Why I help women to build profitable online businesses

 

Since 2018 I’ve been helping women to start, grow and scale profitable online businesses and recently it dawned on me that I’ve never shared on the blog WHY I’m so passionate about helping women to build profitable online businesses. I’m not obsessed with women growing their businesses because I want them to be able to make an announcement about how much money they made this month or year. I focus on growing a profitable online business because profit is what enables more money to go back to the business owner. And it is that money that will change the business owner’s life and the world as a whole. Keep on reading to find out why I help women to build profitable online businesses.

 

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WHY I HELP WOMEN GROW PROFITABLE ONLINE BUSINESSES

Before I delve into why I help women to build profitable online businesses I want to quickly talk about what I class a profitable business to be and why my definition means not every online business is a profitable one.

Isn’t every online business profitable?

There is a common misconception that every online business is a profitable business. The fact is there are a lot of online businesses that are not profitable. In fact, lots of “offline” businesses aren’t profitable either. Businesses go bust every single day. There are endless stats about how many businesses fail after 1 year, 3 years even 5 years. Success in business isn’t guaranteed and profit in business is definitely not guaranteed.

 

But personally, in the service-based industry, I see something that is much more dangerous. It is where someone has a business that isn’t commercially viable in the true sense. Basically, the only reason the business can continue to operate is because the business owner is ‘bank rolling’ the business. It could be that they are actively investing money into the business, but more commonly, it is where the business owner isn’t paying themselves “properly”.

 

Now paying yourself properly is very subjective, which is why I put it in speech marks. If you asked 5 different people what a business owner should pay themselves you’d get 5 different answers. But what I care about is whether the business owner is able to pay themselves what they want to pay themselves.

 

So if a business owner started the new financial year saying they are going to pay themselves £5k per month, so £60k across the year, but then at the end of the year they’ve only managed to pay themselves £40k then in my opinion they are bank rolling the business and really it isn’t commercially viable.

 

Profit is income minus expenditure, but the business owner’s salary should be classed in that expenditure. If the only reason a business is profitable is because the business owner’s salary isn’t included in that number then that is a problem.

 

Now we’re on the same page about what I class as a profitable online business here are the 3 reasons why I’m so passionate about helping women to build profitable online businesses.

 

1. To enable more women to be financially independent

The first reason I’m passionate about helping women to build profitable online businesses is to support more women to be financially independent.

 

When I talk about being financially independent I’m not talking about having financial independence in the way you may have seen it mentioned by the FIRE movement (Financially Independent, Retire Early). In this scenario financial independence is where have enough passive income to not have to work again. This is a goal for some of my clients, but it isn’t for all.

 

However, when I talk about being financially independent it is in direct opposition of being financially dependent, ie you are financially independent if you have enough money to be able to support yourself, and anyone you care for, without needing financial support for anyone else.

 

This is really important for me. I can’t tell you how many times my heart has broken when I’ve had a female business owner telling me they want to leave their partner, but their business isn’t financially at a point where it will properly sustain them.

 

Being dependent on someone else for money means your choices are limited and I’m not here for that. When a woman can properly support herself financially she has choices and options. This is really important to me and a big reason why I focus on helping women to grow their businesses and make more profit. It is about ensuring on a basic level that you have enough money to stand on your own two feet and make choices about your life.

 

 

2. To improve financial equality between men and women

Helping women to generate enough income to be financially independent is one thing, but in order to get closer to gender equality there needs to be more money in the hands of more women. And there needs to be more wealthy women.

 

Currently there is a major disparity between how the world’s wealth is split between men and women. A study in 2021 showed that of the 3,311 billionaires worldwide only 430 were women. That is only 12.9%. According to GlobalData Wealth Insight, 90% of the world’s millionaires are men. These figures show the size of the problem we are in at the moment.

 

Running a business is a known way to make wealth, but not every business owner ends up being wealthy – especially not business owners who provide services. Service-based businesses often don’t have assets within the business. They are trading time for money and when the business owner stops working the money stops too.

