Many women entrepreneurs search for new ways to market their new businesses. If you are one of them then let me say that there are many great ways to do so. Even better, the suggestions mentioned here are very affordable. Remember, unless you’re lucky enough to have an unlimited supply of capital, it’s always best to go easy on your finances in the beginning.
Tips For Women Entrepreneurs
Always Have a Plan
No matter what kind of small business you’re in charge of, it’s always best to have a plan before you put things into action. This is true of every aspect of running your business. You may want to keep an audio recorder or small notebook with you, or find a note keeping app for your smartphone. Once you have a plan laid out, stick to it to the best of your abilities.
Set Optimistic Goals
In order to get work done effectively, it’s best to establish goals that you can work to achieve throughout the day, week, or month. These goals should be things that are attainable. Otherwise you’re just setting yourself up for failure. However, they should also be optimistic and challenging goals that will encourage you to push yourself in order to be as effective as possible.
Know Your Target Market
Research into your target market, before you even open your doors to the public, is crucial to your marketing plan. The more specific you can get, by drilling down categories, the better. Not only do you need to know things like age, gender and income bracket, you also need to know what motivates your ideal client or customer to buy.
Build a Strong Portfolio
As the owner of the business, the way that you present yourself is often the first impression that potential clients or customers get of your organization. Make sure to always have a resume or portfolio available so that your future business associates can see all the hard work that you’ve done in the past. If they’re impressed with how you represent yourself as a person, it’s much more likely that they’ll want to do business with you.
Form a Network
It can be difficult to market your product or business on your own. Fortunately, social networking makes it easy for just about anybody to reach out to potential clients. Make sure that your business has a strong web presence, and establish pages for it on social media sites.
But, social media isn’t the only way to establish a network of clients and business associates. Whenever your business works with another company, be sure to establish a relationship between the two of you.
Keep Searching for New Opportunities
Never pass up an opportunity to market yourself or your business to others. Make sure that you always have your business card with you in case you run across someone in your personal life that you want to form a connection with in your professional life. You never know where you might meet your next customer.
These are just a few marketing tips for women entrepreneurs. Realistically, this is just the beginning. Obviously, you don’t have to try all these things at once. Trying one or two at a time is usually the better way to go.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Being a Woman Entrepreneur
As an entrepreneur, you will have advantages to help you succeed. Unfortunately, there will also be disadvantages. As a woman taking on entrepreneurship, however, you may face challenges and develop strengths differing from what a man may experience during his entrepreneurial career.
It’s important to identify these possible issues so that you may use your advantages to become a successful businesswoman and learn how to overcome the disadvantages holding you back.
The Disadvantages
Networking
Women are less likely to have relationships with people who have networks or connections to help launch and sustain a business. Not only does a network provide valuable information needed to successfully create a business, but it also provides a mentorship as well as referrals you may need for future expansion.
Due to the tendency of the highest levels of corporate leadership to be mostly occupied by men, it is difficult for female entrepreneurs to find a woman in a high occupational seat to seek advice from.
Family Needs
It can be difficult for women to devote the time needed for a business to become successful if they have young children who require constant attention. Trying to launch a business may take up all of your time and this can often put strain on obligations to your family.
It is important to schedule your work life with your family duties in mind. As an entrepreneur, you are the boss and therefore you set the hours needed for your business to grow.
The Advantages
Strength in Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Leadership studies reveal that having high emotional intelligence may prove to be an advantage in business. Having a high emotional intelligence quotient is an important factor in leadership and studies have found that women, on average, have an edge over men when it comes to this.
People with high emotional intelligent quotients understand their own emotions as well as the emotions of their peers, and use the information to help guide how to think and react to the situation.
Collaboration Skills
Working with others and building long-lasting relationships is a strong trait among many women and may aide in the success of a new business. Creating new partnerships among businesses like your own opens a world of opportunities for your business to grow with your competitors, rather than compete against them.
New businesses are going to have difficulty competing against more established companies. If you’re struggling to match your competitors’ progress or sales, you may end up in debt. This may eventually result in your company going out of business. Taking on new opportunities creates lasting partnerships and encourages companies to include your business in future prospects.
This is a good time to point out that many people feel that women basically do have the same advantages and disadvantages when it comes to entrepreneurship. Whether or not it’s actually true remains unclear.
