From Armchair to Action

Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) Economic Survey Results 2009

The latest economic survey results from women running businesses with annual turnovers in excess of $1million have just been published  in the USA and whilst the economic situation is still not great, women seem to be more upbeat.

Relative to 2008, regarding financial performance in 2009

31% of companies have grown and

21% are stable and have neutral performance

 

Optimism for 2010

§   82% are optimistic about business performance in 2010

 

Environmental Sustainability

§   54% have made their business environmentally friendly

§   35% are interested in making their business environmentally friendly

 

Greatest threat to the bottom line and factors affecting business

- Economic Conditions

- Customer retention

- Competition

- Human Resources

 

Employees

§   55% plan to increase number of employees or keep the same amount

§   53% have kept employee salaries the same; 15% have increased employee salaries

 

Future Role

§   44% will continue full-time management

§   20% plan hands-off oversight, with presence in the office 1-3 days per week

 

WPO Members

§   61% Believe their business has grown since joining

§   65% Believe the WPO has contributed to economic success

§   81% Believe the WPO helps manage business concerns in the current economic climate

Does the message change over time?

This week I went to an event at Said Business School to hear Julie Meyer, founder of Ariadne Capital speak about business.  She was one of the women whom I interviewed for my book Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs and therefore I was interested to know if the messages that she would be communicating had changed over time.

It was heartening to hear a consistency in what she said.......about creating a growth story for Europe....and investing at the moment of greatest pessimism.....which were two things she was telling me five years ago too.

Julie also explained her six points that entrepreneurs should consider:

1. Be unreasonable about success as an entrepreneur - which means acting with imperfect information, never assuming that you control time, never giving up and expecting success
2. You know more than you think you do (this was one of her top tips in my book too)
3. Invest in the success of others
4. Be radically open to the world
5. Exact accountability - Julie talked about the role of management being the search for accountability
6. Create the conditions of trust so that great things can happen.

It just reminded me that the message does not necessarily change over time, but sometimes its our ability to hear it that might be different!

How do you define success?

Yesterday I was speaking as part of a High Growth programme for women on the Psychology of Success.
So I started the session by asking them all what was their definition of success and unsurprisingly the majority of them said things like "making a difference, delivering great service and changing something" rather than "to make money".  This fascinates me in that if I was in a room of men and asked them how they defined success I suspect I would get quite different responses.

What make us different I wonder?  Is it that both genders ultimately want similar things but the focus on how to get there is quite different.  If you mapped the responses against Maslow's hierarchy of needs it seems to me that the women are thinking about self actualisation and men may be focused on esteem needs, which, when met then lead onto self actualisation.  Hmm, just got me thinking......

Did you know....

I came across a list of facts about women, enterprise and equality the other day which made me think that as women, we still have a long way to go to achieve equality....

• Women's enterprise contributes an estimated £60 billion annually to the gross value added to the UK economy
• According to BERR, there are 3.7 million self employed people in UK and 27% are women
• Self employed men who work full time have a mean total annual income of around £31,000. It is £21,000 for self employed women who work full time
• 7% of start ups in England and Wales are by entrepreneurs under 25 years old
• Women of mixed ethnicity are two and a half times more entrepreneurial than white women
• 34.4% of public appointments are held by women
• 9.6% of Judges are women
• It will take, at the present rate, 73 years to achieve an equal number of female directors of FTSE 100 companies, and 200 years to achieve an equal number of female MPs
• Female millionaires in UK are predicted to outnumber male millionaires by 2020
• Childcare costs are 33% of average earnings
• There is a shortage of registered childcare places - there are only places for 25% of children under 8 years old.

