Women Consultants, Are You Running Your Business With The Stabilisers On?

Welcome to today's edition of the Seven Figure Consultant LinkedIn Newsletter for Women in Consulting. Don't forget that you can get daily updates from Jessica in your LinkedIn news feed by accessing her LinkedIn profile and hitting Follow. She will be sharing insights and discussions through the week that she would love to hear your views on.

Only 2.3% of venture capital funding goes to women founders according to a report in the Harvard Business Review.

It’s something that women consultants almost never even think of to fund their businesses. There can be good reasons for this. Sometimes it’s important to validate a business before seeking capital and we want to learn the ropes before getting others onboard, especially if you’re getting funding from a VC and giving away a chunk of your business.

But I think the actual reason is that often women lack confidence HUGELY - and the early months and years of our businesses are more about finding ourselves and gaining the confidence to start taking bigger and bolder steps. Whereas men will often jump into consultancy businesses and all other kinds of businesses with far less fear of the negative consequences.

We have a lack of female role models in business. There are a lot of disincentives for us as women to jump straight in the deep end. I know when I first started my business I had a lot of pushback from my family who aren’t natural entrepreneurs in the least, but I have also spoken to women who have come from entrepreneur families who have been equally negative - some fear the unknown while others don’t want them to experience the same struggles.

We can often have an issue from day one in our businesses where we are consciously starting ‘with the stabilisers on’ to ‘see where things go’. And so becoming a CEO in the business feels like a secondary stage and not something we can start out doing.

And if that’s you, and I’ll be honest, this is the place I started my business from.

Do you have an org chart for your business? Do you have a vision for yourself as the leader of your business?

I want us to get way more comfortable with making that the norm. Why do we doubt that we can make money? We always talk about this long phase where ‘we won’t be making any money’ or ‘we might not be making any money’. Why is that our expectation?

If you’ve worked in corporate and you understand your market place and the service that your target clients are looking to get your expertise on, if you’ve been on both sides of the table - why do you doubt your ability to succeed as a consultant?

I’m on a mission to put an end to the years that so many women pootle through ‘with the stabilisers on’ when in reality, they were always capable of showing up as a courageous and compassionate CEO. Are you with me?

Let me know in the comments, have you sought funding for your business?

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To find out more about the work I do, visit jessicafearnley.com or message me here on LinkedIn if you'd like to hear more about private coaching and how I can help you transition from booked up and burned out to THRIVING as the CEO of your 7 figure consulting business.