IT’S HANDLED!
Learning to manage your life as a business woman can get hectic. When being pulled in multiple directions in your life, you can often find yourself not being effective in any one area. Vicki Irvin teaches women how to not only start but also manage their businesses. Being a CEO is not a game, but she can help you sort through all the madness and come out on top.
What change of events promoted you to make the transition from corporate America into your own business and how did you find the courage to make the transition?
I was working as a Human Resource Professional and I really didn’t feel like I was adding anything of value to the world. Part of my job was to figure out ways to cut company costs, which typically meant eliminating retirement benefits or laying people off. I was making a long commute to work with being stuck in traffic daily to go do this type of work and I started feeling very unfulfilled and discontented like a lot of people do. I knew there was something else out there for me but I had no clue what that was. I started talking to different people, different mentors and other people that my husband used as his mentors in his entrepreneurship.
Someone suggested that I get started in real estate investing, which was my first entrepreneurial endeavor. I created a program and started teaching other people how to do it after I learned how to do it for myself. That of course is the very short version. There was a lot of fear associated with that. The fear of “is this entrepreneurial endeavor even going to work? Is it going to dry up? Is it just going to be for a year and then I am not going to have any money?” So I had the same fear that a lot of people do when you have to step out there and make a transition especially when you are taught to go to school, go to college, get a job and stay there forever. So I finally got to a point where I pushed through the fear, left that corporate job and became a fulltime entrepreneur. So that’s how I actually got started. I kind of fell into it, took the suggestions of very successful people, stepped out there and made it happen. I’ve been an entrepreneur every since.
You said you didn’t feel like you were making a difference in the world. Do you think that your corporate job prepared you for some things you would experience as an entrepreneur? Were there any transferrable skills?
Honestly, I would probably say that the greatest skill that I obtained is with being in Human Resources; you have to deal with all types of people, be able to deal with people in a professional way, deal with people from different backgrounds and understand people at the core of who they are. We’re all very different. So being a people-person and knowing how to adapt myself and respect other people and their views – it’s definitely a skillset that I took with me into that whole world of my entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, I get clients from all walks of life, all different backgrounds and situations in addition to the business world that have a variety of mindset issues they need to push through to be able to tackle their business and make it successful. So I would say that the skillset of being able to deal with the vast array of people and personalities definitely was transferrable.
As far as the success of what I have achieved with my own business as an entrepreneur, not a whole lot of that came from anything that I learned in college or corporate America. As an entrepreneur, I am very clear that the success for any small business owner is going to be based on your ability to market and attract more clients. I spent a lot of years going to events and seminars as well as received coaching from other people on how to attract clients and how to get people to want to work with you by connecting with people and looking at psychological factors. So I would definitely say that besides learning how to deal with different personalities, most of what I have learned in the entrepreneurial business comes from studying and really, really diving in on tips to study how to effectively market businesses.
Do you feel that obstacles in the corporate world are similar to those you can come across in running your own business and developing your brand or are they completely different playing fields specifically for women?
I think that there are some similarities but they’re also very different. I think being able to walk in to what somebody else has already set up for you, which is corporate America, the struggles and responsibilities are not the same as those you have as an entrepreneur. So in the workplace, yes, you hit glass ceilings. Yes, you have to deal with some discrimination against women. But I have a saying that goes for both the corporate and the entrepreneurial side which is, “You have to train people how to treat you.” I firmly believe that being a confident woman with a lot of self-esteem, when you exude that people know that you’re pretty much not the one to tango with, there’s easier prey. I hate to say it like that but there are a lot of people who prey on people they feel are weaker and they can get away with things. I was raised by my father to have a lot of confidence. So I have that attitude where I am very nice to you but its very, very clear that you are not going to get away with too much with me. So people don’t really challenge me.
I always urge the women that I work with as entrepreneurs that you have to put out what you want to get from other people and you have to train these people how to treat you. So if you put out meekness, weakness and vulnerability, people will try you. Part of what I teach is for people to stand up, look people in the eye, make no apologies for the great work that they do and force people to respect them. So the struggle as far as that is definitely the same in corporate and the entrepreneurial world.
I totally agree. We talk a lot about bullying amongst kids but there is a lot of bullying amongst adults as well.
Absolutely.
How did you know you were a superwoman? What false beliefs or thoughts about yourself did you have to let go of to embrace this lifestyle that you now teach and live?
