And, sure enough, it was definitely worth it! Each year the conference has a similar structure. There is typically a large section focusing on the attendees survey results (which shows your DISC profile and motivators) sandwiched between multiple other amazingly useful info-rich topics (this year there were a couple great panels and a terrific talk on Personal Branding by Debra Trappen who is the Chief Experience Office for CB Bain). Everything I learned at #2012WLS was useful and I highly recommend Debra (or any of the speakers on the panel as a speaker). The most useful bit for me, as seems to be every year, is the information presented by Shandel about the DISC profile and motivators. I very much so recommend that every person looking to grow (whether personally or professionally) takes the DISC test – it has taught me so much about myself and my loved ones. Even though, the DISC and motivators part of the conference is something that I have heard a couple of times now, I always seem to learn new things about myself and the way I communicate with others. This year, what really hit me (my ah-ha moment) was when Shandel was speaking on how DISC scores and motivators play off each other. She said, “Motivators show what you want and your DISC profile will show how you are going to get there.” To give you a little background on both, I have listed what the different DISC profiles and motivators.

DISC:

Basically, DISC represents 4 different behavior types: D stands for Dominance, I stands for Influence, S is for Steadiness, and C for Compliance.

• Dominance: People with a high score in dominance have an emphasis on shaping the environment by overcoming opposition to accomplish results.
• Influence: Those with a high Influence score put great emphasis on shaping the environment by influencing or persuading others.
• Steadiness: If you have a high Steadiness score then you probably hold an emphasis on cooperating with others within existing circumstances to carry out the task.
• Compliance: And, finally, if your score is highest in compliance then you place a greater emphasis on working conscientiously within existing circumstances to ensure quality and accuracy. (Information from DISCProfile.com.)

MOTIVATORS:

Motivators are a little different. Motivators have to do with what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning. There are six key motivators that each person contains a certain portion of:

• Theoretical: A passion to discover systematize and analyze; a search for knowledge.
• Utilitarian: A passion to gain return on investment of time, resources and money.
• Aesthetic: A passion to add balance and harmony in one’s own life and protect our natural resources.
• Social: A passion to eliminate hate and conflict in the world and to assist others.
• Individualistic: A passion to achieve position and to use that position to influence others.
• Traditional: A passion to pursue the higher meaning in life through a defined system of living.

For myself, I am a high D and high I. My top motivators are 1. Social (I like to help others and make people happy) and 2. Utilitarian (I also like to make money). This means, all combined and in its simplest form: I want (to help others succeed in life and get a good return for my time) and I will do this by (overcoming obstacles and influencing others to help). It was interesting for me to see this the first time I took the test (which was a coupe of years ago). I knew that people were important to me but I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to own up to the fact that making money (or any other kind of worthy return on my investment, like time, people or relationships) was also so important to me. I felt bad. I started wanting my motivators to be like other peoples. Why couldn’t I have an Aesthetic motivator and want to see this world become a more beautiful place? Or, a passion to pursue the higher meaning in life? Both of those sound a little more… zen. And, both of these options sounded so much better to me than wanting to make money. But, this year, something Shandel said put a new spin on things for me and I realized that being passionate about Social AND Utilitarian (people and ROI) can be an awesome combination. I love people more than I love money. It’s my number one. But, with money a close second, I actually have a great advantage. It means that I want to create Win-Wins. Why? Because I love people and want them to be happy and I want to be successful myself. I wont make a decision purely for the monetary benefits but I also wont make a decision just because of something that will make another happy. So, while I am good at looking out for my team, I always keep the bottom line in mind. Not to toot my own horn, but it seems like a pretty good combination and I feel more confident in myself as a leader, and as a person.

The best thing about the Women’s Leadership Summit every year is that I always learn something new. The time spent is always valuable and worth my precious Saturday hours. Coming away with more information on yourself and being able to find the positives about who you are as a person, instead of trying to change yourself to be someone you’re not. I would definitely encourage you, if you haven’t already, to take the DISC and motivators assessments. You may be surprised what you find out.

