6 ways female entrepreneurs can support each other.
(Female entrepreneurs in image from left to right: Julie Gilby Actress, Self Made and Seen, Hollie Dee Poetry, Kodes Accessories, Kalopsia Koncept, Yancy’s MakeUp.)
As we celebrate International Women's Day this week, I wanted to talk about women empowering women.
As a personal brand photographer my main goal is to empower women in business. I want women to feel confident to be the face of their business and to show up for the people who need them. I want women to understand their value far beyond their looks and to help them share that through impactful images that show off their unique personality and offerings. And ultimately, I want to help women owned businesses stand out, be seen and attract their ideal customers so that their businesses can thrive. This is what drives me.
Now, as a female business owner who works with other female entrepreneurs and business owners, I see first-hand how supportive women can be to one another, and also how important that support is in helping our businesses grow and thrive. I think we have a mutual understanding of how hard we have to work to make our businesses succeed and so we truly want to help one another. As we follow similar paths and experience similar situations, having this kind of support can’t be matched and it can actually make a huge impact on our entrepreneurial success. So, as a collective, let’s support one another and empower the female entrepreneur community!
Here are my top 6 ways that female entrepreneurs can support other women in business.
1. Share your knowledge.
A great way to support other women in business is to share your knowledge and experiences. By sharing our past mistakes and accomplishments, we can help other women avoid making the same mistakes and perhaps even give them some great ideas. Paying it forward costs nothing, but could really help someone out and make a significant impact to their business growth.
One way to do this is by joining female entrepreneur networking groups. Over the past few years I have made a point of joining a number of female network groups so that I can build connections with like minded women who can relate to my business ups and downs. It’s so great to have people you can share ideas, advice, resources and connections with. And on top of that, it’s a great place to make friends, as being a solo biz owner can get quite lonely sometimes!
Another way to share your knowledge is to mentor an up and coming female entrepreneur. A few years ago I was working for a female-owned business as their creative lead and part of my role was to supervise an intern. I can’t tell you how rewarding it was to be able to pass on my knowledge and skills and see her grow. This is actually something I hope to be able to do again one day in my own business and would highly recommend it if you are able to.
You can also make an effort to share your knowledge and resources through social media posts and blog posts - just like this one!
2. Outsource from women owned businesses.
As well as sharing our knowledge, we should also aim to invest in women owned businesses, because ultimately women need financial support to keep their businesses running.
As business owners, there will always be times when we need additional help with things like web design, brand photography, marketing, or accounting. And we constantly need certain resources such as stationary, equipment, things to make our work spaces look lovely, and even the perfect outfit to wear for work related events. So next time you need a specific service or product for your business, consider whether there is a women owned business that can help you, because that way you can in turn help them.
3. Promote each other.
In addition to offering your own financial support when you can, the best way to help women in business get financial support from others, is by promoting them. There are a number of ways you can do this.
Share their posts.
If you see someone working hard on something you think is a good idea, why not help them get noticed by sharing their links & posts on social media? Make sure to engage with their posts yourself too!
Leave reviews.
If you’ve worked with a female entrepreneur or brought a product from a women-owned business and you were happy with everything, make sure to leave them a review. People like to hear about other people's real experiences before committing to a purchase, so make sure to share your experience and hype them up so that other people will want to work with them or buy from them as well. Your review can also be used by the business for future marketing, so it could really be a game changer for them.
Referrals.
Referrals are probably one of the biggest ways small business owners get work. Just like reviews, people like to hear real stories from people they trust before making financial decisions. So if you’ve worked with a female owned business, brought from one, or even just know about one, and you come across someone else who could use their service or product, make sure to shout about them. This 100% counts for in person situations but also, if you see a social post where someone is looking for something and you know a lady that can help, pop their link in a comment!
Credit.
When you post photos, write blogs or share any kind of content, make sure to credit everyone who played a part in creating that content. If you worked with a service provider or are featuring a product for example, by crediting those businesses you are helping them to be seen by potential customers. Crediting is not only a professional thing that you should do out of respect, it’s also a word-of-mouth referral on a MAJOR scale and could really help a small business with brand recognition. Personally, when my clients credit me as their photographer it makes me happier than you can imagine. It also enables me to reach potential new clients which is crucial to keep my business running. I also make sure to credit all the business owners who are in any images I use for my marketing, because I know it works both ways!
These are all free and easy methods of promotion that could go a long way!
4. Use your business as a platform for others.
To take the promotion ideas from above, one step further, you could actually make a point of promoting other female owned businesses via your own business. One way to do this is by setting up a directory of women owned businesses that could be useful for your clients or customers. This could be advantageous to your customers as well as other female entrepreneurs and it also shows your business off in a great way too.
You could also come up with a referral program with specific female owned businesses who offer services or products that support your own. By reciprocating referrals you can help each other out and help your customers at the same time.
Personally, as I work with small business owners and entrepreneurs, I love to promote my clients by writing a blog post about each business I work with (as well as creating numerous social posts). I call this the ‘Self Made Spotlight’ and along with showing off the images I created with them, I talk about what my clients have to offer and I share all their links so that people can find them. This also helps with SEO for both of us, so it really is a win win!
5. Collaborate.
Another great way to reciprocate the love is by collaborating with female owned businesses. If you know a great business that offers a related product or service to your own, by collaborating on content, offers or even packages, you could both reach a much wider audience and be offering your customers something valuable at the same time.
I’ve made a point this year to collaborate with more female owned businesses and so far I’m really enjoying it because it makes a big difference to working alone. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing ideas with Kira Social when we collaborated on a blog post earlier this year about why you need personal brand photography for social media. And I’ve got some more collaborations in the pipeline that I'm excited about too!
6. Personal connection.
All of the above ideas are invaluable ways to help a female owned business get noticed, get customers and get funded. But something that can often be overlooked is the personal touch. Personal connection can really impact our mental health and give us the strength to keep going when things get tough.
Simple things like sending a message to a fellow female entrepreneur to congratulate them on an accomplishment, or taking someone out for a drink to celebrate their milestones, can be so important. And if you think someone might be struggling or business isn’t going so well for them at the moment, offer support, send them a small gift or take them out to lift their mood, because it will go such a long way.
And even when you don’t know someone personally, if you see a fellow female business owner doing something that interests you and deserves recognition, please go ahead and acknowledge it in whatever way you can, because it could be more powerful than you can imagine!
So, here are just a few simple yet effective ways to support other women in business. By sharing resources, creating connections, working together or simply showing some love, we could make such a difference to each other's business growth.
But if you’re ever in doubt of how to help a fellow female entrepreneur, don’t hesitate to ask them what they need. Find out if they need advice, referrals or some personal connection, because when you commit to helping someone with something they specifically need, you could help their business grow even quicker and I’m sure they’ll love to reciprocate.
Just think, if all female entrepreneurs made an effort to regularly help other women in business and ask them to in turn pay it forward, we could create a magical wave of success within the female entrepreneur community!
So hey, why not start by sharing this blog post?! And if you’re interested in joining forces with me in any of the ways mentioned above, please get in touch!
Happy international women's day!
Lisa x