Smart Women and Small Business: How to Make the Leap from Corporate Careers to the Right Small Enterprise

There's a confusing array of how-to books out there with general advice about starting a business, conducting a job search, or balancing work and family. But what entrepreneurial women really need are the strategic tools for choosing and growing a business that will not only make them money, but make them happy as well. Women need direct, gender-specific advice about succeeding financially in their businesses; they also crave the feeling that their work "matters," and they want flexibility and control over their professional lives in order to achieve a healthy work-life balance. This book offers them the womenfriendly business advice they need and numerous true-life role models to identify with and emulate.

Author Ginny Wilmerding opens women's eyes to the advantages of buying, joining, or consulting for existing small businesses, fully explaining the alternatives to starting from scratch. If you lack an original business idea, this book will give you the confidence you need to get excited about pursuing a business idea other than your own. But if you do want to start a company from the ground up, there's plenty of food for thought for you here, too. Wilmerding not only shares her own stories and outside experts' advice but also includes insightful vignettes from women who have found their niches and are succeeding financially.

If you're wondering how to finance your small business, Wilmerding steers you toward success in obtaining SBA loans and other financing. Finally, if you're considering partnering with others to share the risk and the fun, she prepares you for partnership success, and explains the importance of good advisers and mentors.

The goal of this book is to get you started on the path to a successful career in the small business world, a world that needs experienced, smart, versatile women like you to join its ranks. "Smart Women and Small Business" is the ultimate professional guide for mid-career, business-minded women who want to achieve the same independence and success as their entrepreneurial male peers--but in their own way.