Monthly Archives: September 2011

Training at a young age

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I was born and raised in Romania a country where although there were many laws to follow during communism, when it came to business there weren’t many licences that applied and rules to follow. All that people needed was something to sell and they could go to any market and sell it. Often merchants did not need a licence or even to buy the rights to a vendor’s table. As long as there was space and you had something to sell by all means do it.

My aunt was a business woman selling her backyard goods to the markets in the cities around the country. Some of the goods she would sell were bouquets of straw flowers. When I was around ten years old she came to the city where I grew up . It was long time since she visited so she decided to stay and catch up with my mom thinking it will be a good idea to send me to the market and sell her flowers instead. BIG mistake and a BIG lesson for me to learn. I arrived in the market with the basket of bouquets ready to be sold. The market was surprisingly busy during that early Saturday morning. I decided to stay by the door of the indoor supermarket. I placed the basket there without even thinking to take anything out, not even to uncover the basket for the merchandise to be seen. I sat there for about four hours with no success of selling anything, not even one bouquet. I was getting quite frustrated as no one was asking to know what I have in the basket. Looking back at that time, I remember wanting to cry because my feelings were hurt. I wasn’t successful and after I decided to go home I said to myself that I would never do this again. The inexperienced me was ready to give up. When I arrived home and my family saw that I never sold one bouquet, after they got tired of laughing at me, my aunt told me she will take me under her wing the next day to train me. And that was an eye opener on its own and a great life lesson to be learned. Continue reading →

Business Training: What does it take?

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Every entrepreneur I know has an idea of what I am about to talk about and that is the value of Business Training. There is no price that is too high when it comes to being trained in business. Yes, I know I said before that for some it comes naturally to do business, however there was some kind of formal or informal training attached to it.

The value of education is unbeatable; it teaches us strategically thinking and researching skills in addition to the value of deadlines (remember those all nighters?).  During my College years I learned to multi-task and meet deadlines while raising a child on my own. My usual start time of working on assignments would be after my daughter was asleep, house cleaned, laundry done and food for the next day prepared which for short will be around 11pm. Many mothers, whether single or not, can relate to this typical life style of balancing work-school-family. I managed to finish my first year of College on the Dean’s List with only 4-5 hours of sleep every night.  In my opinion, higher education teaches us how to plan our lives in order for us to succeed in business and personal life.  Formal training at College or University level is sometimes taken by entrepreneurs to show credibility for what they are already doing or that they have done for the past few years. Continue reading →

What is an expert?

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A few days ago I was discussing my career path with someone that I admire. When I had mentioned to him about my new business decision his immediate response was: “Does the world need another one of you?”  That made me think of many things but most importantly “Am I going to be successful at this?”  To give the right answer: “Yes!”

Looking back at my career path anyone can see that I am adaptable to new challenges and that, whenever needed, I cope with every type of work. I now see the benefits of having to learn to manage with new challenges and many types of employment. By being exposed to them I learned how they work or not work effectively. I also learned that, it doesn’t matter what type of employment I was in, being honest went a long way. So here I am!

For the last few years I managed projects in the business of non-profit, fundraising, event planning, marketing and public relations. While managing these projects  and showing results I realized that I could do this effectively and the world does need someone like me to this line of work. Through my involvement with these agencies I discovered that I have a natural ability to connect with professionals generating results in Public Relations and Marketing and that gives me the right to be an expert. Continue reading →

Meet-up vs Tweet-up

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Yesterday I had one of the most amazing experiences I had encounter in along time: I had a last minute invitation to the tweetup event with the #usguyseh team.

Although I have seen tweets on Twitter from people I have never met before in person regarding the #usguys tweets, I am not usualy the one to jump into a conversation uninvited.

Let me share with you how it all happened. I was on my way to a networking meeting that I had signed up for a while ago. As I left my house, walking to the bus stop, I was checking Twitter on my Blackberry to see what is happening in Twitter Land. One of the tweets that caught my attention was from wonderful @DebWeinstein, the prestigious president from @SO_pr firm. I looked at the tweet stating that someone from the group could not attend last minute and there was a Free spot available for the first person to DM the interest request. My mind and my heart was telling me that this is such a great opportunity and to give it a try. I did manage to send a DM to @DebWeinstein and to my surprise she answered back with a few details about the event. Ultimately it was confirmed: I was the lucky opportunist to attend the big event. I have been to many events similar to this where people from the same line of work get together to share experiences. However the uniqueness of this event is that for many people in that room it all started as a virtual acquittance that led up to the yesterday’s event. To meet people virtually and to always wonder what would they be like in real life, is now something of the past. The internet had given us the opportunity to interact and connect globally and that is why I love Twitter . Continue reading →

Learning From Past Experiences

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Don’t cry because it’s over
Smile because it happened
(I am not entirely sure who said that)
First time I heard that expression was about a year ago, when one of my former co-worker, said it to me while it was her last day at work. I was really sad that she was about to leave as she was my life line there. I was working in an environment where I could not be my best as my former boss never provided me with effective training expecting me to be an expert in return. The criticism I received while I was on the job was never constructive, always making me feel as if there was never any home for me to learn anything new.  I am definitely happy that my time at that work place is long over and believe it or not I am smiling at the whole experience. I quit my job there and despite the fact that I was never encouraged to learn, ironically my next boss hired me to do the exact same thing but in a different  environment. Not only that I was never bullied but I was encouraged to do my best. And I did. I produced more than it was required of me and that is because I was encouraged to do my best. Continue reading →