Hustle ‘til the Haters Ask if You’re Hiring
While Ngage Management officially got on the books in July of 2013, the journey truly began for me in 2001. For almost 20 years I have worked a full-time job and held a part-time executive director’s position or other lead roles for associations. I stumbled into the association management profession and was so young that the job I got wasn’t paying enough to live off (ok, so I have expensive taste…). Growing up on a cattle ranch, I learned how to work from sunup to sundown, all while being taught it isn’t work when you love what you do. So, me holding full and part-time jobs didn’t seem any different then what I’d always known. Besides, they never felt like jobs to me. I truly loved taking vacation time from what felt like a job and going to lead an association or put on a conference.
I’m going to fast forward 12 years and not bore you with all the details of how I pulled the trigger and started Ngage, but I will share that I began with four clients and did everything myself. These four clients were all my side part time association work that I had put together to get a company going. I will never forget the first person I told I was going into business for myself. To this day he is one of my strongest supporters (ok, besides my parents). He said I have no doubt you can do it, but do you know anything about associations? I said that is what I have been doing for the past 12 years! Most people in my life only knew that I only held the one fulltime gig. With me being the one providing the primary source of income for my household I knew stepping out on my own meant I was going to have to really hustle - and hustle is what I did! I started with a home office and remember all the people that didn’t take me seriously because I didn’t have a physical “office” space. As I write this, a global pandemic has taught us that working from home is a real thing and honestly can be done very successfully. All that said, Ngage does have its own address - I proudly pay rent on over 6,000 square feet of office space.
Today, Ngage has become the most significant association management company in the state of Michigan, and is far from being a one-person operation. I remember June of 2017, moving into our first office space and I had tears in my eyes because…I now own a copier! This meant I might be legit, and all those people who told me no, or didn’t take me seriously just might have to eat their words. However, I still have those moments of doubt. They are now over deals like us purchasing another firm in Washington DC or having a biweekly payroll that runs in the 6-figure range or creating three new positions for the company in just one month.
I have since learned it wasn’t personal to me that I wasn’t taken seriously early on. Historically, female entrepreneurs have always struggled to be taken seriously, finding themselves in male-dominated industries that don’t take the time to acknowledge their point of view, hard work, or accomplishments. This — in turn — can feed our fear of failure, and even cause us to struggle with owning our accomplishments; a critical part of any business owner’s journey.
“The drive and passion I see coming from our team, motivates me every single day to get up and take on the world.”
I learned a few years ago that letting those negative comments build up in my head would only stop me from reaching my full potential. To combat them, I wrote a note and put it on my computer monitor with a quote my father told me at a young age. He said, “You can do anything a man can do. You might have to wear a skirt doing it.” The other thing I did was join an all woman CEO entrepreneur group. This group has provided me mentors and peers to inspire me, hit me with reality checks on my capabilities and successes and help me to grow and learn from their outside perspectives and experiences.
I’m incredibly proud of the growth of Ngage and I know for a fact the reason we’ve grown so much in a short period of time is I have hired smarter, more talented and genuinely passionate people that take initiative (they don’t need me to hold their hand, if they do, they don’t fit our culture). The best advice I ever got was: hire the best employees to make your job easier, not harder. I genuinely love everyone on our team like family. The drive and passion I see coming from our team, motivates me every single day to get up and take on the world. A new client told me the reason they selected Ngage was, “Your pride in your staff was evident. We enjoyed the opportunity to get to know your team of experts. When you talk about Ngage, you say we, instead of I. Our prior association management company was all about I.” To me, there is no better compliment. People make our company, both employees and clients.
Another reason I feel Ngage has really grown is I learned to handle all the unsolicited advice. There is, perhaps, no one that receives more unsolicited information than the professional woman. The worst input comes from those who have never started a company of their own. These self-proclaimed experts, along with jealous women and insecure men, will feel entitled to talk down to you, dismiss you, and criticize and correct you for every decision you make. You must learn to rise above the unsolicited advice and do what’s right for you and your growing company.
