Jennifer Green wants to help YOU stand out. And she's got the talent and the know how to help you do just that!
Jennifer is a full service creative providing expertise in branding and web design from concept to production and is committed to helping socially responsible entrepreneurs, professionals and leaders, and progressive feminist political candidates stand out—online and in print.
Debbie White, Founder of the Seattle boutique advertising agency, Frank + Candor, knows a thing or two about staying agile in a changing workforce.
Debbie has long since recognized the effectiveness and the efficiency of hiring the right person for the right job at the exact right time and she teams up with a collection of on-demand creative professionals to ensure her project outcomes are always unique, targeted, and top notch. Debbie's work-style is smart and savvy giving her the flexibility to team up to scale up as she accesses the best of the best to fill each project niche as she encounters them. Debbie and Frank + Candor represent this new nimble future of work that THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ supports, encourages and knows that women can lead.
Debbie was one of the first JILLS Members and proudly touts the power of women to be an economic force in the future of work. Her Seattle based, ad agency, Frank + Candor, works with companies across the nation and is a female-centric marketing agency focused on "Peak Women", 45-70, who she says "represent the most powerful, yet misunderstood, buying segment of any demographic."
In an excerpt from the Frank + Candor blog, Debbie shares why she knows 'small is the new big'.
"In advertising, I think the future is going to be small. As in small advertising agencies, boutique firms, and virtual creative hubs. As I sit here in our downtown Seattle WeWork office looking out at a slew of plugged-in workers that must be doing very substantial and exciting things, I think to myself, “I’m a part of this,” the small business, start-up co-working thing.
We’re all here, all of us independent business, co-working, kombucha-on-tap-drinking go-getters!
I see how well it works because this lean model is so adaptable to an ever-changing, project-based advertising business. From our standpoint, we have a small senior staff and our go-to specialists (that’d be super awesome freelancers in real-speak) that we partner with for particular projects. Those wonderful people are an integral part of our team, yet they are virtual—which makes everyone happy. And when we meet in Seattle, they get to have kombucha, too. Expanding and contracting with the needs of our ever-evolving clients, we work from home, co-sharing workspaces, or any wired place on earth. In fact, our most extensive account is 2,340 miles away.
This small but ever-connected ecosystem of seasoned creative thinkers is the new big advertising agency thing. And we’ll drink our rooibos kombucha to that!"
Paloma Kennedy knows the value of interpersonal relationships and has built her law practice around relationships, transparency, and connections. Armed with not only her J.D., Paloma's undergraduate work focused on psychology and communications where she learned the power of truly listening and building connections with people.
Quick 5 minute reads to keep you up to date on trends, tools, and tips for the solo professional.
We love giving props to women entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs. It is the future of work and the realm of all independents. In today's JILLS 5 post, we recommend taking a few minutes out of your day to read about Kimberly Lexlow and Jess Legge, Co-founders of Sifted, an email sorting service, as they open up about the benefits of investing in a coworking space and the need for more women to consider doing the same.
4 Reasons Why More Women Should Join a Co-Working Space | Entrepreneur |
May 11, 2017
“We realized we were bolstering one another, and learning from one another,” said Neil, a freelance curriculum developer. “And slowly, we wanted to expand that to other people.”
Neil and Boswell, a brand strategist who spent 12 years working for American Girl, decided to form a company they say harnesses that energy: Jills of All Trades, an online network where women working as freelancers can connect and mutually reinforce each others’ careers.
The idea is that “solo-preneurs” of any stripe — from web developers to fashion designers — can enjoy a “watercooler effect,” and stay on top of trends and best practices for freelancers. It’s also a platform where the “Jills,” as Neil and Boswell call them, can find work. The hope is that they’ll recommend each other and promote each other in their own networks and perhaps collaborate on projects.
The network is also a place where potential customers can look for a freelancer who meets their needs. In that regard, there is already some steep competition: The website Upwork is a well-established global platform for freelance gigs. But Neil and Boswell assert that Jills of All Trades puts the customer and the professional on a more even footing.
On Upwork, clients name the terms of what they’re looking for, and freelancers compete for jobs by outbidding one another. On Jills of All Trades, bidding is not part of the equation. The focus is on clients doing a bit more legwork to find the right person for the job.
