 Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. My name is Asha Bay, and I'm joining you from Washington, D.C. and the Office of Alumni Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Our office offers grant competitions and other opportunities and resources for exchange program alumni. Thank you for tuning in and welcome to our third episode of Mentor Talks. Mentor Talks is a series designed to benefit exchange program alumni and those interested in improving themselves and their communities. This is your opportunity to talk directly with leaders and mentors who excel in their fields. Like our guest today, Catherine Rose and Fran Pestori, two entrepreneurs who participated in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in the Netherlands in June. Before we get into our conversation with our guests, we want to hear from you, our online viewers. Our poll question today is, what kind of business are you trying to start up? Press your vote in the poll box on your screen and we'll show you the results a little later in the program. Now let's meet our guests. Catherine is the founding CEO of Wiser, an award-winning global knowledge marketplace that helps women business owners overcome unique challenges. Fran is the founder and CEO of the Women's Business Development Council, a leading organization focusing on the independence of women through entrepreneurship. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Now that you have a brief intro to Catherine and Fran, what would you like to ask them about? Their advice for entrepreneurs seeking to start new businesses? Their tips for networking? Or maybe how they approach their roles as mentors? This time is for you. Catherine and Fran, welcome again to you both and thank you for joining us. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Catherine, before we get to questions from our online audience, can you tell us more about what led you to create Wiser? Yes, so thank you so much again for being here. It's so exciting. And please put your questions out there. We'd love to hear from you. And Fran and I have a lot of great things that we'd love to share with you guys. Well, Wiser was really born about 10 years ago. I was working in New York City on Wall Street. And I was pregnant with my first child. And all of a sudden, I was just about ready to give birth. And all of a sudden, everything kind of upended. The mortgage market melted down. The financial crisis hit. And as I said, I was about to give birth to my child. And I lost my job. And at the same time, my mom had a brain aneurysm that left her paraplegic. So here I was, no job, new baby, and trying to take care of my mom. And I knew I had to reinvent myself. I didn't want my son growing up thinking that I just came up. And so a lot of women, we start businesses by circumstance. And so I started off. And I didn't know what I was going to do. So I started calling all my old brokers, asking them, what can I do? How can I help you with their business? And they all said they wanted me to help their websites rank on Google and search engines. And I said, sure, how hard could that be, right? I had no idea how hard it was. And I didn't know that it was even called search engine optimization. I was so new at that. And everybody at the time wanted me to take their course or read their book. And I didn't have time to do that. So I went and found someone. And I paid for his time. And in two weeks, I got my first paying client. He taught me about search engine optimization. And then in social media, I did the same thing. I ended up putting together a really successful consulting practice. I spoke all over the world and wrote nine books on social selling and relationship selling. And then like a lot of women, I was solopreneur. And I was time to scale. And I didn't know how. So I pivoted a little bit. And I went back into corporate. And I ran sales for a software company. And I learned all about the software development process and how to be successful in software. And when they sold the company, I thought, this is really my chance to go back and really help women succeed and go farther faster. Because we needed to figure out what those challenges they were having to do that. That's great. Good story. Thank you, Catherine. Fran, in addition to being a pioneer in entrepreneurship in the US, can you tell us more about your experience in Rwanda and how that was a pivotal moment in your life? Absolutely. You know, necessity is the mother of invention, right? And so I have a story that is not dissimilar from Catherine's in a little earlier than your experience. But in 1997, I found myself a single unemployed mom with two girls and wanting to be a role model to my two young daughters and not go back to Wall Street. I started trying to figure out what I wanted to do and where my passion was. And had always been a feminist. I always cared about women's economic equity and always wanted to have a passion around helping other women achieve their success and become economically independent. And as I was trying to figure out what my next iteration was, I learned that the state of Connecticut was the only state in the country that didn't have a resource for women entrepreneurs. And I was so fortunate because that is how so many entrepreneurs are born. It's not always something, especially if you're a solo entrepreneur, it's not always something that you set out to do. It's