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CONTACT: Susan L. Reid, 540-289-7206, Susan@InnerSamurai.com

Not Just Another New-Age Analogy

Discovering Your Inner Samurai is for women entrepreneurs, but it's also for anyone who wants to understand — or market to — female entrepreneurs. The book will also give you deep insights into who they are and why they start businesses, while uncovering their deepest fears, challenges, passions and joys.

Think that might be helpful if you want to market to this group?

If you're a woman entrepreneur, Dr. Reid will help you with the five biggest questions you're likely asking:

1. Is my idea good enough?
2. How to I obtain the money to start up?
3. Can I run a successful business and still have a life?
4. Do I have the necessary education and experience to do this?
5. What if I fail?

INTRODUCTION

We’re going to talk about business today. We’re going to talk about men’s business and women’s business, and when you compare the two, it turns out that when it comes to starting up businesses, there is a difference.

Joining me on the phone is Dr. Susan Reid. She’s a successful small business start-up coach, consultant, and the award-winning author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Journey to Business Success. Known for taking the fear out of starting up businesses, her brand new book is based on her experience working with hundreds of women starting up businesses.

Thanks for being here, Susan! How are you?

Respecting Your Inner Samurai

"How many times have you known what was right for you yet made another choice - one that was wrong for you? How many times have you gone against your inner knowing? How many times have you heard yourself say, 'I knew I should have gone that way, done that thing, or spoken my truth?' It happens to all of us - women more than men. Why? Because women generally worry more about the opinions of others," so says Reid.

Sound familiar? That's why getting in touch with and trusting your Inner Samurai is so important.

"Our Inner Samurais are the repository of all our life experiences, alchemized from lead into pure gold. A woman's Inner Samurai is her place of absolute knowing and personal power. It is the seat of her inner wisdom and strength. It is also the place of her extraordinary uniqueness. The journey to discovering your Inner Samurai is the connective thread that unites us all."

Insights About Women in General

• Women are looking for a way to better integrate all aspects of their lives into one whole being that reflect who they really are. Dr. Reid calls this a "whole-istic" tendency.

"Women are polymathic by nature. They view their lives form a whole-istic viewpoint. They don't break their lives down into separate pieces. Women create lives, not life parts. Our ability to unite seemingly contrasting parts into a whole is one of our greatest strengths."

• Women have a harder time with resistance when building their business. When things aren't working out as they hoped, they have a different response than men.

"The man most likely would try to figure out what was going on by taking a hard look at his business. The woman would turn inward and look at herself. The man would look at his business with a critical eye toward what is going wrong. The women would turn a critical eye towards herself."

• Women have different priorities in their buying process.

"Women like to buy-in before they buy. Men do, too. Men, however, will more likely buy into value of the product before they buy. Women are more likely to buy into the seller. This is a key difference between marketing to men and marketing to women."

Advice for the Would-be Samurai

• Create only two priorities per month. What are the two things you are most passionate about doing? This will help you prioritize and focus by aligning you with your "Inner Samurai Priority System."
  
  
• Check in with yourself often. If you hear a lot of chatter, explanation and justifications, that's the voice of doubt inside your head. Learn to recognize and ignore it. If you check in and feel a one-word pulse, pay attention! That's your Inner Samurai.
  
  
• Three qualities that will always lead you down the right path:

1. The importance of knowing who you are.
2. The value of accepting yourself as you are.
3. The significance of daring to be who you are.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

1. As a business coach, you must encounter people who assume by starting up a business they are going to make the big bucks. But that’s not the case, is it? There are some pretty sobering statistics out there about how much revenue women-owned business are making, aren’t there? Why aren’t women making the big bucks in business?

2. What are the main three things that women are doing wrong?

3. What four things can they immediately do to help them get in the $50,000 range?

4. There are so many business books out there, what makes your book so different?

5. For those interested in marketing to women, what three insights into women do they need to keep in mind?

6. Every woman starting up a business has to deal with pretty much the same thing. What are the five biggest questions facing women today?

7. Why is it so important for women to trust their intuition?

8. In your book you talk about your Inner Samurai. What’s an Inner Samurai? And how do you know when she’s talking to you?

9. You’ve worked with hundreds of women starting up businesses and talked about what fears they’ve had to overcome and what they discovered about themselves in your book. What would you say are the main qualities that have contributed to the success of your clients?

10. What’s your advice for women in business?

EXTRO

We’ve been talking today with Dr. Susan L. Reid, successful small business start-up coach, consultant, and award-winning author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Journey to Business Success. Susan has helped hundreds of women learn how to think like successful entrepreneurs, how to discern the real talents and skills they have that will make them a winner at being an entrepreneur; and how to build a successful business from the inside out, from a place women intuitively know and understand — their Inner Samurai. To order a copy of her book and download your copy of her free tip sheet, The Who, What, When, Why and How of Your Inner Samurai, visit www.Alkamae.com.

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CONTACT: Susan L. Reid, 540-289-7206, Susan@InnerSamurai.com

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