Made in America By Businesswomen Series Part 1
There is a movement in the US to for consumers to purchase products made in America. If you go shopping at a mall, 70 – 90% of the products are from another country. Try to buy seafood in the grocery store and you encounter the same problem.
There isn’t anything wrong with buying imported clothing, food, furniture, etc. The problem is that store owners and chains in the US are not giving equal space to American made products. If you live in the US, you should be given the option to buy products made by companies in your own state as well as other parts of the US. Until you hold your local merchants accountable for the items they stock their shelves and floors with, the US economy will continue to flounder.
In the spirit of encouraging consumers to purchase more products made in America, the Women’s News Bureau would like to take it one step further and encourage women to purchase products made by American businesswomen. Ladies if you don’t have a marketing program in place to attract female consumers and business owners it’s time to do so. Women control the purse strings in their households and businesses. They have the spending power to transform local economies.
Over the next few months, the Women’s News Bureau will spotlight American businesswomen who possess creativity and ingenuity to create products as well as services to distribute them. We plan to create a movement in other countries as well to encourage women to buy from each other. Women supporting each other in their local communities can drastically change the global economy.
Introducing Lea Richards
Owner Pig of the Month BBQ
We are kicking off our series on products made by American businesswomen by spotlighting Oregon businesswoman Lea Richards owner of Pig of the Month BBQ.What’s more American than barbecue? When you think of a backyard barbecue, it’s the men gathered around the grill waiting for the women to bring out the meat. BBQ is traditionally dominated by the old boys club. Lea Richards has changed that perception with her company, Pig of the Month BBQ.
Pig of the Month BBQ sells homemade, all natural barbecue meats, sauces, and sides and sends them fully cooked – nationwide. It also offers a BBQ of the Month Club that has been a huge hit. Lea and her staff of 5 use only certified all natural and humane baby back ribs from DuBretton Farms.
Lea makes everything from scratch in the kitchen and tries to source as many ingredients for the side items locally as possible. The pork is hand pulled and sauced with one of her all natural sauces. The desserts are sourced from a world famous local bakery – The Bon Bonerie. Lea has wisely built collaborative relationships with local
businesses to create the ultimate culinary experience for her clients.
Before starting Pig of the Month BBQ, Lea was a fresh faced college graduate with a degree in finance who was ready to conquer Wall Street. But Wall Street had other plans. She arrived right around the time Lehman Brothers folded. It opened her eyes to the roller coaster ride Wall Street can take you on. Lea quickly realized how much she didn’t want to be in finance!
Lea’s advice to women who are going from employment to entrepreneurship is …
- Stay small as long as you can.
- Bootstrap by doing everything (e-mail marketing, PR, advertising, etc) on your own until you absolutely must hire someone. You will have a much better idea of what type of skills are needed to run your business before bringing on marketing help and you’ll have a lot of the kinks worked out.
- You can get a ton of free PR just from networking and paying attention to sources like twitter and HARO.
- Bring in a steady revenue before you start thinking about spending major dollars on any sort of PR campaign.
Cross Market with Lea Richards
Collaboration has been key to Lea’s success so far. She is interested in taking her collaborative business relationships to the next level by teaming up with companies that sell grills and accessories as well as companies such as florists that sell gifts.
With Lea having a brick & mortar storefront as well as a virtual one, companies partnering with her have the luxury of their marketing materials being inserted into her customers’ boxes and included in her social media campaigns.
Pig of the Month BBQ is located at 2571 Timber Lane in Dayton, Ohio. You can visit them online at http://pigofthemonth.com. Lea Richards can be reached at Lea@pigofthemonth.com or 937-271-1077.
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WomenPartner.org provides business and professional women with the business intelligence they need to identify prospective cross marketing partners who can help them navigate the local marketing infrastructure of women in business markets around the globe. By reading the news stories and learning about the cross marketing preferences of the women interviewed, they will be able to position their niche marketing message in front of the women in business market on a metro by metro basis — New York, UK, Paris, Brisbane, Argentina, Montreal, Tokyo, South Africa, etc.
Jerrilynn’s business passion is facilitating lucrative cross marketing partnerships between complementary business and professional women so they can strategically expand their female client base while reducing the amount of time and money it takes to market their companies. Her vision for WomenPartner.org is for it to become the number one go-to place online for women to break their BIG business news.
