The Everywoman Conference was a very inspiring day for me. I was speaking on a panel, “Build Your Online Presence for Business Success” with two entrepreneurs I really admire, Paula Wynne of Remote Employment, Carol Savage of MyDish. Judith Lewis of i-Level was the panel moderator.
Paula Wynne talked about her business Remote Employment, which helps remote workers find jobs, how it is important for businesses to ‘punch above their weight’ (making sure your website is professional and attractive, for example) and making sure your search engine optimisation works right from the start. She also talked about how important it is to work hard at PR.
Carol Savage gave a fantastic account of the tough time she had facing the Dragon’s Den with her MyDish concept (helping people share recipes with each other) but showed how it was worth it in terms of publicity and increased visits to her site. I am planning to get on it straight away and share some of our family recipes: I’m lucky enough to have some of my mother’s already printed in her Pauper’s Cookbook but as most of my family are good cooks there are lots of family standbys I’d like to share with others.
Judith gave a very useful analysis of how important it is to build a good online presence on the web, pointing out that if you don’t put yourself on the web, someone else will, and talked of the importance of monitoring what other people say about you online. My talk was about how I have built up a presence online using Twitter, BTTradespace and Facebook and I mentioned some of the tools I have used to make it easier and quicker.
We also listened to some great talks, including Allegra McEvedy’s sometimes hilarious story of her life and adventures as a chef. Her main points were that you should build a great team, that hard times define you, that respect is important (never treat people badly) and that you should enjoy what you do. There were also some fascinating panel discussions and workshops, I didn’t have time to attend everything but all-in-all it was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking day. I will be back next year!