What Skills Are Overlooked When Starting a Business as a Woman

While the business world is changing for the better for women in the workplace, at top positions and at entry level, there are still many problems and kinks to sort out. For example, just 3.6% of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States are owned by women. This is an incredibly low figure, and gives far more credence to the old "Jobs for the boys" mentality that pervades many societies. When you look beyond the ridiculous barriers that hold talented females back in the industry, though, you can see some significant gaps in the market that could be filled by females every bit as easily as it could be by males. The problem that a lot of people have - both maleand female- is that there is a lack of diversity in skills out there. Many businesses out there offer similar services to each other, with very little diversity in some of the most demanded yet niche markets.There is an important lesson here for any woman starting her own business today - when starting your own business, don't look at the ideas that could be the most quickly profitable. Look for the gap in the market that you can service the most effectively - many of us choose a business model as we believe it could be a stable job for us for years to come. What you should be looking at is where you can be most effective.What skills do you bring to the table that could make a marked and significant difference to a market that desperately needs support and new innovation?Finding your niche that you bring the most unique ideas is the way in for most females.

This is a skill that many of us lack -finding our right position in the world.

Don't settle for something that sounds like you "could" do a job, find a market that you already know a huge amount about and could become a genuine authority. While females are renowned for their planning and communication abilities, meaning that managing the finances and dealing with clients is something that can be managed with the right attitude and attention to detail, there has to be a much greater fixation on analysis. Many businesses fail because the earliest stages were never analyzed properly! When a business starts poorly, solutions are concocted quickly to try and counteract the failing profits to try and keep the business afloat. When a business starts well, nothing tends to change as the old age of "If it's not broke, why fix it?" comes into play. This is when analysis comes into play - being able to deeply look into the situation, and create a forensic examination of the performance of the business, can be the catalyst that helps to save your business.

Detailed, in-depth analysis is the most key skill that is usually neglected. Basic performance reviews are not enough, it has to be extremely deep analysis on a day-to-day basis that misses nothing and catches all.

(c) The Female Leader. Cartoon by Kriti Vichare