Alexandra Wilkis Wilson

Today I got to attend the CRAVE Seattle event which featured entrepreneur Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, co-founder of Gilt Groupe. The event was packed with 150 (mostly) women entrepreneurs. CRAVE founder Melody Biringer puts on amazing events and I’m thankful that she extended the invite out to me. Gilt Groupe – launched by Alexis, Alexandra, and three colleagues in 2007 – is one of the most fascinating start-ups of recent years, with a valuation of more than $1 billion. And it all began with one bold idea: to bring sample sales online and change the way millions shop.

The co-founders Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and Alexis Maybank are authors of the book “By Invitation Only“. I have to say that it is the best entrepreneurial book that I’ve read in 2012 so far. The book is a fascinating journey between two people who were friends before they were business partners. The book does a good job sharing how the contrasting personalities worked well together. While the success in terms of revenue generated year-over-year is off the chart amazing, the part the interested me the most was the partnership between Alexandra and Alexis. I wish there was more time at the event for Alexandra to expand upon the true meaning of friendship and how their relationship was able to flourish through a start-up. In the book “By Invitation Only”, there are many chapters that go into relationships and the team. I’ll highlight a few quotes from the book:

Focus on Relationships and Execution

“We believe that Gilt Groupe is powerful proof that strong preexisting relationships between cofounders-coupled with a focus on relationships with customers, vendors, and employees– is a potent formula for both success and personal fulfillment.”

“Bring complementary skills and personalities to the table and both happen to value each other more than any enterprise you could start together– makes you more effective, and makes the adventure more meaningful.”

“From the beginning of our friendship, our different personalities made us a great pair, because we approached the same challenges from different skills and perspectives.”

“We believe that our relationship helped us execute better than our competitors. Ideas are cheap and easily replicated these days; its the execution that really matters.”

“In start-ups, the execution is much more important than the idea. No matter how brilliant or timely your business proposition, if you don’t have a team capable of effectively executing it, and executing it together, it will never work.”

Respect and Implicit Trust

The thing that I picked up on from Alexandra and through the book was an incredible amount of respect that each had for the other. They both knew that the other had skills that the other could not touch. They also were able to be responsible for completely different areas of the business. They were both self-starters and would be free to do their own thing, trusting each other implicitly. It’s this level of humanity between these co-founders that I admire and aspire for. What is the backbone of your business partnership?

Sari bootstrapped her company while supporting her family. Sari also faced some huge challenges along the way which I’m not going share because I don’t want to steal her thunder, I’ll just say the challenges were the kind where you want to just give up. Sari’s products are now in Target and most recently launched in 500 Walmart Stores and in Babies R Us nationwide and abroad in countries like Canada, China, Australia, Mexico, and Europe.

If you’re looking to quit your day job and start your own company, you will definitely enjoy listening to Sari’s story. The thing that I love to listen about is how people that have had really successful corporate careers take their leap into entrepreneurship. Some of the best stories are not the one’s that raised millions of dollars but the one’s that bootstrapped their companies and had to really grind it out and become successful by getting customers. Entrepreneurship is not an easy path, but, it certainly is the most rewarding.

Come join us and listen to Sari Crevin share her story at the Microsoft Store in Bellevue Square on May 31st! Sign up for the event.

For the last three years, I’ve sent managers and leaders in my company to an annual event that Shandel hosts called the “Women’s Leadership Summit”. My COO, Alyssa Magnotti, has attended the event for the last three years. I believe that in order to have great leaders in my company, I have to re-invest in them and make sure that they get incredible learning experiences. Shandel bridges the gap in leadership training for me, helps me build leaders in my company, and helps them grow both personally and professional and go from being managers to being true leaders.

