 Do you want to create a healthier work/life balance? Are you looking for a way to re-enter the workforce? Are you intrigued by the idea of starting your own business? If so, you’ll want to pick up a copy of Ginny Wilmerding's Smart Women and Small Business.
Wilmerding wrote this book after discovering a huge need for small business books written from a female perspective. Having owned, operated, and consulted for small businesses, worked for big corporations and spent many of her peak career years not working, Wilmerding knows first-hand the challenges facing women in business today.
We want it all
And why shouldn't we? We want control over our work. We want to have pride in what we do. We want decent compensation for our efforts. Wilmerding makes a compelling argument that you can have it all through owning a small business.
This book will open your eyes to all of the different options available to women who are looking to own a small business. Beyond starting a business from scratch, Wilmerding encourages you to expand your horizons by considering buying an existing business, acquiring a franchise, joining a family owned business or working for or consulting with existing business owners to learn the ins and outs of small business ownership.
The chapter, The Business Mindset: Your Key to Success speaks specifically to the challenges women face in changing their mindset about business in general. She believes women need to:
• Acknowledge that professional excellence and business excellence are not synonymous
• Give themselves permission to care about making money
• Be realistic about risk
• Come to terms with our own ambition
While this book does approach small business ownership from a female perspective, for the most part Wilmerding’s advice is applicable to both men and women with an entrepreneurial drive. Throughout the book, Wilmerding includes inspirational success stories from women, and the occasional man, who have made thriving careers for themselves in the small business world. Based on over 50 interviews, these stories are encouraging to anyone looking to own a business.
You can set the pace
One of the things Wilmerding emphasizes in her book is that as a small business owner, you can ultimately choose how fast you want your business to grow and how hard you want to work. That being said, she does seem to advocate that you may see the type of results you are looking for more quickly if you acquire an existing business rather than start a business from scratch.
Wilmerding discusses the harsh realities of starting your own business. She feels there is something to be said for not spending years of time putting in the effort to start a business when others have already done the hard work for you. If you are interested in starting a business from scratch, there is a lot of hard work, long hours and minimal compensation in your future. Acquiring an existing business seems to be the preferred method of getting what you want, faster.
This book exposes the reader to the strategic tools that will help you choose, finance and grow a small business that meets your needs. Wilmerding includes detailed appendices that contain useful reference materials from sample business plans to a categorized list of books to read for more information on the types of small businesses you are interested in.
After reading Smart Women and Small Business you can’t help but feel excited about the prospect of striking a healthier balance between working, caring for your family and personal fulfillment through owning your own business. Ginny Wilmerding’s book is a must-read for anyone, male or female, considering small business ownership.
About the Author
Ginny Wilmerding is a small business consultant and formal small business owner. She has held senior executive and management positions in high-tech start ups, low-tech small companies and large corporations. She has negotiated the purchase of small businesses and worked as a professional author of business plans, private equity placement memorandums and business cases. She is a former research associate at Harvard Business School.
Author: Ginny Wilmerding
Number of pages: 281
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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