Today's woman entrepreneur - do you recognise her?
Today's woman entrepreneur - do you recognise her?
I spend a lot of my time working with women entrepreneurs running all sizes and types of businesses.
It fascinates me to observe what motivates these women and how they achieve success.
A few years ago, I noticed there were very few women entrepreneur role models in the UK, so I decided to find them because I knew that lots of women were running great companies. I carried out interviews with ten of the top female entrepreneurs. These women included Michelle Mone, creator of the Ultimo™ bra whose lingerie is now stocked all over the world, and Penny Streeter OBE, Founder of Ambition 24 Hour Group,an international healthcare recruiter, recognised as the fastest growing unquoted UK company in 2002.
My interviews showed that the characteristics of these women entrepreneurs correlated with the earlier research. Today's woman has a strong need for achievement and a passion for her product or service. It is likely that she carried out some research into her market prior to start-up but also
relies on intuition and her existing business knowledge to judge whether a business idea is viable. That means that many women start-up in a sector that is already familiar to them.
The Need for Autonomy
A confident focused individual with self-belief and tenacity, today's woman entrepreneur has a clear vision of what she wants to achieve and will go out to make this happen. It's the letting go that they can find hard yet delegation is important for growth.
Values Led Business
Today's woman has strong personal values by which to drive the business. These values are founded on respect, integrity, ethics, honesty and a passion for excellence. Ironically, it is the dysfunctional cultures of backstabbing, politicking and dishonesty in some of the large corporates that drive women to start up their own business, because of their need for honesty, ethics and integrity.
Business commentator Margaret Heffernan, also discovered that this desire to run companies based on a different set of values by which to do business was common ais doing research for her book "How She Does it" which explained the phenomenon of how privately held businesses owned by women grew at three times the rate of all US privately held firms between 1997 and 2006. This staggering statistic revealed that women owned businesses in the US are now responsible for more payroll than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.
Trade off between work and life
Whilst today's woman will encounter challenges including finding finance and balancing work and life requirements, her determination and tenacity to succeed will shine through. Most of the women I interviewed said that they did not have much "life" balance but had consciously made that choice in order to focus on their business and getting it to the next level. It is this trade off between work and family that causes many women to create lifestyle businesses, where the business runs at a pace and income level that affords them time to enjoy with their children or family.
Sharing and Supporting
Today's woman entrepreneur leads her business in a manner that promotes genuine concern for others, team-working and openness. Amongst her measures of success are interaction with people and helping
others and she is open to sharing her learning and experience. On asking the women what was their greatest learning, they all talked about situations where they had made mistakes. So it's worthwhile to note that on the journey to grow a business, you need to expect things to go wrong, and the critical factor is learning how to remain resilient in the face of these situations.
Todays woman entrepreneur do you recognise her - To learn more about this author, visit Sue Stockdale's Website.
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There has been a lot of research into the characteristics of women entrepreneurs and what makes them successful and it has been known for a long time that women are driven by a desire for independence, job satisfaction, economics and a need to achieve. These needs were demonstrated as early as 1878 when Catherine Cranston opened her tearoom business in Glasgow. This was a first in its day, and not the norm for women, but Catherine viewed it as an extension of her domestic duties at home, but for profit and it also enabled her to satisfy the need to help others.
I spend a lot of my time working with women entrepreneurs running all sizes and types of businesses.
It fascinates me to observe what motivates these women and how they achieve success.
A few years ago, I noticed there were very few women entrepreneur role models in the UK, so I decided to find them because I knew that lots of women were running great companies. I carried out interviews with ten of the top female entrepreneurs. These women included Michelle Mone, creator of the Ultimo™ bra whose lingerie is now stocked all over the world, and Penny Streeter OBE, Founder of Ambition 24 Hour Group,an international healthcare recruiter, recognised as the fastest growing unquoted UK company in 2002.
My interviews showed that the characteristics of these women entrepreneurs correlated with the earlier research. Today's woman has a strong need for achievement and a passion for her product or service. It is likely that she carried out some research into her market prior to start-up but also
relies on intuition and her existing business knowledge to judge whether a business idea is viable. That means that many women start-up in a sector that is already familiar to them.
The Need for Autonomy
A confident focused individual with self-belief and tenacity, today's woman entrepreneur has a clear vision of what she wants to achieve and will go out to make this happen. It's the letting go that they can find hard yet delegation is important for growth.
Values Led Business
Today's woman has strong personal values by which to drive the business. These values are founded on respect, integrity, ethics, honesty and a passion for excellence. Ironically, it is the dysfunctional cultures of backstabbing, politicking and dishonesty in some of the large corporates that drive women to start up their own business, because of their need for honesty, ethics and integrity.
Business commentator Margaret Heffernan, also discovered that this desire to run companies based on a different set of values by which to do business was common ais doing research for her book "How She Does it" which explained the phenomenon of how privately held businesses owned by women grew at three times the rate of all US privately held firms between 1997 and 2006. This staggering statistic revealed that women owned businesses in the US are now responsible for more payroll than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.
Trade off between work and life
Whilst today's woman will encounter challenges including finding finance and balancing work and life requirements, her determination and tenacity to succeed will shine through. Most of the women I interviewed said that they did not have much "life" balance but had consciously made that choice in order to focus on their business and getting it to the next level. It is this trade off between work and family that causes many women to create lifestyle businesses, where the business runs at a pace and income level that affords them time to enjoy with their children or family.
Sharing and Supporting
Today's woman entrepreneur leads her business in a manner that promotes genuine concern for others, team-working and openness. Amongst her measures of success are interaction with people and helping
others and she is open to sharing her learning and experience. On asking the women what was their greatest learning, they all talked about situations where they had made mistakes. So it's worthwhile to note that on the journey to grow a business, you need to expect things to go wrong, and the critical factor is learning how to remain resilient in the face of these situations.
Todays woman entrepreneur do you recognise her - To learn more about this author, visit Sue Stockdale's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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