Starting Up : Finances: A nonprofit program targets women--especially minority women--and provides practical help and emotional support when they set up their own businesses.
Judith Luther’s listeners may be unfamiliar with the good news that she is delivering, but there is no need to convert them.
Smiling in anticipation, nodding agreement, murmuring approval, the 50 women who crowd the conference room at the East Los Angeles Community Union are ready for the message:
* That women-owned businesses are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. economy and that they fail at a lower rate than average.
* That women are expected to own 40% of all businesses, and 50% of small businesses, by the year 2000 and that the Los Angeles area has the largest concentration of women-owned businesses in the country.
* That there is room for them in the business world and that, shaky economy or not, it is time to get started.
Best of all, Luther says, only eight of the 1,563 women trained and counseled in management to date by her program have filed for bankruptcy. (On average, 80% of small businesses fail during their first five years.)
“You don’t have the time or the money to get an MBA,” she second-guesses the audience. “But you’re going to get a lot of information here. You’ll come out with a good business plan so you’ll succeed. And you’ll have fun with it. And,” she concludes, smiling broadly, “you will pay your taxes.”
Welcome to an opening session of “Starting Your Own Business,” a course designed for present and would-be women entrepreneurs. It, a class titled “Managing Your Own Business” and individual consultation are offered by the American Woman’s Economic Development Corp. A private nonprofit corporation founded in New York in 1976, it started in the Los Angeles area earlier this year with offices in Long Beach.
Funded with a grant from the Small Business Administration and matching contributions from local businesses, the program in Los Angeles has targeted minority women.
Flyers have been printed and distributed in Korean, Spanish, Thai, Chinese; ads run in ethnic newspapers and spot announcements air on ethnic radio and television. Successful minority businesswomen are being recruited as trainers, and the corporation’s high-powered board reflects the same ethnic diversity. The courses, priced at $240, go to the clients and have been held in Long Beach, Sherman Oaks, Glendale, Rosemead and East Los Angeles.
To date, 42 local women, about half of them minorities, have graduated from start-up courses; several graduates already have started businesses.
Recognizing L.A.’s cultural diversity is high on the list and a natural direction for executive director Luther and intercultural relations director Yen Lu Wong. Both worked for last year’s L.A. Festival, which showcased the art and talents of the city’s ethnic groups.
One reason women are increasingly starting their own businesses, Luther says, is that they are “sick of hitting their heads against the corporate glass ceiling. They’re women executives who they aren’t making it in the corporate world, and yet they are competent and creative. So they start their own businesses.”
Not many in Luther’s class, however, fit such a description. Although a few worked in the corporate world--at middle or lower levels--most held lower-paying jobs. As one woman says: “I’ve been too busy making a living all my life to make any money.”
Nevertheless, they show entrepreneurs’ zeal for the future. And, as several are quick to say, coping with the demands of family and jobs, as lower-income mothers, has brought out their entrepreneurial skills.
The class includes a woman with the title of administrative assistant who is treated as a secretary and who is ready to open a desktop publishing and secretarial business; a nurse working 12-hour shifts who has “no business experience and a cookie recipe that was handed down to me”; four women from Security Pacific Bank, recently acquired by Bank of America, who have not lost their jobs but who say they “see the handwriting on the wall”; a paralegal working for a law firm who figures that she can make a business out of such services as processing uncontested divorces, name changes, restraining orders; an occupational therapist specializing in hand rehabilitation who wants her own clinic. (Because most of the women are employed, few want their names used.)
Maria Ortega, who has done factory work here for 13 years, tells of her recent history: “Last year I lost my husband, my mother, my sister and my job.”
She describes her plan to start a cake decorating business. Cake decorating is no lifelong hobby. Rather, when she applied for unemployment, the Employment Service found her a job in a bakery. She discovered that she liked the work, enrolled in a cake decorating class at the Wilmington Skills Center and has won five awards.
With her eyes on the future, she says, “I have good memories of my husband. My son is 16. He is very honest. It’s just him and me now. I’m 50, and I’m proud of that. I feel 35, and I have lots of energy.”
At 19, Silvia Rivera is one of the youngest in the class. She graduated from Roosevelt High School last June and is turning her talent for flower-arranging into a business. Supporting herself with a part-time job at Dodger Stadium, Rivera buys flowers at local shops, she says, until she can get her florist’s license. Her youthful spunk draws applause from her classmates.
David Lizarraga, a board member of American Woman’s Economic Development Corp. and president of the Community Union, welcomed the women at the beginning session: “This is not only a business you’re involved in, it’s a cause.”
The class combines high-minded goals--like Lizarraga’s admonition--and inspirational pep talks with hard-nosed reality.
“Women do not have the experience,” Luther says. “They have not been encouraged to get MBAs. They have no collateral. Most are financed by families or friends. Businesses, banks and corporations are run by men, and they have not viewed women seriously as business people.”
Women have been socialized to think small, to fear success and to think in self-sacrificing terms. They have to fight that, various speakers tell the class.
“Think of how many people you’ll provide jobs for,” says training director Carol Zavola Laidlaw. “It’s a different kind of leadership. Start by empowering yourselves, and you’ll empower others.”
In addition to societal and historical hurdles, there are the personal difficulties anyone faces when going out on a limb. Laidlaw exhorts them to think twice, “to think of business within the larger context of your whole life. What do you want for your whole life? This should be fun. You may not have--at this time in your life--that special energy. You have to be a risk taker. You’ll have sleepless nights, lying awake at 3 and 4 a.m. Balance is tough for entrepreneurs.”
Later, Luther says: “We want to make sure they aren’t hobbyists.”
During the classes and individual interviews for each prospect, students learn of the hard work ahead: basic finance and record keeping, banking relationships, insurance, business law, sales techniques, marketing, advertising and public relations.
The women tend to weed themselves out during the interview process, Luther says. They may need the security of a regular job and paycheck.
“If a woman indicates during the interview that she has so much going against her--a stressful time in her life, a husband who’s against it,” she adds, “we may say, ‘This might not be the best time’ ” to go into business. (About 40 women, mostly minorities, from the East L.A. session later enrolled in the class.)
Yen Lu Wong, who had run her own theater and dance company for 18 years, went through the course earlier this year with an eye toward eventually going into business.
“This time I want to do it right. No more shoe boxes for receipts,” she tells the class, which responds with loud and knowing laughter. “And I want to be wealthy. I don’t want to work from 5 a.m. till midnight and at the end of the year find I didn’t even break even. And I want a wonderful support group.”
The support, Luther says, is one of the courses’ best rewards; the women stay in touch, informally networking from the start. “We have a hard time getting them to leave the parking lot after sessions,” she says.
Still, Laidlaw encourages the class not to be reticent about wanting to make money. “Forget apologizing,” she urges them. Burying her chin in her chest, shuffling and mumbling, Laidlaw mimics a woman obviously recognizable to many in the room: “Oh, I want to make a little money on the side.”
When the laughter dies down, she adds, “If you’re not in it to make money, either you’ll fail or make just enough to drive yourself crazy.”