People can search through the gallery of Jills, which currently features 37 entries, to find a freelancer.
“The talent shouldn’t be in the dark. The talent should be forward. They need to be in the spotlight,” said Boswell.
While the platform is designed with women in mind, men — “Jacks” — can also join.
Boswell and Neil say they want to keep expanding the network, and eventually bring on other people to serve as “gatekeepers” for Jills in hubs across the U.S. They’re also trying to build out features, like an option for paying clients through the website, and forums where members can chat.
The two pitched their company at the most recent 1 Million Cups presentation, a weekly event sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation that highlights young businesses in Madison.
ORIGNAL ARTICLE LINKS:
http://host.madison.com/ct/business/technology/startup-looks-to-put-women-solo-preneurs-in-spotlight/article_dea1a6fc-2d04-5e34-bd46-8d8910df2824.html
http://wisconsintechnologycouncil.com/2017/captimes-startup-looks-to-put-women-solo-preneurs-in-spotlight/
"We're so lucky to be part of such a wonderful and welcoming community of entrepreneurs in Madison", explains Boswell who promoted the importance and the power of women entrepreneurs helping women entrepreneurs as the basis for THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™. "If you remember nothing else about us, remember this, we're women entrepreneurs helping women entrepreneurs", she said.
I Million Cups is a weekly coffee meet-up at 9:00 am across the nation sponsored by the Kaufman Foundation as a way to to educate, engage, and connect entrepreneurs locally and nationally. I Million Cups Madison organizers, Rachel Neill and Drew Coursin invited THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ to present on Wednesday May 10th to a busy entrepreneurial crowd at the Madison Public Library, including The Capital Times reporter, Erik Lorenzsonn, who put THE JILLS face forward in his article, Startup looks to put women 'solo-preneurs' in spotlight.
CAPTIMES ARTICLE BY ERIK LORENZSONN.
"We were thrilled to have the opportunity to share our story," says Neil, "and to be able to reach out to the entrepreneurial community to help fuel our momentum and support our JILLS MEMBERS."
A special shout-out to BRAVA Magazine for featuring THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™.
By Kate Bast | Photographed by Kaia Calhoun, Styled by Julie Mierkiewicz | Brava Magazine
Megan Boswell and Corinne Neil first met at a neighborhood meetup, and that was all it took for an idea to spark between them. The inspired duo launched their business and online platform called The Jills of All Trades to connect independent female professionals with each other and businesses on project-based work. They hope it will become a national, even international one-stop shop—“a powerhouse of online talent,” says Neil (right).
It fills a need, says Boswell (left), in this age of the shared economy, where companies are trying to figure out how to embrace workers who are less tethered to their jobs thanks to technology and a desire for greater flexibility, balance and different ways of collaborating and sharing resources.
The pair has worked in both the corporate and freelance worlds. Of the latter, they deeply know: “It’s hard,” says Neil, “to do the work while also hunting for the next job and trying to self-promote when you’re only one person.” The Jills’ platform removes that barrier, getting female contractors, freelancers and consultants out of those limited work silos and into a visible network with large-scale promotion power.
The Jills’ network is membership based. Boswell and Neil help each member curate her professional bragging rights, with bios, statements and headshots. Member Jills connect with each other at events and meetups, and have the benefits of a built-in peer network, for community, but also for potential collaboration on each other’s projects. Interested businesses connect directly with each Jill—there is no middle man, or woman—and Boswell and Neil also offer a fee-based connection curation service for clients.
The Jills’ broad talent pool includes creative types like designers and photographers, along with business strategists, attorneys, engineers and even postdoctoral scientists looking to market their expertise to the corporate world.
original article link: http://bravamagazine.com/giving-solo-professionals-presence/
Today for #InternationalWomensDay and everyday we honor & recognize ALL women who have shaped our world for the better. Find your voice. Use it for good. And help lift & encourage others to do the same. Now go change the world. We believe in you.👊🏼
We're on a mission.
So last summer we headed to CHICAGO.
And what a day we had!
There's not much to not love about the Windy City, but on the particular day the sun was shining, Lake Michigan was glistening, and we had a schedule chalked full of dates, and coffees and 'lunch and learns' with some really incredible women.
