NWBOC NEWS Spring 2007 An e

NWBOC NEWS Spring 2007
An e-newsletter of the National Women Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC)
Janet Harris-Lange, President, 1001 W. Jasmine Dr. # G, Lake Park, FL 33403

(800) 675-5066 info@nwboc.org

Celebrate Women’s History Month!

March marks Women’s History Month with the theme in 2007 being Generations of Women Moving History Forward. This theme recognizes the wisdom and tenacity of the generations of women who have come before us and those who will follow. Recognition of the historic anniversaries of 2007 present special opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate the courage, determination, and steadfastness needed to move history forward. This is a great time to promote awareness of and appreciation for the historical accomplishments of American women. Women’s History Month commemorates the events and people, the designs and achievements that help illustrate the contribution of women to the Nation's history. Visit www.nwhp.org for more information.

NWBOC News

NWBOC has a new website! It contains more helpful information than ever before and will feature success stories, e-newsletters, etc. Go to www.nwboc.org to see for yourself.

NWBOC Welcomes Newest Board Member

The newest board member of NWBOC, Linda C. Haneborg serves as senior vice president of communications/public relations for Express Personnel Services. As corporate spokesperson for this international staffing franchisor, Linda oversees corporate communications and media relations for nearly 600 Express franchises worldwide. A certified franchise executive (CFE), Linda is a recipient of over 600 awards, both personally and on behalf of Express Personnel Services. These include such prestigious awards as the overall Communications Award from ASA and 26 international Mercury Awards.

NWBOC has an outstanding renewal rate, often upwards of 93%. Though our certifieds receive renewal paperwork in the mail and e-mail reminders, the recertification paperwork is now available on the website. Visit www.nwboc.org to get recertified today.

Conference Helps Market Franchise NWBOC Certification

Janet Harris-Lange, President of NWBOC, recently traveled to Salt Lake City to attend the conference for Express Personnel, a franchisor. NWBOC has certified many of their women-owned franchises and at the conference, a reception was held honoring minority and women certified franchises. Linda Haneborg, Senior Vice President of Communications & PR for Express, Inc., has worked endlessly to help the franchisees receive information on how to market their certification.

Certification kits are now available from NWBOC! You can always print the application from the website, but now you can purchase a kit for $39.95 plus shipping. The kit, customized to the business entity (i.e. LLC, corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship) contains a notebook, dividers, the application, helpful hints for what materials to include, and other information. And, you can charge this purchase to M/C or Visa. Call 1.800.675.5066 to place your order.

Member News

Media 1 Named As Finalist For Top Women Owned Businesses

The Grand Rapids Business Journal named Media 1 a Finalist for the Top Women Owned Businesses. Founded in 1993, Media 1 specializes in creating innovative learning programs and decision support tools to help global corporations achieve their sales and performance goals. Media 1, based in Grand Haven, Michigan, is an award- winning developer of globally focused instructor-led and online training programs for clients including Hewlett-Packard, Meijer, Siemens, USF Holland, and X-Rite.

For more information, visit www.media1.us.

Business Women in Kenya Seek Mentoring

In January, Mary Schnack, owner Mary Schnack Media Services, Inc., a NWBOC Certified Business and Chair-Elect of the NAWBO International Forum, met in Nairobi, Kenya, with women business owners at a reception hosted by the Kenya Association of Women Business Owners (KAWBO). Seven women formed KAWBO and more than 25 potential new members showed up at the reception. “We want to develop strong relationships with more national women business organizations around the globe,” said Schnack. “The Nairobi women are excited about forming this group, and what they can learn from NAWBO in establishing this association.” While in Africa, Mary also spoke at the Vital Voices of Africa Leadership Summit for Women and Girls” in Capetown, South Africa, and to the Organization of Women in International Trade in Nairobi.

Success Stories of Our Certified WBEs

Meet Nancy Zurbuchen of Motional Multimedia

During her 24 years as an entrepreneur, Nancy Zurbuchen has achieved an excellent record for innovation and outstanding business performance. Founder and President of Motional Multimedia, she owns 100% of the company she started in 1988.

