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Real You
Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs
Real You Incorporated empowers women entrepreneurs. The book provides insights for women on how to discover and love their personal brand, and how to bring it into the market as a real business―unique and different. In the first section of the book, Find It Within You, readers will learn how to express internal personality, passions and essence to define the internal brand. In the second section, The Competitive Advantage, readers learn how to extend the internal message into the world―to their partners, employees and ultimately their customers. Part branding―the author is a nationally known marketing expert―and part business inspiration, Real You Incorporated includes case studies of real women entrepreneurs from a variety of manufacturing, retail, restaurants, real estate, publishing and many more. Their stories bring the book to life, adding inspiration and role models. The book also includes a visualization tool in the form of a chart that women entrepreneurs can complete and keep with them, to remind them of their Real You, no matter what phase their business is in.
- GenresBusiness
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 30, 2010
3 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Kaira Rouda
43 books2,886 followersKaira Rouda is a USA TODAY and #1 Amazon and Amazon Charts bestselling author of contemporary fiction exploring beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives. Her suspense novels include BEST DAY EVER, THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER, ALL THE DIFFERENCE, THE NEXT WIFE, SOMEBODY'S HOME, THE WIDOW, BENEATH THE SURFACE, UNDER THE PALMS, THE SECOND MRS STROM, WHAT THE NANNY SAW and JILL IS NOT HAPPY. Her next novel, WE WERE NEVER FRIENDS, is out February 3, 2026.
She lives in Southern California with her family and is at work on her next novel. Visit her webiste, KairaRouda.com for more. Connect with her on Instagram and Pinterest: @KairaRouda; and on Facebook at Kaira Rouda Books.
If you'd like to host Kaira at your book club, please reach out through her website KairaRouda.com
Sign up to receive a monthly email from Kaira with exclusive sales news, book excerpts, sweepstakes, and giveaways at: kairarouda.com/signup/
She lives in Southern California with her family and is at work on her next novel. Visit her webiste, KairaRouda.com for more. Connect with her on Instagram and Pinterest: @KairaRouda; and on Facebook at Kaira Rouda Books.
If you'd like to host Kaira at your book club, please reach out through her website KairaRouda.com
Sign up to receive a monthly email from Kaira with exclusive sales news, book excerpts, sweepstakes, and giveaways at: kairarouda.com/signup/
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 9, 2010
Great writers don’t just tell good stories. Great business writers don’t just map new roads to success and hawk their genius. Kaira Rouda knows that. Kaira Rouda is a great writer. She is a great writer because she reveals the reader to herself. I found myself in “Real You Incorporated, 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs.” Kaira Rouda’s book revealed me to myself.
Rouda makes a promise in the first few pages:
“After reading ‘Real You Incorporated’ you will better understand your personal brand and be able to deliver a more sincere, sustainable, and richer business concept to the world.”
She delivers on that promise.
I was looking for answers in all the wrong places. I looked where other twenty-first century women entrepreneurs look for inspiration and guidance. Like many new media savvy entrepreneurs, I tapped into my microblogging stream, but an uninterrupted salvo of inspiration from the Dalai Llama and Mother Teresa did not move me to action.
I joined law of attraction devotees who hearken to coaches teaching basic precepts, summoning personal abundance with sheer will and desire. Forget it!
Life seems much simpler after reading “Real You Incorporated, 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs“ (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008).
Kaira Rouda is the most vivacious speaker in real estate. Her book embraces a thought design elegant as the woman who wrote it, pure pedigree. She translates her special breed of vim and vigor and optimism into a blueprint for entrepreneurial self discovery. She led the first major brand with a focus on women and lifestyle marketing. She was the first major player in the real estate industry to promote eco-friendly practices.
Rouda meshes her own life experiences with smart, pithy “Real Story” narratives of 24 women business owners. Their stories share common threads – they have a strong sense of purpose, a vision, and they are in tune with their passions, their customers, and their positioning. Hyper focused market prism serves these women well. They are successful. They are working and playing and living their lives and carving success across a broad spectrum of industries, products, and services - autos, bistros, business development, communications, dance fitness, fashion, floral design, hair salons, marketing, publishing, real estate.
