By Michelle Girasole on 3/20/2007 8:20 PM

All three Sassy Ladies, Michelle, Miriam and Wendy attended the Women’s Summit at Bryant University on March 16^th. It was the 10^th Annual Summit with almost 1000 participants!

We LOVED Tory Johnson, the CEO of Women for Hire (www.womenforhire.com)!  She gave such great advice like:
- “trust your intuition” when you are in an employment situation that isn’t serving you.
- “Dare to challenge yourself”- figure out a way to push yourself outside your comfort zone.
- “Cultivate Relationships” with women/people who are smarter………more risk takers, etc. (Tory started her businesses with twin toddlers at home!) AND
- “Toot Your Own Horn” was advice she used to get her where she is today!

There were many great sessions on Affinity Groups in Business, Feng Shui for your business etc. Alfre Woodard, award winning actress did a moving presentation as a key note speaker at lunch. The picture is Alfre on the big screen---the person standing who looks like a red dot in the picture is Sassy Miriam asking some smart and sassy questions!

A good time was had by all. We highly recommend you come to the event next year!

By Michelle Girasole on 3/15/2007 10:10 PM

We recently interviewed Tara Gross-Steeves from Create Your Life, Inc. on the topic of dreaming about starting a business.  We just released the podcast of Tara's full interview, so you can learn more about her upcoming Dream Party this spring!  Here's a snippet from our interview with this dreamer-in-action:Wendy: ...Tara we wanted to connect with you today to get some insight for women who have a dream, an idea, or may want to start a business. What would you say to women about following their dreams and ideas about business?



Tara: Wendy, I am a strong advocate for more and more women starting businesses and working for themselves because self-employment is an opportunity to constantly evolve, design and create your life. There’s so much information out there now about how to begin a business, which is wonderful. But sorting through it all to find what works for you can become totally overwhelming. I’ve seen people become so preoccupied with whether or not they were doing it the “right” way or the “best” way, that they don’t take the time to design their business around the life they want. This is SO CRITICAL. Starting a business is such an opportunity to deepen your relationship with yourself and to take the time to get really clear on questions like:

How will you know when you’ve achieved success? What internally motivates you about creating your business? And are your goals challenging but doable? Are they specific? And, lastly, at the early stages, essentially, you ARE your business. So, what are you doing to take care of and nurture yourself? These may not be easy questions to answer but there’s big pay-off in taking the time to explore these questions from the beginning rather than later when something’s not working...Learn more about Tara and hear the full interview    

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By Michelle Girasole on 3/10/2007 2:59 AM

Forbes recently released on its website its list of "The 20 Richest Women in Entertainment". What lessons can we take away from some of these successful women?

1) Oprah: diversify - She's used her talk show and magazine to amass a whopping $1.5 billion.

2) J.K.Rowling: imagine- This imaginative Harry Potter author gives us hope that you can make millions writing books! She made $1 billion, actually.  You go, J.K.!

3) Martha Stewart: do what you love - America made this housewife a multi-millionaire (638 times over), because she did what she loved and was great at it.  (Secondary lesson - you can recover from investment mistakes.)

4) Madonna: unconventional attracts attention - and money, apparently - $325 million of the stuff.  Enough said.

5) Singers: merchandising leverages a successful brand. (Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez) These ladies started with vocal talent, then merchandised their brands with lines of clothing, perfume, and other products to build their fortunes. ($250m, $225m, $150m, $110m, respectively)

6) Actresses - being a Pretty Woman and a sexy Friend doesn't hurt, either.  Julia Roberts and Jennifer Anniston both made the list, with $140m and $110m to their names.

By Michelle Girasole on 3/5/2007 6:02 AM

Sassy Wendy has coached a number of women wanting to produce food products. The problem is to find a licensed kitchen facility. Well, Lydia Walshin,  who is a fabulous Cooking Instructor and more, just had this info in her blog:

Here's a business opportunity for those of you who want to create specialty food products (jams, jelly, cheese, cookies, etc.) for sale. The Dartmouth Grange Shared-Use Kitchen opened in January in Dartmouth, MA, providing a licensed facility and assistance to help farmers and other food entrepreneurs navigate local, state and federal regulations, and develop their products. Rental available on an hourly basis. More info from kitchen manager Becky Turner at 508-636-1900, and at www.dartmouthgrange.org.



Wendy and friends Val and Athena attended a class-here's some of the fun!

By Michelle Girasole on 3/3/2007 8:02 AM

After months of dreaming and planning, this is an especially exciting day for us to launch the official Sassy Ladies' website! We could never have come this far without the help of some wonderful people that we would like to acknowledge:

- Laura Theisen and Steve Stacy, Precision Web Marketing

- Ann-Marie Harrington and Marc Ardizzone, Embolden Design

- Linda Siniscal, Third Hand Secretarial Service

- Susan Johnson, Partners4Success

Also, Maureen Maloney, Donna Mac, Ann-Marie Marcotte, Sixcia Devine, Carol Malysz and all the women who have shared their stories with us for the book. You will start to see them all "profiled and podcasted" in the coming weeks.

Thank you all for your guidance, support and assistance in getting us this far! This is the first important milestone, and we're on our way to much success! We couldn't have done it without you!!

Sincerely, Michelle, Wendy and Miriam