Women in Business

I was thinking today after talking with my mother and realized that during her generation there wasn’t very many women in business. I mean you had a few but they certainly did not generally run Fortune 500 companies the way that many of them do today.

Think about it for a second. How many do you remember hearing your mother or grandmother talk about or even hear on the news when you were younger? You didn’t have very many women like Chrissy Weems for example a generation or so ago. I love that my daughters can strive to be anything they want and most likely achieve it. I could do that as well and while that is amazing there are still plenty of challenges for a woman in the world of business.

One of the biggest is the fact that women can’t raise as much start up capital as a man if they are starting their own business. According to Entrepreneur men were more likely to raise $100,000 r more of outside funding than women. Since investors tend to invest with the own “tribe” so to speak you end up with male investors invested in men. One way women can get around this is to seek out female investors. It may be easier to pitch a woman for many women.

Another challenge according to Business News Daily is that women don’t own their accomplishments. As a woman business owner myself I can attest to this. Anytime I talk about my business to someone I say “we do this” or “we did that” when in fact there is pretty much only me. I have an assistant who works with me part time but for the most part I do everything in my business there is to do. However I still never say “I”.

This also leads to another problem that I myself have. Women tend to be people pleasers and in business can give away more than they should. I have worked with clients and done so much free work when I should have charged them more. Especially in the beginning, although I do that now as well. For me, personally, I think if I go so far above and beyond I will have a client for life or one who will give me a good reference. While that has been the case about most of the time, I have had clients who I’ve done plenty of free extra work for ask for more and more each time we work together.

Balancing family life and work can be hard for many women as well. Men, traditionally, have worked outside the home. It is and has always been expected. Women didn’t so we naturally don’t know how to make it work. Many women never saw their mothers a day in their lives. While others saw their mother work but they failed to have enough time for work and family. Learning that you don’t have to do it all. That you can turn down a project because you have a school play to attend is something women are still learning.

Finally the fear of failure gets us every time. This is true especially when starting out. Every no I used to get was so soul crushing to me. While every yes left me with such a high. Mean comments were the bane of my existence when I first started. Now, I don’t worry about a no. I still get thousands of noes but plenty of yeses. Being a woman in business today is exciting and I can only imagine what the next generation of women will bring.