As women business owners we are so involved with making our business a success that we may fail to plan for the growth or future of our business. I have listed the top five most significant challenges we as business owners face regardless of size, location or industry.

1. Succession planning. As much as we love what we do, reality is that we will not be able to run our business forever. Caring for a loved one, illness or just plain change of lifestyle could happen at any time to any one of us. Succession planning is imperative to leave the legacy to what you have started.

2. Recruiting and selecting talented employees. I don’t know about you, but I have had challenges finding and trusting the right people for the right job that will do whatever is necessary to help achieve the vision.

3. Retaining talent. You spend tons of money, effort and time training the new employee only to discover they will move on to what they perceive are better pastures. The best way I know of to retain talent is to give incentives to have them stay with you. Everyone has an opinion as to what incentives would WOW someone. I believe if you want to retain talent, you have to give pats on the back and make people feel needed.

4. Providing leaders with the skills to be successful. Continuing education for your future leaders makes them feel important and gives you peace of mind. Whether you send them back to college for an advanced degree, or to Toastmasters to get comfortable with public speaking, the person will feel rewarded and know you are grooming them for something important in their future. They will work hard to prove you right!

5. Rising health care costs. Not all employers pay for health care for their employees. There are a variety of different options out there if you elect to do this for your staff. We spend a lot of money making sure our employees are insured. I believe it helps set us apart and makes an employee grateful.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Professionals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.