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Amy Brings LiisBeth Inside The Tent

For savvy corporate intrapreneur and author Amy Dorn Kopelan, entrepreneurship wasn’t a choice. Amy’s conference planning and executive coaching enterprise, Bedlam Productions Inc., is the producer and creator of The Corporate State Summits (US and Canada) and The Executive Studio. Amy is working to ignite a “Davos for Women Only” environment where the conversation is about leadership, business trends, and ensuring that women seat at any table and their voices are heard.

As one of our new contributors, we wanted you to get to know Amy a little better. Here is an excerpt of our interview.

LiisBeth: Amy, tell us your entrepreneurial story. Why did you leave a successful career in corporate television for the uncertain world of entrepreneurship?

Amy: Why does somebody jump the fence from corporate to entrepreneur? In my case, it wasn’t so much a choice. More like an unplanned push out the door!

LiisBeth: After 20 years of moving up the corporate ladder, what happened?

Amy: I was essentially what we now call an intrapreneur in a company that ultimately didn’t know how to support that. I saw market opportunities others didn’t. I recognized the need to work fast to respond. But corporations tend to make decisions about new things s-l-o-w-l-y. Management became uncomfortable with my pace, even though they applauded the vision, energy, and creativity. Ultimately they created an elite sort of “skunk works” team of five people to look at some new ideas and invited me to join.

LiisBeth: That sounds like it should have been an ideal outcome.

Amy: Well, there was good and bad. The good? I was in a fish bowl and people were very aware of what I was saying, thinking, and doing. The bad? You get a lot more scrutiny. At a certain point the COO of the company called me to say: “You have a way of thinking, a way of moving people, a way of seeing the landscape, and a way of making things happen that don’t necessarily work in a corporate environment. So young lady, it is time for you to leave this organization. It’s time for you to go out and change the world.” I’ve got to tell you, the jolt of that is huge.

LiisBeth: No kidding! What did you do next?

Amy: [Laughs] I first tried to get another job. And soon found a job opening that seemed like a perfect fit. But in my heart, for a lot of reasons, I knew I wouldn’t get the job. They gave me a lot of feedback and affirmed some things I felt I knew about myself, but was not so sure about. That third-party, objective feedback opened up my eyes and many other doors.

LiisBeth: So from job to no job, how did you come to start your now very successful, 14-year-old business, Bedlam Productions?

Amy: It wasn’t really planned. It came about as a series of steps and opportunities. The year before I left my corporate position, I had been loaned out by ABC to Fairchild Publications to launch a conference series. I would truck daily down town in New York to their facilities to help them develop a conference division. They needed my producing skills because they were publishers and they didn’t have producers on site. So after having a year of that experience, I suddenly realized that that was probably an opportunity I could build on.

LiisBeth: Did you ever attend any incubators or startup weekends?

Amy: No! I think there was less scripting around that than what exists now. I primarily got to where I needed to go by leveraging and building networks. One person introduced me to another. I also invested in research and started to go to conferences where I thought that I could see more and learn more of what mirrored what I had in mind. I recognized as I went along that one of my special skills was that I really knew how to initiate and manage partnerships well.

My networking efforts took me to Deloitte, coincidentally at the very time they were looking to launch a women’s conference. I sat next to a woman at a symposium who asked about my business plans. I explained what I did, and she suggested that the timing was uncanny. Deloitte wanted to launch a summit for women leaders, but did not have any idea how to produce it. They did have the money, though. I knew how to produce and of course needed a sponsor. The gal, who was with Deloitte in California, suggested she make an intro for me. It was her idea that Deloitte should fund me and that I’d have a corporate partner. That’s exactly what happened.

LiisBeth: Why did Deloitte want to create a women’s conference?

Amy: They wanted to create something different for women in leadership positions and not just another report. They wanted a conference designed to explore critical global trends. There wasn’t anything out there like this. We all felt strongly that this new conference couldn’t be just one more “women’s conference.” It had to be about global issues, and to get in the door you had to be a woman leader.

