Definitely Count Me In (maybe you too?)

Regular readers of this blog know SmartsCo received a Make Mine a $Million award from Count Me In, OPEN by American Express and the Women's Leadership Exchange in August. Since then, it's been a whirlwind of activity which has been pretty exciting. Thus far, we've benefited from increased financing opportunities, marketing exposure, and business coaching -- all things that are helping our business grow - details on that below, but first:

If you're a woman-owned business you can win, too - How to Apply
We're thrilled that we have this opportunity and know there will be lots of amazing things going on over the next few months that will help get us to the $Million mark (and well beyond). What's even better is this opportunity is still available to other women-owned businesses. I highly encourage East Coast women-owned businesses to apply for this great award by November 18th - winners will be announced in NY on December 2nd, and Jen and I will be there to cheer other applicants on. It's a very easy application (and the folks at Count Me In will help you if you need it) and well worth your time. If you know of any woman-owned business looking for more tools and resources to help them grow, do tell them about it.

Here's how we've benefited from winning the Make Mine a $Million award..Yippee!

1. New Financing Opportunities
As soon as we won the award, the folks at OPEN by American Express and Count Me In helped open financial opportunities for us through new loans and lines of credit. We've always been big users of our OPEN card when we're in a cash crunch as it has low rates and doesn't have penalties for using the 'checks' they send you. Now we have a line of credit from OPEN which will also come in handy when the bank account gets a bit low (doesn't every small business go through that from time to time?).

These new financial opportunities have already played a key role in helping us increase our growth rate as it afforded us the ability to bring on new people to our team to help us sell and market our exciting products Moreover, now that we know we have access to capital and lines of credit, we're able to expand our product development plan for next year so we can create lots more ways to learn about life's greatest pleasures th(hint: think Paris, French wine and bubbly for the near future and lots more fun stuff later in the year).

2. Increased Marketing Exposure
The folks at OPEN have also been really great at generating publicity for us such as featuring Jen on a panel moderated by OPEN's president at the New York Times Small Business Summit last month. This was a great panel, and we were able to connect with other cool businesses such as ZipCar, a very cool urban car share company that we are collaboring with on fun marketing programs.

3. Coaching
Last, but certainly not least, this award comes with excellent business coaching, which is proving very valuable and inspirational to us. We've also been getting great advice from TV producer and entrepreneur Nely Galan, of "The Swan" and other shows and from Dresdene Flynn-White of Action International. It's great to have successful and intelligent women provide us with ideas, opportunities and help us think strategically about continuing to help SmartsCo grow.

Pretty exciting stuff for sure. So if you're a woman-owned business, be sure to apply. If you're just looking to learn more about life's greatest pleasures, get excited for lots more more great new products to come out of SmartsCo.