On September 21st, 2016 LAEDA Women’s Business Center (WBC) began its first short series of workshops in Cumberland County. Aspiring and established entrepreneurs from the southern New Jersey area have joined to gain knowledge of how to effectively start and grow their respective businesses.
The five-week series began with Business Basics as a way to inform budding entrepreneurs about what it takes to succeed in a competitive market. The next class, Negotiating Skills & Understanding Your Personality Profile, was particularly developed for the LWBC to assess how personality can affect how entrepreneurs negotiate in both their professional and personal lives. This concept is particularly important for female business owners given that there is the stigma that women are not as skilled as men when asking for and getting what they want in the business world.
The series will be culminated with topics surrounding marketing, work-life balance, and credit management. Each of these areas is of importance to any entrepreneur when starting or growing a business. The marketing class is always a favorite since new business owners are looking for ways to promote the uniqueness of their respective products/ services. The work-life balance and credit management classes are important to all entrepreneurs, especially women. Female entrepreneurs are attempting to balance multiple roles at home with the demands of business ownership. This is often compounded by the fact that accessing capital for business is often more difficult for women than men. Women entrepreneurs are sometimes faced with obstacles in both their professional and personal lives; however, they will be able to continue to strides in the corporate world given the right tools.