Each woman shares her essence in an eight-layer chart that articulates her essence. I created my own chart based on words that articulate my essence – brutally honest, change champion, consumer advocate, engaging, fearless, intense, loyal, passionate, powerful.
“Turn passion into action. You do not have to be in a place that does not make your heart sing,“says Rouda.
She follows her passions in life and business. Rouda is a successful real estate executive with a focus on home buyers and home sellers and agents and sales production. Lifestyle marketing in real estate is about home and hearth … and heart … it’s about REAL people, wherever they live. Her lifestyle branding shines in passion-based initiative:
“I hadn’t given homelessness more than a passing thought. I was captivated by the sadness of the fact there was no homeless shelter for families in our town. Moms and girls went to the women’s shelter; men and boys over 12 to the men’s shelter … I became obsessed with helping them, and the results – Make Room Columbus – were the first shelter for homeless families in my community.” – Kaira Rouda
The author takes a quantum leap past the heady hyperbole of “The Secret” with a complete primer for business success. She gets it. She walks the talk. She is the real deal. That’s because she knows exactly who she is, the REAL Kaira Rouda.
Find the REAL people in your life and stay away from the snarks, she warns. Snarks sap energy. Snarks pop passions. Snarks are culture vultures. Snarks are not REAL. Rouda created a clever Snark Scale to identify six brands of snark. She posted a Snark Guide on her website.
Rouda knows exactly who her customer is. She knows what her business needs are and she knows how to position her brand. She’s not worried about how to fit into a man’s world because she knows women rule. They make the decisions in the marketplace. They are her customers. Rouda constructs an eight-step plan, a veritable blueprint for success tailored for women. The book’s complementary website is conclusive proof the author knows exactly what she is talking about when she discusses her own 360 marketing, blending traditional and new media.
Dreaming of owning your own business? This is a great place to start, plan, and make it happen! Share your passion and commonalities with your target audience. Create your own RYI chart. Articulate your essence, your brand.
The magic of the book is not what you learn about business. The magic of the book lies in what you learn about yourself.
Are you an entrepreneur? What is your essence, your core? Put your passions into action. Be authentic. Be clear. Who a woman is in her heart is the essence of who she is at home, at school, and in the workplace. The passions that make your heart sing are the same passions that will drive your success in business.
Rouda spells it out: “Lesson One: Your future starts now.”
Go for it!
Rouda makes a promise in the first few pages:
“After reading ‘Real You Incorporated’ you will better understand your personal brand and be able to deliver a more sincere, sustainable, and richer business concept to the world.”
She delivers on that promise.
I was looking for answers in all the wrong places. I looked where other twenty-first century women entrepreneurs look for inspiration and guidance. Like many new media savvy entrepreneurs, I tapped into my microblogging stream, but an uninterrupted salvo of inspiration from the Dalai Llama and Mother Teresa did not move me to action.
I joined law of attraction devotees who hearken to coaches teaching basic precepts, summoning personal abundance with sheer will and desire. Forget it!
Life seems much simpler after reading “Real You Incorporated, 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs“ (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008).
Kaira Rouda is the most vivacious speaker in real estate. Her book embraces a thought design elegant as the woman who wrote it, pure pedigree. She translates her special breed of vim and vigor and optimism into a blueprint for entrepreneurial self discovery. She led the first major brand with a focus on women and lifestyle marketing. She was the first major player in the real estate industry to promote eco-friendly practices.
Rouda meshes her own life experiences with smart, pithy “Real Story” narratives of 24 women business owners. Their stories share common threads – they have a strong sense of purpose, a vision, and they are in tune with their passions, their customers, and their positioning. Hyper focused market prism serves these women well. They are successful. They are working and playing and living their lives and carving success across a broad spectrum of industries, products, and services - autos, bistros, business development, communications, dance fitness, fashion, floral design, hair salons, marketing, publishing, real estate.
Each woman shares her essence in an eight-layer chart that articulates her essence. I created my own chart based on words that articulate my essence – brutally honest, change champion, consumer advocate, engaging, fearless, intense, loyal, passionate, powerful.
“Turn passion into action. You do not have to be in a place that does not make your heart sing,“says Rouda.
