Tips for women in business Figuring out your game plan by LAUREL DOUGLAS
HANDLING GROWTH: Business success often requires owners to shift their role in the company.
If you’re a woman looking for the challenges a business can provide, conditions have never been better. B.C. is enjoying an economic boom and that creates all kinds of opportunity. But to start a business, the first things you must establish are your personal priorities—and you need a game plan.
Understand your motivation
What motivates you? Is it your passion about something in particular? Is it the income potential of a small business of your own? Or are you simply after more job freedom? Understanding what it is you want from owning a business will guide your action.
• What drove you to start your business?
• What keeps you driven now?
• What was your ideal end result for your business? (selling it, franchising, staying small?)
• How did your business develop?
• How have you grown your business?
• What roadblocks have you faced?
• How have you overcome them?
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Build a support team
As you start your business or gear up to take it to the next level, it’s vital that you have a support team in place. It’s a little like having cheerleaders on the sidelines. A support team can enthusiastically urge you on and it’s important for other reasons too. The answer is often to build a support team. That may be as simple as gathering a strong circle of friends and family, having a mentor or finding employees who are dedicated to your business.
• How and why did you start your business?
• At what point did you decide to build a support team?
• What role does your support team play in your business?
• How has it changed your business?
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Shift from doer to strategist
Most owners of small businesses start out as doers; after all, it’s your vision and energy that will get your business off the ground. But unless you began your business with a goal to earn only so much income, or gain a market share small enough for you to handle on your own, the time will hopefully arrive when you need some help.
To grow your business from a one-woman shop to something larger, the first step is changing your mindset. A business of any size needs three types of people: strategists, who come up with ideas, dream big and inspire others; managers, who put those ideas and strategies in action; and doers, who create the business’s products and services, whether they are physical or knowledge-based.
• What is your current role in your business?
• How did you move into that role?
• How has your company and its operation changed since?
• What are the pros and cons of being in your current role?
Laurel Douglas is the CEO of the Women’s Enterprise Centre—B.C.’s leading resource for women entrepreneurs, headquartered in Kelowna, B.C. For information go to www.womensenterprise.ca.
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