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Since 1995, Women’s Enterprise Centre has answered over 28,000 inquiries for information. We have conducted over 22,000 business advisory sessions with more than 6,500 BC women seeking business advice.

Taking the Leap to Entrepreneurship:
Mentoring for women transitioning to self-employment

Thousands of women are leaving the status quo to start their own business. They may come from a 9-to-5 job, a corporate career, homekeeping or early retirement. They may have always wanted to strike out on their own or they may come to business ownership reluctantly, dictated by their situation or lack of opportunity. Whatever their reasons for taking the leap, more and more women are drawn to the possibilities of entrepreneurship.

In 2005, 137,000 BC women owned their own business, about 35% of all small businesses in the province. According to Women’s Enterprise Centre forecasts, the number of women running small businesses in BC will increase to over 200,000 by 2015.

These numbers look positive and healthy, but what about the businesses that fail? Women experience a number of challenges that can drive them out of the small business community before they have a chance to succeed. Between their decision to go into business and the establishment of a concrete, thriving entity, they will grapple with problems and setbacks they may not have seen coming.

Business plans, bookkeeping, break-even points, inventory, licensing requirements, loan applications and zoning. No time. Lack of confidence. Suppliers who don’t deliver. Children who miss their mother. The issues women face during transition can overwhelm them before they can bring their dreams to life.

In the first three years, building a strong foundation for their business is critical, but the learning curve is steep. Without crucial support, new entrepreneurs can lose their sense of purpose and direction. They may fail simply because they don’t yet have the knowledge they need, or lack timely advice and encouragement.

There are many different federal and provincial resource programs for small businesses, but a gap exists in the market for women looking for more targeted support through the first three years. Recent research by Women’s Enterprise Centre identifies this gap and proposes an exciting solution: mentoring programs specifically aimed at helping women through the transition, based on the recommendations and comments of those who have already begun the journey.

Mentoring programs acknowledge women’s preference for learning through the experiences of others. New entrepreneurs can find power and confidence in sharing their concerns with mentors and within peer mentoring circles, where they find guides, role models, sounding boards, allies and supporters to help them stay on track.

What challenges do new entrepreneurs face?

The transition to self-employment causes an enormous impact on women’s lives. Regardless of whether they choose self-employment eagerly or feel it is forced upon them, women all struggle with barriers they can’t entirely avoid. Knowing that you will need to market your product, for example, doesn’t mean you can automatically design a successful marketing campaign. The sheer number of challenges women face can throw them off early in the process.

Experienced entrepreneurs may remember the hurdles they had to leap in order to get their businesses up and running. The following list indicates the scope of the issues:

• Knowledge gaps: women may love the heart of their business, but have no training in or fondness for financial planning, marketing and promotion or staffing issues. They may not even realize where those gaps exist or how to address them.
• Lack of confidence: starting something new means moving out of a routine where identity and expectations are defined and familiar. Uncertainty, fear, low self-esteem and self-doubt can result.
• Emotional roller coaster: taking a huge step towards a desirable goal can be both exhilarating and heart-stopping. Emotional swings can prevent women from seeing their situation clearly and making good decisions.
• Hard work: many envision spending less time working at their own business than at a former job, but find just the opposite happens. In looking for more flexibility—often to care for family or attend to health needs—they may struggle without the supportive framework of a typical workday. They need to learn self-discipline and how to focus and set priorities.
• Work/life balance: guarding time with family and friends is a struggle. Time for themselves and interests outside the business can disappear completely.
• Income: women may go into self-employment under-financed and unprepared for the drop in income that is common in the first years.

Experienced entrepreneurs know that running a business is risky. Some business failures undoubtedly occur because these challenges are too great or women cannot gain the skills they need fast enough to build a firm foundation from which to survive and grow.

What is mentoring?

Mentors appear at some point during most people’s lives, and many flourish because of their guidance. Tradition defines mentoring as the relationship between a sage older mentor and a young protégé, or mentee, in a one-to-one relationship where the mentor shares experience and feedback with a chosen mentee.

Mentoring programs can help steady women who want to get off the roller coaster they are riding and make the clear-headed decisions necessary to create a successful business. A little guidance can go a long way to keeping transitioners on the right road, in spite of the challenges that might otherwise trip them up.

The definition of mentoring continues to expand. Mentoring relationships can include several different formats. The following are the most common formats used in mentoring programs geared at business owners:

• in peer mentoring, people with similar concerns and levels of expertise learn from each other.
• in one-to-one mentoring, a more experienced person typically assists a less experienced person. Experience is not necessarily related to age. As anyone trying to master a new technology knows, the best mentor is sometimes an open and enthusiastic teenager!
• in mentor advisory forums, several mentors address a group of mentees’ common issues in an interactive group session, allowing for more exchange of different ideas.

