Why women really mean business
So, Robbie Williams thinks that experiencing the female orgasm will give him a better understanding of what it’s like to be a woman. Oh, if only it were that simple.
To begin to understand what makes a woman tick, he’d be well-advised to get inside our heads first. And if, like us, you’re a woman in business, there’ll be one hell of a lot to pore over. Aside from the eternal chatter around such things as organising picking up and dropping off everything from the kids, dry cleaning and dinner, silently chanting “mustn’t eat carbs, mustn’t eat carbs” there’s worrying about meeting the payroll, reviewing the cash flow, leading the business to greatness and general world domination. And that’s before we’ve spoken to one member of staff, clapped eyes on one customer or opened an email.
Give us 24 hours as a man and one of the first things we might want to understand is how to get our knees under the boardroom table. With 95 per cent of board positions in this country held by men, is it any wonder we’re creating our own businesses? We’d also like to learn how to focus on one thing at a time, this would have its uses.
There are now nearly 1m women business owners in Britain and between us we are contributing more than £130bn to the economy every year and this number is rising, increasing 10 per cent in the past 4 years. We mention this because for nearly half of all women who start businesses, the main motivator is to get more control over their career.
Over the past six years, since founding Everywoman, we’ve met hundreds of female entrepreneurs in search of that control. From women running multi million pound businesses, to those just starting out, they all agree that nothing beats the freedom to be yourself. In essence creating your own brand, one that represents your values and who you truly are, is the best control in the world.
Now where to start? Well we all know that if you’re going to set up a business, you’ve got to do your research and write the business plan, but if you dream of doing your own thing one day there is something else you could do first, today even – shout it out loud.
Did you know that if you have a dream, outrageous ambition or killer fantasy, the chances of its coming true are greatly increased if you say it out loud? Last year at one of our conferences, a woman stood up and announced her life-long ambition was to be a television chat show host. Two days later she received a call from a board director of a regional TV network inviting her to meet with him. He had been in the audience that day.
Now we’re not promising miracles, but given it’s so easy, costs nothing and if you do it on the train it guarantees to make you new friends or clear the carriage, what’s the downside? We were about to say there is no such thing as an unachievable dream, but we’re not holding our breath for Robbie.