It’s been a long time coming, but it’s here – the Professional Development Series for Women launches today!
The idea came to me one weekend late last year. At that point, it had been nearly 4 years since I left my job as CEO of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce in order to work on my own coaching and consulting business. And 18 months had passed since my business mentor told me I was burned out, and suggested I focus on what I love – helping women.
“Jackie,” he said, “it’s better to fail doing something you love than to work a J-O-B that you hate.”
Coaching business, professional women
Thanks to his kick in the pants, I shed a lot of the crap I didn’t like and turned my attention to helping women succeed through business and life coaching, as well as creating mastermind groups. A significant part of that new focus was to offer a workshop series for my local Business and Professional Women’s Club.
I started with a professional development survey for everyone on our mailing list and got exceptional response. Based on that, the organization’s board decided to go with Networking for Women as our first program in February 2016.
We had about 15 women (and one guy) in the 2-hour, hands-on workshop. The reviews were unanimously stellar. So many attendees thanked us for providing this kind of training locally – and even suggested we bump up the next one from 2 to 4 hours.
Even more telling: The vice president from the bank that sponsored our first workshop came up to me afterward and said, “We want to sponsor the next one, too.”
Talk about Cloud 9! Holy crap! This was everything I dreamed of…and more.
Sadly, we ran into a couple of bumps in the road (fairly typical for most nonprofit, all-volunteer organizations) and we’re still talking about when to schedule our second workshop.
But I couldn’t let it die.
Professional development series is born
I thought, “If this local group of business and career women was interested in a professional development series, surely there are hundreds if not thousands of women around the world who would be interested, too.”
That’s when I decided to take it global (God, I love social media!).
I did a second survey, asking the same question: “What skills do you want that would help you improve your business or career?”
The response was great this time, too. Interestingly, while there was some professional development overlap between the needs of business owners and career professionals, there were also some clear distinctions, too.
So in April, I decided to create a program that addressed the top 10 cross-over subjects named in both groups. In descending order of importance, out of more than 40 topics, those top 10 modules are:
- Emotions in the workplace – live!
- Written communication
- Business networking
- Personal branding
- Learning how to say no
- Negotiations
- Public speaking
- Getting top performance from others
- Goal setting
- Business literacy
Yes, after months of work, the first module “Emotions in the Workplace” is now ready for your viewing/listening pleasure. Don’t worry — none of the four videos is longer than 20 minutes.
I chose to do narrated PowerPoint slide presentations instead of straight videos so you can pause wherever you like and screen-capture or make notes on whatever the content that is most important to you. No need to back up and listen what you might have missed (20 minutes is long enough the first time, right?). It’s all there right on the screen.
The videos ($9 for all four) introducing each module are just the beginning; more advanced learning levels also are offered.They include monthly mastermind calls, ongoing support through my Power of Women secret Facebook group and one-to-one, individual coaching. Please check it out!
I’d love to get your feedback on the modules and what, if any, others you might suggest based on your own experience and preferences.
As part of my new program, I offer a free tip sheet on how to handle criticism.