 

Facing that fact head-on means you have choices. You can decide you want to scale your business, to break the relationship between trading time for money and create assets in your business that can generate income without you actively working.

 

It might be that you decide you love being a service-based business and so instead you focus on maximising your profit within that model and then using those profit to pay yourself more, make investments and build wealth that way.

 

There are multiple ways to build wealth. You can do it within your business or outside of your business, but increasing your profitability so you have the profit to invest is key.

 

SERIOUS ABOUT USING YOUR BUSINESS TO BUILD YOUR WEALTH Are you ready to stop dreaming of being a wealthy woman and instead actually be on? If so, and you want to learn how to turn your current business into a tool that really supports wealth generation let’s have a chat. Whether you want to maximise your profit as a service provider or look to scale your business instead I can help you work out a way forward. To book a call click here.

 

3. To help close the Gender Pension Gap

I’m all for helping a woman to make more money in her business now so she can pay herself more. But really I want to go beyond that. I love helping business owners get to the point where their business is generating so much profit that not only are they properly paying themselves now and investing in the business to support further growth, but they are also able to invest for later life.

 

The UK has a massive gender pension gap for both employees and entrepreneurs. But with the introduction of auto-enrolment in 2012 things are starting to get better on the employee side of things. But for female entrepreneurs, the story is very different.

 

I can’t remember the first time I did a poll on social media asking female entrepreneurs to share whether they were regularly investing in a pension. The results shocked me and afterwards when doing proper research I realised my audience was skewed. According to IPSE only 31% percent of self-employed are paying into a pension and that doesn’t even take into consideration the gender split. To be clear I’m fully aware there are other ways to financially prepare for retirement, but even if you add in the people who decide to buy a second property, have an ISA etc the numbers are still frightening.

 

What is especially frightening is that women live longer than men. Therefore the focus should be on having an even bigger pension pot than men, but in reality, it is the other way round.

 

Closing the Gender Pension Gap for female entrepreneurs is not going to close overnight, but the most common reasons for not investing in a pension are irregularity of income and not having enough money.

 

That’s why I focus on helping women to increase their revenue and increase the profit of their business. I know that if I want to help more women to invest for their later life then I need to get their business to a point where there is a level of confidence about the amount of money coming in, and most importantly, that there is ‘enough’ profit. Again enough is subjective and in many cases, business owners will keep pushing back the amount they have to make before being comfortable investing for their future.

 

If you are self-employed and don’t currently have a pension, or any type of investment to support your later life, grab a copy of Inspirational Investing 2023. In this book, I’ve gone into greater detail about how to prepare for later life as a self-employed woman. Inspirational Investing is available from Wednesday 8th March 2023 and can be pre-ordered now.

 

That’s it. You now know why I help women to build profitable online businesses.

 

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ll know this was a very different type of blog post to my usual ones. However, I felt it was important to share why I talk about growing your business, increasing revenue and improving your profitability. I’m not promoting growth for the sake of it. My community and clients aren’t business owners aren’t owners who are growing businesses to exit and make millions in the process.

 

Instead,  as I’ve explained, the reasons why I help women to build profitable online businesses are to enable women to be financially independent, to create better financial equality between men and women, and to close the gender pension gap.

 

I want to ensure that you have a business that makes enough profit to allow you to pay yourself enough to support the lifestyle of your dreams, that enables you to be able to properly build wealth that can support you for your whole life and for you to become a wealthy woman – because the world needs more!

 

WANT TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL? Growing a profitable online business that not only allows you to make great money, but also brings you joy, requires work and a clear strategy. I love helping business owners to get clear on how to take their business to the next level, whatever that means to them. So if you are looking to grow or scale a predominately online service-based business based then I’d love to help you do that. I offer Strategy Days for business owners that just need a strategy and I offer business mentoring for business owners looking for ongoing strategy, support and accountability. You can check out all my current services here. And if you aren’t sure what is best for you, but would like to work together, book a call here.