The whole superwoman thing actually came about differently. As I was out there teaching and getting on stages, a lot of women started to take notice and say, “Hey, I know you have a husband and you have a son. I see you out here on stage doing these seminars. How do you balance it all? You must be a superwoman.” From this point, lots of women began to refer to me as a superwoman. So I said, wow, there is something to this because for me I recognize all women as being superwomen. I think we all wear so many different hats. We have so many different competing demands and we’re struggling constantly to make it all work. Without feeling guilty, we are running around truly like a superwoman. So I wanted to create this whole movement called Superwoman Lifestyle because I know a lot of my colleagues and other people say, “Oh, give up this whole superwoman mentality. It’s never going to work. You can’t have it all.” I just don’t believe that. I believe that you can have it all and you can have your own superwoman-lifestyle as long as you define what that means to you without comparing yourself to other people. Your superwoman-lifestyle can mean something very different than what my superwoman-lifestyle means. All that matters is that at the end of the day both of us feel like we accomplished something and we can go to sleep resting easy knowing that we moved, at least the minimum of 1% percent towards our goals every single day. So that’s how that whole thing came about.
I wanted to show other women that business, beauty and balance is something you have to strive and maintain every single day. You have to look and feel good both on the inside as well as the outside. We also have to find time to do things for ourselves; the things that matter and makes us happy without sacrificing our entire lives for somebody else. I don’t believe that we were born to sacrifice our entire lives for other people, be fat and drain of all of our energy. So I want women to enjoy life. I don’t want them to feel resentful because they are giving up everything for someone else. I think we can still be great parents, moms and wives and still feel good about our own aspirations. I definitely went on this mission to lead other women to embrace that whole concept of living their own Superwoman Lifestyle and again, making no apologies for it.
There are obstacles for being that woman lot of times. I teach women to be loud and proud about what they do and a lot of times women shrink in the background because they are so worried about what people are going to say about them. “Oh, who does she thinks she is?” “Oh, this.” “Oh, that.” And I always tell women that it does not matter if you’re doing well or if you’re doing bad; you’re always going to have somebody talking about you, so you might as well do well and let them talk!
So what do you think contributes to you being the confident woman you are than most women who are not as confident? Does it go back to your childhood and your upbringing? Do you think many women lack confidence because of their childhood experiences?
I absolutely do think that your support system as well as the people who are encouraging you or not encouraging you when you were younger has a lot to do with it. My father, who is a retired detective from New York City, was very hardcore. He was very straightforward with me. I was the youngest of four boys and so being groomed and various things being instilled in you by a detective who was on the mean streets of NY City with four boys, you get a bit more hardcore training than you would with a different kind of background. It ended up being a good thing because he gave me that edge on to how to conduct myself, for example, how men have no problem putting themselves out there, standing up for themselves and being loud and proud about they do. I was raised to do the same thing, which again, I noticed with a lot of women, that it is very hard for them. But I also have a very feminine and soft side. I am a woman but I still have the confidence that a lot of men out there have when you are trying to promote yourself and put yourself out there on a different level. That was definitely an advantage for me.
For a lot of women, sometimes they weren’t so lucky and they were raise by people who. You know, we don’t always have great parents or people who raised us weren’t always great, if you were in foster care or you had a family member who raised you but didn’t treat you well. That happens all the time. So a lot of women grow up with someone telling them they will never going be anything or they are never going to amount to anything and you now don’t have that confidence as an adult. I see it all the time because I’ve worked with thousands of women at this point and time. Their personality and who they’ve become as an adult is definitely shaped by what they received when they were younger. So a lot of times, again, working with women, they come to me with the business side but they also come to work through some of the stuff, some of the junk, as I call it that was instilled in them and put in their head to remove it. I always tell people: it is never, ever, ever too late and never give people that much power. Just because someone was you parent doesn’t mean that they were always right. We try and do the best we can but there are a lot of parents out there who have messed up your kids and it’s time to let it go. It’s time to change the cycle, especially if you now, in return, have to raise somebody else.
You don’t want to do the same thing that was done to you. Today, it is a huge struggle for women. I see it all the time. So I love to see someone break through that barrier and discover how strong they really are and let go of what somebody falsely told them about themselves when they were younger. And it can happen all different ages and all different points in life. What matters most is that at some point you let it go and you go on to live and be the best thing that you can possibly be.
