PP 314: Together, We’re Stronger! with Karen Bate

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and I’m so happy that you’re here to join us today. I’m also thrilled to introduce our guest, Karen Bate. Karen is the co-founder and co-conspirator, I love that Karen, at Awesome Women Entrepreneurs. 

Welcome Karen. I’m so happy to have you.

Karen Bate: Thank you, Kim, I really appreciate you inviting me on your show.

Kim Sutton: Oh, you’re so welcome. I would love it if you would give a backstory to the listeners about how you got to be where you are today, and what the journey looked like up till that?

Karen Bate: Well, I would love to do that. So the Awesome Women Entrepreneurs is my latest endeavor. And I’ve been working on that for the last several years, mostly on a volunteer passion project basis. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs. My parents were both entrepreneurs. I have four brothers, and they are all entrepreneurs. So it was inevitable that when I got out of college, I started working as a journalist. And from there, I moved to DC where I live in the DC area, and I was a press secretary on Capitol Hill. I didn’t really love Capitol Hill, it wasn’t for me so I only stayed there a short time. And then I went into nonprofit public relations, and I worked in nonprofit PR for several different national organizations for many years. And eventually, I chose to stay home with my kids and work part time doing different things like editing, and journalism covering, working for the local newspapers and things like that. And then I got back into nonprofit PR when my youngest was about six or seven. I worked for an affordable housing organization for nine years, and then I decided to hang out my own shingle and start my own PR firm. 

So I started KB Concepts PR in 2007, and provide marketing PR, and social media services for small businesses and nonprofits. And from there, I met so many other amazing women business owners that were doing their own thing and came up with a great idea and started their own businesses. And for a couple of years, I started saying, there should be a group for women like this. We know all these awesome women who all are doing their own businesses, and we should all get together, and support one another, and collaborate, and partner, and hire each other, and refer to each other. And finally, a friend and colleague of mine who also ran her own business said: “You’ve been talking about this for the last two years. Why don’t you just have a meeting and do it?” So I did. I had a meeting at my home, I invited about a dozen people to come, 25 women showed up. I had women knock on my door saying, I don’t even know you, but somebody told me I should be here. And that’s how it all began. And we grew by leaps and bounds. The women all said, this is the greatest idea. I just love being with other women who were in my situation.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love that. And you said you invited a dozen and 25 showed up?

Karen Bate: Yes, I was shocked. And from there within a few months, we had 50 dues paying members of Awesome Women Entrepreneurs, the Arlington, Virginia chapter. Today, we have 150 women members. They all own their own businesses. And we recently started chapters last fall in Fairfax, Virginia, Tyson’s Viana, Virginia, Washington, DC, Bethesda, Maryland. And we’re starting a chapter next month in Prince George’s County, Maryland. And we talked to someone today who’s starting a chapter in LA. And we have another woman starting a chapter in Vero Beach, Florida, and another one in Whitefish, Montana.

Kim Sutton: Oh, wow, look at you grow.

Karen Bate: I know, These women have just contacted us, it’s just something that women just love to be. It’s such a unique idea. There are groups like this everywhere. And I think the reason they’re so popular is because it’s kind of like on a wave along with the MeToo Movement and so many other things. I think women have just decided that nobody is going to do it for them. And when we all get together and support one another, that’s how all our boats are going to rise. And also this kind of false narrative that women don’t support each other, and that they compete with one another and undermine one another, we just don’t find that to be true. We always say, there’s more than enough pie for everybody. And in fact, we just build a bigger pie. And even if you’re in the same business as me, and my group, or In a different group, I’m going to throw business your way. I’m going to go and ask you, if you’ll collaborate with me on a bigger project, I’d like to go after it. You can’t lose when you get together and support other women.

Kim Sutton: Oh, you’re absolutely right. I mean, I look around, and I don’t say this with a big head. But I don’t consider myself to have one competitor. Yes, there are people who do the same stuff as me. I am an Infusionsoft certified partner, when I’m not doing the podcast and building the Positive Productivity brand. And there are thousands of Infusionsoft certified partners worldwide, but I don’t consider any of them competition. I mean, we have Facebook groups for the certified partners, we’re constantly collaborating with each other and helping each other grow. And I also have, I’ve never shared this on the podcast before, listeners, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. But I also started my business, Karen, as a virtual assistant. I was an interior architect for 10 years and lost my job. You do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do. But I was doing what I had to do.

