Wouldn’t it be great to have an advisory board for your business consisting of successful entrepreneurs who were willing to share their insight, expertise and secrets for success!  Well, let me tell you about my day.I hosted an hour-long live satellite broadcast program for the Women’s Economic Development Outreach Tour or WEDO.  Joining me as guest panelists were three of the most incredible business women you’d ever want to meet.  It struck me during the program just how much brain power was sitting on the stage with me.  These women know their stuff.  They started with nothing, faced obstacles and challenges, yet emerged with successful, multi-million dollar organizations.  For everyone watching, I think it was almost as informative as having that “dream” advisory board.  In fact one woman business owner said to me afterwards, “I really needed this today.”I’ll introduce you to my guests, and in future blogs I plan to share some specifics we discussed on the program.  Brenda Newberry is Chairman and CEO of The Newberry Group, a global IT consultancy she founded in 1996.  Today, the company employs 140, is 100 percent employee owned and does commercial as well as government contract work.  Brenda started her career in the Air Force and then joined the corporate role reaching executive-level positions before deciding to strike out on her own.Leaving the glitter and glamour of Hollywood behind, Sally Hughes returned to her Cleveland, Ohio home and identified a market niche no one had thought of even though it was right at their feet.  Sally launched Caster Connection in 1987 – a supplier of high-quality casters and wheel solutions.  Today, Sally is known as the “caster queen” and her firm does business with companies all across the country.After losing her job at 40, Mary Bahr decided she’d had enough.  So she started MAB Advertising, a full-service advertising agency whose mission is to improve customer relationships and organizational profitability through strategic direct marketing.  Although Mary is in a competitive industry, her innovative business savvy and focus on customer relations has resulted in an impressive client list.With decades of experience and success, the wisdom and advice these women shared was so valuable. They were candid and straightforward.  As I mentioned, in future posts, I’ll provide specifics about our discussion, but for now I’ll close with one of my favorite tips from the show.  This came from Mary Bahr:  “Do the hardest thing first.”  In other words, get those projects or tasks you dread done first thing when you go to work.  When you put them off until later it’s easy to postpone them until the next day.  So get it done.I want to thank National City Bank and the other WEDO alliance partners.  In addition to our live audience, women from 11 cities in five states joined us and participated by submitting email questions.  You can learn more from the WeDo web site.  As Linda Stevenson, National City senior vice president women’s business development and executive director for WEDO says, “It’s we do, not me do.”   She’s right.  It’s about all of us working together to help women in business succeed.