On this episode of Get Resource Smart, Flo sits down with Chandra Reber, the director of New Hampshire’s Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE), to share what her organization has to offer existing or prospective female entrepreneurs in the building, growth, and maintenance of their companies. Joining Flo and Chandra is Liz Salas Evans, who used CWE as a resource while starting her own business and now serves as a CWE financial consultant.

Flo Nicolas:

We probably have a lot of audience members that don't know who you are or the services you offer, so let's get into the details of who CWE is.

Chandra Reber:

We are resource partners with the Small Business Administration, so we are partially funded through the SBA, similar to the Small Business Development Center, we receive part of our funding from them. But our mission is, we are here to lift up women who lift up the world, and we want to help women who see entrepreneurship as a pathway to economic empowerment. We provide one-on-one business counseling, as well as training through workshops and classes. Just helping women find out if business ownership is right for them and how to do that if so.

Flo Nicolas:

When I started the entrepreneurship journey, I was terrified. Because statistically, when it comes to women owned businesses the failure rate tends to be higher. What is one of the biggest deterrents you see when clients come to you? Is it fear, like me? Or they don't even know where to start?

Chandra Reber:

It depends, but we definitely see a lot of women feeling like they have to cross every T and dot every I before they take the leap. They feel like they have to have all the degrees, all of the experience, like a resume a mile long before they can be taken seriously. And we know that in part comes from how we're challenged all the time as women to justify our expertise. So that's a big one that women come in with. But also definitely, how do I make this happen with little to no money?

Flo Nicolas:

So there are workshops available, and it seems there's also opportunity for mentorship. Let's get a little bit more detail in terms of the breakdown of the type of courses someone looking to start a business can leverage.

Chandra Reber:

Absolutely, and you just opened the door to a really important thing. I'd mentioned before that we are one of the SBA resource partners, and all of us are a little bit different. Some of them operate on a mentorship model, some don't. For our organization, we're kind of like your phone-a-friend. Mentoring is a little bit different. The expectation is that you're assigned one person and you meet with this person about anything and everything, pretty much whenever you want to, over a long period of time. For us, our role, we’re like the one-on-one business advising. So if you come to us and say, I have these three big problems and I don't know what to do, then we're going to look at those with you, we're going to help you see how they all connect together, and then we're going to tease out which of our experts you would benefit from meeting with one-on-one to tackle those problems. So we're kind of your point person. It might be that you need to meet with Liz to talk about market analysis, but maybe you need to meet with an attorney about drafting a contract. It’s really important that people understand when they come to us that we’re the phone-a-friend. But if you really want a mentor and you want that long term relationship, we're going to work with you to find an organization or way for you to find a mentor, because that won't be with us. That's a really important thing we want clients to understand. We want people to really get what we do so that they feel they've gotten what they need when they leave us. Then in addition to one-on-one business advising, we do the workshops and trainings. These could be a 90 minute workshop on if entrepreneurship is right for you by looking at your whole life situation, your expertise, your skills, what you're looking for, and giving you an idea of what entrepreneurship looks like – all the way to, you've been in business for 15 years and you realize you haven't really thought about succession planning, you haven't thought about what happens when you want to transition out, what does that look like – and everything in between. We also have a 10-session business planning course that walks you through all the parts of a business plan for those folks that are starting out, or maybe you've been in business but you want to apply for a new type of funding, or you just need a revamp. And then we have a 13-session strategic planning course for folks that have been around for a little while and are looking to level up their business.

Flo Nicolas:

Liz, as someone who has expertise in the financial industry, what are the tips you can give for a woman watching right now who’s been considering starting her own business. Should they do it scared?

