Strong Woman Chronicles

In the Entrepreneurial Habit

Monks know a thing or two about business. They understand the core components of top companies.

In the sixth-century, the Rule of Saint Benedict asked monks to take vows of stability, conversatio[Latin], and obedience. Stability emphasized the need to work for the good of the community. Hence, all actions taken were in the context of "will this be of assistance to all rather than just a few?"

Eileen McDargh tells us why conversatio is so important in the workplace.

And if you need more convincing that Monks can show the way beyond the rosary, consider the case of one of the USA’s top ‘fast 50’ Innovators. LaserMonks is headed up by Father Bernard McCoy, Abbey Steward at the Cistercian Abbey. He is perhaps not your average monk.

He has a pilot's licence, is an avid racketball player, is proficient in five musical instruments and started his first business at the age of 12.

And now he runs a very successful e-business venture selling printer and imaging supplies. "I was looking for a toner cartridge for use here at the monastery, and it struck me how incredibly expensive black dust actually was," explains Fr McCoy. "It's a product that everybody needs that is sold with an extraordinary mark-up. And I thought: 'there's got to be a better way'." And there was.

The monastery was looking for a way to raise money, both for their own living expenses and for use in charitable endeavours. “Traditionally, monks used to sell what they produced on their own property, but today you simply can't do that. There are only five of us in the monastery, and we asked ourselves, what do we have, what are the resources we can use to support ourselves?”

He voiced his idea of selling cut-price printing supplies to a couple of manufacturers, who were "delighted" to hear from him.

By making deals directly with manufacturers and selling over the internet, LaserMonks typically save consumers 30-60% on standard retail prices. Obviously the knock-down prices are a significant factor in their customer appeal, but Fr McCoy thinks there is more to it than that.“Our customer service is following on our order's tradition of hospitality. We try to transfer monastic hospitality into commerce hospitality, if you will. We try to treat every single customer with kid gloves”.

What I love is how LaserMonks use their passions and strengths, aligned with their values, to create a profitable modern business. Great eh!

From Bed to an Audience of 120 people

After serious rest and several pyjama days [albeit with a laptop beside me] I have to get dressed, exit the house and meet the world. Today I’m set to co-lead a session in London on ‘Building the Business you Want from your Centre’ to a room cram-packed with co-active coaches. My peers plus the founders of the co-active coaching model, Karen & Henry Kimsey House [link to them at www.thecoaches.com] have travelled from all over Europe and North America to attend the day.

You know events in life that logically appear superb opportunities yet seem to have a profound effect on your bowel movements? This is one of those. My co-leader, Caro Burr & I will introduce the idea that business success and sustainability [read here life being fab] is a cinch when we give ourselves permission to be self-centred. A novel idea for many coaches whose main purpose in life is to serve others in the world!

We’ll show how being self-centred or put another way, centred in yourself is NOT about being selfish, self-indulgent or self obsessed. That’s the version many of us learned as children – the feet stamping to get our way or sulks that wear people down to get the result we want. No, we are talking about something so different that most of us have little knowledge of what this could be like.