“We live in a world that is owned by men, designed by men and managed by men, and yet we expect women to participate.

But did you know …

1. Women dominate higher education. Most college and university campuses across North America are 60-40 female.
2. Approximately 70% of all American females work outside the home, and women make up nearly 50% of the total workforce.
3. During the recent recession, 82% of job losses befell men, and mothers are the major breadwinners in 40% of American families.
4. The earning power of women globally is expected to reach $18 trillion by 2014

If you’re a man running a business, and if the power and influence females wield hasn’t completely registered on your radar, well, then, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

If your store, restaurant, bank, hotel lobby, mall, or other public space or amenity doesn’t acknowledge the female factor; if it doesn’t invite women in and make them feel at home, at ease, safe, hygienic, respected and in control, if it doesn’t take into account what women want and expect (which is different from what men want and expect), well, then, it’s bad business.
Paco Underhill is the CEO of Envirosell and the author of Why We Buy and soon to be published What Women Want.”

Excerpt from What Matters Now. (Hint – women are one big thing that matters…)

Hats off to Seth (again). Marti (Barletta), as usual, it’s a productive inspiration to read your thoughts. Thanks. Here’s Marti’s piece on Strengths.

“Forget about working on your weaknesses —> Focus on supporting your strengths.

I worked on my weaknesses for 40 years to little avail. Still “needs improvement,” as they say. Why? Easy. We hate doing things we’re not good at, so we avoid them. No practice makes perfect hard to attain.

But my strengths – ah, I love my strengths. I’ll work on them till the purple cows come home. When we love what we do, we do more and more, and pretty soon we’re pretty good at it.

The beautiful thing about being on a team is that, believe it or not, lots of people love doing the things you hate. And hate doing the things you love. So quit diligently developing your weaknesses. Instead, partner with someone very UNlike you, share the work and share the wealth and everyone’s happy.

Relatedly, women are rather UNlike men and often approach problems and opportunities with a different outlook. Yet books and coaches often encourage us to adopt male strengths and, lacking understanding, to relinquish our own. Thee irony is, studies show that more women in leadership translates unequivocally into better business results.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for both men and women to appreciate each other’s strengths so we all work on what comes naturally?

Marti Barletta, speaker, consultant and author of Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women; is currently working on her next book, Attracting Women: Marketing Your Company to the 21st Century’s Best Candidates”

I highly recommend you download What Matters Now - it’s chock FULL of good stuff, things to act on and ponder. Then use to go out and change the world.

called on the carpet

Here’s a perfect example, yet again, of why people in any business (and those engaged in life – Dolores are you reading today??) can benefit from reading Seth Godin’s musings.

He’s right. He’s direct. He’s calling us all on the carpet because he’s there already. It inspires, motivates, provokes thought and hopefully action.

I’m not here to put him on a pedestal – just pass this good stuff forward as my good friend Amy did for me. Thanks!

p.s. here’s another good post…