Karen Bate: Absolutely. Life is full of change.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh, life is full of change. Listeners, if this is your first episode, go listen to some of the earliest ones because you will hear about a lot of craziness in the life of me and my husband. And yeah, our sort of children and animals, that’s the best way to put it. I started my business as a virtual assistant. And about a year or two later, I decided to start a Facebook group called Virtual Assistant Job. And today, as of the date of this recording, it’s going across 13,000 members.

Karen Bate: Wow.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, and we’re not competing. I don’t consider myself a virtual assistant anymore, but I’m the organizer of the group. I’m trying to help people grow, and I’m starting a mastermind for VAs.

Karen Bate: All of this is because you get what you give and you’re giving, and look at how you and I met? Didn’t we meet and She Podcasts or did I email it?

Kim Sutton: In She Podcasts, which is another incredible group, because we’re all supporting each other.

Karen Bate: And what I love about the Facebook groups is that they’re different from trying to connect with people on Facebook’s regular pages, where you’re fighting their algorithms. But in the Facebook groups, it’s genuine minded people. And all of us in that group, I just joined it recently, and you are one of the first people I met. I could not be more thrilled that I’m now on your show, you’re gonna be on my show, and we’re supporting each other. It’s so great.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. I completely agree. And I just love to put out, and yes, especially women, but regardless, I love to share the word of good people and the messages of good people, men or women.

Karen Bate: There’s such a value in that. What you’re doing is providing value to people by doing that, and then those people are then drawn to you in other ways. And it’s such a great approach, I think.

Kim Sutton: Thank you and same right back to you. Now, I am a little bit curious about what is different, besides the fact that it’s completely women, and please, ‘m not confrontational at all. Except for my ex husband, sometimes. There’s organizations like DNI and others out there that are about networking, but it’s all about bringing, there’s an expectation that you’re going to be contributing referrals on a regular basis. I’m not a member, never had been a member. I honestly don’t like the practice because I want to give referrals to people who I know like and trust.

Karen Bate: All due respect to a BMI and they’re incredibly successful, and I think the founders wouldn’t mind at all if I have a different opinion because they have done an amazing thing and been so successful. But I’ve gone as a guest several times. I have many friends in DNI. And to me, it’s just so much pressure to go to a meeting every single week while you’re trying to run your own business. And it’s also kind of expensive. And the pressure to refer and prove that, like you said, sent referrals and then you have to follow up. After every meeting, all these people would follow up with me, and want to have coffee with me. And honestly, I just didn’t have time. It was really on. I just thought it was kind of a lot on top of already being a busy entrepreneur.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely.

Karen Bate: So tell you a little bit about why I think all is different.

Kim Sutton: Please.

Karen Bate: I’m a very involved member of the local Chamber of Commerce. I love it. I’m an active member, I chair some of the committee’s, I volunteer, I sponsor their events. Of course, on networking, it’s wonderful and I am a big believer in supporting your community and your local business community. But what we provide is something completely different. Many of the members are also members of the chamber. But what we provide is a small, local, really low key monthly gathering of minded women entrepreneurs where we can get together and share the real story, the truth and the authentic side of the juggle and the struggle of running your own business. So when I go to the Chamber of Commerce, I dress up in my professional outfit, I march in there. And of course, I’m fully confident of my abilities. And we talk and laugh, and it’s very social. But in AWE, the women can actually talk about which I’m sure you could relate to. And a woman can stand up and say, I actually talked to a client on the phone for half an hour today with a sick baby throwing up over my shoulder.

Kim Sutton: I can relate to that.

Karen Bate: And in what other environments are women allowed to be that honest about what their lives are like. It’s almost non-existent in the corporate world for one thing. And so we say that we provide intimate social gatherings where women can, and we always have a good speaker, but only for 15 or 20 minutes because we love getting the great content. But really, what the women want the most is just to be able to relax, chat, connect, laugh form new friendships, and the referrals, and partnerships, and hiring one another is done at a feverish rate. But if you ask our women what they love about it is the social aspects, the relationship aspects. And they will all then report in a survey that their business has gone up by 30%. So we love that about it. But it’s so much for them about being able to walk at the end of the day, grab a glass of wine, have a snack, you don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to prove that you’ve made referrals, there’s no pressure at all. They have enough pressure already in their lives so this is a place where they come for relief from that kind of pressure. And as a great bonus, they do all end up hiring each other, referring to each other, partnering. And as my partner Evelyn says, it’s not a mindless business exchange, business card exchange, or a stuffy networking event. It’s fun. We have a lot of fun.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love that. Yeah, because I don’t feel like I can go to the Chamber or go to a BMI meeting and joke about the fact that I got on a Facebook Live this morning, lifted my arm to make a point and realized that there was a big hole in my sweater.

