Women's Initiative: Where Dreams Become Thriving Businesses

Wednesday Linkblogging

• This New York Times article about Latino microbusiness in the States offers some interesting statistics from a new study from the Census Bureau:

From 1997 to 2002, there was a 31 percent increase in the number of businesses in the 50 states and the District of Columbia owned by people of Hispanic origin. That was triple the 10 percent gain in the number of all businesses in the country during that period, the most recent for which the Census Bureau has issued such data. In 2002, nearly 200,000 of the 1.6 million Hispanic-owned businesses had at least one paid worker other than the owner.

Hispanic-owned businesses accounted for 7 percent of the 23 million businesses in the country in 2002 — a percentage likely to have risen since then, given population shifts. The Census Bureau has estimated that as of last year, the Hispanic population was 44.3 million, or 15 percent of the nation’s total, making it the country’s largest ethnic or racial minority.

New York led the states in growth of Hispanic-owned businesses in the 1997-2002 period, with a 57 percent increase. It had a total of 164,000 such businesses in 2002 — not as high as California, with 428,000; Texas, with 319,000; and Florida, with 267,000, the Census Bureau reported.

• The Jamaica Observer has an interview with Gladys Famoriyo, who just won an award from the European Federation of Women Business Owners

for her contributions in developing and training women over the past decade through seminars, programmes, articles, organisations and humanitarian work. She was also the recipient of the International Women's Day Award (2007) in recognition of her work as a business owner, author, speaker and coach.

Check out her book Overcoming Emotional Baggage: A Woman's Guide to Living the Abundant Life.

• The Indianapolis Star has an article about Lorraine Ball's third book Business Map: A Guide to Business Success for Small Business Owners.

• Kathy Marshack at American Chronicle has some opinions about why women business owners are not always taken seriously:

I don't think that people are discriminating because of gender necessarily. It's probably more because they don't know how to relate to women business owners. Women have different values and these values are showing up in how women design their businesses.

... This blending of family and work roles is commonly seen in couple-owned and family-owned enterprises. Yet women who attempt to blend both roles must fight invisibility. ... Sometimes women reinforce this invisibility themselves. In an effort to maintain her role as wife and her role as business owner a woman may feel she has to take a "backseat" to her husband.

• Trading Markets thinks that banks will tighten already restrictive loan policies for startups and small businesses.

• Denise at biztipsblog.com talks about how women business owners can help save the environment:

Women spend $.85 of every dollar in the marketplace, which is a lot of spending power. The goal is for every woman to convert $1,000 of their regular spending to green spending...buying environmentally friendly products and services. A million women can shift $1 billion dollars and make a huge impact on how big and small businesses view and respond to their own environmental impact.

What does this mean for you as a business owner? Well, you're a consumer too, right?

• Loho 10002 has a sharp opinion about the SBA delaying implementing 2000 regulations awarding 5% of federal contracts to women. (scroll all the way down)

What does this mean for you as a business owner? Well, you're a consumer too, right?

Wednesday Linkblogging

• The Birmingham Business Journal reports on research findings distributed by the Center for Women's Business Research in Washington. according to them, "women-owned firms employ nearly 13 million people and generate $1.9 trillion in sales". Not bad. Other findings:

• Between 1997 and 2006, majority women-owned firms (51 percent or more) grew at twice the rate of all firms. 42 percent versus 24 percent.
• Eighty-three percent of women business owners are personally involved in selecting and purchasing technology for their businesses.
• Women owners of firms with revenues of $1 million or higher embrace financial measurements as management tools and produce more financial reports than smaller firms.
• There are 2.4 million firms owned 50 percent or more by women of color in the U.S., employing 1.6 million people and generating nearly $230 billion in sales.
• Sixty-seven percent of women business owners choose financial products and services based on their relationship and experience with a lender.

• Last week we pointed you to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list. Well, Work From Home Momma blog noticed something we didn't: number 76 on the list, Rosalia Mera, started with a home-based business she founded with her husband. That business, which produced lingerie, turned into multinational retailer Zara, and she held onto her shares even after the divorce.

