Women Entrepreneurs the Secrets of Success for Wednesday, August 18th

Carolyne McIntyre Jackson and Jodi Willoughby

“Growing up on our family farm just outside of High River, Alberta, our mother taught us the best baking always starts from scratch. It was a good lesson to learn early on. And for years we shared handcrafted baked goods with our friends and family - it was their encouragement that helped us start Crave.

We still love to bake and get an even greater satisfaction from sharing our indulgences with the people of Calgary. Our baking is still crafted the way we did on the farm. We only use real butter, still crack every egg that goes into our recipes and we think you will be able to taste the difference.”
~Carolyne McIntyre Jackson and Jodi Willoughby

Crave Cupcakes is owned and operated by sisters Carolyne McIntyre Jackson and Jodi Willoughby. In the Fall of 2004 Crave opened their doors to Calgary baking cupcakes, cookies and cakes from scratch. Calgary is now home to four Crave locations with a fifth in the works.

Carolyne McIntyre Jackson has a degree in Food Business Management and with the opening of Crave she has realized her dream of bringing something special to the people of Calgary. Still striving for the dream, Carolyne is balancing her career with raising a family and training for a half Ironman this summer.

Jodi Willoughby has a degree in Community Rehabilitation and has worked hard to build a brand that is truly a part of the community. Jodi has infused the business with a small town philosophy of creative simplicity, providing an honest product and remembering to give back to the community that supports Crave. Jodi and her husband, Chris, put their hearts into building Crave and raising their two boys.

12:00 pm EDT
Listen to the live or archived show at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CoachDeb

"Women Entrepreneurs - The Secrets of Success" for Thursday, July 29th

Selena Cuffe

Selena Cuffe is the President and CEO of Heritage Link Brands, LLC, the first and largest U.S. company dedicated to importing and distributing wine produced by indigenous Africans and those of African descent. The wines have been featured by media outlets including TIME, O Magazine, PBS and the Today Show and have won industry accolades from the International Wine Challenge, Decanter Magazine and Wine Spectator, among others. Customers include household names such as Whole Foods, Disney, Sam’s Club and United Airlines, and the wine can be found in stores in 41 states.

The true birth of Heritage Link Brands occurred on an unrelated business trip to South Africa in 2005, when Selena discovered that out of South Africa’s $3 billion wine industry, less than two percent was owned by blacks. Seeing the inequality – blacks make up over 80 percent of the country’s population – she founded Heritage Link Brands shortly thereafter.

Prior to starting her own business, Selena worked as an Account Executive for United Airlines and as a Business Development Manager for United.com. During her tenures at the airline and its website, her main responsibilities were the promotion and launch of new routes and negotiating strategic online initiatives with Microsoft, Starwood and Orbitz. She received her marketing training from the Procter & Gamble Company in Cincinnati, OH, where she served as Assistant Brand Manager for the Pringles brand and was a key figure in the development and execution of marketing plans in the Latin American countries of Brazil and Mexico. In her last job before founding Heritage Link Brands, Selena served as the Director of Marketing for the Council on International Educational Exchange, overseeing the promotion of student and work exchanges for over 50,000 people worldwide.

Selena graduated with an AB in International Relations from Stanford University and holds a Master of Business Administration, with honors, from the Harvard Business School. She is also certified, with merit, by the UK-based Wine and Spirits Educational Trust (WSET) and is a Diamond Life member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. A mother of two, she works alongside her husband, Khary, the CFO of Heritage Link Brands.

8:00 pm EDT
Listen to the live or archived show at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CoachDeb

"Women Entrepreneurs - The Secrets of Success" for Wednesday, July 21st

Zuzy Martin Lynch
Zuzy became obsessed with good food and restaurants at an early age. She grew up eating grandma’s home-cooked food while her single mom was out working all the time. Trying to spoil her, grandma never let her in the kitchen. As for mom, cooking was something she just “didn’t do.” Couple that with living near NYC, it’s no surprise that restaurants soon became an obsession. Cooking, however, became more and more a distant concept – until she hit her thirties and eating out every night became a norm that lost its luster and felt too expensive a habit to keep. Today, she’s on a mission to admit she was clueless, ask all the questions and start to slowly help her generation get cooking. http://cooking4theclueless.com/

8:00 pm EDT
Listen to the live or archived show at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CoachDeb

Maria Shriver: First Lady, Advocate, Mom & Entrepreneur

by Deborah A Bailey

Award-winning journalist, First Lady of California, mother of four and entrepreneur, Maria Shriver continues to make her mark on the world while contributing her time and energy to social programs. Continuing in the footsteps of her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver who started the Special Olympics over 40 years ago, Maria is one of the founders of Lovin' Scoopful ice cream company which donates 25% of its profits to the Special Olympics and other causes.

A busy mom, Maria is firm about sitting down to dinner with her children five nights a week, and Sunday nights the family eats dinner together. Maria's advice for women who are trying to find that elusive balance between family, business and life in general?

"I think it's just to be more patient with yourself. Very often your kids are proud of you. There's no reason to beat yourself up about it," Maria says. Everybody's trying to do the best they can. Everyone's trying to make it look effortless. But I don't think anyone in their honest moments will say it's easy."

These days entrepreneurship is quickly becoming a norm for women who want to take control of their working lives. They also want more control over their income while having more time to oversee family obligations and making a difference in their communities. Maria's reason for founding an ice cream company is really no different.

