There are two schools of thought when it comes to women and business start-ups. One maintains that women are an under-represented and disadvantaged minority who need special help and privileges if they’re to have any chance of success, while the other (which is my view) says that women have the brains, skill, resource and ability to do it for themselves, thank you very much. Okay, we may currently not have as much of a presence in the entrepreneurial arena as men, but there aren’t actually too many barriers stopping us from driving ahead if that’s what we want to do.

Now consider the above in respect of women over 50 starting businesses. Gender and age ought to make it doubly difficult to enter the arena and be successful – right? Actually no. I believe – and research shows - that for many reasons it actually gets easier for women to start and succeed in business the older they get. It truly is a ‘golden age’ for women entrepreneurs but one which has yet to be fully acknowledged, even by women themselves.
The benefits and barriers

The benefits and barriers

The benefits for women over 50 of being in business for yourself are obvious. Self-employment enables you to work longer, more flexibly and with a greater degree of satisfaction in an area which you have chosen, doing something you enjoy. It enables you to stop being an appendage (somebody’s wife, mother, daughter, employee, etc) and have your own unique identity as a business owner. Best of all, it means that there is no one directing your life and telling you what to do. After years of being dutiful, conscientious and responsible, this can be hugely attractive for many women. Not that they become feckless and irresponsible as business owners – in fact, research shows that any business owner works far harder once they are self-employed than they ever did as employees – but self-employment gives them the ability to choose what they want to do and control how they’re going to do it.

However, compared to men, older women tend not to have the same corporate CV and obvious skill sets. They may have had years out of the workforce raising children. They may have worked part-time or at a lower level than their true ability due to other demands on their time. For the same reasons, even if they are in a managerial role they may have risen up through the ranks in one organisation only and feel they lack the breadth of experience of those who have moved around. Whatever the reason, many women reach their fifties feeling that they lack the requisite skills for entrepreneurial activity. Not only do they feel they’re short of ‘business skills’ in terms of the knowledge they need to operate a business, but they can doubt their ability to deliver products or services that the market would want to buy.
Government encouragement

Government encouragement

The issue of ‘older women and entrepreneurship’ is increasingly becoming a hot topic, driven as it is by the dual pressures of women’s needs and desires to work longer, and the government’s agenda to encourage more women to start up businesses. In February this year, Industry and Regions Minister Margaret Hodge announced that 1,000 female entrepreneurs would be recruited to help and inspire more women to set up their own business, stating “There would be three quarters of a million more businesses in the UK if we matched US levels of female entrepreneurship. Successful women throughout the country can and must mentor many more women to think, ‘yes. I can do that’ and take the confident plunge to start their own business’.

Of course, one driver for the government’s agenda and women’s own motivation is the thorny issue of pensions - and the lack of - for many older women, who are literally facing a situation of having to work till they drop. This being the case, how much more attractive is that prospect is if you can work in your own business doing things your way, rather than continuing in the hurly burly of life as an employee?

What drives women?

But do women need different treatment in order to encourage them to start businesses, and if so why? Well, yes and no. Whatever their age, women in the self-employed arena have a different profile and motivation to men and it’s worth looking at some of the statistics and details to see what implications they create. For example,

• Far fewer women than men start businesses. According to UK-wide research by Barclays Bank, men aged 55 and over are now responsible for up to 26,000 start-ups a year, and women only 7000.
  
• The latest statistics in 2005 showed that 3.6% of UK women aged 45-54 were involved in enterprise - a larger proportion than 18-24 year olds going into business.
  Most of the one million self-employed women in the UK are in the service sector - older women in particular are more likely to operate ‘lifestyle’ businesses which have evolved from hobbies, re-training, or their own personal development (for example, therapy or treatment businesses, arts or coaching).
  
• 95% of women business owners run micro-businesses, with fewer than five employees. This means they can feel they have little common with ‘entrepreneurial’, growth-focused start-ups.
  
• Although self-employment is held out as an attractive life-style for women with child-rearing responsibilities, it is often the fact that women only feel they can devote the time and energy required to develop a business once their children have left home or are relatively self-sufficient.
  
• Motivation differs between women and men. The most important motivators for women starting businesses are a sense of freedom, financial independence and the challenge of entrepreneurship, according to the most recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report.
  
• Often older women experience a post-menopausal drive for achievement and self-fulfilment which they may have felt they missed out on in their earlier lives due to the restraints of family life. They are looking at broadening their horizons and doing more at a time when males may be focusing on winding down to retirement.
  
• Many older women who start businesses are single (perhaps relatively newly separated or divorced). This often gives them the sense of freedom they need, although lack of financial back-up and the risk of failure can prevent them embarking upon starting a business.
  
• Although they are highly committed, women lack the confidence to ‘tough things out’ when times get hard. Research shows that compared to their male counterparts, more women than men close their businesses in the early years when times get tough.
  
  

A recipe for success?

Overall, statistics show that in the UK, women at any age are less than half as likely as men to be involved in start-ups. But is this a result of impenetrable barriers to entry? Does this mean that older women need special treatment and priviledges? I tend to think not. By and large all that older women need is:

• To believe in themselves– it’s generally in the area of confidence and risk-taking that women perform less well compared to men.
• To find realistic mentors and role models as evidence that ‘it can be done’ - and done by ordinary women, not high-powered celebrities.
• To have a benchmark of successful entrepreneurship amongst older women (or any women) as being the norm, rather than the exception.

Far from thinking that they ought to fade gracefully into the background, many over 50s women are grasping the opportunities to fulfil their personal ambitions and make a success of themselves at an age when many men are happy to wind down. But how to go about it if you do lack confidence, don’t know any women over 50 who run their own businesses and don’t know whether you’re up to taking the risk?

The way forward

If you’re a woman over 50 and you want to start a business, the most important thing is to start to make the idea real. Find out more. Push the boundaries of what you think you will be able to do until you find the real barriers that might stop you (not just the imagined obstacles that exist purely in your mind). Research, talk to people, find case studies. If it’s been done before, it can be done again – you just need to find out how.

To help you there are numerous sources of advice on starting a business both for women and for the over 50s (several are listed at the end of this article and more can be found at www.inmyprime.co.uk). Similarly many books, publications (including this one) and websites exist for business start-ups – make it your mission to access as many as possible and find out all you can.

There’s nothing like reality for firing inspiration. I often speak to women over 50 who have started their own businesses and I’m bowled over by their enthusiasm, commitment and passion to succeed:

‘I’m fulfilling my dream’;
‘My business is my passion’;
‘It has taken me until my fifties, but finally I have found what I want to do’;
‘I plan to work till I drop – why would I want to retire?’

What they also say are things like:

‘I couldn’t have done this when I was younger, I just didn’t know enough about the world’
‘Taking risks doesn’t seem so scary as it once did, now wanting to succeed is more important than my fear of failure’
‘I no longer have the time to put off my ambitions. If I don’t believe in myself and make it happen now, it never will.’

So. the message emanating from these and many many similar comments seems clear. In order to be successful in business as a woman over 50 you need to:

• Ask questions and listen to the advice of specialists and those who have been there before you - but don’t feel you have to take it all.
• Get over the fact that you’re over 50, a woman, are too short, too tall, or whatever else you feel might prevent you from being successful - and just concentrate on you and your strengths.
• Only start a business based on something you’re passionate about. If you love what you do, your boundless enthusiasm will break down all barriers.
  Being half-hearted will never be good enough - believe whole-heartedly that you can make a go of it, persevere through the bad times, and you will succeed.

[Published in Start you Business magazine July 2007]