Bank of America has put together a web page with resources for small businesses that are grappling with the challenges stemming from COVID-19 shutdowns. Included on this page is a link to Facebook’s Small Business Grant program. Facebook stated that they will be providing $100 million in grants and credits to 30,000 small businesses and application information will be posted soon.
Category: Business Skills
SBA Offers Paycheck Protection Loan
The Paycheck Protection Program is a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan that helps businesses keep their workforce employed during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. The SBA will forgive loans if all employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities. The Paycheck Protection Program will be available through June 30, 2020. More information can be found here.
Leveraging Social Media
This post on business.com discusses how women-owned businesses can better leverage social media to increase brand awareness and grow a market base. In addition to offering tips, the piece shares that those who are most successful in using social media are those who use their platforms of choice consistently and have a clear strategy.
Top 10 Mistakes That Prevent Women From Scaling Businesses To $1MM
Despite women owning 40% of all the businesses in the U.S., in 2018, less than 2 percent of women-owned businesses generated more than $1 million in sales (and that percentage is even lower when you only look at women of color). This article in Entrepreneur explores ten common mistakes that include: trying to do it all yourself, not spending enough time working with mentors and coaches, lack of a cash runway and not understanding the scalable aspects of the business.
It’s Time To Talk About Money
Two articles appeared recently discussing the importance of more openly sharing personal salary information as well as financial management strategies. “Build Your Squad For Financial Success” appeared in Entrepreneur and focuses on how women of color can help lift each other up by more openly sharing salary ranges, negotiation tips and business collaboration.
A New York Times piece published the same week entitled, “I’ll Share My Salary Information if You Share Yours” shared how more and more women are openly discussing topics that were historically considered taboo – salaries, stock options, signing bonuses, negotiation tactics and both “dream” and “walk-away” numbers.
Ten Successful Shark Tank Alumni Share Lessons Learned
While most entrepreneurs will never end up on the reality show Shark Tank, there are interesting lessons to be learned from those who have. From intellectual property protection to accepting feedback to envisioning your outcome to maintaining confidence to believing your gut, this piece on Medium shares important takeaways from ten women who pitched to the “sharks”.
10 Social Media Marketing Tips To Help Your Small Business
This article from Forbes outlines some important tips for making the most of social media when you are running a small business. The options in the world of social media are endless but your time is not – so having a plan will enable you to make the biggest impact you can given your resources.
Another good set of tips can be found here on QuickSprout’s site. They also have other links for information about setting up websites, blogs and online stores.
Apply For the Female Founder Fellowship
Since launching in 2009, the Founder Institute’s Female Founder Fellowship program has graduated over 575 female-led businsses across six continents. The fellowship program’s goal is to narrow the gender gap in high-tech startups.
If you are a woman who is working to build an enduring tech or tech-enabled company, you are eligible to apply. (This includes aspiring entrepreneurs currently working full-time, solo entrepreneurs, teams, and entrepreneurs in established companies that are pre-funding.) Click here for more information about the program.
Indra Nooyi States Unconscious Bias Can Only Be Called Out If We Create A Sisterhood
Indra Nooyi is an Indian American business executive and served as CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years. In this interview conducted by Nina Easton at Fortune‘s MPW International Summit on September 16, 2019 , Nooyi discusses how she plans to “pay it forward” to the next generation of women and how the current support systems (of lack of them) seem to only reinforce unconscious biases that exist for women.
Tips on Managing Cash Flow
This post from May 2019 in Forbes and this post from May 2016 in Entrepreneur both share useful tips for what to focus on when you are managing your cash as you launch your business. Nothing you probably don’t already know – it is important to have goals, spend wisely, reduce overhead, etc but useful to skim through to make sure you are doing all you can to effectively manage this critical resource!