Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Exclusive Interview with Vicki Irvin SuperWoman Lifestlye!

VICKI IRVIN
 LIVING LIFE LIKE A SUPERWOMAN
 By Belinda Trotter-James

Vicki Irvin wants you to live a superwoman lifestyle. She has created a superwoman movement that allows women to live their life to the fullest.  Remember back in the day when the term superwoman meant you had eight arms and was tired at the end of the day? Well, that's not the type of superwoman movement Vicki is launching. Her movement allows women to have a balance of family, fun while enjoying a super career.  

If you have never met Vicki, she is a speaker, author, coach and TV host. Do you think she was always a superwoman?  The answer depends on your definition of a superwoman. She started out like most women with a regular job in human resources and collected a paycheck every week until her husband told her to wake up.  She was fortunate enough to have a husband who just happened to be a superman with an entrepreneurial spirit.  With his support Vicky built her own million dollar company within one year and now she is sharing her information and assisting women entrepreneurs through her seminars and workshops.

Vicki has revived the superwoman movement and says "Yes" you can live a super woman lifestyle.  "I don't put the term superwoman into one definition or in a box”, explains Vicki. "Every individual has their own superwoman lifestyle. Some have a tendency to look at other people's lives.  We tend to admire how other women look, the way they move, the way they conduct their business, but we can't be them at the end of the day.  They are living their superwoman lifestyle within the dynamic of however their life is set up.  Your superwoman lifestyle is going to be very different from my superwoman lifestyle. What matters is that I am working towards fulfilling my goals every single day. I have a family, I have a husband, I have a business, I'm having fun and I'm able to empower other women and men.  I am living my superwoman lifestyle. Now someone else can look at my lifestyle and be light years ahead of me and say I'm not doing enough.  However, they could be living a totally different superwoman lifestyle. A superwoman lifestyle is defined by you. It's not comparing yourself to other people and once you find yourself moving and shaking every day towards things that are really important to you, then you are living a superwoman lifestyle and not what society is putting on you.  It's what makes you happy at the end of the day."
Having a superwoman lifestyle also means having multiple streams of income. With that mindset Vicki started a cosmetic line with R&B songstress, Chante Moore.  They didn't know each other at first.  Fate had to step in to put them together. "I have been friends with Chante Moore's manager and her manager's husband for a very, very long time,” says Vicki.   "We were in their wedding together, but it wasn't until a few years ago that we started doing more stuff together. As an extension to my superwoman lifestyle movement, I created a 3D system called Beauty, Business and Balance.  Although I am primarily a business coach, I wanted to expand on the beauty portion because I'm always talking to women about living a healthy lifestyle and feeling good from the inside out. That's when I thought I should start a cosmetic line.  I love lipstick.  If nothing else, I'll have on lipstick because I don’t know how to put on anything else.  I wanted to start a lipstick line with names that would empower women such as superwoman, passion, success or boss lady.  These names were perfect because I have such a large following of people who follow me in business and I wanted to cater to that market.  I wanted something out there on the beauty side to help further my brand and the mission.  I thought Chante could be the celebrity face to help me endorse it.  I just love the way she hustles as a single mom, performing everywhere and staying beautiful.  She also has a beautiful heart.  I thought that she would really personify what I was trying to put out there to other women.  I asked her to be the face and she said, 'Of coarse.'

So far Vicki and Chante have lipsticks and eye shadows available.  It’s not in stores yet so you'll have to get it exclusively from http://www.SWLCollection.com   The SWL logo stands for Super Woman Lifestyle.  If you're wondering what's so special about the lipstick, it's a high-quality lipstick.  It’s definitely on par with Mac lipsticks. That's important to know because there's nothing worse than using a lipstick that leaves your lips dry and cracked.  "More importantly the lipsticks have a positive image behind it", explains Vicki.  "I have women who work out in their lipstick just based on the name.  They will say things like, 'I'm dragging today and I felt like putting on my superwoman lipstick so I can get through my work out' or ‘I had a meeting today so I wore my success lipstick.’  I think this is why the lipstick line is doing very well.  It's more of an empowering thing catching on with the women.   Yes, the quality is there, yes, it's beautiful, yes, it's a high level product, but I think women are just loving the positivity attached to it in living a superwoman lifestyle.”
I asked Vicki to go back in time when she had her light bulb moment.  “I was commuting to work in traffic going to a job I just didn't like and I didn't feel like I had much purpose. I always felt I was destined to do something else, but didn't know what”, says Vicki.  "It's a nagging feeling that just stays there with you".  She started talking to some people who were entrepreneurs and they started taking her to mastermind meetings to see other people from all types of industries who were focused on marketing their business and learning about client attraction.  They were making so much money doing things they actually like to do.  That's when she had her lightbulb moment. “I said to myself I can either complain for the rest of my life or step out there and try to do something different and change the direction in which my life is going.  She pushed through the fear factor which is what typically holds some of us back. “I've been through bigger challenges and made it through,” recalls Vicki.  “The fact that I was able to make it through those things made me realize that doing something new would be child's play.  So that's how I got my mind together to just do it.”

