4 Tips to Make 2021 Your Business Year for Women Entrepreneurs
While welcoming in the new year amid a global pandemic might not have seemed like the fresh start business-owners, solopreneurs and leaders dream of, as women in business, we already have the trick of resilience up our sleeves… and 2021 is the year to play it.
After last year’s lockdowns, travel restrictions, and school closures, the very fact that you’re reading this article now, means two things:
You made it through an incredibly eventful and challenging 365 days
You’re looking ahead, and already have the mindset to make 2020’s lemons into lemonade
If imposter-syndrome, guilt and burn-out come knocking, remember that women-led organizations reinvest 90% back into their communities (UN) which means that looking after ourselves and our businesses this year will support our society as a whole.
With careful consideration and slick planning (both female founder fortes!), this year can be approached with our 2020 learnings and at the very least, with foresight. So look ahead, to our four tips for making 2021 work for you:
1. Acknowledge and Accept 2020
We’ve all been in the same pandemic, the differences lie in the unique challenges we’ve faced.
Now is the time to sit down and identify those issues, from revenue model obstacles to operating inefficiencies.
Specify which ones you overcame and how you did it, think about what factors, and support, allowed you to make it through. What have you learned? Can you incorporate any of it into your long-term strategy?
And don’t forget to name (but not blame) those obstacles you could tackle from a different angle in the future. Is there anything you would do differently if you knew what you know now, can it be changed? Or is it just a case of taking the hit of a curveball, and growing tougher skin at the point of impact? Acknowledging the hurdles is just as important as overcoming them.
2. Strategize based on certainties
Unpredictability caught many businesses off-guard in 2020, but now that we are familiar with social distancing, stay-at-home orders and a digital shift, women leaders should plan based on what we know for sure.
Basic human needs are generally quite unchangeable; we’re always going to need food, shelter, social interaction, health and wellbeing—the list goes on. Food delivery companies, safety equipment suppliers and language-learning software developers, are some of the many businesses that have capitalized on the way these basic human needs have continued throughout the pandemic. Can your business pivot towards supporting them?
Avoid business plans that may not be conducive to the current environment by utilizing strategies based on concrete certainties such as these, and put those that are dependent on an uncertain future on the backburner (for now).
Until global recovery kicks into action, diversifying your business as much as possible is a good idea. Move away from sectors that require close face-to-face contact like hospitality, grow your online offering, and/or invest capital in essentials for the pandemic like pharmaceuticals, logistics, or deliveries. Try to cultivate a personal touch from a distance, so that your customers and clients are still close when the time comes to be together again.
3. Save green and go lean
Are you in the habit of making New Year’s Resolutions? This one might sound familiar then. While optimism is vital, women’s empowerment is about being realistic and savvy too. Saving money and slimming down is advice we should be considering for women’s businesses, and not necessarily our personal lives. Time to make your organization as lean and efficient as possible!
If you don’t yet know about lean organizational structure, it centers around identifying what you want to achieve as a business; your goals and objectives. By working towards them in a methodical and empirical way, you can measure what you are doing and make constant improvements.
Trying to work out how to create the most value using the least resources is a good exercise for any organization, especially women’s businesses, but it’s even more useful in a recession such as this, likely preceding a recovery.
4. Nail your recovery plan
Remember when finessing your elevator pitch and the art of the pitch reigned supreme? In 2021, it’s all about perfecting your recovery plan for when markets restabilize, and ensuring it flows just as smoothly.
We will be meeting again face-to-face. The biggest question is when. So take a scalable, flexible approach that can adapt with the times, that you trust, wholeheartedly, to be successful.
Identify how you will recognize the right time to implement it, what your fallback plan is, and how to ensure longevity in the business according to a changing world.
Don’t forget too, that any business losses so far, like bankruptcies and closures, have left space in the market ripe for female entrepreneurs to expand into the new space created. Though to do so, we must simultaneously reduce risk and seize opportunities, essentially, learning how to be successful as an opportunity entrepreneur.
If you don’t know yet, don’t panic; luckily, there’s time to decide.
The end of the pandemic is in sight – vaccines are being rolled out and COVID research continues to progress every day. Look, learn, and let go now, because the economic recovery (when it happens) is likely to be pretty roaring.
Written for Empowering a Billion Women, January 19 2021
