The Economic Impact of
Women-Owned Businesses
in Tennessee
October 18, 2010
Economic Summit for Women
Presented by: Jennifer L. Rawls,
Executive Director, Tennessee Economic
Council on Women
The Council
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Created by legislative mandate
in 1998
Has 21 Members
15 appointed by Speakers of the
House & Senate
6 appointed by the Governor
Includes 2 Senators and 4
Representatives.
Tennessee Economic Council on
Women
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East Tennessee
Development District
Southeast Tennessee
Development District
Greater Nashville
Development District
South Central
Development District
Southwest
Development District
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Northwest
Development District
First Tennessee
Development District
Upper Cumberland
Development District
Memphis Area
Development District
Economic Council on Women
MISSION
Collect hard data on the
economic status of women.
Promote the importance of
improving women’s economic self
sufficiency.
Help TN women achieve
economic autonomy through
public/private partnerships
SHOW ME THE
MONEY!
Ron Tidwell
Jerry Maguire
Where is the
money?
Every Woman
In Tennessee
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Some good news to report
(we’re not in the 40’s)
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We can still improve
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Level playing field?
From 1997-2002,
women-owned
businesses grew at twice
the rate of businesses
owned by men.
Preliminary Firms, Sales and Employment for Female-owned and
Male-owned Firms, 2007
Female-owned
State
Firms
Tennessee
141,396
Sales ($1,000)
Employer
Firms
Sales
($1,000)
Employment
21,182,703
13,544
18,205,265
125,881
Male-owned
State
Firms
Tennessee
297,455
Sales ($1,000)
Employer
Firms
158,650,329
55,142
Sales
(1,000)
Employment
145,849,552
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, from data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Business Owners
832,027
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
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The number of female-owned businesses
in Tennessee is approximately one-half of
the number of male-owned businesses
WOBs employed only 15.1% of the
number of people employed by their male
counterparts
Women-owned firms generated just
13.3% of the revenues of male-owned
firms
Measuring Economic Impact
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Cash Generation
• sales/receipts/profits
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Salaries/taxes/costs
• employment costs
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Cost of doing business
• materials/consulting/mailing
WHY START A BUSINESS?
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Flexibility of work schedule
Break the glass ceiling/increase
earnings
Follow-through on a business plan or
idea
Alternative to traditional employment
ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY
(KOSBE)
Kaufmann Study
Characteristics of New Firms:
A Comparison by Gender
• On average, both women and men were 44
years old, but men had more years of prior
industry experience and devoted more time to
the business
• More women owned businesses attended
college but men were more likely to graduate
• Women were more likely to operate home-based
businesses and were more likely to be
organized as sole proprietorships, whereas
men-owned firms tended to be LLC’s or
corporation.
• A higher percentage of women than men
felt they had some comparative advantage
• Approximately one-fifth of both women
and men-owned firms were companies
that had some type of intellectual property
(patents, trademarks and/or copyrights) in
their first year of operation
• Women-owned firms tended to start with
less capital (over 60% of women started
their firms with less than $25,000) but
most women and men started with
personal savings.
SO, WHAT CAN WE DO?
• Continue the study of the economic impact of womenowned businesses
• Encourage the establishment of a Women’s
Business Center, through the Small Business
Administration’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership
or other partnerships, in each grand division of
Tennessee
• Increase collaboration and information sharing
between women’s business groups (such as NAWBO
and BPW), nonprofits, governmental agencies and
education providers.
• Encourage the development of rules and enforcement of
federal legislation setting a 5% goal of all procurement contracts
with federal agencies.
• Encourage federal, state and local governments to agree upon a
single national third party certification standard enabling
better security and more opportunity for women to participate in
procurement contracts
• Develop strategies, policies, programs and training that will
enable more women-owned businesses to become employer
firms.
• Encourage data collection, including Census business information
and other governmental data collections, to be segregated by
gender and be more widely available for research purposes.
• Develop generally accepted return on investment
measurements to determine, on an ongoing basis, the economic
impact of investing in women-owned businesses.
"When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an
opportunity. You have the choice. You can
overcome and be a winner, or you can allow
it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice
is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in
the towel. Go that extra mile that failures
refuse to travel. It is far better to be
exhausted from success than to be rested
from failure."
• Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics