Month: May 2020

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Being a Woman Entrepreneur

As an entrepreneur, you will have advantages to help you succeed. Unfortunately, there will also be disadvantages. As a woman taking on entrepreneurship, however, you may face challenges and develop strengths differing from what a man may experience during his entrepreneurial career.

It’s important to identify these possible issues so that you may use your advantages to become a successful businesswoman and learn how to overcome the disadvantages holding you back.

The Disadvantages

Networking

Women are less likely to have relationships with people who have networks or connections to help launch and sustain a business. Not only does a network provide valuable information needed to successfully create a business, but it also provides a mentorship as well as referrals you may need for future expansion.

Due to the tendency of the highest levels of corporate leadership to be mostly occupied by men, it is difficult for female entrepreneurs to find a woman in a high occupational seat to seek advice from.

Family Needs

It can be difficult for women to devote the time needed for a business to become successful if they have young children who require constant attention. Trying to launch a business may take up all of your time and this can often put strain on obligations to your family.

It is important to schedule your work life with your family duties in mind. As an entrepreneur, you are the boss and therefore you set the hours needed for your business to grow.

The Advantages

Strength in Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Leadership studies reveal that having high emotional intelligence may prove to be an advantage in business. Having a high emotional intelligence quotient is an important factor in leadership and studies have found that women, on average, have an edge over men when it comes to this.

People with high emotional intelligent quotients understand their own emotions as well as the emotions of their peers, and use the information to help guide how to think and react to the situation.

Collaboration Skills

Working with others and building long-lasting relationships is a strong trait among many women and may aide in the success of a new business. Creating new partnerships among businesses like your own opens a world of opportunities for your business to grow with your competitors, rather than compete against them.

New businesses are going to have difficulty competing against more established companies. If you’re struggling to match your competitors’ progress or sales, you may end up in debt. This may eventually result in your company going out of business. Taking on new opportunities creates lasting partnerships and encourages companies to include your business in future prospects.

This is a good time to point out that many people feel that women basically do have the same advantages and disadvantages when it comes to entrepreneurship. Whether or not it’s actually true remains unclear.

When it comes down to it, the best way to ensure success as an entrepreneur is to be honest and work hard to achieve your goals. Hopefully, doing so will lead to more advantages and fewer disadvantages.

Eight Tips on Dealing with PR Disasters

One of the problems that most small business owners fear is a public relations nightmare. Sadly, this can happen to almost any business owner who is in the public eye in some way. You never know when a comment will go viral – and worse, when it will be misunderstood in some way. If you ever find yourself dealing with a PR disaster, you’ll want to try to implement these tips.

1. Don’t Ignore the Situation

You cannot avoid bad situations. If something is harming your businesses or your reputation, you need to confront it. Even if it’s true and you’re ashamed, you can often overcome the problem by being open and honest and then working to fix the problem. If it’s not true, you will only look guilty if you don’t get ahead of the story.

2. Don’t Think That Your Reputation Will Save You

Even if up until now you’ve had a spotless reputation, a particular type of PR situation can overshadow your reputation – even if it’s false. The only way to fix someone’s erroneous perception is to tackle it head on in the bright light of day.

3. Don’t Wait until the Situation Has Exploded to Deal with It

If you already know something might come out to the public that you don’t want to, don’t wait. It’s not going to help anyone. Do what you can to mitigate any situation before it explodes. If you didn’t know about it and it’s false, you still don’t want to let it keep proliferating without a response from you.

4. Be Sincere and Honest

If you did do something that was not true or it was misleading in some way (even if you didn’t realize it consciously), once your public finds out it’s time to come clean. So many social media stars could have kept their careers if only they had responded appropriately to being outed for their misleading information.

5. Don’t Avoid Communication with Affected Customers and Stakeholders

Remember that you have many stakeholders – from your partner, to your kids, to your employees, contractors, customers, and possibly investors depending on the type of business that you are running. Every one of them needs to have communication from you regarding the issue in the terms that they will understand best.

6. Document Everything

When something happens, if you document it, you can often avoid it happening again. Sometimes a breakdown in communication is responsible for the nightmare. Other times it’s trusting the wrong vendors. Whatever it is, if you go through what happened, you can identify the problems that got you here so that you can avoid them next time.

7. Plan for a Crisis

Take some time to consider the various issues that you can face in your line of work. Make a list of possibilities so that you can plan for any type of crisis that might happen. That way, you know what to do. Plus, by writing it down you will often avoid the problem to start with as you identify causes.

8. Don’t Act in a Defensive Manner

If you’re experiencing a PR disaster right now, try not to behave defensively. If you’ve done nothing wrong, explain yourself with confidence. If you have made a mistake, admit it openly and honestly without being angry that you were discovered or that someone pointed it out.

If you really want to avoid dealing with PR disasters, the best way to do it is to create a plan for your public persona for answering questions in a way that your audience responds positively to, while always being honest. If something goes down, take the blame for your poor communication and try to do better next time.