First stop, Chicago's 1871, a hub of digital innovation and a buzzing hive of activity and energy, to connect with Nicole Yeary, founder of Ms. Tech, and join her community of tech savvy gals and wicked smart female founders to meet and greet and talk social media marketing tips at the Ms.Tech Mastermind event.
Later we would connect with Lakshmi Shenoy, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at 1871 and Co-facilitator of WiSTEM, a sixteen week curriculum-based program that connect women to capital, community, and technology based resources. We chatted about women in S.T.E.M. and about our powerhouse of postdoctoral JILLS, like Sarah Caudill, Clarissa Muere, Sushma Kommineni, who are leading and shaping a path for women in STEM both in academia and in industry. We were amazed and delighted by the work being done at WiSTEM and left energized to have connected with other women creating paths for a women's workforce revolution.
And we couldn't possible stop in Chicago without taking the time to meet up with our Chicago JILLS. Lisa Ghisolf fought the traffic to enjoy an afternoon tea with us at The Mart, where she shared her experiences being a veteran solopreneur for her company, Gizmo Creative Factory. We laughed until we cried with her talented storytelling that had us living and loving the travel blogs she writes.
WeWork Grant Park was the perfect ending to our day, where we relaxed, toured the amazing facility, had our first introduction to the WeWork community, and were completely smitten with the people, the architecture and the impeccable design of this gorgeous work space.
'On Wisconsin' as they say and we headed home to Madison.
But after our whirlwind day, we definitely left a part of our hearts in Chicago.
Ms. Tech founder, Nicole Yeary
So here's the thing. Sometimes you just have to put yourself out there.
Even when you're not totally ready. Even when you don't have everything figured out. Even when you don't have a business name, or your perfectly branded logo, or the right software package, or any money.
Yep, it's true and it can feel like you're about to drink a cold cup of sick. Your hands might get sweaty, your tummy is probably churning, you're likely riddled with fear and anxiety. But you need to do it. You really do. Because even if you stumble all over your words, and your audience looks confused, or even worse patronizing, you did something really, really important.
You took the risk to fail. To mess up. To get it all wrong.
You, despite all the potential for complete disaster, did it anyway. And that is the first, critical step. In fact, it might be the only step, and it's one that you have to keep doing over and over again.
So go ahead and put yourself out there. You'll never get your business name right or your logo perfected or know what software you really need or get any money if you don't take that deep breath and put yourself out there. You're going to need to talk to your customers and tell them what you're doing. You’re going to need to talk to your customers to understand what they need. You're going to need to try out language on real people before you can really figure out what works and what doesn't. You're going to need to get feedback, and lots of of it, if you're going to carve your own niche. And you can't do any of that in isolation.
Working independently shouldn’t mean working alone.
Find your people. Know your tribe. Build your community. Collaborate. Connect.
Work solo, not siloed.
Co-Founders of the recent startup, THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™, Megan and Corinne have been building portfolio careers over the past 25 years that have taught them to work smarter, live fuller, and carve their own niche. Here they share some of their learning.
Find a community. Working solo is great, but not if you’re siloed. The promotional power of a community will put a spotlight on you more than you can independently. So find your people, know your tribe, meetup, chat, join a board, volunteer, play a sport, coach, take a class. It’s imperative for your personal and professional growth that you find a place of belonging - somewhere you can make a contribution. It is foundational, and can be the basis of establishing meaningful work.
Foster collaboration, not competition. There’s no corporate ladder to climb and no glass ceilings to shatter in your portfolio career so embrace this new work paradigm and shift the metaphor. There’s only space for one person at a time on that ladder anyway! Instead start lifting and linking others, and let your work life have the breadth and exploration of rock climbing, not ladder climbing. Mountains offer more; there’s more to see, more to explore, more to discover. So help someone find a new path, reach out your hand in someone’s aid, support a colleague from the bottom as you watch their ascent. Why? Because it feels great, and it’s more likely that they’ll do the same for you. You know what they say about that rising tide, all ships float. Plus those blue skies while you’re climbing together are just so much better than any ceiling, glass, or otherwise.
Connect by knot-working versus networking. Think about it. The best work comes when we don’t even feel like we’re working. The idea of knot-working is to truly build authentic relationships in authentic ways, well beyond passing out business cards at happy hours and adding people to LinkedIn. So make friends. Share your work. Tell your family about what you do. Display it. Write about it. Let others engage in it and engage with you. The power of personal connections is what builds sustainable professional relationships, so give knot-working a try. It might be exactly what you want from your portfolio career.
