Why Aren't There More Big Women Businesses?

By Guest Blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubelshooter

Liz Hamburg at Huffington Post, ponders, A Million Dollar Business - What Does It Take?

Here's my take:

1. We’re still making up for lost time. As Liz notes, women couldn’t get even get loans by themselves until the 1970s.  And, in reality, we still often have difficulty - particularly in smaller cities and towns.  (It  remains Mayberry 1958 in some places.)  No victim statements here - just the facts, m'am.  We're a creative crowd though, so if we really want to get funding, we usually manage to do so.  (You can work miracles with a good credit rating and 0% APR credit cards, however, I don't recommend it as a first-line strategy.) 

2.  We’ve got different definitions of success.  As Seth Godin wrote, "small is the new big."  Big revenues doesn't necessarily mean big profits or long-term sustainability (as the headlines show us every day.)  And, I know lots of “big women” who own businesses with revenues of less than a million.  In New Mexico, that is big business.  They’re supporting their families, contributing to the local economy, and creating jobs – and if that's not success, what is?  We should stop considering revenues and size as the sole measures of enterpreneur success (for men and women.)    

3.  Following the Passion.  Unfortunately, following your passion doesn't always mean a viable business. You could have a great idea and be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  As LIz notes, "That's the key I think -- follow your passion. And make sure you have something that someone else besides you would want to buy."

Happy Friday! And whatever your company's revenues - if you're not happy, no amount of money is going to make a difference. 

Happ

Comments

[eric]

imho we still live in a patriarch society and although women are on the rise, businesses are still mainly male dominated. once that changes, more female businesses in general will be controlled by women. nice blog btw

[Elizabeth Gordon]

Women have been taught that in order to achieve success in the monetary sense, they need to sacrifice on the personal front. Of course anything one achieves in life comes with a sacrifice of something else, but it is possible to achieve business success without sacrificing your personal fulfillment. I wish more people were teaching women how to build a business properly, because female entrepreneurship is the one thing that has the potential to truly level the playing field by empowering women economically, as well as personally.

[Nataly]

I think this is such an interesting topic, thanks for raising it.

Before I launched my company I spent 5 years as a managing director at a venture capital group. Venture capital is an incredibly male-dominated world and I think it has a direct impact on the fact that few women get venture funding. Venture funding is not necessary to grow a big business, but it is required for many businesses with huge potentials and it makes it easier for an entrepreneur to create a big business.

I think there are many reasons why more women don't run $1m+ companies, but lack of access to capital is certainly one of them. The other I think is the infamous work-life balance -- I think fewer of us are willing to work 20-hour days for a prolonged period of time because we want to have time to be with our families. I am struggling with this right now -- putting a company on its feet requires that I work non-stop and I struggle all the time about not having enough time with my daughter.

[Anne-Marie]

You know what's funny about your comment about the lack of bank loans for women until the latter half of the century? That's STILL the case today.

My company does multiple profitable millions of dollars, is in its 11th year of growing revenues and I STILL get turned down for loans, lines of credit and thus far, haven't gotten VC money.

[Chris Flett]

I think that women have traditionally done what they have to do, rather than what they want to do. Guys have always been selfish in their careers where women have defaulted to doing their share and more. I think more than the money issue is the value issues. It has been my experience that women tend to undervalue their contributions while guys overstate what they are bringing to the table. I ask all my female clients see themselves through others eyes and realize how important their contribution is. This proves to be difficult will all most all of them.

[Kate Hutchinson]

I agree with the different definitions of success. I think smaller businesses are better in the long run for the national economy, because it creates more competition and usually has less impact on the environment. Also, women tend to focus on social issues, which can be more expensive than a basic production setup (i.e. importing goods from fair trade groups across the globe vs. mining)

[Katie Skow- Entrepreneur Goddess dot com]

Women may not feel as inclined as men to grow their businesses in a big, corporate way. Success for me means a balance of running my own business, spending time with family & friends, and making time for myself. Many of the people running huge corporations work, work, work and don't do much else. When I'm CEO of my own multi-million dollar company, I'll be sure to create a different and better corporate climate! ;-)

[Kris]

Because we have stuff like this getting in the way (watch the video)
http://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2008/05/sexism-its-not.html