Tag Archives: women in business

5 Strategies to Market Your Woman-Owned Business

Posted on Tuesday, 28 August
by Dr. Pamela Williamson

Being a woman entrepreneur in itself, is something to be proud of. As you embark on your journey of converting your creative ideas into a profitable business you need to couple your efforts with some strong marketing strategies.

Here are 5 marketing tips that will help boost your business whether you are offering services or selling a product:

1. Communicate your story

Customers will be more engaged with your products and services when they know where you are coming from. This can be achieved by sharing your story on business’ websites or social media channels. Being a woman-owned business, you will be able to have a stronger customer base when you tell your story since the customer can now relate to you and your background. After all, a repeat customer is one who has developed a relationship with your business journey and values the importance of your product or service.

2. Leverage social media

Social media is very effective in targeting like-minded people. By creating sponsored social media posts on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook you can reach a large number of women in your surrounding geographical area. Once your product or service proves its value, word of mouth marketing (even through social media) can greatly help increase your business.

3. Write a regular blog on your business website

Content marketing is the current trend in business marketing. Usually, this starts with posting a regular blog on your business website. By regularly posting content related to your business industry, customers are more likely to frequently visit your website for related information. One good strategy for this is to write articles providing remedies and solutions to people’s problems. This increases viewership, website traffic, and therefore more repeat customers.

4. Provide a free consultation or demo

Customers are generally looking for an expert opinion in order to solve their problem or provide relief with their mundane tasks. One of the best ways to go about this is to provide a free consultation. Potential customers who are impressed by the initial complimentary value you provide will be more likely to believe in the claims of your product and service and there’s a higher chance that they will buy from you.

5. Partner with local business groups

By partnering with other local business (including other woman-owned businesses) you get the opportunity to have a wider customer base and develop strong relationships within the local community as you do this. The partnership should be a win-win situation for both businesses. For instance, you could co-host an event, market on each other’s social media or split advertising costs.

All said and done, marketing is one aspect of a business that needs continuous work. The more people you connect with, whether on a digital platform or in a local gathering, the more publicity your business gets.

Are you a woman-owned business looking for more networking and marketing opportunities?

Buy a ticket to our 15th Annual WBEC-West Procurement Opportunity Conference!

Click here to learn what’s in store.

Five Daily Habits of Successful Women in Business

Posted on Friday, 22 June
by Dr. Pamela Williamson

As the old adage goes “humans are creatures of habit,” the same principle also applies in business, and women worldwide have successfully incorporated this to bag huge success in their business endeavors.

Here are 5 habits that successful women in business incorporate almost daily:

  1. Networking

Networking not only helps women entrepreneurs become part of a community but also helps in advancing the business by strategic associations that can greatly benefit in generating new business. Networking gives the necessary boost that helps open doors of opportunity by exposing your business to a wider range of potential customers.

Women business owners know and understand that this habit needs work on a continuous basis in order to maintain relationships and develop new ones. After an initial introduction it is best to e-mail, connect over coffee, via LinkedIn, or attend networking events like WBE2WBE Connections, to keep in touch. Networking is a give and take relationship and needs to be maintained by giving referrals, and regular communication.

  1. Goal setting

As is true for any personal or professional achievement, goal setting is the key for successful women business owners. They maintain their short term as well as long term business goals and work on them on a regular basis. Women business owners ensure that the goals they set are specific, measurable, accurate, realistic and time bound. This helps them to take their business to the next level.

  1. Continuous learning

The business world is continuously changing and adapting to the customer’s needs. This makes it inevitable for the women business owner to continuous keep herself updated by taking online courses, brushing up executive skills and obtaining the necessary certifications that are required for the business to maintain a competitive edge in the market.

  1. Time management

One of the top skills of any business owner is how well they manage their time. Women business owners understand this equally well and make sure that they are in total charge of their time.

  1. Creative thinking

The root of great success lies in creative ideas. Women entrepreneurs make time to relax, rejuvenate and work in solitude to generate creative solutions and ideas to enhance their business. They also ensure that they take time to maintain a healthy mind, body and spirit, and meditate, visualize and affirm on their immediate and future decisions and steps to enhance their business.

In order to keep growing, it is important to keep abreast with new technology, latest trends in your business space, and finding creative solutions that will keep women successful in their business endeavors.

3 KEY THINGS THAT WOMEN-OWNED BUSINESSES MUST DO TO KEEP THEIR WEBSITES COMPETITIVE IN 2018

Posted on Wednesday, 04 April
by Dr. Pamela Williamson

With the digital marketing world getting highly competitive there is a vital need to optimize your website in order to keep it visible in search engine searches for your customers.

Here are 3 things that you need to pay attention to for your website to rank higher against your competitors:

  1. Ensure your website is updated

With Google now planning to use the mobile-first algorithm to rank websites it is highly important that your website is mobile friendly.  If mobile users quickly navigate off your website it implies that your website has a higher “bounce rate” and that users are not finding what they are looking for. To ensure that the mobile audience is engaged on your website your site needs to have a higher “site speed”, i.e. it should take less than 3 seconds to load. Avoid large files and flash images on your website. Additionally, it is important that your website is easy to navigate on a mobile device without the user having to click multiple buttons such as ‘see more’ or ‘next’ to get to the required information. Lastly, as obvious as it may seem, make sure your website is free of any loading or 404 errors. Mobile users are fast and savvy and any such errors will be penalized by the search engines.

