It's a numbers game

Last week’s Fifth Annual Journey 2 Success Conference seemed to be all about numbers in a way. First it was a sold-out event, with over 208 women participating which thrilled us, as the conference is expensive to put on and so every year we take the risk and just pray we will get the numbers.

Our first speaker, Dr. Elaine Dembe, spoke about the ten characteristics of resilient people, while Dianne Buckner, host of Dragons’ Den, shared her observations on the top ten traits of successful entrepreneurs and we ended the day discussing the eight tenets of leaders.

Sandwiched in between, we heard from a panel with Julia Hanna, a businesswoman who has owned four successful restaurants, all of which are still running in an industry where 90 percent close in the first year.

Nadja Piatka, on the other hand, built her food manufacturing business, as she says herself on adversity, with only $500; baking muffins in her kitchen. Today she has a multi-million business selling her products to McDonald's and Subway.

Our third panelist, Lesley Andrew had also beat the odds, turning her learning challenges into a successful creative career, and when she sang It’s a Wonderful World in her beautiful soprano voice, there was hardly a dry eye in the room.

Back in school many of us may have struggled with math. Today likely many people have the same quandary with social media. What’s Twitter? How do I link-in? Isn’t Facebook just for young people? With only thirty minutes, Lisa Kember was able to give us a quick overview with some great tips, but it still raised more questions than answers for newbies in the crowd.

So when I announced that we were launching Techie Tuesdays in the fall, when the women can learn hands-on, there was a lot of interest in the crowd. Just like math, it’s important we grasp social media because it is the way of the future. And talking of numbers, the good news is that the price is right – most of it is free.

No matter what your business is – it truly is a numbers game. Number of customers, how much money you have invested in your business, your cash flow, and in our case, numbers of bums in seats. It is all a risk, but when you know your numbers, when you pay attention to them, you stand a better chance of succeeding.

The date for our next conference has some interesting numbers too – June 12, 2012 - a date to remember. Hope you will join us.