Day One: Inspiring Women
Posted by
Theresa
After a long, but fun filled day of travel from Winnipeg, Manitoba, we arrived in Orlando, Florida to attend the WBENC 2012 conference. I’m representing Fusion as an affiliate partner of WEConnect Certified partners, Jody Milburn and Michelle Manary of the amazing ReframeHR.
The WBENC conference highlights international procurement opportunities for women owned enterprises throughout the world. 3000 corporate delegates and women owned businesses (WBE’s) from around the globe have descended on Florida to connect and explore opportunities to do business together.
Michelle and Jody are fantastic business partners and are becoming fast friends. Our companies have partnered together to positively develop both of our businesses, I’m very excited to now partner in nurturing clients and prospects together. Together we can bring a unique focus to our clients – we believe that we can help companies drive growth and build their business by aligning people and branding strategies to their business strategy.
We arrived on Saturday, full of excitement and preparation for the week ahead. Arriving at our rented home on the lake, we jumped in the pool, grilled some kabobs and connected about the possibilities.
Sunday was spent conducting market research in service, people and brand development as we screamed our way through the roller coasters at Universal Studios. Jody was uninitiated to the joys of hurtling through space and quickly became its biggest fan. After our fun filled day, we got prepped and ready to start meeting some of the top female business owners from across the country at the first reception.
Monday was a great day to meet fellow Canadian-owned businesses and fascinating women from Jamaica, the UK, India, China, Peru and more. After opening remarks the roundtables began, introductions, connections, insights and laughs were heard across the room. We heard amazing success stories and learned from success. Ruth from Northern Abrasives was especially inspiring - a few lessons from the “sandpaper lady”:
- Be bold
- Be smart
- Rely on other women
- Learn from successful business women, be sharp and strategic
- Do what it takes to deliver on time, you can’t screw up not even once
- Don’t take no for an answer
We’ll take these words with us through the rest of the week.
After dinner of swordfish and steak by the pool, the discussions began, about our business and about those that we met., how we can collaborate, partner and help. Excited about our first one-on-one meeting tomorrow.