1. What made this experience significant for you?  
2. What did you do to cause the change to have a positive outcome?  
3. How did you know it was the appropriate time to make the change?  
4. How would you suggest someone prepare to make such an experience more expeditious or effortless (to simplify their process)?   
5. Has this impacted your beliefs about future changes and if so how?  
6. What did you use as a support for your transition process?

 CAREER REPOSITIONING (entrepreneur expands reach)

1. This change was about taking my personal life and separating it from my business life by moving the business outside my home. It’s made me 100% more credible with others. People look at me more as a Director and regard me as knowing more about childrearing, regardless of all my training in that area.

2. a) having complete faith, even though it took a year to get off the ground with licensing, finding property and bringing it up to city and government standards, recognizing the full costs and doing the numbers to see that in the long run it would pay for itself b) it was scary financially because I was paying for two places and it took 6-8 months sitting vacant before Social Services approved it because they were backlogged.

3. Love children and always wanted to work with them. I evaluated both parents working scenario and elementary schools not providing early childhood care and saw the trend is increasing. Had I not had my own child, I would have started the business outside the home. My husband could see this was the best thing. I knew owning your own real estate was wise and the value would always increase. My daughter had begun kindergarten and I chose then to fulfill the rest of the dream.

4. I could have been in closer contact with the licensing bureaus before it evolved to ask direct questions instead of plodding along. Upfront prep would have also caused less stress on my relationship, as my partner began questioning my choice. Don’t open your own business if you’re not 100% committed to the product or service and your heart is not in it. If others know you love it, it will flourish that much more. I take excellent care of these kids and the parents know I love them like my own.

5. The whole process has changed me and made me more confident in my capabilities. The question, "why would they trust me?" has disappeared. I’m good at what I do. I’m more outgoing, comfortable with others. I know if we chose to go bigger, that would work. I’ve been able to evaluate my strengths and observe different aspects of my self that I enjoy most.

6. My husband’s encouragement and faith that I could put the business together.


-Donna Whitlock, Preschool Teacher

"My argument was I had no time to catch someone up with my administrative needs. I think the real moral of the story is sometimes you have to go through the pain and process in order to get to the other side. …I have learned if something is no longer working it’s okay to let go."

- Vickie Sullivan

1. Business was doubling. Our next business growth wasn’t about getting more clients it was about handling our administrative needs. We had to overhaul our infrastructure to keep up with the volume of the work. It’s a great problem, but it’s still a problem. You run the risk of diminishing your brand if you don’t give good service.

2. Had gone outside and hired another firm and they couldn’t handle us after 45 days effectively. Current office assistant recognized I wasn’t in good hands. She hired people underneath her to do the work. She now has a backup system in case she has to leave. Previously, my business would shut down if she went on vacation and I had to take on her work. My company is too big to do that now.

3. I was working 18-hour days and it was horrendous. I had conducted 30 interviews to find a new virtual assistant and that didn’t work out. It’s not like I had the time for this change. I could have ratcheted down my business, but I said I wasn’t going to do that. I could have stayed with my assistant who was excellent and then hired another assistant, but I didn’t want to manage a staff of more than one person. Instead, my assistant saw she had the capacity to move into a management position.

4. My argument was I had no time to catch someone up with my administrative needs. I think the real moral of the story is sometimes you have to go through the pain and process in order to get to the other side. If I had not left my assistant and gone through 45 days of hell trying to get up to speed with someone new, my first office assistant would not have gone through the experience of deciding she was ready to grow as she had. When you’re hiring a virtual organization you need to ask what systems are they putting in place to grow with your business.

5. I have learned if something is no longer working, it’s okay to let go. I let my first assistant go, then I let the new person go. I was trying to be fair to the new person and give them 90 days even though in the first 30 days it wasn’t working. 90 days would have destroyed my business. Our new view if it’s not working, it’s nobody’s fault, move on! People can only give what they can.

6. I know you can’t see all your own blind spots. I have an Internet strategist going on a year now. Be okay with losing money. I lost some income in the change, but I had to take the risk. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t have come round to this.

- Vickie Sullivan, Market Strategist

"I wasn’t an overnight wonder, but through expanding and learning and growing and not standing still or getting complacent, I moved my business forward."

– Anita Kronowitz

1. I increased my company’s product line and options. I knew I had more to offer besides my card business and developing this new product line was taking a chance.

2. The response from a magazine article on weddings in which one of my products was featured was incredible and I hired someone to develop a second website featuring personalized party favors and began focusing on weddings. I took out ads that had the website on it and developed a postcard to do local mailings for brides. I brought this new side of the business into the forefront with concentrating more on it. Initially, I’d developed a relationship with the wedding planner that put my product into the magazine.

3. The phone calls were enough to signal to me to get going. I am still getting orders off that article and it came out in December 2001…talk about a shelf life! The most exciting thing for me is I didn’t pay for that. It was a feature not an ad.

4. Shop the competition. Go on the Internet, do a search for your product and learn more about what you want to offer. Been a member of a network group for years, it’s part of who I am. Member of the Association of Bridal Consultants. Stay in contact with others.

5. Never have one big client, diversify. Don’t be afraid to keep moving. Don’t sit back on your laurels. Even when things are there busiest, don’t slow down. I’ve experienced that’s the time to keep on marketing.

6. Spoke with my husband, who is very supportive. Friends. It happened so fast, yet it was built over time.

-Anita Kronowitz, Principal, The Eloquent Elephant