Articles

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Girl Power Female CEO's March 15, 2010 I'm here at Inc.'s GrowCo. Conference where over 400 small business owners have convened to network with other business owners, listen to some great speakers and be in sunny Orlando! You'd not know we're in a tough economic time with the positive outlook that a lot of these businesses have.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Girl Power Female CEO's February 26, 2010 I am intently watching the Olympics this year and it occurred to me, these brave and strong young people represent a business, the business of the Olympics and their country. Many even go through training on how to behave while representing their country. While watching the media hype around the games, one thing stood out: if there were going to be any remarks or behavior that weren’t humble, it usually came from a man, not a woman.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Girl Power Female CEO's February 11, 2010 Imagine six business colleagues in a meeting and the leader of the meeting says: "Did everyone get the TPS report?" Everyone in the room nods. If you have no clue what a TPS report is and you’re like me, you raise your hand and say, "At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I don’t know what a TPS report is, can you elaborate?"

Top Level Survey Results including All Small Biz Responses & SMBs with 1-10 employees vs. 11-100 employees

This summary splits the results out by overall respondents first, and then compares at the differences between small businesses with 1-10 employees, versus those with 11-100 employees. The following comparison by business size does not include individual reporting on those 37 businesses who reported their size as 100-500 employees, as these comprise of only 4.4% of respondents.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Female CEOs October 30, 2009 I don’t know what kind of boss I am at VerticalResponse—you’d have to ask my staff about that. I think they’d say I’m fair, fun, I like to cut to the chase, and will use fewer words than most to try to get my point across. They’d probably say that as long as they’re getting their jobs done, I don’t interfere too much, and I’d like to think I try to remove obstacles for them. I hope that they’d say I believe in growth from within a company. I like to think I learned this from a few bosses in my past that just happened to be women.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Female CEOs October 16, 2009 When I started VerticalResponse we had just four employees. With such a tight knit group there wasn’t really a need for company or product training. We all knew everything that was happening, who our customers were, how our product worked, and how to sell it. But what happens when a company starts to grow and the tight knit group starts to unravel? Inevitably you hire people you don’t know and people that might not know your product or market as well as you.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Female CEOs September 30, 2009 Last week I was at the Inc. 500 Conference and caught a session with Michael Sheehan, CEO of Sheehan Associates. His company helps businesses, people, and government officials craft messaging. At this session he was discussing how hard it has become to get your message right and get it understood by your audience in a world where we all have information overload.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Female CEOs September 29, 2009 Last week, I heard Jill Blashack Strahan, CEO of Tastefully Simple, speak on the main stage at the Inc. 500 Conference. Today Tastefully Simple is a $140 million company that sells easy to prepare food for busy people. Jill’s story is interesting and inspirational. It actually started with the death of her brother when she was just 26, which was a major wake up call and ultimately what motivated her to start her business. The saying “Life is Short” became very real to her and she decided that it was time to DO something. She has three major points she lives by: Just Start, Know Where You’re Going, Don’t Stop.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Female CEOs September 25, 2009 I'm at the Inc. 500 Conference, America's leading conference for entrepreneurs. I'm at a seminar listening to speaker Erika Andersen who is the CEO of Proteus International. Her company helps other companies think about ways to grow through being strategic. By the size of the room and the attendance of this session (130 people and full) it sure seems like entrepreneurs are craving information for how to grow in this economy.

Column by Janine Popick, Inc.com "Female CEOs August 20, 2009 I'll admit it, I love watching any TV show with Gordon Ramsay in it, but "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" is my current favorite. He’s the antithesis of the stereotypical woman leader; he’s brazen and harsh. He swears like a sailor and belittles people. Not my style of leadership, but it makes for great TV. I like the show because he gets down into the inner workings of a small business and peels away the onion to find any issues that might be hampering the business from growing.