Cultivating Success Through Masterful Networking and Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Insights from Dr. Edeline Francois

Transcript

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Welcome to Ready Set Collaborate podcast with Rhonda Pearson, where we will dive deep into the world of networking, collaboration and partnership, unlocking the secrets to a successful team working within innovation.

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Whether you're an entrepreneur, a creative professional or just someone eager to understand the power of networking and collaboration, this podcast is your go-to resource.

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Join us as we explore the stories, strategies and insights from experts, entrepreneurs and thought leaders who have experienced the magic of networking and collaboration to achieve successful results.

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Tune in to Ready Set Collaborate podcast on a journey towards achieving your goals with host Rhonda Pearson.

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Welcome, welcome to Ready Set Collaborate podcast with Rhonda Pearson and my guests, edelind, dr Edelind Francois, this is episode eight and we're going to talk about building your strategy with networking and collaboration.

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I am so excited to have my girl, my doctor, my V-Roc CEO, and I wanted to find the members.

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That's why I became one of the networking players.

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I'm a network ally.

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But Edelind Francois let me tell you a little bit about Edelind, then we're going to talk to Edelind and get some information from her.

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Dr Edelind Francois is just an amazing coach.

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She's a transformative force that has turned around lives and businesses.

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Her expertise is preparing businesses towards scaling and achieving profitability.

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If you're seeking growth, scalability and profitability, she's the coach to work with.

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Her journey from launching ventures in school to excelling in the county and eventually founded her own tax and accounting firm for small businesses, so showcases her entrepreneurial spirit.

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Driven by passion for helping entrepreneurs, her training and continuous development have made her a salt aftercoach in the field.

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Having experienced the highs and lows of starting and growing businesses, dr Edelind Francois understands the challenges firsthand.

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Her dedication led to her starting woman entrepreneurs V-Roc, which I'm a part of, a woman's organization that inspires and empowers women entrepreneurs around the world, edelind, we found a talk about your building a strategy.

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And tell us a little bit about you, edelind.

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To tell us about you, about Dr Edelind.

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First and foremost, I am truly amazing.

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That's right.

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That's the appabation.

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I am truly amazing.

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I'm Dr Edelind Francois.

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I've been an accountant for over 25 years and it is absolutely my passion to help my clients and educate them in areas of tax and accounting.

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One of the things that I tell all my clients is that your accounting is the lifeblood of your business, and so it's really truly important that you have that area intact.

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It's truly important that you are reading your financials, understanding your financials, because they allow you to make informed decisions.

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I am that accountant that is going to educate you, guide you and help you scale in your business.

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And you know what, when I first retired from IBM and I met her at one of the express connection networking books she's the one that pushed me to do everything I'm doing now she said you can start doing podcasts, one of you get to write a book, one of you got to do Facebook Live, all those things.

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And God said yes, with the push of Edelman, she has actually brought me to things that I said I could never do.

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And I tell people you can do it.

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If I can do it, you can do it.

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So I appreciate that, edelman, and I tell you.

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I said, okay, what's next?

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But then let me get through this podcast this year, edelman, okay, and I know you got a big player for me and God has things planned.

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So I appreciate that.

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You're absolutely welcome.

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It's been a pleasure being your accountability partner and it's been a joy watching you grow, so thank you, thank you.

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Thank you, I appreciate it.

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Edelman, I'm sorry she told me I need to get my own brand.

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I'm creating my WDPS associate Even though my business is not services legal shield, but WDPS associates is something that I built myself.

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As far as having my packets on that, and as well as consulting and coaching the entrepreneurs, let me ask you a question how important do you think networking is for collaboration and why?

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Because it is very crucial, not for collaboration and just being in business.

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In general, it opens doors to new perspectives, new prospects, new resources, new opportunities that may not be accessible to you, and so a lot of times people don't really truly know how to network.

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They think that going to networking events is going to look for clients, when in reality it's not just for going to look for clients, it's going to look for partners that you can collaborate with in business.

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So I would say it is very crucial and if you're not networking, you need to be networking.

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Absolutely, absolutely, and I totally agree with that, because I didn't think I could do networking because I was not a sales person.

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But it's not about sales, it's about helping each other Right and that networking brings on a collaboration to be successful.

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So thank you for that answer.

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Your title is Building your Strategy and I want to ask you this next question what strategies do you recommend for building and maintaining a strong professional network?

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One of the things I'd have to say.

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First off is be professional.

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Keep it professional.

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A lot of times we get into certain environments and we let our hair down just a little too soon.

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And you should always be professional when you're in a networking environment and you're building your professional network.

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Being consistent a lot of times individuals are not consistent with who they are, their brand, their business.

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They show up at event each and every time with a different business.

