Surpassing $1 Million

If you’re like 97 percent of women business owners, your company hasn’t hit $1 million in annual revenue. About every group that exists to support women business owners (PINK included!) is focused on changing this. As part of this effort, Women Presidents’ Organization released their 50 fastest growing women-led companies list.

“These women attribute their success to the ability to motivate employees, plan for the future and their decisiveness,” WPO President and Founder Marsha Firestone tells PINK. “Be innovative. New ideas lead to new markets, products/services, strategies, new sources of revenue and opportunities never dreamed of before.”

She adds that most owners who made the list said their goal from the beginning was to build a large company.

Want to grow fast?

Venture Voice, a podcast, offers tips on building your business and accessing capital. Thinking of going back to school? Fight the stereotype that women lack business expertise with an EMBA. Plus, we list the best MBA programs.

You never know where you’re going to find your next lead. Networking helps.

“Women should have the confidence to ask for funding and pursue different sources. Women appear more reluctant to apply for loans,” says Maria Pinelli, Ernst & Young’s Americas Director, Strategic Growth Markets. If women entrepreneurs in the US started with the same capital as men entrepreneurs, they would add a whopping 6 million jobs to the economy within 5 years, according to Babson College research.

Minute Mentoring: Find out how innovation helped one owner grow her business – to nearly $60 million!

Editors Note: Sometimes staying small is smarter. Look for that story next Monday.

By Cynthia Good

“Behold the turtle – he makes progress only when
he sticks his neck out.” Unknown