Mentors often the spark for reaching new heights

LEADERSHIP IN ACTION: Panelists at the Providence Business News summit on Women Leadership & Entrepreneurship, from left: Jessica Granatiero, proprietor of The Savory Grape Wine Shop and The Savory Affair Event Planning & Design; Ann-Marie Harrington, president of Embolden; and Robyn Smalletz, owner of Gloria Duchin Inc. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SKORSKI
LEADERSHIP IN ACTION: Panelists at the Providence Business News summit on Women Leadership & Entrepreneurship, from left: Jessica Granatiero, proprietor of The Savory Grape Wine Shop and The Savory Affair Event Planning & Design; Ann-Marie Harrington, president of Embolden; and Robyn Smalletz, owner of Gloria Duchin Inc. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SKORSKI

Ann-Marie Harrington, founder and CEO of Embolden, took risks to start her own business 17 years ago, but didn’t ask for help as she grew that company.
“It felt very much like I was on the edge of a cliff,” she recalled of those early days. “I was jumping and was my parachute going to open? It felt risky. I didn’t know any business owners so I decided I’d figure it out and go from there.”
But by 2000-01, at year three, the company needed financial backing, a step Harrington took with a U.S. Small Business Administration loan.
“At year six or seven, we broke even,” after years of profitability, she told the audience of 220 people at Women Leadership and Entrepreneurship, the Providence Business News summit held at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick on Dec. 4. “I was hugely disappointed. [I] had five or six employees, was working 80 hours a week. So I reached out [to mentors] – and within months we were very profitable.”
Just this year, she sold her company to Crown Philanthropic Solutions of Englewood, N.J., but retains her position, among other negotiated outcomes. It’s a result she could not have imagined in those early days, considering her independent streak when she started the online communications and Web-development firm after leaving a career in social work.
Harrington was one of four panelists on the “entrepreneurship” portion of the summit.
Another panelist, Susan Keller, managing director of LGC&D Leveraged Solutions, jumped in to reinforce the importance of Harrington’s decision to reach out for help – not necessarily financial help but any type of business-related support.
“It goes back to asking enough,” Keller said. “Keep asking. You will find people that support you. More often women want to help [other women], but they’re not being asked.”
Kelly Ratcliffe of Seekonk, Mass., lingered after the panel discussion, reviewing her notes. Ratcliffe recently left a position with a Rhode Island radio station to explore work as an independent business consultant. She said afterward that Harrington’s story and message made an impression.
“I took this to heart and reached out to several of the panelists by sending LinkedIn invitations to them before I even left the Crowne Plaza,” Ratcliffe said in an email after the event. “I wanted to be at the top of their email queue when they checked their messages. … Most of them replied immediately and I am in the process of scheduling face-to-face or telephone meetings. “I have that entrepreneurial spirit and work style they were speaking about and I learned a lot today about how to leverage that work style,” Ratcliffe added.
How to leverage that entrepreneurial bent is something Keller outlined in detail.
She advised making sure a new business does not just “solve a problem,” but also is viable and sustainable as a business; gathering a reliable team “as passionate as you are” and being committed. “There’s no work/life balance when you’re starting a company,” she said.
Moderator and PBN Editor Mark S. Murphy highlighted a 2014 report, “American Express OPEN – the State of Women-Owned Businesses,” that found there are 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., but of those, just 4.2 percent have annual revenue of $1 million or more.
“Just because you’re under a million in revenue doesn’t mean you’re not profitable,” Keller said.
If a firm is small and profitable, “own that,” she said, but if the objective is to grow, “look at what is scalable. You have to understand the numbers.”
She also said entrepreneurs should not put all of their own personal assets into the business, but rather seek out investors who will provide the capital and resources to grow.
“Give up some control,” she said. “You need people to help you. Get investors. Would you rather own 10 percent of a company worth $100 million or 100 percent of a company worth $100,000?”
Yet, she added, the single-mindedness needed to launch a startup “does not translate well to a CEO who has to build a team. You need to ask for help, accept advice and surround yourself with people who can help.”
Panelist Robyn Smalletz, president and CEO of Gloria Duchin Inc., a designer and manufacturer of metal ornaments, jewelry and keepsakes, found success on the road, and in fact “has never gotten off it,” she said. In that context, her team doesn’t merely “think outside the box,” she said; “they don’t even know there’s a box.” And in fact, designing packaging that gets prominent shelf placement is just one of the ways her team helps with sales. “You have to maintain a threshold with sales success, or you’re gone,” she said. “We are all made in Rhode Island, all products. It is no easy task having China on our heels every step of the way.”
So the company hired a New York City-based public relations firm in a concerted effort to counter competitors who produce products more cheaply, she said.
“One thing China couldn’t do is design as well as we did,” she said. “China could knock us off but they couldn’t be Gloria Duchin. We customized each assortment by retailer so what was in Wal-Mart wasn’t in Kmart. We had to become a destination and a franchise, [and] expand in niche markets.”
Jessica Granatiero, owner and president of The Savory Grape Wine Shop, specializes in connecting wine lovers with wines. Like other panelists, the path she started out on – public relations in health care, was not the one she stayed on. She left her job in Washington, D.C., to be with her husband in Rhode Island, where he was on sabbatical for his Ph.D., and used the time to consider what her passion might be.
“I realized I loved wine and the culinary industry and there’s opportunity here in Rhode Island,” she told the crowd. “Starbucks changed how to buy coffee in the coffee world. … I wanted to do that in Rhode Island with wine.”
Asked what keeps her awake at night, Granatiero cited three things: figuring out if she is prioritizing properly for her team; change, which makes running a business difficult; and the technology price tag for staying on top of online innovations.
Like Ratcliffe, Donna Sams, a partner at Centered Change in Providence and an audience member, said the message of reaching out for help resonated, as well as committing to follow one’s entrepreneurial passion.
“You have to be OK with the fact [that] it doesn’t fit the stereotypical model of growth,” she said. •

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