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Women’s Businesses Booming
by Cheryl Murfin Bond

Seattle publisher Assunta Ng remembers clearly the moment the entrepreneurial spirit whispered in her ear.

It was during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, as she watched Chinese immigrants in Seattle stand in long lines to get their hands on a copy of a Chinese-language newspaper shipped up from San Francisco.

“At that time, immigrants were relying too much on gossip for local news and had nothing for (broader) issues,” says Ng, a former schoolteacher who launched The Chinese Post in 1982. “I wasn’t thinking about making money or any other profitable motive. I saw a need, and my desire was to serve.”

More than 20 years later, Ng’s publication continues to be a trailblazing success. The Chinese Post is the only newspaper in the nation published in two separate editions: Chinese and English. And it is the only Chinese newspaper in the country with a paid subscription.

A year after first publishing the Post, Ng introduced Northwest Asian Weekly at the request of other Asian communities. Together the papers reach an audience of 15,000 and are considered a must-read for Asian business and community leaders.

Ng, who was recently given a University of Washington inaugural Hall of Fame for Communicators award, has succeeded where four groups of men tried and failed.

Women-Owned Businesses Booming

Thirty years has meant big change when it comes to women and entrepreneurism in Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region. In 1973, when the Seattle-based Women-Owned Business Owners organization started counting heads, a mere 1,000 companies in the region were owned fully by women, or equally held by women and men. Today there are more than 70,000.

In fact, the spirit is alive statewide. Today in Washington, businesses that are owned 50 percent or more by women make up 58 percent of privately-held businesses – more than in densely populated, commerce-heavy states like New York where 40.3 percent of businesses can claim to be women-owned. Washington also outdistances California, Illinois and Texas.

“This area is definitely more progressive than other parts of the country and that helps women and minorities in terms of starting businesses,” says Mina Yoo, assistant professor in the University of Washington Business School’s Management and Organization Department. “The people here are more willing to try new things and are just as likely to go to locally-owned business than larger mainstream businesses.”

The majority of the 70,000 Puget Sound area’s women-owned firms are in Seattle, Bellevue and Everett. This fall, Wells Fargo released its biennial review of female business ownership and found this metropolitan area was among the top 10 in the nation, based on numbers of women-owned firms, employment and sales. In 2004, these Washington businesses employed 253,769 workers and generated more than $35.5 billion in sales.

There are some safe generalizations about women and business, and a library of books dedicated to them. Among the chief reasons for the growth: The economy generally dictates that two incomes are needed to support a family, the female citizenry is more educated than ever before, and there’s been a huge shift in strictly defined roles for men and women at work and at home.

However, the real reasons for the tremendous growth in the Puget Sound may be as plentiful at the number of businesses themselves. “Women who are sole proprietors or self-employed often cite freedom and the ability to accommodate their family’s and children’s schedules as key reasons for starting their own businesses,” says Eva Chiu, owner of InfoAdvantage, LLC, in Bellevue and current president of Women Business Owners.

Sharing Risks with Men

That’s about as far as you can draw the gender difference line, Chiu and others agree. “I have found that women who have employees started their businesses for the same reasons men do,” says Chiu. “They have specific expertise, industry knowledge and/or skills sets, see an opportunity or feel passionate about providing certain products or services, and feel they have what it takes to create a business. They take financial risks just like men – mortgaging their homes and taking out loans.”

Studies by the national Center for Women’s Business Research bear out Chiu’s findings.

Yoo is also reticent to place entrepreneurs on a gender divide. However, she offers one difference between men and women employees that contributes to the entrepreneurial drive: “Many, many women don’t feel like they are getting the recognition they deserve when they work for others. There is that level of psychic income that can come by going out and starting your own business.”

That psychic wealth benefits employees as well. Studies have shown that women-owned businesses, by and large, are more nurturing toward employees, more family friendly, more flexible with hours and telecommuting, more focused on integrating new technology into businesses, more environmentally savvy and concerned, and more active in terms of community service.

And, compared to the traditional male-oriented corporate model, women-owned businesses tend to have less separation between the line employee and the CEO, more mentoring among managers and workers, and more fun.

Seattle Woman surveyed 15 business owners to see if their companies reflected trends outlined by Chiu, Yoo and the national research. On the whole, they did.

Work for Yourself

“I just didn’t want to work for anyone else,'” says Joanie Parsons, who started the public relations firm, Parsons Public Relations, in Seattle in 1992. Although she was offered a lucrative job at a major advertising firm in the city, Parsons says, “I knew I could be more creative and I wanted to work on projects that I really believed in.”

A desire to see honesty and ethics reflected in her work was another deciding factor. Her vision also included a commitment to giving back to industries that her firm would serve as well as the broader community, a goal that is being met today through the community involvement program Parsons GoodWorks.

And, ultimately, she wanted to surround herself with a team of employees who refused to go the route of workplace politics and actually wanted to know and support each other professionally and personally. What better way to do all these things than to hire other women? All six of Parsons’ employees are women. None of them, including Parsons, has a title.

“I don’t think I ever set out to hire women exclusively, but there are benefits,” Parson admits. “There is a real compassion here for our clients and for what we are doing at work and away from work. We are all great at seeing the big picture as well as the details. And as a team we are frank and honest. I have never had the philosophy that anything was beneath me as the owner. I’m going to take out the garbage or do whatever it takes to make this company run well.”

And Parsons has done well, running public relations for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show for 11 years. Also among her clients are many of the region’s top garden and landscaping companies, including Molbak’s Mutual Materials and Russell Watergardens.

“We know this business better than about 95 percent of other firms on the West Coast,” Parsons says. “We know it because we get involved with the industries that we work with. We’ve done a lot of pro bono work in the industries we serve.”

