This article featured in Fast Company highlights the five lessons from Alan Henry’s new book, Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized. His book is intended as a guide for employees who find themselves often marginalized – including people of color, women, and those in the LGBTQ+ community. It is also a great read for leaders who want to make sure that their companies and teams are serving all employees well. Some suggestions from the book include: learning to collaborate, leveraging remote work options to work best for you, acknowledging when it is time to leave toxic work environments that aren’t likely to change, and making sure to have a solid work-life balance as well as time for reflection.
In recognition of her contributions to the fashion industry, Mattel has announced its latest Barbie honoree as Vera Wang. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Wang first became one of the youngest editors at Vogue and then became the design director for accessories at Ralph Lauren before finally becoming an entrepreneur when she opened her own boutique in 1990. How wonderful that Barbie can reflect trailblazing entrepreneurs in women’s fashion! Read more about the story in WWD.
We made a post about this back in January 2022, but here is an update – we find a lot of regional and local grant opportunities being offered to small business owners as funding from the American Rescue Plan Act continues to trickle down to state and local levels.
We keep this spreadsheet updated daily with new opportunities that we find.
Unconventional times can create impactful change. Syrian women have begun to be elected as camp leaders in their Lebanese refugee communities. While these women would have been expected to stay at home in their native Syria, the turmoil caused by war has begun to shift some of these traditional norms. One of the female leaders who heads up camp of hundreds of refugees, Hind Al-Haad, stated,”Circumstances can either form obstacles or push [women] forward.” Learn more about these amazing women in this BBC piece.
According to this piece from The Guardian, there has been a marked increase in black women launching their own ventures over the past few years. Some of the increase is attributed to challenges from the pandemic and some to historical gender/race pay disparity in the workplace. That said, the article also shares that black women have a long history of entrepreneurship and the pandemic is forcing the world to recognize that. Per the article, “women of color make up only 39% of women in the US but represent 89% of new women-owned businesses. Within that demographic, Black women are leading the charge at 42% of new women-owned businesses, followed by Latina women at 31%.”
The Legal module in the Women’s Entrepreneurship Certificate program provides a host of downloadable resources and tools for entrepreneurs but in that limited two-week course, there are many more nuanced legal items that couldn’t be covered. This list of free resources – offered through the small, woman-owned legal firm of Trellis Legal provides a fabulous assortment of tools at no cost.
We are noticing a lot of regional and local grant opportunities being offered to small business owners as funding from the American Rescue Plan Act trickles down from the federal to state to local levels for distribution.
We will keep this spreadsheet updated with new opportunities that we find. Check back each day and see if one will work for you!
According to this article from Inc., small businesses can look for support from the US Government (via the Small Business Administration) in three areas:
1. Help with securing federal contracts (there will be higher procurement goals for small businesses businesses-especially those run by women, veterans and those located in historically underutilized business zones
2. Added money for resources (allocating additional funds for the agency’s staffing needs may help alleviate some of the customer service and processing glitches the agency encountered during the pandemic)
3. Elevating women-owned businesses (The SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership will now report directly to the Office of the Administrator)
This December 2, 2021 release from the White House highlights that while the US federal government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, less than 10 percent of those federal contracting dollars typically go to small disadvantaged businesses (SBDs). In addition, while women own roughly 20 percent of all US small businesses, less than 5 percent of federal contracting dollars go to women-owned small businesses. This press piece also shares information about a new set of reforms to the federal procurement process to help meet the current administration’s target of increasing the share of federal contracts to SDBs during Fiscal Year 2022 to 11 percent.
Kat Weaver completed the Women’s Entrepreneurship certificate program in early 2020 and just wrote in to tell us how much she learned and how it helped propel her to start her second company, Power To Pitch.Kat wanted to share some of her wisdom with the students in our program and we are so thankful that she graciously agreed to let us post her advice on our website. Kat states:
Are you making these pitch presentation mistakes?
If you’ve positioned yourself for an opportunity in front of an investor, retailer, or to pitch at a business competition you might only have one chance to make a lasting impression.
I’ve seen the same mistakes made over and over, essentially costing great business ideas and their owners, funding, partnerships, and opportunities.
My name is Kat and I’m the founder of Power to Pitch. I started my first business, Locker Lifestyle in college after being a victim of theft. I had no money to launch so I entered every pitch competition I could find, eventually winning all 22 of them.
After receiving hundreds of questions from individuals asking how I won six figures worth of equity-free funding, I founded Power To Pitch to help entrepreneurs build the confidence to pitch themselves to success.
Here are my top tips to get yourself ahead of the competition:
LEAD WITH YOUR STORY, WHY, OR INSPIRATION: I see most entrepreneurs lead with the explanation of their product or service which does not hook or emotionally connect with the audience. I coach every business owner I work with to start with their story. Whether it’s a grant judge, investor or retailer you’re looking to impress, think of the number of pitches they hear all day. What will stick out? Think – they’re investing in YOU as an individual before your business.
TALK COMPETITION. Most business owners are afraid to bring up their top competitors. Instead, think of this as an opportunity to put yourself ahead. I don’t recommend outright bashing who they are and what they do. Instead, talk about their core offerings, THEN lead into how you’re better. Be as specific as possible to showcase that you’re aware of the market you serve.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE MONEY? One of the biggest mistakes I see is the lack of specificity when talking about the allocation of funding. If you’re pitching for a grant or to an investor, they will want to know EXACTLY what you need the money for and how it will be used. For example, if you’re applying for a $10k grant and you say “we need it for marketing, web development, and packaging”, you’ve already lost your audience. You need to be as specific as possible when describing your business needs. The more detail you can give, the more confidence they will have in you. Instead, say something along the lines of “we need $2,500 for ad spend in Facebook marketing to reach x demographic in x time with a goal ROAS of x. We need $5,400 to hire a developer to optimize the homepage and checkout of our website to optimize our sales funnel for x amount of customers driven to our site each month.” and so on.
There is no EXACT formula to writing a pitch, but by avoiding these mistakes, you are already ahead of the competition!
Many thanks to Kat for sharing her wisdom with us and allowing us to post it on our site. If you want to learn more about Kat and her pitch competition tips, head to www.powertopitch.com.