Tom Peter’s says it best: “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”

If you’re interested in developing your leadership skills and have a heightened level of self-awareness, check out her podcast on “Why Should You Attend the 3rd Annual Women’s Leadership Summit“

Getty Gardens - Rebar Trellis

I was reading a blog post by Seth Godin “The story of money is not a straight line“. Read the article, as with all Godin blog posts, they are short and easy to digest.

“Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn’t do it for money.”

Many entrepreneurs approach their startup in this manner. They are there to create something amazing and sometimes a big payout happens, but, really this is a by-product of what gets created. Some founders, CEO’s, entrepreneurs don’t pay themselves or take $1 of pay, in exchange they do their best work. There is heroic effort and creation of something special. The goal should not be I want to make a billion dollars, the goal is to create something of so much value that people are willing to pay for it.

Built to Sell or Built to Last?

What is more motivating, bringing in co-founders with the outcome of “built to sell” or “built to last”? Now bring in employees and ask the same question. What do they want to be a part of?

While visiting with our coworking friends over at Office Nomads (a great little coworking space in Seattle), I found out about Molly’s and fell in love instantly. Their sparkling clean fridge, simple 1-2-3 process and pay-by-text feature had me intrigued. Once I took a bite of a sandwich, I was a complete goner and I just knew that it was something we had to have for the thinkspace community!

Are you tired of visiting the vending machine for your afternoon snack? Molly’s has the new solution. In the thinkspace kitchen on the second floor, the Molly’s fridge will provide salads, sandwiches, wraps and more for energizing breakfasts and healthy lunch options! Everything is made with fresh nutritious ingredients. New, fresh items are loaded into the fridge three times per week and Molly’s makes sure to bring back our favorites while giving us a couple new items, too. How exciting!

How to do I get my hands on this food?

It’s super easy! Grab whatever you’d like in the fridge. Then go to MollysOnTheRun.com and pay for it. You can set up your pay-by-text account here too by clicking on the banner on the front page of the site. Once your account is set up (which only takes a few short minutes), you will never have to go back to the site again. Just text in your order and your card will automatically be charged! How awesome is that?!

How much does it cost?

Salads $5.00

Sandwiches $5.50

Breakfast $3.00

Sandwiches, Wraps, and Salads.. Oh my! (Sample menu items to whet your appetite.)

Freebird Turkey
Turkey, french sourdough, sun dried tomato spread, spinach, pepper jack cheese.
P-Patch Veggie
Multigrain bread, green peppers, butter lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and hummus.
Chicken Curry Wrap
Marinated chicken, carrots, celery, homemade curry sauce, cilantro, red onion, and
spinach wrap.
Lumberjack Breakfast Sandwich
Honey ham, egg, and sharp cheddar cheese on a multi grain english muffin.
Quinoa Salad
Quinoa mixed with our roast carrot dip, on a bed of spinach, with celery, carrots,
radishes, and cucumber.
The Grecian Salad
Orzo, tomato, feta, olives, cucumber, with red wine vinaigrette on top of

What about food that’s not consumed?

Worry not of wasted food! Molly’s will take back any items that are not consumed before the regular delivery. They then donate the uneaten food to a local women’s shelter.

Can’t get enough?!

Have you tried Molly’s offerings at thinkspace lately and have a new favorite salad or sandwich? Do you just love the idea? Thinking about using Molly’s for catering an event? Shoot me an email at Alyssa (at) Thinkspace (dot) com or comment on this post with any feedback, favorites or questions.

With advances in portability and user friendliness, businesses both large and small are losing the wires that tie them down and making the switch to mobile credit card terminals.

San Francisco giant Square took on Redmond-based Innerfence. I own both the Square credit card reader and the Innerfence reader for the iPhone and iPad. There are many options in the marketplace today but I love these two mobile payment terminals. And here’s why.

Innerfence

Innerfence’s credit card terminal has many benefits for all sizes and types of businesses. I do love free, I was beyond excited when I heard Innerfence offers a free credit card reader for your device. Innerfence is easy to use, has stable and solid hardware that requires only a single card swipe and, of course, it is always secure. If you have multiple devices that you’d like to use for transactions, Innerfence allows one account for all of your devices and your funds clear in 1-2 business days.

