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Every day, women across America turn dreams into reality and start businesses with a little inspiration and a tenacious drive to succeed. If you're a woman who owns a small or medium-sized business (SMB), you're contributing to the transformative forces shaping our economy. Women-owned businesses not only significantly boosted U.S. GDP, they also created nearly half of all new businesses for the past three years in a row. But your entrepreneurial journey goes beyond numbers. Being a woman in business is a testament to resilience, courage, and an unwavering spirit of self-assertion.
Despite their contributions to the economy, women entrepreneurs as a whole suffer from even more challenges than their male counterparts. The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) helps women entrepreneurs, particularly women of color, with the challenges of accessing capital, building support networks, balancing business and family life, dealing with cultural bias, and owning their accomplishments. It has become clear that they often face challenges.
As we celebrate International Women's Month, it's essential that we recognize how far we've come as business owners, and our resilience to turn obstacles into opportunities. To maintain momentum, here are her four powerful strategies to move your business forward.
Related Article: 3 Ways Women Empower Other Women (and 3 Ways They Don't)
1. Prioritize building your network
You don't have to attend networking events to build strong connections. Building meaningful networks for your business often happens in unexpected places. You never know who you'll run into in an elevator, coffee shop, or airplane. Therefore, being quick and concise in your elevator pitch for your product or service is extremely important when traveling the world. These conversations don't have to feel forced. Effective networking isn't always centered around what you can get for your business. It's about building lasting relationships, sharing knowledge and delivering value.
These interactions can foster a powerful sense of community, especially for women in business. Connecting with other women entrepreneurs and customers can offer new perspectives on your business and new opportunities to build a supportive ecosystem within your community. By embracing this spirit of collective success, we can strengthen inclusivity within our networks and champion the success of all involved.
Related: Networking: The most important thing women should do for their careers — but it's not really
2. Establish your business identity
Establishing what your business is about is more than just identifying a logo and tagline. It's about defining what makes you unique and leveraging that in every interaction. If you haven't done so already, look it up and remind yourself. Consider the strengths of your business and what sets it apart from all others. Research is essential to building your brand, and you may need to continually invest in your knowledge to run and grow your business.
When building your brand, it's also important to have a clear mission. This won't happen overnight, but it can provide a guiding compass for how you approach yourself and your customers. Setting goals and identifying your core values will help move your business forward. Always remember to embrace mistakes as opportunities to grow and learn.
3. Leverage financial resources
Equal access to capital has long been proven to be a barrier for women entrepreneurs, hindering their ability to reach their full potential and start and expand their businesses. Times are changing, but not fast enough. Of the 42,000 small business loan applications approved by the SBA in 2023, only 21% were women-owned businesses. Additionally, only 16% of the total $20 billion allocated was approved for women-owned businesses.
In light of these setbacks, there are resources available to help you succeed. Take some free time to research organizations that offer free resources and educational tools to help you grow your business. Grant programs like Fundica’s recent collaboration with Visa provide underserved small business communities with access to additional sources of working capital and can be a game-changer in overcoming financial hurdles. may cause There are also VC firms that focus specifically on scaling startups founded by women. For example, Anthemis' Female Innovators Lab Fund helps design, source, and grow embedded finance startups founded by women.
As a woman in business, your entrepreneurial journey won't necessarily resemble a linear trajectory to success. It may feel like you have to take a step back, but the lessons learned in between will develop the resilience and resourcefulness you need to move forward.
Related: 5 ways to support women-owned businesses
4. Don't be afraid of change
When you analyze your business metrics over time, you're sure to find areas for improvement. Staying on top of your customers' evolving needs can help you stay ahead of most of these improvements and turn challenges into opportunities for innovation. What worked well for your business in the past may not work for a new generation of customers. That's why it's important to treat every customer interaction as a learning experience and take feedback seriously.
For example, Visa's recent Global Shopping Index found that 76% of U.S. shoppers won't complete a sale unless they have access to their preferred digital features, such as priority payments. Adopting and adapting digital payment tools can streamline the payment experience for your customers and potentially reach more customers in other geographies.
When implementing new changes in marketing, product/service delivery, or business operations, start by taking a test-and-learn approach. Don't be afraid to experiment with AI-enhanced technology. These tools enhance and automate a company's customer care, providing personalized product and service recommendations based on customer behavior and preferences. And while you are a unique element of your business, remember that you are not in business alone. We have all kinds of resources to help you start, run, and grow your business. Plus, there's a community of other women business owners facing similar challenges and joys who can help guide you to success. Now is the perfect time to shape the future of your business.
