A woman entrepreneur's desire to succeed

In Entrepreneur

While some would have found the twists and turns of this woman's entrepreneurial ride too tumultuous to stomach, and her unexpected obstacles insurmountable, her business has emerged successful. Read the article to find out why and how. It could be you.

What Motivates Women Entrepreneurs?

In icWales

Whether you are running a business in Wales or Wilmette, Illinois, women are motivated by a desire for independence, freedom and self-fulfilment, research shows.

Learn more by reading: The Start-Up Barriers Facing Women

Drucker Managed To Do It First And Now He Is Gone

In the Financial Times

My favorite and most influential management guru -- Peter Drucker -- passes on at age 95.

"Managers learn in business school that relationships are either up or down, but the most important relationships today are sideways," Drucker said with an Austrian accent grown stronger with old age. "If there is one thing that most of the people I know in management have to learn it is how to handle relationships where there is no authority and no orders. Now, what else do you have?" ~ Peter Drucker, November 15, 2004.

Doesn't it sound like entrepreneurship? Well entrepreneurship and innovation occupied him powerfully in his later years, along with the growth of what he called “knowledge work” and management's wider role in society. He revelled in such observations as “for the first four years, no new enterprise produces profits. Even Mozart didn't start writing music until he was four."

Drucker taught us that the best ideas have to be simplified in order to be effective. Who else could question with such authority: “What business are we in, and who are our customers?”

I will miss his genius immensely. Read the obituary here.

Women Entrepreneurs Aspire To Just "Be"

In The Wall Street Journal

Yesterday I read Colin McGinn's review on "What's It All About?" -- a book on how to figure out what our values and goals should be -- and could not help but notice how parts of his review minded me so much about entrepreneurship. I don't know if the piece is available online but here is the clip I enjoyed the most:

"This possibility suggests that some notion of authenticity and genuine achievement is necessary for a meaningful life, not merely agreeable affect. As Mr. Haggini (author of book) notes, we needn't restrict such achievement to the artist or scientist or entrepreneur; everyone strives for success in one form or another, even if it is "just" being part of a loving family. People need to achieve worthwhile goals if they are to feel satisfied with their lives, but the goals may vary. Above all, people need to become the kind of person they individually aspire to be."

Rosa Parks, The Entrepreneur

Rosa Parks was a true entrepreneur. She had courage and stood up for what she believed in. She was a change maker -- fighting so vigorously for her, and everyone else's, rights. Freedom was her ultimate goal. And it all started on that one bus ride.

I will see if I can dig up a story I wrote that included a passage about Rosa Parks. It's never been published but maybe in Rosa's honor, this is the time to do so.

Let's mourn her passing and celebrate her life.

Happy Women's Small Business Month!

In U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature

Profile America for Saturday, October 22, 2005 is on Women Entrepreneurs. Did you know that this month is Women's Small Business Month? Well it is! Celebrate ladies and congratulations!

The Pros of Running Your Business Like A Girl

In MSNBC

In her new book, "How to Run Your Business Like a Girl," Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin turns the idea of doing something "like a girl" on its head by exploring common female traits and how women entrepreneurs -- and all entrepreneurs -- can use them to their advantage when running a business.

In her interviews with women business owners she found that women tend to use three unique strengths more than their male counterparts: trusting their intuition, focusing on relationships, and putting more emphasis on life balance.

Find out more here.

When Will Businesses Get Clued In?

In Portland Bizwomen.com

It happened again. The workday was essentially over, shirts were untucked, shoes were off, and the kids had their faces focused on TV and the computer. My husband cleared dishes, and, employing a typical making-dinner-avoidance strategy, I sorted through the day's mail.

Two offers made me narrow my marketer's eyes. My Saab dealer sent a service reminder and discount for car detailing to my husband, Paul. My local grocer had sent some coupons to me, well, just look at these facts ...

The Center for Women's Business Research reinforces Pettigrew's original claims about business and women. As of 2004, 10.6 million firms in the United States are at least 50 percent owned by a woman or women, and over a million women work out of their homes. The untapped women-owned business-to-business marketing opportunities are enormous.

When will businesses get clued in?

Ex-IBMer Launches Her Own Firm

In StartupJournal

And it can happen to you! Caryl Parker spent 16 years calling on customers for International Business Machines Corp. After it stopped being fun, and four children were well on their way, she left the work force for nearly a decade. But she wanted to get back, so last year she launched a tennis-equipment company in her dining room.

What a racket.

