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Women Emerging as New EntrepreneursEditor’s Note: This is a condensed article taken from a speech Rene Reid Yarnell gave to the American Business Women’s Association. You have permission to reprint any portion of this article, or in its entirety.
As we turn the corner of a new millennium, we are seeing significant changes in the way women are approaching their lives. More and more are becoming fed up with the inequalities and insecurities of working for someone else. Similarly, many of us who have tried starting our own conventional businesses are just as tired of the headaches and the personal drain on our lives. Millions of women are finding a better way and are deciding that what men have said all along is true: A woman’s place is in the home – running her own home-based business, of course.
In our work lives, there are basically four quadrants from which we can choose:
Let’s explore these four options. The First Quadrant: Employment Despite the attractiveness of a steady paycheck, there is a major shakeup going on in the business world today. Corporate America has rarely been kind to women, but men are also finding little or no security as they once did. While past generations were brought up on work, work, work, the new breed of professionals want more—and they’re getting it. They are finding more fulfilling lives, at work and at home, by moving away from traditional employment. Tired of trading hours for dollars, their reasons are many:
Rather than wait for the government to enforce equality and tired of bumping their heads on the glass ceiling, more and more women are deciding to leave their old journey of the broke called a j.o.b. to become entrepreneurs. How can you know if you should be among them? Just remember: there are countless options available to you both within and without the confines of corporate America. What you choose is entirely within your control. You may want to make a list of your priorities with the most important at the top. Then ask yourself this all-important question: Can I attain my dreams and achieve my priorities by working for someone else? If the answer is not a resounding YES, it may be time for you to weigh other career options.
The Second Quadrant: Self-employment Women began to realize that Eleanor Roosevelt was right: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” We discovered that we have two choices. We can remain where we are and complain about the unfairness, or we can step out of the entrapment, and try something new. Consequently, we have seen a large migration from the first quadrant to the second: from employment to self-employment. As a result of so many women exploring new options, we have seen the number of female law school graduates grow from 6% of their male counterparts in 1970 to 75% today. Similarly, women MBA graduates have grown from 5% of the male population in 1972 to 40% today. With their business degrees in hand, from 1982 to 1987, we witnessed a 57% increase in women-owned businesses. And now, since that time, the number of female-owned businesses has grown at nearly twice the national average according to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners (NFWBO). The eight million businesses owned by women are generating about $2.3 trillion in revenue. Technology, the Internet, and the shakeup in corporate America have all converged to make conditions as ripe as they’ve ever been for entrepreneurs. It’s no secret that most millionaires are in business for themselves. Any well-paying job carries with it long hours and heavy obligations. So, why not put in long hours for yourself? But with success comes a price. Women running their own businesses are finding that the long hours and stresses are keeping them away from the family and running them down physically and emotionally. They find it difficult to get away from the business—carrying it home every day and even take it on vacations. Plus, there’s the never-ending expenses for equipment, materials, hidden costs, overhead, payroll, F.I.C.A., and unemployment taxes.
The Third Quadrant: Home Businesses Now, having tried both sides of the conventional employment spectrum, women are leading the migration homeward bound—to the third quadrant. In the last decade, millions of Americans who are reevaluating their priorities have left their jobs and started their own home-based businesses. From 1983 to 1997, the number of home-based workers grew from 6 to 32 million. By 1997, more businesses were started at home than on Main Street or on any other commercial street or mall. According to Inc. magazine, 705,000 home businesses began that year, compared to 610,000 businesses that located at commercial sites. It’s a phenomenon that promises profound consequences for the economy, challenges the way we think about work, and makes us look back to America’s roots. Less than 100 years ago, most Americans worked for themselves, and over 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson envisioned a nation of independent merchants and farmers. Today’s entrepreneurs are their heirs. More and more people today are electing to go into a home-based business, and, with the ease of technology and the Internet, you may choose to be a part of this trend. In order of popularity, the businesses moving home are: general contracting, construction, computer businesses, business consulting, cleaning services, real estate, painting, crafts, trucking, and marketing services. Depending on the type of business you decide to pursue, there are still a few issues with which to contend:
The Fourth Quadrant: Leveraged Income So haven’t I just shot holes in every viable alternative? Actually, no. There is still another option open to professionals and business people in today’s world. If you went down the checklists I’ve provided and found yourself facing some or many of those dilemmas, then you may be open to considering another option. What if...
Of course, you must be willing to work hard and stay with this option long enough for success to take hold. Just like every profession, there is a learning curve. You will need to devote the first phase of your business to apprenticeship, advanced education, and refinement to gain mastery over this new option. If you have eliminated working for someone else as an option, you are a candidate. If you have already experienced working for yourself, and are tired of measuring your success by what you gave up to get it, you are a candidate. If you are attracted to the idea of a home-based business, but want to avoid the downsides, then you are also a candidate for the new profession emerging in today’s world—a profession that embraces lifestyle freedom, personal fulfillment, and long-term financial stability for the 21st Century. You could be one of the new entrepreneurs giving rise to the emergence of a new culture in our society, replacing the confinements of traditional employment with the autonomy of a home-based business.
