If you're new here, you'll want to be sure to get your free report and subscribe to the monthly e-zine and, perhaps, subscribe to the RSS feed, as well. Thanks for visiting!

The Women’s Business Gallery “What’s Missing?” Survey and Contest ended on Friday and now I have the results. I’ve already notified all the winners, so if you name appears below and you didn’t get my email, please check your spam folder or contact me at info@womens-business-gallery.com to collect your prize.

Before I announce the winners, I thought I’d share some of the results. They were quite interesting. For one, it seems that a lot of you have a lot in common with me. I guess like attracts like, huh? What do I mean?

Well, for one 77% of respondents have been in workforce for 10 or more years. For another, 69% of respondents are kinesthetic learners — you learn best when you experience or interact with the material. This latter point is particularly interesting because only 5% of the general population are kinesthetic learners!

By far, the most popular way that respondents liked to learn was through home-study programs (92%). 38% preferred one-on-one coaching and both lectures and group coaching received 15%.

Other characteristics of respondents were more evenly spread.

Interestingly enough, most respondents said that they were beginners in four of the five key business areas:

Marketing — 62%
Lead Generation — 85%
Product Development — 92%
Business Management — 77%

Only 54% of respondents felt they were beginners in the area of Leadership and Vision. 31% felt they were intermediate in this area.

Women’s Business Gallery seems to appeal to a mature audience. 54% are in their 50s, followed by 31% in their 40s. (That would make this group mostly late Boomers and early Gen X-ers.)

And Now the Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For

Grand Prize Winner:

The winner of the Grand Prize is Mary Garcia from Fort Worth, Texas. Her day job is file clerk for a physician. But, in part because her employer is nearing retirement age, she’s looking for a way to support herself and her family of husband and three children through an online business.

Mary won the grand prize because of her thoughtful response to the essay question, “What challenge are you currently facing in your business that is not being addressed by the products and services currently available? Include in your answer what you think is missing from those products and services that makes them not work for you.” Her answer echoed what I hear a lot from so many people these days. “I have no idea where my niche is,” she wrote. “Or what to do when I find it. There is so much information out there to filter through that I tend to feel overwhelmed. … I think since I don’t know what I’m good at, I try to take in too many avenues, instead of focusing on one niche.”

I know first hand what this feels like. I first started making my first foray into self-employment in late 2000. I tried freelance writing. I tried Mary Kay. I even got licensed to sell life insurance in Arizona and tried Primerica. The missing ingredient to all these businesses, I thought, was a total lack of sales ability. But what I’ve since learned is that none of these businesses were built around my core strengths and passions. None of them were my calling. And, I believe this is what happens to so many of us when we seek to find success and meaning in our lives.

Consolation Prize Winners:

There were so many good answers that I was tempted to give the five consolation prizes to my remaining favorites. But, since I did say it was a random drawing, that would not be fair. So, I took all the remaining names, wrote them down on individual pieces of paper, crumpled them up and threw them in a left-over Amazon.com box. Then I trotted down the stairs and asked my husband to pull five names from the box. That way, I could not influence the choice of winners.

And the consolation prize winners are, in alphabetical order:

• Judy Bouchard from Tampa, Florida
• Charlene Elouassina from Columbus, Ohio
• Pam Hoffman from Aliso Viejo, California
• Melanie Hoffner from Shellsburg, Iowa, www.BrainBonanza.com
• Gina Szabo from Budapest, Hungary

Congratulations to all the winners!

If you’d like to see what the winners won, click here.