Sometimes we’re compelled to do the one thing we swore we would never do. When I accepted the position of Website Chair on the board of the Network of Entrepreneurial Women, a non-profit organization in Bend, I was assured that the website had recently been redesigned. All I needed to do was to make sure that the monthly updates were delivered in a timely fashion to the website developers.
It didn’t take long to realize that the website wasn’t up to snuff. Not only was it not as functional as it needed to be, it was drab. The turquoise and brown color scheme made the organization look more like a grandma’s club than a group of spirited professional women.
“Don’t think about it,” I told myself. “You do not want to go there.”
But ignoring something that’s not right isn’t easy when you’re a perfectionist. It was even harder to rationalize the amount of money being spent on having the developers update the site, money that could be saved year after year with a WordPress site that the web chair and web team could update on their own.
Then I started hearing that women weren’t joining the Network of Entrepreneurial Women because they didn’t consider themselves entrepreneurs. The irony was that a recent survey had revealed that only 30 percent of the membership actually labeled themselves as entrepreneurs. Even our name wasn’t working.
That cinched it. I could no longer turn away from the painful truth that we needed to rebrand ourselves. I made the case to the board, got the go ahead and spearheaded the process which turned out to be even more difficult and time consuming than I had anticipated.
Fast forward, we now have a new:
- Name – ConnectW
- Tagline – Creating Community through Women in Business
- Look, logo & website thanks to West Hills Design
It was worth every drop of blood and sweat. And while I didn’t actually shed any tears during the months of overseeing the rebranding, writing the web copy and coordinating the launch, I’m so proud of what my team and I have accomplished that those tears still may hit.
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