Category: The 10 Most Successful Women Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2021_article

Women, pay attention! Is it still challenging for you to thrive in a male-dominated workplace? The brave decision to start your own business is not one you have to make alone.

More than 550 women-owned firms are opening in the United States every day, and the trend is spreading around the world.

With this in mind, I put together a list of essential pieces of advice for women who want to start their own businesses.

Create a Plan and Document It

Is there a brilliant winning idea in your head, but you’re not sure how to get started? Making it a reality begins with a business plan written on paper (or iPad).

To convince people to believe in your firm, you need to lay out its objective, explain what sets it apart from the competition, and identify your target market. A clear financial forecast is also essential.

Focus on what drives you.

For many people, starting a business is a way to realise their dream of working in a dynamic field. It will also take a lot of effort to get your own business up and running the way you want to. If you’re going to spend a lot of time working on your business, you’ll want to make it something you’re excited about.

Your enthusiasm for your product or service will inspire potential clients and partners, making them more inclined to cooperate with or purchase from you.

Make the Time – Create with Intention

Make sure to think about how your work and personal lives are intertwined as part of your planning strategy. Just how much time do you have to spare? Consider all of the factors that could affect your time. Will you be required to travel as part of your job? Make a work schedule that you can stick to. It doesn’t matter if you intend to work on your business part-time. Those hours must still be set aside for commercial purposes.

Some people have lofty goals of conquering the globe, while others prefer to run a smaller business that generates a steady cash flow. Keep in mind that your business might grow and change along with your circumstances.

Look for a Female Mentor

In the early stages of launching a new company, it’s normal to be overwhelmed by inquiries. If anyone can address these concerns, it’s someone who has been there. It would be best if you had someone who could challenge and encourage you in a mentor relationship.

Team Doesn’t Have an “I.”

It’s critical to have a robust support system around you to delegate effectively and make use of the talents of others. It’s possible that you wouldn’t have thought of some of these ideas without your Team’s assistance. The importance of working together cannot be overstated.

Finding the appropriate people who share your enthusiasm for expanding your business is always worthwhile. Many businesses fail because they don’t have the necessary Team to take advantage of the opportunity.

Take Courageous Actions

Starting your own business or putting your entire resources in a start-up can be extremely scary, so if you want to be successful, you need to have a lot of faith in both yourself and your product.

Be confident in your abilities, but don’t overdo it when advertising yourself before possible investors and clients. When you’re attempting to start a business, there’s no room for phoney humility.

Engage in Conversation with Others

“It’s Not What You Know, But Who You Know” is a common adage. One of the finest strategies to market your firm is to attend events geared toward your industry as well as local businesses. In addition, consider the power of the internet and what you have at your fingertips. Utilise online networking to expand your professional network. You should make these sites your best friends, and if you need help with this, I’m more than happy to assist you.

It’s time to keep swimming.

As female entrepreneurs, we must always think about the future and how we can grow our company. Despite the difficulties and bumps in the road, the result is well worth the effort. Avoid distractions and recall why you started in the first place to keep yourself motivated.

Women Entrepreneur is bucking the stereotypes and carving out their niches in practically every industry. Increasingly, women in the country are looking for new ways to get involved in the economy.

Women’s entrepreneurship is on the rise, and it’s well-known that their numbers will far outpace those of men. Only a handful of women entrepreneurs are capable of achieving greatness. If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you’ll need to possess these attributes, which are common among successful female entrepreneurs.

Conviction, competence, communication, and conceptualisation are the six C’s of confidence, courage, and conviction.

Confidence:

First and foremost, you must be confident in your abilities. “Confidence is developed over time, by not being wrong but by refusing to be afraid of being wrong.”

Confidence is a trait built up over time, based on previous successes, accomplishments, and education. It’s a skill that needs to be honed and put into practice. The more confident a woman is in her business, the more likely she is to succeed. Women entrepreneurs who lack self-confidence are doomed to failure. Open up new avenues to success by being confident in what you’re doing.

Courage:

If we have the bravery to pursue our ambitions, they will come true. As stated by Walt Disney:

To be courageous, you must be able to recognize that something else is more imperative than fear. The growth of courage is a result of a rise in self-confidence. “Fortune favours the brave,” as the saying goes, does not apply to courageous women. A woman who has the fortitude to break through the barriers in her way is a success.