Establish an accountability partner. For real. Having weekly check-ins, on the phone or in-person, can totally change the time you spend working. Set goals together. Create timelines. Make lists. Then support each other. Offer feedback. Learn to receive suggestions and critiques. And be generous to each other.
Set boundaries. You’re juggling this portfolio of work presumably so that you are empowered to determine how you work, when you work, and what projects you want to take on. Portfolio careers are all about reconfiguring the work + life equation over and over to create the best you. In order to do this, take the time, every year, every month, or whenever it makes sense to write down your personal policies for work and your rules for engagement. Seriously, write them down. Post them predominantly. Return to them often. Share them with your accountability partner. Then stick to them.
The portfolio career truly offers the promise of establishing the right work life balance for you. But be patient, good work takes time to build.
Megan and I did not necessarily set out to be entrepreneurs.
Megan build an amazing career in fashion and design, climbed the corporate ladder to executive positions in prestigious organizations, shaped brands that changed an industry, traveled the world, was granted patents, was featured on Oprah, made movies, and even dreamed up experiential cruise ship voyages. She earned a top salary, and was beloved by her staff and colleagues. Her nurturing and generous spirit extended through her leadership where she taught many, especially women, to fully embrace the ampersand and be powerful & feminine, direct & kind, humorous & focused, collaborative & independent.
As life changed, as it’s so apt to do, Megan did too.
Children grew, relocations happened, new interests developed. There was downsizing. And Megan found herself contemplative and eager for a brand new dress to wear, one that could bring her closer to a work-life balance so she could soak up more time with her husband, 3 teenaged children, and her extended family living in different states. She eventually styled her own independent and successful brand strategy and design consultancy business, and after nearly 30 years of leading multimillion dollar projects and being 'traditionally' employed, Megan was now using her talents and skills so she could work when she wanted, how she wanted, and on projects that mattered to her. A flexible schedule with a variety of projects and hand-picked clients suited her as an encore career.
My career story was much more of an 'adapt and go' kind of set-up from the beginning. I loved to teach, I was good at it, and I used it to satisfy my taste for travel, spending the early part of my career in both the Middle East and Europe. When I moved to the US from Canada, I found myself in Austin, TX where I decided to redirect my talents for teaching and writing to an educational publishing company instead of the classroom, and exchange my evenings of grading papers for night classes to earn my massage therapy license - something I’d wanted to do since high school.
But before long, I too, decided to step out of corporate and embark on what I know see as my portfolio career working as an independent: writing, teaching, and educating. Because besides being wearied by the corporate ladder that only one person can climb at a time, there also came pregnancies that were tougher than imagined, relocations, and superhero mom and dad manoeuvres to ensure one of us was always home with our boys - a portfolio career made sense to me. There just wasn’t a name for it then.
Together, Megan and I have a very unique 360 degree view of work. We know both sides of being an independent and working in corporate. We see the possibilities, opportunities, and struggles of both. We know stay-at-home parenting, we know being working mothers. We’ve lived re-entry and are always re-entering so we can routinely adjust the work + life equation. Megan shattered glass ceilings. I stayed off the ladder. We know the merits and downfalls of each.
And we know the world of work is changing. And so do you. You’ve seen the statistics; read the headlines. 70% of us will work freelance in the next 10 years. Lifetime employment is over. The gig economy is the new economy. It’s a Freelance Nation. Our work will come from our alliances, not recruiters, and not employers.
So no, we didn’t necessarily set out to be entrepreneurs.
But after nearly 30 combined years of trying to steady the scales of work-life balance, we’re compelled to be.
We’re turning directly to the problems felt by both the independents and the hiring clients in this gig economy and creating a solution. And it is our combined 360 degree view, and our lifetime of experiences that make us uniquely qualified to take on the challenge. We’ve lived the problems, see a path to a solution, and know it’s time for us to step up and lead a workforce revolution.
Join us on our journey.
Because we know in our core that when women come together, link arms, and lift each other up we have the power to change everything.
Before we had a name, before we had a clear business model, before we had a logo, or a website, or a customer, we had an idea that we believed really mattered - women entrepreneurs needed to be lifted and linked to create a powerhouse workforce for the future.
