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IQ Idaho Magazine
Edition Date: May, 2008
Ms. Carlson
Privately-held women-owned firms generate 1.9 trillion in annual sales and employee 12.8 million people nationally. In the that ten-year period ending in ’06, the percentage growth of women-owned firms was nearly twice that of all U.S. firms, 42% versus 23%. Why do you think the number of new women-owned businesses is outpacing other firms?
Ms. Pool
I think a lot of us are baby-boomers, and so we have this baby-boom trend. And women really understand who they are and what they can contribute to the world. And I think they are ready to take that leap into a business that’s true for them.
Ms. McIntyre
I recently read that women occupy only 8% of the positions on corporate boards throughout America. If you could stack up relevant statistics about how women have progressed in larger organizations you might find that there are still frustrations about being in those organizations and that inability to move up. And so maybe women are leaving those corporate environments or larger organization environments and doing their own thing.
Ms. Crist
I totally agree, but I also think that we are working longer. And I think women are thinking “Okay, if I’m going to have to work longer, I’m going to do it my way. And I’m going to do something that is on my terms.” Maybe women are feeling that being self-employed you have a little bit more control. That’s kind of an illusion, but we can think that.
Ms. Carignan
And that control, I think, is control in flexibility. Ever since I was about nine years old I wanted my own company. And you get sucked into: Here’s the ladder, here’s what you do. And then you just get to the point where you’re just putting off what you wanted to do in the first place. And it’s not a corporate ladder.
Ms. Allen
I have to say that a lot of my choices had to do with just economically looking at, “Okay, I can go work for another company or I can create my own.” It was just a better risk to start my own and have that flexibility as well, to create the life that I want to have.
Ms. Deely:
I believe, too, that there’s sort of the basic altruism that functions within each of us to expand and continue to create, that we don’t stop at 40, we don’t stop at 50. We can continue to contribute. So it’s almost a primal urge, as long as we’re breathing, we want to exhale it into our world.
Ms. Crist: do you think it’s because we’re trying to be healthier too? It’s like 50 now is what 40 used to be, it seems like we look at the world differently than our grandmas did or our mothers did.
Ms. Deely
It kind of goes hand in hand, for sure. And we’ve sort of had a paradigm shift in our consciousness about who we are as people, what we can contribute now that we don’t have to retire. Retirement is the equivalent of decline and even death. And we don’t have to do that anymore. We can keep on going. I bump into more people that have this new excitement that life gets better and better.
Ms. Woods
I think people are really realizing their purpose and wanting a job that aligns with that. And I agree that women are realizing that they can go as far as they want towards whatever they’re passionate about.
Ms. Carlson
The report also said that from a statistical standpoint there is a higher percentage of women-owned businesses in the west than in the eastern or central parts of the U.S. Is that just a coincidence or is there really something about the sort of western attitude or corporate style?
Ms. Carignan
The Midwest is a Fortune 500, like the city of Chicago. In the East you have New York. So you are also kind of plugged into that ladder mentality. Out here it’s a little bit more free-flowing.
Ms. Pool
I also believe that we foster more of an entrepreneurial spirit in the West. People are more independent thinkers because there aren’t those conglomerates, those Fortune 500s. And statistically we have more longevity in our world today. People are living longer. And because of that we think beyond age 65. We can live on and have more to offer. And we bring a lot of experience into the situation.
Ms. Crist
I think there are very practical considerations there in Boise. For me to have an art gallery where I own the land and built the building – I couldn’t have done that in New York unless I was Ivana Trump or something. And I couldn’t have gone as far with the capital that I had to build with. Everything is just newer. It’s newer and fresher here.
Ms. Carlson
Moving on to primary business challenges. In this report, there’s a chart at the top where we’re asked, “What would you say are the primary challenges in growing your business?” They identified the top three challenges as customers; having limited sales and marketing resources; and increasing competitive activity.
Ms. Allen
I’m pretty shocked that finding qualified employees is so low at the bottom of that list, because that’s one of my biggest challenges.
Ms Carignan
I would definitely agree with that, just in terms of trustworthiness and having the same ethics. But those top three, definitely. That’s a reflection.
Ms. Hall
I’ve talked to a couple of people that would like to start their own business, and their biggest challence is finding information on how to get started.
Ms. Deely
I see obstacles like “How do I do this? Where are the good people?”
Ms. McIntyre
I think one of my challenges is to compartmentalize (business) and not let it overtake the other things I want to do in my life. The flip side of that is true, too. Because there are other things in my life I want to do, I have limited time to commit to doing this job well. So there’s kind of an intangible for practices like mine, our challenge is time and balance.