That same spirit of giving has built a meditation garden at a home for severely challenged boys, built a turtle-preservation information station in Costa Rica, and raised money for numerous nonprofit organizations through Parsons GoodWorks. In fact, Parsons Public Relations has donated upwards of $150,000 in volunteer time this year, and employees have an unwritten rule that each will bring at least one community service project for all agency participation each year.

Passion, says Parsons, is the key to her company’s success. “I live my passion every day when I come in here. We all do.”

Quality of Life Comes First

For Gwen Weinberg, starting a business in Seattle was as much about craft as it was about being an entrepreneur.

“I didn’t go to business school or read a book,” says Weinberg, a metalworker and co-owner with Anita Nadelson of Seattle-based Three by Three, a wholesale design manufacturing firm. “I started out as a craftsperson who wanted to make things no one else had made. When I came out to Seattle, I found it was a more open environment in terms of starting my own business – the East Coast was just too expensive.”

Still, the desire to go where no woman had gone before in terms of her craft was secondary when it came to deciding to incorporate. “Quality-of-life is at the top of my reasons for owning a business, and money falls down (to) third or fourth,” she says.

Since opening shop in 1995, Weinberg and Nadelson have been on the leading edge of the functional magnet market. Their magnetic photo frames, bulletin boards, wall organizers, bookmarks and other imaginative magnet products are hot items across the country and have been featured in numerous national magazines from Sunset to Teen People. Three by Three employs 19 people, including a staff in Asia where the company runs a manufacturing facility.

“We definitely grew very slowly,” says Weinberg of the duo’s business plan. “We are profitable today, and in fact I don’t know the last time we weren’t. But it’s not because we’ve taken risks. Our philosophy has always been conservative, it’s been baby steps all the way.”

Weinberg wanted the firm to benefit from what she’d learned as an employee: “I never liked being told how to dress or act or when to come in – it just didn’t fit my personality.”

The environment she and Nadelson have created is a perfect fit. “We have very low turnaround here. It’s very much a family feel,” Weinberg says.

Habitude Is Everything

To love and amaze our customers: Is there a more appealing mission? Inez Gray, founder of Habitude Salon Day Spa Gallery in Seattle, doesn’t think so.

It’s what she expects her employees to deliver when customers enter the warm, worn-leather and rustic-wood environs of two of Seattle’s most unique salon-and-spas. Everything about Habitude says relax, unwind, and get comfy – from its warehouse flagship location at the Ballard Locks and the casual, no-uniform style of staff to the come-as-you-are atmosphere.

“Everywhere I worked before starting Habitude, you had to get your hair done to go in and get your hair done,” Gray says of the pretentious salon environments of which Habitude seeks to be the antithesis.

“We cultivate our difference through language,” explains Gray, always the marketer. “We don’t have people wait in the lounge. We invite them to have a seat in the living room that has comfortable chairs and rustic tile. We get them a drink, check in to see how things are going.”

Whatever Gray’s company is doing, it’s working. This year Beauty Launchpad magazine named Habitude one of America’s top 20 salons. And Gray, whose empowering management style has been lauded by employees and business leaders alike, has won the Seattle Mayor’s Small Business of the Year Award, the Salon Associations Community & Fellowship Award and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist recognition.

Gray opened Habitude in Ballard in 1996. Five years later she opened a second facility in Fremont. Today, the profitable business employs 126 people. Much of the company’s work culture is based on Native American tradition and values. In fact, the staff is broken down into “tribes,” which hold monthly powwows to get out their concerns and ideas, cross-sell services and compete for prizes.

Gray believes strongly that workers want, need and deserve a life outside of work. At Habitude, “full-time” is 30 hours per week. “Our management style means they are allowed to stay in the industry and have a baby or go back to school or have another life purpose. And we’ve found that most people who come to work here are making more money with these hours because they are more focused.”

There have been challenges. During the start-up phase Gray was turned down for loans at numerous banks. She was actually asked if she had a husband or someone who could co-sign.

Even in an industry that is staffed and frequented primarily by women, there are hurdles for women owners. Most of the beauty industry’s vendors, associations and manufacturers are male-dominated and do business from their gender perspective. Gray seeks to change that by catering to women.

In 2002, fire destroyed the original, 6,000-square-foot facility in Ballard, making Gray the poster-child of having good insurance and conducting tough, lightning-speed lease negotiation.

Despite that major set back, Gray has never lost sight of the mission. “As long as people leave feeling loved, amazed and understood we have been successful. We make most of our decisions based on that mission,” she says. “The rest is about staying small and connected as we get big.”

Stigmas Persist

Each in their own way, Parsons, Weinberg, Gray and Ng, exemplify the statistics and success common of woman entrepreneurs. But in this more progressive country and state, where women have proven their business prowess in big buck incomes and sales, are women finally equal? Not quite.

It is still harder for women than men to get business loans or investors. Yoo notes that women and minorities continue to be stigmatized as being poorer managers.

Says Chiu: “I often see people hold different assumptions about women-owned versus men-owned businesses. When women introduce themselves as founders or owners of a business, men often ask if their spouse is also involved in managing the business. To the contrary, I don’t often hear people ask male entrepreneurs similar questions.”

When Ng set up her print shop, business leaders in Seattle’s Chinese community scoffed. She had to use her personal savings and both cultural insight and smart grassroots marketing to get dubious business owners to purchase ads. “I couldn’t get a loan from any mainstream bank,” she recalls.

Ng says she’s hung her business success on perseverance, sound management, values, belief in product and a lot of toil and tears. “Things are a lot better for today’s women,” she says. “But you still have to get out there and make your way. You have to make waves.”

©2005 Caliope Publishing Company