Be Your Best Self In Business

This post is sponsored by Visa Business. For more information, please see the end of this article.

  Running a small business presents manifold challenges for anyone. But as women in small business we face a unique set of challenges. While these challenges may present greater difficulty for us than for our male counterparts, I believe they also hold the potential for us to excel -- thereby enriching the social and economic landscape of our world through our innate gifting of vision, connection, intuition and creation. I believe in the possibility to turn our unique challenges into heightened impact. These challenges are opportunities to be your best self.   

Challenge #1: Focus & Time-Management

One of the most obvious challenges for women comes of our often substantial domestic obligations and our dual roles as leaders in our homes/families and leaders in our businesses. The sheer breadth and diversity of tasks that make up a given day in our lives, present challenges to our focus, energy conservation and time management. Women have been long-heralded as "natural multi-taskers," and we DO manage multiple tasks, often juggling a mountain of topics at once, without dropping the ball. But the most recent scientific findings dub the "women as multi-taskers" notion as myth, saying it is not physically possible to render more than one idea at a time in our brains. What looks like multi-tasking is actually a series of quick-fire toggles between various tasks and ideas. As you and I know all too well, this process can be exhausting and often disillusioning as we constantly battle for focus and the organization to get it all done while staying sane. The problem for most of us is that our days are minced into tiny allotments of time (and often distracted time at that!), usually just enough to catch up on where we left off before we have to start wrapping it up again. If you're lucky there's a glorious two-hour window somewhere in your day where you can work uninterrupted. For me, the breakthrough in this area came when I realized not all tasks are equal and even more importantly, neither is the time we have to complete them. I designed a very simple organizational tactic I call Task Triage. The goal of this system is to preserve the longer, uninterrupted pieces of time for heavy-duty tasks that require my prolonged attention. Everything else is fitted into those in-between spaces that largely define my day, and which aren't capitalized upon unless I'm organized. Here's my system (try it--I can almost guarantee you'll love it!): I tacked a piece of poster board onto my office wall and divided it into four equal quadrants. The two upper quadrants are devoted to those tasks in my business that are directly revenue producing. The bottom two are dedicated to those necessary but not revenue producing tasks by which I maintain my business. Now the two left-hand quadrants are for those tasks that can be done in small increments or with distracted focus--things like email, certain phone calls, and small marketing or content-related tasks that could be completed in under twenty minutes. The right-hand quadrants are reserved for the more-heavy duty tasks, like writing blog posts or creating a marketing plan. I went to an office supply store and splurged on fun-shaped Post-Its. I took a list of all my pending tasks and wrote one on each Post-It, placing each in its proper quadrant. Throughout the day, depending on the kind of time and focus I have at my disposal, I grab a Post-It from my chart and complete it. Depending on your style, you can hang a second poster board of "Completed Tasks" and put the completed Post-Its there, or you can do as I do: crumple it with a satisfying crunch and bid it adieu into the waste basket.   

Challenge #2: Financing Growth

All of the statistics from the major players in business investment reflect a disparity not only in the start-up funding received by women small business owners, but also in the likelihood that women will pursue funding. According to the National Women's Business Council, even when women do seek funding, only 8.7% of women-led ventures are awarded financing, compared to 18.8% of ventures led by men. But before you despair at these statistics, I have another number for you: from 1997 to 2007 women-run companies grew at TWICE the rate of men-run companies. Though the area of funding business growth in women-led businesses remains a challenge, the game is changing, the playing field leveling. Obviously if women are receiving less funding than men but growing their businesses faster, we are a pretty enterprising lot. We will find a way. Here are some ideas and resources to help you down the path to funding your own radical business growth: 