 

  1. Post Content Regularly

Google crawlers are hungry for new information; they crawl your website hunting for new material and content. The best way to get higher search engine rankings is by regularly posting fresh content. Start by creating a blog section on your website. In this section, you can start posting weekly blogs about your products and services as it relates to the customer. Also writing informative and knowledgeable content on topics within your related niche or industry encourages readers to visit your website regularly. Both of these factors —fresh content and increased visitors will yield a higher a search engine ranking for your website.

 

  1. Create Backlinks

Links are of two types, outbound and inbound links. Outbound links are sites that you link to as part of a source or referral for information on your website. Inbound links, on the other hand, are links created when other websites link to your website. Quality and organic inbound links, i.e. links from influencers within your business niche, will greatly boost your search engine rankings. Be prudent in getting backlinks, as low-quality links (such as those bought from link farms), can adversely affect your rankings and your website could even be penalized for such black-hat SEO techniques.

Search engines have come a long way since their inception in the 1990’s and are regularly updating their algorithms to rank websites. Hence it is best to regularly update your website by designing it on a search engine friendly platform, keeping security updates up to date, writing quality content and linking with other key players in your business space.

3 Ways Women in Business Can Overcome Challenges and Get Ahead

Posted on Friday, 21 July
by Dr. Pamela Williamson

Did you know that more than 9 million firms in the United States are women-owned? In fact women business owners have close to 8 million employees and generate over $1.5 trillion in sales, as per the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Although more and more women are venturing into entrepreneurship the challenges they face are often not the same as their male counterparts entering the business world.

Here are 3 ways women in business can overcome challenges and get ahead:

1.Get over social stigma

When you walk into a crowded networking seminar and you can count the number of women there on your fingertips it can get intimidating. However, you’ve made it this far so being true to who you are and believing in what you have to offer and what you bring to the table can give you the boost of confidence you need to find your voice in situations where you might feel singled out. Also, understanding that if you don’t speak up for your business and make it known, no one else will.

Build a support system.

According to Inc. close to fifty percent of all women entrepreneurs don’t have mentors that can help propel their business growth. When you’re trying to blaze your way in the world of male-dominated businesses, having the advice of a woman mentor who has ‘been there and done that’ can be extremely helpful. But the challenge is in finding a reliable support system. Certifying your business as woman-owned can not only help you get found by procurement officials but also directly enroll you to attend conferences designed to get you networking with other like-minded women owned businesses and find promising mentorship opportunities.

Find work/life balance

Whether you’re a man or a woman, finding work-life balance is no doubt hard, however in the case of women and especially mothers who venture into entrepreneurship most would agree that dealing with the business would get a lot easier if you didn’t have the kids to deal with! The key is to not beat yourself up or sweat the small stuff and come to terms with the fact that you got into this knowing that your responsibilities will be shared between the family and the business.

WBEC-West provides an excellent platform for your business to grow, connect with other businesses in both your local community and nationwide, and be a mentor to other women businesses. Learn more.

 

Are You the Next Rising Women Business Owner?

Posted on Friday, 21 October
by Dr. Pamela Williamson

Are you thinking of leaving your full-time job to start your own business? Many women today are considering starting a home-based business, and there are many who started out this way and now run full-fledged companies with employees and revenue in the millions. So, yes if you’re willing to take a risk and work hard, it can be done.

How do we know this? Well, many of the women-owned businesses that attend our WBEC-West annual conferences and even serve as mentors for our Ambassador program started out this way and have never looked back.

If you’re not sure how to start out here are a few business ideas to get your creative juices flowing and get you inspired:

  1. AccountantBookkeeping for small businesses can be a great way to start an accounting business. With some experience behind your back you can move on to higher accounting levels and work up balance sheets, income statements, financial reports and more depending on the needs of the client. With the right licensing, tax accounting is also a huge area that offers a lot of potential. As you bag a few good clients and they’re happy with your work you can look forward to repeat business from them and once you get to the point where you feel the workload is overwhelming it’s time to start hiring help and growing your business.
  2. Consultant 

    To be a consultant, you need to be an expert in an area. Perhaps you did marketing for many years for an apparel company or you were a top project manager for an IT firm, or maybe cooking or photography has been a long-time passion of yours and over the years you’ve garnered a lot of good experience. You could use this expertise to either start your own business or consult and help others do similar things without making the same mistakes that you made along the way.

  1. Event Planner 

    The first step to good event planning are good business relationships. You’ll need to visit every potential location and work with the manager or person in-charge to tour the site and learn what’s available and what’s not available at that location. For example, how many people can the site accommodate, does it have AV equipment. catering options etc. By creating a database of key features you’ll be able to pull up a few locations and recommend the right venue to potential clients. You can start with smaller events like parties and as you gain more experience move up to corporate events and even full-fledged conference event planning by when you’ll have an entire team of staff working with you.

 Some more business ideas you can look deeper into:

• Catering
• Printing and Design
• Cleaning Business
• Freelance Content Writing
• Interior Decoration
• Keynote Speaking
• Property Manager
• Web design and development
• Online Marketing business

The possibilities are endless…

Another major advantage to starting your own business is that federal and corporate entities are looking to do business with companies owned by women. By certifying your business you can qualify for procurement opportunities only available to certified Women Business Enterprises or WBEs. Learn more about the many benefits of getting certified today!