Women In Entrepreneurship: At The Helm Women In Biz 2012

So instead of focusing on one woman in my Women In Entrepreneurship series, I decided to focus on groups of women who are doing amazing things with their brands in entrepreneurship. I had the pleasure of attending the At The Helm: Women In Biz Conference about 2 weeks ago. My design business has picked up a bit, so I’ve been busy helping other women in business build their brands, so this post is a little tardy for the party hunty.

Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this post. I found out about this event from the fabulous Alaia Williams of One Organized Business, who also happens to be the creator of this fabulous event. First, Girl THANK YOU, for inviting lil ole me to this event. I had a blast. Why? Well…

“At The Helm: Women in Biz 2012 is a unique event for women in business. Entrepreneurs, small business owners, and community leaders from across the Los Angeles area will join together for a powerful day of learning and business growth”

You know how you see these business conferences and they promise you all this amazing stuff that will make you the baddest chick in the land and then…it doesn’t do really anything for you but try and up sell you to more stuff? Well At The Helm was quite the opposite.

It wasn’t full of fluff. There were dynamic speakers and women entrepreneurs there that were ready to give you what you need NOW, to apply to your business NOW. Even if you didn’t have a business, the sessions were structured to give you the tools necessary to prepare you for entrepreneurship. This conference for me was invaluable and an awesome experience. I can’t blog about it all since this was an 8 hour event, but I will give you a few highlights.

There were a TON of speakers all respected in their fields, ready to offer up the goods about what they do and how to help you apply it to your business…NOW. You can view all the fabulous speakers here: http://www.athwomen.com/speakers/#Speakers

The conference was a combination of speakers, mini breakout sessions and 2 panels of experts. There were speakers that presented all of their entrepreneurial goodness to the entire conference, mini breakout sessions where you got to choose the session you wanted to attend, and then 2 panels of entrepreneurs where there was a Q&A type of setup.

The best part of this conference for me were the breakout sessions. There were a total of 9 breakout sessions, with 3 running simultaneously, so you could choose the one you felt your business would benefit from the most. YES! I like choices. I don’t like mushrooms, so I like having a choice if I want to eat them or not, so the same applied to this conference during the breakout sessions.

One of the breakout sessions I attended was the Side Hustle Academy: How to Create + Rock Your Side Hustle by Nailah Blades founder of Polka Dot Coaching. This is perfect for the woman who is taking the leap into entrepreneurship, but still has a day job. That would be me. I hustle HARD with my HNIK Side Hustle, and one day I’ll be able to call it my FULL time hustle…but my student loans, rent, car payment and the fact I need to eat, won’t let me be great…just yet. I do enjoy my side hustle though. It’s my passion, so it never feels like work. Creating a side hustle is great because it helps you work out all of the kinks of your biz BEFORE you jump feet first into full-time entrepreneurship…and helps you buy extra shoes that you don’t really need. Nailah tells you how to Rock the $*it of your side hustle in 5 easy peazy steps. I’m currently on step 5.

I’ve gained 6 new projects with these 5 easy steps.

Let me say that again. I GAINED 6 NEW PROJECTS.

I applied the info from ONE breakout session to my business and I’ve already seen the return on my investment from attending At The Helm like 1,000 times over.

Anyway here are some visuals of the event just in case you’re a skimmer:

I freaking love Danielle Dowling. She was one of the many speakers there, and challenges you to “Find Your Soul”. She’s super fun, energetic and inspiring. Danielle Dowling coaches women leaders who are looking to up their game in love and life. You can have a boo AND be on top of the world.

Cute visual go to with her session.

One word that comes to mind when I attended Lizzy Shaw’s PR breakout session: “LMAO”. I died in laughter from the amount of F-Bombs that were dropped and the line of the day, “You WILL F-cking Commit Suicide when you see this [insert amazing brand she represents].” My new goal in life is to create witty one liners at conferences. All jokes aside, this woman is BAD a$$ when it comes to PR for a product you need to get into the hottest magazines. I enjoyed her honest and witty approach on getting your product out there to the masses. PR is ultra important in building your brand.

We were provided with a plethora of snacks and refreshments. Can I say that I am a new fan of Dry Soda? This stuff is amazeballs and it’s super low in sugar and calories. I went on a witch hunt to BevMo to get me some more of this stuff. Thanks Dry Soda for quenching my thirst!

Pop-Chips never fail to disappoint.

From the makers of 5-Hour Energy, here is a natural alternative. Later in the day, I took a shot of this stuff and man I was ready for business.

With a group of women entrepreneurs, you know there was MAD networking going forth. I connected with some fabulous, driven women.

I’m also part of a group on Facebook called “Ambitious Divas”, so it was great to see a few of them come out to the event.

From L to R.
Natalie Gouche’ – www.lasocialmediatrainer.com
Marie Denee – www.thecurvyfashionista.com
Haneef Jordan – Touch My Closet
Stephanie C Harper www.thecareermag.com
Alaia Williams – Creator of At The Helm & One Organized Business
Tatiana El-Khouri – www.creativeforcegroup.com

I’m looking forward to next year’s event! If you’re a business owner or thinking of starting a business and you’re in the LA area, you NEED to be at this event!

Have you attended any entrepreneurial conferences? Were they beneficial to your business? Tell me about it!