I totally agree with that. I had issues with my mother and my experience with her was being told to shut up, being interrupted while speaking and not being able to voice my opinion made me feel like I didn’t have a voice or that my opinion didn’t matter. I grew up thinking that it was my job to be someone else’s trash can and allow them to dump in me while I sat their silenced. I told myself that made me strong when they were too weak to handle their own issues. I carried that with me into my adulthood and into my business as well. When my issues and my struggles along with my confidence, esteem, and worth began to filter down to my kids, indirectly, I begin to work towards combating those negative feelings and thoughts that I hung on to for so long. It was more than me telling them; I would have to show my kids how to be a better person.
How do you teach a woman to combat her own negative experiences and mindset? How do you teach them to be confident? Are they receptive to you?
They are very receptive because I think for all of us we just want to know that someone is not judging us and that they understand. See, I don’t have to have had the same struggle to recognize it was your struggle. I don’t need to have had the same struggle to understand how demeaning and how hurtful it could have been to you. So my first thing is to show them that I totally get it and that they don’t have to hide that. There is nothing to be ashamed of. I think what I like to focus on more is the fact that there is a solution. I think that sometimes we get caught up in the different things that have happened to us that weren’t so great. We wallow about how we were wronged and about how horrible it was, and yeah, other people are winning. The people who did that to you are winning when you wallow in that for the rest of your life and you don’t focus on trying to find a solution for it.
So I’m a very solution-based person. We can acknowledge that this horrible thing happened. We can acknowledge that somebody made you feel less than a person but what are we going to do about it? Ok, let’s let all of that go. How do we turn this thing around because it’s never, ever, ever too late? So just telling them there’s hope for them when no one else has ever told then before, is the number one eye opener. Ok, this is cool. I have something to work towards. Then we focus on what their strengths are. A lot of times we all have things that we’re stronger at than others. No, I am not good at everything. I have things that I am good at. But rather then sit here and complain and whine about what I am not good at, why not embrace and celebrate the things I am good at and build upon those things. So I challenge women to pull out their strengths and what is it that you’re really good at. As they sit there and write things down, I realize that they have a whole lot of value. They were just suppressing them because they were focused on what they were not good at and what somebody had told them what they couldn’t be and what they couldn’t do.
So it’s a mindset shift. It’s an awakening and a challenge to start thinking in a different way. This society is so we’re so trained to focus on what’s horrible. The news is all about what they can report about the horrible things going on. Well, how about some good news for a change? So that’s why I say stay focused on the things that you are good at and all the great things that people say. We all have friends that say, “Oh, I love to talk to Vicki because she’s this.” “I love to talk to Mary because of this.” I challenge women to think about all of the great things that people are saying about them and write them down and start embracing that. So it does not happen overnight. But it is a wakeup call to decide on this day forward to focus on the good and not wallow in what wasn’t so great. I mean, get over it. You’re not the only one who had some not so great things happened. It’s like, what are you going to do with it now? I always challenge people that, you know, with regards to some of the most successful people that we see in the world today: We only see them when they come out on the scene and everything is shiny and new and they look like they just had it going on all of this time. But we don’t see their struggle behind the scenes.
Some of the most successful people out there were bankrupt, were homeless, were living out of cars, were digging in trash cans for food, but we don’t see all of that. So I always say it, if this person can go on to be a multi millionaire or a billionaire and they were once homeless, that’s a will and a desire to do something different. You have to have that burning desire within yourself to make a change and move forward. So that’s the challenge that I work through with women. Those are some of the things that they start to think about and to start living their life differently from that day forward.
What do you cherish most about being in business for yourself and helping other women?
To be honest with you, when I was first starting out as an entrepreneur, it’s about business. It should always be about business because this how I make my money. I make no apologies for that as other women entrepreneurs should not. But what ended up happening as a result of it, like you mentioned, is that when you are able to teach somebody something that they can go on to use in their business or their life, that gives them a positive result…..the thank-you emails, the thank-you cards, the little notes to let you know on how you helped to change their life, that has become the most rewarding part of it for me, besides my business being successful. That’s cool but seeing someone else change their life as a result of something that you gave to them, like a tool or something that you gave to them is so remarkable. Remember, I was a person who didn’t feel like she was giving anything back when I was working at that corporate job. Now, I have done something where there are people thanking me for changing their life.
The difference between someone wanting to send their kid to a private school and never could afford to do it until I taught them how to make their business more profitable and now their kid is getting a better education. Those little nuisances and things like that that make me very, very happy. I noticed too, even looking at TV shows, sometimes I get a little emotional seeing other people’s dreams come true. I don’t even have to know the person but to know how badly somebody wants something and when they work towards it and actually achieve it, I mean, it just breaks me down because I just think that we’re capable. The possibilities are endless for what we can all do in life when we have that burning desire and we push through the obstacles that life is going to inevitably throw to all of us. I think that is the most liberating thing about having my own business. That and the freedom and the ability to have a flexible schedule.