Finding Fulfillment and Financial Rewards through Network Marketing Investments can be, without a doubt, the most effective means to great wealth. But for those without money to invest, they still have the option to consider this fourth quadrant: a kind of investment in their personal relationships instead of in stocks or bonds, leveraging themselves through the people who are in their world. There is one profession that stands apart for the 21st Century as most likely to advance both men and women in our search to gain control over our lives. It is network marketing, or what I love to call relationship marketing. Network marketing is a form of distribution of products and services that, through word of mouth promotion, uses the power of duplication of effort, or what we call leveraging. Unlike conventional marketing, which generally has a few representatives responsible for large volumes of sales, this form of marketing has large numbers of representatives responsible for a small number of sales. It is a form of direct selling in which the distributors are compensated on a multi-level basis as opposed to the traditional single-level pay plan. At this particular time in history, when traditional business offers so little security, network marketing introduces a system in which common people can invest a small sum and, through sheer tenacity and determination, rise to staggering levels of financial reward and personal freedom. And this can be done from home! The industry has evolved considerably over the years. It began as a home-based business focused on one-on-one direct sales. While still a home business, it has transitioned into a business more focused on building an organization of sales people, each of whom is responsible for a small amount of sales. Today, it is moving toward a high-tech business that utilizes the computer, the Internet, e-mail, voice mail, fax-on-demand, sophisticated telephony and teleconferencing, and a multitude of electronic media, including audios, videos, and CD-ROMs. Soon we will also see the use of DVDs, MP3, CD business cards and video streaming as an additional educational medium. Marketing reps are moving away from merely sifting through huge numbers of prospects and returning to the original spirit of this industry: building through their own personal relationships. The larger your list of personal contacts and the greater your credibility with them, the more likely you are to establish your business. By whatever name you call it—multi-level marketing, network marketing, network distribution, referral marketing—our business truly is about “relationship marketing.” It is building strong, solid, lifelong business and personal relationships with those who join you, and are seriously committed to working with you to build their businesses. It is your magnetism as an ethical person and knowledgeable leader that will make others want to be a part of your organization. It is the spirit you inject into your group and the dynamics of your bonding that will build lasting relationships. Women Leveraging Themselves through Network Marketing Built on strengthening personal relationships—clearly one of women's strongest inbred qualities—the network marketing industry is positioning itself to be in the forefront of a new era of professionals who, by choice, want to make a living but also make a life. Liz Walcher, a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch for several years, was ready to make a change. She had paid a high price for her success. “If you want to continue to climb that corporate ladder, you have to sacrifice all the things you really value,” she says. “Your relationships are sacrificed, your family is sacrificed, and ultimately you end up being the sacrifice. That was clearly happening to me. “I was always being made enticing offers by headhunters but I had reached the point that I was ready to accept an offer with another financial services firm. I never saw my family because of my long hours and my international travel and (if you can believe this) the big enticement was that this new firm was promising me two secretaries to make my work load less. “I believe I made the transition out of corporate America through sheer divine intervention. The owner’s daughter of the daycare center where I dropped off my youngest daughter for 12 hours a day (it makes me sick to admit this) began talking to me. She looked me straight in the eye, and said, ‘I know you’re successful. I know you make a lot of money. I know you have a title and work for an important firm. But are you happy?’ No one had ever asked me that question before. It really made me stop and think, and I realized that no, I wasn’t happy.” Liz was introduced to network marketing as a means of spending more time with her family. “When I was with the brokerage firm, many times my women clients would ask me what it took to find a job like mine. They wanted a position where they could call the shots, a job where they could become financially independent. There was no way I could help them back then. But now, by developing this networking business, I could help other women build a business where they could call the shots, have the paycheck, and have the lifestyle, with it all built into one.”
Network Marketing Changing Social Trends Home-based businesses will be responsible for changing social trends over the next few decades. Entrepreneurs who spend more time working from home will be better mothers and fathers, there when their families need them rather than stuck in gridlock on a freeway. They will reestablish priorities and create lives with a more elevated sense of purpose and fulfillment. With more capital in the hands of responsible entrepreneurs, I expect to see countless people make more money than they ever dreamed. And many of them will use their newfound wealth for altruistic causes. As women, we are processing our decisions more carefully, seeking careers without sacrificing our life priorities. We are believing in ourselves more and banking on our own abilities. We no longer are willing to miss out on the important phases of our lives. We are no longer willing to be controlled by others. We are no longer willing to give the best of ourselves in order to make someone else wealthy. As women, we are ready to risk all in order to take our stand in the business world. We are gravitating toward entrepreneurial ventures and home-based businesses because we have our priorities clear: the people in our lives count for everything...far more than money.
******************************************************** You will find support by visiting her web sites: for prospecting, TheNewEntrepreneurs.com; for training and resources, NetworkMarketingInfo.com; to reach Rene, Yarnell.com.
TheNewEntrepreneurs.com | Copyright © 2003 , Rene Reid Yarnell. All Rights Reserved. |
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