Fact Friday: Women Owned Businesses

Women Business Owners have always been near and dear to my heart.   You see having been through the struggles myself in starting our Industrial Storage business,  I firmly believed that when you are starting a business you are going to make mistakes,  a lot of it trail and error to see what works and what does not work.  Heck I'm still finding new mistakes to make 20 years later.

In the past I spend a lot of time mentoring women owned businesses,  in the hopes that I could help them avoid making some of the mistakes that I've made in the past.  For awhile I sat on the Women's Advisory Board at one of the incubators helping start up businesses as a volunteer.

I gave a presentation last month about how I've grown my business with help from other's, to one of the local business leagues of American Business Women's Association and was asked by several how to go about starting a business or entering direct sales (blog post on how to choose a Direct Sales Company), so I thought I would take some time to share some great information.

The below are some of the highlights from an email from Yolanda Garcia Olivarez from the SBA.

By Yolanda Garcia Olivarez, Regional Administrator

In the last several weeks, I have travelled around the Region to visit with mayors, chamber presidents and economic development leaders.  At each stop, from Houston to Albuquerque to Austin to Brownsville, Texas, I had the pleasure to meet with our women’s business center directors and tour women-owned businesses. 

I continue to be inspired and energized by their creativity, passion and strength.  Women prove every day they not only build families, but they build enterprises.  They are changing lives and changing communities.  Today, women-owned firms are strong in 8 of the 13 most popular industries, especially construction and transportation.

It’s a good time to be a woman-owned business.  If you are still wondering where to begin, I encourage you to connect with one of the SBA’s Women Business Centers.  There are 19 Centers in the South Central Region states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, waiting to provide the advice and resources you need to start and thrive. ..............

• Over 8.6 million women-owned businesses in the U.S.
• Women-owned businesses generate over $1.3 trillion in revenues.
• Women-owned businesses employ 7.8 million people. 

Between 1997 and 2013, women-owned businesses increased by almost 60%, a rate 1 ½ times the national average. 

Some experts predict that in the next three years, women’s businesses will create more than half of the new small business jobs and a third of the nation’s total new jobs. 

There are also a lot of women entering  Direct Sales as a full time career. . . I've represented Jordan Essentials (A women owned business) for 14 years as not only does it give Women an opportunity to reach for something better,  adjust to leaving corporate America.   But the Direct Sales Industry brings with it considerable mentoring and training which ALL NEW business owners need.

There is NO doubt that women contribute very heavily to the success of the American Economy