I still work very, very hard being an entrepreneur. It’s a lot more responsibility then going in somewhere and being able to leave at five o’clock and turn it off. But the flexibility to be able to do things with my son and travel how I want that is also something that is very priceless. I hated, hated, hated having to get up in the morning. I hated the sound of the alarm clock going off at a certain time. The sound of the alarm clock can still jolt me in the morning because that is how badly I hate it getting up in the morning and going to that job. Not having those constraints anymore, I would have to say is another huge, huge, huge plus of running my own business.
It’s funny when you mentioned being emotional when you see someone reached success, I do the same thing. I say I must be getting old because every time I see some sort of story, it doesn’t matter what it is, it can be something small and I am in tears.
And you didn’t use to be like that right?
No, I didn’t care at all about others success. I would say great for them and keep it moving. I was just crying watching the Gabby Douglas story.
Yes, me too. That is the perfect example. So inspirational. Because you can identify with the struggle and what her entire family went through. The sacrifice to help this girl and for her to make it at the highest level after going through all of that, it brings tears to your eyes. You’re right, it is something that comes as you age and when you’re younger these things don’t move you. When you get older, you become a parent and you become much more sensitive. The reality is, for me anyways, the achievements that I have, the successes I have, the milestones I reach, I am happy for them. But I find myself even happier for other people outside of myself. So I understand.
You have said that a key element for success in any business or industry is effective marketing. In general explain how important this component factors in to all business, new or existing.
Absolutely. Going to college and people saying that they have a marketing degree and they go and work with corporate America in marketing is very different than you marketing in your own business as an entrepreneur. I think you have to focus on the psychology behind what makes the person decide to work with you, invest with you and to basically open up their wallet to pay you for whatever your product and services are. That’s not taught in school and that’s not taught in college. You have to make yourself stand out. You have to have a unique position in a very competitive world where most of us are not lucky enough to be the only one doing what we do. We all have competitors.
So what makes a person choose you over another person? A lot of times we all do the same thing and we may do it equally as well. So how do you stand out? How does a person decide to go with you?
So you have to have an understanding of how to do all of those things, such as how to build relationships with people and how to build a loyal following of people who feel like they know you and they trust you so that when it does come time to buy something, they have no apprehension about doing so. All of that stuff is very important. What I teach for marketing for entrepreneurs is to make connections with people. It’s not about trying to close a sale on someone the first time they lay eyes on you because that typically does not work. You have to build a relationship. You have to build a rapport. You have to let people in. You have to give value. You have to give people a way to sample you at low risk or no risk. That’s why a lot of time people give away free things as an entrepreneur to let people see how great your stuff is and make them more comfortable. It is a process. It’s not like walking into a store and people are buying stuff off the shelves.
You being an individual or a small business owner, you’re open to so much more scrutiny. So it takes time to position yourself and make people feel comfortable with you. There’s many, many steps and facets to it. To sum it up, it’s like building, it’s like starting a relationship, nurturing the relationship and getting people to get to the point where they want to invest with you. When they finally do invest with you, they’re happy with what they got and their happy enough that when you have something else to offer, they’re there to purchase again. I believe in a repeat client is much more valuable than trying to get a new client all the time. So you’re making someone happy and you create more products and services to offer them and find more ways to help them. They’ll stick around to you for years and years. There is much more value in that than trying to go around and start that relationship process with a brand new person over and over again. That is what I would say would be the difference in the whole marketing strategy.
I remember I joined your mailing list a long while ago and I think you were giving away tips on how to market that you mailed out. I didn’t think it was going to be much but it ended up being this huge booklet that came in the mail with many pages. I was amazed because it exceeded my expectations. You actually shared great information that wasn’t filled with fluff and then at the end with you leading me to a program. It was way more than that. It was an awesome tool filled with information. It was obvious too, that you spent time putting that together. I was really thankful when I received that in the mail.
Yes, you’re welcome. I am glad you brought that up. That is a perfect example because most people won’t do that but I will mail CDs. I will do things because I understand once a person has the same reaction that you just shared with me, when I have something else you would be more apt to invest with me. It is just a process and I understand how that process works because there is an art and science to marketing as an entrepreneur that I try to open up so many women to invest and learn how to do that whole process. So that is exactly the reaction that I am looking for so thank you for sharing that. It’s all about giving out great value to somebody without cost.
