Is Your Home Business Ready for Funding?
If you are a female home-based business exec that is considering outside funding, you have come to the right place.
And if you are not sure about your pursuit, let’s explore it together.
First, what is a Female Home Executive anyway? – – A female home Executive is the same as any executive, who has to oversee the administration and function of an organization. Well, as a Female Home Exec your organization just happens to be, the administration of your business, your home, and your family structure. So, that is why you feel pulled in so many directions!!!
What are the best funding sources for 2021?
Now that we know that you are a Female Home Based Business Executive in other words (a Female Home Entrepreneur,) you might now ask, what are the best funding sources for your type of business.
The best types of home-based business funding sources for female Entrepreneurs in 2021 include:
- Government
- Private
- Personal
However, there are many different sources for these types of fundings?
Let’s briefly look at a few.
The following list is some
common funding sources, along with my brief explanation of how I feel about each.
- Personal Savings: If you are not willing to put some of your own money into the business then, it’s not for you.
- Family and Friends: Don’t be afraid to ask friends and family, because if you really believe in it, they will too.
- Crowdfunding: Watch out for this one, because you do have to do what you said you would do.
- Angel Investors: You must have a plan and show how you are meeting a need and give a time limit.
- Venture Capital: This one is much more in-depth and a full business plan is needed and a show of some progress.
- Bank Loans: Here you are still gambling on yourself, but to even pay it back, you still need a plan they can see.
- Small Business Administration (SBA) Loans and Grants: This is set up to help small businesses, but the competition is fierce.
In my next post we will look into some great companies and organizations that are set up especially to help fund Female Entrepreneurs in a great way, but first, let answer the question that I asked at the beginning.
Is your Business Even Ready for Funding?
This is a question that many of my funding organizations ask when in funding consideration meetings. And it is one of the main reasons for a no, even though your proposal might look perfect.
Let’s see if you can convince funders and yourself that you are the person to take on this new challenge.
Two of the questions that we will explore now are:
Why did you start your business and do you have the qualities to keep it going.
Why did you start your business?
What’s your passion?
Why did you start a home-based business in the first place?
These are some questions you must tackle before you start filling out applications for funding. Once you get an answer for this, not only will you get funding, but your whole business will move in a more profitable direction.
What do you hope your business will accomplish? Wasn’t that in your business plan? You did have a business plan right?
Here are some common reasons given by home entrepreneurs:
- Desire to connect with a community
- Desire to earn extra income
- Desire to provide for a family
- Desire to accomplish something big and exciting
- It gives you a sense of freedom
- It gives you a sense of empowerment
- Desire to build things and watch them grow
- You could add your own here.
Whatever your answer is, you must be able to sell the funder that it’s your unique answer, your reason, your passion. If you understand me. It has to be strong enough and appealing enough to convince them to give you the money, instead of someone else. You have to realize that your expectation and the funding sources’ expectation might not be the same thing. But, you have researched them and made sure that you matched their criteria first, right? However, you must convince them that your passion and desire will give them success in the end. One of the things that the funding source is looking for is confirmation of certain qualities that tells them that you are the person that will complete that project.
So, let’s find out, what those qualities are, and how many of them you meet as a highly successful woman entrepreneur.
11 Qualities of Highly Successful Women Entrepreneurs
Let’s see where you fit in.
Attention to Detail
“It’s all in the details!” If you only focus on the big picture, like selling 1 million mugs by March!!” and only focus on creating and designing your mugs. If you don’t focus on the details of getting your mug to market, when a customer does find your website to order your great mug and the site is not set up properly and their payment won’t go through, then you’ve just lost a sale and most likely a customer. Successful women entrepreneurs are usually very detail-oriented and know what their customers need.
Kindness
Never underestimate the power of kindness! Kindness helped get those mugs on the ship quickly because she liked what you said about her business, the day after all shipments were delayed. If your supplier is limited on supplies; then kindness might be the only factor in determining if they sell their supply to you or one of your competitors. Tackling a negative customer complaint with a thank you is another way kindness can solve any problem and will earn you a great reputation. Be kind and you will be rewarded.
