Around Town
Where being 'chix' is cool
Triangle Business Journal - by Kim Nilsen
They have no secret handshake. They don't haze the new pledges.
This seemingly spam-resistant sisterhood is, at its core, strictly entrepreneurial.
Chix in Business began in Raleigh in the late 1990s as a handful of women business owners who would meet, sometimes over drinks at Raleigh's Humble Pie restaurant, to hash out work-related problems and swap tips. Early members included the owner of a floral shop and a clothing designer.
When the group had grown too big to meet around a restaurant table, the gatherings moved to photographer Elizabeth Galecke's living room for pot luck nights of networking and pep talking.
The Chix took their sisterhood online in March 2003 through Yahoo Groups. The virtual conversation that started later that spring has generated more than 3,000 e-mails. Chix now has about 330 members. It's also spawned a sister group, Chix in Business West, after a loyal member Loy Kiser, the owner of the cleaning service The Other Woman, relocated to the Chapel Hill area.
Despite only informal moderating, members have managed to keep the online chatter from becoming bogged down with chain letters, jokes and junk mail. Overly aggressive sales pitches also are a rarity. The women e-mail in search of the best way to, for example, handle bulk mail or get the skinny on phone service providers.
Karen Hiser found an accountant for her new business, Healthy Travel Network, through the group. "For people who are starting up a business, it's very valuable," Hiser says of advice gained through networking. "I really didn't have a clue about anything."
The secret to why Chix has become valuable to its members may be in its DNA. Networking groups abound. Chambers of commerce always are on the prowl for new members. And the Triangle is home to a handful of women-only business groups, many that offer members longer traditions and national networks.
But Chix is a hybrid - part leads group, part chat room, part sorority. It has a creative bent, and its ranks include yoga instructors, life coaches and jewelry makers. But it has grown to include lawyers and accountants, Galecke says.
"I think that one thing that the group has really done is help people gain confidence," says Mary Michele Little, a clothing designer and longtime Chix.
While most of the businesses the women own are small - an employee or two at most - the group does include Jill Kucera's dual food service businesses Catering Works and Figs Market and Kiser's cleaning and concierge crew.
As it has grown, Chix has remained the kind of group in which members can chime in about having a problem with ants invading their home or having a mother lode of cucumbers for the taking, and you're not out of line. In fact, the posting from the woman who was searching for an exterminator to get rid of the ants and spiders was met with two "reply to all" responses in less than 12 hours - do it yourself suggestions on how to battle the intruding insects.
While serious about making a living doing what they love, they're not all business. Hence the Chix name, which member JoAnn Chamberlin, publisher of "The Little Black Book For Every Busy Woman," reads as a term of endearment, not condescension.
One of the longest-running exchanges of late in the Chix online forum has centered on the personal choice of whether to see male versus female obstetricians and gynecologists.
Questions that stray from business often revolve around the kind of personal dilemmas that, if not solved, can suck time and energy away from work. Members come to the group for advice about coping with parent-care decisions, finding baby-sitters and selling homes.
Hiser tapped the collective Chix knowledge to help her pick a doctor and says she got very detailed feedback from members of the group when she was searching for a new church.
There are elements of traditional business groups. There's informal mentoring, networking coffees and evening programs with educational speakers. Members are given the floor for brief infomercials about their companies. But there's an undercurrent of fun and sisterhood.
The group has no fees or bylaws. Only recently, and with some trepidation, have the organizers begun to talk more seriously about formalizing the group by penning a mission statement and filing the papers that would elevate Chix to a nonprofit organization.
The eventual mission statement may say something about nurturing women business owners in the Triangle. Chix gets the occasional inquiry from a man, but typically the menfolk want to pitch products or services to the group, members say, not swap lessons learned over lunch. So for now, Chix remains a feminine forum.
Note: Staff Writer Kim Nilsen is a member of Chix in Business.
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