No problem. When you think about it, if I got this for free, it makes you think of what more you can get if you were to invest in working with you.
Exactly!
Do you have any regrets from early in your business career or now as an entrepreneur that you would do differently knowing what you know now? Also, how do you handle any failures or bumps in the road?
Regrets. I can’t really pinpoint any regrets that I have. I have to say being an entrepreneur, I try to prepare people that they become a professional tester. There are some things that are proven to work and there are some things that you are in a constant mode of testing to see if they will or will not work. There are things that I launch; there are things that I do all the time that I fail at. I sit back and I go, “Oh my God, that was an epic failure,” and I laugh because I understand that there is just a way of showing me that I need to tweak this. I need to scrap it. I need to redirect my efforts somewhere else. So I don’t take gasps and say, “Oh my gosh, I am going to go and bury my head under the covers.”
I recognize as an entrepreneur, I am going to take risk every now and then and every single thing that I do is not going to work. But when I finally figure out a formula that does work then I put my efforts into that. A lot of women are…..we have this “Perfect Patty” syndrome where we feel like in everything that we do, we have to have our I’s dotted and all of the T’s have to crossed when we launched and everybody has to love it. I don’t put that expectation on myself because I understand that is impossible. Things that don’t work, you just redirect them and figure it out.
I take that pressure off of myself and teach my clients to take that pressure off of themselves and to share stories of what you did and how it didn’t work and how you can laugh at yourself, sharing things like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I did this and that didn’t work,” everyone laughs and then everyone moves on. Once you get that, it’s easier for you to put things out there. It’s about taking action. I have this saying that an “imperfect action is better than no action at all.” Most people will never make a move on their dreams because they want for the sun, the moon and the stars to align and they look up and they’re 80 years old and they never did a thing waiting on perfection. The person who was able and willing to put something out there that they know is not perfect, they have the motivation and they have the satisfaction that at least they did something. You can always go back and make it better later on. But if you never make a move, you’re never going to move in life. So again, an imperfect action is better than no action at all.
We tend to deny things sometimes, but that is a perfect way to put it, where you have to make the choice to either do or not do. You can’t pretend as if you don’t know anymore. You have to do something about it.
That’s right. You have to. I always challenge people, for anyone that this may help, to do what I call “reverse-engineer” your thought process. For those people who are just sitting and don’t think that they are good enough, those that think they have enough certifications or those that think that they have to get one more college degree before they do this, that, or the other. It’s better to kind of announce things and put things out there because it forces you to show up. For instance, let’s just say you wanted to do your first live event. You didn’t announce the event until you had all of your slides done for the event, all of your speakers lined up, secured the place and all of these things. That’s the way most people do it but they let themselves off the hook because if one day you wake up and you’re tired and you don’t feel like working on that live event, you’ll blow it off because know nobody knows about it.
So I challenge people to announce to people, “Hey, I’m having a live event.” Put the links out there. Let people start to pay for it because as soon as that person pays, you realize that you have no choice but go and work on that event and make it happen in the right timeframe. That’s what I challenge women to do and that is what I do sometimes. If you see me launch something, 9 times out of 10, I have no clue. It’s not put together. I am just putting it out there so I can force myself to go and put it together. That is one of the biggest life savers to me as a business owner because you have to move with speed in this world. You have to have fast action and implementation and that is one of the best ways to get things done. Put it out there. Announce it. Name it. Figure it out behind the scenes and no one has a clue. Because we are very prideful and we don’t want to look foolish, we are going to rise to the occasion and we are going to have it done. So I challenge everybody who hesitate and waits for the perfect time to reverse-engineer their thinking and try doing it that way for a change and see how much it works out for you.
Ok, I will take that challenge because you just described me.
Yes!!!
You said you believe women can have it all based on however they define that for themselves. So how do you balance your business with your home life and everything else so that nothing is neglected, including yourself?
You know what I do? This is another challenge that I give women and I challenge those out there too. We complain a lot that we are struggling and that we don’t have a lot of time. I know it is very difficult but what I say is take inventory for maybe one week and see where you are possibly wasting time. I think that you would find that you would get several hours back if we would stop entertaining unproductive text message conversation with our friends, turn off reality TV shows, Scandal and all of those things that we have to watch. Now I am not saying that you have to give up the guilty pleasures 100% but there comes a time where you have to get in the grind and sacrifice things. Kerry Washington on Scandal will still get her paycheck whether we tune in or not. But are you going to get your paycheck while you’re watching her? So I challenge people to look into how many hours they are putting in watching these TV shows, these nonproductive conversations and entertaining other people’s drama.
