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Do You Have The Courage To Follow Your Dreams

Written by: Lorraine Cohen

Article Overview: Learn how Jen Groover, the innovative genius behind "The Butler Bag" turned a million dollar idea into gold.

Do You Have The Courage To Follow Your Dreams

On May 29, I invited Jen Groover, innovative genius behind one of the hottest fashion looks, The Butler Bag, to be a guest on my radio show and share her thoughts and tips on how to turn a million dollar idea into gold

I met Jen Groover about two years ago at an eWomen meeting in Philadelphia. A few months ago, she was the presenter for another eWomen network meeting in King of Prussia talking about her explosive business success and her plans to expand into new markets. As a product development mastermind who assisted in the launch of over fifty companies, she created a concept that she believed would be a smash - The Butler Bag - the world’s first inner-compartmentalized handbag. At the age of 34 and the mother of twins, Jen Groover has quickly become one of the nation’s preeminent business experts.

How’d she do it?

What were the keys to her incredible success?

Here are 7 that I heard her talk about on my show:

1. On the business side, some of the things she did included: hiring a world-class PR firm, doing market research, enlisting the aid of experts in her circle of friends, creating a team of quality people to manufacture and deliver her product.

2. Surrounding herself with positive people who lift her spirits and bring out her best.

3. Being passionate. Passion fueled her actions and gave her courage to persevere. She spoke repeatedly about facing her fears and refusing to allow them to hold her back. She said she was more fearful of having regrets than of taking the next steps forward.

4. Having the courage to follow her dream regardless of what others say. She spoke about meeting with industry experts who said her idea would fail. In a male dominated industry, they told her women wouldn’t buy her idea. Her answer? “Hey, I’m a woman and I would love to have a bag like this!” She refused to abandon her dream. Apparently, with over &1M in sales the first year, a whole lot of women wanted her bag too!

5. Listening and trusting her intuition. I loved hearing her say that because I’m such an advocate of developing intuition and instincts. She said most of the successful people she had met had all said that listening to and following their intuition was part of their success.

6. Leveraging her strength - Innovation. Willing to be creative, resilient and non-traditional, she looks to find different ways to make things happen. Rising to the challenge of being told she can’t do something, she digs in with the attitude of, “oh yeah, watch me.”

7. Going the distance. While many people quit because they feel discouraged, Jen refused to give up because she totally believed in herself and her idea. So often people give their power away to people they believe are the experts and know best. Doing the research is important so that you can weigh all the information when making choices. In my opinion, combining passion, courage, intuition, innovation with strategy is a winning formula.

BTW -Did you that Colonel Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken was turned down about 1000 times from folks who thought his chicken recipe wasn’t a good investment? Boy, I’ll bet they were kicking themselves for a looooooong time, eh?

She had a dream. She wouldn’t take no for an answer and she had the courage and passion to make it happen.

~ What do you dream about?

~ What do you intuitively feel and know?

~ What are you passionate about?

~ What are you ready to say yes to?

~ What will feed and sustain your courage to go the distance and do whatever it takes for what you believe in?

Go…. make some magic

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Article Tags: 1m, business experts, business side, business success, dollar idea, ewomen network, explosive business, handbag, industry experts, intuition, jen groover, king of prussia, launch, market research, mastermind, mother of twins, pr firm, preeminent, regrets, whole lot of women



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