Mentoring can happen anywhere there is knowledge and a willingness to share matched with interest and a desire to learn.

Why be a Mentor?

Many women who volunteer as mentors have a passion for helping others. They comment that the greatest reward mentoring brings them is the opportunity to give back to their own community, which may be the community where they live and work or the more diverse business community around them. Mentors have frequently themselves been mentored in the past and taking on the role allows them to put their own knowledge into action and “pay it forward.”

Mentors benefit from:

• feeling pride in themselves and their mentee, as they share vicariously in the Mentee’s growth and development.
• increasing their own knowledge as they take on a task that may require them to exercise new skills.
• experiencing professional renewal as they guide their mentee through challenges. Years of practice may have caused them to take their own expertise for granted.
• finding their own networks expanding, as they step outside normal routines and back into a world where it’s important to pursue and create new connections.
• feeling satisfaction in helping others to avoid mistakes they may have made themselves.
• enjoying encouraging more women to become entrepreneurs. Some feel that it’s important to act as the role models that were missing when they started out.
• experiencing increased professional recognition for volunteering their time.

Register to be a Mentor now!

Why be a Mentee?

New entrepreneurs often “don’t know, what they don’t know.” One of the chief benefits of mentoring for Mentees is having those knowledge gaps identified and bridged. Another is the sheer relief of confiding in someone who knows just what they’re going through.

Being in a Mentor/Mentee relationship is a very effective complement to other activities that the new entrepreneur might participate in. Workshops, self-study learning guides and on-line courses are also effective ways to bridge knowledge gaps. The Mentor/Mentee relationship is a forum whereby knowledge gaps in areas such as this will be identified and encouragement given to address weaknesses.

Mentees benefit from:

• receiving personalized coaching. As the Mentor focuses on the questions and concerns of the Mentee, she receives information that is specific to her individual needs.
• improving their business knowledge, including increased expertise in financial understanding and management, marketing and human resources.
• an outside perspective. Discussing plans with a Mentor can help identify mistakes, unnecessary expenditures or faulty assumptions before they cause problems.
• becoming more productive. With a mentor involved in critiquing their plans and identifying knowledge gaps, mentees learn to operate efficiently and avoid mistakes. Increased productivity can also mean increased income.
• growing confidence, from support and encouragement regarding business decisions.
• assistance with the creation and strengthening of networks and partnerships within the business community.
• emotional support from another entrepreneur who likely understands the multi-faceted issues that arise during transition.
• relief from isolation. Structured mentoring relationships give new entrepreneurs regular, friendly, supportive contact with others who care about them and their businesses.

Register to be a Mentee today!

What makes a good Mentor?

Good mentors exist wherever people with a level of expertise take a proactive and positive interest in others who might benefit from their knowledge.

For new entrepreneurs, experienced Mentors can provide not only practical insights about the nuts and bolts of running a business, but emotional support as well. A Mentor knows what knowledge is missing—about trade fairs, for example, or export financing or recruiting good employees—and how it can feel during the first years to believe in the business and keep going in spite of lack of profits and the scepticism of family and friends.

There is no one personality type that makes an ideal mentor, but certain characteristics make for a successful mentoring relationship. A good Mentor:

• is credible professionally. Business Mentors need not be entrepreneurs themselves but do need skills and experience that are useful to the Mentee.
• is willing to help others learn. Even though the Mentor may have years of hard-earned knowledge to share, effective mentoring often takes place when the Mentor challenges the Mentee to think for herself.
• is willing to listen as well as talk. Communication in Mentoring is a two-way conversation.
• is a source of constructive feedback. While tact is important, a good Mentor also isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade.
• is empathic. The Mentee may not know other entrepreneurs, and those closest to her may simply not understand her day-to-day struggles.
• is a “safe” person for a Mentee to go to with business problems. A Mentoring relationship is based on trust, and a Mentor must respect confidentiality.

Although strong mentoring relationships can turn into equally strong friendships, the key to a successful match is not the degree of similarity or compatibility between the mentor and the mentee. More important is the Mentor’s willingness to shine a broad benevolent light on the mentee’s worries, decisions and plans, so that her Mentee can decide what might work and what doesn’t, to choose her way forward with confidence.

Women’s Enterprise Centre Mentoring Program

Women’s Enterprise Centre carried out extensive research into mentoring programs and the needs of women who are considering or who are in the early stages of making the transition to self-employment. Based on these research findings, Women’s Enterprise Centre has a three phased Mentoring Program launched with the financial support of the BC Ministry of Community Services.

There are two distinct target audiences for the program: Pre-Startup Transitioners, and Early Stage Transitioners. Each will receive resources tailored to the mentees’ needs, while also responding to the feedback provided by potential mentors. We have chosen these two groups because they have very few resources targeted at helping them address the emotional and cultural changes they will be making.