Women in Consulting (WIC) offers consultants and small business owners a vibrant, diverse, and powerful community to help them build strong businesses. Unlike other organizations, WIC provides a collaborative forum for members and community subscribers to connect and share experiences and best practices with like-minded professionals. Their website is http://www.womeninconsulting.org.
Established in 1998, Women in Consulting (WIC) is a collaborative community of consultants working to build strong businesses. Our members, a vibrant and diverse group, are a premier resource for businesses seeking expert consultants to deliver specific, high–quality results.
WIC's motto is simple: foster collaboration, not competition. It's this singular focus that drives the passionate, peer-to-peer exchanges that happen every day among WIC members. And it's through these exchanges that WIC delivers the greatest benefits to its membership, including:
- Access to a diverse, high-caliber network of colleagues, many of whom serve the world's leading organizations
- Immediate, on-demand access to innovative and tested solutions
- Insight into what works and what doesn't, shortening the agony of trial and error
- Continuous learning throughout every stage of the consulting lifecycle, from just getting started to managing a mature business
- Opportunities to collaborate with other professionals whose skills augment yours
- Regular opportunities to socialize with colleagues at general meetings, satellite meetings and workshops
- Enduring friendships that go beyond the professional realm
There are plenty of networking and professional associations geared towards female entrepreneurs. What sets Women in Consulting apart?
Attracting professionals versus personal services like hairdresser and massage therapist. Some women who are professional organizers and coaches tend to have at least some corporate clients. What sets us apart is that WIC is all about collaboration. It’s in very facet of our communications, such as community email. Someone could put out an email at 11pmand get a lot of responses. Everything from finding a new accountant or to sub contract some work to meet client demand or an off topic question about relocation and finding housing. Wide variety of business requests and you get almost an instant response. Participating on the WIC team is a reasonable time commitment, particularly on the board.
What does Women in Consulting offer that is different from other networking groups?
In the meetings it’s all about exchanging cards and not building business relationships. First meeting feedback is that it is different. People actually talk with you, engaging, not all about them. They want to learn about it. Do thing to encourage that even more with Ambassador program (this is called Welcome to WIC). Hook up new attendee with an ambassador to introduce them to people. A lot of our members collaborate with each other and recommend one another. Can go in as partners on a project or bring in another member as a substitute. Often they recommend others if they think they are not the right fit. It is about developing an environment about support rather than competition.
Every organization develops the personality of the people who founded it. The women who initially founded WIC they got together, 6 of them, they were running their consulting businesses and wanted to bounce ideas off each other. Didn’t want to go it alone. This is a phrase you hear a lot. Consulting can be a very solitary career choice, Informal monthly meetings in the beginning. Wanted a resource that would help them. The original catalyst that never really left. Other groups started out in a different personal manner.
What new members expect from their participation in Women in Consulting?
WIC is not so much about gathering as many cards as you can but building relationships with a smaller quantity of people. Develop an advisory board and have referral sources. My first year on the board I wanted to step down because my daughter was really young. Realized I would miss the women. I made friends as well as colleagues. I go to these people to share successes and challenges. That is invaluable. WIC is highly regarded for the caliber of speakers we have brought in. Programmers work hard for that. Value is really in the relationships that develop.
Speakers have included John Hamm, local VC and published author, faculty at Santa Clara U. Spoke on leadership. Dennis Erokan, famous for making people famous. His topic was on how to become famous in your own area of expertise. Well connected and started in the music industry promoting concerts. Is a musician. MJ Ryan, co-creator of NY Times “Random Acts of Kindness”, author of several books, contributes to Good Housekeeping. Olivia Fox-Cobain, expert in the fields of trust, influence, and persuasion, spoke at Harvard and MIT. Sample of the type of speakers. Geared at all facets of running a business. Balance work-life challenges. Tricky thing.
How did you come to be involved in Women in Consulting?
I was a consultant before I became a mother. I don’t have stats but you would find a high percentage of WIC members were at the Director level or higher in corporations before entering consulting. They choose to do consulting because they are go getters and want to be leaders. Like freedom and flexibility. They treat it very much like a business. The first thing I coach new mothers is that don’t think you don’t need childcare because this is in the home. If you’re a consultant here in the Bay Area you have to treat it NOT as a stay-at-home business. This is how they approach it. I know women who run jewelry business out of their house, but still they do it without childcare. We provide guidance for best practices. Our compensation survey is a good example. Growing revenue, clients, and webinars that focus on that. Brainstorm with other consultants how to employ those in their individual practices.
What have you learned about working mothers who choose the consulting path who achieve success while balancing their home and professional life?
To be successful you have to be more focused than at a job. One of the first things that a new member experiences is the monetary benefits. Host of financial benefits. We partner with a variety of organizations, such as Society for the Advancement of Consulting. You can be an affiliate subscriber $75, full member $175. Email list is cited the number one benefits of WIC since its an amazing resources. We monitor it as to what’s allowed and not allowed. No spamming. Part of WIC’s whole persona. Partner benefits also include 60% discount on annual SAC membership. Get to also to waive requirements, automatic acceptance. Definite discounts on monthly meetings and to buy an annual meeting pass. Events are also discounted. We also offer to new consultants, we offer a free mentoring sessions to get practice to new level. Charging for the first time in the fall. Very popular. $125 for members, $200 for affiliates. Past participants said they would pay more. Save you money for being a WIC member through partner and meeting discounts. We also allow members to write articles that we post to website and distribute to WIC community, edited by professional writers for free. Encourage them to demonstrate their expertise. WIC directory is an online database for members. Other people in the community use it to find people to help them with a client engagement. People have received jobs that way. Really senior consultants get a leaders network with additional meetings once a quarter throughout the year. Every general meeting has a member orientation about 30 minutes before a meeting starts. Want people to know everything they can access. Pro bono opportunities with WIC are like “Networking on Steroids”, get to build relationships. Get to the level of involvement. Renee and I worked together for 3 years before we met in person. Mutual referrals and partner on client engagements. Take time to get to know these people.
What is the demographic of the current membership base?
Very heavy representation of marketing professionals. Highly educated 85% have a bachelors, half have a masters. 6% had Doctoral. 38% been in consulting for over 7 years. 47% have been more than 10 years. Junior to Senior consultants. Majority are still sole proprietor. One third had some kind of corporation set up. Most do not have employees. WIC promotes sub contract as a business model. Wide variety of industries are represented. Very competitive people self-weed out. It’s not how they work. The atmosphere we foster is partner to help grow your business. If you view others as competitors you won’t build same kind of relationships.
A lot of the people in WIC are strong and determined women. Beyond professional and very dedicated. In the survey, 88% were in it for the long haul. Consulting is not an in between or test out it is a choice of career. BUT, an interesting female tendency in the survey was the whole thing on pricing. #1 recommendation for increasing revenue is just do it. Just have confidence, believe in yourself, know its OK to say these are my prices. Traditional female characteristics is to undervalue service. Assertiveness not considered a good thing. Value your worth. That is from the top 20% consultants who have a median annual gross income revenue of $300K per annum. A lot of conversation that this may be hard. Goes against how they were raised. Project confidence.
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