The Boss of You

A news story about women business owners and their trend towards being more willing to lean on friends and colleagues for advice than their male counterparts came across my news feeds this afternoon. The study was commissioned in Australia and found that “women are much more likely than men to consult other business owners and business partners, as well as family and friends, when they want advice and support for financial and business decisions.”

We knew going into writing our book that we wanted to include advice and information from other business women we knew or admired, both because we don’t claim to have all the answers ourselves, but also because our own experiece of entrepreneurship has included being on the asking and answering end of that equation so many times. Because I do not believe that anyone out there has all the answers, I find it amazing that there are business people out there who don’t rely on colleagues, family, friends and experts to help them along the way. Being an entrepreneur is so often about facing new challenges and while its tempting to think you can do it all, I learned pretty early on that asking for tips from people who’ve been there or even just workshoping an idea with others who are facing the same challenges can not only save you time, but often result in answers and ideas you’d never come across on your own.

We have a stable of experts — bookkeeper, accountant, IT networking support guy, business coach — and several choice numbers/emails for entrepreneurial colleagues memorized that we make judicious use of and who I can’t imagine getting to this point in the life of our business without. Who do you turn to for advice/guidance when you’re facing a business challenge?