sometimes the stars just align. And I was very fortunate. And so the Women's Business Center program is a program of the United States Small Business Administration. And so I was able to launch that business 23 years ago with the help of a lot of great mentors and sponsors throughout my state. While I was building WBDC, the Women's Business Development Council, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of phenomenal women. And one of the organizations that I met was connected to the State Department and invited me to go to Rwanda to help a group of young women who were all genocide survivors open up the first ice cream parlor. And it was an incredible experience. And here these women were, many of them were infants or very small children who watched their parents become slaughtered during the bloodshed of 1992. And for those of you that aren't familiar with that, in 100 days, a million Rwandans were slaughtered. And it was a really horrible experience. If there's any silver lining to be had around that, the aftermath of the genocide resulted in the fact that 70% of the population were females. And until the genocide and until the new government, women's responsibilities and roles in the country were basically relegated to agriculture. And so now the government was faced with rebuilding this incredible small, tiny little nation and educating and training women to become active participants in the economy. And so one of the ways they did that was by forming cooperatives. And so my colleagues from the New York City area decided that they wanted to be a part of this. And by opening up an ice cream parlor, they created an ice cream cooperative where these young genocide survivors, I would say age 18 to 45, had the first predictable source of income in their lives and were able to be the owners of this delicious, fun and exciting business. So my role was taking the work of that we do in Connecticut, which is business planning, marketing, accessing capital, accessing markets and financial education and bringing that to Rwanda. And it was probably the most life-changing experience, aside from giving birth and marrying my husband, who I love. It was probably right up there with the top three phenomenal experiences in my life. While I was there, while I was so moved by these women, because a lot of the women that we work with in Connecticut and around the United States, as you must see, Catherine, we all have obstacles to overcome, just like you and I just described. Nothing quite compares to what these women in Rwanda saw. And while I've done a lot of this work in third world countries, nothing compares with what these women endured. What I realized when I came home, that was my first trip abroad to do this work, was that as women, we share common goals, regardless of socioeconomic and cultural background. And those common goals are based around resiliency and the need and desire to help other people and become investors in our community. So for me, bringing back that message and also the training that we did in Rwanda, teaching these young women the importance of mentorship and the transformative power that we had on them and that they will have on generations to come of other young women in Rwanda is really a life-changing and inspiring experience. And that's what we do, trying to help other women. Exactly. We're trying to enable and empower the women around us, ahead of us, more and more behind us. Exactly. I have a seven-year-old daughter who we were talking about before the break. And I really, she just loves listening to all these great stories and hopefully we're paving a different path. Exactly. And I think what's really important is that what we hear right now, there's so much out there about biotech firms and these big companies and where Katharine and I, I believe are more focused, are smaller companies, women-led businesses that share again the common goals of wanting to care for themselves and their families, make an impact in their community and help kind of bring others up the ladder with them. Exactly. When I started WISER we looked at, and again being United States, but also we're now a global platform, we looked at the challenges globally. And they are, women have the same challenges. Here in the United States 90% of women-owned businesses are solopreneurs and 88% are under 100,000 in revenue. And we thought, how can we get them to the next level? And I'm so excited to take some questions too, but really when we look at this, we knew that the one challenge was access to qualified advisors. And it's not necessarily long-term coaching or mentoring that solves those challenges. I just need to help, I just need to get unstuck. Right, exactly. Just to move on. Exactly. And then the second is this idea of confidence that a woman if it says I'm a job application, you need to have 10 years experience. If she has nine years, 11 months and 29 days, she won't apply. So trying to provide them with education and resources. And the third that's really unique, and again globally is a challenge, is this thing called, we call cognitive or mental load. It's all this stuff that hangs out in our heads that we know, I know I need my daughter had picture day, I know to make sure that she had this done and all the forms done and all these things that kind of takes us a little bit off the game, but it's part of building those communities and ecosystems and things like that. And