Liz Salas Evans:

I think there's a level of fear when it comes to uncertainty, regardless of what way we're going. We see that now with the economics of the impending recession, the discussion of high interest rates, and an environment that we haven't really dealt with before since the global financial crisis, where we saw some volatility and disruptions. And so fear is a natural human response and emotion, and I think we can pinpoint what it does to individuals. When we're looking at money or talking about money, you're talking about something that we're just simply not familiar with. Whether it be somebody who's an engineer or a physician or a teacher, we have to talk about the labor force of how people are earning money, and the time-value of money. I think that was one of the disruptions during COVID, people are spending two hours driving each way when they’re not earning money. So for anyone considering starting a business or maybe taking their business to the next level from beta testing – which is what I call it instead of labeling it a hobby, because if you're creating a product or service and you're offering that to anyone, then that’s your beta testing. And so it's really considering what is your passion for it and your interest in it, because 90% of your time spent is on the infrastructure and administrative parts of the product generally, and that last 10% is that pitch, that delivery, that product creation piece. So we have to think of it holistically, that when you’re launching a business you're doing all of the things, from cleaning the toilets to going to pitch competitions. It's very much based on the trade-offs and then making a holistic decision. Then when it comes to funding it's determining, do I have enough money to survive over the next 12 to 18 months to be able to get my business up and running? What happens if I don't get approved for a loan? Can I pay back and service this loan if it's at a high interest rate given the environment? With a lot of investors or even lenders, a lot of institutions want to see that there is capital savings that's invested by the owner. It doesn't always have to be a large amount, but it has to be something. We can say sweat equity is always large because that's the amount of time of unpaid labor that you're putting into your business; however, when it comes to savings and capital, what risks have you taken to bet on yourself before we bet on you?

Flo Nicolas:

What are some of the industries that you're seeing do well here in New Hampshire?

Chandra Reber:

I'll speak to our clients, because I think all of the SBA resource partners have a sweet spot. We have a lot of artists and makers that are trying to figure out how to monetize themselves as an artist and how they look at diversifying what they do. Maybe they're a painter, but there are so many other things that go into being a painter that they can actually support their communities through and make more money through. We also see a lot of food businesses and have also been seeing an increase in women-owned construction related businesses, like remodeling, landscaping, construction itself. We have clients who are looking at how to help construction businesses themselves and provide services construction businesses need. So those are the most exciting things I think. But we also have a lot of personal care industry folks: estheticians, massage therapists, you know, folks like that. Health and wellness is another big sector we see a lot of women in, and then also professional services similar to what Liz does. 

Flo Nicolas:

Any final words on what else people need to know about CWE that we haven’t covered so far?

Chandra Reber:

We do have the annual conference, so please check out our website to learn more about that too. Also, though I am the director within the New Hampshire office, we do have four other women's business centers across New England, and most of our programming right now is virtual. So if you look at the New Hampshire page and don't quite see the training or workshop available that you're looking for, you can sign on to any of the workshops that are offered across our footprint. It also means for one-on-one business advising, if you have a specific question and we don't have it in New Hampshire, I'm able to reach out to my counterparts at our other centers and tap into their resources as well. The last thing to anyone thinking about starting a business right now: create the big idea, have your pie in the sky vision, but don't get discouraged if you can't start out at that level. That's one of the things we work with people on all the time is like, it's okay to start with step one and grow from there. Don't feel like it's a failure if you can't start with your huge vision right out of the gate. We're here to help you figure out what that step one looks like and how to get you there.

Liz Salas Evans:

I'd say jump. Just go for it. We have to get out of our own heads, and just go through it, it's going to be messy, it's not going to be perfect – nothing is anyone's first time. And then receive input, receive advice and guidance. It's not an ego thing to try to be the biggest in the marketplace, because as Kandra mentioned nobody starts off there. It's a process and it's a strategic play to be able to amend your process to boost the business in the most positive trajectory. So jump, get the ego out of the way, and get used to the fear that's going to be there.

Flo Nicolas is an attorney, co-founder and COO of DEI Directive, a  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion  technology firm that provides a comprehensive DEI Intelligence Platform. She also produces Get Tech Smart and Get Resource Smart, which she shares with partners in The Granite State News Collaborative