Success Tips from Teri Hawkins

Teri Hawkins, best-selling author, Money magazine Top 100 Female Entrepreneur and coach to such leaders as Lee Iacocca and Liz Claiborne, engaged and captivated attendees at Comerica's first quarter Women's Business Symposium. This incredibly savvy entrepreneur challenged us to be ourselves to achieve maximum success. Women, as a group, are extremely good at developing personal relationships. However, many women, relying on male role models fail to capture the value of relationship building in business. She thinks that relationships are more important than ever with the epidemic need to be understood.

Some of Teri's additional success tips include:

• Let go of the need to always get things right.
• Make mistakes quickly and learn from them. Some of Teri's best ideas have come from messing up. The cost of seeking perfection is extremely high.
• The most successful entrepreneurs spend 95% of their time selling.
• Seize moments to interact, learn and be heard.
• Be sincere.
• To overcome event anxiety, Introverts should arrive early and volunteer to help.
• Be engaging when meeting new people. An engaging talker and engaged listener both have power.
• 98% of communication is nonverbal.
• Dress for who you are.

Rock to the Top with Dayna Steele

I had the opportunity to hear Dayna Steele and read her book, Rock to the Top – What I Learned about Success from the World’s Greatest Rock Stars.

Tips that she shares include:

Passion + Hard Work = Success

Confidence - Look and act confident, the actual confidence will follow (many rock stars only appear confident)

Quality - Your quality will define your long term reputation (a band is a perfect example of teamwork)

Organization - Organization helps you manage the unexpected (guitar strings break and tour buses break down)

Technology - Embrace and learn new technologies (rock shows would be pretty boring without technology)

Branding - Have a one sentence description for what you do (rock bands names say it all)

Networking - Friends and family are your most valuable assets (almost every band started this way)

Knowledge – Know a little bit about everything (you create more fans when you have broad interests)

Health – Take care of yourself first (not everyone can be Keith Richards)

Appreciation – Write thank you notes (no one can do it alone)

Even if we are only subject matter "rock stars" in limited realms, we can all adapt Dayna's tips improve our abilities to Rock to the Top.