then the last is funding. And Fran and I have a lot of conversations about this and not every business a woman starts is necessarily investable, right? Nor do they actually need capital. Yes, sometimes. Because the majority of these businesses are service-based businesses. But sometimes you do need a little bit. So Wise Her is set up as a social enterprise and we give back a portion of our proceeds every year in the form of grants. Because sometimes you hear all these stories about the million dollars and 10 million and VC and everything. And it's not necessarily about the money, but sometimes you just need a little bit to cover the legal expenses or getting an accountant or something to start the business off. So that's what we do. So Fran and I are very dedicated to doing that. That's great. And Rwanda was fascinating that of the 19 young women who sat in our training, only one of them had a bank account. So what we're, and by the way, this is not a challenge or a barrier that is relegated to a third world country. Exactly. People think it is, but it's not. We see it right here in the United States. So one of the things we did in Rwanda was we brought in local bankers and for a nominal negligible amount of money, I think it was $5 or $10, I was able to open up bank accounts for all of these women so that they were able to put their earnings in this bank account rather than go home because they were very concerned that their husbands would take the money and go buy a TV or buy beer or whatever. And again, same challenge as we have. So we talk about at WVDC, what we talk about is helping women build the competencies and the confidence to empower themselves. Of course. We're super excited to take some questions. Great. Yeah, because we have limited time. So let's get to those questions. Great. What was your favorite moment from the Global Entrepreneurship Summit? Well, besides meeting Fran, I said to you earlier, it was just an amazing experience because every person there was there to help all of us. We all came in and thinking, how am I going to use this? And everybody there was there to help all the State Department folks. Everybody, some people had been there before. But really, everybody was there. The investors, the whole community was there really, really to help. And I think that I honestly can't mention. I got to meet Secretary Pompeo. So that was the highlight of that. But I think just the connections that I made personally, I would say with a highlight. For me, too, I think I was so happy to be there and participate in a global experience, met people from all over the world that I'm in touch with. In fact, in Connecticut, we have a program where we're trying to bring in tech entrepreneurs from around the globe to set up shop in Connecticut. So I was able to connect three of the people that I met, one from France, one from Australia, and one from South Africa, to my colleagues in Connecticut. And they are competing for $1.5 million to establish a presence in the state of Connecticut. So I'm really happy because that's part of the reason that I was there. And to be able to make those connections for other entrepreneurs was really a highlight for me. Yes, that's excellent. OK, so I'm going to move on to the next question. You each have had personal challenges to overcome. And you've experienced some setbacks along the way. Can you tell us more about a setback you experienced and how you overcame it? Well, I think the biggest setback for me was Catherine used the expression pivoting earlier. For me, it was stepping completely out of my comfort zone and coming from a very secure environment where I didn't have to think about money. And I was very secure to all of a sudden being the sole support for my children. So here's what I did. And it's very, very much relevant to our conversation topic, which is mentor talks. It was finding those mentors. And Catherine also, before I used the term coaches, and we talked about mentors, sponsors. And understanding that you need multiple mentors for different things, I think the biggest gift that I had was this tribe, a very successful girlfriend and members of my community who rallied together to say, here's how we can help you. And then I'm going to introduce you to this person who can really help you do x, y, and z. And so my advice to those viewers is to ask and you shall receive. Don't be afraid to ask. We're all vulnerable. We're all vulnerable at different points in our lives. And other people, men and women, want to be able to help. Most people want the opportunity to help and support, especially when they could give so easily of their expertise. Like as Catherine described earlier, sometimes it's just a simple question. So that's how I overcame my obstacles by creating my own tribe of men and women who had skills that I didn't have and I wasn't afraid to admit that I didn't have those skills. I need you because my weakness is my financial acumen or I don't have experience in x, y, and z and asking people to support and help. Very similar in the sense that for me, I didn't have a tribe at that time. I was living in the Boston area and I'd moved to Connecticut right outside New York in the New York area. I had just started the job probably about two years prior and I had a lot of network in the banking world, but not in the entrepreneurial world. Nobody that I knew had started a business. So I think for me, in terms of