Women Make Up 20 Percent Of All Entrepreneurs in China

The Christian Science Monitor

As I have said before, it's not just American women escaping corporate life, it's women everywhere. Take a look at a few of the comments that were made by Chinese women entrepreneurs in "Four Women Who Shape Beijing." And as you scan, think about "what women want" or rather "what you want" from your professional life.

• She leapt at the chance, as she puts it, to influence a new generation of Chinese consumers.

• "It's rare to get a project that is heart and soul, as well as brains."

• "Women like to put their love into their products and services. They're determined."

• Like so many Chinese, women entrepreneurs are leaving behind any qualms about capitalist enterprise. Many have studied abroad. And as they set up shop, they're acutely aware of their role in shaping a new China -- changing corporate culture, encouraging creativity, and striving to operate by international standards in a country where a weak legal system means that copying is rampant and business figures are often fuzzy.

• Few have a sense of limitation. "I believe knowledge is power," says restaurant owner Zhang Lan, echoing the sentiments of many businesswomen. "I don't have people to rely on, so I have to be self-sufficient."

• "But the true lesson is that you have to cater to the market, not yourself."

• "Every day I told myself, 'You have to keep kicking the ball before the referee blows the whistle."

• "I have a punk heart -- this means breaking old styles," she says.

• "Most people define success as money, getting something big. For me, it's to do what I like."

• "Though I'm female, I have a male personality," she laughs. "If a chef doesn't listen, I'll tell him to move over and I'll do it. So I set up a strong model from the start."

• Most of the time, she says, she doesn't think about being a woman in a male-dominated profession. "But sometimes I get comments like, 'Your projects don't look like a woman's.' "She thinks for a minute. "They think they're being complimentary, but they're not."

Women Entrepreneurs: The Backbone of the Economy

In DITonline: For Students || By Students

As reported in South Africa, entrepreneurs are fast becoming the backbone of the economy and women play a significant role. Our very own Aretha Franklin belted out the song that inspires and gets to the heart of independent women. Yes, ‘sisters are doing it for themselves.' Females are facing up to challenges. Women have always had the mettle to do anything but had to overcome obstacles and prove that gender is not an issue.

So whether you conduct business in America, Japan, Argentina or even South Africa, women entrepreneurs make a significant positive impact on our world economy.

Women Entrepreneurs Share Blueprint For Success

In the Chicago Sun-Times

Creating a successful business is fraught with challenges and opportunities. And after attending the Women's Business Development Center's 19th annual conference yesterday and today, I realize it more than ever.

The event, co-sponsored by the Chicago Sun-Times, is designed to help women launch and expand their businesses, and panelists at the conference's forum luncheon, moderated by Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage, heard words of advice from the women owners of young and mature businesses.

Here's a snapshot of the entrepreneurs and advice they offered.

Happy Labor (Entrepreneur) Day!

I hope all of you are resting and enjoying your time off.

All the best,
Laurel

Top Career Women Are Dropping Out

In Buzzle.com

Escape, drop out, call it what you wish. But the truth of the matter is that the women mentioned in this article are asking, "Couldn't there be another way?" Remember these key words: "opt-out revolution."

Sexism, celebrity and the glass ceiling

In RawStory.com

The Economist published a particularly depressing article about the position of women in high-level business jobs. The piece begins by noting that twenty years have passed since The Wall Street Journal coined the phrase “glass ceiling” to refer to the invisible (yet seemingly effective,) barriers to women’s advancement to the top echelons of managerial success in corporations. It has also been ten years since the Glass Ceiling Commission, created by Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, issued its fact-finding report, “Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation’s Human Capital,” describing and explaining the dismal status of women and minorities within the corporate world.

Read the entire article here.

Divorce (Escape), corporate American style

In Rutland Herald

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT -- The New York Times

When Jeffrey W. Greenberg was forced out as chief executive of Marsh & McLennan, the big insurance broker, amid a bid-rigging investigation of the company last year, journalists raced to call his ex-wife, Nikki Finke, a journalist herself.

Eager for any insights into the dynamics of Greenberg's highly secretive family -- his father, Maurice, was then the chief executive of the American International Group, the giant insurer, and a brother, Evan, is the chief executive of Ace Ltd., another big insurance company -- they found that Finke was one of the few people willing to talk.

[Laurel here ... What's the point? Not sure. Here's what I got out of this article: "In other words, women are often putting up with less and going for more."]

Charting a new course

In STLtoday.com


Photo caption: Islanders on Banam Bay at Malekula, the second-largest island in a chain that comprises the Republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Photo by Capt. Daniel Moreland.

