5 minute read
Kara Duffy: Powerful Ladies
Now is the perfect time to consider what you want to do with the rest of your life!! In all seriousness – is it time for you to carve a new creative path? Is there something you have been holding yourself back from accomplishing? In this issue, we speak to Kara Duffy about how to transform your career and your life. Kara is the founder of Powerful Ladies, creator, and host of the Powerful Ladies Podcast, and is a business coach and consultant. Before becoming a coach, she spent 20 years working in the footwear & apparel industry, helping large global brands (Quicksilver, Reebok, and Puma, to name a few) and local start-ups servicing the sport, fashion, action. After decades of being an entrepreneur, and repeatedly helping those with great ideas who didn’t know where to start or who saw business as complicated or overwhelming, she realized. She’s committed to showing people that any business is possible, that marketing itself can be smooth, and how to apply best practices from the largest and most successful companies to all enterprises.
What inspired you to become a coach?
I am out to prove that it doesn’t matter where you start from to be able to launch, have, or grow the business that’s waiting inside of you. My mission is to remove “I can’t” from people’s vocabulary and show how there is always away, and there are still more possibilities. My solutions aren’t “woo-woo,” but based upon practical tools, sharing my business perspective and revealing what is possible and available that most people don’t see.
I grew up moving across the US with my family as we followed my dad’s corporate transfers. I consider Boston where I’m from and have also lived in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, Ohio, growing up. As an adult, I moved from Boston to California to Boston to Nurnberg, Germany, to California. A lot of people have a fear of moving or change in general. Growing up this way has given me many advantages. Moving is no big deal. Meeting new people, introducing myself, making new friends, is no big deal. Figuring out how you fit in a new place and enjoying its discovery is no big deal. One of my biggest strengths in life and for my clients is being able to create something from nothing. I’m sure the continued newness and recreating of what was home was a foundational element to that skill set.
How are you pivoting your business due to the pandemic?
As a result of Covid-19, like everyone, I’ve moved all events online. In addition, I have added new events and courses to provide the tools and resources people need now. Including, a Crisis Budgeting Class, Free Business Q&A session every Monday, and additional classes to support both existing business owners and those in need of new income streams. Powerful Ladies also moved the launch of its Thrive Collective, an online community, from June 1st to April 1st - a huge undertaking and so essential to provide additional connection, tools, and support to the global Powerful Ladies community. I’ve partnered my coaching and consulting business with Powerful Ladies to offer more free or affordable programs.
How are you advising your clients’ businesses during this time?
The conversation with all Business Coaching & Consulting clients has been about my 4 P’s of Pandemic: Pause, Prioritize, Prune, and Pivot. Businesses with a coach have an 80% increase in existing business the following year, and that is even more true with the changes in our world today. I’ve been working with clients to create new income streams, pivot existing products or services, expand to capitalize on digital marketing efforts, double down on what makes them unique, and to pull forward plans that customers of different businesses need now. The clients I work with are committed to succeeding financially and making a positive impact for their employees, customers and community. When your business is one with a foundation of service and a time of great service arises, it’s a natural, authentic and appreciated to lean in on bringing even more service and impact to your clients and customers.
Business is still happening. People do have money to spend. In some areas, there is more demand. Other areas the market has shifted or the amount of money to spend has shrunk, and that’s where we all get to be creative. We all need to determine how we want to be of service and how we can help our clients. If you’re committed to making a difference for your dream clients, a real transformation, you should always be striving to meet your clients where they are. Now we get to rise to that occasion to a higher degree than ever. Now we as entrepreneurs get to demonstrate our commitment to impacting the lives of our clients, customers, and the world. And there are so many ways to make that impact.
1. Reach out and say hello.
2. Ask how you can most help.
3. Share how you’re business is being impacted, too.
4. Offer new products or services.
5. Be flexible with your pricing if it applies.
6. Find the new people who are now looking for you and what you offer.
This is where we get to lean in on being creative, resourceful, and most importantly, demonstrate our humanity.”
I’m committed to my clients creating their dream life. Reach Kara Duffy here: Consulting & Coaching; Founder, Powerful Ladies; hello@thepowerfulladies.com
Anika Jackson is a mother, community volunteer, philanthropist, and brand strategist. There has never been a time when she didn’t enjoy connecting, collaborating, and creating meaningful relationships between businesses and communities, and strategically helping brands apply those concepts to meet their goals. A woman gifted with the ability to draw excitement to an event, brand, or concept, creating winning solutions and developing strategic press and marketing initiatives that lift up key partnerships and collaborations is the fuel that excites her.