overcoming it, I think as women, when we have these challenges, people say to me all the time, how do you do it all? I don't. I just keep going. There's the next thing and I just keep going. And I think sometimes if you sit with it too long, that's when you can get really bogged down in the challenges of the day. And sometimes they weigh really heavily. And what I did was, and one of the best gifts for me was to deform these relationships, but I used social media at the time and I built a tribe. And I have over 10,000 LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers and all these things. And not because I really wanted this big massive list, but it was more of I knew that I needed to be out there and social at the time was the best way for me to surround myself with people that could help. But like Fran says, I do this talk called The Power of Ask. Don't be afraid to ask. People do want to help. Yes, that is wise advice. OK, so the next question, what are some ways that you deal with situations when your sales pitch has been rejected? I've been in sales for all my career. And my view, no, just means not right now. So always try to think about it that way. But even a no is a good feedback, right? Why is it a no? But I think for me with the sales pitch, it's been rejected. We have this saying in our family, no one's going to die. And unless you're doing heart surgery or someone can actually die, it's really a situation more like you can just take it as it comes. You know what I mean? Don't really get, again, don't get bogged down in the no. Sometimes as women, especially, we take it very personally. And yes, sometimes it hurts. But then you have to put it in its box, in its perspective. The next one will be yes. And I just want to go to this question we have from Hope, an alum from Algeria who's moving to the US. She's wondering how she can network to start her project. How does she find sponsors to start a business? You want to take that one? Sure. So what I would do for anyone coming or anyone in Hope's position is I would find out in the community who are those leaders in the community, in her small community. So if she were moving to where I'm from, which is Stanford Connecticut, she'd probably seek somebody like me out. And then she would ask me, Hope, you would ask, who else can you introduce me to? Who do you think would be interested in my business and what I'm doing? And what I always tell people is go to your local coffee shop. Hopefully it's woman-owned and buy a coffee cart and start connecting with everybody that you can. And if I'm giving you the names of people and I'm making introductions for you, then I expect you to follow up with me and tell me, thank you so much. I met with Mary and she helped me do X, Y, and Z. The other thing that I would say Hope is that when you are meeting with people, you always want to ask them about whether it's their business or their career, what was their trajectory? What got them to where they are? You want to be interested in other people and inquire about their path to success and how they got to where they are and what can you do for them? And this is how you build your Rolodex you mentioned earlier, right? This is how you build your contacts. You keep track of those contacts. You have a customer relationship. Start your own little mini customer relationship database. Stay in touch with those people. Listen for things that they are interested in that you can use to stay in touch with them. So for example, for me, when I was starting WBDC 22, 23 years ago, there was no social media. I was out at events constantly. I would find out who was going to those events before I showed up. I would do whatever research I can. Again, this is like early, early internet. So wherever you go, I would also suggest that you find, whatever town you're going to hope, find the local women's business center there. Yes, every state, every region has one. Yeah, find the local women's business center on the SBA website, and that can be a great starting point. And hope, I love your name, by the way, it's such a great time to be starting a business because we have these global connections and the world is open to us through social media and LinkedIn and things like that. So just go on what Fran said, look there too. Start with LinkedIn, and you can really find something. Sure, and if you don't find it on the SBA website, you can contact me, and I will send it to you. OK, all right, so our next question is, what are some first steps in communicating your business idea? Are there certain standard documents to use? Well, everybody needs a pitch. Yeah, everybody needs a pitch. Everybody needs a pitch. Start with the story, start with the why. You know, there's that great TED Talk, Simon Sinek did. If you haven't seen it, you should go to the, on YouTube, it's on the TED website, and really just thinking out, figuring out what it is. Why am I starting this business? And then that would be the easiest way to start communicating, I think, what your business is and what it does for folks. And what's the need? What need are you trying to fill? And when you ask yourself that question, because you're going to be asked that question, you know, and you do your market research. So are there documents? Eventually you're going, I need a business plan of some kind. But initially you need to ask yourself some of those questions. Okay, and now we have a funding