As a pioneer in both 3-D animation and interactive media, Motional Multimedia provides complete Internet development – including websites; database development to drive content on websites; email marketing and tracking; electronic business communication of all kinds; Intranet systems and processes. In the past year, Motional Multimedia has expanded into the development of videos for company websites, to add a human touch for more descriptive content.

Recently selected as one of the top 51 influential women in Kansas City, Nancy is accomplished in strategic planning, project management, and in building collaborative work teams. Her client list includes Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, start-up entrepreneurs, and non-profit entities and are primarily Mid-west based states including Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, with the interesting exception of Hawaii.

Over many years, Nancy has worked diligently to help promote, educate, and mentor women business owners, on local, state and national levels.

“Given the type of work I do, there is not a huge demand in government for small-sized vendors,” said Zurbuchen. “In the private sector, I can say that over the years I believe that women business owners have become more aware and more interested in seeking out other woman-owned businesses to do business with. Many of my client companies are woman-owned.”

Looking towards the future, Zurbuchen keeps busy by running Motional Multimedia as well as the non-profit she co-founded, the Kansas City Council of Women Business Owners. “Juggling both is a challenge, but it is still exciting to see both grow,” says Zurbuchen.

For more information on Zurbuchen and Motional Multimedia, visit www.motional.com.

Marketing Tips

Tips for marketing your NWBOC WBE certification

Several of you called asking for suggestions on best ways to market your woman business enterprise certification with NWBOC. So, we sent an e-mail to every one of our certifieds and some of their responses are below:

“I do a ton of calling and e-mailing to the procurement contact list. Not all have a need for my services but at least 45% might have a need. My certification is at the end of all my business letters.” Toni Sipka, Nouvelle Talent
“Don’t be shy about telling your customers that you are a woman-owned business – put it on all of your literature and don’t get your hopes up that you will get the business solely based on that. You will have to work hard, have the best quality and price as anyone else. Some of the large companies are really serious about encouraging their contractors to use sub-contractors who are minorities or women-owned and others are only using lip-service. Be determined and try hard – it won’t be easy but anything that will help you is worth trying. If you get business with a company that is concerned about doing business with you as woman-owned and you do well, you will have a good chance of getting repeat business.” Kay Carlton, Carlton Industries, L.P.
“Our company is often asked for proof of certification as a WBE. When this occurs, we proudly present our certificate.” Wanda Brock, Director of Communications, Strategic Staffing Solutions
“Marketing your certifications was never more important than now. 80% of the jobs we get are from companies who want a certified company. Five years ago that was not so – it did not carry much weight. I cannot impress how important it is for all of us to include our status on our letterhead, business cards, vehicles signage, advertisements, etc. We put it on everything. When someone gets something with our name on it, they know we are a WBE…someone might not really be looking but they see that and a light goes off and a door is opened. Then it’s up to you.” Cindy Hartig, Information Technology Data Solutions, Inc.
“I use the certification reactively…after I receive a contract I tell the procurement folks to include my company in their numbers. I do not directly market as a WBE…it is too limiting. Additionally, I generally work directly with a contact in the company, not the procurement folks.” Rae Ann Dougherty, R & R Strategies, Inc.
“We did a few things i.e. mass mailings to our customers or potential customers stating our new certification and enclosing a copy of it. We gave copies of our certificates to all of our sales reps to include with sales material. We also did e-mail blitzes to prospects and included our certification.” Denise Peterson, D & W International, Inc. dba Transgroup Worldwide
“We include the certification ‘bug’ on our business cards and letterhead. Even though it’s very small, people who are looking for it, see it. We also specifically target other women-owned businesses as prospects.” Barb Hendrickson, Design Incentives, Inc.
“We basically talk with people verbally about it first. If it applies, we will provide them with a copy of the certificate.” Tina Blackledge, McDuffie Box Company, Inc.
“We will be sending a copy of our certificate with any outgoing quotes we send out.” Sherry Davis, Waddell Acquisition, Inc.
“First of all, it is important to know/realize that by obtaining a certification it does not necessarily mean you will get any business because of just having it. We found that a proactive and on-going approach to market it is the best strategy. Since there is no one solution, the following are some of our recommendations: promote your certification on all literature, from letterhead, to business cards, signatures on e-mails, website, etc.; pinpoint the potential customers and entities that have specific needs for your services/products and where your certification a value added; do your due diligence to register with, or make those entities aware of you, your services/products and obviously, your certification; and finally, set realistic expectations – it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Mary Krisfalusy, SJK Beringer Group, Inc.

