Wendy Barr

I attribute my success to being raised by a single mom that always told me that I can be anything, anything I want to be, and that she was always proud of me, every single achievement, she was proud of me, and she never held me back. I've always been a creative. I'm an artist at my heart. And so my first degree was in art education, K-12, and I taught third graders. It was really fun. So I've always been a creative. And when I was a little girl, I used to color all over the walls of our house. Instead of getting in trouble, she fostered the creativity by lining all the walls with butcher paper so that I could color all over the house if I wanted to. She covered all the walls with butcher paper and put crayons everywhere in the house so I could color anywhere I wanted. And to me, I feel like that really fostered my creativity. I was a latchkey kid, right? So my mom worked, and I came home by myself, and I think that really attributed to my leadership skills and my independence.

The best career advice I ever received was when I was working on my master's degree at a little design agency in New York City. I thought I wanted to be a designer. That was my plan. I was going to be a package designer, and my job at that agency was to proofread, you know, that really fine print on the bottom of coupons. It's really, really tiny. That was my job, was to proofread that copy on the bottom of the coupons. And one day, my boss came to me and said, the client's asking for you, they have a new project for us. And I said, asking for me, I was just a gopher. Like, drop off the design work, pick up some new design work. And he said, yes, he said, you know, you're a good designer, but you're so good with people. I think your skills are better utilized in a people-facing position. So instead of being behind the drawing board in the quiet of a design studio, quietly designing, I realized that my skills were better people-facing, and so I was better at running an agency than I was at working for one. Most graphic designers are introverts, and they'd rather just be alone with their music and doing design, and I love doing that, but my job was to be the go-between, go between the client and the designer, because I could speak both languages.

I would tell them to get a mentor. The advice I usually give to women that have their own business is I'll ask them what their business model is, and they might say, oh, I'm a life coach, or oh, I have a jewelry business, or I'm an accountant, and I'll say, nope, that is not your business. Your business is sales. So my advice would be that if you want to have a business, your own business, you need to accept the fact that, number one, your job is sales. Sales and marketing. If you don't do sales and marketing, you can't have a business. Since I have a digital marketing business, I teach them how to be their personal brand on social media. And the ones that are resistant, they are like, no, I'm not comfortable putting myself out there. No, I don't like asking for the sale. I tell them, you have to find a job. Because you can't, you won't have a successful business if you're not willing to sell yourself and the business. Yeah, that's the biggest problem I see. Most women are like, oh, well, I'm just gonna hire a salesperson. I'm like, to sell you as a life coach, it has to be you.

Some of my biggest challenges are running this business by myself. I'm putting together a leadership committee right now. I guess Women's Business Link, when we went virtual, I didn't expect it to grow as fast as it did, and I could really use some help. So, I do a lot of the day-to-day myself. I have a virtual assistant that helps maybe with maybe 10% of the responsibilities. So, I think my biggest challenge is growing this organization to meet my vision without losing myself.

I would say honesty, respect, transparency and authenticity. My official title is Chief Goofball in Charge, and so I really like to have fun, so I would add that to my values, for sure. I've got to be having fun. And the Women's Business Link hosts a virtual networking event every month on the third Monday of every month. I've been told that virtual networking can be very boring, but that this event is so not. It's exciting and energetic and super fun. So, we like to have fun, and be silly. You've got to have fun, and to keep yourself sane, you've got to have fun, and to keep yourself grounded, also, and human, and that's my approach to AI as well, is that, that's what I teach, is how to teach your AI assistant, no matter who you're using, whether it's ChatGPT, or Gemini, or Claude - I call her Claudia - how to teach your AI who you are as a human, what your personal brand is all about, so that when your AI assistant is creating content on your behalf, they're coming from a place that other humans can relate to.