Small Business

Why are Warren Buffett and other men bullish on women?

Warren Buffett recognizes value when he sees it. His style of investing in high-quality, underpriced companies has made him one of the richest men in the world. Women are an under valued resource who are key to America’s prosperity wrote Buffett in an essay in Fortune.

Do you want to know why some companies are more innovative, more profitable, command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? It’s because they start by asking “why,” according to Simon Sinek, an ethnographer, author of Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action and speaker (his TED speech is among my favorites).

by Mardy Sitzer

Oh how I hate to see ‘click here’ it is so unimaginative, screams potential scam or worse – malware. So why oh why are marketers still relying on ‘click here’ as a call to action?

by Karin Kamp

Nada Kiblawi was born in a refugee camp, lived through regional wars and finally found safe haven and economic independence as an entrepreneur in the U.S.

As a child born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp, she suffered from low self-esteem, despite feeling love and affection from her parents.

Nada’s family fled to Lebanon during the 1948 Arab-Israel war, losing all of their possessions and the land they owned in the process. They ended up north of Beirut, in a United Nations refugee camp, which was meant to be a stopgap solution to their crisis.

“There was no running water in the houses. There were common toilets in another building that were shared by all the refugees. People would wash and bathe in small containers and then take the water out and throw it in the common sanitary,” Nada told The Story Exchange.

If women entrepreneurs want to grow their businesses, they need to network. That means stop behaving like shy little girls: Put yourself out there, especially when the economy is slow.

There’s no doubt about it: women business owners face greater funding challenges than men. A lesser-known fact is that those challenges may be linked to the industries that female business owners are choosing, according to new findings by Biz2Credit, an online credit marketplace. 

When it comes to raising money from venture capitalists, the gender of an entrepreneur matters, According to new research from Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, VCs have confidence in a man with a business background leading a tech company, but not in a woman with a comparable profile. 

by Business4Better (B4B)

The non-commercial community partnership movement produced by UBM plc, released a research report on Tuesday that defines major trends in the way mid-sized companies approach corporate social responsibility (CSR), including plans for community engagement, employee volunteerism and metrics of success. It explores both challenges and opportunities that mid-sized companies regularly face in implementing their CSR programs.

Elite women-owned business -- those earning $10 million in revenue annually -- are growing in numbers almost 50% faster than $10 million business in general and nearly 100% faster than all women-owned businesses, according to Growing Under the Radar: An Exploration of the achievement of Million-Dollar women-Owned Firms, research commissioned by American Express OPEN.

Recently, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stirred controversy by ditching the company’s telecommuting policy and requiring employees to report to the office. While many have criticized her decision because it disproportionately affects working mothers, others believe it may save the struggling tech company from obsolescence. To them, Mayer’s decision is justified if it will help Yahoo’s bottom line.