"My brother talked to me about starting a company that would support Special Olympics. To reach beyond the community and be involved with fun and play and bringing families together," Maria says. "It's been a great experience, a fun experience. I buy things that will do good. I always go for the product that has a social conscience to it. It not only tastes good but does good as well."

As Creative Director of Lovin' Scoopful, Maria is heavily involved in product development including designing the packaging and concept in addition to creating flavors such as, "Out Of This World Chocolate," "Cozy Vanilla," "So Good Cookies & Cream," "Caramel Chocolate Heaven," "Yummy Cake & Cookie Dough" and "What The Fudge."

"I've loved having a hand in all aspects of the company, from creating the sumptuous flavors and coming up with the product names and logo, to ensuring that the quality of our ice cream is the best our customers have ever experienced," she says.

True to her values and concern for creating a healthy product, Maria is quick to emphasize that Lovin' Scoopful has 1/2 the fat and less calories than other premium ice creams and comes from the milk and cream of cows not treated with the cow growth hormone, rBST.

According to Maria, "This is the little ice cream company that could. It has a purpose about doing good in the world. If people start asking for it and supporting it, that's really our hope."

In addition to her role as First Lady and her duties with Lovin' Spoonful, Maria is producer of The Women's Conference which under her guidance has grown into the preeminent women's conference in the world. She's established programs across the United States to help women so that they can become economically empowered in order to make a difference within their families and communities.

For Maria, being an advocate of powerful social change is not just something she does because she's in the media spotlight. She's committed to being a voice for the working poor, disabled and disenfranchised by giving them tools to be empowered.

She advises other women who want to make a difference to: "Just do it. Look at programs we're supporting (through The Women's Conference) and just join in. There is much that is exciting, but much to be concerned about. As everyone focuses around the world, there are a lot of women in this country that need help."

She encourages other women who are considering entrepreneurship to learn so that they can be better equipped for the business world.

"The more we get comfortable about money the better," Maria says.

Leading by example is how Maria Shriver fills her varied roles as First Lady, entrepreneur, advocate of social awareness and change, wife and mother. What inspires her to keep going and helping to create powerful changes in the world?

"My children. My mother's voice. Helping people to be inspired," she says. "It's how you conduct your life."

http://www.lovinscoopful.com/

Become a fan of Lovin' Scoopful: http://www.facebook.com/lovinscoopful

and check out Lovin' Scoopful's NEW What' Flavor of Ice Cream Are You? app: http://apps.facebook.com/lovinscoopful-flavor/quiz

Deborah A. Bailey is author of two non-fiction books including, “Think Like an Entrepreneur: Transforming Your Career and Taking Charge of Your Life.” She's also the creator and host of Women Entrepreneurs Radio, a weekly internet talk show. Her fiction work includes a short story collection and a novel, available on Amazon.com. 

For more information, visit http://www.BrightStreetBooks.com.

Monique Hayward on Women Entrepreneurs - The Secrets of Success Podcast

Monique Hayward is President & CEO of Nouveau Connoisseurs Corp., which she founded in April 2004 and most recently owned and operated the award-winning Dessert Noir Café & Bar in Beaverton, Oregon. Monique is also a senior marketing manager at Intel Corp. in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Monique is an entrepreneur and corporate player with more than 15 years of experience in marketing, communications, public relations, business development, and entrepreneurship. She has shared her knowledge and expertise as a contributing writer and interviewee for mainstream media like, The Oregonian, The Denver Post, and CNN and online and print publications for entrepreneurs like Women Entrepreneurs – The Secrets of Success Blog, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, and Restaurant Startup & Growth.

In Feb. 2009, Monique published her first book, Divas Doing Business: What the Guidebooks Don’t Tell You About Being a Woman Entrepreneur. She’s also a frequent speaker at conferences and colleges and a mentor to up-and-coming professionals and entrepreneurs.

Monique was selected as a winner in the 2008 Make Mine a Million $ Business program, a collaboration between Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence and OPEN from American Express that provides a combination of money, mentoring, marketing, and technology tools that women entrepreneurs need to help grow their businesses into million-dollar enterprises. She also was selected for the Portland Business Journal’s 2009 “40 Under 40” award, which honors young business leaders and entrepreneurs in the Portland area. She also has worked as a commercial model and spokesperson and served as the executive producer, writer, and host of her own talk show on a local cable TV station.

A native of New York City who also spent part of her childhood in Columbia, S.C., Monique has a master of business administration in marketing from Case Western Reserve University and a bachelor of arts (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) in journalism from the University of Maryland College Park. She is an inaugural fellow of the ASCENT Mastering Management Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She also participates as a visiting fellow for the Austin Entrepreneurship Program at Oregon State University and teaches a course for aspiring women entrepreneurs at Portland Community College.

She also is a member of the National Black MBA Association, National Association of Female Executives and Entrepreneurs, and National Association of Women Business Owners and serves on the board of the Oregon Chapter of the National Association of Women MBAs. Monique is married to Tom Freeman and the couple resides in Beaverton.

Today on Women Entrepreneurs -The Secrets of Success

Guest Host Elena Camp will be interviewing Jerri Graham of BlueBelle Muffins today at 12:00 noon EST.
www.BlogTalkRadio.com/CoachDeb