| CONFLENTI: First up, a woman who truly deserves the title “entrepreneur”. Nancy Cleary is a visionary. Along with creating, marketing and selling her own products, she’s paving the way for other women entrepreneurs by providing an outlet for women to explore their own entrepreneurial spirit. Nancy Cleary has coupled her product with her service in a unique website, Box-Is.com. Nancy, welcome. CLEARY: Thank you, Owen. CONFLENTI: Nancy, let’s start with the challenges women entrepreneurs face when trying to prduce their own vision. How has the path to success changed with the help of technology? CLEARY: Owen, I can tell you as a graphic designer for over 10 years, I have seen how a concept can take months and tons of money to go from sketches to test marketing to a prototype, and finally to the market. But now, with technology the way it is and with a service such as Box-Is provides, all of this can happen virtually in hours, and for a fraction of the cost. The entire process of packaging your content for your market is done and you can focus on the next step – reaching your market. CONFLENTI: What kinds of things do women need to learn before embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure? CLEARY: Well, Owen, it’s this next step. It’s reaching your market. Once you have your vision, your product, your website, you have to get it out there. And to do this, you must immerse yourself in the culture of that market. This is your expertise. This is your talent. You must go out there and contribute and collaborate, cooperate with others. Faith Popcorn refers to this as co-parenting. As you’re creating your vision you gather your peers and the experts, and even the other want-to-bes, and you use them to help refine and build your message. By involving all these people in the creation of your project, they also become dedicated to the success of it. Viral marketing - this is the most powerful marketing tool ever and this is exactly how it’s accomplished by creating a community. By connecting your customers to each other. You know, women do this best. Women are the best at spreading the word. And a great example of this, Owen, is the online community we’ve built for work-at-home moms out of one of my custom boxes - Mother Owned and Operated Business Boxes. These women encourage each other, they inspire each other, and they also share their frustrations of this multifaceted world that we have to live in. CONFLENTI: So let’s talk about the boxes – Box-Is.com. This is something that promotes entrepreneurial development. Personal development. In fact, it’s what someone makes of it. Explain that philosophy. CLEARY: Well, Owen, the customer defines what the box is. I believe to live our dreams, we must first define what we want and who we are, who we love, what we do best. And the clearer you get at defining this vision, the closer you get to manifesting it. In this box, it’s a physical place to hold all these ideas, to collect what inspires you and what moves you, websites, articles, photos, and journaling. You know, in a life that is so busy, day-to-day stuff; we lose sight of what’s most important. And these are our creative dreams. What really nurtures our soul and makes us feel good about ourselves. The box – it provides a physical space to hold these, to honor them. And what results is what is in the box is what you’re supposed to be doing. And if you’re already doing it, if you’re an entrepreneur out there doing what you love, great. What you find is – the box is filled with a better definition of your market. It gets you closer to your audience. But if you’re not there, if you’re not feeling fulfilled with your work and if you’re still looking for what it is that you can do to fulfill your purpose, what you have in the box is virtually a three dimensional blueprint of what you should be doing. CONFLENTI: Nancy, thanks for joining us. CLEARY: Oh, thank you, Owen. CONFLENTI: Nancy Cleary of Wyatt-McKenzie Publishing and Box-Is.com. END OF INTERVIEW |