I think that you would find that you gain several hours back that you can put into your business, if that’s what you want. You can also gain extra time to spend with your children, if that is what you’re craving that you need time for. But you have to be honest with yourself about where you are wasting time and again, it goes back to training people how to treat you and guarding your time and boundaries. You don’t want to be the person that everyone feels that they can call night and day with whatever drama that they have going on in their life. Also, I don’t think anybody was put on earth to be that to anybody. We all have friends who need an ear every now and then but you don’t want people to be like, “Oh, I know I can call Vicki because she will listen to me for hours talking about this relationship issue, when I am just going to be back with the same guy next week.” It’s all a waste of time. I did that myself when I was first starting off and I realized I was watching way too much TV and having way too many conversations talking about nothing.
I gained hours upon hours each week that I put back that I put into more productive things. While I believe there is no such thing as perfect balance, we’re always going to be running from here to there. I’m never going to be the person to tell you that I have it down to a “T” because I don’t. Nobody does. But I do guard my time. I do have “me-time” that people know they can’t penetrate like when I need to go to the gym. People know I am very serious about that. People know there is no point in calling Vicki because she is not going to give up on the gym to come deal with my drama. That’s one of the things that I challenge women to do and really look at where you are wasting time. I will show you where you can get several hours back to put into what you really, really need.
That is so true. One thing I did was turn off my notification on my phone for social media because it was always going off and I would always stop to look at it. For me, I even leave my phone off sometimes or leave it in another room.
What legacy do you hope to leave for your son?
I have a son who is watching me and I try to teach him as much as I can along the way. Some of which I know he doesn’t understand right now but he is able to understand and absorb a lot at a young age. It’s work ethic. It’s being a leader. It’s being prideful. The same way my dad instilled confidence in me. I try to instill confidence in him to be a leader and not a follower especially in this world today. He sees his mom and his dad work hard as entrepreneurs to provide him with the things that he needs and making sure he has an appreciation and knows that things he does have access to is not the norm. That is very important because it certainly wasn’t the norm for me when I was growing up. Instilling in the idea that he can be what he wants to be in life. Right now, he always wants to know how someone is making their money: “Well how does this person make money? How does that person make money?” I am always asking why he wants to know how someone makes their money. He said because he wants to know what I think is the fastest way to the cash. Yes, he is on the right track. Maybe some of this stuff is working. He comes to my events. He goes to my husband’s events. So he’s been around it forever and he has aspirations of being a billionaire right now. He knows that there are very few billionaires and as I sit there and I look at him, he’s really serious. He wants to work on new business ideas.
I think for me right now, what is important is his mindset and what he is thinking about and I don’t care what he ends up being as long as it’s something respectable. But the mindset and the possibility that he could be a billionaire at nine years old, I think I am headed towards the right track. I just always want to provide a good example to him and be the best mother that I can be so he will be able to reflect back on those moments with me of, “my mom use to do this,” “my mom use to do that.” You know how you see people when they make it and they say, “I remember how my mom said to me,” “one day she said, such and such and such and such;” I want him to have one of those moments when he becomes who he is going to be, that he remembers something very profound that his mom told him that made him push harder. So I think for me, right now, that is what I am striving for with my son.
You have written a few books and also have a new makeup like, the SWL Collection which honors the many different lives of women in varying stages of life. How does that all come together in your brand?
My brand. I had the movement, the Superwoman Lifestyle and I had this 3B system: business, beauty, and balance. So that is what everyone knows. Superwoman, business, beauty, and balance. I’m so hardcore about teaching the business side but I also like to show the beauty side with working out and feeling good inside and out, looking nice and everything else. So I decided it was time to expand on the beauty portion of the brand. What I did to make it all fit is that I created the cosmetic line and I named everything after career and entrepreneurial women. So the lipsticks are things like superwoman, success, passion, boss lady, all things that resonate with women on the go who are trying to live their own Superwoman Lifestyle. I already have a following of women within that target market. I geared the beauty portion of my brand towards my target market. I didn’t go out and try to compete with Loreal or Revlon. I tailored it to who I know that follows me. That is very important when you are looking into brand expansion. Who do you already have following you? What types of people does your market targets?
