When opportunity knocks on your door (or in this case drops into your e-mail inbox), my advice is to always take it. A few weeks ago I had the great opportunity to attend an intensive day of learning and pitch some Baby Be Hip products at the Count Me In/Smart & Sexy Event in NYC, which you may remember me mentioning in one of my previous blog posts, “The Dichotomy of Life – A Week in The Life“. The day was led by Ariela Balk, the founder and CEO of Smart & Sexy, and Nell Merlino, CEO of Count Me In, a business group for women entrepreneurs and both mentors of mine.
If you’ve ever watched the TV show Shark Tank, where entrepreneurs pitch their products to a team of panelists and get feedback on their business ideas, this day could have been considered a “mini” version of Shark Tank. Here’s a quick overview of the day: small business owners like myself were given the opportunity to pitch our products that could be sold in large quantities to big box retailers, while differentiating ourselves from the competition sitting in stores today. So, at Baby Be Hip, we seized this opportunity to brainstorm some new designs and hustled to get them finished!
The team at Baby Be Hip created a line of coordinating ready to sell “essentials” that I took along with me to show our future direction as a company – a patterned bib, two hooded towels, and two burp cloths. I am really proud of the way the girls at Baby Be Hip worked to have some viable products to pitch and even some great packaging solutions to showcase. This event was an amazing opportunity for Baby Be Hip that pushed us to really think about our long-term business goals, how we want to expand our business and grow our product line for the future. If this opportunity had not presented itself (and I wasn’t nudged to go for it), we definitely would not be where we are today. Again, more reason, to say yes and be open to all the opportunities that life offers us personally and professionally (even when it is a little (or a lot) scary).
At the conference, I was able to soak up such valuable information from the panel of business experts who gave excellent feedbackand constructive advice on how to get our “Fast Company” on track for the future! You can read more about this great day in this article that was written up in Fast Company magazine.
Ariela summed it up perfectly, sharing the importance of the 3 H’s in business: Hard work, Honesty, and Humility. I think applying the 3 H’s to life in general is pretty powerful, right?
