One thing I loved about this book is that it made me feel good about my “size”…no, not that size! As business owners we continually strive to be bigger but what if instead we really leveraged our smallness? SMARTY isn’t big in the sense of millions, but we, as a community of small business owners, are incredibly influential. And who really wants to be big when you can be powerful instead? Does that resonate with you, too? Are you small but mighty? Do you make a play in your market and people listen? Don’t feel bad about where you are in your business. As I told someone the other day, if you went from zero to sixty in your business you’d have know clue what to do when you GOT to sixty. You have to do 20, 30, 40 and 50 first to avoid missing opportunities or looking like a joker. Highly recommend this book…good beach reading, too.

According to the article, although women-owned businesses are on the rise, revenues for these companies are still, on average, only 27% of revenues generated by businesses owned by men. The article cites four major factors preventing women-owned businesses from reaching the growth of their male counterparts: goal-setting, access to capital, access to markets and access to networks.

SMARTY is designed to help you set your goals, get you on the right track to growing your business and connect you with other like-minded entrepreneurs, so that none of the issues the WSJ article mentions have to be YOUR issues. Although wealth-building is of critical importance to women, it’s not the only factor in determining what “success” means. Our Members appreciate being able to work from home, spend time with their families, monetize their craft, product or service and raise the quality of their life while running their business. We have empire-builders and more grassroots lifestyle businesses; the way we see it, both achieve “success” but in ways specific to a woman’s goals for her life.