We all know customer service is important and talking to real people makes all the difference. Innerfence has an entire team of troubleshooters in Ohio to provide friendly and helpful 24/7 customer service. Innerfence is compatible with many devices including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, and Windows phone. With all of its useful features like including maps, signatures, electronic receipts, refunds, and transaction history, Innerfence will solve all of your payment headaches!

Fee Schedule:

SQUARE

Square was the first app and card reader that I owned. At the time, I was operating a small side business and couldn’t afford to have additional monthly charges to run cards. The $0 fee per month was a big win for me, as well as the lower percentage per transaction. The Square app is easy to use and I was able to automatically receive payments in my bank account the next business day. Square has a helpful feature that offers the ability to pull monthly reports.

One of the downfalls to Square is the small card reader. I had to run cards multiple times, making clients nervous that I was stacking charges up on their card. Much of the time, the transaction would need to be manually entered, costing me the manually entered transaction fee.

Overall, both companies offer products that allow businesses to swipe cards on mobile devices and keep the client interaction face to face.  Innerfence has a wonderful support team compared to Square, which could take hours to get an issue resolved due to the extremely hard to find helpline number.   If your business runs over $1,000 worth of transactions, I highly recommend speaking with a representative before you make a decision on which mobile payment terminal will suite your company best.

We would love to hear your thoughts and the payment method that work best for your company.

To sign up for your free Innerfence credit card reader click here.  To sign up for your free Square credit card reader click here.

Wine Wednesday with Entrepreneur & Artist Suzanne Tidwell!

Come meet and listen to Suzanne Tidwell who will be sharing her entrepreneurial journey. Suzanne first started “yarn bombing” trees in Sammamish back in December 2010 and since then her work has been on in display in Seattle Occidental Park, City of Redmond, Anderson Park, and even the front of the thinkspace building.

Like many of us who have started a business we are doing things that we love but there’s also aspects of building a company that we never knew we would be doing. Come listen to Suzanne’s inspiring story, bring a bottle of your favorite wine to share, and have a taste of wine by Portteus Winery! Please invite others that you think would enjoy this event!

Jawbone UP

The Jawbone UP tracks sleep, movement, meals. I think the Jawbone does an awesome job packaging and marketing their products. In fact, I think they do a better job than Nike when it comes to marketing and packaging. The thing that I really like about the Jawbone UP is that it tracks how much and how well I sleep. After using the Jawbone UP, I became aware of how I felt after 5.5 hours versus 6.5 hours versus 8 hours of sleep. Then after seven days the device became defective and stopped charging. I took a chance on buying the device because I knew Jawbone had a no questions asked refund policy. Jawbone’s product idea was really good, however, I think they took a chance and launch the product before they done adequate QA testing. I pretty much feel like Jawbone blew it as being first to market with a defective product has jeopardized the trust with the consumer.

Tracking Sleep

With a dead Jawbone UP, I was able to find an alterative app for tracking sleep called Sleep Cycle alarm clock, created by Maciek Drejak. The Sleep Cycle App has over 1 million downloads and does an even better job tracking sleep than the Jawbone UP. It also only costs $0.99 and has almost 10,000 ratings. This app acts as an alarm clock that analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you in the lightest sleep phase – a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed. Sleep Cycle monitors your movement during sleep using the extremely sensitive accelerometer in your iPhone. The nice thing about this, is you don’t have to wear a bracelet when you sleep.

Nike Fuel Band

The Nike Fuel Band is similar to the Jawbone UP but it does not track sleep and costs more money. It tracks steps, calories, and time. It also tracks something called Nike Fuel, a metric that Nike put together on its own that matches a person’s movement through the wristband’s accelerometer against data collected on how rapidly oxygen is consumed. The band is thicker and more sturdy than the Jawbone UP.

