Tips For Women's Business Growth In 2014

Article from Forbes.com
By By Nell Merlino
Photo: Dell’s Official Flickr Page

Economists are predicting a year of economic growth for the U.S. economy and competition will be tough for American businesses.  It’s important to note that many of today’s small businesses are owned and operated by women. They represent 50% or more of privately held companies but only 4.2% of their businesses generate more than $1 million in revenue.*   So how can female entrepreneurs take advantage of the upswing in the economy and take their businesses to the next level?

As the founder of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, the leading not-for-profit provider of resources, business education and community support for women entrepreneurs,  it’s my mission to help the over eight million women business owners in the U.S. to substantially grow their businesses.  The benefit of helping this group of entrepreneurs will result in increased revenues and job growth in communities across the country.

A new year means new opportunities to reassess and explore new avenues that put women entrepreneurs on the path to growth.  Here are five tips I recommend that small business owners consider for success:

1.  Retail Giants – Turn this competition into a partnership

Working hard to drive business to your own store or website is important but small business owners have to pay attention to opportunities and understand what it takes to become a player in the global supply chain.  Bottom line, to compete in the marketplace you need to produce something that is new, better and different.

There are a growing number of opportunities for small American businesses to work with retail giants such as Walmart and Sam’s Club. Rather than just waiting for business to come to you why not seek it out in places where a large portion of consumers shop?  Two years ago, Walmart, a generous supporter of Count Me In, invited me to help create its Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative. One of their goals is to purchase $20 billion worth of goods and services from women-owned companies by the end of 2016.  Another door into big box opportunity is through the Sam Club’s Showcase event.  Local vendors can approach the manager of their nearby Sam’s Club for the chance to sample and sell their goods for a limited time with the prospect of establishing a more permanent relationship. Beyond brick and mortar opportunities, Amazon and other ecommerce sites can also deliver big results.

2.  Know your financials and have solid financial goals

This is something many women tend to avoid. If you’re going to grow your business sustainably, you need to understand how your business is spending money. Know where every dollar goes, right down to the last dollar. You need to fully know where you’re going and what you need to achieve in each quarter. It’s important to understand profit.

3.  Learn how to be a CEO

This is one of the biggest transitions women we work with need to overcome. Just because it’s your company does not mean you have to do everything yourself. In order to grow your company you need to be out there selling it. It’s called working on your business, instead of in your business.

Your role as CEO is knowing how to hire the right people to help you make money. To start, write down the things you don’t like to do, don’t know how to do, and where you just aren’t skilled. Be honest! For these things it’s perfectly OK—and more efficient—to have someone else handle them.

Then, think about what other areas of your business need to be addressed? What are the skill sets they require? Is it an assistant to deal with the manufacturer when you have a big order? Or a salesperson or a sales force if that’s the least favorite part of your work? What about a bookkeeper to take charge of getting your invoices out on time?

4.  Get Involved

There are lots of great resources and communities out there that provide opportunities to connect with other women small business owners in person. These groups provide important places to be heard, to share ideas, and find encouragement and support. Count Me In offers lots of resources like the upcoming competition for women from military families taking place in April 2014.

Networking opportunities can make a world of difference for entrepreneurs.  One of Count Me In’s supporters has been Ariela Balk, whose Smart & Sexy lingerie line is in Walmart nationwide.  She has been instrumental in helping Count Me In members find opportunities they wouldn’t have held otherwise, to do business with Walmart and other big box outlets.

Also consider attending at least one conference per quarter. And no—they don’t have to break your bank. Think of it as an investment. If carefully chosen and carefully planned, you can earn the money back in terms of vital new contacts, new ideas and keeping up with your industry.

5.  Don’t Fear Failure

In facing challenges, I find it helpful to ask myself, "what's the worst that can happen?" Once I face that possibility and the consequences that go with it, some of that fear subsides because I know I can handle it.  Being in business is not all about wins, it's about learning from your failures in order to move forward.

Change in the business world is happening at a faster pace than ever.  Consistently striving to improve yourself and company will help you keep moving toward revenue growth.  

