For the ladies who attended BIA/Kesley’s Women Leading In Local session at our December 2013 conference in San Francisco, you may remember that one of our speakers was Jayla Siciliano, CEO of Bon Affair. Jayla is the young, ambitious entrepreneur who dropped everything to run with her idea to create Bon Affair, the wine spritzer company created by women, for women.

Bon Affair had been picking up some serious momentum in California and now she will be taking the next step with her idea this Friday at 9 p.m. on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank.

Jayla is a woman who is looking to make her idea a success and that is what lead to her decision to try to get on the show. “I figured I should go for every opportunity out there,” said Jayla. “Once I started doing research on the show and realizing what a great platform it is for exposure and potentially partnering with an amazing investor I was really hoping I would get on.”

Once her decision to try to be on the show was made, the actual process of getting on was her next challenge. “I applied by sending an email in February 2013. Four months later I got a call saying I made it to the next round (I had actually forgotten that I applied at that point) and now I’m getting to air almost a year and a half after initially applying. It’s definitely a lot of jumping through hoops but over all I had a really positive experience.”

To prepare for her actual presentation on the show, Jayla tackled it like it was a college final. “I studied everything there was to study about the show. I was waking up at 4am watching episodes and taking notes on the questions asked, the pitches, the valuations and researching each of the sharks. I practiced my pitch until I was saying it in my sleep and I did a lot of yoga and visualization the week before to stay calm and confident before going in there.”

Jayla is an inspiration for all entrepreneurs out there and to all those who are thinking of taking their idea to Shark Tank. Jayla says: “Go for it! Life is short and business can be a grind. It’s a great platform for exposure and all of the research I did on the ‘sharks’ made me realize they are all really great people who are there to help entrepreneurs. Just know it’s a long process and can be torture at times but if you get to go in and pitch to the sharks try to have fun with it.”

Big things are expected for Bon Affair in the future and it will be exciting to see where this little wine spritzer company goes. To read more on Bon Affair and Jayla, check out my blog post about our Women Leading in Local session in San Francisco where we heard about Jayla’s inspiration for her company.

The post Women Leading in Local Speaker Jayla Siciliano to be on ABC’s Shark Tank appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

For the ladies who attended BIA/Kesley’s Women Leading In Local session at our December 2013 conference in San Francisco, you may remember that one of our speakers was Jayla Siciliano, CEO of Bon Affair. Jayla is the young, ambitious entrepreneur who dropped everything to run with her idea to create Bon Affair, the wine spritzer company created by women, for women.

Bon Affair had been picking up some serious momentum in California and now she will be taking the next step with her idea this Friday at 9 p.m. on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank.

Jayla is a woman who is looking to make her idea a success and that is what lead to her decision to try to get on the show. “I figured I should go for every opportunity out there,” said Jayla. “Once I started doing research on the show and realizing what a great platform it is for exposure and potentially partnering with an amazing investor I was really hoping I would get on.”

Once her decision to try to be on the show was made, the actual process of getting on was her next challenge. “I applied by sending an email in February 2013. Four months later I got a call saying I made it to the next round (I had actually forgotten that I applied at that point) and now I’m getting to air almost a year and a half after initially applying. It’s definitely a lot of jumping through hoops but over all I had a really positive experience.”

To prepare for her actual presentation on the show, Jayla tackled it like it was a college final. “I studied everything there was to study about the show. I was waking up at 4am watching episodes and taking notes on the questions asked, the pitches, the valuations and researching each of the sharks. I practiced my pitch until I was saying it in my sleep and I did a lot of yoga and visualization the week before to stay calm and confident before going in there.”

Jayla is an inspiration for all entrepreneurs out there and to all those who are thinking of taking their idea to Shark Tank. Jayla says: “Go for it! Life is short and business can be a grind. It’s a great platform for exposure and all of the research I did on the ‘sharks’ made me realize they are all really great people who are there to help entrepreneurs. Just know it’s a long process and can be torture at times but if you get to go in and pitch to the sharks try to have fun with it.”

Big things are expected for Bon Affair in the future and it will be exciting to see where this little wine spritzer company goes. To read more on Bon Affair and Jayla, check out my blog post about our Women Leading in Local session in San Francisco where we heard about Jayla’s inspiration for her company.

The post Women Leading in Local Speaker Jayla Siciliano to be on ABC's Shark Tank appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Networking is key at any conference and the opportunity to network with other women is considered to be of high importance to many of us females in the corporate world. BIA/Kelsey was sure to give its female conference attendees that opportunity at our Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media Conference during our second Women Leading in Local Session on Tuesday afternoon.

The theme of this conference’s WLIL session was all about starting up. How do women start up their day in the corporate world? How did they start their companies? How did they motivate themselves to become the successful business women they are today? The two keynote speakers during this session were Jayla Siciliano, Founder of Bon Affair and Anna Zornosa, Founder and CEO of Ruby Ribbon.

Bon Affair is the wine spritzer company created by women for women. Jayla’s vision for her company came to her during her career as a product specialist for Diesel and Burton. Her position involved a fair amount of social drinking and she was growing tired of the not so great feeling the day after an event. That is when her idea for an alocoholic beverage for women that was a little healthier was born.

Jayla’s start up story began with her blindly quitting her job and running with her idea. She sought out good advisers who could make up for the experience she did not have, she got her MBA, and then production began. Her first several batches of her wine spritzer proved to be a challenge for her with problems from leakage to tomato bits floating in the bottles. This was a struggle for her but she started everyday knowing that patience and persistence would get her through this challenge. After finding a new bottler, Bon Affair has taken off in California and she plans to spread to the rest of the United States soon.

Anna Zornosa’s idea for starting up Ruby Ribbon came to her in a very personal way: trying on shapewear alone in a Nordstrom dressing room. After struggling with the article of clothing for a while and experiencing the dressing room frustration all of us women know and resent, she decided it was time for a change.

Ruby Ribbon is the shapewear company that combines shapewear with everyday clothing. Her collection consists of new shaping basics that can easily work with any women’s existing wardrobe. As stated by Anna on the Ruby Ribbon website: “Ruby Ribbon was inspired by my simple desire to create a company built around the idea of empowering women to look and feel their best, while going after their dreams”.

Our Women Leading in Local sessions have proved to be a success at our last two conferences and we plan to continue them at our conferences moving forward. If you are a female attendee of our conference in May in Atlanta be sure to stop by the WLIL session.

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