Most on entrepreneurs gets stuck in fear at many stages of building a successful business. It can get to the point where you feel as though you are a tick tack in the mouth of a whale.  How do you get unstuck to move forward? "I often tell women that very rarely will you be the only one doing what you do," explains Vicki.  “For the most part we all have competitors. Every now and then someone pops up with a brand new idea that no one has ever done, but that's few and far in between.  Actually someone out there doing the same thing is not such a horrible thing and that's because it means there is money to be made or they wouldn't be doing it.  That's number one… number two is the tendency to look around to see what everyone else is doing and try to emulate the same thing.   Typically nine times out of ten everyone is following the industry norm.  You never want to follow the industry norm because you're going to get the same industry results. 
 That's why I always tell people that you have to figure out a way to make yourself stand out from the crowded market. Don't do what everyone else is doing because it looks easy and you feel you have a blueprint by just emulating someone else. You don't even know if it works or not. In order to stand out you have to know what's unique about your product or service.  Create some type of positioning in the marketplace that when a person is looking around trying to make a decision of who to go with, you look very different from everyone else. People will check you out because you don't look like everyone else.  That's how you start attracting people towards you. When your marketing message starts to attract attention, that's when people want to learn more about you. A foundation needs to be laid before you jump into business.  I’m a huge proponent of building up a following first and allowing people to know you or sample you for free.  Let people say,  ‘Oh this is good.  What else do they have?’  It's a relationship process in building and skipping that foundation cannot be done.  If you are doing everything right eventually, that person will become a customer.”

Another thing that women do that keeps them stuck or frustrated is trying to be everything to everyone. Keeping everything in balance is definitely a skill that needs to be mastered for a happy healthy lifestyle. Keeping the household in order with your spouse and children while maintaining a career can be overwhelming.  Vicki looks like she has mastered keeping it all together however, she reveals that she keeps it together day-by-day. "I have days when I don't do such a good job,” reveals Vicki.   “However, we have to try every day and one of the things I tell women to do is to stop comparing themselves to other women.  I think we look out there and we see someone who is walking around with their children and their hair is perfectly done and they're dressed perfectly and you think,  ‘Oh my gosh. What's wrong with me? I look a mess.’  I always tell people that the dynamics of another may be very different from your own.   Some people are single, some people have husbands, some people have husbands that don't help therefore, that woman is operating as if she is single.   You may be comparing yourself to someone who has one child when you have four.  Of course, she's able to walk around with her hair looking great. This is why I tell people not to get caught up in that. 
 You have to create boundaries within your own life where you are giving time and attention to the things that matter to you.  Every single day most of you are blocking out the noise and distractions of outside life, which is a lot of negativity and drama from friends and family. Train people how to treat you.  Know what you're not going to tolerate. If it's working on your business and it's a priority for you, then that's where you put that time. If it's putting in quality time with your family, then that's what you need to do. One of the exercises I give people is to take inventory for one week of where they are wasting time. Whether it's watching reality shows or just talking on the phone, you did two things that don't matter or add to your bottom line.  “Take that time back and put it into your family or business.

I had to admit to Vicki that I sat in front of the television and watched three hours of mindless shows and enjoyed every minute of it. I couldn't believe what I was viewing and wanted to see it for my self.  In the back of my mind I felt guilty because I knew I had things I needed to send out for my business.  However, I also know that all work and no play is no good either. Everything you do must be in balance.  Some of us will go all the way left or all the way right and the bottom line is you have to learn to stay in the middle to have a balanced lifestyle and it is a challenge. However, there are people who are doing it daily.  Vicki and I had a good laugh because she knew exactly what I was saying and she added, "You need a break and there is nothing wrong with that however I'm talking about the people who are constantly programming their DVR, they have the popcorn and they know what time every show comes on and will watch it every night. It's okay to indulge, but when it becomes an obsession and a part of your life like brushing your teeth, that's when it becomes too much. The person who is walking around saying they don't have time for their business and is addicted to the television, that’s who I'm talking about.
 Vicki is very clear about her goals when putting together workshops that empower people to move towards their goals. "It's a lot of work and you have to have a purpose and a reason for doing your event. People throw events for different reasons; I'm clear on my reasons,” says Vicki.  My events are a platform for me to offer people my very high level coaching programs and to work with me throughout the year.  Everything I do at my events is structured to make sure that happens. I encourage people who do events to look at it from a business point of view; it's not all fun and games.  The reality is that most people that give events are losing money.  They don't know how to make it profitable and only see other people doing it.  Everything I teach women entrepreneurs is based on not letting their ego get the best of them. Don’t do it so that you can show people pictures on Facebook. Make sure your event is structured so it can be successful.

You may look at Vicki and feel like she's exactly like any other business or life coach out there. However she has been in the 9-5 world with the mindset to get that weekly paycheck. She knows what it feels like to be afraid to step out on faith to start a business.  Running a business is not for everyone.  She had a light-bulb moment and shows women how they can also have a light-bulb superwoman lifestyle.  "My program is based on the mastermind principles.  My top level programs offer bringing women together who are smart entrepreneurs. We work together for an entire year.  You not only get my feedback, but the feedback of others.”
  Vicki has spent years attending mastermind workshops and invested a lot of money learning client attractions, various systems, marketing, what makes a person say, ‘Yes’ and actually want to buy from you versus somebody else.  There is power in numbers and through her yearly workshop women learn from others based on what they know for sure works.  She has a lot of success stories and testimonies from her clients.  “You can brag about yourself all day long, but what's important is what others say about you”, says Vicki.  How many people have you helped?  When you help people make money that's what sets you apart from the other business coaches. Vicki teaches the real hard-core marketing skills that you need to succeed and not the mindset of ‘You go girl; you can do it.’ You can go to a motivational seminar every day of the week, but you need hard- core skills in order to make money.  There are real skill sets that must be learned and that's what you can expect by attending her workshops and seminars.

 On October 25 in Bowie, MD Vicki’s next event along with partners Chereace Richards and Erana Tyler is The 100 Women Entrepreneurs Run. This is something that they will be doing annually in support of women entrepreneurs. “We are just keeping on the path of healthy living by organizing a 5K”, says Vicki.  “We will be donating the proceeds to the Women Veterans Interactive, a nonprofit that supports women in the military.” You can get more information by going to http:// www.100womenrun.com You can also keep up with Vicki and sign up for her free 30-day online course at http://www.vickiirvin.com

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