Tips To Make Life Easier For Working Mothers

7 Ideas That Could Make Life Easier for Working Parents

www.time.com/money

Article By

• Margaret Magnarelli @mmagnarelli
 

June 23, 2014                                                                                                                                                 

Experts gathered Monday at The White House Summit on Working Families to discuss ways to reduce the conflicts between the office and home. One working mom thinks these seven ideas would make for a good start.

Alamy

All that “girls can, too” stuff that was popular when I was growing up seems to have paid off.

Women now comprise 47% of U.S. workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 6 in 10 women are now the sole, primary, or co-breadwinners for their families—echoing the results of Money’s own recent survey.

So great, we did it. Kudos to us. We are a new generation of women on top.      

But for those of us who are also moms, working a double shift—at the office for the big cheese and then at home for the little bosses—doesn’t give us time to rest on our laurels. Or rest at all. Life is a constant juggling act, and one in which the balls are always dropping and the audience is booing.

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg may make work-life balance sound like a cakewalk, but a $800 million pay package buys flexibility that’s not really available to those of us with less made-up sounding salaries, not to mention workers making the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

For most working moms like me, work and home are in near-constant conflict. While your family gets that you need to work in order to put dinner on the table, your employer may not make it easy for you to make it home in time to put that healthy meat-and-veg casserole in the oven. (Pizza again?) Or pick up your fifth grader from school. Or take care of a sick baby. (Did I mention that my son is home with a fever today? Insert mommy guilt here.) And then there’s child care, which presents special challenges this time of year when school lets out for summer. (Check out some ideas for saving here).

Only 14% of Americans think our public policies and workplace policies are keeping up with the changes in the workforce, according to a Center for American Progress survey.

On Monday, the White House and the Center for American Progress convened an event—The White House Summit on Working Families—aimed at finding solutions for the challenges working families face. At the plenary session, Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University; Mark Weinberger, CEO of professional services firm EY; Makini Howell, owner of Seattle’s Plum Bistro Restaurant; and Mary Kay Henry, president of Service Employees International Union; came together to offer their thoughts for what could help. These seven ideas caught my eye:

1. Make the school day more reflective of the work day.“There’s no reason school begins with a six-year-old,” said Goldin. “There isn’t any reason why it can’t start at three or four years old. There is no reason why school ends at 2 or 3 o’clock. And there is no reason—and sorry to all the kids—why it ends in June.”

2. Get parents at the top to set a standard. “When I was offered this job, I asked my kids, ‘Should I do this?’” recounted Weinberger, CEO of EY, which surveys its employees annually on flexibility. “My daughter asked ‘Will you still be able to keep the commitment to us?’ And I said absolutely, I was a father first.” Three months later, he said, he was in China giving his first speech as CEO when he was asked if he would be attending that evening’s dinner. Weinberger responded by saying that he had to leave for his daughter’s driving test. “Not a single person remembers my great speech, but I got hundreds of emails from people telling me what that freed them up to do.”

3. Require paid sick leave. “If I have a worker who dedicates five, 10 years of their life to my success and my small business, my question is why not pay a sick day?” says Howard, who helped pass paid sick leave legislation in Seattle. “When you care enough about your employees to provide a safety net, they don’t abuse what you offer…and if I can’t trust you to tell me when you’re sick, I should have more issues than you having a paid day off.”

4. Make paid maternity leave a must. “If someone who is working has a child or has a disability and has to leave that job, and then has to search for another job, that’s a cost for everyone in the system,” said Goldin, pointing to California’s law, which pays 55% of an employee’s base weekly wages for up to six weeks.

5. Boost wages for caregivers. “Childcare workers are building the brains of the next generation to be globally competitive,” said Henry. To that end, caregiving needs to be better rewarded as a profession, she said. “These need to become jobs people could raise their families on. Home-care and childcare workers could be the autoworkers and steelworkers of the future.”

6. Bump up minimum wage. “The number one issue is how do we drive wages up at the bottom of economy so that wage pressure on jobs in the middle can increase,” said Henry. “It’s not about whether we can make ends meet with one job, it’s about families doing three jobs and becoming ships passing in the night to care for children.” Howell, who was involved in helping bump Seattle’s minimum wage to $15, echoed this sentiment. “We have this race-to-the-bottom mentality in wages,” she said. “But raising the minimum to $15 puts more money into the economy since my workers are another business’s consumers.”

