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 It’s a veritable love fest. Almost every corporation and
publication today is crowing about small business, and guess what,
you wonderful women business owners who make up one of the fastest
growing sectors of the economy. Yes, you are collectively responsible
for growing this nation’s gross national product and everyone
is jumping onto the bandwagon to get some of the glory.
So Much Contributed,
So Little Distributed.
The Women’s Business Development Center of Chicago points
out that there may be only one grant program for small businesses
in general. This is the SBA’s Small Business Innovation Research
Program (www.sba.gov/SBIR).
This grant program is targeted to technology
firms that wish to commercialize technology for use by the U.S.
government. ” However, there is a parallel growth of non-profit
groups purporting to float loans for women in business. Most of
these are handsomely supported by corporations who see the virtue
of standing up and being counted as boosters of women and minorities.
In addition, we have the government-funded agencies, like the SBA,
who have a mandate to get women and minorities to bid and win 5%
of Federal and local government jobs. (It’s no secret that
they have fallen short of their goal...and why? Perhaps because
the bidding process is so cumbersome that most small businesses—usually
comprised of an entrepreneur and a PDA filled with outsourced talent—cannot
navigate the shoals. And also because most of these contracts are
for Construction, Security, Training, etc. businesses that do not
normally attract women.) (The qualification process is cumbersome,
time consuming and distracting for a small business, since qualification
must be done at the Federal level as well as in every state in
which the business wants to bid.)
Another Tale Of The Emperor’s Clothes!
There are mega bucks being spent in the guise of supporting small
business and women-owned business...so why is most of it not getting
to the people it’s supposed to support? Why is so much of
it being spent on the infrastructure that’s supposed to distribute
it? We’ve created a major industry —public and private
non-profits —that wastes money to justify its existence.
Take the NYC Office of Economic Development. Their fiscal year
ends on June 30th. Their mandate is to get a significant increase
in the number of women business owners to participate in the bid
process for government contracts, commonly known as RFP’s.
They haven’t met that goal, which explains why they called
us on April 7th to get an ad into this issue. We agreed to try
to rearrange things to accommodate them...but then learned that
they had no creative ready! When we asked why they approached us
so late, we learned that they were terribly busy buying space in
100 different publications that targeted small business owners,
and had just gotten around to WomensBiz.US with two months left
to the final bell. Our May issue would be too late to help them
move the needle so we would get no advertising this year. How ironic,
considering that last year, the ad that ran in our publication
had the greatest return of any of their advertising —or so
the previous marketing manager disclosed. We wonder what they were
doing during the first 3 quarters? The money that supports their
organization comes out of the taxes paid by women-owned businesses
in part.
Government’s Goal: Five Percent Of Fed Contracts To W/MBE’s
Of course, in order to bid for an RFP, you first must be a certified
woman or minority-owned business enterprise (W/MBE) which means
going through a laborious and costly process requiring disclosure
of confidential personal financial information and YOUR AGE! Somehow,
I thought that information was illegal to request except in certain
health-related or law-related circumstances...certainly not appropriate
in employment or work-related situations. The certification process,
in itself, has spawned a number of non-profit entitities that help
you through the process for a fee of several hundred dollars, a
burden for the smallest businesses and entrepreneurs it is designed
to help.
And they have directors (frequently people in the business community
with whom we have contact) who review these personal and sensitive
documents and discuss the applicants. I imagine this conversation
(and in fact overheard it about someone else): “Oh, I see
that Elaine Taylor-Gordon of WomensBiz.US has applied for certification.” “Yes,
and did you notice her age?” “Well she certainly looks
a lot younger...do you think she’s had her face done?” “Well
she can obviously afford it, did you notice her net worth?” I
don’t know about you, but I find that outrageous. Why is
age relevant to certification? How does someone’s personal
financial information impact whether or not she is a woman-owned
company? I’ve asked that question several times from several
of these vetting entities and never got a reasonable answer. And
yes, in many cases, our tax dollars are supporting their effort!
