THE WOMEN ENTREPRENEUR’S BADGE SYSTEM

If you know me at ALL, you know I’m not much of a “badge” person. 😊 I did join Girl Scouts when I was little but QUICKLY exited stage left when I realized that we’d be doing more cooking than climbing. I brought Summer to a Girl Scout meeting once, or it may have been a Brownie meeting. I can’t remember, but what I DO remember is her asking what the badges meant…

She wanted to know the meaning BEYOND having the badge and then “sewing the badge on the vest.”

Frankly, I didn’t have a really great answer.

Make no mistake, I see great value in Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and other similar clubs… badges and all. 😊 But today I see women entrepreneurs spending TONS of time, energy, money and focus on popular, perhaps even APPLAUDED badges, that really…

don’t
amount
to a hill o’ beans
in the real world of entrepreneurship.

For fun, I’m listing them below.

In the REAL world, though…
where women are succeeding WILDLY
on their own terms,
we ignore the badges
and pursue and create:

🏅REAL VALUE
🏅REAL RESULTS
🏅HONEST LONGEVITY
🏅COURAGEOUS LEADERSHIP

But it’s easy to get CAUGHT up in some of these “other” badges. I’m calling them FAUX badges because they can feel real. They can keep us running hard in the wrong direction. I’m calling them badges of DISHONOR because when we’re chasing them, we’re dis-honoring our own path, our own success, our own purpose.

So, with no further ado..
and for some Saturday fun…
here are the costly, time-consuming, money-eating, deceptively seductive BADGES of disHONOR for women entrepreneurs. 😊

🏅 The POPULAR PATTY Badge goes to the woman who NEEDS to be seen in the right crowds, taking pictures with the right person. Poor thing, she’s paying for endorsements of her book, paying extra for the PRIVILEGE of taking a picture with that famous someone, and otherwise trying to LOOK important through association.

🏅The PERFECTLY POLISHED PIPER Badge goes to the woman I am envious of most often. 😊 Her “stuff” is JUST SO. But I still believe in the quote I came up with years ago: “If you have MORE headshot sessions than paying clients, you’re doing it wrong.” 😊

This badge is the one that I have spent far too much time considering, admiring, envying. In fact just recently, a SOUL MATE friend of mine and I were talking shop. Again, for like the 20th time in 10 years, she says that I need different, better branding to reach my next level. 😊

And she mentioned to me a LOCAL (to us) coach that was making more money than me. I literally couldn’t even look at the chic’s profile for a bit. NOT because of the $$… but because of the fact that my soul mate friend RECOMMENDS her and does not recommend me. 😊

Get triggered much, Michelle?

By the way, I’m sharing this story JUST to show how insidious this badge pursuit can be. 😊 So, there I was… wrestling with whether or not I would l chase the coveted Perfectly Polished Piper badge, and I came up with two important facts:

1. It’s not that my market wants more polish on me! It’s that my friend would be a little — or a lot — less sheepish about publicly endorsing me if my visual brand looked better. and

2. I’ve had MANY leaps with my current approach to branding which is simply “be more me.” Bottom line: it’s working.

Side note: I DID finally got out of my ass enough to look up this local coach who is making so much money, lol….

Oh.
Dear
GAWD.

She’s a firm. Photography, website design, project management. Her work is amazing, but she’s hyper local, providing work that has high overhead. More of a project manager than a coach. But mainly, she’s managing details I don’t want to manage and taking home much less money than I’d be willing to accept.

Bottom line: I am officially off of the Perfectly Polished Piper track.

🏅 The WOKE WENDY Badge goes to hash-tag following woman entrepreneur who is ALWAYS equally outraged and authoritative about any and all issues. She is determined to say the right (i.e. popular, approved of) things, IMMEDIATELY without knowing the facts or even allowing the facts to have time to surface.

And then she moves on to the next outrage where she can take a self-built moral podium and share her extensive wisdom on yet another subject… again.

But she never makes an impact. She never takes it further than popular stances on public platforms. She doesn’t dive into her own community and make change. Who has time for THAT when there’s another hashtag bandwagon to jump on?

🏅 The CONSISTENT CONNIE Badge is another one I’ve pursued, and — frankly — I may even have one of these sewn secretly into the curtains of my office. 😊

But listen, consistency can sometimes be such a farce. Showing up every day ONLY matters if you’re showing up AUTHENTICALLY, POWERFULLY, and with a purpose every day.

Consistency without these things will do two things:

1) BORE your market and train them to Ignore you; and
2) Keep you hustling PERHAPS without impact, income or influence increase.

So, be consistent, but leave room to be both powerful AND purposeful in your work. This LARGELY comes down to two things:

1) Allowing the message to be the message… viewing yourself as a vessel rather than a high-profile editor! and
2) Treating your audience like real people, talking with them naturally, relationally… forgo-ing algorithm-feeding (but irrelevant) questions in favor of REAL conversations and REAL talk.

🏅 The NON-COMMERCE NANCY Badge goes to the “entrepreneur” (quotation marks important) that constantly assures her market that she’s not making “any money” on this. lol… In other words, “My husband keeps me in this lifestyle so I have the liberty of looking down on those that SELL stuff.” lol…

Look, commerce is CONSENT, Nancy.
Selling is PERMISSION…
It’s asking for PERMISSION to help someone. It’s asking for their buy in, their permission, their partnership.

And why would you EVER think that your market WOULDN’T want you to make money??? If you don’t make money, you won’t do this very long. And if you’re TRULY serving them, they’ll want you to KEEP serving them.

Example: I’d be VERY concerned if I learned that my favorite restaurant or Wine store wasn’t making any money. I’d be concerned because it is only a matter of time before they’ll no longer be around for me.

IF you are a business owner,
an entrepreneur,
you need to proudly make a profit.

🏅 The LEADER LAYLA Badge goes to the woman who says polarizing things online and then DARES anyone to disagree with her by saying one of the following “cool girl” lines:

“Unfriend me if >>>>>>>>” (Obliged, Layla. I’ll quickly oblige this request!)

“You’re a _______ if you disagree.” (Name-calling is super cool again??? C’mon.)

Also, Leader Laylas are typically much bolder online than in person. Just sayin’.

🏅 The BADASS BABE Badge is reserved for the woman who thinks dropping an f-bomb in a business post is WAY cool, and OBVIOUSLY makes her a badass babe. 😊

🏅 The TRAFFIC TRUDY Badge is another seductive one, because traffic IS SO important! But women pursuing this badge believe that to make money, they need a big list. NOT TRUE. If you can’t make money with a small list, you can’t make money with a large list either. Often Traffic Trudy spends a TON of money buying traffic, followers and leads and in the end… she often ends up with nothing but a badge she has to design and print herself. 😊

I have a sick little fascination with SEO. Years ago, I told my audience I was going to rank on PAGE ONE of Google for the term “women entrepreneurs,” which is such a general and popular term, would be hard. BUT, I did it. (LARGELY using Google Plus videos with the words “women entrepreneurs” in the title.)

Bottom line: I DID get on page one. I occupied not one or two but THREE of the page one results on Google for “women entrepreneurs.” I assure you I saw no real boost in income.

It’s far better to build DEMAND for your voice, create compelling content, and stay in conversation (various forms) with your market. Do this and you’ll make money immediately and the traffic will build organically.

Want to talk about succeeding by being MORE of yourself,
in a way that DOES NOT require you to compromise the things that are most important… that doesn’t require BADGE hunting? 😊

Message me about joining Women Who WOW. It’s time.