So everything I do is geared towards the following I already have that way I know I can make a sale. The women loved it. I partnered with Chante Moore. SWL Collection stands for SuperWoman Lifetsyle, so it still falls under the whole brand. It just totally fit and women loved wearing the lipstick. Someone told me the other day that when they’re feeling down they just go and put on their Superwoman lipstick. That’s what I wanted to happened. So it works with the whole brand. I didn’t try and go outside of it. I just let it fit with what I already do. I knew I already had this following of women and now I created this for them. It just totally worked out and I am really happy about it. And again, it was something fun to do. I think we all get bored with our business and something at some point of time. We’re always looking to do something new but as long as it fits within your brand, I always encourage women to figure out ways to create another profit or income stream that makes sense and doesn’t make people say, “Oh, I thought Vicki was a business coach but now she’s in cosmetics.” I had to make it all flow together because I don’t like to give out that impression. So that is how I expanded the brand and had a lot of fun doing it. I love it.
What is your definition of success?
Accomplishing the goals YOU set out to conquer no matter how big or small and without comparing your accomplishments to others.
Who is someone, celebrity or not, that besides yourself is the epitome of a Superwoman Lifestyle that inspires you?
LaLa Anthony. Businesswoman with class, mom and wife doing it ALL and still fulfilling her own dreams despite her husband’s success.
When you finally retire your cape as Superwoman and take some time out for yourself, what does that day or time consist of outside of the gym?
Having a girls night with close friends
What is your favorite color lipstick/lip-gloss from your SWL Collection and based off of the name how does that describe you? Which is your best-seller from the collection?
Beauty is my favorite color because as women, we must empower ourselves with positive self-affirmations and declaring that we are indeed beautiful is a form of self-love. The bestselling lipstick fluctuates, but Brick House is a top-seller right now.
Is there a scripture, quote, affirmation, or even song, photo, or memento that serves as a focus to keep you focused and determined on your entrepreneurial journey to help other women reach success?
One of my own quotes… “To be extraordinary, you have to be willing to do what most other people won’t.”
With a schedule like yours, I would imagine that you have to have an awesome team to assist you. If so, how important is it to have a team? Many women have issues with delegation or even trust. If you don’t have a huge team and do most of your tasks yourself, why do you choose to do so?
I don’t have a large on-site staff; I have one assistant in that capacity. However, I do have a virtual team that I have worked with for years that assist on a project-basis. I am a firm believer in hiring experts to do the things in business that free you up and allow you to focus 95% of your time on marketing and bringing in new clients.
What words do you think your name and brand are synonymous with and that you try to convey?
Obviously, definitely Superwoman. I get guys and girls saying, “Hey, Superwoman Vicki.” That’s totally my fire. Another thing is people know that I am no nonsense. I like to have fun. I am a fun person but coming up and learning how to do this stuff, hanging out with some of the top guys in the industry, attending masterminds where it is mostly men, again, because they love to focus on the marketing stuff, women shy away from it. I came up around them so I incorporated this into my business. I have this no nonsense style of telling people exactly how it is because I don’t believe that any of us get anywhere with people lying to us or sugarcoating things. So I am one of the few women who teach the real on how to make money-type of skills, which is a harder skill versus the soft motivational-type of stuff. I really show you the strategies you can use to actually have the money come into your business. I get women saying all the time that they love going to Vicki’s event. I know she is going to tell it like it is. They come to me for me to tell it like it is. She’s going to tell it like it is! Those are some of the words that people associate with me. That’s synonymous with Vicki all the time. Go to Vicki to really get it so you’re not fooling yourself anymore. So those two things I would have to say is my reputation. And it is what I convey. It is what I want to convey because I want to people to see that I don’t care how good you are at what you do.
Whatever your expertise is or whatever you’re gifted in, your business is not going to work if nobody knows about it. So you have to promote yourself. You have to market yourself. That’s what I push, push, push out there because I want to see more women out there success. I hate to see women give up and think, “Oh, maybe I am not good enough. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” when the only thing that is wrong is that they are not promoting themselves, investing and learning how to market their business so that people know that they exist. I go on this hardcore mission to really drill this home with entrepreneurs and women. Then when they finally get it, positive results is all I am looking for.
What event or trait connects you to other women, what makes you a Connected Woman?
The ability to, again, understand the struggle. To understand that we don’t have to have exactly the same struggles in life but we can best believe that we all had some struggles in life that we didn’t think that we would ever live through. We all have had that moment or challenge in life where you just don’t think you are going to make it. You want to keep those covers over your head. You don’t want to get out of bed because whatever happened is just too painful. What that thing is may be very different but we still have the same feeling. We still all overcame and made it. Time heals everything. So when I think about someone being a Connected Woman, I understand. I understand the dynamic of every household is different. I understand the struggle of a single mom who may not have had anyone to discuss what to do with their child. You have to make every single decision in a bubble, in a vacuum, by yourself and hope that it’s right. You have no one to bounce it off of. I am not a single mom, but sometimes I operate as one if my husband is gone or he’s traveling. I sometimes sit and there and go, “Gosh, what an appreciation I have for people who have to do this by themselves.” So I can sympathize. In some cases I can empathize, depending if we have had the same struggle.