Doing What it Takes
If you aren’t willing to put in the extra time, effort, attention, or love into your business, then you probably aren’t going to be very successful. Sometimes this means staying up late after the kids have gone to bed to finish research or those emails for the day, waking up extra early to package the remaining orders before the mail pickup, or tediously contacting every single person on your contact list to get the word out about your new product. Do what it takes to get the job done and you’ll be grateful you put in that extra effort! “Successful entrepreneurs are willing to keep studying snd learning to adapt to the changing environment.
Endurance
This is definitely a marathon, not a sprint to the finish. Creating a successful business doesn’t just happen overnight, even though it seems like it for some people. Usually, it will take many months (or even a year) for your business to soar. Having the endurance to continue on your path, even when you’re tired and ready to quit. When you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and you keep going, is a sign of being a successful woman entrepreneur. However, along with endurance, you must know when to take care of your health. No crashing and burning before the race is over.
Passion
Remember I asked about Passion at the beginning of our talk. Passion is key to being a successful entrepreneur! If you aren’t even passionate about what you’re spending your time doing every single day then you are literally just wasting your precious time and energy. When you are passionate about what you do, you will be that business person who gets that gleam in their eye when they talk about what they do. This entrepreneur tends to focus all of their energy on the business and wants to pour every minute available into their work.
Inquisitiveness
Don’t be afraid to question yourself. By going through the process of validating your business idea, you can gain a deeper understanding of how your product does or doesn’t meet your targeted customers’ pain points. Challenges keep entrepreneurs asking questions and looking for the next challenge, so they will always be prepared for what comes their way,
Structured Investigation
Along with being curious and questioning comes the need for structured experimentation. With each new opportunity that arises, an entrepreneur must run tests to determine if it’s worthwhile to pursue.
For example, if you have an idea for a new product or service that fulfills an underserved demand, you’ll have to ensure customers are willing to pay for it. It also means that you will have to engage in some hard work, in doing many tests, and a lot of experimentation. Or you can spend a lot of money on an SEO expert. You will need to validate your idea and determine whether it has potential.
Risk Tolerance
Risk is one of the main reasons most would-be entrepreneurs decide not to start a business. While many things can go wrong when launching a new venture, many things can be rewarding.
Successful entrepreneurs are comfortable with encountering some level of risk to get the rewards of their efforts; however, their risk tolerance is tightly related to their efforts to diminish it.
Henry Ford once said- “Even a mistake may turn out to be one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement ”
Persistence
Yes, entrepreneurs make mistakes in business, but the thing is, they do not quit.
They have what people now call grit. Grit is the ability to keep working when many tell you that it is not working and you should give up.
These entrepreneurs are willing to learn from their mistakes, continue to ask questions, and persist until they reach their goals. Endurance and persistence go hand and hand.
Decisiveness
A successful entrepreneur makes difficult decisions and stands by them. Being decisive doesn’t always mean having all the answers. If you want to be an entrepreneur, it means having the confidence to make challenging decisions and seeing them through. Even, if the outcome turns out to be less than favorable, the decision to take action is just as important.
Open-Mindedness
Good entrepreneurs know they can learn from every situation and person around them. Information obtained can be used for the process of planning. Many entrepreneurs take on mentors and are open to critique. An entrepreneur must be accepting. Learning with an open mind lets you look at your faults humbly. New information always makes an entrepreneur question their current resolve. It also provides a new perspective towards a particular aspect. Open-mindedness also enables you to know and learn from your competition.
Conclusion
Yes, an entrepreneur should be highly energetic and motivated, passionate, resourceful, willing to improvise and listen to others, and have a strong determination to succeed. These are what make an entrepreneur successful. And this is what you have to keep in mind if you want to convince others to invest in you and your business.
Yes, this is the start of finding out if funding is the right choice for you at this time. As I said, we will take a look at some great female funding sources in the next installment and test your theory a little more to see if you are truly ready for funding.
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