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Staying consistent making sure people know you as the accountant, the attorney and I'm not saying you can't do other things, you can't have multiple streams of income but be consistent with who you are when you're building your professional network.

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Make sure you are providing value and that you are not always taking and you don't show up taking.

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Make sure that you show up to provide value.

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And last but not least is follow up.

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A lot of people do not follow up because, like I said, they do not know how to network just because you may go to an event and you may not make a connection right then and there.

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But if you have the individual's information, just follow up.

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Say, hey, it was nice to meet you.

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Follow up later on how a thing's going.

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Is there anything that I can do to support you and be intentional when you're building relationships, when you're building your professional network?

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Those are the few advice that I would give.

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That's awesome, because I was going to ask you to provide some tips for effective communication and relationship building within the professional networking.

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Do you have any small tips?

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The more tips, the better.

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As far as effective communication is concerned, the best way to communicate is to be an active listener.

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Again, listen to the individuals that you meet at networking event.

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Find out who they are.

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Listen to find out what some of their pain points are and how you can serve them.

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Once you're able to do that, then you can now start building on a long-term relationship, which is crucial when you're networking and building your network.

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That's awesome.

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I love that because it's amazing with all the other guests that I had on here.

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They all touched on the same thing that you're talking about effective communication To be able to communicate.

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I love how you say follow up is an important.

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It may not be that time, but people remember you later on and say, well, is that lady's name, that I wanted to do this, whatever.

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And then you have referrals.

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When you do everything that you're saying, people remember you.

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They go back and say, let me reach out to this person.

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But thank you for that.

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I appreciate that.

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How can networking help individuals or organizations assess new opportunities for collaboration?

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For one it expands your reach.

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It allows you, as I said earlier, to meet new people, new prospects, new resources.

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Most important, more opportunities.

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Again, when you are networking effectively, these opportunities will be there for you.

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But if you're not networking effectively, then you'll find that networking will be a waste of time for you, and that's because you show up with your hands out wanting something, wanting to take, as opposed to wanting to give Again passively.

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I agree with that, because it's really finding out more about what they do and remembering, because sometimes, when you meet someone and they may have a situation and they remember them, they appreciate.

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When you say how's your son doing today and about personal about them, they're more receptive to you and they will remember who you are.

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I want to ask you this question, though, is for us, trust.

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What role does trust play in successful collaborations and how can network contribute to building?

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trust.

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We've all heard it the same before people do business with who they know and trust, and if they can't trust you, then they're definitely not going to want to collaborate with you.

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But the key in developing and building trust in any relationship is, of course, open communication, being honest, being consistent.

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Do what you say you're going to do.

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Don't wait until the last minute to say, hey, something's come up, I can no longer deliver XYZ.

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If you can't deliver it on Monday and you're expected to deliver it on Wednesday, let them know on one day that something's come up and you're not able to deliver on Wednesday.

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Building trust is key.

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It's just key, not just in collaboration, but in any relationship.

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That's awesome.

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Not just that, but when you build the trust you build in life with experience connection.

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When I started getting involved with students in that, I met you as a student.

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In that connection.

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All of my guests have been come on up because I tell about my role as far as how I started networking with you all, but just the collaboration among each other that we're building that trust, but also friendship you build in friendships with them as well.

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And then there's the referral.

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So can you share any personal experiences that highlight the power of networking and collaborative endeavors?

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Everything?

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that I do is part of some type of collaborative effort.

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One of the things that I've learned I learned very early in my career as an entrepreneur is that this journey of entrepreneurship is not a journey that you should go alone, and finding key partners, key collaborators to help you along the way is truly how you're going to reach success, whatever success is for you, because you cannot do it alone.

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You can only take yourself, but so far, and then that collaborator, that next individual that you collaborate with you, will be able to take you to that next level.

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Exactly so.

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We're not an expert in everything.

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We actually get those collaborates to help you with something else that we're doing.

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I would like you to tell us about V-Rot what is entrepreneurship?

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Tell us about what you do, what you got coming up next on your V-Rot.

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They haven't said what is V-Rot, what am I saying?

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V-rot, entrepreneurship, V-Rot.

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So tell us about that.

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V-Rot, first and foremost, was built out of a collaboration.

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It was back in, I think, 2011.

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I was approached by an investor who wanted me to put on an event for women entrepreneurs, and that's what we did.

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We collaborated and we put together an amazing event that is known today as Women Entrepreneurs Rock.

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It's an organization where we help women entrepreneurs start, grow and scale their businesses, and we have been in existence for a little over 13 years, or right at 13 years.

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Empowerment is what we do, but most of all, we support each other.

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We hold each other accountable and we provide a safe place for women to pursue their entrepreneurial journey.