As far as connecting women, that’s another thing that I talk about from the stage that I love to connect women with each other if I think that someone has synergy with someone else. Or I can pick up the phone, make a phone call and make something happen for two women that I think can do some good business together. I do that all the time. I go on to see them perform partnerships or make money together. Or someone says, “Oh my God, Vicki, thank you for telling me about so and so. They did this for me, they did that for me.” I pride myself on being able to do that and not looking for anything in return. Things come back to you in different ways in this universe when you give freely of yourself without trying to hold on to everything that you have. A lot of people like to do that and I don’t think that benefits anyone and there is no point in that. So I love to connect and make phone calls or introductions or emails and hope that people can go on to have positive results through my introductions. That is why I love the name of this magazine. It is so important for women to do for each other, for sure.
What is next for Vicki Irvin?
I always wanted to do television hosting and I got off of track, as a lot of us do sometimes in life. Literally this summer, I told my husband I am going to start my own internet show. I’ve been on TV. I’ve been on CNN, Lifetime TV, a lot of speaking from the stage and a lot of video stuff. I love it. So I thought, I am going to do my own Superwoman Lifestyle TV. Again, keeping it with the brand and doing the hosting, another thing that I love. I’m going to go out and do events that I am booked to speak at or different events that women are having and if they are of interest to me , I am going to go and film and interview other superwomen and entrepreneurs. I did that at two events.
The woman that I did it for at the last event where I spoke along with Suze Orman, they loved what I did. She was going to be honored by BET Honor Awards. She reached out to me and asked me: “You know what you did at my event – I want you to come along and capture this moment as I walk the red carpet and receive this prestigious award at BET and I want Superwoman Lifestyle TV to be there and capture the moment. We’re going to get your media credentials from BET to do with your TV show.” It was such a great opportunity. It was huge for me. Just an idea, to wake up, throw something out there and say this is what I am going to do and start off small and do my own little thing and just see where it goes. That is why I tell women, again, not waiting on perfection, not saying who am I to host a TV show? Just do it. I did it and look at the great opportunity that came out of it – to actually have been on BET’s red carpet along with other journalists and everything! It was a dream come true and an opportunity that I made happen by just putting stuff out there.
That is why I always tell women, you have to make your own opportunities. You don’t know who is looking and watching. Just start small and figure it out later and that is an example of me doing that. It was an honor. I am going to focus on that side as well, the TV side of things and the hosting type of stuff.
We have your website /social media information but are there any other ways our readers can follow you online?
People can follow me at www.vickiirvin.com, FB-Vicki Irvin, Twitter-Vicki Irvin, Instgram- Vicki Irvin…everything is Vicki Irvin, you can follow me a multitude of ways and follow me by my name.
I know every woman is different but what last words would you like to leave us with?
Last words, for women again, I would just like to reiterate. I just want to push women out there to step out of their comfort zone. Whenever you feel scared, whenever you feel a little uncomfortable, you know that you’re growing. If you are not scared everyday and you have no worries then you are just playing safe. Playing safe doesn’t push you towards living the extraordinary life that I know so many women want to live. To be extraordinary in life means you have to do things that most other people won’t do. If you blend in with the crowd, if you follow the status quo, if you’re doing what everybody in your industry is doing, you’re not growing. I always tell women, if you start doing things that makes other people in your circle say “you’re crazy” or “I can’t believe that you are doing that,” you know that you are on the right path. Anytime someone tells me I am crazy, I know I am on the right path because I am not doing what the normal people are doing. I am not doing what everybody else would do.
So I really want to urge women who want to live an extraordinary life to start doing things that most other people won’t do. If that means getting up at four o’clock every morning when most other people don’t get up until six or seven, then do that. It doesn’t have to be anything huge but start making small steps to do thing outside of the ordinary. That is the only way you can move to this extraordinary life that I know women have a burning desire in their stomach to actually go for.
Interview Facilitated by Sharisa Robertson / January 2014 To purchase a printed copy of her interview visit here
Read more on Vicki Irvin at www.vickiirvin.com/meet-vicki-irvin/