Top Tips from Successful Women Entrepreneurs

1. Create a unique product or service – that will give you an edge over your competitors Linda Bennett, founder of LK Bennett
2. Decide what type of person you are – an organised manager or a creative type, and employ the opposite Marilyn Orcharton, Founder of Denplan
3. Invest in technology that can grow with you early on – Penny Streeter, Ambition 24 Hours Group
4. Get the right mentors – Glenda Stone, founder of Aurora and WhereToWork.com
5. You know more than you think you know – Julie Meyer, Founder of Ariadne Capital
6. If things don’t work take responsibility for it yourself and don’t blame others – Michelle Mone, MJM International, creator of the Ultimo bra
7. Know what you want to do and be known for doing it – Yvonne Thompson, founder of European Federation of Black Women Business Owners and ASAP Communications
8. Enjoy it! – Helen Swaby, DeMontfort Fine Art

Why small businesses should act like big businesses

This week I attended the WE Connect workshop which explained how majority women-owned businesses can connect to corporate contracts by becoming certified as a women-owned business.  This initiative has been set up to increase supplier diversity amongst the multinationals and to create a method of giving them assurance that the businesses they may wish to trade with are bona-fide and have the capability to support a corporate contract.  This means that the small businesses have to act like bigger businesses in order to give the corporates confidence in trading with them.

Changing from "I am the business" to "this is a business that I lead"
One of the observations I made at the workshop was the need to help some businesses make the leap from being in the category of "I am the business" to "this is a business that I lead".  To overcome this gap, business owners need to change their mindset to view the business as an entity that has a structure, a business model that could be scalable, and then use different language to describe it.  When you talk about your business - do you say "I do this" or  "we offer that"?  Even if its just you, by saying "we" can make you appear bigger in the eyes of the customer.

Size matters
Most large companies want peace of mind if they are trading with a small business in order to minimise risks and to ensure they will get the service they want.  For example, if the business is "you" what if you are sick, who delivers the service?  They want to know that if you have associates or employees that they will deliver consistent quality. So they want to know what systems or processes you have in place to make sure this is possible.  This is an investment that many small businesses fail to make in portraying themselves as a larger business.

Tips to help you act like a big business

Some ways that this can be done are:
- creating a strong logo and brand for your business that has a "corporate look"
- using a telephone messaging service to take your calls when you are out
- creating systems for the work you do even if its just you that does it currently, so that the job can be replicable by someone else
- being VAT registered (in the UK) can give an impression of your business being bigger than it might be
- being clear about the business model that delivers revenue - so that you know the business does not just rely on you - but can be scalable
- create policies for your business (health and safety, environmental, diversity etc) because if you tender for any government or corporate contracts they will want to know these things).
- consider the language that you use to describe your business, do you make it sound big or small?

- invest in a proper domain name for your business

Establish global partners
If you want to change your focus from a local to a global perspective think about finding some global partners to work with.  You might find that there are some great companies in other countries offering complementary services or products that you could partner with to get a foot in another market place.  Now that WE Connect has launched in the UK, several women-owned US companies are looking to find out how they can become certified in the UK, so if those companies can think globally why can't you?  A similar certification process already exists in the US and is called WBENC.

Where are the women?

I regularly meet loads of women business owners and have recently been required to trawl through my database of contacts to find businesses in certain sectors: couriers, office furniture retailers, security, market research and recruitment.

If you are a woman business owner in one of these sectors or you know of one, please let me know their details as soon as possible because I know of some interesting potentially lucrative opportunities for you.

Celebrating International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day! It was first celebrated in 1911 and of now it is celebrated all over the world with many events being held.

I must admit it has never really been on my calendar as a must-do celebration, and was surprised when my husband, who is originally from Russia, reminded me about it.  It was, and still is a big deal there because it was due to the Russian women striking for "bread and peace" in response to the death of over 2 million Russian soldiers in the first World War that yielded a positive result.  The women were opposed by political leaders but continued to strike until the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. So it  is a reminder of what women can, and have achieved over the years. Enjoy the day!

Some interesting women's websites

International Women's Day website

WE magazine for women

SBTV - Womens Channel

Diva-Biz

European Federation of Black Women Business Owners