Dollars Spent On Infrastructure And Promotion
But on to the money. Something the private non-profit sector knows
plenty about. Many of these companies pay their personnel handsomely.
They can do that because of the rich corporate support they receive
from corporations and government funding. Yet it doesn’t
seem as if much of that cash is going to fund small businesses.
On the contrary, it is doled out in dribs and drabs that don’t
buy much of anything. Most of the dollars pay for management and
promotion. We have been on the receiving end of the promotional
barrage so we decided to contact Nell Merlino of Count-Me-In, which
is one of the more successful organizations at getting media coverage,
not to mention corporate funding, for her non-profit entity offering
micro loans to women-owned businesses. These loans range between
$15,000 and $45,000. And the organization is trumpeting its spend
of a million dollars to make “millionaires.” And they
actually have a few people who will win awards because they’ve
hit a million dollars or more in sales, thanks to the $15,000 loan
they received from Count-Me-In. Unfortunately, Merlino was too
busy to spend 20 minutes with our editor on the phone, so we never
learned how $15,000 can actually propel one’s business forward!
We know it won’t pay the rent...or fund a new hire...although
it might do some good if you use it to hire a bookkeeper once a
week to do your billing and help you with collections...the scourge
of small business!
I’m Actually Getting The Loan?!!! What Happened To The
Zeros?
And then there’s the Women’s Venture Fund—it
has a nice solid ring to it. Headed by the politically correct
Maria Otero (profiled by us a few years ago), it gives micro loans
up to $15,000 to beginning entrepreneurs, a noble pursuit. The
executive director earns a salary for her concept and ongoing direction
plus a substantial expense account, and in South America, where
Millie Leet dispenses funds for her Trickle Up Foundation, $15,000
would go a long way...but in a big city? Would that really get
a business up-and-running?
The Late Nights And Loneliness Of The Entrepreneur
If anyone is between a rock and a hard place, it’s the entrepreneur.
Rugged individualist as she might be, she hungers for camaraderie —someone
to share triumphs, someone to vent with, someone who understands
the pitfalls and disappointments, someone to provide encouragement,
someone who is also sending and receiving e-mail at 3 AM as I did
with Meryl Price last week. But no one is lonelier than the entrepreneur.
Usually, a workaholic, strapped for cash, the entrepreneur generally
has a loosely-constructed brain trust of outsourced advisors and
experts that take the place of in-depth staff. When it’s
all in sync, it hums along like the best-trained team. But when
it’s not, there’s little margin for error.
I know this from my gut because I am one of you. With two fulltime
businesses, publishing this newspaper and our website, functioning
as Sales Manager, Executive Editor, COO, CEO, PR Executive, Special
Events Manager and so on, I also run an exclusive agency that represents
high-end textile mills in Europe, Asia and India, a one-woman operation
if there ever was one, and an executive search consultancy specializing
in women and minorities. In this position, my life has to be carefully
calibrated with zero tolerance for error...mine or anybody else’s.
This makes me a tough taskmaster, especially where my own output
is concerned.
Outsourcing To Build A Team
I’m fortunate in having a wonderful group of talented women
and two great men who have worked with me for four years—Bernice
Kanner our editor in Chief, Vanice Gage Donegan our circulation
guru, Mary Ellen Putnam of Trumbull Printing, Michelle Patrone
of Data Pro which maintains our mailing list, Joe Roseti of JarWebDesign
our website designer/consultant, Anthony van Dunk our creative,
and production consultant plus Beverly Cooper, who has recently
stepped in to execute our events—we’ve all pulled together
and somehow kept things humming. Nevertheless...things go wrong,
especially when the moon is full as it was this week. Being self-funded
(not a rich kid, my fabric business has grown to support the paper),
I move to my own drumbeat. But I wonder when these government agencies
and corporations will stop giving women lip service about how much
they adore them...and start putting money where their mouths are.
That means buying our services, supporting our media, and sending
that word out to their line people who get carried away with the
power of the organization behind them.
Elaine Taylor-Gordon
Publisher and President
Help us expand our network. Please tell your colleagues
about this Web site and about WomensBiz.US!
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