When I think about being a woman in business, I actually feel like being a woman gives me an advantage because women are used to juggling tasks. A founder, at least initially, must be able to do pretty much everything that has to do with starting up a company. From creating the product to packaging it, pricing it, selling it, financing it…the list goes on and on. 

Small companies are usually also small in staff so the founder wears most, if not ALL, of the hats required to get the company off the ground.  

As the business grows, so must the founder’s ability to identify where she needs help and start building her team from there. 

Women-owned businesses and funding

Recently, I heard a speech from a senior banking executive at a national bank who was also in charge of the bank’s initiative to increase their support of women-owned businesses. She said women are creating HALF of all new businesses in this country. 

Honestly, my first thought upon hearing this was: do women still need extra help in getting their funding requests approved?  In addition to having a working business plan, a decent credit score and perhaps some capital and collateral, in 2022, why would a female name on the application factor into the process?

Yet statistics show that gender disparity is still an issue in the business world. Woman-owned businesses only represent 27% of business loans and those loans were 33% LOWER than comparable businesses owned by men. 

Women’s credit scores were slightly lower, and the average age of their companies is younger. The average woman-owned firm seeking business funding earned an average of $422K less than male-owned companies.  

What these numbers tell me is women are starting businesses, but they may need extra support to help them elevate their companies and compete at a larger scale.  I believe that once someone gets the help they need, they will not only be equipped to reach their potential, but they will also be in the position to support other businesses themselves.

Businesses and Inventors

On February 11th, a person on my team wished me “happy inventor’s day.”  Inventor?  Me?

When I think of inventors, Thomas Edison comes to mind. His saying, “I have not failed 10,000 times – I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work” truly inspires me. Here is a man whose invention literally impacted the world with his invention of the light bulb.

I also think about Walt Disney. A man who was fired from his job for not being creative enough! And whose vision transformed the world by entertaining and teaching people beyond anything anyone could have dreamed.  Walt was credited with saying “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.”  

Colonel Sanders is another inventor and businessperson who inspires me. A tenacious salesman, he so believed in his chicken recipe that he continued to sell it well into his sixth decade of life. 

People his age were retiring and he was literally “just getting started good!” Because of his commitment to bringing his chicken recipe to the world, his chicken brand became the best-selling chicken brand in the world!

A lesser-known inventor hero of mine is Madame C.J. Walker, who was the first American self-made woman millionaire – of any race!  She achieved this distinction back in 1910 when not only was it not common for women to be in business, but it was even rarer for a black woman.

Her gift was that she was a visionary. She knew that if she could get her product into more people’s homes, it would not just help them, but it would provide overall economic empowerment for people.

At the time, there really weren’t any commercially available products to care for black hair so there was no path for her to follow. She knew that even though no one had done that type of thing before, she believed it was possible to help people and to scale her business into a national and international brand.

Madam C.J. Walker truly inspires me because she created a company with a great idea at a time when she couldn’t just go out and get crowd-funding, or a grant, or a loan. She wasn’t born into a wealthy family.  She had to bootstrap and start where she was and she ended up amassing an empire that created jobs for thousands of people that grew a brand that exists to this day.

Imagine how much effort it took to make a million dollars, when her product sold for 15 cents a tube! She had to sell one tube at a time door to door, salon to salon. She had to develop the supply chain, train and recruit her saleswomen, and find distribution channels at a time when there were no commercial delivery systems. 

These are truly heroes of the business world. Their visions contributed to society and impacted the world. 

Black woman inventor  

Do I place myself in the company of an Edison, a Disney…or a Madam C.J. Walker?  Well, ok…yes!  I believe every one of us has been given a special “thing” that has only been entrusted to us.  

Whether it’s an artistic gift, a business idea, a leadership or faith calling, a teaching or parenting assignment…it is something special for the one whom it’s been entrusted to. And the world is literally waiting for it.  

Some have been given great things to bring into the world that many people will notice. Others are more unsung heroes.   I am inspired by regularly taking time to appreciate the women and men who have come before me, who have contributed to making my life better and the lives of humanity. 

Lift Your TableⓇ and my story

What really is entrepreneurship?  It’s about uncovering a need and filling it. We uncovered a simple solution for something that causes pain: tables that are positioned too low for people to stand and work at comfortably. We brought a product to market that wasn’t previously commercially available: folding table risers.   

We started as caterers, and our staff complained about their backs hurting. We quickly noticed that it was because the surfaces they were working at were simply too low. Big cans, cinder blocks, and pallets were just some of the methods our clients had tried to prop up their folding tables. 

But we wanted a product that was safe, sturdy, and professional looking, so we went to work and made our own. Our people loved them. We discovered that other vendors did, too. So, we found a plastics manufacturer to make our product from furniture grade PVC. 

Eventually we figured out how to list it on Amazon.  The rest, as they say, is history. Today, thousands of sets later, they’re sold in all 50 states and two dozen countries all over the world every year with exponential growth.  This is a result of having a need, figuring out how to solve it, and figuring out how to make it available to other people.

Maybe it sounds simple, but it wasn’t easy! In my early career, I was a sales executive for several Fortune 100 consumer products companies.   Whenever I was presented with a new product to sell into my accounts, it was already packaged and priced with an extensive marketing and distribution plan in place to ensure its success.   

But when I developed my own consumer brand, I had to figure out the basics of everything from how to price it, package it…how do you even get that number that’s on the back of the package (the UPC?)  How do you insure it, advertise it and get it into the hands of the people who need it?

Manufacturing Lift Your Table® folding table risers has been a journey and challenging learning process for me and continues every single day. My small but mighty team and I are excited to come to work every day because of the opportunity ahead of us to save backs in every work and school environment!

We are thrilled to become an industrial safety product in businesses and schools. They realize the importance of creating an ergonomically friendly work environment for their employees. That allows the staff to work longer and more productively, with fewer call offs and injuries.

For us, a weekly highlight is reading customer reviews where people talk about how they had to give up a beloved activity (for example, quilting) because they just couldn’t tolerate the back pain and neck strain that occurred from them trying to use a folding table in a standing position. After they discovered our product, they were able to resume doing what they loved.

These stories keep us motivated – just knowing that our product makes such a huge difference in people’s workdays reinforces how important what we do really is.

What is my biggest gift?  I truly believe that it’s almost never seeing a barrier; I don’t have a limit.  Even when something is seemingly impossible, in the back of my mind, I feel like there’s a way to figure out how to do it. And I’m always looking to come up with a way to get better, a way to improve.

When I read stories of other entrepreneurial women and other people over 50 who have done significant things, it really inspires me to know that it’s not too late to make a contribution and I’m not disadvantaged being a woman or because I’m black.  I have as much opportunity as anybody else has.

Black Woman Inventor.  I want to humbly accept the title and personally thank the people who support our brand by purchasing our product and recommending it to their colleagues, friends, guild groups, Instagram followers, church members, and more. 

Their support of this black owned and woman owned manufacturing company helps us achieve our purpose:  to create jobs, be a role model in the community, be an asset to society, and to help people.

Bethany Smith, Co-Founder and C.E.O. of B Team Solutions – The makers of Lift Your Table® folding table risers

Curious about our folding table risers?  Learn more here!

Lift Your Table®…Save Your Back!