Conviction:

Courage cannot exist without confidence or assurance, and half the battle lies in the belief that we can accomplish our goals. Theodore Orison Swett Marden Most women entrepreneurs succeed in their endeavours because they have a firm idea of what they want to achieve. Experience isn’t as vital as a conviction.

Competence:

Competence is described as the ability to carry out a task successfully. In order to be competent, one must actively seek out new opportunities, create goals, take risks, persuade others, network, and insist on high standards of quality and efficiency.

Communication

The ability to communicate effectively is critical to the success of any business.

It’s essential to a company’s start-up, survival, and expansion. One of the most important aspects of communicating efficiently is ensuring the message is displayed clearly and accurately. When you’re a woman entrepreneur, good communication is key to going the additional mile and making things work in your favour.

Conceptualization:

“The process of establishing and clarifying new and existing concepts is known as conceptualisation.”

As a female entrepreneur, it is essential to identify and implement your unique ideas to succeed. Complex circumstances necessitate thorough research and careful planning. To be a successful female entrepreneur, you must specify the current challenges and hurdles and develop a new and better solution for them.

After graduating from high school, more and more young women are starting their enterprises. Women company owners face difficulties in expanding their enterprises. As a result, they don’t have access to the same networking opportunities and socialising venues as male business entrepreneurs. In addition, the only way for women to grow their available funds or savings was to be frugal in how they managed their home finances. Many firms have prospered without taking out loans.

Women must rethink their perspectives on growth financing.Borrowing money to pay for a car loan or other business expenses is a common occurrence. Taking out a loan can be compared to driving from one sales call to the next in your company’s growth cycle, and it should be treated as such.

As two co-founders, Eileen and I wanted to launch a brand that would empower women and give them confidence. There are plenty of women’s fashion options out there, but we believe clothes should do more than just dress a body. We are providing multifunctional designs that slip perfectly into every woman’s wardrobe.  Cutting-edge, quick dry performance fabrics; pieces that drape and feel luxurious next to the skin in materials that remove moisture from clothing at speed so busy women can get on with their day (or night) without worrying about being crushed, hot and sweaty. All our collections are anti-crush, keeping the wearer confident and crease-free day and night.

We also wanted to launch a responsible brand. From the very start we knew we wanted to build a company that we could be proud of, one where there was nothing to hide away. We wanted to be as open and transparent as possible in everything from how we chose our 100% vegetable starch completely biodegradable and compostable bags and why we use Royal Mail, to our thinking on vegan clothes, sustainable washing (it’s a thing – and an important one) and why we expect our garments to be around for a very long time indeed.

The key thing we have learned on our start up journey is that sustainability is not a static creature. With each new fabric created, with each new piece of research, with each new creative attempt at circularity, the ‘how’ of sustainability morphs a bit, making it impossible to be ‘perfect’.  So, if we put aside any attempt to be 100% sustainable (impossible anyway since we are creating new collections and creating anything uses energy and materials), we would call sustainable fashion, conscious, transparent and responsible fashion.

Conscious, since careful thought needs to be put into every level of the company and its practices, from packaging materials, working practices, transport, trim…the list is exhaustive and exhausting and there is always more to add to it.

Transparent, since it is much better for a company to say, ‘hands up, we hadn’t thought about that aspect of our chain, thank you for pointing it out and we will now investigate and see how we can improve’, rather than ignore dangerous, unethical and environmentally damaging practices with a view to trying to ‘protect’

Responsible, since we do only have one earth, and many people to share it with, including (hopefully!) many, many future generations who will not be amused to find that whatever the wealth and ingeniousness of their ancestors (we put a man on the moon! we wiped out polio!) they neglected to save the planet.

When we launched back in September 2017, ethical was not at the forefront of consumers’ minds, but it was very much on our minds. Since Covid, the world is rethinking how and what they buy and we feel we are in the right space to provide what women are looking for. With our five-mile radius and constant reviewing of our working practices, we are increasingly being asked to contribute to thoughts on what sustainable means in 2021 when so many brands are jumping on the bandwagon without much thought. Most recently, I was on a panel hosted by the British Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia as part of the UN Climate Change Conference 2021. This is no mean feat for a small brand to be showing how things can (and we believe should) be done. Small can mean agile and adaptable in this ever changing world and we are using this to our advantage.

At Cucumber Clothing we will never claim to be perfect, but we will always be trying to be better. That’s a promise.