TOP 10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE WECONNECT 2013 CONFERENCE

Griselda Kumordzie Togobo shares her top 10 takeaways from The WEConnect Conference 2013.

The WEConnect Conference was one of the most productive conferences I’ve attended in a long time. The event was packed with female entrepreneurs and representatives from WEConnect corporate partners.

The keynote speaker was Laura Tenison, Founder & MD of JoJo Maman Bébé. Laura shared some riveting stories of how she raised money to start the business and also to fund growth. It’s always inspiring to hear strong successful women share the stories.

Teaching sessions were run by some certified women business owners including a talk by Yvonne Thompson and Alex McMurtrie about the UK honours system. Women were encouraged to nominate each other for awards especially as many women were really making a difference in their communities.

For those who missed the event, my 10 key takeaways were:

• Have a story and don’t be faceless. It’s a mistake to pretend that your business is actually bigger than it actually is.
• Don’t show up hungry. Be prepared to wait because it takes time to sell to corporates.
• Have a value other than what you sell. This is how you become useful to people.
• Align yourself to credible giants. This helps you to establish your credibility.
• Do not just have one contact in one organisation. Find seven!
• Delegate in a blame free environment.
• Don’t presume that people are not interested. Ask.
• Reinvest your profits. Laura told the story of how she funded growth by reinvesting in the business instead of investing in flashy cars.
• Customer feedback is priceless. Ask your customers what they think.
• Join association and trade bodies for more productive networking.

I met some twitter contacts on the day. Turning these virtual contacts into real connections was a bonus I wasn’t expecting. The event was hosted at the Clifford Chance office in central London with sponsorship from Accenture, Coca Cola, IBM, AT&T, DnB, EY, Intel and Marriott International, GlaxoSmithKline and SDI International.

A big thank you to Maggie Berry for extending the invitation and for putting up a great conference. Looking forward to seeing you at next year’s conference!

Griselda Kumordzie Togobo (ACA, MPhil) is a Business Growth Consultant to independent professionals and small business owners. She specializes in using high-impact but low-cost business growth strategies to improve profitability. She is very passionate about supporting women in business through her educational workshops, seminars and speaking engagements. Griselda runs AWOVI Consulting, a consultancy whose vision is to help business owners increase their profitability, cash flow and productivity. She also writes on entrepreneurship, personal development and small business management issues for various publications, at her blog and at Huffington Post UK.