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...]
The Woman-side of Leadership
In business, women often bring a different set of leadership traits to the table than their male counterparts. These are considered more feminine traits such as collaboration, empathy, patience, and humility. Not all women leaders possess these traits and some women actually possess more masculine traits such as aggressiveness and competitiveness. But in a current work … [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...]
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...]
How to Create A Financial Model for Your Business
Most entrepreneurs fall in love with an idea and spend a lot of time building out what it looks like. For example, a software developer will work on the features of his software product; a chef will work on the menu for her restaurant; and a service provider will identify potential customers for her services. This is the fun part of creating your business plan, and it is … [Read more...]
The Profile of an Entrepreneur – Do You Match? [Infographic]
Do you match the profile of an entrepreneur? TechnologyAdvice CEO Rob Bellenfant and his research team analyzed the defining personal characteristics and habits of entrepreneurs and compared the results to the general population. As the infographic below shows, the results are very interesting. For example, some highlights include: The average entrepreneur works 66 hours … [Read more...]