Inspirational Success Stories Highlight PCC’s Women’s Business Summit

Tena Clark, the keynote speaker at PCC’s first-ever Women’s Business Summit, engaged the audience as she told about her successes as a business woman in the music industry and the ways she has learned to recreate her image. She owns DMI Music here in Pasadena.

Inspirational ideas from inspirational women highlighted Pasadena City College’s first-ever Women’s Business Summit on Wednesday, where hundreds of entrepreneurs and want-to-be’s were delighted by stories from women who have “recreated” themselves and struck business gold.

“Just to see the energy of the women and the brainstorming and exchange of ideas, it’s a packed house. The speakers have been so dynamic,”  said event coordinator Salvatrice Cummo of PCC’s Small Business Development Center.

Tena Clark of DMI Music was inspirational as she relates how she came to own the largest digital recording studio in the U.S. Clark’s work is instantly recognizable from one of the eight most successful ad campaigns of all time according to investopedia.com: McDonald’s “Have You had Your Break Today?”

“I truly believe if you don’t have a passion in your life about something, whatever it is, if you are not tapped into and just going through the trudge, it’s not good for your health, the people around you, your children,” Clark said. “You can’t be afraid of failure, you’ve got to be able to recreate yourself. And it’s so important to be passion-driven. We can all dream, and then its your job to take that dream and that passion into whatever it warps into because it feeds your soul.”

Hitting several ‘glass ceilings’ in her life that tried to stop her dreams, Mississippi-native Clark desperately wanted to be a drummer, but she could not break through the ceiling. She went to Nashville to be a songwriter and eventually ended up in Los Angeles where she did penetrate the man’s world of record producing with her number one hit featuring Vesta Williams.

Clark first came to Pasadena because of All Saints Church and has never left, bringing many famous faces to her internationally known studio on Green Street, including Brad Pitt last week.

“You don’t want to be just good for a girl. How many times do you hear you’re good for a man?” Clark said. “What has always kept me in the game is recreating myself.”

In today’s business world it is all about finding the niche that nobody else has thought of yet, but also has viable revenue.

“As I get older I ask what is my footprint going to be? What impact am I going to make? I tend to get my inspiration now from things that are purpose driven,” Clark said.

Clark recently wrote the song “Break the Chain” for a global Valentines Day event that brought together women and men around the world to stand up against the violence and injustices women suffer as part of a campaign called One Billion Rising. For more information visit www.onebillionrising.org.

Besides Clark, the longest business owner in the audience was Patti Harrison who has owned Camera Essentials for 25 years. Her breakthrough idea came while she was working in the film and TV industry and needed an efficient way to travel with the expensive camera equipment.

“I created something that became industry standard. After four years of doing both jobs I realized I could make it on my own with this new business,”

Since then her business has expanded to design unique industry grade products for motion picture cameras. Yet she said even after all these years her parents still don’t know what she does, so she was encouraged to work on her 30-second speech. She put the new skills to work right away, adding a story about her clients that clearly conveyed to me what she sells in less than a minute.

Marianne Emma Jeff of Women’s Business Momentum Center encouraged women to “Unleash Your Inner Sales Goddess,” which also happens to be the title of her book, with the “Fab Five” essential ingredients for business success.

“I think of women in business as the modern day heroines because what were doing is we are moving forward on our path and then every now and again there is something that jumps in that path and gets in our way. Some dragon, some hole, some brick wall, some monster that gets in the way. That’s the definition of the heroines journey,” Jeff said.

Jeff said the absolute starting place is the foundation. A one page strategic plan will shape the business plan including who the business will target and what it is exactly. From there, the Fab Five should be addressed in order so as not to become overwhelmed because starting a business is like a jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box.

The Fab Five emphasize tiny action steps beginning with memorizing a 30-second pitch that succinctly defines the business and tells a success story with an awe factor. The second is the List of all connections and possible business contacts. The list should be routinely communicated with.

Third is a presentation of the business. The final two items are content and the website. However, do not get bogged down in content, but only do the content immediately needed. Jeff said to write down three action steps that each woman could take to improve the image of their business.

“Passion defines our soul that directly equates and leads us to success. The second thing I learned is typically what we want is on the other side of fear,” Cummo said.

Cummo also encouraged the women that their network equals your networth, not only in dollar value but also in being a support system. Many women found the day to be enriching and a good opportunity for networking.

“This is what I hoped for. This is our first year doing this so we hope in the coming years it will be bigger and more powerful,” Event coordinator Joumana Barakat of the Foothill Workforce Investment Board said.