It’s something you dreamed about most of your life—or perhaps it just “happened.” Once it was conceived, you took care to nurture it over the next few months, preparing for its birth. Then after it was born, you braced yourself for the trials and tribulations, joys and wonderful experiences as you helped it grow during its first year, and then looking forward to the toddler years.
Sounds a lot like how a female entrepreneur runs a new business, right? Well, that’s how it was for Joanne Thomas Yaccato, co-author of Raising Your Business: A Canadian Woman’s Guide to Entrepreneurship, finding that there were definite similarities between raising her daughter, Kate, and her own business.
Raising Your Business is a follow-up to Yaccato’s first book, Balancing Act: A Canadian Woman’s Financial Success Guide, and is a how-to guide for women entrepreneurs based on her own life experiences and the “birth cycle” of a business. Yaccato became a mother two years after her own business was born, and she also realized that there were few books available for women entrepreneurs, as many how-to books aren’t useful nor do they address current facts.
The “birth” of an idea
With the help of Paula Jubinville, an accountant, business adviser and a personal confidante, Yaccato came up with the idea of offering women entrepreneurs a comprehensive guide based on the birth cycle. It begins with the “conception,” or idea for a business, how to give birth to it, how to nurture it in its first year, and then the subsequent toddler years (from about 2 to 5 years). As with raising a child, every stage of a business is very different from the others, and will present different issues, challenges and experiences for the business as it continues to develop.
Both an amusing personal life story and a deep, thought-provoking business guide, Yaccato addresses all aspects of running your own show; debunks common myths about female entrepreneurs; presents both the pros and cons to various business options and ideas; and also gives much advice on how to balance your own personal life and emotional well-being with that of your career.
A personal tale filled with great advice
What makes this book so unique is that it not only reflects the lives of women entrepreneurs more accurately, but the flow of the book alternates consistently between Yaccato’s personal story and the advice she gives.
At times you feel like you’re reading a novel and at other times you’re absorbing a step-by-step manual jam-packed full of advice on things like:
• The pros and cons of home-based businesses, buying or franchising existing ones, and going it alone vs. a partnership
• Technical, technological, financial and legal advice
• Human resources, customer relations, and market research
• Examples of real-life women entrepreneurs
• Personal experiences on achieving spiritual, emotional, and physical balance – and balancing personal/family life with your business
While Yaccato is very entertaining in how she presents her day-to-day life with her family and friends, this book is otherwise a thought-provoking read to be taken seriously. She is very organized and precise in how she presents her information, yet I found that every page could have up to ten different pieces of advice to digest. Therefore, this is not a book to simply breeze through. This book was written primarily for Canadian businesswomen, and is an excellent resource for those who wish to pursue their own dreams—and making sure that those dreams become, and continue to be, a reality.
About the Authors
Joanne Thomas Yaccato is the founder and president of Women and Money Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in both educating women about money and companies about women. She has been nominated twice for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award and her first book, Balancing Act: A Canadian Woman’s Financial Success Guide, was a national bestseller. She resides in Aurora, Ontario, with her husband, Michael McNeill, and daughter, Kate.
Paula Jubinville is a chartered accountant and president and co-founder of AQUEOUS Advisory Group Inc. Her firm specializes in providing business advice and support to particularly Canadian women entrepreneurs currently starting, running and growing their own businesses. She lives with her husband, Aidan, and their dog and two cats.
Authors: Joanne Thomas Yaccato, with Paula Jubinville
Number of pages: 375
Publisher: Prentice Hall Canada Inc.
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