Our Open Forum Panelists were:

Amanda Gome - CEO  Crikey! & CEO/Founder Smartcompany

Gilian Franklin - CEO & Founder, Heat Group

Trish Messiter - CEO & Owner Clarinox Technologies

Moderator

Michel Hogan of Brandology

So what is the situation for Female Entrepreneurs?

Women make up around 48% of the workforce, but only 10% are managers and 3% are CEO's.

According to the ABS, around 30% of small business operators are women, but this figure is beefed up substantially by women seeking an employment alternative that suits the hours they wish to work whilst raising a family, rather than building a business.

Only 11% of family businesses are owned by women.

Sons are 5  x more likely to inherit a family business.

In the US women (and other minority groups) owned businesses are given a slight advantage by the government in terms of taxation and government purchasing requirements – however this was asserted as not working as its easy to rort.

In some countries there are board quotas for women, but this doesn't necessarily help.  Eg The wife of President Chirac of France was appointed to the board of Louis Vitton because apparently she has “excellent taste”, not because she had any business experience   It was asserted also that in some European companies its quite common to see mistresses getting appointed to the boards of private companies.

So why are there so few Female Entrepreneurs?

Business has been an almost all male construct for over two thousand years, women have only been trying to fit into it for the last hundred years or so, so women are playing by the men's rules.  

Men are also considered to be much more competitive, where women are better team players, which is one of the reasons why men are more likely to rise to the top.

Daughters are generally not considered “business minded” and are generally excluded from business discussions at an early age.  They are not encouraged to make lemonade to sell at the front gate.   This also leads to reduced perceptions among women about what they can achieve.

As highlighted by the statistics above, very few women benefit from high level experience in corporate life before becoming entrepreneurs.

Because of the statistics above, there are very few female mentors available for women.

Success to a man generally means making money.  To a woman, success is a much more complex thing that includes money, people, community

Thoughts on differences between Corporate worlds and Entrepreneurship worlds

Some critical things you need to understand as a woman when moving from a corporate world to an entrepreneurship world are:

1. People – The people you attract make the difference between a good business and a great business.  Having the right culture will attract you the right people.  But culture never appears in a a business plan in an MBA class.  Be slow to hire and quick to fire.
2. Advice – You need a great board with a vested interest in your success.  You also need to be getting advice from major suppliers and customers, who are interested in your success.  Get these people on board.
3. As a female you are expected to do things differently and the business will change to become a reflection of your values.  Therefore you need to ensure your values are known, supported and embraced.  For instance if family comes first, that needs to be clearly articulated.  Note that no matter how successful you are , your family will still look to you more than your partner for advice and support, even if you are at the office 100 hours a week.  Flexibility is a pain, but worth it in the end.

On Culture, Diversity and Flexibility

You need a culture that respects each others differences and value them, because if you have a diversity of skills and points of view from day one, you will reap the rewards.

You need to understand and respect that money is critically important and it needs to be valued and embraced as part of your culture.  In the corporate world this means focussing on profit, but in a new entrepreneurial venture, it means managing your cash.

All female companies are really bad.  All male companies are really bad.  They have poor quality perspectives as same sex employees tend to reinforce each others attitudes and values when operating in a single sex business.  Just as women find that male only businesses make them feel uncomfortable, mend find that women only businesses make them feel uncomfortable.

Diversity is not achieved by forcing the recruitment of a particular minority group, this is at best stupid and at worst illegal.  It is achieved by ensuring you have diversity in the pool you recruit from.  The best candidate will always rise to the top and you may be surprised who it is.

Diversity works.  It creates internal competition, is a basis for solid business insight.  These two items alone return enormous growth to shareholders

What does flexibility really mean?  At The Heat Group it means (and apologies if any of this is misinterpreted).

• Paid Maternity leave when  only 19% of SMEs offer it.
• New Baby week – where men must stay home to support their wives when they get back from hospital.
• Don't come to work on your birthday.
• After 5 years, you get 5 weeks leave.
• Have a ½ day Friday once a month to get personal chores done.
• Provision of life insurance and loss of income insurance at no charge.
• Spend 2 days a year working for a charity of your choice.
• These benefits means that great women are attracted, however like all things in life there are costs, including the attraction of great women who plan to take time off having babies.

How Female Entrepreneurs should change their behaviour

1. Stop saying “we”, start saying “I”.
2. Don't feel guilty – but having regrets is okay
3. Stop seeing staff members as friends.
4. Outsource everything in your personal life that you can (eg housework) so the time you spend with your family is quality, not exhausted and stressed.
5. Don't be embarrassed by success.
6. Learn to be comfortable talking about money and with the idea you want to make lots of it.  Stop running a charity where you pay everyone but you, as you slowly kill yourself.
7. Rather than just being very good at you job, learn to:
   1. Delegate – so you can grow and have time to explore.
   2. Discern trends and company politics - so you can ride waves rather than swimming in a rip.
   3. Network  - so you can find opportunities, rather than networking to find comfort.
8. Learn how to close a deal – women set the scene really well but can't go in for the kill.
9. Deal with both bullies and sexism.  Do not accept any level of activity.
10. Pick your spouse – one that will divide the labour of a family with you and won't feel threatened if you earn more.
11. Embrace technology - you must get on top of it as it will save time and money.
12. Take advantage of being female – But be the best of women (well dressed, caring, wise)  not the worst of (trashy, shallow, bimbo).
13. Deal with failure – Learn from it, put the emotions behind you and focus on trying something new.  Don't just give up.

Some final thoughts on growing your business

Surround yourself with great people, build on your successes and don't carry dead wood.

Learn to chase the money, and if you also want to support your community – commit to donating cents per dollar of your revenue to a charity.  This will make sure you have the right alignment.

Understand that the first time you do anything, you need to have a “learning percentage”.  Ie discount every target or budget by say 20% because you need to learn how to do the job the first time.  Make sure you have a bank budget (because they hate surprises) and a board budget.

You can grow your business and have work live balance.  You just need to understand what is not negotiable and what you are flexible on.  If people don't fit in with your plan, give them the flick.

Source new ideas fro all areas inside your business.  Gillian has a monthly “new ideas lunch” where she invites an ever changing group, including accounts clerks and warehouse people, into the boardroom to have lunch with her.

To make your entrepreneurial venture a success, you need to have a culture that says “how do we do it” rather than “it can't be done”.

If people are working back late, you need to find out why can't they get their work done in the allotted time frame. Reward outcomes, not hours.

Gen Y women want to be entrepreneurs and they are looking for inspiring women.  So consider giving something back.

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