More than 400 women have been trained, counseled
Sarah Crawford had spent several months crafting what she thought was a bulletproof business plan for a new baby-interiors and accessories store.
After poring over gobs of research and bouncing the plan off her accountant, colleagues and friends, Crawford felt confident she could secure a loan to get the venture off the ground.
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Then she called the bank.
"When I hung up the phone I was freaking out," said Crawford, a 30-year-old who had no experience with either business plans or baby cribs. "I felt like I would be walking in there with my house, my car and my boat on a platter saying ‘here, take everything.’"
So she went to the Small Business Administration, who insisted Crawford take her business plan to the Center for Women & Enterprise in Providence. There, her document got a thorough working over by the staff and a volunteer from SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives.
"That’s what I needed, someone to punch holes in my business plan so the bank couldn’t," Crawford said. "I didn’t want to dive into this headfirst if it wasn’t going to work."
After a few tweaks, the center helped her prepare a loan package and sent it off to a few banks. A couple months later Crawford had her pick of three banks willing to offer her loans – and she didn’t have to put her house up as collateral. Now, she says her new store, Bambini, which opened in September on South Main Street in Providence, is thriving.
Carol Malysz, director of the Center for Women & Enterprise in Rhode Island, can relate to that overwhelming feeling Crawford had when she initially went seeking a loan.
When Malysz founded the Rhode Island office of the Center for Women & Enterprise in January 2000, she confronted many of the same vexing issues that most of the center’s clients face: Where should I locate my business? When should I hire a staff? Who should I partner with? How do I get the word out? Where can I access capital?
A little more than two years later, Malysz and her staff of two – along with the help of several key partners – have come up with answers to those questions. And in the process has helped hundreds of women like Crawford answer those same questions about their own businesses.
During its first two years of operation, the center has helped 34 woman-owned businesses obtain a combined $3.4 million in loans. More than 400 women tapped the center’s services for training or counseling during that time, and the center estimates it has contacted more than 2,200 women through its networking events and seminars.
While the numbers seem impressive for the center’s brief existence, Malysz insists it has just scratched the surface: There are 20,000 woman entrepreneurs in Rhode Island.
"One of our goals now is to raise the profile of woman-owned business in the state, because right now their faces are unknown," Malysz said.
About 60 percent of the women who seek the center’s services are starting businesses from scratch, Malysz estimates. Although most are concentrated in the service and retail industries, their ventures run the gamut, from women opening restaurants, food markets, bed-and-breakfasts and retail stores to artists, photographers and fashion designers starting their own agencies.
They all have their own unique talents, but most share one common trait: little or no business experience.
"A lot of women we see may never have had any formal business training, nor even an opportunity to discuss business issues," Malysz said.
She ticks off a list of hurdles faced by most women entrepreneurs:
Limited access to both debt and equity capital
Work-family issues such as child care and elder care
Need for peer-support networks
Lack of management experience
Lack of computer skills
To help women overcome these barriers, the center has stitched together a core group of nonprofit business groups to lend expertise, making the center what Malysz calls a one-stop shop for women business owners.
The Small Business Administration – which provides a good chunk of the center’s budget through a $150,000 annual grant – refers women entrepreneurs such as Crawford to the center and provides a channel into the SBA’s broad network of lenders.
SCORE offers women free mentoring and business advice from current and former high-level business executives. And the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center provides business training and helps woman entrepreneurs find people with expertise in various areas, such as operations, marketing, advertising and information systems.
Those programs also are helpful for the roughly 40 percent of the center’s clients who already own successful businesses. These women typically call on the center for help devising growth plans.
"A lot of them are doing well, they’ve got clients, and they just need to fill the gaps in their knowledge about how to run their business more effectively and manage the growth," Malysz said.
The Center for Women & Enterprise has several upcoming events, including its annual auction and a legislative forum with state Sen. Elizabeth H. Roberts, both in April. For more information on the center and its programs, call 401-277-0800.
