Celebrate Women's Small Business Month By Supporting Women Entrepreneurs
Yemi Sekoni, Guest MINDSETTER™
Celebrate Women's Small Business Month By Supporting Women Entrepreneurs
October marks National Women’s Small Business Month. It’s important not just to reflect on the success of women-owned small businesses today, but on the progress we’ve made over the years.
Over the past four decades, the number of women-owned businesses in the U.S. has exploded, growing from just five percent of all businesses to more than 42 percent, edging ever closer to parity with our male counterparts.
Translated into pure numbers, 40 years ago there were around 400,000 women-owned businesses nationally. Today there are more than 13 million – most of which are small businesses -- generating nearly $2 trillion in revenue. Here in Rhode Island, where I’m founder and President of The Donahue Group in Cranston, women-owned small businesses are the backbone of our economy, creating jobs, expanding economic opportunity, and making our communities stronger.
But even with our growing numbers and increasing financial impact on the communities where we live and work, the sustained success of women-owned small businesses remains much more fragile than that of our male counterparts.
We are more likely than men to struggle to retain our employees, to meet our revenue goals and to compete with big business.
Why this gender gap persists is, of course, complicated, and often affects women entrepreneurs differently. Working mothers still shoulder much of family caregiving responsibilities, and the pandemic has stretched us and the already-tenuous network of childcare options to the breaking point.
We can’t sustain our businesses if our communities lack affordable, high-quality childcare options, both for women entrepreneurs and the working mothers they employ. That is a national dilemma that deserves a coordinated national response. There are, however, other areas in which specific steps can be taken immediately to help female entrepreneurs thrive.
A recent Goldman Sachs survey of small business owners across the U.S. found that half of the women small business owners face significant challenges finding and retaining employees, compared with 44 percent of men. Women are also more likely than men to say they are hindered by having to compete for workers with big businesses that can offer more generous retirement and health insurance benefits.
Let’s reduce obstacles that block us out before we even start, including high bonding requirements and the cost in time and money of preparing voluminous responses to federal requests for proposals.
As I said at the start, we have made great strides since the days not so long ago when women were required to have a male relative co-sign for a business loan. (Fact check: true.) But as we celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit of America’s women small business owners, let’s support our women small business owners by taking strong, measurable, sensible steps that reflect the realities of what it takes to succeed in our modern and ever-evolving economy.