Resources & Advice for Women Entrepreneurs
There are a number of reasons entrepreneurs strike out on their own, things like flexibility, following a passion, being their own boss. What you may not always realize is that sometimes that successful business you admire started because someone had to figure out how to reinvent after adversity.
In the last month alone I’ve met multiple business owners who started their own business or practice after a divorce, bankruptcy, illness in the family, becoming a widow, or getting fired or laid-off.
Is it easy? Absolutely not, but unless you take that first step you will never know what’s possible.
For a long time I projected my own love for entrepreneurship on others, starting with my husband. He is a physician, a really good one. Like private practice physicians all over the country, he started to see a decline in insurance reimbursements while at the costs were rising. Hiring more providers seemed like a common sense next step, but the new physicians weren’t looking to join a small, private practice.
They saw the writing on the wall and chose hospital based employment, large groups, or alternate careers. So how do we thrive in this new environment? I sought out ancillary services. Gastric weight loss balloons, clinical trials, bringing PillCam’s and pathology in-house. While these ancillaries all did what they were intended to do, keep the practice in the black, my husband did not enjoy having extra businesses. In fact, he hated the business part of his medical practice, he certainly didn’t enjoy having to run multiple businesses. We finally agreed that it’s best for him to be a doctor and for me to be an entrepreneur.
My latest venture is a tax and estate planning law firm that supports female entrepreneurs.
It’s all the things I love, helping people solve problems, entrepreneurship, estate planning, and empowering women.
Why focus on women? Because I’ve been there. I know how hard it is to get people to buy into your dream, to build up the courage to walk away, to decide that you don’t care how many people say no, you are going to keep pushing. And I know how it feels to get to the other side and know that it was worth it.
I want to meet women where they are and help them get to where they want to be.
It’s fine NOT to want to be an entrepreneur, but what stops you from trying should not be the inability to access the resources to get started. The first step to getting the tools you need to start your business is to get in the room.
No matter how much technology has taken over how business is conducted, there is no substitute for actually getting out in the world and meeting people. You can do it as a volunteer, as a freelancer, or as an attendee of events where the people you want to meet are going to be.
Conferences, Chamber of Commerce events, local small business association (SBA) events, these are all great places to make connections that will help guide you. In my community, we have a wonderful business alliance. It’s a nonprofit that seeks to connect the business community to each other and to the community at large. There are business alliances and economic development centers throughout the country, these are organizations full of resources to get you started.
Let’s start there.
