From one of the first women engineers in a Fortune 100 company to writing a book & training companies and women’s organisations in techniques for business – read the inspiring story of Renee Weisman below.
As one of the first women engineers in a Fortune 100 company nearly 40 years ago, I realized that men and women do not think alike. Rather than allowing this to hold me back, I learned to understand those differences to help my career, to help my teams be more successful, and to reach top technical and executive levels. After guiding and helping many other women (and men), I was constantly told, “I wish I’d known that sooner. You should write this down”. So I did.
My book, Winning in a Man’s World, and my consulting business, Winning at Work are the results. Having retired from a successful career and realizing that women still make less than men for the same jobs, still hold themselves back and still hold less than 3% of the Fortune 500 CEO positions, I felt it was time to share my mentoring with a larger group. I now train companies and women’s organizations in techniques for business, career and relationship success. I also write for articles for websites and newspapers on leadership and career success.
My biggest challenge was that I had never worked for myself. How to begin? I realized it was all about my network. Besides my business, college, friend and volunteering network and having been a technical “guru”, I quickly embraced the internet. There is so much out there to enable businesses to grow if you do it right.
My tips for other business owners are many: do what you love, be prepared for ebbs and flows in terms of client growth, make sure you have adequate cash flow, do what you can and outsource what you can’t, recognize you will work as hard or harder than you ever did before, and keep in touch with your customers.
One of my guiding principles was “results matter”. You cannot move ahead without being someone who gets results. BUT, and this is a really huge but, if you do a great job and noone knows you were the one who created those results, did you really do a great job? This also applies to selling your great service or product. If no one knows about it, is it really great?
I am inspired by creative people. As long as we keep inventing, innovating, and encouraging each other, anything is possible.
You can contact me through my website, www.winning-at-work.net or email, winningatwork@gmail.com. You can buy my books at any online bookseller and they are now also available for digital readers. If you’d like to join my article mailing list (one or two articles a month, NOTHING to buy and no obligation, just send me an email).
