In celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day (March 8th), I’m excited to announce Journeys Unparalleled’s first Women’s Entrepreneurial Retreat. The 3-night event will take place Friday, March 17 to Monday, March 20, 2023 at the all-inclusive luxury wellness resort, Canyon Ranch Woodside. My idea behind this retreat is to promote entrepreneurship among women business leaders within an inspiring wellness setting. I hope that you will join us.
As a woman and small business owner, I have always been passionate about female entrepreneurship and supporting women in leadership roles. In the early days of Journeys Unparalleled, I also started “Momtrepreneurs” – a small group of kick-ass moms balancing motherhood and professional responsibilities as small business owners – who would meet to discuss issues particular to women in our position. Not only did we get together for coffee or breakfast, but we also took weekend trips to recharge, support and learn from each other’s experiences.
I found the support and guidance of other women to be invaluable when growing my business and wanted to find a way to pay it forward. So, I came up with the idea for the Women’s Entrepreneurial Retreat (hopefully to become an annual event) and am opening it up to all women – not just moms or business owners – who have some interest in entrepreneurship.
The weekend is designed to provide a supportive and encouraging environment in which to share our experiences and to learn new strategies to start/grow/improve our businesses. The schedule will consist of business workshops and one-on-one sessions with a business and strategy consultant. And interspersed with the sessions will be the opportunity to take advantage of Canyon Ranch’s world-class wellness programming and amenities.
My very good friend of over 20 years, Carol Chong, will be the consultant spearheading the business workshops and one-on-one sessions. She is the co-founder and owner of Thompson + Chong, a business and strategy consulting firm that helps medium and large companies build business and marketing strategies. She has had over 25 years of experience in branding, strategy, and marketing, working for C-level executives and senior leadership teams in the US and Canada in the areas of retail, consumer packaged goods, fast food, telecom, hospitality, financial services, among others. While working with medium and big corporations is her bread and butter, as a “hobby” she is as passionate as I am about helping small businesses owned and run by women entrepreneurs.
Carol is qualified to talk on a vast range of different topics, including, but not limited to:
- business strategy / strategic prioritization
- marketing and brand strategy • value proposition (what you stand for)
- brand portfolio
- innovation planning
- culture, values (how you want to operate)
- writing good briefs
- focusing on a specific business problem to solve
- writing pitch decks; presenting yourself and your business
- trends
Right now, the plan is to hold group sessions on the afternoon of Friday, March 17th and most of the day Saturday, March 18th. Then Carol will hold a one-hour one-on-one session with each participant on Sunday, March 19th. Between these sessions, everyone will have an opportunity to enjoy all that Canyon Ranch has to offer*:
- Locally-sourced meals and snacks, prepared to make you forget you’re eating healthy.
- Thoughtfully curated retreat agenda including wellness and spiritual classes designed to inspire, anchored by morning and evening rituals.
- Access to co-ed pool and spa facilities – Indoor pool, spa, steam room, salt wall sauna, zero-gravity loungers.
- The labyrinth, nature trails and peace found in the boundless 16-acre forests of Canyon Ranch Woodside.
*Canyon Ranch is a no tipping resort, with the exception of a 20% service charge for spa services not included in the resort experiences and on a la carte food and beverages.
In order to keep the retreat intimate and to ensure that everyone has enough time with Carol, we are limiting the number of participants to 10.
There are three different room categories, with prices starting at $3638.91 for 3 nights (single occupancy) and $3143.04 for 3 nights (double occupancy) at the time of this article. And because I’m a preferred partner with this property, each guest will receive a one-time $100 per person credit (whether you’re staying in your own room or sharing) to use towards non-included resort experiences.
Please note that I’m currently not holding any rooms so if you want to do this, we should get your room booked asap as availability or pricing may change.
If you’re only able to come for 1-2 nights, reach out to us and we’ll see if we can make it work for you.
The cost of the business portion of the retreat will vary from $550 – $1600/person, depending on the final number of participants.
For more information or to sign up, please email me at info@journeysunparalleled.com.