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Women Emerging as New Entrepreneurs

By Rene Reid Yarnell

 

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 business 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 alone 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:

1)  Basic employment/working for someone else

2)  Self-employment/conventional business with employees

3)  Home-based business with no employees and no overhead

4)  Leveraged income: monetary investments or duplication through personal relationships

 

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 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:

● Insecurity due to layoffs and downsizing

● Pressures and stress placed on those left to do the work

● Baby Boomers are being replaced by Gen Xers working  for half the pay with twice the energy

● Inequities for women and older managers in the work place

● The stifling of talents

● Restrictions placed on earning potential

● Ineffective pension systems

● Lack of priority given to family needs

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 have begun to realize the Eleanor Roosevelt was right: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."  We have 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 mal 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 generation 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 a 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 business - carrying it home every day and even taking 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:

● Even a home business requires some money

● You have to fill many different roles all on your own

● You have no one to show you exactly what to do

● You feel the need to hire help before you can afford it

● If you have employee(s), they become part of your breakfast table

● You worry about cash flow to cover even modest overhead

● You still have no retirement plan

 

The Forth Quadrant: Leveraged Income - Narrowing Down Your Options

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 checklist I've provided and found yourself facing some or many of those dilemmas, then you may be open to considering another option.  What if...

 

a)  You could have a business of your own

b)  You could work at home

c)  It didn't require a vast amount of start-up costs

d)  It requires no employees

e)  You are in business for yourself but not by yourself

f)  You inherit an experienced team who train you

g) You have an unrestricted earning potential

h)  You can create a passive, residual income

i)  You can determine your own schedule and prioritize your own life events

j)  You now have the leisure to contribute yourself and your resources to organizations

and activities that are reflective of your values

 

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 already experienced working for yourself, and are tired of measuring your success by what you gave up to get it, you're a candidate for the 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 of 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 or representatives responsible for a small number or 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 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.  Today, it is moving toward a high-tech business that utilizes the computer, the Internet, e-mail, voice mail, fax-on-demand, sophisticated telephone 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 won personal relationships.  The larger your list of personal contacts a d 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

Build on strengthening personal relationships - clearly one of a 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 want to 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."

 

Bonnie Breniser Isohealthy Naturally Bountiful, UT Phone: (801) 682-6470 T Free: (888) 657-4556 Young Living ID# 616802