2012 Businesswoman of the Year

Linda Baumann, co-owner of Marketplace Media, received the Businesswoman of the Year award from the Missoula Businesswomen’s Network today.
In her acceptance speech, Linda said “I’m so lucky that I have a family that has always supported me. If you have ever attended Pet Fest, Rock Against Racism or the Women’s Fair, you might have seen our son Christopher doing the sound management, his girlfriend, Abi, doing the photography, and Charlie greeting guests at the door. So many of my work endeavors wouldn’t have happened without family support. I’m proud of all of them.”
She spoke of the support she has received from her daughter and business partner, Megan. “She has taken my little “next step to retirement” advertising agency and created our monster. We have served almost 400 individual businesses since 2006. Megan joined me in 2007 so I think I had maybe 10 clients in 2006.” She added “Two years ago, Megan supported me in another one of my crazy antics and risk taking when we bought the local Curves franchise, moved it to a new location and set out to triple the membership by adding more value and we did.”
Linda encouraged women to take time for themselves and enjoy the things in life that makes them happy. “You should accept that you can’t make everyone happy and know that it’s alright, because nobody expects you to. When you put yourself out there for everyone to see, there will undoubtedly be people who will disagree with you. You’ll upset people, make them angry, and once you do, they’ll do their best to stop you. Don’t let them succeed in doing so. Let go of the idea that you can make everyone happy, and focus on making yourself happy. It’s up to everybody else to decide whether or not they want to be happy along with us.”