question. Adoga asks, how do you raise funds for your business without reaching out for loans? Well, that's a great question, Adoga. And I think that so many, depending on where you are in the world, there is such a huge push and resources now available for women entrepreneurs, many more than when we started ours. And so go to your local economic development offices. There's a lot of grants that are available on there. I know Tori Birch Foundation, and if you just, if you Google some of that, you'll be able to find grants globally. Cartier Women's Business Initiative, there's a number of them out there that you can find. But I think sometimes you don't even, you don't need a lot of money to get started, but it is important that you have a little bit and to cover the foundations of your business. So Adoga, it really all depends on the kind of business that you're starting and how much money you need. We just had somebody, one of our clients who has a food truck that wanted to have a brick and mortar location raise a half million dollars from friends and family in probably about six months. There are also some small community banks that will do loans, but you're asking out aside from loans. And then there are a lot of go fund me opportunities online. So I again would always go to the local women's business center. We in Connecticut give out small grants. We call them equity match grants. So we're looking, and there are a lot of opportunities like that. They're very tiny. We're talking about, you know, four figures. But we do that because we wanna see what have you invested in your business? So some examples of businesses that we funded is, you know, a local spa who needed a certain software to track her clients. We funded a gym that's focused on middle aged women to help them buy equipment for their business. But we're looking for a match. We wanna see the proof that you have invested in your business. But again, your local women's business center is going to be a good first stop. And then maybe ultimately you'll get to wiser. Yeah, exactly. So we have another question, this one from Muhammad who asks, do you have any advice about working with youth and their family members who might oppose their pursuits? Was getting support a challenge? This can be a challenge. And it's not just the youth too. It's, you know, sometimes if you're starting out and, you know, sometimes your harshest critics comes from the closest people to you. And I think for me, it's just remembering that, you know, those people have your best interest at heart. But sometimes you just have to, you just have to go and you just have to go for it. If you follow what Fran said, you know, find the why, what the, you know, are people going to be doing, interested in your product? Are they going to pay for it? If you have your business plan, get all those ducks in a row and sometimes you'll still get pushback. But then you have to decide that you're gonna step out of your comfort zone and you're just gonna push forward. Okay, great. So it looks like we're just about out of time. Before we go, let's look at our viewers' responses to our poll question. What kind of business are you trying to start up? Our top result was skills development. Katherine and Fran, what would be your number one tip for those trying to start up a business focusing on skills development? I wanna be clear that I understand skill development. Or if we're talking about helping, providing professional services to help people build their skills in a particular area. Right, like such as coding, things like that. Yeah. Well, building a business starts again, starts with the why, starts with the who cares. So how are we gonna, how am I gonna sell this? And I think that from a service-based business, I would say the number one thing is trust. People have to get to know you. And as much as I talk about being on my online presence, I always take it offline. The FaceTime. I always give the FaceTime because nothing, nothing replaces that. So if you're going to start a skills-based business, people do business with people they trust, people they like, people they know. So if you're, that's what I would say, lay that foundation of I am the go-to person in with X skills and you should work with me. Build your brand. You know, develop that. I mean, that's the most important thing because no matter what, and I think we both believe in this in a very big way, nothing replaces FaceToFaceTime. Nothing. And so when you're building your brand, you're always gonna be able to fall back on that. Building your brand takes a long time, especially if you're in a service-based business because the competition is out there. So the other thing I'll say is, make sure you know your competition and find their weakness and seize it. Okay, well thank you Fran and Catherine for being with us today and giving us your FaceTime. And a big thanks to you, our online viewers for participating today. Be sure to keep your calendar open for our next mentor talks when we chat with Rhonda Binda, a former telecom and technology lawyer who worked for the White House and is now running a unique startup business. We'll talk to Rhonda live on October 1st. Don't miss out. Interested in learning about more opportunities for exchange alumni? Visit our website at alumni.state.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for watching and see you all October 1st for our next mentor talks.