Top
Challenges For Women Business Owners
By
Felicia Sharp
Staff Writer
| As
if getting into business wasn’t challenging enough,
you still have those uncertainties to tread on and lot
of traps to avoid. The list that follows might not be
the most exhaustive one out there, but it would at least
be able to nudge you out of some perils that you could
have done without.
1.
Taking up Overheads: No matter how many woman-owned
businesses start-up everyday claiming to go by the saying
“You got to put money in to get money out”,
it is still not a very bright idea to get into any business
that requires you to dole out loads and loads of cash.
The only exception to this rule is if you have been handed
a business like that by your family members who had already
taken that risk. Overheads simply eat into business profitability
and can be best done without.
2.
Picking up full-time employees: This might not
be liked by our employee bothers and sisters out there,
but these folks rarely do a 8 hour marathon each day at
work and hence they don’t deserve to be paid that
much. It would be best if they can be replaced by freelancers
who would work out to be better because they charge relatively
less and they charge only for their time.
|
|
3.
Getting bit by the boom bug: In most of the developing
countries, you would see that people have a funny way of getting
into businesses just because everyone else is getting into it
– you can’t do anything more stupid than this. Women
business owners must rely on a strong, realistic or workable
idea but not something ‘everyone else’ thinks is
great. It is not even being stated here that you have to do
‘due diligence’ or ‘market research’
– only you just go ahead with what your heart says and
don’t let others influence you.
4.
Letting Mistakes get to you: Agreed that entrepreneurs
often make mistakes or take decisions that might prove to be
very expensive. It is also true, on the other hand, that if
individuals aren’t doing mistakes, they aren’t doing
anything. In case you happen to make a decision that proved
to be expensive; committed a blunder that is burdening you then
you just have to pause for clarity, reorient yourself, rectify
your mistakes if you can and move on. Get on with whatever it
is that you ought to do.
5.
Expanding before you know you can: Some businesses
are like that – over aggressive. It can only hurt a business
if an entrepreneur or a group of small business answers (as
the case maybe) open up too many offices, branches or focus
on expanding instead of substantiating or justifying the portability
of whatever they had first started. Expanding too fast can be
just as detrimental as expanding too slow or not expanding at
all. Business expansion will happen automatically if focus is
on smooth sales and flawless operational procedures.