We hope the above provides some tips for you in growing your company through your certification. Please continue to send us your ideas to share with others. Thanks to every one of our contributors for their time and efforts to help other women-owned companies.

Businesses For Sale

The following companies are for sale. They are not certified wbe's so we have no information on the companies or the individual owners but wanted to make the opportunity available to our women business owners.

Canyon Calling Adventures for Women

People tell me I have the greatest job - leading women on adventure trips around the world. After ten years, family calls me home to New Zealand. Are you a people person, an outdoors-woman, a savvy traveler, organized, detail-oriented and ready for a new life? Operate the company from where you live. Full training. $75,000 deposit. Call Cheryl 928.282.0916. www.canyoncalling.com

Spot Cooling Systems, Inc.

I'm interested in selling the company to someone with the energy and marketing capability to take the company to the next level so that I may retire. The nature of the company's products is portable air conditioning equipment, strictly Business to Business. In addition to renting the units, we also sell and ship throughout the U.S., sometimes exporting to other countries. In 2006, the company had revenues of $1.4M, about half of which was rental revenue, which is almost 100% profit. Call Glenda 469.446.7128. www.extracooler.com

Companies Newly Certified by NWBOC for Spring 2007

(11/8/06-3/6/07)

Ad Ideas of Wisconsin, Inc.

Paula Kindsgrab, President

Green Bay, WI

sales@adideasinc.com

American Power Service Co.

Lori Look Pavlik

Broadview Heights, OH

llpavlik@sbcglobal.net

Bella Trucking Corporation

Sandra Affatato, President

Bensalem, PA

BellaTruckingUSA@aol.com

Brilliant Ideas, LLC

Pam Kermoade

Olathe, KS

brilliantiandd@aol.com

California Host, Inc.

Barbara Edwards, Owner

San Francisco, CA

Barbara@californiahost.com

Clear Logistics, Inc.

Tina King, President

Coconut Creek, FL

tking@clearlogisticsinc.com

Dan-Shel, Inc. dba Express Personnel Services

Sylvia Lambert, President

Huntsville, AL

sylvia.lambert@expresspersonnel.com

DCO International Trading, Inc.

Claudine Osipow, President

San Francisco, CA

cosipow@dcointl.com

Executive Office Search, Inc. dba Express Personnel Service

Elizabeth Gill, President

Atlanta, GA

elizabeth.gill@expresspersonnel.com

Express Personnel of Grand Rapids

Janis Petrini, Owner

Grand Rapids, MI

janis.petrini@expresspersonnel.com

Florida Health & Safety Services, Inc. dba AccuDiagnostics

Elizabeth Bonitez Eramo, President

Margate, FL

eeramo@aol.com

Garcia Baldwin, Inc. dba Market Vision

Yvonne Garcia, President

San Antonio, TX

ncasillas@mvmas.com

Leadership Consulting, LLC

Sharyn Berg, President

Manassas, VA

sharyn@lc-llc.net

McKenzie Investments, Inc.

Melissa Moffatt Elliott, Presisdent

Covington, LA

melissa.elliott@expresspersonnel.com

PersonAble, Inc. dba Express Personnel

Becky Simpson, President

Pine Bluff, AR

becky.simpson@expresspersonnel.com

Prestige Stucco, Inc.

Sheila Petraroi, President

Cumming, GA

PRStucco@bellsouth.net

Professional Maintenance of Michigan, Inc.

