What are some of the challenges women face as small business owners?

They face all of the same challenges as men who own businesses, plus some additional ones, including challenges related to getting their businesses funded and finding mentors and role models. As a journalist on women’s entrepreneurship, I have often heard from female business owners, “I didn’t know there were women out there just like me.”

What are some myths about women business owners?

I think one of the biggest is that women aren’t interested in growing their businesses. That is definitely not what I’ve found in my conversations with women business owners across industries. They are very interested in building businesses that have an impact on the world, and to do that they know they need to grow. And the belief that women don’t have the educational and professional backgrounds to found and run tech companies, which may have been true back in the 70s, but isn’t the case now in 2010. I think it’s a major myth that women don’t help each other in business.

What are some of the ways women sabotage themselves as business owners?

 Not sure how to answer this since I don’t know that there are gender-specific ways that women (or men) sabotage themselves. I do know that many entrepreneurs (male and female) have to struggle to overcome the urge to do everything themselves.

 Why are Venture Capitalists (VCs) less likely to fund women?

 I agree with something said by one of my interview subjects, Cindy Padnos of Illuminate Ventures. She said, “It’s not about a bunch of evil-minded men.” Rather, a lot of it has to do the tendency of people who are similar — whether it’s in terms of race, sex, schools attended, etc. — to feel more comfortable with others like them. It also has to do with “pattern recognition,” which essentially relates to the mental shortcuts investors take to determine whether a venture will succeed. If the last 10 successful companies were founded by nerdy white guys who went to Stanford, that’s what investors will be looking for when assessing a company’s chances of success.

What challenges face women venture capitals who would like to fund women?

 Until women reach critical mass in Venture Capital firms, they are going to be understandably reluctant go out on a limb to continually recommend that their firms fund women. They may (justifiably) fear appearing biased if they do so, which says a lot about what we consider “normal.” After all, no one would ever say, “We can’t fund this guy because we just funded 3 white guys just like him.” And yet, you can envision people protesting that they had just funded a woman, and had therefore somehow met their “quota.”

Many women do not support other women in business, what are the ways this can be combated?

 This is something you often hear, but I’ve never seen real evidence of it, either in my life or in the lives of the women I write about. I think this is the kind of thinking some people in the media like to promote, which is what prompted me to write my She Owns It post, “Women Don’t Help Each Other?” [http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/women-dont-help-each-other/] [short link: http://nyti.ms/cBv3Wv] In my blog, I have covered woman after woman who has made it a priority to help other women.

 Is it a good idea to niche a business targeting women customers?

 The answer depends on the business. The most crucial thing is to know your customers VERY well. If they’re women, by all means target them.

 So many women juggle kids, hubby and their business, do you have some tips on doing this well?

I think it’s about doing work you absolutely love. When you love your work, you find time for it no matter what. You don’t typically hear people who are passionate about their work complaining that they have no time. I recommend the book 168 Hours: You have more time than you think (http://www.my168hours.com/blog/). Among the people the author writes about is Teresa Daytner, a mother of six who founded and runs a $3.5 million construction company. She knows what’s important and doesn’t waste time on what isn’t. I also think that women who find themselves bearing a disproportionate share of childcare and household duties need to ask themselves why they continue to do that, and why they don’t expect more of their partner (if they have one).

 Often women are accused of making emotional decisions and not business decisions? What are your thoughts?

 Well, that kind of general accusation seems pretty silly. I guess one’s response would have to depend on who’s making the accusation and what you want or need from them as a business owner. On a related subject, I think that women are increasingly being recognized for their leadership skills. I read a recent study on the qualities of women as leaders. The study found: women leaders are more persuasive than their male counterparts; When feeling the sting of rejection, women leaders learn from adversity and carry on with an “I’ll show you” attitude; women leaders demonstrate an inclusive, team-building leadership style of problem solving and decision making, and women leaders are more likely to ignore rules and take risks. Link: http://bit.ly/a9NfiV.

 Can you give any advice for women working with their spouses in business?

Adriana Gardella: That’s a tough one–and also a subject I plan to cover in an upcoming post! So, I’d love to get back to you on this one. I think as with any business partner, having a clear division of labor is important, and a crystal clear agreement as to what happens to the business if you wind up being one of the many couples to divorce. As I start to research this topic, I am learning that VCs don’t like to fund couples partly because of that risk. In fact, they even prefer to fund women!

What kinds of things should women business owners be reading to stay sharp in business?

That answer will be industry-specific. I don’t think there’s anything unique to women that they should read. The important thing is to be up on all trends and developments in your field, subscribing to relevant industry/trade publications online and off to keep current

Door-to-door marketing is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a product or service to the general public or gather information. People who use this sales approach are often called traveling salesmen, or the archaic name drummer, to “drum up” business. This technique is also sometimes called direct sales. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson should visit.

With the realization of telephone “Do Not Call” lists it is becoming increasingly more difficult to connect with consumers and business people. An emerging trend is the deployment of very professional, highly skilled door-to-door canvassers to drive product sales and brand awareness.

Coordinating, training and motivating these teams to produce results are at the very core of Fulcrum’s proven capabilities. Fulcrum has the knowledge and experience required to implement these programs, such as best days and times to canvass, who will sell the most product; male, female, young or mature and what geographics and demographics respond best to door-to-door marketing. Put Fulcrum’s experience to work for you and avoid the costly mistakes of trying to manage these programs in-house.

Hire and Train Door-to-Door Marketing Team

If you’re in charge of hiring people, that typically means that you’ve found success in Door To Door Marketing yourself. You know what it takes to be great, but now you’re stuck with an entirely new problem. How do you find others who will be just as good (if not better) and will stick around and grow into important influencers invested in the long term growth of the company? A great D2D sales company is a great recruiting company. So what does that greatness look like?

First off, you need to realize that you’re not going to hire a superstar every time. If you think you have found one, be careful. It’s not hard for someone to seem golden during one interview and you don’t want to be fooled.

Even if you think the candidate does have a lot of great experience working in the field for other companies, you have to realize that success doesn’t always translate. What worked for them at previous companies probably won’t work as well for you. In fact, their success will probably make them stubborn; after all, what reason do they have to follow your approach when they’ve figured out their own?

It’s also possible that the rep’s previous company might have had much better-developed training and selling systems than you do, and that system was the key reason they killed it. If you’re not developing a competitive system, what does that communicate about your company? The more dialed-in you are about a rep’s success, the more likely you are to attract and keep strong performers.