When it comes down to it, the best way to ensure success as an entrepreneur is to be honest and work hard to achieve your goals. Hopefully, doing so will lead to more advantages and fewer disadvantages.
The Benefits and Challenges of Working for the Opposite Sex
There is an old saying that behind every great man there is a great woman. This demonstrates the value of feminine energy in creating success, even if it isn’t always valued to the same degree as the more masculine energy that is typified by the stereotypical “businessMAN”.
Beyond Gender
It is important to note, however, that masculine and feminine energy are present in all of us and don’t equate with gender. They also have little to do with sexual orientation. They are more to do with styles of communication and leadership.
Some people would argue that since opposites attract, it will always be easier for a man and woman to work together. In the Western world, we seem to still think it normal for the man to be the boss and the woman to be the support staff. The disadvantage of this is that it can be tough to switch the roles, with, for example, the woman as the CEO with a male personal assistant.
Communication Is Key
The crucial difference, and one which may explain male dominance and the disadvantage of working for the opposite sex, is different communication styles. Men want to speak but are not always good at listening. Women have a reputation for being “chatty”, but that chat is usually about people because women tend to be more nurturing and concerned for others.
Women also tend to have a better emotional quotient; that is, a better grasp of the feelings of others and level of empathy that few businessmen will express. They can therefore “grease the wheels” and get their foot in the door on a lot of deals. The men can then close those deals.
Everyone Wins
Women are generally not determined to win at any price, but to create a win-win for all parties concerned so that the business relationships will continue happily over the long term. A male boss who values his female colleague’s feminine energy will pay attention to her input and value her contributes.
The Downside for Women of Working with Men
In an ideal world, we would all be enlightened and mature enough to treat each other with perfect professionalism and equality. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Sexist remarks can do serious damage to business relationships.
Sexism in the workplace can create a “glass ceiling” that women seem to hit. Note how few women CEOs there are in the US. The fact that women earn about one-third less than men is also a telling point, even though in many cases it is the woman on the team who is working harder and producing more results.
Sexual harassment can work both ways, of course, but it tends to be a male colleague behaving inappropriately towards a woman, rather than the other way around. Bullying is another negative aspect to working for the opposite sex which needs to be addressed.
On the whole, women entrepreneurs are not given the same degree of respect as male entrepreneurs, but conducting yourself in a professional manner can ensure you are successful no matter which gender you are working with.
The Benefits and Challenges of Working for the Same Sex
As a woman entrepreneur, you might be delighted at the prospect of working with women rather than men, only to discover that is not all you imagined it was going to be. This is because the kind of energy that drives one person to be a leader and another person to be a colleague working under them tends to be a very masculine, driving sort of energy – one that even women possess.
Male versus Female Energy
Men and women possess both masculine and feminine energy. It changes in terms of balance depending on the situation. For example, in the planning stages of a new project, feminine energy might be at the forefront, as people allow a flow of ideas to go back and forth as to how best to tackle the assignment. However, that flow would be of less value as the deadline approached. Things need to be tightened up, buttoned down, and pushed through in order to meet the deadline.
Some women have more masculine energy, others more feminine. Some women “fake it ’til they make it”, thinking they have to be tougher than any man they work with. This can lead to bullying behavior. Some women are even harder on their female colleagues than the men, for a couple of reasons.
One reason is that they are trying to toughen them up; they didn’t have any breaks to get where they were, so why should any other woman. In other cases, it might be due to them having climbed the ladder and wanting to pull it up after themselves, discouraging any woman they work with from aspiring to become a leader too.
One final point which no one can really help is biology and hormones. Let’s face it. Women change at certain times of the month each month until they reach menopause, and even the most reasonable of bosses can become a nightmare at times. But then, so can we all. It’s important to try not to let personal issues get in the way of professional ones, no matter which side of the desk we are sitting on.
The Pros of Working with Women
The benefits of two women working together is that it tends to be much more team-oriented, with a free flowing of ideas. The best bosses are those who are willing to mentor others. They are happy to pass along their skills and don’t feel competitive if another woman joins the team.
Rather, they are supportive and welcoming. They share a common vision of a better company, a better world. They understand the challenges of being a woman in the business world and don’t try to make it harder for you than things have to be – due to a lack of awareness or unreasonable demands on your time when you are desperate to get home to the kids.
An empowered woman does not take her power by robbing it from others, but rather, by cultivating it in herself – often with the help of strong role models of both genders. And that empowerment can lead to success in any career.
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