Nike+ Twitter Response: How are calories calculated by the Nike FuelBand? Updated: 2/27/2012

The surface of the band also has a cool digital display that gives you immediate stats about how many steps you’ve taken, calories burned, and shows you the time of day.

Nike FuelBand Is Better Than The Jawbone UP

Let’s compare two working products and let’s pretend that Jawbone UP solves it’s defective battery issue. Here’s why the Nike Fuel Band Is Better:

• Nike FuelBand charges wirelessly. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy and syncs to the iPhone App. Jawbone UP has to plug into the headphone jack to sync.
• Nike FuelBand provides you stats on the display for immediate feedback. Jawbone UP doesn’t until you sync it.
• Nike FuelBand doesn’t have parts that fall off and get lost. Jawbone UP has two pieces that could fall off and get lost. It also could fall off and get snagged on things.
• Nike FuelBand tells time. I didn’t think this would be that good until I realized there is one less thing that I have to wear. Nice to lose the wrist watch. It definitely something you can wear while playing contact sports like soccer or football and not worry about it scratching someone.
• Nike FuelBand is more suitable for me than the Fitbit. I was never a candidate for Fitbit because it’s something that I could easily lose. I’d gladly pay $50 more for a product that I won’t misplace or lose. Yes, the Fitbit tracks sleep too, but, again there’s a $0.99 app called Sleep Cycle that takes care of that for me.

Keep It Simple and Do It Really Good

Some companies compete by having more features and being cheaper. Nike is showing that you can charge more money for a high quality product. As an entrepreneur I like this model better than competing on price and could write a long blog post on why it’s better to charge more for a product than be at the bottom of the barrel. Nike, while not first to the mobile health band race definitely is capitalizing on Jawbone’s misstep. It’s too bad for Jawbone because Jawbone’s marketing team really did a great job with their marketing effort.

Updated: March 6, 2012

How to Soft Reset Your Nike FuelBand

While up skiing, my FuelBand would not sync to my iPhone. I tried to make my iPhone forget about the FuelBand and then try to re-pair it via Bluetooth. That didn’t work in fact, I could not get my iPhone to even see the FuelBand as a Bluetooth device. I called customer support and they walked me through how to reset or reboot the Nike FuelBand. You hold down the button on the FuelBand until it says “reset”, click the button one more time, and it will reset or reboot the FuelBand. You will NOT lose any data that is on the FuelBand. It’s kind of like rebooting a computer or turning on and off any electronic gadget.

Watch this video on YouTube.

David shared a couple examples with me and some of the best outcomes come down to timing even while it may not have been directly related to best work or effort. He also shared about how one thing that he worked on was one of his best efforts but he was too early to market and it didn’t net out in best outcome but he certainly felt good about putting forth his best effort.

Strong Leadership

In the short conversation that we had, I admire him that he does share about things that have been most challenging and what he thinks will be most challenging for him in the upcoming 2012 year. David has seen a lot of success with his current company Z2Live but he remains modest, humble, and level headed about all the good things and the challenging things that he’s faced. He’s keeping his cool when things are not going the right way and from what I can tell he helps keep everyone in his company from swaying too far off course too. That I believe comes from experience as an entrepreneur who’s been through tough situations as well as the really great times as well. There’s a few saying out there “you have experience the bad to appreciate the good” or “you have taste bitter to appreciate sweet”, “feel pain to appreciate pleasure”.

Reflecting On My Own Experiences

With all this reflecting on my own experiences, I am have to completely agree with David, that it doesn’t always correlate to my best outcome. I do know that every single time I do put out my best effort — I do feel success.

Setting Up For The Best Outcome

One thing that I try hard to do is always think about what is the best outcome, what is the most desirable results. From there I think about how can I achieve those results. The funny thing is that it doesn’t always take my best effort or work to achieve those results… however, I am very happy when the outcome is what I expected.

I’d love to hear from others what they think about this, does your best work correlate to your best outcome?