How to take your business to the next level

Nearly half of all new businesses are launched by women, yet businesses started by men are three-and-a-half times more likely to reach a million dollars in annual revenue, according to accounting firm Ernst & Young.

The Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women program is a competition and executive leadership program that identifies a select group of high-potential women looking to take their entrepreneurial ventures to the next level.     
According to E&Y the three major hurdles women entrepreneurs face in taking their businesses to the next level are:
Not pursuing outside funding.  A disproportionate number of female entrepreneurs self-fund their ventures, which can be costly and constraining. Budding women entrepreneurs need to focus on building and leveraging their networks to better access funding opportunities.
Staying too narrowly focused. Women business owners tend to spend more time working in the day-to-day aspects of their business as opposed to working on developing their business. Female entrepreneurs should take a step back. Most entrepreneurs don’t have executive management experience, so building skills like negotiation and team management are critical to taking their ventures to the next level.       
Shying away from a public profile. Female entrepreneurs tend to shy away from the promotional side of developing their companies. In this multimedia driven age, entrepreneurs need to have a firm grasp on all forms of media, particularly social media to help grow their client base and create customer loyalty.
There is no doubt the E&Y programme has an impact: A recent study from the Babson College Center for Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership found that revenues of program participants' companies have grown almost 50 per cent per year on average along with a 25 per cent average annual growth in jobs.

(04|2013) Source: Foxbusiness