So you’ve decided you want to work for yourself and you’ve been inspired to strike out on your own – excellent! You may have great work experience or recently graduated, or you may be returning to the workforce. In fact, there is no set definition of what an entrepreneur is composed of. The important factor at this juncture is your entrance into the marketplace – put simply, … [Read more...]
Self Confidence and the Female Entrepreneur
In Ireland, there is a strong, on-going government initiative to encourage entrepreneurship. In conjunction with the global recession of the past eight years or so, Ireland also experienced its own devastating banking crisis. During, and since this awful time, realization dawned that entrepreneurs are the backbone of our economy. Their strength, in the face of uncertainty, … [Read more...]
Connecting Women to Investors at Capital W: The Boston Women’s Venture Summit
Investor and businesswoman Sheryl Marshall started working with women-owned businesses and women venture funding in 1999 after spending years working in financial services where she fielded tons of calls from women looking for capital. She recalls, “Back then, only 2% of venture funding went to women-owned businesses, and most of that 2% went to iVillage.” This lack of … [Read more...]
3 Steps To Take Before Starting A Business
The other day I was watching a re-run of the show Reba and thought, “This is a great topic for a blog post!” Reba’s younger daughter needed money for her college fund. Since Reba and her husband were divorced, she asked him if he could help. In Reba’s mind, the way he could help the most was by selling his country club membership that he had for over 15 years. Doing that … [Read more...]
How Women Entrepreneurs can Overcome the Cash, Contracts and Connections Challenge
There are three challenges that can deeply hinder the progress and growth of a woman-owned business: access to funding, contracts, and resources. Fortunately, they are not impossible to overcome. It’s no secret access to capital has consistently been a thorn in the side of women entrepreneurs and prevented them from scaling to the next level, but so have scoring major accounts … [Read more...]
Help Create the Small Business Health Index
Would you like to help create an index of economic indicators that captures the health of small businesses in the United States? Fit Small Business is developing a Small Business Health Index with a goal to provide accurate data on the state of small business health in the United States, and the Women on Business audience has been asked to help! While the term of "small … [Read more...]
To Ensure Business Growth Keep Asking Yourself This Question
It is so easy to get stuck in your business and forget about taking a break from it every now and then. A lot of the clients I work with have forgotten what it means to go away on holiday, vacation, whatever you call it. In fact, they have not taken a day off in ages! And we got into business for freedom, didn’t we? Anyway, that would be the topic of another post. The … [Read more...]
Smart Risk-Taking Tips for Entrepreneurs
Launching a business is already risky - many entrepreneurs leave a full time job with a good salary, benefits and security, to venture off into the unknown - no salary, no benefits and certainly no security. But they do it because they are, well, entrepreneurs. The very word conjures up images of fast-moving, fast-talking, big-money-making heroes, so it’s no wonder that … [Read more...]
3 Tips To Set Your Mind For Success
Building a business is darned hard work! A lot of people are not actually ready to do that work. They play around learning all about the tips, tricks, strategies and then they do absolutely nothing with the information or more than likely, they do not do enough with the information! And then they turn around and blame the provider of the information or they say it does not … [Read more...]
Are You in Business or Do You Just Own a Job?
Leverage is one massive key to successful business. And leveraging the skills and experiences of people who work with and for you is absolutely essential if you want to reach the dizzying heights of business success. It is also a skill that a lot of business owners lack. You may have started your business as the general dogsbody---learning how to do every little thing in … [Read more...]