As women, we’re not precisely led to believe that we, too, are ordained to be masters of the business world. This inherent self-doubt permeates our lives and manifests itself through hesitation and missed opportunity - two of the biggest reasons that female entrepreneurs fail or fizzle out. If we want to become genuinely successful female entrepreneurs, we have to overcome our self-doubt, and we have to do it fast.
Self-doubt is one of the biggest challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. Whether that self-doubt comes from experience or general societal bias, that insecurity can seriously undermine our strengths and make it impossible to succeed in any real and meaningful way. Dig deep and try to find the real root of your insecurities – and then force yourself to address them! Address any fears that are attached to these insecurities, including fear of failure. Only when you know why you doubt yourself can you work to reverse that self-doubt by focusing on the opposing strengths. Everyone has barriers to success, but the only person that truly holds us back is ourselves. You must believe in your ability to honestly self-evaluate, do the work to stop self-defeating behaviors and then believe in yourself.
As a woman who has overcome barriers to be successful in business, I always try to share my experiences with women on their own journey. For example, I have to catch myself on occasion when I’ve noticed that I am giving away too much without a financial commitment from a potential or current client. I recommend other women remember to value your knowledge and experience. Confidence is the key to success. I had to find confidence in my abilities to run the business. As women, we often hold ourselves to unmanageable standards that make it impossible for us to ever achieve any real success. So many women expect themselves to be the perfect wife, mother, or career woman at all times. They refuse to delegate and take the whole world onto their shoulders out of some misdirected sense of responsibility. It’s overwhelming. And it’s also one of the reasons women struggle so much in the fast-paced world of startups and businesses.
“Trust me, I don’t just have one novel on all my mistakes - I have an entire series! And guess what? That is okay! ”
It’s impossible to be all things to all people at all times. Though you might be a mother, a wife, a co-worker, and a CEO — you’re also a human being with all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that entails. One of those vulnerabilities is mortality, and our need to rest, relax, and recharge our batteries. Though we’d like to take it all on (and get it done without asking for help), our bodies and brains cannot tolerate that type of overload forever. The secret is overcoming your unrealistic expectations and allowing yourself to be human and make mistakes. Trust me, I don’t just have one novel on all my mistakes - I have an entire series! And guess what? That is okay!
Relieve yourself of the weight of the world and adopt a healthier mindset. Rather than focusing on everything that remains on your to-do list, try focusing on what you managed to accomplish. Rather than basing your success on an endless and unmeetable list of “things to get done,” start focusing on the wins you do manage and the mountains you climb each day. When you take time to focus on what you have accomplished you realize that it is these tasks that are the accurate measure of your success. Let go of the guilt of never-doing-enough and celebrate what you do - and do well.
Being a female entrepreneur is anything but easy. To be a successful woman in charge comes with a unique set of challenges and difficulties. It is on us to tap into the traits inside ourselves that we need to thrive as female entrepreneurs. Thankfully, by focusing on a few simple techniques, we can overcome many of the roadblocks to companies that thrive.
Believe me when I say, loneliness is a significant roadblock when it comes to the female entrepreneur. If you want to overcome this challenge, find or create a business networking group. A network of support is critical because even a strong individual needs feedback and resources to be successful. Likewise, an accountability partner is a great way to beat the loneliness and stay motivated. Break up your work into manageable chunks, so you feel both like a successful person and a happy human being. Tune out the unsolicited advice and run your real concerns and problems past your trusted support network. Being a female entrepreneur is a hard and lonely road, but it is manageable with a mindset of self-confidence. When we drop our unrealistic expectations of ourselves, we can unlock astounding opportunities that we never imagined before. Ultimately, the choice is ours and ours alone. Are we going to take a stake in our rightful place in the business world, or are we going to let the opportunity pass? No one can make that choice but us — the female entrepreneurs of the future.
