Over the last seven years, I’ve primarily worked with women business owners to solve their business problems. As a result, I’ve developed a set of small business resources that are useful to women business owners.
Here’s a list of small business resources for women that may come in handy for you:
Small Business Incorporation
Form an S-Corp and Benefit from Tax Advantages! Get Started with CorpNet® for as Low as $49 Today! The CorpNet website also has many informative articles about why corporation is a good idea.
Small Business Marketing
LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can be used for small business marketing, but how do you use it effectively? I recently had an opportunity to speak with Kristina Jaramillo about LinkedIn marketing and purchased her program, LinkedIn Marketing Templates. Now if I can only find time to implement her fabulous ideas!
Web Developers
The Web Mechanic provides design, development, maintenance and security services for WordPress websites. I have to love this guy — he’s my husband and does all of my web maintenance! My clients love him, too. He’s knowledgeable, patient and actually speaks English as opposed to Geek.
Indigo Creative Solutions provides affordable Joomla development for complex sites such as e-commerce sites. I’ve used the firm in the past for a publishing company and found them smart and reasonable. This woman-owned firm delivers attractive websites on time and within budget.
Contact/Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
I use HighRise to handle the CRM for potential, existing and past clients. For me, I find this software easy to use for a relatively small number of clients–ideal for coaches, consultants and others with in-depth client relationships. The ability to handle complex organizations and the capture of emails as I send them also makes it easy for me to keep track of the last conversation I had with someone.
Constant Contact is ideal for handling newsletters to your community. While there are many competitors in this space, I find Constant Contact to be the easiest to use. You can create attractive newsletter templates to keep your community informed and connected. The statistics are easy to follow and give you a good idea of who is actually reading what you write.
Zoho combines the abilities of a sales management system like SalesForce.com with other abilities to handle contact management and email management. My clients like Zoho because it gives them the ability to track leads and follow up when there are a great many leads to handle.
Shopping Cart
Professional Cart Solutions, a reseller of 1ShoppingCart provides a relatively easy shopping cart inteface. What I like best about this company (Practice Pay Solutions), which also handles my merchant account, is their customer service. They are US-based, polite, clear and helpful.
Merchant Services
Practice Pay Solutions Merchant Account is another offering from the Practice Pay Solutions family. I found it easy to set up my account and they’ve been helpful whenever I’ve had a problem or wanted to handle something new. I’ve been told their fees are slightly higher than others. I’ve also been told that if you don’t handle $5000 a month in transactions, you should stick to PayPal.
PayPal has gained legitimacy as a merchant account. I wouldn’t have said that five years ago, but if you aren’t doing a great volume of sales, they are definitely worth considering. Warning–their per-transaction fees are higher than many other merchant accounts.
Small Business Books for Women Entrepreneurs
To read my reviews and recommendations for sales and marketing books, click here.
Professional Organizations for Women Entrepreneurs
The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) was one of the first organizations catering to women entrepreneurs. It’s an organization that supports women business owners’ voices at the local, state and national level of government. There are chapters in almost every state (although New England is an interesting hold-out.)
Women in Consulting (WIC) is a San Francisco Bay Area organization that many of my consultant clients belong to. They provide great educational opportunities for members and non-members alike.
Small Business Support
The Small Business Administration (SBA) website is rich in resources, including information on working your way through the maze of certifications that help you achieve government contracts.
SCORE provides support to small business owners, especially in the start-up phase. Because this volunteer organization is made up of retired executives, it tends to be a little male top-heavy. They have good, solid advice, but you may need to refine it a bit to make it work for you.
Wise Woman Guides
I’ve put together low-cost guides on specific topics for women entrepreneurs. An essential tool for women entrepreneurs is a business plan. I’ve put together a business plan guide to help you get started, or review your existing plan for completeness. Click here to learn more about the Wise Woman’s Guide to Writing a Business Plan.
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