Women in Consulting (WIC) Offers New Mentoring Program

WIC Mentoring Program Provides Members with Intensive Workshop to Support Members' Long-Term Business Growth and Strategy

News provided by

Women in Consulting

Mar 23, 2010, 09:30 ET

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Women in Consulting (WIC), a collaborative community of professional consultants and small business owners, today announced the launch of its spring WIC Mentoring Program as part of the organization's commitment to supporting the full lifecycle of consultants. A new member benefit, the program is designed to provide guidance and best business practices to WIC members who are interested in improving their marketing and business management processes and skills.

By leveraging a webinar format, the WIC Mentoring Program—delivered by WIC board member Jan Richards and special initiatives chair Desiree Lehrbaum—is available free of charge to WIC members nationwide from March 24 to April 28, 2010. The Web-based meetings are held weekly for one hour, and then supplemented by thirty-minute one-on-one mentoring calls in the final weeks of the program.

Over the course of six weeks, participants gain business-building insights into five core areas:

Marketing: participants create or clarify their greatest opportunities for current and future business, define best service delivery models, and identify their target customers and the solutions they will provide
Business development: this component covers writing a marketing script, networking role playing, and maintaining marketing momentum
Vision setting: participants learn ways to clarify, strengthen, and work toward the vision of business success they hold
Action planning: this focus area shows participants how to turn their visions into plans, actions, and results
Process streamlining: mentors and participants delve into a root cause analysis for recurring problems in their businesses, and identify opportunities to improve processes, allowing them to produce greater results more easily

"With so many highly accomplished business professionals within our membership, it just makes sense to tap into that business savvy through a mentoring program to our broader membership," said WIC President, Avery Horzewski. "We first introduced the concept of a mentoring program as a pilot late last year and received overwhelmingly positive results. This valuable new program clearly serves an important need, especially for newer consultants, and complements nicely our Leaders Network program that provides a forum for senior consultants."

Mary Edmunds, a consultant specializing in information technology and a WIC member who participated in the pilot program, added, "Not only did I learn specific skills, but I felt more focused on my business and more motivated to actually get past hurdles and get things done."

The new WIC Mentoring Program will be offered twice each year, in Spring and Fall. Fall dates will be determined later this year. For more information on WIC and its programs, please visit www.womeninconsulting.org.

About WIC

Women in Consulting (WIC) is a vibrant, diverse, and powerful community of consultants and small business owners working to build strong businesses. Founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998, WIC provides its 400+ members and affiliates a forum to connect and share with like-minded professionals. Established as a nonprofit, collaborative community to foster successful businesses for its members, WIC sponsors programs and activities to help members network, improve their skills, and thrive even in a tumultuous economic climate, and also provides consulting leadership and support to the community at large.

For more information