A recent blog post associated with Indianapolis Business Journal caught my attention and inspired me to comment. The author poses some thought-provoking questions about women entrepreneurs. FlashPoint has at least two of them so I shared my thoughts on the blog and want to share here with you too.

Here is a link to the post on Small Biz Matters hosted by Focus Editor Norm Heikens:

http://www.ibj.com/small-biz-matters/2011/04/06/where-are-the-wildly-successful-women-entrepreneurs/PARAMS/post/26380

Here is my response:

FlashPoint Principals Krista Skidmore and Andrea Cranfill at GROWCO 2011, Inc.'s "Grow Your Company" Conference

While I don’t have a ready answer to some of the questions posed, I do have an answer for this question: “Where are the wildly successful women entrepreneurs?” I know two of them. Krista Skidmore and Andrea Cranfill are cofounders and principals of FlashPoint, one of Indiana’s largest human resource consulting firms. (Disclosure: I am the marketing manager for the business and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t enter this conversation!) Where are they? They’re out growing our business.

Jennifer Holme’s point [Jennifer authored a comment on the post too] about women not promoting themselves or actively seeking recognition might be somewhat true for FlashPoint. Beyond project deliverables, we spend a lot of time creating extra value for our clients. Client relations have always been our top priority. For us, it’s less about differentiating ourselves from male entrepreneurs or focusing on the fact that our business was started by women. It’s more about being relevant to our clients and helping them achieve their business goals. Through that process, we’re achieving ours.

In the last four months, FlashPoint has added three full-time consultants to handle our growing workload and a business development associate to further grow our client base, bringing our staff total to 16. We are soft launching a new suite of services called Clearly HR. These are streamlined services with a lower, fixed cost for small businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities. Clearly HR complements our fully customized work and was developed to fill a need that we continuously found unmet in the market.

Not only are Skidmore and Cranfill business leaders but they are community leaders serving on boards such as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Arts Council of Indianapolis, Humane Society of Indianapolis, and Indiana Humanities.

Their talent is well-rounded, deep-seeded, and fully accessible. So, here’s FlashPoint! We’re crushing our sales goals, exceeding our client expectations, and having fun all the while. Now don’t get me wrong, we like awards and attention, and we’re working to earn some of that too.

Joellyn Detjen is marketing manager at FlashPoint and helps tell the company’s story.

This post currently has no responses.

Contributing to our local community through volunteerism is an important part of FlashPoint’s culture. Our team members are involved in many professional and community organizations, giving us the opportunity to help build strong boards, strengthen professional groups, and provide education. FlashPoint supports my involvement with Kiwanis International, so much so that the company got involved with the organization’s strategic planning.

Krista Skidmore and I recently received awards for Outstanding Contributions to the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis. Here is an interview about FlashPoint’s community involvement with Kiwanis, as well as details about the unique award.

View the video interview.

What are other ways that organizations can support employee involvement in the community?

Jeremy King is business development manager for FlashPoint.

This post currently has no responses.

I can list several things that I love about my role at FlashPoint, but working in a culture that supports and encourages us to volunteer in our local community is my favorite. I have been to events where I’ve met powerful CEOs, politicians, and local celebrities—heck, I even got to chat with Peyton Manning at a Peyback Foundation event—but my passion is working with kids.

As a member of the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis, I assist with a program called the Builders Club at IPS #56; there my fellow members and I work with middle school students to help them learn about leadership, community involvement, and service. As the business adviser for this group of future leaders, I have the opportunity to talk to them about topics that I feel are important. During the election of officers a few weeks ago, I noticed that all of the candidates referenced having “good leadership” so I decided that I’ll talk to them about leadership at one of the upcoming meetings. Choosing this topic was the easy part. What I’m going to actually say is the million-dollar question.

I plan to keep it simple by telling them of a few myths:

Myth #1—Leaders are born. In a sense, leaders are born because everyone is born. But leadership is not about talents as much as it is about your behavior. It is how you “show up” each day.

Myth #2—Leaders are charismatic. While being charismatic doesn’t really hurt you, it is more important to be trustworthy, visionary, and a good person. Remember, Hitler was charismatic.

Myth #3—Titles make you a leader. A leader is simply someone who can get others to follow him or her. It does not matter what your title is; it matters if you are respected, trusted, and followed.

I also plan to discuss what makes a good leader:

Be Trustworthy—Do what you say you will do.

Have Vision—Don’t think only about today; think about your future and base your decisions on that.

Model the Way—Set a good example for others to follow.

Set Goals—Understand that the difference between a dream and a goal lies in writing it down. If you don’t have a goal, how do you know where you are going?

Be a Good Person—Recognize that people will eventually see who is a good person and who is not. We generally do not follow bad people for the long term.

I’d like to tell these kids so much more about leadership, but I want to keep it simple with the hope that they’ll remember the lesson and think about their behavior on a daily basis.

What would you tell an 8th grader about leadership?

Jeremy King is business development manager at FlashPoint.

Image: Pathathai Chungyam

This post currently has no responses.