With million-dollar goals, women across Southwest Florida are finding a sisterhood of support for their dreams.
“Are you worth it?” asked Sandra Yancey, an author, CEO, entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of eWomenNetwork, with her audience of more than 100 women agreeing that they are.
The eWomenNetwork Southwest Florida, one of 150 eWomen Network chapters across US, Canada, UK, Australia and Mexico, is the fastest-growing. Yancey welcomed the group in an early summer luncheon, about four months after the chapter’s founding.
“Success is nothing but our choices,” Yancey said, sharing her humble start. Her father died when she was 5, raised by a single mother; at 15 starting her first job as a “salad girl” before becoming a cashier at a steak house. Her senior year of high school, she met her husband, Kym, a drummer and knew he was “the one.”
They built their life together, each reaching success: Kym as a music producer and Sandra as she continued her business education, eventually consulting for Coca-Cola, Frito Lay and John Deere, among others.
Now the Yanceys lead a multimillion enterprise with a mission to help 1 million female entrepreneurs each achieve $1 million in annual revenue.
The women attending the May meeting at the Miromar Lakes Beach & Golf Club, represented entrepreneurship of all kinds: spa owners, financial consultants, insurance owners, an intuitive adviser, lawyers, nonprofit leaders, caterers, florists, event planners and health professionals. They explore issues that affect their business, with tips proven by experience and achieving their goals.
“You can have all the talent,” Yancey said. “But if you don’t speak the language of your customer, it doesn’t matter.”
It’s a lesson member Alana Sparrow took to heart when she joined, deciding she had to spread her talent. She operates The Foundry, a brand services and creative company.
She said every business owner has “rooms that they are looking to step into.”
“It offers the leverage to grow my business in terms of the how and why,” Sparow said. “It completely aligned with my core values that I want to grow and be part of … high-level movers already creating high impact in their communities. and out in the world.”
“Your business grows with who you have directly around you,” she said. “Every businessowner, male or female, has rooms that they are looking to step into, and they won’t be able to serve clients if hidden from that next room. “
Lainie Sevante Wulkan, who rapidly rose to executive managing director of the SWFL chapter, is enthusiastic about the response: Sold-out networking luncheons, record-breaking numbers of new members and the need for a new, bigger venue within its first six months.
“I don’t think people can grasp the pace in which you have assembled the most powerful, ambitious, spirited, wonderful businesswomen, and men, in your community,” Yancey wrote to Wulkan.
Wulkan owns The Center for Intuitive Food Therapy, a company focused feeding your body for emotional, mental, physical and spiritual alignment.
“Every time you grow, there’s a new level of challenges,” she said. “The owners are at the levels that there’s always someone who can get you to the next level.”
On Monday, Aug. 10, while attending the annual ICON conference in Texas, Wulkan stood on stage and basked in the success of breaking a 26-year record in the speed of gaining 100 founding members for the chapter.
The group’s next accelerated networking event on Aug. 28, focuses on money solutions tailored to women. On Aug. 21, the group has a Sisterhood & Vitamin Sea party on Fort Myers Beach, with a Nourish Your Soul Holistic Health Day in October.
The chapter has four to five events lined up for each month.
Vistors are welcome to attend their first session as complimentary. For information, contact Wulkan at laniewulkan@ewomennetwork.com
Those who join the group, with fees paid annually or broken into monthly payments, have access to Yancey herself as a consultant along with the conference and monthly activities throughout Lee and Collier counties.
Stacey Henson is the breaking news and visuals editor for The Fort Myers News-Press and Naples Daily News. You may reach her at shenson@gannett.com
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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: SWFL should prepare for an influx of women millionaires
Reporting by Stacey Henson, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Stacey Henson, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News | USA TODAY Network
