first step in getting everything done.  “Huh?”, you’re thinking?  The trick is to find a specialist in the Pacific NW to do the stuff you’re either not so good at or don’t have time for.  Then you perform services for one another.

For example, say you’re a CPA starting up your own Pacific NW based accounting business.  You know numbers inside and out, but marketing?  You’d rather walk on hot coals.  So you find an independent practitioner who specializes in marketing for small businesses.  You do her taxes, she plans your marketing strategy.  Voila!

How to figure comparable worth depends on the products/services involved.  If you both provide services, you can trade based on an hourly or project basis.  If either/both have a product, determine the product value and trade accordingly.

So, where do you find such people?  Chambers of commerce meetings and leads groups are options.  In the Pacific NW, BNI and LeTip are probably the most well-established leads groups and have lots of women business owners as members.  Professional associations are another resource.  But, attending these kinds of functions takes time and money, plus it can take several meetings to bump into the right person.  Which is exactly why I created Diva Directories:  so that women can network without effort.  So...right now...think about that task you’ve been putting off forever, and go find someone who can help you check it off your to-do list.

Monique Danielle

Second Income Catch 22

Today, my thoughts are on the second income Catch-22, a problem afflicting many dual-income families, particularly those with children.  Despite living in the feminist movement’s fourth decade, the majority of household tasks still fall in the woman’s court.  And, again despite the last 40-odd years of women’s increased presence in the work force, wives usually earn less than husbands.

In discussing this with various business women and men, it goes like this:  since the woman earns less, her job isn’t as “important” to the bottom line as his, justifying (with quirky logic) her extra load of home-work, thus inhibiting her availability to participate in off-hours work-related functions that advance workers to the next rung on the career ladder.  There’s the Catch-22: she earns less, resulting in more home-focus, and since she’s more home-focused, she earns less.  Am I making sense here? Without parity on the home front (read: roughly equivalent sharing between husbands and wives on housework and childcare) she’ll always provide the secondary income.  Which, in the long run, affects the welfare of the entire family.  And I’m sure there are plenty of business women who are fine with the status quo.  But I’m telling you, I hear from a lot of women who aren’t.  I mean, hey, as long as you’re working, why not earn as much for your time as possible?

I feel very fortunate.  My design firm, DivaDesignWorld, started with a dream and a web site address, and was a definite backseat to my hubby’s career...heck, calling it a “secondary income” was ambitious!  But now, three years later, it has become equal to his career.  For me, that equality has three basic components:  hard work, my own conviction in the legitimacy of my career, and my husband’s philosophical and tangible support.
For most business women, there’s no easy solution to the secondary income dilemma (although there’s growing awareness that our government, despite lip service about “family values,” provides embarrassingly little support...read Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety by Judith Warner.)  I guess, for now, it’s up to our generation of business women to explore new career/life possibilities and, ultimately, provide examples for the next generation