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Our next event that's coming up is we Rock 24 Hours, which is an empowerment marathon that we've been doing for the last nine years on New Year's Day.

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It's intentional and it's a collaboration.

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I have a few people that I've collaborated with in order to make this a successful event.

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It's known as the Marathon of Excellence.

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What we do is, every hour on the hour for 24 hours, we have a speaker who comes on, motivates, educates and inspires the attendees.

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We have a few good men who tunes in and joins us for this amazing event.

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This was intentional.

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This time of year, around the holidays we have a lot of people that are going through a lot of stuff.

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It varies from individual to individual.

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As an accountant, my main concern was how can anybody any business that is, start the year off with a whole lot of stuff?

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As the athlete in me understands that when you are coming out the block, you've got to have a good start Starting a new year.

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You've got to have a good start in order to have a successful year.

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That first quarter is important.

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That first second out the blocks is important.

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That's why we have this event on New Year's Day for 24 hours 24 hours.

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It starts on December 31st or January 1st at 12 midnight until 12 midnight.

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Can that say, Evelyn?

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Yeah, it's 12 midnight on January 1st to 12 midnight on January 2nd.

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We're live for 24 hours.

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It's international.

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It's an international marathon.

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We have listeners from all over the world listening in.

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It's truly inspirational.

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If you can't attend, we have a recording that's available for those people who can't understand or who just can't sit for 24 hours and listen to each and every amazing speaker that we have.

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It's truly, it's very impactful.

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It really is.

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I'm going to tell you those listening you definitely need to get on that because it actually helps you start your new year off the right way.

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Some of these speakers are very powerful.

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They help us to get motivated to do to start the 2024 off every year off the right way.

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I appreciate that.

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That is really, and I was one of those speakers one year.

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Then I was a moderate.

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I'm always helping out either way.

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This is what I love about V-Rock because we are rocking.

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We're advancing to different things in our lives and actually helping people to understand how we can educate and empower them.

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Thank you for that, evelyn, starting this V-Rock 24 hours, even though I can't look three o'clock in the morning.

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I've got these struggle in my dream.

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One like three o'clock in the morning, but I had to give me some candy to keep myself up, to keep it, keep myself growing, listen, telling us about how people can get in touch with you.

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You can get in touch with me in a few different ways.

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If you're looking for tax and accounting services for your small business, you can find us at e-francoisandassociates.

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If you are looking for more information about V-Rock, please visit our website at wwwvrockcom.

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You can find us at WeRockNationcom.

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That sounds good.

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Your email address is what Again?

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Why should I go on Twitter right, rather than just share all my emails and addresses?

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If you go to each site, you'll be able to get in touch with them.

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Yeah, okay, just to repeat that again, that's eFranciseOneAssociatescom and WeRockNationcom.

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Okay, that sounds great.

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Listen, I truly appreciate you being on our show.

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Radio 6 will elaborate and this has been a blessing to really finally get her on here, get what we got it together so, but it is truly a blessing to have her on Edelene and definitely contact Dr Edelene Francois to county to become part of WeRock.

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It's just so many different avenues.

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Like I said, this is one of the groups that I joined after being in a spirits connection along with some other groups, but this has been a blessing to be able to connect with other ladies here.

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So thank you so much, edelene, for everything, for helping me be my accountability coach, to give me into everything that I'm doing.

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I truly appreciate it.

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Thank you, audience, for staying tuned for Ready Set and Collaborate the next episode nine.

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We definitely got some more great guests to help you with this.

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But make sure you follow, subscribe and like on all of we on Apple Podcasts, we on Spotify, iheart Radio all of those you can actually search by Ready Set and Collaborate.

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So, once again, thank you so much, edelene, for being on my podcast.

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That you told me to do and I did.

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Welcome you.

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It's been a pleasure working with you, your coachable and your passion to help entrepreneurs.

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It's truly amazing, and so it's been my pleasure.

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Thank you so much.

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Make sure you stay tuned for episode nine and we will keep going.

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Keep going to educate everybody on Ready Set and Collaborate Until next time.

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See you soon, thank you for tuning into this episode of Ready Set.

00:20:29.154 --> 00:20:32.634
Collaborate For more information about the host.

00:20:32.634 --> 00:20:40.954
Head to WDPearsonAssociatescom and that's P-E-A-R-S-O-N.

00:20:40.954 --> 00:20:42.450
Want to connect?

00:20:42.450 --> 00:20:55.431
Send an email to Wanda at WDPearsonAssociatescom and, as always, stay tuned for the next episode of Ready Set.

00:20:55.431 --> 00:20:56.595
Collaborate.

Cultivating Success Through Masterful Networking and Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Insights from Dr. Edeline Francois

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