SiteOne Landscape Supply’s Women in the Green Industry celebrated a major milestone last week in San Antonio, Texas.
Women in the Green Industry is the brainchild of Amber Baker, an executive assistant with SiteOne. She started the event 25 years ago, and a handful of women attended. This year more than 240 women attended from all over the country to come together and grow.
“We all share one common ground, we are all in this green industry that we love,” Christina Moore, senior events manager for SiteOne Landscape Supply, said as she presented Baker with an award of appreciation for her dedication to the event.
Attendees got a chance to learn from women in the industry on topics such as value propositions, customer engagement, labor savings, adding a new profit center, fertility management, irrigation, recruitment and more.
Group dine arounds and several networking receptions helped promote this year’s theme of “Flourish.”
Moore said the planning committee selected “Flourish” as the theme and Ginko leaves as a symbol of longevity and grit.
“It’s all about moving forward and embracing,” she said.
A story of persistence
The event kicked off with a keynote presentation from Kate Delaney, a sports reporter and motivational speaker. Delaney shared her journey from TV news anchor to sideline reporter and the lessons she learned along the way.
Delaney said that much like sports journalism, the number of women in the green industry is very small — about 10 percent. She said as she pursued a career in sports journalism, she received 500 rejection letters, which she used as motivation to stay the course.
Delaney shared a few lessons she’s learned in her journey and how those lessons translate well to the green industry:
- Go all in – She suggests women perform a SWAT analysis on themselves to diminish self-limiting beliefs and “see what you don’t realize you have to offer.”
- Patience pays – Along the way to her 500th rejection letter, she realized “I’m not going to give up” on her dream to be a sports journalist.
- Stack the deck with raving fans – “Do everything you can to help each other,” she said. She encouraged attendees to have support in their endeavors. In her journey, Delaney said’ “even well-meaning people tried to convince me I had no chance,” which she said shows the importance of being surrounded by people who support and believe in you.
Know your yes
Melissa Goodwin, founder and CEO of BRKTHRU Group, started her luncheon presentation by encouraging attendees to think about something they want to do but haven’t done yet and what would turn the “no” into a “yes.”
Goodwin said several factors stop people – women in particular – from dreaming big. These include:
- The critics — “Face the no and say yes anyway.”
- The fear of stepping outside the comfort zone — Goodwin encouraged attendees to flip the script and do the unexpected.
- Fear of losing control — “What’s hard is not giving up control, it’s not knowing what comes next,” she said.
Goodwin said what sent her down the path as a personal development and organizational coach was discovering her lever — what turned her self-doubt into a “yes.”
Goodwin ended her presentation by asking the women to look at the goal they wrote down at the start of her presentation and identify something that can put that goal in motion.
“The real question is,” she said. “What happens now?”
