Marie Hale is a self made woman who turned a life of poverty and struggle into the inspiration that she needed to support and uplift the women around her. Starting at the age of 12 she has worked for others and worked for herself, eventually opening her first business in 2003 at the age of 22. She is currently the Managing Director for the Chicagoland area for eWomenNetwork, a media/PR company specifically focused on building, connecting and educating women in business. She was recently awarded the Woman to Watch award for 2007 and promoted to Executive Director level within eWomenNetwork. Marie is currently co-authoring a book and speaking under her company, Lipstic Logic, an education and inspiration focused marketing collaborative that believes in doing business like a woman, with guts and passion!
Marie facilitates events, emcees, speaks and educates small and large groups of woman on the subjects including marketing and PR, networking, establishing ones self as an industry expert, and working from your center of passion. Her style, savvy and enthusiasm create a safe and inspirational environment that facilitates personal and professional growth.
Marie is also the owner of Shimmy Shock Entertainment, an entertainment and education agency focused on the art of Middle Eastern Dance and family friendly performances. She started her performance career at the age of 15 in Las Vegas, NV and headlined the Sahara Casino and Hotel for their New Years Eve Gala in 1996. After relocating to Chicago in 1997 she continued her education and opened Shimmy Shock in 2003. Marie is very dedicated to creating a healthy body image and connection for pre-teens and hosts several classes and workshops specifically focused on the empowerment of young women and helping them build deeper relationships with their mothers during the turbulent teenage years.
Marie actively supports many local charities and has been an active participant and team leader in AIDSWALK since 1995. She actively raises funds for eWomenFoundation, a non-profit focused on providing funds to other non-profits focused on women’s health, career and wellness initiatives.
What is your background and how did you get into your business/career?
I have the disease. I do! The entrepreneurial disease. It wakes me up at night, it makes my brain run at 10 million miles and hour and keeps me running at a dead heat toward success and innovation. I think that I have done just about every job you can think of from hired entertainment for theme parks to selling used recycling equipment internationally. I couldn’t figure out why I was always so unsatisfied. I was always over achieving, exceeding my goals, and my employers loved me…but I just wasn’t happy! I always wanted to do more and learn more and be more…and I was baffled that my employers just wanted me to do one job! It must have been out of sheer boredom that I started my first company, Shimmy Shock Entertainment, which is a small belly dancing performance and education company. From there I started a medical spa in downtown Naperville (which I sold out of in 2007) and had the great opportunity to take a brick and mortar from concept to profit in under 8 months. During the marketing of that spa I was introduced to eWomenNetwork as a form of networking and the light blub went on! I quickly saw the opportunity to use my skills set and strengths to the greater good of my community. eWomenNetwork grew into Lipstic Logic which is the marketing consulting collaborative that houses my incredible tool set of marketing techniques and enables me to free my visionary senses to create truly stunning and inspired marketing for my clients.
What is your business and how is it unique?
Lipstic Logic is a Marketing Consulting Collaborative that specializes in inspired marketing for the small business owner. I am pretty confident in saying that my company is unique because of me! I have some amazing tools that I use but my most finely tuned and honed talents are intuition and vision. There are many ways that people process thought, I happen to have visions when it comes to marketing. Actual pictures, smells, sounds, emotional experiences that precede my other thought processes. Because of this interesting way of computing and my varied experience in many different types of businesses my marketing is wildly creative, inspired by the message and creates a visual, tactile and emotional experience for the consumer.
Who are some of your clients; what do you especially appreciate about them and how have they reacted to your service or product?
I work a lot with coaches, consultants, and service based companies. I recently had the pleasure of working with Megan Walls and Barb Heenan on their coaching team, Fresh Connection. I have received so many notes and calls of thanks from them but the best is when they are writing down notes as quickly as possible and saying “I wish I could just keep you on my shoulder as I am going through my business day!”
What do you like best about what you do?
Wow, I don’t know if there is any one best part. I love what I do. Being able to quiet the agitating white noise that the small business owner experiences when thinking about their marketing and bringing them back to what they do best is really such a huge gift.
What role does passion have in your work?
I think that my work is 90% passion and 10% elbow grease. I don’t think that I would be as successful as I am if I didn’t have passion waking me up early in the morning and keeping my motor going into the night.
When you first started were you able to visualize your expected final outcome?
I was actually sitting in a seminar listening to Marie Diamond (Feng Shui expert from the Secret) and the whole vision hit me in one huge vision. I grabbed my pen and started scribbling madly trying to keep up with my brain, jotting down words, pictures and emotions along with outcomes.
Can you tell us about that final outcome – what will your business look like then?
Lipstic Logic will be a holistic marketing Mecca that hosts large scale conferences structured around abundance, intuition, creative business practices and personal growth. There will be 5 conferences per year in the states and two international events. I will have a staff of the inspired business visionaries that are committed to creating abundance in all ways of life, love and business.
What were your top three obstacles/challenges?
Accepting Help. I still fight with that one. It’s not so much that it has to be done a certain way, but that it must be done in time and I just know I could do it faster! Cash flow would be number two. I think all of us experience this. I am not a financial person and I get into a negative mental space when I am trying to crunch numbers. And three would be work life balance. When you are this passionate about what you do it stops feeling like work so you could and would do it all day long!
How do you deal with doubt, fear, and self recrimination?
I just let fear be what it is, a warning sign that I should make sure that I am very committed to what I am about to do and make sure that it is going to work. I don’t struggle with this very much; it’s just not in my nature to be fearful. Part of that is because I don’t believe in failures. I know that there is a gift in every experience and I stay true to that.
If you had the opportunity to get the best advice from a business guru, and could ask only question, what would your question be?
How do you pick and motivate a team?
As you look back, what is the one thing you wish you knew when you started?
The power of networking
Any regrets?
Not even a moment
Do you believe luck has something to do with you getting to where you are now?
Sure, I believe that I have a lot of luck! Lucky in friends, lucky in love, lucky in life.
What is the best piece of advice you have for other women on their way to their Optimal Level?
Intuition is the most valuable and least expensive tool you have or will ever have. Practice using it. Every day find some way to connect to your intuition and let it be ok to not be right every time.
Any additional comments you would like to make?
I will leave you with my favorite quote.
“Expecting life to be fair to you because you are a nice person is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.” _unknown