Karen Bate: Exactly. Exactly. That’s exactly the kind of thing that we would all share. At the end of each meeting, we get together, and we do it at the very end, not at the beginning. We share who we are, what our businesses are, and a little something about, everyone gets one minute, it’s a one minute elevator speech. And people share things like that. We have one member who’s a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, that’s what she does. The other thing about us, it’s not six figure females, or elevate, or one of these very high end networking groups. It’s not high. It’s not trying to be that. We allow women, if they’re just doing a side hustle, or thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, the dues are very reasonable. We just want to support women, and we feel like that’s something that we can do. And it makes our lives richer, and it makes everyone else happy too. It just brings us so much joy.

Kim Sutton: Karen, did you find as you were growing your business and being a mom that you had to stand up, or justify the fact that you are working just as hard and just as capable as any man? And please, no listeners, I might get some backlash on this, but I don’t consider myself a feminist. I know that I can do anything that anybody else can do. Maybe just biologically not some things that men can do. Let’s just leave it at that. But I I feel sometimes that I have to prove myself.

Karen Bate: That’s an interesting question, because I do think that that is true. At one time, a very, very good male friend of mine who has been a great business supporter, hosted events for us. He buys a table for us at the Chamber of Commerce annual meeting.But one time when I had first launched my own business and was really making a go of it, he said to me about three years later, I’m so impressed with you. I really thought you were kind of flaky, and really didn’t really think about you as a successful business person when I first met you. And I thought, well, that’s funny. I was a successful business person, like where does that come from? But I do think you might have hit on something that I can network all day with the man at the Chamber of Commerce. And again, I’m not bashing men either. But they’re still 99% of the time giving their business to the man that they play golf with, that they’ve known for a long time, that they’ve always done business with. And I do think that there’s an extra barrier for women. And that’s why when we support each other, and when women are funding other women and giving them more investment income, which is another area that really needs to grow, we’re all going to benefit from that.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. And that’s something that’s never really been discussed. I mean, I would be curious to know if you faced any backlash about the fact that it’s a woman’s only group. But I’ve never seen any backlash, or maybe I’m just overlooking it, because I tend to overlook and just ignore negativity in general. But I don’t hear or see the negativity about the men’s clubs. And I’m not talking about x rated men’s clubs, but the men’s business clubs. I don’t hear the negative about it.

Karen Bate: I think men would say, oh, well, all the men’s clubs have had to integrate and include women. Well, that may be true in terms of the rules. But the reality is that the CEO suite is still very much a men’s club. This US Senate, despite the fact that there are some women senators, if you look at the numbers, it’s still a men’s club. And women are still fighting to have a voice at the highest levels of every area of business. And I think that one way, and a lot of women have left the corporate world and become entrepreneurs for that reason, I’m certain of it. And if we’re supporting each other as a way to catch up and level the playing field, then I don’t see why anyone should have a problem with it. It’s only fair.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. And I’ve had a couple of, well, all my guests are amazing. You included. Don’t get me wrong when I say this in a previous episode, and I’ll link to it in the show notes. I spoke with Melonie DeRose. She was an attorney for years and years, and she wanted to build a business that would help women get more nutrition. And now, it’s going nationwide. And it’s specifically focusing on a woman’s product. And her story, it just blew me away. Because well, first off, being able to create any food product is somewhere outside of my comprehension. I can barely cook mac and cheese out of a box.

Karen Bate: That’s so funny.

Kim Sutton: Probably one of my daily battles is, what am I going to cook for the kids that isn’t going to burn, and it’s not that I can’t cook people. I love my business so much that I make the mistake of taking my laptop out to the kitchen counter, and I get distracted by whatever I’m working on. And in the meantime, dinner got burned.

Karen Bate: Well, let me offer you a tiny tip. One of my main clients in my PR business is an outdoor fitness and nutritionist business. She also does all these great health challenges and everything. She pretty much brainwashed all of us over the many years that we’ve been with her about healthy eating, eating whole foods, cooking simple healthy whole foods. And her recipes are so simple. And I kind of took it as a challenge to cook and eat healthfully. And several years ago, and I find it now, it’s kind of become for me a very creative outlet. So because I work out of a home office and my husband works to the US government and doesn’t get home till quite late, I enjoy that couple of hours before he walks in the door, I’ll be at my computer, my office is right next to the kitchen, and I kind of think, what do I feel like eating tonight? Oh, what have I got? What could make that so creative? And I googled a couple of recipes, and I really find it relaxing. Now granted, you have five children so you’re in a completely different place. But maybe if you looked at it as a creativity thing, it would be a little bit easier.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, definitely. I know that that would help a lot. And actually, I was using food.com for the longest time. I’d love that site, but they just recently remodeled their site. food.com, change it back please. I like your previous site better.

