Invest In Womxn

At this point in my career, I am connected to a lot of incredible, talented, collaborative, and powerful women. It's one of my greatest honors and privileges to know these women and to get to share stories and articles with them about how we've progressed in our careers and how the landscape is evolving for women in business. Lately, it seems that almost every week a woman I know is sending an article my way about funding and in particular the massive gap that we as women entrepreneurs face because of the lack of funding available to us.

But I have to be honest, this gap doesn't surprise me. I know the numbers. I know how far we have to go. What I am more curious about is why does it exist in the first place? Obviously bias and history has a lot at play here, but there's a bigger issue too and that comes down to women being ready and willing to invest in themselves.

One of the things that has been so interesting to me in starting my own business, particularly a business that focuses on the work of women and creating work for women, has been the hesitation that women have to spend money on themselves. Yes, we'll spend it on our kids or our families or on essential business items like equipment or software, but when it comes to investing in ourselves, that's where we hesitate. That is when we ask:

Is it really worth it? 

Do I really need this? 

Is something or someone else more important? 

I think this questioning comes from a culture where we're conditioned to de-prioritize our needs and put ourselves last. I also think that until we disrupt this mentality, we're not going to see a closing in this funding gap because we as women still won't be ready to invest in ourselves.

So, why do we question investing in ourselves? And what strategies can we take to start shifting our perceptions to know that these investments are worth it? 

Here are some ideas of where we can start:

1) Invest in yourself. We have to set an example for others and model the behavior by first beginning to invest in ourselves. How can we expect society to follow suit and invest in us if we don’t even believe we’re worth it? The premise of this action is putting on your own oxygen mask first so that others can follow your lead. If there are skills and resources that you're lacking as a leader make the investment in yourself because you believe you're worth it. From there you can start telling other women about the investments you’re making in yourself so that they begin to believe they're worth it too. 

2) Invest in your team. If you're scaling a company, you need the best and brightest minds to help you do that, which means that you need to invest in a team. Everyone on your team should show up with a certain valuable skill set but you as the leader also need to provide opportunities, resources, training, and tools to show them that you value them and their continued growth. It’s not just about what your team can do for you anymore, it’s also about what you can provide them so that they can continue to grow themselves and in turn grow your company. 

3) Invest in the work of other women. We have to stop just showing up for the free and fun stuff and truly start investing in women. A woman’s revenue directly impacts her ability to raise capital. If we truly support women-run businesses and female entrepreneurship, we need to spend our money on women. We're not going to close the investment gap if women are not able to grow businesses that are innovative, profitable, and compelling to investors. There are tons of resources out there, such as the Oya App, that are designed to make it easy to identify women-run businesses to purchase from. We can start this strategy right now by looking at our regular spending and make conscious choices to reallocate a portion of our dollars both in our business lives and personal lives to operations run by women. In addition to spending money on women, we can also support them in other ways by telling others about their work and sharing online to support their businesses.

At its core, investing in our businesses is about strategy and more than anything it is about scale. Putting money into the resources inside our companies is how we can go from a teeny tiny operation to something bigger. That takes vision and it takes support, but at the end of the day, it takes money. 

If you're the leader of an organization one of the best resources you have is yourself, which means that you are absolutely worth investing in. Now, whether that's investing in training, in coaching, in educational materials, or whatever it takes to get you the skills and resources you need to ensure your company’s success, is a worthwhile investment. The same goes for your team, and for other women. If we invest in these areas, we can all grow together.

Throughout my career and companies I have modeled all three of these behaviors inside of my company by investing in myself through ongoing executive coaching and education programs, paying for my team to attend leadership training and getting them access to ongoing education, and by putting an emphasis on working with and purchasing from women-run operations. The result is a company that was profitable and generated over 6 figures in the first year of operations and continues to scale rapidly each month. These investments we’re not just fun ideas, they were clear strategies that have paid off in the success and growth of my business.

The best part about it though is that because of these investments I can afford to pay myself and my team more, while in turn offering more resources at an accessible price to our members. It is a win-win. As a female founder, I understand the obstacles we're up against as womxn starting companies. But the most critical way we can start overcoming them is by showing up and investing in ourselves and the work of other women to show the world that we own and believe both in our own value and that women run operations are absolutely worth funding and investing in.