We'd spent a summer out 'talking' to people; solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, business leaders and business owners to help us shape and validate some of our thinking. And in all of our chatting on phones and meeting in coffee shops, we learned about an opportunity - The Doyenne Group's 5X5X5 event - a pitch contest for women at the annual Madison ForwardFest. The Doyenne Group offered pre-pitch training to 5 women entrepreneurs and a chance to win a $5000 grant based on a 5 minute pitch at a breakfast event.
We scrambled to get our application in on a tight deadline, and did cartwheels (well... metaphoric cartwheels, we're too old for any of that carry-on) when we learned we were one of the five finalists. Our adventure had begun, and we bravely stepped in, created our first pitch, stood in front of a crowd and gave our first public presentation of THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™.
And no, we didn't win the money. But we did win.
JILLS cofounders pitch finalists in Madison Forward Fest.
We learned invaluable information about giving a pitch. We meet incredible women entrepreneurs who were further along than us, who shared their stories, offered us encouragement, and gave us the gift of feedback. We got mentioned in local media. We were welcomed by a community of supporters and champions of women's entrepreneurship. And we met JILLS. Lots of them.
We learned that 5 minutes is a really short amount of time, but it's enough to put yourself out there and start to build the relationships you need to power a workforce revolution.
As founders of THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™, we are the lucky ones out and about talking up and spotlighting the myriad talents of the amazing women who join the THE JILLS GALLERY. We get to boast on these solopreneurs who coach, strategize, design, present, educate, build, create, and collaborate with incredible grace, integrity, and expertise.
They make our jobs so easy.
On this fair summer evening, we enjoyed an evening of Jazz on the rooftop of the Madison Baird office as the guests of Meg Prestigiacomo. We connected with women of all ages and backgrounds - business leaders, political advocates, corporate CEOs, small business owners, educators, and philosophers. They were thrilled about THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™, and were eager to spread the word. They all recognized the power of linking up to lift each other higher.
To all of the JILLS and all the future JILLS, thank you for letting us shine a spotlight on your awesomeness.
In so many ways, THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ was co-founded in celebration of women and their constant deftness at reconfiguring the work-life equation. We’re women, and our personal and professional lives have morphed so many times, and in so many directions, as our families changed, our children grew, our mother’s needed us, and as we needed our mothers. And in all the inventing and reinventing, and keeping to our core and leaning in, we have loved all its iterations. And it was from these experiences that we knew we wanted to create a platform where all women were empowered to work when they wanted, how they wanted, on their terms, and on projects that made sense to them. We didn’t necessarily set out to be entrepreneurs, but we found ourselves compelled to do what seemed right for many women.
Having established portfolio careers ourselves to try and find the balance and flexibility we sought in our own lives, we decided to turn directly into the problems we encountered in our pursuit. Using our experiences both in corporate and as independent consultants, we noticed two clear and synergists problems:
Companies had a growing need to hire highly specialized consultants, freelancers and independent contractors in an on-demand, a la carte capacity, and;
Many talented and highly qualified women who craved and created flexible work experiences were fragmented and ‘off radar’ to these hiring clients.
Both the independents and the companies alike, lacked efficient and effective ways to seek and find each other. For us, it was time to bridge the gap between companies and consultants and aggregate a community of independents into a one-stop shop for diverse on-demand talent. The emerging gig economy fueled our fire, as did the importantly growing voices of women demanding pay equity, leadership experiences, and work flexibility.
And THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ was born - a community-driven platform to support and promote women entrepreneurs, consultants, freelancers, scientists, attorneys, designers and engineers and to connect businesses to a highly qualified on-demand talent pool.
Much like the way Etsy carved a community from the big-box shop of Ebay, so too does THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ carve a niche for women in the landscape of the freelance hiring marketplace, without job-bidding, or brokering or taking fees for work engagements. Instead THE JILLS are incentivized to join to gain community, collaborative partnerships, and large-scale marketing exposure.
As we embark on our entrepreneurial journey, we recognized the opportunity this new economy is creating, and we’re audacious enough to believe that women can lead it.
Join our journey and let’s get started. If we want to lead in this new working space, we must first link arms, lift each other up, and walk the path together so we can get out in front.