Karen Bate: Send you [inaudible] food blog. It’s awesome. Delicious and beautiful. We call it edible art. Everything looks beautiful too.

Kim Sutton: Oh, amazing. I’ll have to take pictures to chronicle my food journey. My husband will love it because on the days that he is home, he’s not working for the US government, he’s working retail so he often gets homely as well. But the day that he is home, he knows he cooks because that’s how he gets something edible.

Karen Bate: Right, right. Yeah. And my husband cooked last night because I had an online meeting. So some of the women in our group, like you mentioned, the amazing people you’ve met through doing your podcast, every time I interview one of our members, I’m even more blown away. These women, there’s so many women around this country, as you’ve probably seen too, that have the most amazing stories of challenges they’ve overcome, and barriers they’ve knocked down to be able to be successful in their businesses and it’s so inspiring. I have a member who was sent here from Pakistan in an arranged marriage camp at the age of 20.

Kim Sutton: Wow.

Karen Bate: And she married the man, had two children, he was awful. Just awful. She was treated very traditionally, and he wished she was not happy the whole time. And once her youngest went to college, she divorced him and moved to this area. She had put herself through school, become a physical therapist. She worked at a medical center here as a physical therapist, and she noticed that the way they were treating broken show arms, and arm injuries, and shoulder injuries with slings was, they hadn’t improved that technology in a hundred years. She has invented an arm brace. It’s FDA approved, Made in America, women minority on business, she’s selling it to sports teams, the Pentagon. I mean, I keep telling her, you’re going to be the next Spanx lady because it’s so brilliant. And look at what she overcame to do that. It just blows me away.

Kim Sutton: That’s mind blowing. And yeah, you brought up a good example there too, Spanx. Holy moly.

Karen Bate: Yes. Oh, yeah. And she got turned down and had the door shut in her face many, many times. I love her story.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, me too. Definitely an inspiration.

Karen Bate: So another woman who’s a member, she and her family own a chain of restaurants in the DC area. There are 10 of them, it’s called Lebanese Taverna. Her name is Grace Shea. She and her family escaped from Lebanon during the Civil War in the late 1970’s. The parents brought their five children, you have five children so picture this. They had to escape in the dead of night on a cargo ship to get away, and they came to the US with like $20 in their pocket. The father knew someone who lived here in Arlington, Virginia, they moved in with them, a family of seven. The dad got a job as I think a dishwasher or a busser at the local restaurant, which was called the Greek Taverna. He worked his tail off, saved every penny. They continue to live with that family for a couple of years. Eventually, the guy who on the Greek Taverna said, I’m going to sell out. If you’re interested, because he was such an amazing worker. And of course, he moved up very quickly because he was a very capable, well educated person back in Lebanon. He bought the place from the owner, and they were so broke that they didn’t have enough money to build a completely new sign so they just painted over the word Greek and named it the Lebanese Taverna. 

And Grace, that’s now a multi multi million dollar family business. And she said to me, there is no word Taverna in Lebanon, that’s a Greek word. And their businesses are called the Lebanese Taverna group, and they’re thriving. She grew up under the tables at the restaurant while her brothers worked in the kitchen, and her mom and dad worked. And like I said, they now own 10 businesses and are one of the pillars of the community. She sits on multiple nonprofit boards, they donate millions of dollars to St. Jude’s Medical Center. They’re just an incredible success story.

Kim Sutton: That is so inspiring.

Karen Bate: Oh, she as a girl from a Lebanese family, she said, we don’t go away to college in our culture. She lived at home, worked at the restaurant and paid her way through the local public university too.

Kim Sutton: Wow, wow.

Karen Bate: It’s incredible. Yeah, even though her family was hugely successful at that point.

Kim Sutton: That’s so funny, though, that they just painted over the sign.

Karen Bate: Yes, I love that part of the story.

Kim Sutton: I can’t imagine trying to get my five children out in the dead of night quietly.

