Female entrepreneurs are strong, fearless, and have a dash of sass. At some point , even if they’re late bloomers, they refuse to accept their place in line and they decide to cut straight to the head of it instead.

Not Just a Pet Project

For Dana Humphrey of Whitegate PR, a company known for its amazing animal parties as well as promoting authors, breaking the mold was the only thing that made sense. After moving from California to New York she was subsequently laid off and, being the resourceful woman that she is, Humphrey created a solution out of what she had in front of her at the time. WhitegatePR has been representing authors and the pet industry since 2007.

Cindy Wenger, originally of Long Island, NY moved to Pennsylvania and started Peacable Kingdom Communications over a decade ago after the death of her two dogs. After years of training she is now a professional animal communicator and has “naturally” progressed into herbal remedies for pets at Peaceable Kingdom Essentials.

Clearly Humphrey and Wenger had the drive and the desire to create these companies; they also both focused on the pet industry, but different niches of that same industry. Wenger communicates with all animals and works on healing them with her certified USDA organic herbal remedies. Humphrey, who says, “I would have never thought I’d be running a PR firm in NY,” represents pets and has branched out to representing authors as well.

Whereas Humphrey went for it fulltime, until recently, Wenger was simultaneously working as a paralegal while operating her businesses. Wenger says, “My largest accomplishment was career-wise, having the guts to follow my passion and let the normal career go and decide to do what I’m doing. I think women are raised to follow the rules and it become especially difficult to let go of the rules and go for it.”

Bits of Advice

Some women just have guts and do it while others go slowly and find a different way in. Whatever way a woman chooses to become a business owner it takes “tenacity” as Wegner says, “don’t let your failures keep you down; look at everything as a learning experience, sometimes it looks like a negative but later on it can become a positive.”

If you’re already committed your business you can learn a lot from advice Humphrey one received, “My previous boss’s husband said that taking clients out is like dating just because you’re at a bar and a guy comes up and asks you out doesn’t mean you’ll say yes, use the same criteria with clients take on the ones you want to work on and turn down the ones you don’t want to work on.” Humphrey had her fair share of yes’s before she learned how to turn down a client and realized that sometimes a match wasn’t a good fit, “You can’t take it personally not everyone is going to love you and your product. You have to find your niche and go with it. You have to be tough and develop a thick skin quickly.”

To learn more about Dana Humphrey visit WhitegatePR and to communicate with and heal your pets contact Cindy Wenger at Peaceable Kingdom Essentials.

Written by Kali Lamparelli for Moxy Magazine, July 2011. Image courtesy of jonmatthew photography.