Life is a continuum – so change is inevitable. In the life of a female entrepreneur, then, this inevitability affects her not only personally, but also professionally. While some change results in higher profits and greater personal and professional satisfaction, other change may result in a situation that drains a business owner’s resources and leaves her feeling unsure about the best next step for her business and for herself. This shift also may result in another shift: a previously content and confident business owner, living as her ideal entrepreneurial type, transforms into an entrepreneurial type that simply doesn’t fit.
Based on professional market research of more than 3,500 women in business, this study shows that each type of business owner has a unique approach to running a business and therefore each one has a unique combination of needs. When a woman is living as her ideal entrepreneurial type, she feels satisfied, personally and professionally. This article outlines three of the main circumstances that may cause a woman previously living as her ideal type to transform into a less-than-ideal type – and provides advice for changing these circumstances so they can work their way back to ideal.
- The business started undercapitalized and acquired more debt than can comfortably be carried given current revenue levels. One reason companies acquire debt in the early years is that, although the entrepreneur had some money set aside, their business did not hit its revenue projections on time. The result: the cash ran out before the revenue kicked in. Some women who fall into this category are savvy businesswomen who had previously run large corporate budgets, and were confident and accurate in determining the costs of running the business. However, when they projected how quickly sales would occur and money would come in, they were overly optimistic. They struggle to add more customers, watching their cash reserve run out, ultimately having to decide whether or not to go into (more) debt to ke