Playing Hurt: A DMS Workshop for Womxn Main Street Business Owners

Playing Hurt: How to Keep Growing Your Business When You Just Don’t Feel Like It
(aka Overcoming Pandemic Fatigue)

Womxn have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes women main street business owners, founders, entrepreneurs and employees.

Research published by BDC in the fall of 2020 reports highlights that women are reporting higher rates of mental health challenges than their male counterparts. Moreover, more than one in four women are considering leaving the workforce or scaling back their career given the immense challenges and stress inflicted by the pandemic. If you are a women business owner or team member struggling with these issues, you are not alone. We are here to help you survive COVID-19 and thrive in our new reality.

About Our Trainer

Sara Roach-Lewis is an Entrepreneur, Feminist Business Strategist and Coach with more than 15 years of expertise and experience.

About This Workshop

Women-identifying business owners are invited to sign up for this powerful four-hour online workshop designed and delivered by Sara Roach Lewis, Entrepreneur, Feminist Business Strategist and Coach, for maximum impact.

Playing Hurt: How to Keep Building Your Business Even When You Don’t Feel Like It is designed to increase your entrepreneurial resilience and business survival.

This workshop focuses on strategies and actions to help women entrepreneurs, leaders and business members survive and thrive during COVID – 19 and beyond.

If you are women main street business owner or team members struggling to navigate these unprecedented times, join us for this free workshop and acquire:

• Motivation, inspiration and skills to continue building your business during these unprecedented times

• Hands-on leadership training that is specifically designed to help you address significant setbacks (such as loss of customers, revenue, talent and business) during the pandemic

• Guidance on how to build resiliency in the face of crisis and put these strengths to work in a successful business. This includes opportunities to improve and increase self-care and how to build and execute a plan during uncertain times.

• Tools, approaches and solutions to adapt, pivot and manage uncertainty, overcome hurdles and continue to grow and thrive personally and professionally as a women business leader (regardless of your role, title or position)

• Opportunities to acquire customized recommendations and support from established leaders and fellow main street women business owners in the community

Training will be delivered virtually and will use a variety of delivery models designed to have participants integrate the learning and apply it to their own situations.

All participants will receive a workbook and opportunity for personal reflection every 20-30 minutes. There will also be opportunities for small group discussions to allow for peer-to-peer support and further observations and contemplation on the topics.

Overview of Our Curricula

Module 1: Playing Hurt

This 75-minute module focuses on you, the business owner. Small business owners are the foundation of a business: the most important asset. And yet, as women, we often don’t treat ourselves as such. A year of living with COVID-19 has resulted in more business and personal pressures (form child and elder care to layoffs), often with less support.

In this workshop, our trainer and facilitator, Sara Roach Lewis, discusses her personal experience in building a successful service-based business while living with a chronic illness. This includes key actions she has taken on three integrated fronts:

  • Personal Development: The internal work Sara has done and continues to do
  • Environment: The things Sara has changed or adapted around to better support her
  • Business: The key strategies Sara uses in business that allow her to ambitiously grow her business, despite serious challenges

After each section (about 10-15 minutes), you will work through a series of questions in a workbook designed to help you see what’s working already; where you are struggling, and how you can apply simple, immediately actionable strategies to build habits and routines that enable you to build their emotional resilience.

Finally, we will host small break-out sessions to chat through workbook reflections, provide peer support and learning.

Module 2: Planning During Uncertain Times

Many entrepreneurs have thrown up their hands at the idea of doing business planning during COVID-19 because it feels like a waste of time, given that circumstances can change dramatically depending on current public health guidelines.

However, having a plan and knowing how to measure against it has never been more important. It is also critical to understand that for some businesses, planning cycles are much shorter and include more ‘known unknowns’ than pre-COVID business planning.

Sara has developed an Entrepreneurial Planning Program (EPP) that is designed specifically for small businesses. As part of this module, you will create a customized plan for your business. First, we will discuss appropriate strategies for your business and then take time to create a plan. To conclude, Sara will share her favourite and most successful tools and techniques for execution.
This session is fully interactive.

Agenda

12:00 PM – 12:20 PM: Welcome and introductions

1:20 PM – 1:20 PM: Playing Hurt presentation and reflection exercises

1:20 PM – 1:35 PM: Bio-break

1:35 PM – 2:00 PM: Small group discussions on Playing Hurt presentation

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Planning During Uncertain Times presentation and exercises

3:00 PM – 3:20 PM: Bio-break

3:20 PM – 3:40 PM: Wrap Up Planning During Uncertain Times

3:40 PM – 4:00 PM: Final thoughts from participants

Register now for this *free* and impactful workshop and benefit from experience-driven training, the opportunity to expand your network and the chance to make connections with other women business owners.

This workshop is offered as a part of a series of workshops delivered during International Womxn’s Week, supported through the Digital Main Street (DMS) Program.

About the Digital Main Street Future Proof Program

Whether you’re just getting started, or you’re looking for ways to improve your digital strategy, Digital Main Street can help.

Government-funded programs and services, professional advice and digital transformation teams are available to help you adopt digital solutions – for free.

Apply to Future Proof your business today, and access a dedicated digital transformation team that can help make technology part of your business – quickly, easily and absolutely free.

This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

2021-03-31 12:00:00 2021-03-31 16:00:00 America/Toronto Playing Hurt: A DMS Workshop for Womxn Main Street Business Owners Details Date: mars 31 Time: 12:00 pm - 04:00 pm Click to Register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/playing-hurt-a-dms-workshop-for-womxn-main-street-business-owners-tickets-143466761947 Organizer Invest Ottawa Website: https://www.eventbrite.ca/o/invest-ottawa-1483760122 Playing Hurt: How to Keep Growing Your Business When You Just Don’t Feel Like It (aka Overcoming Pandemic Fatigue) Womxn have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes women main street business owners, founders, […]