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Women In Power: What To Consider When Starting A Female-Led Business

There are plenty of reasons to start a business today, but if you are a woman there are extra incentives and opportunities. Female-led businesses are thriving and are showing massive growth and returns. If you are a woman thinking of doing it for yourself, here are some things to consider.

Starting A Business Is Easier Than Ever

Thanks to new technologies and the outsourcing services they have made possible, starting up is easier than ever before. For female-led businesses and any other business, getting to grips with the nitty-gritty of entrepreneurship and the pressure of growth can be achieved by outsourcing admin responsibilities.

This comes with a few advantages. Having a professional answering service gives potential clients a great first impression, and you do not miss opportunities and leads while you chase down sales. The regular business tasks and responsibilities that come with hiring staff and managing accounts can all be outsourced, giving you more time to push your business forward.

Handling HR can be a time-consuming task, and there is a lot of information to maintain. Tasks like absence management can be easily outsourced, letting you get on with your go-getting. Not getting bogged down in admin tasks has let female-led businesses thrive, from day one.

The Future Is Female

Across the world, social pressure has been put on our politicians and culture to embrace women in business, science, and engineering.

The lack of gender diversity at the top of hierarchies in big business and places of media influence is finally being balanced, and companies are looking to hire women for important positions and work with female-led businesses. The boy’s club is over.

This has also led to an increase in investments in female-led start-ups and established businesses, as many of the world’s financial institutions and venture capitalists start putting their money where their mouth is. There is a massive increase in the amount of money being invested in female-led businesses, and the returns are already coming in. If you want a piece of the pie, you can get it.

Women starting their entrepreneurial journey are finding funding easily. This has helped them to get the boost they have been waiting for and take on the big boys in a fair marketplace. In all sectors and all industries, women are making huge strides compared to their male counterparts and are not stopping.

Every Crisis Is An Opportunity

The aftershocks of the lockdowns and social distancing measures of the Covid-19 pandemic are still rippling through our societies. One of the big changes is how people see their future employment, and how they want to balance their work and life into the 2020s.

Many people suddenly were working from home, and they do not want to give it up. This is understandable, especially for people with young families. Many young working mothers found themselves working from home, or on reduced furlough pay and looking for ways to make ends meet.

These factors have driven many people, mostly young women with children, to seek out ways to employ themselves and work on their own terms as things get back to a new normal.

There has never been a better time than now to start a female-led business. These opportunities are available to women who want to do it for themselves and start up a business that will one day grow large enough to fund their family’s future. Seize the opportunity before things change again.

There is A Generational Advantage

Women in our societies, across the centuries, have had several barriers to break in order to have an equal footing with men in business, sport, and day-to-day life. That work has continued, and carries on, creating more and more space and opportunities for women across all walks of life to step forward and take control.

The young women of today feel like there is nothing holding them back, and rightly so. Though there will always be more work to do to keep the playing field level for everyone, young women can approach the marketplace or a business meeting knowing they have the right to be there.

The challenges of modern business have been accepted by today’s young females, who have advanced degrees and a go-getting attitude in their arsenal. They are not going to accept anything less than success, for themselves or their start-up businesses.

If you are a young woman and thinking of stepping into the small business world, the road has been cleared for you by previous generations.

There are female entrepreneurs offering mentorship and advice, both online and in person. Women today have a wealth of shared knowledge they can tap into to help them conquer sales meetings and handle the setbacks and challenges that they face.

The opportunity, funding, and support are all there for women who want to start their own businesses. With the help of outsourcing, financing, and the will to succeed a female-led business can grow into an all-conquering behemoth.

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13 steps to making money out of blogging

You may not know that we are owned by international best selling Author Mandie Holgate who is also a multi award winning business coach who grew her first business to over £1,000,000 in the 1990’s in a recession!

Over on Mandie’s blog there is an article that quite frankly we felt we ought to nick!

So here’s an abridged version of how to make money out of blogging*

Whether you own your own business, work for a charity, have a passion for K-Pop or Women’s football you can make money from blogging.

You can get your passion for any subject out there and help others benefit too.

• But what do you write?
• And what’s the magic formula that ensures people read and action what you say?
• And what if you’ve written a blog but like your social media it falls flat and achieves nothing?

And best of all check out step 11 where I share some of the amazing ways it can make you money!

Join me for the fastest 13 steps to a making your blog a money maker!

1. Time on your side

Make time — when I’m coaching someone on growing a business or earning more money I end every session by finding out when will the actions we set be completed by. If you can’t find 20% of your time to work on this, how will it happen?

2. Your reason why?

What is the purpose of writing your blog? And if the answer is “To make lots of money!” or “To find lots of customers” Then think again.

Do you want to inspire? Empower? Educate? Stir up passion for a cause?

Yes, behind that reason is the desire to make money from blogging but foremostly consider how you are going to make a difference in the world. Customers buy when they are ready to from those that they trust. A blog helps you build awareness, trust and respect so that when they want something, it’s you they remember!

3. Who are you writing for?

I was training a room full of business owners on blogging for business and when I asked this question someone said (and I’m not sure they were joking) “Anyone that has skin!” They’d been told that to sell their skin products they could sell them to anyone. I pointed out that my husband had skin and only used moisturizer if I bought it for him at Christmas, and even then 1 bottle could last a year!

Just like marketing is a lot easier when you really know your perfect customers (want more on that click here) blogging is a lot easier when you are talking to the right people. So take the time to describe in detail your perfect readers.

4. What do you write about?

A big mistake bloggers make is that they write what they want to talk about and not what readers want to read. You may know that what they need to know is questions they’ve not even considered asking, so how could they know they need to know something they don’t know they need to know?!? (Confusing right?)…

To read the full story and the other 9 steps to making money from blogging click here.

• Over on the Insiders, our confidential mastermind group and virtual networking platform we are focusing on how to create side businesses and new income streams. We appreciate how challenging this Autumn/Winter is going to be for many so there will still be no charge for our networking events (Just £10 a month to be a member and get all those benefits, discounts and competitions).
• You can also buy Mandie’s courses with a 50% discount as a member – including her Blogging for Business course – blogging led to Mandie’s first best selling book Fight the fear so we know this course is exceptionally good. Learn more here.
• AND as an Insider you can sell Mandie’s courses and keep 50% of the profit – another way to bring some extra money in this winter – that or get BP shares 2 years ago in your time machine?

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How To Grow Your Business Sooner Rather Than Later: A Starting Guide

All businesses will dream of growing and becoming more successful. Whilst it’s easy to dream, it can often be harder to make it a reality. Throughout this article, you will read about tips for growing in the short term, as well as the long term.

Hire Those Who Push You

Whilst this articles main priority is about looking to the future for opportunities to grow, it’s important to get the groundwork right. If the foundations of your business aren’t solid, then it’s likely that you will see your business struggle to grow.

That’s why it’s important to get it right about who you’re hiring from the beginning. Poor hiring can set you back, where you should be looking to hire people who not only can do the job but actually can help push you and the entire company into being better.

Work With Those Around You

Working with those around you is an effective way of helping grow your business. It could relate to your employees and workforce, where you work with them to get the best out of each other, as related to the point above.

Alternatively, it could more refer to your business to business relationships. These types of relationships are ones you get from working with businesses to benefit yourself. It could be a business that takes care of your IT support, or supplies you with raw materials to work with.

If you have parcels and products that need shipping to your customers, then it’s likely you’ll need to work with a delivery company to make it happen. Businesses such as Mango Logistics Group specialise in offering priority deliveries for the next day, both nationwide and internationally, allowing you to build a relationship with your customers.

Invest Into Early Opportunities To Become A Market Leader

When possible, you should be looking to invest in exciting opportunities before your competitors do. A market leader is someone who is leading their industry, either because of how unique they are or because they established themselves as top dog first.

If you effectively manage to invest in opportunities that benefit you, then you could see yourself becoming a market leader. Market leaders will have more space to grow, as the sky will be the limit for them.

These investment opportunities could see you adopting a new type of software that improves business practices, or it could be something more unique to your industry. It’s worth speaking to your team at all levels, to try and find new opportunities as soon as possible.

Seek Investors

Speaking of investment opportunities, you should also be looking at the reverse of this. That refers to attracting investors who can pump your business with money, money that you could use to expand and grow. There will be different types of investment opportunities, depending on if you’re a publicly listed business or not.

This investment is supposed to be good not just for you, but the investor too, meaning you will need to work to convince them why they should choose you to invest into, over competitors.

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Simple ways that you can improve morale at your business

We all know how important our employees have been to our businesses since March 2020. Of course, we would never get anywhere without them, but we have had to rely on our staff in so many new and unexpected ways during the course of the pandemic. It has been an incredibly turbulent period of time with tremendous uncertainty, and we have needed to count on them for their resilience, flexibility, and trust as we have navigated a course through this storm.

It has also been a period in which we have had to support them in ways we may not have previously expected. As we head into the autumn, we still need to make sure that we are there for them, and we could all use a little morale boost as we head into the shorter, darker days with the prospect of tax hikes to come. Here are a few tips to help you boost morale.

Give Them Opportunities To Grow

One of the most difficult things to deal with during the pandemic was this sense of being stuck. Lockdown didn’t help, of course, as all the usual things we’d do to get away were closed off from us, but it was also hard to demonstrate growth in our businesses when we were working so hard to simply stay afloat. As we head into the autumn and we look for ways to bounce back, it’s important to remind your staff that they have a future in your business. Give them the opportunity to learn about emerging technology and promote from within where you can. Give them more responsibility and you will be rewarded.

Make Them A Part Of Your Plan To Give Back

Given that we are all looking for ways that we can give back to organisations and charities that need us right now, you might be thinking about how you can start making charitable donations through your business.

One of the simplest ways that you can do this is by making your employees part of the journey and setting up donations through payroll. This way, they can pick the charity of their choice and know that, by making charitable donations through an employer, they are contributing in the most tax-efficient way for the charity. Find out more about the benefits of payroll donations and how you can get it set up at your business by talking to PayCaptain.

Keep Showing Them You Have Got Their Back

Throughout the pandemic, we all had to learn to be flexible when it came to supporting our employees. Working from home made that easier in a lot of ways, as people could set up their own flexible hours to make sure they could look after other commitments such as home-schooling or caring for elderly relatives. It also made some things harder, such as looking after the mental health of our employees.

We’ve all read so much about the impact of the pandemic on mental health, and as we head into autumn and winter, we need to make sure that our team knows that we still have their back. Continue to offer support where you can and remember that they will reward you for it.

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How To Start A Business In An Unstable Economy

How To Start A Business In An Unstable Economy

If you’re hoping to one day start a business, then you may be waiting until economic conditions are more promising. Unfortunately, you’re likely in for a very long wait.

Life is short, and there’s no time to waste. After all, the UK is currently in the midst of a very “fragile” economic recovery, and things could get better or worse at any given moment. Years of poor leadership and pandemics have destabilised everything, and the only route left is to take matters into your own hands somewhat.

You can still start a business now and have plenty of reasons to be hopeful. Keep reading for some guidance on these matters.

Identify Public Needs

An unstable economy is an unfortunate circumstance for many people. However, it can also be an opportunity for business leaders.

During times of crisis, it’s perhaps easier to read what customers need and best respond to. For instance, online shopping became more popular, giving people a way to peruse and purchase without risking their safety. Some customers may now prefer this experience overall, too.

The appetite for buying things is always present, with some people experiencing a newfound appreciation for shopping after years of lockdown. However, you should try to gain precise results through your market research. Where are other firms falling short in answering their customer’s needs? Has the pandemic changed what types of products and services people are drawn to?

Favour the Digital Economy

As the traditional economy declines, the digital economy arises. In this space, you can start making money more quickly and reliably than ever before.

The digital economy isn’t subject to the boom and bust of the traditional economy. Actually, the former can often be given a boost by the failings of the latter. Your venture also won’t be a prisoner of global events, thriving throughout any circumstances that occur. Obviously, the peace of mind you can be afforded here is unrivalled.

One great way to persevere in trying times is to start an online coaching business. Thankfully, there are many mentors in the industry such as those at Sell What You Know who can help you learn how to sell your expertise online. Your professional experiences in the past can be turned into moneymaking opportunities of the present, giving you certainty and confidence in everything you’re doing. It’s quick and easy to get started, and there’s plenty of room to grow your business too. 

Utilise Let Go Talent

Unfortunately, many people have been released from their employment contracts in recent times. The majority of them will have been good, loyal workers, and they’re now ripe for the picking.

A startup requires dedicated workers who’re willing to go the extra mile. They’ll need to develop the business through its infancy and perhaps even be ready to be a permanent fixture on the payroll. Therefore, only the best workers will do.

In addition to posting job listings the traditional way, try to ask around your personal network about who’s been let go recently and needs a job. It might be that you’ll get access to a desperate good worker who’s fallen on hard times. If you can give them an opportunity to rebuild their lives, they may repay you with loyalty and hard work.

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Update; Can I really take my business online?

We first heard from Sarah from Sarah Everett Photography in late April. Sarah bravely admitted that lock down and Covid 19 were damaging her business mindset as she balanced business, 3 young children and her husband’s business too. Not surprising right?

We knew it was going to be tough for many of our members and so we ended March looking at ways to grow your business even if we couldn’t physically network with you.

In all our networking events we added a 1 hour free coaching from our Founder Mandie Holgate (international coach, author and speaker) and we have heard some great results that business women are getting and here Sarah shares a fabulous update on how her business is growing excitingly in these new, challenging times.

“Thank you again for inviting me to be a part of the BWN blog. It’s been a great boost to be featured in the media. Things are starting to pick up and hopefully that continues. Here’s what happened for me since that networking event in April…

A photograph of my daughter playing hopscotch was chosen from over 3000 entries by Historic England as part of their collection Picturing Lockdown. Just 100 public images were chosen.

I have to admit I was beaming from ear to ear when I got that email!

I had to keep this amazing news to myself for 3 entire weeks, until the day the collection went public. And what a day that was! I had no idea that my image was to appear on both BBC Look East and ITV Anglia, including my name being mentioned. I even had a congratulations tweet from Will Quince.

I created this image whilst on the way home from capturing some of my neighbours as part of my Doorstep Diary. Having this beautiful photo of my daughter entered into their archives was made extra special to me since she has accompanied me on each photo walk with her little notepad of addresses.

Next came something I’ve never done before, I decided to contact the Gazette to see if they’d like to run a story about me. To my delight they came back to me with a yes, they would like to cover this on a two page spread! A lovely bit of positive news amongst all the difficulties we are all facing. Turned out it was on the centre page, it still feels a bit surreal.

But it’s taught me never to shy away from contacting the media, they are simply normal people with a job to do. I gave them a lovely story complete with images – now to be framed on my office wall as a reminder.”

We are so pleased to hear of Sarah’s successful project, achievement and free PR. Over on the Insiders (Our confidential mastermind group – learn more here) we have been looking at how to help you be a thought leader and get in the press. And Sarah is not the first Insider to get her first free PR this month! We are very proud to support you and will do all we can to protect the success of women in business.

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The BWN Love your business – here’s why

Here we hear from a member on why they love the BWN after all these years of being with us. 

Why do you love the BWN so much?

There are many reasons that I love the BWN so much, I had never been to a networking event of any kind and the BWN was my first foray into this world.  Initially for me it was the timing and the financial aspects that appealed, that was before I got to know more about the ethos of BWN.  So many other networking groups run very early in the morning (not suitable when you’re a single mum that needs to get children to school)  and often come packaged with some rather steep membership fees and rules.   The fact that the BWN doesn’t charge a membership and doesn’t incur a penalty if you can’t make a meeting is the flexibility that I need to have.

How does it help your business?

The BWN has helped me in so many areas of my business.   The biggest,  aside from the natural progression of gaining new customers, is it has helped my confidence levels rise in general which has helped me enormously with my work.   Just this week I hosted my businesses regional monthly meeting with around 40 people, I would never have said yes to doing this had I not had the positive experiences with the BWN.

For what reasons do you love being involved?

I wanted to try get involved to develop and push my own personal skills further.  Public speaking has always been something that has filled me with dread, even the 60 second pitches would scare me.  Rather than running away from something that made me uncomfortable I knew that the only way I could get better  was to face it head on and actively look to improve myself by taking on new challenges.  I love being with the BWN business men and women because it’s a great morning, filled with relevant information that is key to them not only in business but on a personal level too.  Being able to connect women who could really help each other out is a great feeling.

Would you recommend it to business women (and men!) and why?

It’s helped me to grow as a person and develop my skills.  Being totally honest, there were moments when I wondered why on earth I had taken this on, and thought there were some things that a technophobe like me would never get the hang of! However there was, and continues to be as much support as I need in order to make a success of it.  I would recommend to any business women who is thinking getting involved with BWN networking events and our mastermind group to stop thinking, and start doing!  Obviously it is great for raising your own profile, but the biggest reward for me is helping other business men and women and helping my own business too.

What is your best/happiest moment of hosting a BWN event?

My first ever event was in November 2018, and I was terrified!  But I was also excited!  It went brilliantly, and for the first time I allowed myself to believe that I could actually do this!  But my happiest moment from being involved with the BWN has got to be when I was poorly in December 2018.  Mandie sent me a video clip of all the BWN ladies singing, just for me as I couldn’t be there due to my incarceration in the local hospital.  For me it sums up the true ethos of the BWN.  Yes, we are all about business, and effectively helping each other, but we are also about looking out for each other, and that for me is where it all begins.

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Google My Business – your how to guide courtesy of Kate Everett – Colchester networking event

We are keen to ensure our speakers at our events never sell at you and deliver high quality business and professional development ideas and solutions for women in business. We are already lining 2020 speakers and if you know of one you’d love to see at The BWN please do get in touch.

Here Kate Everett from TWI talks about Google My Business for women in business. It was fascinating and really useful stuff. Let us know how you get on and already over on the Insiders we are looking at ways to maximise on this. Not in yet? You can learn more about our confidential mastermind group here. It’s 24/7 and it’s epic – not our words, the Insiders!

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How to find your target audience, tribe, niche and communicate powerfully

If you are looking to find your target audience you can get bogged down in too much detail, too many questions and too many possible directions to go in;

• Should you be tweeting?
• Should you be blogging?
• Should you be hosting events?
• Should you be getting in the press, if so which press!
• Should you be networking more (or less!)

This guide (that you can down load and use again and again) will help you focus your mind. So that whether it’s a new niche, a new product or service or you are just looking to increase profit, secure your section of the market or keep on everyone’s agenda you can focus on what you need to say, to whom, where, and why.

By understanding your favourite clients you can get to really appreciate why people work with you and how to replicate it.

Download your copy here target audience work sheet insiders 

And don’t forget to post your completed forms on the INsiders Facebook page and or sections you are struggling with so we can help you get maximum benefit.

If you need more (and who doesn’t?) post to the Insiders for advice and guidance on how to maximise on this quick idea. Or you can get Mandie’s course on Finding your target audiences and getting them to buy here. Don’t forget as an INsider you get 70% off of these courses.

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How to get the most out of networking with The BWN

If you are looking to grow your business, your confidence and your profit, we are so much more than just somewhere to network once a month. Here is how to get the most our networking with The BWN.

1.Help yourself to our social media. We actively encourage our members (and a member is someone who walks through the door once a month) to talk about what they are doing, creating, building, winning or even struggling with on our social media;

• On Facebook you can post to our page and we will like and share your content.
• On Twitter if you mention @BWNcouk we will like and retweet your content for you.
• On our LinkedIn page you are welcome to post discussions, ask questions and talk about your business.

To access all of our social media just visit the home page and click on the right social media logo.

2. A Golden Ticket means you get to network at one venue for better than the early bird rate and you get all these discounts and benefits too;

• Write for our blog for FREE (Usual fee £75).
• Guaranteed 60 seconds Promo Slot.
• Give your 60 seconds to another business woman (We only have a maximum of 25 Promo slots at each event) and you can bring your banner to the event for FREE – Great evergreen marketing for you.
• Feature on our website for FREE.
• Discounts on sponsoring the website.
• Discounts on sponsoring an event.
• Discounts on exhibiting at an event.
• Can’t make an event? Still get your opportunities and events mentioned in the Business Ops slot of that event and other relevant local events. (Please note this requires a minimum of 48 hours notice.)

3.How to make a Golden Ticket really sparkle. If you want even more out of your Golden Ticket you can purchase multiple events tickets and gain even more savings!

• 1 venue – £125 (Full price £165)
• 2 venue – £230 (Full price £330)
• 3 venue – £315 (Full price £495)

4. The Insiders is a confidential learning zone, research centre and advice mastermind group that has helped business owners;

• Increase profit
• Take on new premises
• Employ their first staff
• Overcome fears – fear of the phone, fear of asking for what you want, fear of saying No to a customer when they ask for too much, fear of going live, fear of creating video, fear of blogging and getting your opinions out there to help you sell more.
• Learn new skills that have directly led to new business, new opportunities and new sales.
• Get 1st refusal on PR and other opportunities
• Access webinars from our affiliate experts
• Access discounts from our Insiders affiliates.
  Best of all it is just £5 a month – Business women say it is the best money they spend on their business, every month!

5. Do you find yourself making notes of who you need to connect with on social media and who to email or call and a list of  ideas thanks to the speaker then find you don’t get around to taking action and doing the things you learnt. You get back to the office and the business cards, notes and ideas get added to your long list of to do’s but don’t get actioned.

Annoying isn’t it?

The BWN Success Manual is a great way of putting your ideas, notes, your calendar, who you met, what you said you would do, and even create a strategy to ensure you do it, in one place. It includes;

• A place to write who you met, what you said you would do and how you could help them, so you can build a relationship from day 1.
• 2 x 1 year calendars.
• Space to structure what you learnt from the masterclass and how to ensure you take action.
• Top tips and ideas to help you network more successfully, follow up more effectively and make networking more cost effective.
• Space to add additional thoughts and journal what you notice.
• A way of looking at your networking strategy and results to see how to improve, where you are already improving and where you could do with some assistance.
• Golden Nugget ideas.
• Goal planning sections – short term, long term and the plan to achieve.
• You can buy yours at any event for £10 or online for £16. We love seeing the BWN Success Manuals at events making life easier for you.

6. Sponsoring the BWN website is a great way to get seen by our audiences all year round. One of our sponsors has already signed up to the end of 2020 so you can see this could be very useful to you and your business.

7. Our blog is packed with ideas and solutions and some really emotional, fantastic and inspiring stories from our members. You can read it all here https://old.thebusinesswomansnetwork.co.uk/bwn-blog/

8. You can sponsor a BWN event. We only allow 1 sponsor per event so its a great way to stand out. You get 1 ticket, 1 exhibitors stand, your business literature on every place setting and your business promoted on all of the marketing for that event on and off line.

You can access all of these offers (and more!) via our website, and just head to the offers heading to find the offer right for you.