On this morning's edition of the Today Show there was a segment on starting a business: what you need to know for a successful launch.

They started by saying that women entrepreneurs are far most successful than men, partly because "women are wired for entrepreneurship."

We are great at multi-tasking, we are good listeners which comes in handy when finding a niche and we follow through. I suppose conversely that means that men are none of those things, which I find hard to believe in EVERY instance, but in my own experience it has been women who have taken the risk to start a business and are succeeding.

This Thursday evening is a perfect example of women exceeding in business. Ten women have been named as finalist in this year's athena Awards celebration of women in business.

I know several of the women who have made it to the finalist category, one who is a dear friend: Chris Brown. You know her from Branding and Marketing- a blog that is fast moving up every chart on the Internet.

There are a lot of reasons that Chris has earned the right to be honored on Thursday as a successful entrepreneur and mentor for other business women, but one of the unique traits she has is follow through.

She does all the right stuff: giving back to the community, training and mentoring her associates, planning for success and then working, one piece at a time to achieve her goals.

However, consistently she follows through with what she says she is going to do and that shows with her client relationships, her church committee members, her scouting activities and all of the other relationships she has.

To succeed in business we can all take a page from Chris' book of entrepreneurship. Set a course and stay focused to the task with the end always in sight.

The Today Show segment offers great tips for things to think through when starting your business:

- Base the business on something you know
- Target your marketing
- Be flexible
- Create a short business plan

I would add that you should look for a mentor who is already successful. Someone who will be honest and ask a few tough questions. Invite them to lunch and then ask questions and take really good notes. I did that with Chris and the information she provided filled a notebook!

Who do you know that you could learn something from? Invite them to coffee and pick their brain.

On the other side - who do you know just starting out who could benefit from what you've learned so far? Reach out and share your learns.

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer