Building Businesses

Sandra Altner remembers her first taste of entrepreneurship very well.

I owned a store in Osborne Village and people used to come in and say, Can we speak with a manager please? because, of course, I couldn't be the manager since I was a woman, Altner recalls.

It's that kind of stereotype the Women's Enterprise Centre (WEC) of Manitoba hopes to squash by offering a helping hand with everything from starting a business to sustaining it, ensuring women have the tools they need to succeed.

Over the past 10 years, the WEC, of which Altner is now CEO, has responded to more than 109,000 requests for information and provided more than $16.7 million in loans from a variety of sources, encouraging thousands of women from across the province to start their own businesses a practice which is fast becoming part of a national trend. According to a 2005 report from CIBC, it's estimated that one million Canadian women will run a small business by 2010.

I think the belief is that we just help start-ups, but we really are here through the life of their businesses, says Alison Kirkland, the WEC's client services manager. Regardless of the stage they're at, we're here to help.

Training is geared toward enhancing women's business knowledge and helping new business owners strike a balance between the demands of home life and the stresses of running a business.

Just trying to find a chunk of time to focus on a business is hard, says Karla Dueck Thiessen, founder of Winnipeg-based Jubilee Baby Products, who approached the WEC for financial support, business advice and its workshops. It was nice to have someone to point me in the right direction.

Looking realistically at the amount of work involved in starting a business is especially important for women like Dueck Thiessen who are the family's primary caregiver. According to the CIBC report, nearly a third of women entrepreneurs in Canada have children under the age of 12. The WEC can smooth the transition from motherhood to management with a plethora of workshops and seminars that highlight everything women need to know to get their businesses off the ground and running smoothly.

The free Welcome to Business workshops detail the basics of diving into the business world. Other seminars include a five-part business plan development series that goes through industry research, market research, operational planning, financial planning and risk analysis, as well as workshops in accounting, leadership and human resources. This year also marked the introduction of a series of seminars for established entrepreneurs, presented by members of the Certified Management Consultants of Manitoba.

We're always checking the pulse of our clients to find out what they need, what we can do to be of help and how we can work with them to get them to where they need to go, says Altner.

So how should women go about starting a business? And how do they even know if their idea is feasible?

The WEC is there to guide women through the steps necessary to take their idea to fruition, because often what women have in talent or expertise, they lack in business application  in other words, just because a woman is a great artist doesn't mean she'll succeed in running a gallery. The centre can help women identify a solid business idea, conduct market research, obtain licensing and by-law information and write, or develop, a business plan. Its five business analysts offer free, one-on-one advice about everything from business feasibility to marketing strategies to start-up procedures the most important of which is business plan development through the entire length of the business process.

Your business plan is the way to make your mistakes on paper, says Altner. The truth is, many businesses go down in flames because of poor planning.

For clients like Heather Hlady, co-founder of Winnipeg lifestyle management company Concierge One, the business plan feedback is indispensable.

It was great to have a different set of eyes looking at our business plan, says Hlady, who still keeps in touch with her WEC advisor. She picked out things that we wouldn't have really seen.

Not only are they essential in jumpstarting a business, but good business plans can also help women obtain loans of up to $100,000 from the WEC. The loans can be used to offset business costs, some of which may not be covered by other lending institutions, and female/male partnerships are welcome so long as the woman owns at least half of the company and is actively involved in its operation.

It's not like a bank, where they say, OK, we'll give you a loan. You sign over the house to us, says Altner. That's not how we do business here. We might take chances that the bank doesn't, but we're still going to be doing our due diligence to make sure that the debt can be serviced and that the business is viable.

Another of the centre's projects is a detailed list of women-owned businesses in Manitoba. Launched in June 2006, the directory is intended to support and promote women-to-women business connections. It guides users to women-owned businesses across the province businesses that offer products and services ranging from catering to massage therapy to graphic design.

The training, advice, loans and directory are only a sliver of what the WEC has to offer. Through working with a number of other organizations in the community, like the Canada/Manitoba Business Service Centre, it has created a solid support network for women entrepreneurs in Manitoba, with a business analyst stationed as far north as Thompson. As Altner puts it, We all work in tandem to help Manitoba's economy move forward.

Part of that support comes from the WEC's board of directors women who pull from their own expertise to provide direction to the staff. Board members like Barb Gamey, who founded the national payroll service Payworks, and Janeen Balenovic, who, since purchasing Artists Emporium in 1999, has increased sales by more than 50 per cent, bring invaluable experience and knowledge to the centre.

What the WEC provides is a women's interpretation of how to build your own business and how to find out what works and what doesn't, says Hlady. I don't know if a standard entrepreneurial centre would be able to do that for a woman.

The WEC staff also has a genuine desire to help those looking for advice and perhaps, a few votes of confidence. It's obvious they believe in their clients, who may not always believe in themselves.

When you start your business and put all of your time, effort and money into it, you have got to have that vision of success in front of you. Sometimes, you actually exceed your own expectations, says Altner, adding that some women consider just having the ability to earn an income successful. But someone who doesn't think she will succeed isn't going to.

One of the biggest problems facing women entrepreneurs, according to Altner, is the imposter syndrome, in which women are unable to internalize their accomplishments, regardless of the level of success they may have achieved something the WEC hopes local women can work past.

Most people don't know what they don't know but in the case of women, very often they don't know how much they know, she says. That's really an important message for them: to take stock of where they are, who they are, what they've done and what capacity they have to move forward.