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Why women entrepreneurs are losing money because of one word
A small three-letter word is one of the hardest words for a lot of people to use, especially women. ASK. Why do we find it difficult to ask for help or to ask for what we need or for what we want. When you don’t ask, ladies you are sitting on money.
At the Pennsylvania governor’s conference for women, which bring together 4,500 women from around the world with the aim at promoting gender balance in leadership and facilitating rousing debates, discussions and learning. The women who attend the conference are extremely bright—most hold advance degrees and are very successful professionally. They are also engaged, vocal and motivated when it comes to shaping the trajectory of their careers. The speaker, Selena Rezvani started her speech with a question, “Who in this room counter-offered when negotiating your current salary?” About 10 percent of the women raised their hands.
Scary isn’t it? It’s surprising but not unique. According to research of Carnegie Mellon’s Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, women report a “great deal of apprehension” about asking at a rate of 2.5 times more than men. Selena writes about this in her book Pushback.
You would think in 2013 that would not be the case since there are so many women in the workforce, own their own businesses and women earn more degrees than men, yet we struggle to ask for what we want or ask for needed help.
As a woman entrepreneur, what do you need to grow your business right now? If you know the answer, ask for help. If you don’t know the answer, ask for help. Too often, women sit and wait for the answer to appear or for the focus area to fix itself. How many of you have made statements like, “I don’t know how to use social media for my business?” or “I can’t blog to grow my business,” or “I struggle getting my employees to do what I need them to do.” Guess what we all struggle in areas of our business but the difference between a long-term sustainable business and a short-term business is asking for help. You are losing money by not asking for help.
Answer these questions:
- Where do I struggle in my business?
- Why am I not taking action in this area?
- Who can help me with this?
- When will I reach out and seek the help I need?
These questions will help you interrogate yourself and cause you to think and hopefully act on what you need to do grow your business and your profits.
Becky A. Davis
Leadership Transformation Coach
“Helping small businesses stay up long after they start up.”
Entrepreneur First Step To Sobriety
In August 1938, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith started the first fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous. The first step to sobriety, as published by AA was: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives has become unmanageable.” Of all the steps to sobriety, why do they start with admitting?
Well I have a few thoughts about why. Before you can truly break free and be successful at anything you must first admit where you are stuck and that you need help. Why is this so hard to do for so many human beings? To admit and acknowledge that you need help with your business is a success principle. When you are under the influence, you do not make sound decisions, you struggle to be a forward thinker, you are not visionary, you priorities are all mixed up and you do things that can harm you personally. It’s the same when you business is under the influence of a leader who is not clear in their thinking and actions. You not only can harm you business but the people who work with you. It time to sober up your business.
Entrepreneurs must also take this first step if you want to break the profit ceiling that you have been trying to get past. Too often as an entrepreneur, you struggle too long without acknowledging that you need help. You don’t want anyone to know that you don’t know how to do something and you want everyone to believe that you have it all together. Guess what, you are only hurting yourself and your business.
Alcohol Anonymous has twelve steps for personal recovery. Entrepreneurs you must take the first step for personal and professional recovery, admit and acknowledge that you need help. Your business cannot recover if you act like everything is okay even though you know you are losing business. Where does your business need help?
- Profit growth
- Strategic planning
- Marketing
- Sales
- Productivity
- Dealing with poor performing employees
- Recruiting, Hiring,
- Business coach
- Team building
- Customer Satisfaction
- Critical Thinking
It’s time to take that first step to recovery, admit that you need help then to seek out the help you need to grow your business. America is losing too many small businesses because of entrepreneur’s with too much pride.
The reason admitting that you are losing power and that your business is becoming hard to manage is so important because it means YOU own what’s happening and that you are ready to change you and your business. The success rate of AA members that admit themselves into a recovery program is much higher than AA members that start the program because someone else forced them to go.
If you business is struggling or you want to grow a successful business to new levels, try saying these words, “My name is ______________ and I need help to consistently grow my business.”
Congratulations, you just took the hardest step.
Becky A. Davis
Leadership Transformation Coach
“Helping small businesses stay up long after they start up.”
The P Factor – Live Event for Small Business owners
I want to invite entrepreneurs, small business owners to a event that will help you grow your profits. The P Factor is for businesses that are committed to “Agressive Growth” in 2013.
We have a customized program to help business owners ger more profits and work less.
Go to http://www.thepfactor.weebly.com to get more information and register to attend.
Helping small businesses stay up long after they start up.
Becky A. Davis
MVPwork 