According to a recent survey of 199 female business owners conducted by Fabulous Women, a female business networking organisation, an astonishing 88% of respondents believe that their business will grow and fulfill its potential within the next three years. Only nine percent of respondents were not sure and three percent thought their business will be stagnant. The majority of the respondents (47%) have been running their business between 1- 4 years, with 37% of respondents being established for more than five years.
As per the House of Commons statistics published in May this year, only 860,000 (or 18 percent) of the 4.9 million businesses in the UK in 2013 were run by females. Whilst the most obvious reason for this is that women choose to concentrate on bringing up children and looking after their families, lack of confidence and skills can add additional barriers for many women entering the business world.
The Fabulous women survey also asked what expertise do women owners of micro and small businesses lack the most. Generating PR, advertising their business and planning future strategy were quoted as the top skills that female business owners needed to improve the most. The survey also revealed that female business owners are confident and consider their skills as excellent or good when it comes to presentation skills (68%), working with business partners (56%) and managing people (44%).
Jane Hardy, Director of Fabulous Women who initiated the survey comments: “I believe that the aptitude for business amongst women is growing. We have over 2,000 members across South England and London who are predominantly women and we are growing rapidly. We run networking groups in 19 locations and we are adding an additional six more from September. We are well on target to run 28 groups across London and South England by the end of this year.
Jane Hardy concludes: “Fabulous Women is all about supporting and connecting women entrepreneurs and helping them grow. Of course we also welcome men who share our values but in general, I think there is a big difference in how women do business. I see a lot of sharing of knowledge and support amongst our members. It’s not unusual for two book keepers - in affect competitors - exchanging tips on how to deal with a HMRC query. I don’t think that’s typical in male dominated business environments. I was really pleased to see that such a high percentage of respondents believed in the future of their business. I think this is great news for the UK economy."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Additional stats of interest from the Fabulous Women survey:
- 93% of the survey’s respondents were running micro-businesses employing up to 9 people, with just over 2% employing between 10-50 employees and 4% employing over 50 people
- Almost 60 percent of the respondents stated that their annual income was under £50k, over five percent between £50 - £100K, six percent between £100k - £250K. Almost six percent earned over £1 million last year and 21% preferred not to disclose it.
About Fabulous Women
Fabulous Women is a business networking organisation, currently running networking groups in 19 locations across London and South England including Guilford, Ascot, Ealing, Winchester, Camberley and Chiswick, to name a few. It is the network that successful business owners choose to connect, share, grow and succeed in their business. Fabulous Women offers the opposite of the heavy-sell, pressure-to-refer style of business networking. Their ethos is to bring people together to collaborate and support each other, to share, to learn and to promote mutual success.
For more information please contact:
Jane Hardy, Fabulous Women Director
Email: Jane@fabulous-women.co.uk
Web: www.fabulous-women.co.uk