She follows her passions in life and business. Rouda is a successful real estate executive with a focus on home buyers and home sellers and agents and sales production. Lifestyle marketing in real estate is about home and hearth … and heart … it’s about REAL people, wherever they live. Her lifestyle branding shines in passion-based initiative:
“I hadn’t given homelessness more than a passing thought. I was captivated by the sadness of the fact there was no homeless shelter for families in our town. Moms and girls went to the women’s shelter; men and boys over 12 to the men’s shelter … I became obsessed with helping them, and the results – Make Room Columbus – were the first shelter for homeless families in my community.” – Kaira Rouda
The author takes a quantum leap past the heady hyperbole of “The Secret” with a complete primer for business success. She gets it. She walks the talk. She is the real deal. That’s because she knows exactly who she is, the REAL Kaira Rouda.
Find the REAL people in your life and stay away from the snarks, she warns. Snarks sap energy. Snarks pop passions. Snarks are culture vultures. Snarks are not REAL. Rouda created a clever Snark Scale to identify six brands of snark. She posted a Snark Guide on her website.
Rouda knows exactly who her customer is. She knows what her business needs are and she knows how to position her brand. She’s not worried about how to fit into a man’s world because she knows women rule. They make the decisions in the marketplace. They are her customers. Rouda constructs an eight-step plan, a veritable blueprint for success tailored for women. The book’s complementary website is conclusive proof the author knows exactly what she is talking about when she discusses her own 360 marketing, blending traditional and new media.
Dreaming of owning your own business? This is a great place to start, plan, and make it happen! Share your passion and commonalities with your target audience. Create your own RYI chart. Articulate your essence, your brand.
The magic of the book is not what you learn about business. The magic of the book lies in what you learn about yourself.
Are you an entrepreneur? What is your essence, your core? Put your passions into action. Be authentic. Be clear. Who a woman is in her heart is the essence of who she is at home, at school, and in the workplace. The passions that make your heart sing are the same passions that will drive your success in business.
Rouda spells it out: “Lesson One: Your future starts now.”
Go for it!
September 14, 2010
Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs is a great book. It is very easy to read and very inspirational. Furthermore, this book actually accomplishes what many other books attempt; it helps the reader to define their business in actionable and useful steps. From knowing yourself to defining yourself to creating your brand and articulating it and your passions to the world, Real You Incorporated helps the reader establish their foothold in the marketplace.
Although written for women, I found this book to be very helpful to my own business. Over the next 30 days, I will implementing the strategies offered in this book. Kaira's Real You Incorporated is the tool that will help me in an area where I am weakest.
If you have had any thoughts about starting a business or about bettering yourself as a professional, this is to book to read. Buy it, read it once then read it again and follow the steps then keep it as a desk reference.
Lastly, I really like how Kaira mentions to not lose yourself while trying to build your business. Too often, we as entrepreneurs get so wrapped up in building our businesses that we forget how to be ourselves and to enjoy life. Thanks for the reminder Kaira!
This is a must read. As Kaira states be real and be you!
Osiola Henderson
Author of 28 Day Financial Renaissance
Although written for women, I found this book to be very helpful to my own business. Over the next 30 days, I will implementing the strategies offered in this book. Kaira's Real You Incorporated is the tool that will help me in an area where I am weakest.
If you have had any thoughts about starting a business or about bettering yourself as a professional, this is to book to read. Buy it, read it once then read it again and follow the steps then keep it as a desk reference.
Lastly, I really like how Kaira mentions to not lose yourself while trying to build your business. Too often, we as entrepreneurs get so wrapped up in building our businesses that we forget how to be ourselves and to enjoy life. Thanks for the reminder Kaira!
This is a must read. As Kaira states be real and be you!
Osiola Henderson
Author of 28 Day Financial Renaissance
February 25, 2010
We all have business brands, but we also have person brands. Author Kaira Sturdivant Rouda does a great job in forming steps on how to have a real, authentic You brand which is part of your business and personal brand.
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More info: http://www.amazon.com/review/R33H3IEU...
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November 16, 2008LOVE this book
April 13, 2009
Decided not to read this book. It just didn't seem to fit any longer.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews