FAQ
What is BizSavvyWoman™?
BizSavvyWoman is a unique, by-invitation-only service for women entrepreneurs who own and operate their own business. More than a networking group, BizSavvyWoman brings together small groups (8-10) of women who own incorporated businesses and who manage the work of others for professional development, companionship, learning and leadership. The premise behind BizSavvyWoman is two-fold and simple:
- you need to be more than a subject matter expert to sustain success in business and
- it is lonely at the top.
How does BizSavvyWoman operate?
BizSavvyWoman offers already established and successful business women a place to gather each month for a facilitated half-day learning meeting, supplemented by one-on-one coaching with a business specialist. A trained facilitator/coach chairs each meeting to ascertain the learning and development needs of the specific group of members, invites in a specialist to present on a topic of general interest and creates a forum where the members can share their business and personal issues and concerns for mutual support and peer learning. For example, one month the facilitator might lead the group in a discussion about sales skills, helping them to self assess their strengths and weaknesses in this area. The subject matter expert brought in for that meeting would be a sales specialist who would focus their 2-hr seminar on improving sales skills. Other months might focus on improving financial management abilities, hiring and staff retention skills, effectively supervising staff, all focused on best practices for the small business owner.
Still other months may be devoted to the burden of 'being it all' which is so common to small business owners, especially women.
Industry exclusivity in any cluster of 8-12 women is guaranteed. That means that if you own a commercial cleaning company, say, no other members of that industry may join the cluster. Industry exclusivity is key to this concept working because it guarantees that members can share details about business challenges and concerns with others who have no vested interest in profiting from that information. In short, it offers a safe environment where a woman can temporarily lay down some of her burdens and not have to maintain the superwoman mask that is so common amongst female business owners.
Between monthly meetings, each member receives a 1-hr private coaching session with the cluster facilitator. Coaching can focus on either personal or professional development issues and is designed to leverage the discoveries and insights gained at the monthly meeting. Recent studies have clearly demonstrated that business coaching provides returns of up to 7 times the investment so this is a critical component of the service offering.
Once each year members will gather with their cluster facilitator for a 2-day learning retreat. This retreat will help members to focus on the work-life balance conversation and extend the learning to become a better business woman work already begun through the monthly sessions.
What are these special needs that women business owners have?
Many women entrepreneurs not only have to maintain a rock solid presence in their businesses, but are sole supporters of families. Others have husbands, partners or children who are not especially supportive (or sometimes outright jealous if a woman becomes too successful). When you are the owner/operator of a small business, there are often few (if any) safe places to talk about your uncertainties, your fears or your successes. Even when they have supportive and encouraging families, women typically carry the burden for being accountable as 'the glue' that holds relationships together. This can bring heightened pressure to their role as entrepreneurs as life unfolds and various family crises unfold. Unlike women in paid employment, female entrepreneurs don't get paid maternity leave, bereavement leave, paid vacations or time off when a family member is ill.
Loneliness and isolation are common experiences of all business owners but are especially prevalent amongst female entrepreneurs who are frequently the only person in their family or social circle to own a business. They often have few people with whom they can share their situation who truly understand the complexity of their issues. Then there is the isolation that comes from being unable to brainstorm or explore key issues because there aren't appropriate people around: staff or contractors don't have the experience or expertise, let alone the time; family frequently don't connect with the issues; friends or business colleagues usually don't have the required insider knowledge to be useful. So you end up doing it all by yourself, even though you crave input and know that the results would be better if you could just find the right people to interact with.
Where is BizSavvyWoman available?
BizSavvyWoman is not only a new business, but it is a new concept in professional services targeted at successful women entrepreneurs.
Launched in June, 2007 its first cluster meeting will be held before the end of August. For the rest of 2007 efforts will focus on establishing the initial group of members and expanding to a second cluster in the Ottawa area.
In Q 1 & 2 of 2008 BizSavvyWoman will expand in Ottawa to include a second facilitator and at least 2 more clusters. The second half of 2008 will see an expansion to the Toronto market and into the Maritimes, specifically Halifax, Fredericton and possibly Saint John. By 2009 BizSavvyWoman will have become a national organization with membership clusters and facilitators throughout the nation.
Why launch BizSavvyWoman now?
BizSavvyWoman joins a growing number of professional service organizations which support the burgeoning number of women owned business in Canada. Canada is considered a world leader in female entrepreneurialism, with some 800,000 companies headed by women generating $18 billion in annual revenues1.
Karen Hughes at the University of Alberta notes that women, in general, work 20% more hours than men and that while there are many public and private services available to women in the start-up phase of their businesses there are few support services available when it comes to growing a small business.
In its 2004 "A Look at New Entrepreneurs in Canada" report, the CIBC2 reports several interesting trends. While fewer women than men start their own businesses, those who do tend to stick with longer. Increasingly those who start their own business are university educated and are in older age demographics. Given our aging boomer population the CIBC projects that 100,000 new small businesses will start up in the next 5 years.
Who is behind BizSavvyWoman?
BizSavvyWoman is the brainchild of Gwen McCauley, a business and life transition coach and educator. Having run her own coaching and consulting business, Odysseys Unlimited Inc. for over ten years, Gwen is intimately familiar with the issues, challenges and joys of successfully operating a small business.
As a coach and educator she has become deeply familiar with the needs of other women entrepreneurs. More recently she began to feel frustrated and angry as she heard more and more stories of the struggles faced by many of her fellow business owners and decided to do something about it. From her own experience she knew that networking groups helped, but were not the answer because their mandate was not expansive enough. What was needed was an organization that offered a combination of education, support, camaraderie and skill building. BizSavvyWoman was resulted from her many conversations with women business owners about what they needed to sustain their success.
Why the name BizSavvyWoman?
BizSavvyWoman speaks to women business owners who are already successful and want more. Typically these women have high standards, see themselves as wanting to associate with others and organizations who are like themselves: smart, diligent, professional, and willing to press the edges in order to achieve success.
The name has been created to speak to these issues:
Biz ...clearly about business, but uses a more edgy, Internet oriented version of the term
Savvy ...implies smart, dynamic, shrewd, knowledgeable people
Woman ...clearly defines the market sector and implies the whole of a woman's experience, not just the business side of her
1 Karen Hughes, University of Alberta. "Female Enterprise in the New Economy". 2006
2 Jeffrey Rubin, et al. "Start Me Up: A Look at New Entrepreneurs in Canada". 2004