It may seem a little odd that I am featuring the article, Set Sail For The World, but when you read it, I think you will understand. It reminds me of what people go through when they are about to embark on a big change in their life. Read it. See if you need to put your career on hold to set sail for the world. It might be just what the captain ordered to give you a new perspective and help you start that business you have been thinking about for years. If nothing else, going on a voyage like the one the author writes about will allow you to routinely solve complex problems. Not a bad outcome considering it can be applied elsewhere in your life.

Each person who decided to go on the year-long voyage, had a different reason. Take a look at these two:

• After spending 14 years in the corporate world looking at a computer screen, Bruce realized he "wanted a job that did not plug into anything."

• Ivan Klok, 41, of Taber in Alberta, Canada, also began looking for something "that just doesn't happen very often," he says. "I didn't want to end up in a rocking chair on the front porch when I am 75, saying, 'I wish I would have.' "

Fascinating stuff.

The conundrum of the glass ceiling

In ICEVED (original source: The Economist)

It's been at least a week since I posted only because I could not find anything worthwhile relative to women escaping from corporate America! Then came this. Here's the lead paragraph:

It is 20 years since the term "glass ceiling" was coined by the Wall Street Journal to describe the apparent barriers that prevent women from reaching the top of the corporate hierarchy; and it is ten years since the American government's specially appointed Glass Ceiling Commission published its recommendations. In 1995 the commission said that the barrier was continuing "to deny untold numbers of qualified people the opportunity to compete for and hold executive level positions in the private sector." It found that women had 45.7% of America's jobs and more than half of master's degrees being awarded. Yet 95% of senior managers were men, and female managers' earnings were on average a mere 68% of their male counterparts'.

And so it goes. Here's my favorite part -- get ready to applaud:

Chris Clarke, the America-based CEO of Boyden, a firm of headhunters, and a visiting professor at Henley Management College in England, argues that women are superior to men at multi-tasking, team-building and communicating, which have become the essential skills for running a 21st-century corporation. Maria Wisniewska, who headed a Polish bank, Bank Pekao, and is an international adviser to the Conference Board, says: "The links between the rational and emotional parts of the brain are greater in women than in men. If so, and if leadership is about making links between emotion and intelligence, then maybe women are better at it than men."

Read the entire article here.

Institutionalized bias against female-owned businesses by banks (U.K.)?

In Management-issues.com -- at the heart of the changing workplace.

The boardroom glass ceiling may finally be starting to crack, but for women who want to get on in business it is becoming increasingly clear there is another significant gender imbalance to be tackled -- finance.

[Laurel here ... check out this snippet from the article that will compel you to read the entire piece: "She recounts one example of a woman who went to a bank for funding and was disdainfully turned down, only for the banker to tell her husband all about it when they next met at the local Rotary Club."

Securing finance -- the next glass ceiling?

Ain't no glass ceiling here, only stars to reach for

In San Antonio Express News

This is a wonderful article so if you need a boost, you'll find it at "Nearly 40 percent of all business owners are women."

In a hurry? Below are the highlights:

• There's no glass ceiling at Crystal Ward Darby's home-based public relations consulting business in Leon Valley. Darby works as hard and as long as she pleases. She takes on only those projects that interest her.

• ... where success is measured by a feeling of contentment and not an artificial bottom line designed to please shareholders.

• "If I'm happy when I wake up in the morning, that's good enough for me."

• "There came a time where I knew that I needed to call my own shots and be my own boss," ... "I knew I could do this because my son, who was 18 at the time, told me I could do it."

• [Laurel here ... "Yeah and my favorite part!"] -- Darby is one of a rapidly expanding breed of women -- those leaving corporate headquarters and venturing into self-employment.

• From 1979 to 2003, the self-employment rate for women increased 33 percent, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Women now represent almost 40 percent of all business owners.

• More than 10 million female business owners employ 19 million workers and generate $2.5 trillion in annual sales, according to the Center for Women's Business Research.

• Between 1997 and 2004, women-owned businesses in the nation's top 50 metropolitan areas grew at almost twice the rate of other firms in those areas.

• [Laurel here ... "Another great comment!"] -- "But it's accurate to say that more women than ever before are stepping up, taking that risk of going out on their own."

• "Just say what you need, and we can find a woman who does it," said Margot Dorfman, who heads the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce. "Business is no longer just a man's profession."

• [Laurel here ... "Check this out too!"] -- The reasons so many women are choosing to be their own bosses are as diverse as the women and the businesses they run. Many are fulfilling lifelong dreams. Others simply want out of the corporate rat race. Some know they can do it better than incompetent bosses they've suffered.

• "I love every part of this business, and I mean that. I love to see a plan work," Salvatore said. "It's beautiful, like a birth."