Claire Phillips

Cincinnati, OH

slang@maintenancemethods.com

Provider Resources, Inc.

Shawn Keough-Hartz, President

Erie, PA

skeoughhartz@provider-resources.com

Research & Retrieval, Inc.

Sheri Fister-Annable

Hermosa Beach, CA

order@researchandretrieval.com

RHM Technology, Inc.

Jessica Race

Stanhope, NJ

Jessica@rhmtech.com

SA Technologies, Inc.

Priyanka Joshi, President

Santa Clara, CA

priyanka@satincorp.com

Schildkraut, Schroeder, Sedej & Associates, Inc.

Lori Schroeder, President

Hawthorn Woods, IL

hschildkraut@s3consultants.net

Schneider Electrical, Inc. dba Stomp AV

Pamela Schneider, Owner

Mount Vernon, IN

Pamela@schneiderelectrical.com

Staffing Strategies, Inc. dba Express Personnel

Pamela Higdon

Durham, NC

Pam.higdon@expresspersonnel.com

S.T.J., Inc.

Karin Yarton, CEO

Olympia, WA

Kyarton@stjinc.com

Take 2 Productions, Inc.

Teresa Rogers, President

Kansas City, MO

gmoore@t2.tv

TechTrans International, Inc.

Jane Williams

Houston, TX

econdic@tti-corp.com

Test Equipment Solutions Today, Inc.

Diane Gelb, President

Foster City, CA

dianeg@testsolu.com

The Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara

Pamela McLean, President

Santa Barbara, CA

pam@hudsoninstitute.com

Waddell Acquisition, Inc. dba Waddell Painting

Sherry Davis, President

Greenville, SC

sdavis@waddellpainting.com

Companies Renewing WBE Certification with NWBOC Spring 2007

A.J. Danboise Son, Inc.

Accudyn Products, Inc.

Acloche

ADM Corporation

Administrative Controls Management, Inc.

Advanced Technology Solutions, Inc.

Aeroflite Enterprises, Inc.

Age of Travel/Monumental Meetings

AGS Consulting, Inc.

Alba Facility Services, LLC

Allied Ventilation, Inc.

ALOM Technologies, Inc.

Alta Mfg. Co., LLC

AP Supply Co.

Artisan Mechanical, Inc.

Asia-Link, Inc.

Bell Consulting, Inc.

Berry Industrial Group, Inc.

Biotechnical Services, Inc.

Bodrie Trenching, Inc.

Bonus of America

Bradford Industrial Coatings, Inc.

Bross Group

C Moor Group

Capitol Serivces, Inc.

Champion Uniform Supply, Inc.

Colorado Cleanup Corp.

Commercial Custom Concepts, Inc.

Commonwealth Supply Co.

ComputerXPerts of Atlanta, Inc.

County Court Reporters, Inc.

CPS Technologies, Inc.

Crawford Consulting Services, Inc.

Creative Ideas

CSL, Inc. dba Sir Speedy Printing

CT-Innovations, LLC

D & S Electrical Contractors, Inc.

Dalton Commercial Cleaning Corp.

DB Bovenkamp, Inc.

Direct Link, Inc.

Diversified Services Group, Inc.

DMS Services, Inc.

Dorian Construction, Inc.

DRB Electric, Inc.

East Coast Petroleum Corp.

Ebner Design Associates

Edwards Consulting Firm, Inc.

E-Media Plus

Emerson Human Capital Consultants

Encompass

Equinox Consultancy, LLC

Evans Industrial Coatings, Inc.

Farrago Holdings, Inc. dba LatusPoint

Faust Corporation

Ferguson Consulting, Inc.

Finished Art, Inc.

Florida Silica Company

Freedom Supply, Inc.

Frieda’s, Inc.

Fullbloom Baking Co., Inc.

Fusion Technology Solutions, Inc.

GAT Airline Ground Support

GeoStrategy Consulting, Inc.

Graphic Label Solutions, LLC

Greentree Consulting, Inc.