• The Saving Power of DIY - obviously the cost-saving benefits of DIY have to be weighed against the practicality of finding the time, energy and know-how required. The good news is there are more user-friendly digital tools at your disposal than ever before. If you haven't read them yet, I encourage you to check out TMM's Ebook series: Get Started, Get Famous, Get Social & Get Retail Ready - they are concise, easily digestible and lay out actionable steps to grow your business yourself and save serious moolah by doing so.
• Customer Funding - If you're in the service industry, it's often acceptable to request a deposit or down payment from your clients to cover your costs of execution. This is especially helpful for live events, custom designs, and even custom furniture or jewelry.
• Loans - Most small businesses are still funded by private loans or personal finance, but there are some good loan options out there. The Small Business Association is a great starting point.
• Crowdfunding - The recent surge in crowd-funding is good news for women in business, as it broadens the criteria for who can back small business financial investments - there are a host of successful women looking to give back. To learn more, check out Plum Alley.
• Retailer Financing - Considering having a retailer carry the financing for investments like new computers or technology to keep your business cash flow less hindered.
• Credit Card Financing - Credit cards can be an invaluable tool in growing your business. They are especially useful when fulfilling large orders clients have already committed to. Large credit card purchases should be limited to those that directly make you money.
• Factoring - It is possible to get loans on the basis of your customer invoices. A factoring company will give you 70-80% of the value of your invoice up front. When your client pays, the factoring company gets their money back plus interest, and you get the remainder. The benefit of factoring is that it isn't dependent on your credit, but that of your client. Thus, if you are a small business selling to big businesses it can be especially useful. This option can be costly in terms of fees though. Learn more about factoring in this Wall Street Journal article.
• Venture Capital/Angel Investors - Though historically venture capitalism was a tech-dominated and male-dominated space, there are now several credible women-focused players out there. Two of the key contenders for women-run business are: Springboard Enterprises and Golden Seeds. Getting access to venture capital still generally (but not always) requires you to be in the tech-space and usually with greater than 50% gross margins and very high growth potential.

Challenge #3: Making Space for Big Ideas

This one's a biggie. I've seen it plague women friends of mine time and again, and regularly wrestle with it myself. I'll be hit with a stroke of genius, an "Aha!" moment, a truly inspired idea. And then somewhere in the process of mulling it over or sharing it with a friend, the largesse of the idea will dawn on me and I falter. Why do I do that? Why do I let my ideas be made smaller than they are? Why do I spend the time and energy I could put toward the creation and execution of my brilliant idea into back-pedaling notions of implausibility? Sometimes I think it's because I am scared of knowing my own power and potential. Long have women been the visionary leaders of society. We are intuitive, reflective, relational and idealistic. We bring life into the world, not just through our wombs, but by the rigor of our spirits and our union of heart and mind. We are the seers and dreamers of the world. I read once that there is something desperate about a world in which women are too busy to be dreamers, and it's true. Don't hedge your radical ideas, by convincing yourself that they're impractical, implausible or a sign of hubris. Don't cramp your inspiration and intuition by saddling them with limitations (however real) too quickly. Give yourself space to aim high. All the brilliant minds in human history--those who forever altered our trajectory as a race--chased an idea their contemporaries thought outrageous and impossible. We don't even know how big we can be--what a business or a life or a world we can create--until we direct all of our energies in the direction of limitless possibility. There is a world of detractors out there. What's in short supply are the believers, the visionaries. Be the advocate of your own big and brilliant idea. In fact if your idea seems imminently doable, try again. Reach to the realm of fantasy. Make it ludicrous. Then go after that vision. I think you'll find you surprise yourself.  Check out Visa Business's awesome infographic about women in business below! (Click on the image to see it in full size.) 

I am blogging on behalf of Visa Business and received compensation for my time from Visa for sharing my views in this post, but the views expressed here are solely mine, not Visa’s. Visit http://facebook.com/visasmallbiz to take a look at the reinvented Facebook Page: Well Sourced by Visa Business. The Page serves as a space where small business owners can access educational resources, read success stories from other business owners, engage with peers, and find tips to help businesses run more efficiently. Every month, the Page will introduce a new theme that will focus on a topic important to a small business owner’s success. For additional tips and advice, and information about Visa’s small business solutions, follow @VisaSmallBiz and visit http://visa.com/business.