I recently had the opportunity to attend an event for women business owners in a suburb of New York City. The event was focused on the challenges women business owners experience while running their companies.

It was a very interesting conversation around the difficulties that plague many women business owners. Although the owners represented were in the NYC area, I am sure that women business owners across the country share their sentiments.

One of the major challenges that were discussed was related to funding. Capital is one of the main reasons why businesses are forced to close. Where do you get it? Where are the best options? How do you put yourself in the best position for funding? These were all questions and challenges that many of the business owners had to face.
 

Another issue they tackled was around being a woman in a predominately male industry or just being disregarded or overly questioned by men in a non-male dominated industry. This was actually surprising to me as it has never been my experience. But it was evident how present it was for many who were sharing as part of their experience.

Some of these women business owners were in heavily male dominated arenas such as construction and moving. Some were actually told by colleagues that they were expecting them to fail.
 

We as human beings, and certainly as women, have our own questions and often times insecurities around our abilities to do different things especially those things we’ve never done before. The added pressure and stress of having individuals tell you that they are waiting for you to fall I find to be very saddening. But this is the reality for many female business owners across the country.

The 3rd challenge many of these business owners faced was related to having to learn exactly what to do at different times in their businesses. How to do it and when to do it without ever having the experience of doing it before. Many credit mentors and other business owners with previous experiences for assisting them and giving recommendations, but ultimately the final decision fell on the actual business owner to make the best decision for their business and then learn from the outcome depending on the results. Asking for and seeking help was a big factor for many of them to move their businesses ahead.

Although these issues were discussed by women business owners, I know that the first and the third challenges described are shared by all business owners, male or female, in America.