Gruggen Buckley

Handy Helper LLC

Hi-Gene’s Janitorial, Inc.

HighTimes dba The Fulfillment Co.

Hot Shot Services, Inc.

House of Batteries

HRU, Inc. Technical Resources

Iconma

Imagination 2000, LLC

Infomart, Inc.

Information solutions Services, Inc.

Innovative Design Ideas, Inc.

InSite Design Studios, Inc.

Integra Intl., Inc.

Integrated Control Corp.

Interline Cash Systems, Inc.

IS Leaders, Inc.

J. Anthony & Associates, Inc. of FL

J.M. Wechter & Associates, Inc.

Jack Carroll Staffing Services

John Myers Photography, Inc.

JT/SG Enterprises, Inc.dba Solutions Staff.

Juba Aluminum Products Co.

K & K Transportation, Inc.

Klein Contracting Corp.

Label Makers, Inc.

Lentz Appraisal & Consulting, LLC

Link Electric Company

Lisa Schmitz Interior Design

Lowden & Associates, Inc.

M & B Jewelry Co., LLC

Main Line Embroidery

Management Decisions, Inc.

Manpower, Inc. of SE Michigan

Martin-Grace Benefit Group

Mary Schnack Media Services, Inc.

Master Mechanical Insulation

McRae Signs & Displays, Inc.

Media Buying Services, Inc.

Mid Ohio Employment Services, Inc.

Morningside, LLC

Motional Multimedia

Muir Graphics, Inc.

Multi-Option Systems, Inc.

Myles Creighton Consulting, LLC

Net Global Distribution

NetEffect Solutions, Inc.

Noble & Associates Consulting, Inc.

Nu-Safe Floor Solutions, Inc.

Perfection Equipment, Inc.

Phys. Med.Seminars dba Incentive Travel

Plexus Web Creations, Inc.

Precision Electrical Contractors, Inc.

Prime Power Services, Inc.

Printflex Graphics

PrintPro, Inc.

Progressive Industries, Inc.

Promotional Strategy Partners

R & R Strategies, Inc.

RAH Marketing, Inc.

Reidsville Commercial Warehouse

RightWriters, Inc.

Rocket Studios, Inc.

Roof Resources, Inc.

S & S Excavating, Inc.

Sandra Heath & Associates, Inc.

Security Tape & Label, Inc.

Seymour of Sycamore, Inc.

Shrader Analytical & Consulting Lab., Inc.

SJK Beringer Group, Inc.

Ski and Sea Internaitonal, Inc.

Sky Cap, Inc.

SM Consulting, Inc.

Software Lifecycle Solutions, Inc.

SRUQ Spectrum

Suretec Data Solutions, Inc.

Sweetener Express, Inc.

TDK Technologies, LLC

Telephone Operating Systems, Inc.

The Bailey Co., Inc.

The Baron Group, Inc. dba Baron Sign

The O Group, Inc.

Thompson Electric, Inc.

Thompson’s Const.Mgt.dba TCM Northwest

Total Installation/Millicare

Total Response, Inc. dba The Jackson Grp.

Travel Horizons, Inc.

Triangle Quality Solutions

Triko, Inc.

Tri-Made Marketing

Tri-Pen Management Corp.

Turner-Doughty Corp.

Vivian Wright & Associates, Inc.

Weldex Sales Corp.

Wilson Building Maintenance, Inc.

Working Hands, Inc.

Workmatters, Inc.

Zoomy Communications, Inc.

Zoya, Inc.

The NWBOC e-Newsletter is distributed by the National Women Business Owners Corporation. (NWBOC). NWBOC created the first national certification program for women enterprises. NWBOC's certification program offers an alternative to the costly, time-consuming and duplicative agency-by-agency and corporation-by-corporation certification process.

If you have information for the NWBOC Newsletter, please send it to mary@prworks.ms or fax to 928-204-9835. If you no longer want to receive this e-newsletter, hit REPLY and put UN-SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. To change your e-mail address or add someone new, please e-mail mary@prworks.ms.