When using your connections works a charm

This week one of our speakers cancelled just before an event.  What to do? What was our Plan B?

We had a good crowd coming, so cancelling was not an option.  Instead when we checked to see who was registered, we found that we had two marketing experts coming.  

While not like the marketing generalist we’d 

booked, each knew her stuff about her aspect of marketing – social media and video – so we asked them to quickly prepare a short presentation.

And they did.  Not only was it good to involve the women in the group but also to showcase the expertise we already had in the room.

Yes they were a bit nervous.  It’s hard to strut your stuff in front of your peers, fearing they will judge you, but you know what,  I bet they both went up a notch in people’s perception of them because they came to our rescue and because they knew what they were talking about.

All of this to say that sometimes plan B works out better than your original plan. 

I remember going to the theatre once and being disappointed that we had the understudy, but she was amazing and it proved to me that sometimes it is better to leave your expectations at the door. I could have so easily let that disappointment colour my view of the results, but I didn’t.  I decided to be open to what unfolded and it worked well.

Just like it did the other night. It is always good to have a Plan B in your back pocket and often when things don’t work out the way you wanted, it makes you more creative and you come up with a great solution.  In our case, we tapped into our connections.

Maybe Plan B stands for Better.

Getting out of your comfort zone

Have you ever worked on a project that suddenly takes on a life of its own, expanding by the minute and becoming an entirely different being to the one you embarked on?

That’s what happened with our 5 Days to Feeling Fabulous.  It started back in April with just a few people gathering at The Clarity Centre as part of the Health Providers group within Company of Women. Fay Chapple, the CEO of Clarity, ever the gracious hostess, was talking to the women about getting the word out about what they do and using video as the medium.  

By the end of that meeting, we were putting together a Health Summit and over time, as the excitement and buzz grew, so did the group. 

Fast forward just five months and we have hosted our first Health Summit, with 30 experts and over 530 people who signed up to participate.   Incredible.  Who knew?

It just shows you how when you have a dream, you can make it a reality.  For many of the health providers this was, quite frankly, a real stretch.  Some didn’t have websites but were told they had to have one to participate, otherwise what was the point as people couldn’t reach or check them out.  Many had never done workshops before, let alone in front of a camera.

As the providers arrived to do the taping at Clarity, they were visibly nervous and yet when they were finished, you could see that a weight had been lifted and the process was not as painful as they first feared.  They realized they could do this and there was a sense of empowerment, and a bounce to their step as they left. 

However the real kudos has to go to Fay and Spenser Chapple. This tech-savvy duo set up the website and turned the videos into the summit. This took countless hours and their hard work in doing that for all of us has to be acknowledged. 

This week as the positive feedback flows in from people who have watched the webinars, I can see we have all grown so much through this project.  There’s a certain air of confidence emitting from the providers who lent their expertise to the program.  They’ve come a long way… in fact you could say it was Five Months to Feeling Fabulous.  How cool is that.

PS - You can still watch the webinars, just register at www.5daystofeelingfabulous.com