Where is the network that works for you?

1 maart 2019 08:26

• Bedrijfsadvies

Since I was the only female business owner in my niche, I was surrounded by men and I found it difficult to find other businesswomen. The instructors who worked for me were also mostly men. 30 years ago, I was always looking for businesswomen, but I couldn’t find many. I wanted to know how women grew their business, what their challenges were. When I listen to the kind of challenges they were facing, I realised that were no challenges at all. When I compared myself with most of the businesswomen, I met I had to conclude that they were lacking ambition and their business strategies were not scalable.

For these reasons I focused on networking with men. They had bigger businesses, had clear goals, they knew where they wanted to go, and my way of doing business matched theirs. When I won a prize for the best female business owner in The Netherlands, someone offered me a membership to a businesswomen’s network. Finally, I met one or two like-minded business women.

Women who run an office, employed staff and made a commitment for their business. I never knew you could be self- employed. I couldn’t call it business. Yet, most of the women I met were working for themselves and called themselves business women. I wanted more than that, so I decided to quit with this. 22 years later when I sold my business and had to start all over again, I wanted to find a good network of powerful businesswomen. But everywhere I went, I couldn’t find the support I needed, and the only business owners who owned a really successful business were all men; and they weren’t prepared to offer me any help. Statistics show that in The Netherlands only 20% of the businesswomen have an annual turnover in excess of 100.000 euros.

The special magazine that Tineke made, with many stories of members from all over the world

Business women’s networks started to be more popular, but I only came across with start-ups and women who work for themselves, again. How long does it take for business trends to change? After many disappointing networking events, in November 2017 I decided to start a network for powerful businesswomen, who, like myself, want to grow, scale up their business and have big goals. The Powerful Business Women’s Network is designed to serve two biggest wishes: make meaningful connections with like-minded women and support each other, grow their business and make an impact internationally.

The initial launch in the Netherlands was a success. I was thrilled to see the need for my unique solution. Members really appreciate the support they receive during our meetings and the hot seat sessions are very popular as each participant can ask for help for the challenges they face.

Few month later we launched a new chapter in Switzerland (Zürich), and on our first anniversary, we launched a new location, in the financial capital of the world, in London. At present we focus on growing the local groups and expand further in Europe, to make connections with more powerful businesswomen visit our website.

PowerfulBusinessWomensNetwork.com

Tineke Rensen, Founder

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