Living the life you desire by design… It is possible!

Meet Cornelia Shipley: After working in sales at Proctor & Gamble Distributing Company for several years, Cornelia Shipley decided to make a life change. Not only did she leave the corporate world, she started her own business – 3C Consulting LLC (http://www.3cconsult.com), a strategy consulting, coaching and professional development firm. Clients 3C Consulting has serviced include W.K. Kellogg Foundation, YMCA, Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion and MPRO. The success of her business is due to Cornelia’s belief — that we’re responsible for designing our own lives!

WMI: As a little girl, what did you dream of becoming, of doing with your life?

CS: As a young girl growing up in Detroit, I thought I would be an actress or a lawyer. I guess, in some ways, I came close as I still “perform” on stage, transforming lives.

WMI: How did you land a sales job at Proctor and Gamble Distribution Company before you’d earned a college degree?

CS: That is such a great question! I was a part of the INROADS program. In my market the P&G internship was very prestigious and most of the intern class wanted a shot at it. I was fortunate enough to have made a great impression on our then Managing Director Jane Smith and she recommended me. I got the interview, the internship and subsequently spent the early part of my career learning from some of the best marketers in the world.

WMI: How many years did you work in sales and what happened to cause you to decide to go into business for yourself?

CS: I worked for P&G for 10 years between my internships and full time work. I was a sales manager, a category management analyst, a sales training and development manager and an account executive. In 2000, like many other former P&G’ers I took a separation package and went on to graduate school. I went back into corporate America for about five years, working for Raytheon and General Mills. In 2006, after a series of events, I left to start my own firm and have never looked back.


WMI: There comes a time in many of our lives when we reach a fork in the road, when we know, for us, life is about to change forever. Was there a similar time in your life?

CS: In 2005, while living in New Mexico in the “Right” job at the “Right” company, I realized I was not happy. I was single in a community where the professional African American population was less than 1%, and it took two planes to get back to my “life” and family in Michigan. During that year, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and my father later had a stroke in June of 2006. At that point, I realized I could no longer live and work in ways that did not allow me to focus on all the things that matter most to me. I made the commitment to design a life that would work for me. I was committed to being there for my family and that is a decision I will never regret.

WMI: Did you find it easy or challenging to shift from being an employee to being self-employed? How so?

CS: Fortunately, for me, working at P&G was a lot like being an entrepreneur. We worked from home and we were measured based on what we produced, not the hours we worked, so adjusting to the entrepreneur lifestyle was a fairly easy transition. My clients who step into entrepreneurship find it challenging when they are accustomed to working in an office environment and have to make the leap to working from home. As the leader of your own firm, you have to decide how you want everything to work and what role you will play in that process (vs. outsourcing). Once you are clear on your MUST Do’s for working both in and on your business, I think entrepreneurial life becomes much easier.

WMI: How did you deal with, and, later overcome fear or doubt that the change may have brought you?

CS: The only thing that really scared me about starting my company was the statistics that most businesses fail in the first five years. I have been at it almost seven years now and have a strong track record of success.

WMI: When and why did you found 3C Consulting LLC?

CS: I founded 3C Consulting out of my commitment to ensure that individuals and organizations could achieve their desired outcomes through designed actions. Often people in organizations turn around one day and ask themselves either how did I get here or why am I not there. We work at both the individual and the systemic level to ensure that our clients are able to achieve and sustain their desired level of success. I am really proud of the work we do.

WMI: How much money did you initially invest in 3C Consulting and how long did it take you to recoup that investment?

CS: What a great question. Because I was fortunate enough to have my first contract within days of “hanging out my shingle,” I was able to budget that first year based on those contracts. My initial investment was for infrastructure (website, business cards, headshots, etc.) and I recouped those costs within the first six months of business.

WMI: What advice would you give to someone looking to start a business today?

CS: First and foremost create a plan for your business and your future. If you are still working, stockpile as much capital as possible, as all businesses, even ones started at a kitchen table, need capital. Decide when and how you want to leave your current employment situation, considering the relationship your old firm might have with your new company. Finally, work to establish your personal brand and professional expertise. Initially, there will be no differentiation between you and your business from a brand perspective, so you have to be seen as the expert at what you do.

WMI: What is the “By Design Club?”

CS: The By Design Club is my baby! It is the way I get to work with amazing women (and a few brave men) who are ready to get their desired outcomes by design. Although most program participants will attend www.designyourlifeevent.com in March, this 9-month program examines every area of your life and helps you to create a blueprint for your future that excites you and allows you to live your personal definition of success. To learn more, people can visit www.corneliashipley.com

WMI: If we truly design our own lives, why aren’t more of us living the life we want?


CS: Typically, it is because we are not paying attention, or we fail to truly commit. How many people do you know who want to lose weight but have failed to commit. This phenomenon happens in every area of our daily experience, not to mention the fact that many of us do not understand or leverage universal law to assist us in getting our desired outcomes. In the By Design Club and at the Design Your Life event people have the opportunity to get clear, committed and into action – but not just action for action’s sake – they get moving on the right actions to create the life they really want.

WMI: What inspired you to develop the “Design Your Life” conference?

CS: Design Your Life is the third event of it’s it kind. The program started out as a one-day seminar called Spend Your Day Your Way; participants consistently shared they wanted more information and more time at the conference. Well, my team and I expanded the program, added some amazing panelists, and re-launched under the trademarked Design Your Life™.

WMI: Tell us about events, resources, etc. that are scheduled to be offered at the “Design Your Life” conference?

CS: The first two days of the conference are content rich and packed with the tools needed to plan the life you want and to begin to shift your mindset for your next level of living. We are excited that on day two we will be joined by some amazing women including: Dr. Sherry Blake, the clinical psychologist who serves as a relationship expert for essence.com and is the resident psychologist on WE TV’s Braxton Family values; Jasmine Lawrence, the 21-year-old Georgia Tech Robotics student who, at 13, founded a beauty brand that is currently in distribution at Wal-Mart and Sally’s (and is reportedly worth well over a million dollars); Maxine Brown-Davis, an Organization Development expert and retired Vice President, Chief Diversity Officer and General Manager for Procter and Gamble along with Sharon Zealey, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at the Coca-Cola Company, to share how they successfully live the life they design. On day 3 of the conference our VIP participants will have the opportunity to do a “deep-dive” into their personal action plan and get some individualized attention directly from me and my team.

WMI: What’s next for Cornelia Shipley and 3C Consulting? Where would you like to see yourself and your company two to three years from now?

CS: We are super excited about 2013 and our expansion plans. We have some great client work going on and are in exciting discussions as well. In March of this year, I will be hosting my third event (the first in Atlanta) called Design Your Life™. The event is a unique opportunity for the general public to be exposed to the executive coaching work I do in organizations like Blue Care Network. I will be taking the audience through the strategic planning process to create a designed future.

Sources:
http://www.designyourlifeevent.com
http://www.3cconsult.com
http://www.corneliashipley.com