Karen Bate: They’re all runningall of the restaurants. She has a sister who’s in charge of marketing, her brother’s the president, she’s the vice president. One of them runs all of the branches up in the DC Maryland area. They have a market now. Huge catering business, they do weddings and all that kind of stuff. It’s a wonderful story.

Kim Sutton: So you have various chapters about being nationwide. Do you do anything to connect them all to each other?

Karen Bate: Well, yes. Our main website, awesomewomen.org is the parent site. And all the chapter sites are listed under there. And each of the chapters has their own website with their own blog, and each of the chapter leaders updates their meetings and happenings on their calendar, but we all share the information as part of the main site. And we also share on social media. So we have public social media pages that we all post on so that all of our chapters are being featured so that women all over the country can see where chapters are forming in their community. And then each chapter also has a private facebook page where the members can communicate privately with one another to ask questions, share information, promote their special sales and happenings in their particular chapter.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love it. Yeah, because I could see a way that even if somebody needs something that isn’t available to members in their local chapter, that being able to connect to somebody in the whole organization would be so beneficial.

Karen Bate: You’re so right about that. And we just had a meeting yesterday with a new website developer, because as we grow, we’ve realized we have to expand our website platform in a way that can really handle many, many, many chapters. And we’re thinking about, what does that mean? So it would be so great if a woman, say in DC, was going to do business in LA, and she’d wanted to tap into that chapter. Maybe go to a meeting or get connected with women in her industry, maybe partner if she’s got business and clients out there, and we feel like there’s so many ways that we can have a lot of cross pollination once we really get the technological end of that squared away.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. I love it. What have been some of the challenges that you faced while you’ve been growing? And how have you overcome them?

Karen Bate: So I just mentioned, the number one challenge is technology. When we realized after Arlington’s chapter grew so quickly, and we had women asking us to start chapters in other communities, my partner Evelyn and I looked at each other and said, okay, we need help with this because we each run small businesses of our own. But we’re talking about something much bigger here. So we met with a partnership coach, first of all, to make sure that we had a healthy partnership that would be able to deal with all of the things that come up with your partner, because we had both been solopreneurs up to that point for many, many years. And then we met with a guy who specializes in scaling businesses. He coached us and helped us think about all of the things you have to do to grow. And I would say the most challenging thing has been the technological end, creating a website platform that will accommodate multiple chapters, multiple membership directories, the ability to join and pay in specific chapters, the ability to sign up for events and manage those events, and keep a list of all of the members, and put up their profiles and share those behind the scenes with each chapter. All of this stuff has been a huge learning curve for us, but also amazing because we’ve learned so so much through this process.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, I can imagine that technology would be a challenge. When I started my business, I didn’t know a thing about email marketing, about websites. Well, I guess the website part is a lie. Actually, Karen, I started my first business in 2005. So websites were completely different back then. I mean, I didn’t know what WordPress was really until 2010, 2020? Yeah, so it was hard coded, and I had to hire people to do that. And I basically broke my site anytime I went in to do an update on my own. So I totally get that.

Karen Bate: Yeah. We’ve run into some technical snafu for the last several months as we launched our new chapters, which we kind of expected. But when you’re trying to build an organization where each running our own other businesses, time becomes a factor. So we’ve, of course, hired people to help us. But that also requires capital. So our second challenge is, of course, finding out the best way to have a steady stream of revenue coming in as we grow. And we’ve kind of figured that out, we’ve determined to keep the cost low for membership. We have a wonderful accountability group programs similar to probably your mastermind process where small groups of women get together with a facilitator and set goals, and take their businesses to the next level. And that’s been super popular in our Arlington chapter, we’re now offering that to our new chapters. We’re really at the beginning stages of this in terms of being a business. And we’re excited to see where it goes.

Kim Sutton: Oh, that’s so exciting. What are the tools that help you in your business each and every day?

Karen Bate: Oh, boy. Well for our podcasting, we knew that we did not have the bandwidth because we do a local radio program on a public radio show, and then we repurpose those as podcasts. And since we were also building the new chapters and the website, and dealing with all, we just knew we didn’t have the bandwidth for that. So we hired an expert, her name is Gillian Pensavalle, she lives in New York City. She has her own podcast called The Hamilcast, which is a very successful podcast about the play Hamilton. And she now has a new podcast about mystery series, I think. She’s just a very fun, interesting person. She’s an actress and an entrepreneur, and she manages our podcast, and has really taught us a lot about the importance of technology. I love how you made sure I had a microphone for this interview, and the way you have this setup here on Zencastr is really interesting. I had never seen this before. So we use Libsyn, and then we share it elsewhere. 