Ms. Carlson
Let’s talk about women with children, 80% say their number one worry is “My family and Kids.” This is under the category of “what keeps you up at night?” but among all women, the top three things that keep them up at night are maintaining clients or growing the business, personal finances and staying healthy.
Ms. McIntyre
That’s what was keeping me up last night, starting day camp for my kids. I’ve got this idea that I should have gotten up and written it down.
Ms. Allen
And then it’s like, “What was it I was supposed to do. I know I thought of something.” What keeps me awake right now is the baby. I don’t think I could do it if I couldn’t bring my kids with me, and also I work with my husband. That works because that’s how we see each other and how we work together.
Ms. Carignan
We spent 15 years in Chicago with two careers when the second kid came alone, and it just wasn’t doable. How you allocate your time during the day has a direct impact on your family. In the end it’s like, I don’t want my family to be a corporation.
Ms. Woods
This is the subject that most women come to my office and talk about. And for me personally, it has been a process that I’ve been trying to understand, how to have balance. I’m a primary caretaker of my two teenage daughters. It’s really a huge undertaking to balance your life with yoru family and taking care of yourself.
Ms. Carlson
And we don’t’ have to go through life being seriously sleep deprived at all times.
Ms. Deely
What works for me is dividing my life equally into three parts. My relationship parts are divided between my family and friends; my professional parts, which are divided into growing the business and all of those things; and then my creative part, which is me. And when I find any one of those getting out of balance, the other ones suffer.
Ms. Pool
And as I have gone through life stages of having little children and then having a spouse and not having a spouse and having grown children and now having grandchildren and no owning a business, each of those stages has created a different set of stresses. And so my values about what’s important in my life have had to constantly shift. What helps me keep balance is to know what my values are now. They’re not the same as they have been during different periods of my life.
Ms. Allen
I think you have to have people surrounding you that support you in doing what you do. If there’s any negative naysayers that won’t support your efforts then you shouldn’t be around them because it just puts more stress on you.
Ms. Carlson
When you’re related to them, sometimes it’s more difficult.
Ms. Allen
But I do think having the support of your family is really important, so is letting them understand why you’re so busy and why it takes a juggling act to do it all. And just let them see a little slice of your world, and then they might understand why it’s important to support you.
Ms. DiCostanzo
I think that support network extends beyond your family to your business partners, whether they be partners in your business or a group of people that like we have here today.
Ms. Allen
It’s important , too, that employees understand your family life and know that when you have to leave at 2 p.m. for a doctor’s appointment.
Ms. DiCostanzo
And affording them the same flexibility, that’s important as well.
Ms. McIntyre
Life is a series of adjustments. I have to just be mindful of these. You need to tune in and find out what is actually needed and readjust.
Ms. Carlson
Let’s move onto the current business climate in the state of Idaho now. what do you think that implications are? We’ve had a pretty good run here for a number of years.
Ms. Ross
What about keeping your employees up with the cost of living? Paying your employees what it costs to stay in housing and everything like that. What does it cost you as a business to keep your peoples’ heads above the water?
Ms. DiCostanzo
I believed we’re very lucky here in Idaho. The business climate is still very vibrant. There are a lot of opportunities. People are discovering Idaho on a variety of different places, it’s an easy place to live. I’m from back East originally, and when people here complain about the traffic, I just want to laugh. It takes me 12 minutes. It’s just an easy place to live.
Ms. Allen
Usually the first thing that people ditch is marketing budgets. I wish people would understand that marketing should not be the first thing to go. It’s the first thing you should increase. I haven’t seen much of a fluctuation, except in real estate mortgages right now, because people either have the money to spend or they realize that they need to spend the money on marketing. And that’s how they will continue to get through this I guess rough spot, we’ll call it.
Ms. Carignan
I have notices an increasing insecurity among clients who work for lager employers. I think we’re very skewed on high tech. I worry that we do not have a broad enough base of large employers to sustain ourselves if one or two of them decided to go to Singapore. And I think we would benefit greatly from having a more varied economy. I think we need to open our arms to some diversification.
Ms. Crist
I’ve experienced a real drop in my business. And it’s very typical to what happened right after 9/11 when the phone stopped ringing. But typically what will happen in the art business during a downturn economy is that you’ll see the middle fall out and the high end and low end still exist. And that, I feel, is what’s kind of happening. I’m starting to get called from the high end people that want to cash out some of their investments and move into art.
Ms. Carignan
A third-worldizing. You have the two extremes with nothing in the middle.
Ms. Crist
Exactly. It actually bodes better for businesses like mine in much larger art centers. And so it’s much more difficult because we typically don’t carry the blue chip artists that people are going to invest in. So you have to find other ways to diversify.
