Entrepreneurship & Business Development Experts

Scotiabank sponsored another great Young Women Of Influence Evening Speaker Series event. Despite a rainy evening, the talk at The Roosevelt Room attracted a dynamic crowd of innovative, enterprising women, a thought-provoking speaker and plenty of opportunities for seamless networking!

Catharine Fennell, CEO & Founder of VideoBio, was the keynote speaker and she delivered a short but valuable content-packed speech. Her two key pieces of advice were the importance of maintaining a top reputation and building a fan base.

She also shared her top ten tips for women entrepreneurs:

1) …

See how this cook has turned his personal brand into an empire and is on a mission to help kids as well as prisoners self-optimize through sound nutrition and cooking!

Jamie Oliver was in Toronto for just one night and he cooked up a storm for 3,000 of his favourite fans. Organized by The Art of Cooking and presented by The Food Network, Oliver came, saw and conquered the bedazzled crowd. The Naked Chef was in town promoting his new book and program “Jamie’s America.”

Whether he disclosed his love for chillies, the simplicity of healthy eating or answered the dozens of audience questi…

The current trend is Virtual Business Cards.

For over four years the pundits have proclaimed that business cards are dying. While they are very much still around, it’s very clear their value is deteriorating.

For most people, the ritual of exchanging cards is more a social one than a useful one. Too often, one returns from a networking function or a meeting with a stack of cards and that stack continues to sit on your desk.

With the advent of Smartphones, virtual cards are now readily available.

They have the following 6 advantages over physical cards:

1. they are usually free (…

Last week I attended the annual New York Small Business Expo in Manhattan, and I saw some excellent presentations. One was by Diane DiResta, a speaker trainer who has worked with the likes of Les Brown and travelled around the world as a professional speaker. There was one statement she made about confidence and persuasive public speaking that stood out:

“People will adjust what you say in their minds according to how they see you.”

In other words, the audience will decide whether or not to listen to you depending upon how you appear and the way you deliver your message. This will imp…

JJ: Stephanie, congratulations on your new role in the New York Chapter! What do you see coming down the pike in the next year?

SC: I’m thrilled to serve as the leader of the Chapter in New York – where it all began! In the past couple of years in serving on the leadership team, I have been inspired to grow my professional network and be an active participant in helping others do the same. Further, my law firm has signed on as a corporate sponsor with 85Broads and I’m excited about working with other companies to promote the tremendous value of the community of 85Broads.

JJ: At our …

In launching my new Breakthrough Vision Marketing division ([elliacommunications.com]) that offers women entrepreneurs, consultants, writers, and practitioners marketing support to achieve success in their ventures, I’ve discovered some telling statistics about the success entrepreneurial women have achieved thus far, and the challenges women continue to face in creating financial success in their endeavors.

Some key stats on women entrepreneurs:
• Between 1997 and 2006, women-owned firms grew nearly twice the rate of all U.S. firms
• It was as recently …

We’ve all been there. You’ve prepared a 45-minute presentation, and you’re ready to go. Then, before you get up to present, there’s a change in schedule, and your host, boss, or whomever suddenly tells you that you only have 20 minutes to deliver your speech.

What do you do?! How do you edit your entire presentation in one minute or less and still make maximum impact?

10 Things to Do if You Have to Shorten Your Speech Drastically on the Spot:

1) Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. Pretend that your fine with it.

2) Throw out your Powerpoint. As we say here in New Jersey, jus…

J.P. Morgan Alum and 85 Broads Power Circle Member, Susan G. Bell, recently published her first novel, When the Getting Was Good, which tells the story of Kate Munro, a trader on Wall Street who is implicated in a trading practices scandal and must fight to clear her name and save her job.

The first woman promoted to managing director at J. P. Morgan Securities, Susan Bell wrote the book to articulate a woman’s perspective on a fascinating period in American business history, one usually described by men.

“Though my novel is informed by my experiences on Wall Street, the narrative is fi…