She edits them all for us. But we do understand the crucial importance of equipment for that aspect so that the podcast and the radio shows are good quality. I already mentioned the website, it’s so important that we have smooth, that our chapters are able to do everything smoothly. As our coach told us, you need to be able to create an awe in a box that has everything someone needs to start a chapter and grow a chapter in any city or town around the US. And that’s what we’re working so hard on. And then we, of course, use Canva for our social media. We use Canva. We love all of the scheduling apps, Buffer, Hootsuite, Calendly for scheduling our schedules. We use Zoom calls for all of our meetings with all of our chapter leaders. I’m trying to think about what else we have. We pay a lot of subscriptions with Dropbox. We couldn’t live without Dropbox where we share all of our chapters.

Kim Sutton: Me either. I love it. And if by chance she edits this episode, I have a great VA, Leng, who is in Canva, creating the graphics and she does the editing. And it’s just amazing. That’s the one thing that I took way too much time to figure out was that it didn’t need to be a one woman show.

Karen Bate: Right. And having participated in several of our accountability groups, I’m going to say what I think are the two biggest challenges for women growing a business who are not yet at the say $100,000 mark, that seems to be like a real tipping point. And when women are getting close to that or there, you simply can’t grow any more without adding staff support. And you also have to make products and packages of your services that can be bringing more passive income, and that you can provide to a larger group of people instead of just one on one all the time. Because we all only have so many hours in a week, and we can’t spend it all in the weeds. So we always find that those two biggest struggles are making the leap to hiring and delegating, and then creating packages of your products and services so that you can sell more, but do less work.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh, I wish I had heard that three years ago. It’s really just been the last year and a half to two years that I’ve been very focused on making passive products. I mean, they still take a little bit of work. Well, they take more than a little bit of work to create upfront. But the ones that I am offering take a little bit of work to deliver. Listeners, if you’re curious, I have actually created Infusionsoft campaigns that somebody can purchase. They’re already created. It just takes a minute from my team to drop them into some of these accounts, but they’re already made. But it’s been amazing because I can still help people, which is what my focus is, empowering entrepreneurs to grow without getting overwhelmed. But I don’t need to be spending 10 to 20 hours, the Infusionsoft accounts do it anymore because it’s already created. And I couldn’t believe that it took me, wait, when did I get certified? Four years ago? It took me three and a half years to think of that idea, and I started kicking myself in the butt afterwards.

Karen Bate: Yeah, and this is why I always tell women, if you can join a mastermind group or an accountability group where you are brainstorming with other women, those kinds of solutions because we all struggle with many of the same things. Together with women who are in the same boat, dealing with the same issues, it’s such a great way to give you those ideas instead of having to figure it all out for yourself. No one should be doing this alone. That’s what the top of our website says, running a business is hard work and you don’t have to do it alone.

Kim Sutton: And nor should you. Absolutely. Amen to that. I love it. Now I am curious, just because I’m actually curious, but if somebody were interested in starting a chapter in their local area, what would be the requirements for them?

Karen Bate: I’m so glad you asked that. We have a page on our website called Startup Chapter. And we have everything you need in our trusty Dropbox folders. We have a chapter leader’s guide. We set up your sub website. We provide you with all the tools and instructions you need. We hold Zoom calls regularly so that we can walk you through everything and have you think through everything. We love to come to the first meeting of every new chapter, talk to people and explain to them why we do what we do, and why we think it’s a wonderful thing. So if you or someone you know started a chapter, we’d love to come out and be at your first meeting. So we provide everything you need, it really is a super smooth and easy setup. And there’s not much to it, you hold a monthly meeting. 

So the requirements to be a chapter leader are to hold a meeting every month, but only nine a year. We don’t hold them in July or August, because everyone’s on vacation. Your kids are out of school. And we don’t hold them in December, because everybody has busy holiday seasons, and that’s really time for family and all the other events you have to go to. Nobody needs another event on their calendar in December. So it’s nine months a year, we’ve raised kids, we’ve juggled, we made these rules because we know what it’s like. That’s the thing. And the meetings are usually on a weeknight, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 6:00 to 8:00 PM. But after a couple of years, we did a survey and found out that a lot of moms have new babies, for example, or multiple kids. Found that their workdays, the kids are covered, but at least in the evening, it was really hard to get out. 