Ms. Pool
I’m certainly not an economist, but I’m a Boise native and have lived here through many upswings and downturns. We always land on our feet. This community has been very resourceful and we have a lot of small businesses, which allows flexibility – even though we are worried about some of the larger businesses. Bus there is self-reliant spirit that seems to always pervade the ups and downs. So I’m still very positive.
Ms. McIntyre
I’m glad to hear that there’s optimism. Throughout the 15 years that I’ve lived in Idaho, there hasn’t been a single one of the large, homegrown corporations except for Simplot that hasn’t gone through major changes. The other, Boise, Cascade, Morrison-Knudsen – call them what you will – they are all very, different. And there was an editorial in the paper a couple weeks ago where the Governor’s economic advisor had asked the State to prepare a budget with and without Micron.
Ms. Carignan
Yeah. That was horrifying for me.
Ms. McIntyre
Is it small businesses that will drive the future economy of Idaho?
Ms. Carlson
For this to be a sustainable and high-growth economy, diversification is the key. We need multiple strategies to diversify our economic base so that we’re not over dependent on one sector or a handful of major employers. Because if something major happens it is going to be a blow to our economy.
Ms. McIntyre
I think Idaho has some policy and value statements to address. The quality-of-life thing is very important to all of us that are here, and yet you don’t attract business if you don’t have cheap power and you don’t have places for people to live. And we have a legislature that still holds very tight to its values of the agrarian way of life and agricultural economy. You’ve got to give up a little of that, too, if you’re going to have growth in either an industrial sector or small businesses at home.
Ms. Allen
There’s another item on the agenda for bringing file industry to this area. Out of 50 states, 45 states have incentives to bring film producers to their states. Idaho is not one of them. (Film makers) could get up to $200,000 in a rebate if they spend money here in the state of Idaho. And when a filmmaker comes here, they could easily spend millions of dollars. I think that diversifying and bringing more new ideas and new opportunities to Idaho definitely would be something to look at.
Ms. Carignan
I hear rumors down in Pocatello that they have a high-tech solar panel chip thing that’s going to be funded and built. I’m like “That’s what we need to do right there.” Ensure your future. Celebrate it. Make that a hub.
Ms. Woods
I think the biggest limitation is that we don’t have a mindset yet in this state. We need to look at our legislature and political process. It hasn’t caught up. And for me as a woman business owner, I don’t know what I can do, except continue to do what I do and hope that this state shifts its mindset.
Ms. Crist
I think that you can get involved politically. I think that we owe it to the community to give back. And I think part of giving back is being involved in change-agent types of activities.
Ms. Allen
I find it interesting that a lot of people don’t even know who their legislators are.
Ms. Crist
Speaking of film incentives, there’s another aspect to what they can bring, and that’s the cultural texture from the people that come for that kind of work. We have some filmmakers and residents now that live here that are doing a lot, even without incentives. But I don’t think they can hang on much longer. And those are the people that bring in new ideas and challenge us.
Ms. Woods
I couldn’t agree more. I think we underestimate the artistic people that live in our community.
Ms. Crist
It’s what makes Boise the place that it is. It’s why you want to move here from Chicago. It’s because we do have cultural events here besides riding our bikes.
Ms. Carlson
What has been critical to achieving success in your particular industry? How have you overcome challenges or obstacles? What advice do you offer?
Ms. Deely
Working with steel is very male-dominated. And I’ve been able to use it to my benefit. People are surprised when I fabricate large pieces because it’s such a heavy material to work with. So don’t look at those obstacles and the barriers. Those don’t matter.
Ms. Crist
It’s probably the worst thing you can say to me, when you tell me I can’t do it. It’s like, “Oh, yeah.”
Ms. Woods
I get a lot of “Well, you haven’t been in corporate America for 20 years.” And I began to see that as a real plus, because I had a different mindset and different way of looking at things.
Ms. Allen
When I started, I worked for a TV station directing news. I had two strikes against me: I was female – most news directors are male – and I was also 19. So I really had the battle both of those. And now I don’t even think about those things anymore. I don’t see being a woman as crutch that would hold me back. That’s just no how it is anymore. I think people are starting to realize that women can do just as much, if not more, than men. So now we’re able to accomplish more.
Ms. Hall
We didn’t have the option of saying “oh, because I’m female or because I’m African-American, I can’t do something.” I appreciate my mom and my grandmother for teaching me that. I don’t even consider failure. I don’t come into any setting expecting someone to treat me differently because I’m female or black. I don’t have that expectation. When it does happen, I’m usually quite surprised. I would say that any advice I would give is to be positive, to think positive and to have confidence.
Ms. DiCostanzo
I think that’s true with any gender, male or female.
Ms. McIntyre
I’ve never thought of myself as a woman lawyer. I’m just a good lawyer. I’m typically in a room with all male counterparts. And it’s just never been an impediment.
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