Women entrepreneurs have helped fuel the economic recovery, and female-owned businesses have grown at a rate five times the national average over the last nine years, according to The 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. They now generate more than $1.6 trillion in revenue.
While women-owned businesses have experienced recent success, they still trail their male counterparts in key financial categories: average annual revenues and earnings, credit scores and average loan size.
However, this disparity between the financials of men- and women-owned businesses is noticeably decreasing. In recent years, the federal government has backed a number of initiatives designed to encourage women’s entrepreneurship, and many of the programs are beginning to reap the fruits of their labor. For instance, last year, for the first time ever, the government awarded at least 5 percent of its contracts to women-owned businesses.
Men-owned companies are still awarded the lion’s share, and that percentage isn’t coming close to equal anytime soon for government contracts. However, with every little bit of progress that is made, there offers more encouragement.
Small Business Trends founder and CEO Anita Campbell and I will be hosting the free webinar on Wednesday, March 8 (International Women’s Day) from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EST addressing the most common issues women entrepreneurs face in business ownership. We will delve into the results of Biz2Credit’s annual report on the State of Women-Owned Business, which examined the financial situations of 25,000 companies.
Additionally, the webinar will provide advice for women to improve their financial situations and grow their companies. On the panel will be Dawn Fotopulos, author of Accounting for the Numberphobic: A Survival Guide for Small Business Owners, which was honored by the SmallBizTrends Small Business Book Awards – Economics 2015. Also joining us will be Moji Rotibi, who has worked with many women business owners globally.
The one-hour webinar will also feature a panel of experts that will discuss:
- Understanding cash flow and how keep a lot more of the money you make
- Accounting skills that women business owners should have
- Developing business leadership skills
- The importance of personal branding for women entrepreneurs
- Growth of women-owned businesses in 2016, projections for 2017
- The gender gap and types of funding available for women business owners
- Ways to improve business credit scores and other topics related to small business growth
For more information on the webinar and to register, click here.
Loan Officer Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “Gender Gap Narrows Women Business Owners” was first published on Small Business Trends