So now the Arlington chapter offers three lunch meetings a year where we hold them at a local restaurant. We always, like I said, have a speaker and there’s a lot of fun networking time. And so the chapter leaders are responsible for creating a mailing list and promoting it on their social media to get a group of women together tapping into their networks, having the meetings once a month, and then just spreading the word. It grows by word of mouth and social media so fast. All of our chapters are growing very quickly, the new chapters, and then they start a private Facebook page for their members so they can all chat and connect with one another offline after meetings and stuff like that. And after the meetings, we always ask them to take photos at the meetings, or have a friend, or volunteer, or an assistant, or some a member take photos, post them the next day on social media and talk about your meeting, and then put them up on your website because they’re all kind of designed like a little blog. They’re welcome to offer their members the accountability group program. You can do it yourself, and our facilitator will teach you how she’s created it to be super simple to follow. Because the facilitator simply sits there and makes sure that everyone’s participating, but it’s the women in the group that do all the work. That’s the magic of an accountability group. We have groups that started three years ago, and they still meet every month, and meet for lunch once a month and hold each other accountable two and a half years after finishing our program.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love that.

Karen Bate: And they love it because it makes them keep accountable. It’s like anything else. And they’ve all become really close friends, colleagues, partners, all kinds of stuff like that.

Kim Sutton: I need to share, Karen that I actually started a mastermind/accountability group with five podcast guests last November, and we meet once a week actually, on Tuesday evenings because a couple of them are still working full time jobs. And we have seen so much progress just in the last three months. I mean, one of them is giving a TED talk next week. That wasn’t even on his calendar when we started this.

Karen Bate: That’s so great, Kim.

Kim Sutton: So listeners, male or female, if you don’t have it in your area yet, and maybe it’s just not your time to start one, I would just even look to see how you can start an accountability group with people that you know. Because trust me, there are people who are looking for you to start that group because they want the accountability, and the mastermind, and the collaboration just like you do, so don’t wait. I mean, if you just put a quick post up on your Facebook wall on your profile today, and I’m sure you would have interested people right away.

Karen Bate: Yeah, that’s true. Now, I will say that, and that’s amazing. I do think that the power of a group to inspire one another and push each other forward is unlimited. They can probably Google and find out how to run one. How do you do it? What’s the format? And then you decide together with your group how often to meet, how long the meetings are? Are they in person or virtual? What are the ground rules? All that kind of stuff. And it really is just an amazing experience.

Kim Sutton: I have to second that, please. I know you weren’t saying go do it, but I’m saying go do it. Look up how to run a group because I’ve been in good groups, I’ve been in bad groups. And you don’t want to be part of a bad group because it really is just wasting your time.

Karen Bate: Right. We read a lot about it beforehand, and we’ve felt that a group of about four to six is the perfect size, that it’s really hard to be as effective if you get much bigger than that.

Kim Sutton: I completely agree. Yeah, absolutely. No, I do have one last question. And again, I’m never trying to be confrontational on the podcast, but I do want to know your thoughts on MLM and network marketing, and how they fit into all.

Karen Bate: That is such a great question.

Kim Sutton: And I’m sure you understand how I’m trying not to, I don’t want to become confrontational about it. But I do personally see a difference between the type of businesses that you and I have, like with your PR business, and network marketing, or an MLM.

Karen Bate: I’m going to share a story with you, you have such great timing. A woman in our group brought another friend to the meeting recently last week of the Arlington chapter of VA, and she worked with an MLM group. And we had decided in agreement with all of our new chapter leaders, they felt very strongly that they had had some bad experiences, and they didn’t really think it fit our model. Our model is for founders of businesses, just like you were saying, the difference between you and me and somebody who works for an MLN is that we founded our businesses. And we are networking because we’re looking to other people to find not just business and clients, but we’re maybe looking to hire someone to do a website, or a graphic designer, or you hire a professional organizer, or whatever it is, or people do to provide services, or you provide services to them. I think people who work for MLNs, all of that is already taken care of. The parent company provides them with everything, and they are only looking for customers, or team members, as they call them, who are then going to sign up and be part of their group. Not one woman, I don’t think, in my organization is looking to become a team member of an MLn. They’re looking to connect with other women who are in the same boat that they are in, having built something from scratch, and I know that the women that are working in multi level marketing don’t get that and they don’t agree about it. 

And we’ve had a lot of discussions with people about it. I got a Facebook note just this week saying, I canceled your meeting, you told me what your policy is. I really don’t understand why there’s this stigma, and I just feel like it’s a mistake. It brings me such joy. And all that is true. I’m glad that she’s getting joy out of it, but she didn’t find that company. And I do just feel like it’s a different thing, and it makes me feel sad that the women feel left out. But on the other hand, we have made the decision to not include them in at all.