We had a very deep belief there was room in the market for a “Davos” for women only. Many times, I must be candid, people would say: “Oh, I don’t want to come to that. That’s a women’s conference.” The stress on the word “women’s” was distasteful, as if we were going to discuss “how do you colour your hair?” We had to show that this was a summit, not just another women’s issues event. And that’s what we’ve been producing for the past 16 years.

LiisBeth: Wow. Sixteen years! Has anything changed?

Amy: There have been many changes. But I’ll mention this as distinct. In 1998, there was an acceptance of the idea that women were global leaders, but somehow many women still saw themselves as being a good “guide on the side.” They would never admit to having husbands at home who took care of the children. And they would duck the idea that they made more money than their mates. Now, those walls are gone! Now, there’s a tremendous shift in women’s roles in society. Now, more and more women want to lead loud and proud, not just quietly guide.

LiisBeth: Are there too many women’s conferences these days?

Amy: No. I think women, globally, really are tapping into the idea that being in a room full of women leaders, discussing world issues, educates you differently.

LiisBeth: What advice do you have for fellow entrepreneurs?

Amy: I think to start any business you need a very strong board of advisers. I can’t stress that enough. Nobody on that board should be a significant other in your life, but instead people who have very specific skills to advise, guide, and help you make critical decisions about your company. Secondly, be in a business you love. And thirdly, be in a business where there’s a need for the service or product.

LiisBeth: Are you coming back to Toronto next year?

Amy: Our last Corporate State 2016 Summit sold out! So yes, we’re back on May 17, 2017, in Toronto.

Links:
Bedlam Productions Inc.
Corporate State 2016 – Toronto
Corporate State 2015 – Montreal
Corporate State 2013 – Vancouver

Publisher’s Note: For more information about the Toronto Corporate 2020 Summit 2017, or how to get involved, please check out Bedlam Productions.

When co-founder of Women on the Move Heather Gamble introduces herself to me following a networking workshop at the Dundas Street West co-working space, she describes how she “climbed up the AT&T corporate ladder” before the age of 35 because she “could sell any early adopter technology.” After leaving her roles in sales and marketing at the company, she launched her first business with Eva Gooderham in 2004. In her first year with their business-to-business marketing firm SalesFuel Inc., she won a $1-million contract with Shaw Communications. Her story sounds to me like a well-rehearsed sales pitch, which I imagine her delivering hundreds of times.

An unapologetic saleswoman, Gamble knows the value of a good story. She insists that every entrepreneur needs sales skills to survive. Gamble models this commercial spirit in her work. Unlike many other organizations geared to female entrepreneurs, she points out that Women on the Move is a for-profit enterprise. “We don’t believe that if we’re teaching women entrepreneurs to make money that we should be non-profit. That’s hilarious,” Gamble says. “You cannot build a business on government grants and loans. If you really want to build a business, we can start you off. And we start you off by saying sales is number one.”

This approach to business makes some women uneasy. After opening their business accelerator (a co-working space, business training program, community network and venture capital fund) in January 2015, Gamble and co-founder Nicola Morgan discovered their biggest hurdle has been changing women’s negative connotations with sales. “This is what we see: women in particular have an aversion to selling,” Gamble explains. “The stigma is [that] in sales you have to be aggressive, you have to be manipulative.” Morgan suggests the solution to this problem is to make the medicine taste good. “The way we have overcome it is by showing them it’s not what they think it is. Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm.” The two longtime friends met at Carleton University back in 1981. Between Gamble and Morgan, a former Arthur Murray Dance Studio franchisee, they have accrued around 35 years of experience training people in sales. As Gamble explains it, she observed a market need for their endeavour, and, being a serial opportunist, decided to take advantage of the opening. “I saw more women going into entrepreneurship, and I saw more women not being successful, and I saw more women going back to that job they didn’t like.”

