Empowering Women In Entrepreneurship: 8 Tips For Success

At 46.4 percent, Ghana has the highest rate of women-owned businesses in the WORLD. In a region that has been typecast as patriarchal. Women’s labor force participation in Ghana is an astonishing 96.1 percent. Moreover, perceptions of women entrepreneurs in the country are predominantly positive- ‘Culled from Bridget Boakye’s article in CrunchBase” a data scientist and fellow entrepreneur. It is important therefore that we continue to encourage female entrepreneurs and women who want to venture into entrepreneurship to overcome challenges they will encounter along this often-difficult path early, as a result of the road we have walked.

In support of celebrating women and in the spirit of Choosing to Challenge, I share with you eight (8) tips and guidelines for business development and success stemming from my 21 years of experience as a female entrepreneur in a typically male dominated metal fabrication industry. 

1.    Focus on Soft Skills (Confidence building) by:

• Identifying our strengths and weakness and how best to harness these opposites inherent in us to promote growth, when applied in the right direction.
• Developing a strong conviction in personal skills by making use of prior experience and building on these experiences to harness strong negotiation skills in dealing with associates, employees, and other businesses.
• Recognizing how personal branding affects image building and how to carefully distinct oneself in a sector that has multiple players. 

2.    Strategic Networking:

Women don’t network in bars, at funerals or on the golf course. As such a deliberate approach to strategic networking must be cultivated.

• Collaborating and building strong relationships with industry players on new trends, solutions, and innovation in one’s chosen business sector to better inform decision making, planning and implementation.
• Reaching out to people who are knowledgeable in the field to give their perspective on important patterns and methods to look out for that are very important in meeting targeted aims and objectives.
• Anticipating challenges and difficulties and identifying contacts who would prove most valuable in helping to navigate unchartered areas.
• My male industry colleagues have very often opened MAJOR doors for me when I figured how to network where they dabble. Belonging to select business associations created a safe and trusted space to connect with them.

3.    Financial Literacy

• Taking calculated risks. Women must be bold enough to break through the typical profile of MSME’s and SME’s unable to expand their businesses into large corporations due to reasons which prevents opportunity for growth, by acquiring rudimentary budgeting and book-keeping skills to better analyze and track daily expenses. Keeping a ledger of all incoming and outgoing transactions and how these expenses have impacted the business in the short term.
• Leveling the playing field: According to the 2019 World Bank report on “Profiting from Parity: Unlocking the potential of women’s business in Africa”, women earn three times more than when they operate in more typical male dominated preserves. With proper record keeping this will prepare women to handle business growth steadily.
• Planned growth is important such that by the time our businesses reach the maturity stage we are prepared to handle exponential growth in our businesses. Indeed, our growth is usually slower than our male counteracts but because we are more risk adverse our credit profile often looks good to lenders.
•  Planning for succession early: A business is not a business if it constantly needs the presence of the leader to coordinate activities. It is most important to identify capable hands who can with little to no guidance in the absence of the leader drive the organization. Hence the importance of mentoring, teaching and nurturing the talents of our employees and associates is very important. While creating a mechanism that is self-controlled, resilient, and self-correcting allows businesses to adapt to changing trends and difficulties.

4. Take Care of Yourself: “Selfcare a general term that describes everything you do deliberately for your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing”.  It encourages us to maintain a healthy relationship with ourselves so we can transmit the good feelings to others. Women in business find it difficult to create a balance between maintaining their business and home, especially when at the stage when their businesses begin to expand. This creates a lot of challenges with their mental and physical health. Selfcare, is imperative and must not be misconstrued as being selfish. Women in business must focus on surrounding themselves with a strong support system, be focused, learn to say no, and never be afraid to ask for help when necessary. It is very imperative that women in business take care of themselves most especially their mental health. We can never give to others what we do not have!

5. Take Up Leadership Positions on Boards: Diversity in leadership is good for business. Evolving job needs are empowering women and levelling the playing field. The new service economy does not rely solely on physical strength but skills that easily come such as commitment, teamwork, authentic communication, attention to detail and measured thinking.  The female brain is naturally wired for long term strategic vision and community building. Women must volunteer to lead in high rank positions whenever the opportunity arises when they qualify and if otherwise, must be prepared to constantly improve upon themselves to equip them for such roles. As women take up leadership roles it serves as a driving force to empower other young women to achieve greater heights.

6. Embrace Failure: Failure is part of the growth process; the challenge is to learn from each setback improve on your skills and decision making rather than let this get you down and reduce your chances of ever succeeding. The greatest entrepreneurs and business owners have failed multiple times before bouncing back to the level of achievement they dreamed of. Failing in business is an opportunity for growth and not a measure of our self-worth as women or the future of our business. We must learn to forge ahead, be determined, focused, and become high achievers even amid failures.

7. Refrain from Putting Women in Special Category: Women should be seen for their true worth and not as weaklings who constantly need guidance or handouts to compete. Acknowledging that our seat at the table was acquired by dint of hard work and perseverance and not by preferential treatment is a value we must espouse and maintain. As a community we should normalize seeing women as competent and adept at completing tasks and driving transformational growth. As women, we should earn our strips and when placed amongst men, we should be aware we are just as good as them and, in some cases, even better. Therefore, let us not expect to be treated different or any special.

8. Giving Back to Society:

• This act comes naturally to women however, let us be more deliberate with this trait and give back to society.  
• Mentor other young girls and other women if you are in the right position to do so in order to encourage and pull our fellow women along the road to success.
• Let’s not give society the reason to say, “women are their own enemies”. This is in fact not true at all. Therefore, it is time for us to project this by thoughtful actions towards each other.

Constance Swaniker is the Founder and CEO of Design & Technology Institute (DTI), and Accents & Arts Limited. Constance is an acclaimed fabrication artist and holds a BA in Art from KNUST.