Advice from Women Business Owners

At Athena Legal Solutions, one of our mottos is “you don’t have to hustle alone,” and while this represents the way we work with our clients, it’s about so much more than how we can help you protect and grow your business. We truly believe that connecting with, partnering with, and learning from other business owners makes us all stronger.

"You don’t have to hustle alone”

To that end, we created the Women-for-Women Power Partners Directory. It is a directory of 30+ women-owned businesses that serve and support women entrepreneurs. This directory includes a variety of businesses that serve and support women-entrepreneurs in all aspects of their journey. We have social media experts, website geniuses, brand specialists, finance gurus, coaches for all parts of your life and business, legal advisors, and so much more.

But these women don't just sell services and products. They are also women that you can confidently reach out to, and they will share their experiences and learnings from their own entrepreneurial journey. They are women just like you. They get up every day focused on doing their best, pursuing their passion, and working to make the world just a little bit better place than they found it.

I asked these amazing women what their key words of wisdom are for business owners. Here are some of my favorites.

"Run your own race"

- Laura Gleisner, founder of Mindful Leadership

I did a sprint triathlon. It was my very first one and someone said their advice to me was run your own race. And I think sometimes we can compare ourselves to other people and comparison can be the thief of joy. And I think that's probably the biggest thing is really figuring out who you are, how you want to be. and honoring that and figuring out a way to honor that and not get so caught up in what everyone else is doing. We need to really bring it back to 'Who are you? What are your values? And how does success manifest itself within who you are?' And again, even for myself, I found that working with a coach has really helped me honor that and trust that because it's so easy to kind of see what other people are doing and get into that mode of self doubt. It's important to really be you to find success.

"Love yourself"

- Kerri Balliet, founder of Red Baron Coaching

Loving yourself. I know that sounds so simple, but it's so easy for us to be judgmental of ourselves and to think I'm not doing it right or I'm not doing it good enough. I'm not putting in enough work. I have no idea what I'm doing. All of that. And all of the imposter syndrome or the I don't deserve this. ,All of that really is fear. That's fear that's coming up. And what is the opposite of fear? The opposite of fear is a lot of love,

"Have a mentor"

- Bonnie Watson, founder of Alliere CPA

I think when I first started out, it would have been really nice to have someone who had been in my shoes about five years before. And I actually do have somebody like that. It was someone that I had reached out to when I first decided to go out on my own. And they were amazingly supportive. And one of the first things that they said to me was, you're going to have days where you start suffering from that imposter syndrome, and you don't feel like you're good enough and you start questioning how well you do things for other people. And she had said, 'Call me reach out to me because I will help you with that.' Because that's something that she had struggled with, too. And it's something that I've caught myself struggling with a little bit and it really is nice to have that other person who has been there and done that and they're successful so you know that you can trust the advice that's coming from them.

"Trust yourself"

- Erin Ogden, founder of Ogden Glazer + Schaefer

Trust yourself even more. There were so many things that I was like, 'Oh, I wonder if this is true. I don't know.' And I had so much of my own anxiety and in so many times it turned out I was right on. So just trust yourself even more, be willing to fight for what you know, because it's your business and you know better than anyone else. Listen to what people have to say. But that doesn't mean you have to believe everything they say. Just because they they say it doesn't mean that's true. A lot of stuff that we did is different and I worried 'Is that good or bad.' So I listened to my clients and they said "this is the way to go or this is the way we want it.' So just trust yourself. You are starting a business because you saw a need. And so just trust that and go forward and you'll you'll be amazed.

"Take care of yourself"

- Kiley Peters, founder of Brainchild Studios

Take care of yourself. Entrepreneurship and small business ownership, it's hard. And I've learned the hard way, and I'm still learning. you have to take time for yourself. Whatever is the thing that rejuvenates, you need to create space for that to happen. It will ultimately give back in dividends to your company by doing that. But sometimes there's a lot of guilt complexes, and there's always 1000 things to do and you wonder how can I stop. I know, I'm so guilty of it. But I would really recommend that.

"Seek out partners."

- Jennifer Revels, founder of Revels Consulting LLC

Seek out those partners, resources, and coaches, if necessary, I wish I would have done that earlier in my business. I was really good at the networking part and meeting all the right people and getting the right referral sources. But I wasn't as good at asking for help where I struggle like the marketing and the branding, and some of the technical things, which are not my forte. But I thought 'I can figure it out', However, once I asked for help, and started working with others that are strong in areas that I'm not, it has really led me on a different path. So I wish I would have done that from the get go.

"Build a network"

- Erin Pennings, founder of CopySnacks LLC

I think it's to have conversations, build a network. I didn't understand until I joined accelerator, the value of having a community not just people who I would do business with. That's who I should be talking to not necessarily just sales calls, but just to like start building a network. And what I found with this accelerator that was just for copywriters was that we were having the same problems or whatever problems we each have someone had been there and was like, 'Oh, hey, this is what I did, maybe that'll work for you.' And it's the sharing of ideas. There's so much benefit to that. So I started trying to have a conversation with someone new every week, whether it was another copywriter, maybe it's a designer, maybe it's an attorney, maybe it's someone I've either seen on Facebook or LinkedIn and I was like, what you do is insanely cool and interesting to me. And I would like to get to know you, maybe we'll solve a problem one way, maybe it turns into business, maybe not, but I'm not going into with the plan of selling people on something. There's no peers when you own the company. And so it gives you other people who have either seen some of the business owning challenges, or in my case, seen some of the copywriting challenges and have been like, 'Oh, hey, here's a resource for you.'

You can find video clips of their advice and more on our Facebook and LinkedIn pages.