All of us at WHITE SPACE have been fully engulfed in an operational makeover throughout April and May. Through some very well-timed introductions we have had the good fortune of building an advisory board of talented and wise professionals from diverse areas of expertise who are excited about the potential of WHITE SPACE to grow far beyond the $1 Million dollar threshhold we are targetting to cross by year end 2006.
These business advisors have stepped forward to help us address current issues and redesign operational systems in four areas: strategic business growth, staff development and training, operational systems and procedures, and profitable business growth and development.
First, our strategic business growth advisor, Claire Gregoire of Kamden Strategy Partners, helped us create a WEALTH of financial models and tools to measure and gauge our growth. We now have a financial dashboard which encapsulates in one page the company's financial health; including monthly sales recaps and projections, labor costs relative to revenue (a big piece of our profits), labor projections based on booked business and operating costs. A larger financial model (about which I wrote last month) provides us with five-year projections for labor, revenue, expenses and profits. These tools are dynamic and keep me focused on my most important priority at WHITE SPACE: to get us to $1 Million in revenues and beyond!!!
Our staff development and training advisor, Maralyn Bellin of Real Results, Inc, has helped us craft job descriptions, job postings, implement assessments prior to interviewing, and fine-tuned our hiring processes from the first contact through the first 30 days on board. I've become well acquainted with the hip term - onboarding - and am pleased to report that WHITE SPACE now has an onboarding process in place. We have raised our overall level of staff quality significantly in the last 30 days and are all very excited to be working together towards the delivery of our high quality client services. Our hiring and training in the past used to consist of little more than five minutes here and there to ask "how ya doin?" or "any questions?" Now there are clearly defined job descriptions and delineations between various staff positions, benchmarks for promotion, and a schedule of training dates and topics for the staff. This is a huge piece of development when you are a service provider and your primary asset is the human capital. This is made even more critical by the upscale quality of our clientele. We're not just hiring for skill sets, but also for poise, diplomacy and a mind set for innovative solutions in the client setting.
Our operational expertise comes from an exceptional woman, Catherine Rothschild, who formerly served as a managing partner and executive producer at Hal Riney & Associates. Kitty brings a unique perspective to the "production" of client projects and has created and helped us implement some standardized processes that insure everyone's opportunity to succeed. From estimating worksheets that save me hours in preparing proposals, to project books and project download forms, we now have a toolbox that keeps us as organized and "effortlessly" moving forward as the service we provide our clients. It takes much of the mystery out of what we do -- and that's a good thing!!!
Last, but not least, our sales advisor, David Houle of David Houle and Associates, keeps the pressure on me for aggressive business development. David is a futurist (see www.evolutionshift.com) and sees trends before the masses experience them. He helps me look into the future to identify opportunities for growing WHITE SPACE exponentially rather than in small steps. David also has a laser-like point of view into the marketing of WHITE SPACE and has guided us to some tremendously talented people to assist us with optimizing our website and fine tuning our public personnae.
This process has been exhilarating most of the time, exhausting some of the time and has demanded that I, as the business owner, shift mindset and daily focus. I am no longer the owner/operator of a home-grown start-up. WHITE SPACE is today an emerging business that will quickly morph into a small business. And, the distinction between those stages is tremendous. It requires me to be more astute about business opportunities, more aware of keys to our successes (or failures) and more willing to change and grow with the business than ever before. I dare to declare here and now . . .I am up to the task!!
I just returned from the launch of the 2006 Make Mine a $Million program held in conjunction with the national NAWBO conference in San Francisco. 20 new award recipients were chosen from a field of dynamic, successful women business owners. As one of the first winners in 2005, I am humbled by the movement begun by this program only 14 short months ago. Not only was the growth in the number of applicants to this dynamic, life-changing program exponential. The quality of the winners was impressive! Women from every type of business imaginable with remarkable growth to date will now benefit from the marketing, mentoring and money that are the award components of this ground-breaking program. There is no doubt in my mind that CEO Nell Merlino's goal of 1 Million Women-Owned Million Dollar businesses by 2010 is not only achievable, but will probably be surpassed sooner! The economic impact of this goal is awesome for our world at large. Nell has started a community, a movement that is gaining ground and picking up speed by the day as business owners find the resources and the motivation to go where too few women have gone before. Thank you, Nell, for inspiring us all.
And congratulations to all the 2006 award recipients. The best is truly yet to come!!