Blogger Laura Spencer says:

What does Rosalia's success mean for home-based owners and work-at-home moms?

It means that what starts small doesn't necessarily need to stay small. Of course, Rosa wasn't the first home business owner to succeed on a grander scale and she won't be the last. With enough talent and imagination home business owners can succeed on a grander scale, if they desire.

• The Hinerman Insurance Group has a blog. Yesterday's post lays out options for women business owners to create a business life insurance plan.



• Illuminea blog has an interview with Julie Lenzer Kirk author of The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches about Building a Successful Business.

I thought this was a really interesting point of view, since while I have always believed that we can succeed in business despite being parents, Julie was basically saying that we can succeed because we are parents!

• And finally, Bangladesh has honored Mohammed Yunus with a commemorative stamp, of which, naturally, no images exist on the internet. (Come on, people! It's the internet! Everything should be on the internet!)

Can Our Clients Compete in a Global Market?

One of my on-going worries about the women we serve is who their markets are. Who will our new entrepreneurs sell to?

Some of the women Women’s Initiative helps are going to do great – they already have buyers ready for purchasing, they may have spent years in the field, they have an education. But by watching graduation after graduation, I can see that most will really struggle. Many don’t have great reading and writing skills. Many don’t live in a community that is already ready to purchase what they have to offer. What will their business futures be like? How best can Women’s Initiative help them?

I have been honestly losing sleep over these questions, wanting to understand the situation a bit better. Then last night it came to me. I just finished City of Joy, an expose on the slums of Calcutta, and began The World is Flat, an explanation of where global economics is headed. Calcutta--the City of Joy--is the perfect place for microenterprise. People live together in very close quarters. Their needs are not complex – they want to buy things like a cup of tea, a pot, a chair, a blanket. One small investment of capital in the City of Joy – a sewing machine, an extra shipment of supplies – can help someone go from eating one meal a day to two meals a day, which means the difference between starvation and survival.

After reading this, I realized how different poverty is in America. Poverty crosses boundaries of education and race. Unlike in India, in America poor people don't always all live together. In the US, often educated people are not poor, but sometimes they are. There isn’t a one size fits most approach that can be used. American microenteprise has to be quite dynamic if it is to be effective.

Likewise, Thomas Friedman offers some interesting ideas in the first chapters of The World is Flat. Friedman’s thesis is that the difference between the haves and the have-nots is lessening thanks to technology. Friedman uses India as his case in point, describing how outsourcing has given talented Indians good paying jobs, allowing them to retain their identity as Indians, while giving Americans relief from the un-creative day-to-day and thus helping them to focus more on their already very strong creative talents. He gives many examples of how companies that sourced specific job functions overseas ended up bringing more money to the US by hiring new employees, selling more products in the country where the work was being done, etc.

Friedman describes college graduates who have no place to put their talent. The new world of outsourcing and genuine Indian creativity is giving the Indian people a whole new opportunity to compete in the global market. And Friedman warns that if Americans don’t watch out, even the most low-paying educated jobs--such as after-school tutoring--could get outsourced.

And this realization gets to the heart of my night sweats – can our clients develop the ability to compete? Can they compete, can they stand on their own? If you had a ready market like the City of Joy, there would have to be a lot of sellers like you before the market would be too tight. But our clients are trying to run their businesses in an atmosphere of extreme competition. They aren’t just competing with people in their community. Often the nature of their businesses is competing with folks around the entire globe.

Perhaps our clients who are hairdressers and child care providers are not competing, but those who are jewelers, seamstresses, web designers--even after-school tutors--are competing in a global market. And how much do they know about the way the global market affects them both positively and negatively? How much of a dent can Women’s Initiative make in preparing them?

It isn’t just Women’s Initiative that has a responsibility to prepare. As citizens, we have a responsibility to make sure that children are properly educated. And we have an opportunity to create a world that is not focused solely on acquiring more and more material goods, but on acquiring more and more real happiness.

Even so, our clients face so many barriers, even after entering our doors. Barriers that go well beyond self esteem and directly into market economics. And still they will nearly double their income within a year of graduating from our basic program. Its an amazing thing, and there is a lot to digest….