Kim Sutton: I have to applaud. There are a couple of women in my town who are driving the pink Mary Kay Cadillacs or whatever car they are, and I know that they took tremendous work to get there, and effort, and blood sweat, and tears, and a lot of makeup. So I have [inaudible]. Absolutely. And I know there’s other organizations out there that offer the same type of perks when you hit those levels. But I do agree with you. I know that I could very well get backlash on it, but you are totally right. I’ve had to figure it out by myself or hire the people to help me figure it out. And you’re so right. I mean, thank you. Thank you for addressing that.

Karen Bate: Well, it’s an ongoing debate. But for us right now, that’s what our decision is. I was talking about it with a couple of women in another meeting earlier, and we all agreed, it is different. I have friends who are doing it, and they’re really enjoying it. It’s not something that I would enjoy doing. I mean, that doesn’t mean anything though, everybody’s different. But I do think that what the women are coming to our group for is not that. Other thing I wanted to mention is in AWE, only five women per industry can join any tap chapter, but they can join other chapters. So we don’t want a meeting where out of 30 women, there are eight realtors, for example, or eight marketing people. So limiting it to five each, you end up with maybe two or three at the most in any given industry at a meeting, so it makes the networking potential for everyone there much, much higher.

Kim Sutton: Oh, that’s great. I love that. That’s outstanding too, especially how you are allowing the cross chapter collaboration as well. It’s not to say that they can’t if they’re not one of those first five, it’s not to say that they can’t still serve.

Karen Bate: Absolutely. And they can also speak at other chapter meetings. We don’t allow members in our own chapter to be the speaker because, of course, the other people in that industry might feel that they were getting an advantage. But they’re more than welcome to speak at all the other chapters, and we are happy to promote them for that.

Kim Sutton: Awesome. Karen, this has been a tremendous chat. I’ve loved every second of it, and I really do appreciate you giving your insight and not mining my some off questions.

Karen Bate: I love your questions, I think they’re really important to ask those questions because people are thinking about them, right? So it’s really important to ask the tough questions. And I also can’t wait to have you on my show so that I can ask you all questions about yourself, because I’m dying to hear more about your work too, Kim.

Kim Sutton: Oh, yeah, that is gonna be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to come on.

Karen Bate: And we will, of course, promote that on all of our social media ahead of time when it’s closer to the date.

Kim Sutton: Amazing. I am looking forward to it. Listeners, by the way, I have forgotten to mention that you will be able to find all the links which Karen will share in just a moment. I’ve forgotten to ask that first,  at thekimsutton.com/pp314. By the way, I was recording an episode yesterday, and I just had to throw this out there because I know some listeners are probably wondering what is PP, that is just so inappropriate, it’s Positive Productivity. I’m sure some of you have figured that out by now. But with all my little kids, like the first thing that comes to my kid’s mind is, Mom, you’re saying a cuss word. Because in my house, that’s what it is. I know that is out of topic of this chat, but that’s just what happens sometimes. When I was saying it, it was like, pp314. Like, why don’t you name it something else? I’m like, because that’s what the name of my podcast is, Positive Productivity. No kidding, I saw trouble spelling it. Yes. Where can listeners find you? And I’d love it if you would share URLs for both, and if you don’t mind, for your own personal site so that if they want to get in touch with you about your PR, that they can.

Karen Bate: Oh, thank you, Kim. No, I totally appreciate that. So for AWE, our website is awesomewomen.org. And on social media, we’re on Awesome Women Entrepreneurs on Facebook and LinkedIn. And on Twitter and Instagram, we’re at BeAwesomeWomen. So my regular company’s name is KB Concepts P.R, and that’s at kbconcepts.com. And I’m under Karen Bate on social media as well as KB Concepts P.R, and you can find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook as well.

Kim Sutton: Fabulous. And again, listeners, I just had to put it out there, you can find the other links at thekimsutton.com/pp314. I don’t think it’s going to be possible for me to say the URL in any future episode without getting a chuckle in my head.

Karen Bate: I love it. Well, thank you again for having me, Kim. I really enjoyed this.

Kim Sutton: Oh, you’re so welcome. Do you have a last piece of parting advice or a golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?

Karen Bate: Well, I think that what our main message to women is, together, we’re stronger. Together, we all succeed more. And just to keep being awesome.