Data collected by Statistics Canada shows that women small business owners had less revenue growth than men (57.7 per cent compared to 62.4 percent) between 2009 to 2011. According to Forbes Magazine, only 2 percent (4 percent in Canada) of female-owned businesses in the United States reach $1 million in revenues while male-owned businesses were 3.5 times as likely to do so. Gamble lays the blame more on women’s own inhibitions than on systemic discrimination, noting that women tend not to speak up when men are around. “I felt it was imperative to give women their own place and space for them to say what they really believe, come up to the table and be fully engaged participants,” she explains. In terms of preparing students for the reality of life outside of the training, Morgan says they assess what skills each individual might require and focus on helping them understand and sell effectively to both male and female buyers. While women often take a more complex approach, when men are doing business, “it’s just business,” says Morgan. “We do work with women to (help them) understand how men think and that they do think a little bit differently than we do. So, really, it’s all about understanding your buyer, whoever that buyer may be,” she explains. “Men don’t really care how you feel,” but women, generally speaking, are much more focused on their feelings, according to Morgan.

Women on the Move member Michelle Isocianu and co-owner of Board Again Games happened upon the space when she was searching for a location to rent out for board game nights and ended up registering as a student in the She Factory business training program. She says the course has taught her “basic business 101 stuff” and how to apply that specifically to her own enterprise.

But it has been the support of fellow participants and the instructors that has benefited Isocianu most. “It’s nice to know that other people are going through the same thing,” she says, adding that the course has helped her to increase revenue and make wiser investment decisions. “I think going back every week and Heather being like, ‘You’re perfect and you’re great,’ – as cheesy as it may be – it does give you the confidence,” she says. “I certainly have gotten the confidence to put a value on what I do.” Isocianu admits that at first she was intimidated by the “all women kind of approach,” but now sees the critical need for such a place.

The She Factory is an intensive training program that runs weekly from September to June. Although students can be anywhere in business development, from just starting out to two years in, Morgan urges women to enlist sooner rather than later. It incorporates elements of sales and business education for women entrepreneurs, with individual classes starting at $40 and personalized coaching that is tailored to individual budgets.

Gamble’s initial mission was to train 10,000 women by 2020 and position them each on their “$1-million path” within three years. One of their first students, a business consultant in the mining sector, saw her business jump from $400,000 to $2-million in revenue after just one year. But their latest training session, which ran from September to June, brought in just 25 women. “It takes time to build a business,” admits Morgan, explaining they pour whatever financial resources they have into rent rather than marketing, which she notes can also be costly. They hope to increase their numbers by taking their business on the road — or rather the train — for a cross-Canada tour that aims to connect and train women entrepreneurs. In June, Women on the Move rolled out its “Save Our Sales” service, an app that offers access to a branding specialist, sales specialist, writing specialist and interpersonal personality specialist. The personality specialist can help business owners understand how to sell to different personality types by communicating and connecting with them more effectively.

Don’t expect their training to include tackling the systematic barriers to equality that women entrepreneurs often face. Morgan herself claims that she has never personally experienced sexism as an entrepreneur; however, she acknowledges that inequality does exist and that women deserve equal opportunity. But she and Gamble choose to focus their efforts on helping women work within existing structures to boost sales and revenue.

“I don’t know that I have to put myself into any particular category,” says Gamble when asked if she would call herself a feminist. “I categorize myself as one thing and that’s a woman on the move.”

Publishers Note: Gamble and Morgan have also launched a new workshop series called Accelerate Your Success. It is held on Wednesdays from 12 – 2 p.m and includes a one hour workshop plus an hour of networking and a catered lunch. The focus is on developing effective sales and marketing skills with an emphasis on using social media to increase sales and find prospects. Tickets start at $40. You can learn more at www.womenonthemove.club.

Additional Business Support Groups for Women in Toronto

SheEO: A peer-based venture capital fund for women;
Shecosystem: A community that holds weekly co-working events with a focus on wellness; and
Ember: A co-working space with mentorship opportunities for women.

For a more complete list of supports for women entrepreneurs across Canada, visit http://weoc.ca/ or download their eco-system diagram Womens-Entrepreneurial-Ecosystem_2016_03_01_weoc (1).

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