7. Encourage companies to invest in flexibility. “Many industries have become more flexible,” said Goldin. That’s in part due to technologies that allow employees to work remotely, she added, noting that she hopes other industries will follow.

For The Entrepreneurial Mom-To-Be

Pregnancy Diary Vol. I: Baby on the Way!

By Ellen Seidman

It's hard to believe that I'm already 14 weeks pregnant! Now that I'm officially in my second trimester and my energy has boomeranged back, I no longer feel the urge to crawl beneath my desk every afternoon to nap. And I can stay up past 8:00 p.m! 

By some stroke of luck, I've managed to escape morning sickness. Sure, I had a couple of queasy moments, but I sipped lemonade and downed potato chips -- my friend Wendy's remedy -- and it worked. 

Is there really a baby growing in my belly? This all feels so surreal. I think I haven't fully absorbed this baby thing because I've been distracted by our new house. (Yikes! -- am I qualified to be a parent if I'm referring to my unborn child as "this baby thing"?) We found out we were new homeowners on THE SAME DAY we discovered I was pregnant. The realtor called in the afternoon to say that the bid we had put in on a house in the 'burbs was accepted, and then that night I took a pregnancy test. Dave was away on business, and I was doing it just for kicks. I'd only been off the Pill for a couple of months and somehow, we figured it would take at least six months to conceive. That's been the story for most of my friends. 


Read more: Pregnancy Diary Vol. I: Baby on the Way! http://www.yourbabytoday.com/thebabycoordinator/features/pdiary1/index.html#ixzz33jRxbc4l

Balancing Work, Leisure and Love

Balancing Work, Leisure and Love after Having A Baby

By Kathryn E. Livingston

Naturally, nothing matches your love for your baby. But when you've totally given up on romance, work is a nightmare, and your personal interests seem like distant memories, it's time for a balance check.

Time management is a major issue for new mothers, observes Maryann Troiani, Ph.D., coauthor of Spontaneous Optimism (Castle Gate Publishing). "The first complaint I often hear from new moms is that they feel their time is bankrupt. They're always trying to beat the clock and just can't keep up with the demands of their new situation."

"Nobody can do any job 24 hours a day. All moms need some time off to do other things," adds Susan Heitler, Ph.D., author of The Power of Two: Secrets to a Strong & Loving Marriage (New Harbinger Publications). "Operate from the inside out," Heitler suggests. "If you're depressed or stressed, none of the other pieces will work. It's just like when you're on an airplane -- if there's a shortage of oxygen, you're told to put the mask on yourself first because you can't help others if you're not breathing!"

How can new moms find a better balance?

Make Love a Priority
Research shows that when couples enjoy loving, happy, optimistic lives together, they're more likely to raise emotionally stable children, says Maryann Troiani. Attention, appreciation, and affection toward your partner will enhance your baby's emotional environment. That doesn't mean you need to plan a complicated, romantic getaway; the solution can be as simple as turning off the TV and spending an hour with your mate chatting over a glass of wine or a cup of tea. 

Ease Back Into a Working Schedule
Instead of plunging into a full-time workday, try to build some balance into the transition. "Take one small step at a time," advises Troiani. "Women who put a lot of energy into their baby and then try to put just as much into work will just drain their batteries dry." If possible, ease back into work; try two or three days to start, or ask if you can work at home for part of the week. 

Read more: Balancing Work, Leisure and Love After Having a Baby http://www.yourbabytoday.com/thebabycoordinator/features/balancing_life/index.html#ixzz33jOvlu5K

Do Small Business Have The Edge On Maternity Leave?

I wanted to share this article with working mothers.  Lets open a discussion on Maternity Leave.

How much maternity leave would you want or think is necessary?  Are businesses taking this matter seriously?  What are your thoughts?



Are small businesses more supportive of women who take maternity leave? Photograph: Alamy

Maternity leave is rightly afforded special protection in the workplace given the history of discrimination against pregnant employees, yet many women still insist that leaving work to have a baby puts them at a disadvantage when they return.

The question is, could small businesses have the edge over larger employers in the way that they manage and support things like maternity leave and requests for flexible working, and therefore benefit from having an engaged workforce and potentially being more attractive to female candidates?

Read the full article here:
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2013/sep/09/maternity-leave-small-business-edge?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Roselle