Do Business Like A Woman

We didn’t ask for help - but we needed it. 

A few months after we launched Sparent, we got a call from Melissa from our accounting firm. She said, “Since we do your bookkeeping, we know that WE are your biggest expense right now, and we don’t want to be the reason that your business fails. We believe in what you’re doing at Sparent, so we have decided that we are not going to bill you for a full year. We will provide the same level of service, but with no charge. And after 12 months, we’ll reassess.” 

That call came at a time when we most needed it. I remember struggling to build our client roster and it was a period full of many doubts as Jen and I wondered if the business was viable. This was a major turning point for Sparent, for a lot of reasons, and years later we’re still understanding the impact of that call and what it meant that the generosity came from another women-owned company.

Every Friday I have lunch with my parents, and among the topics we cover we always talk about how business is going. My parents ran a company together for most of my life and now that they are retired they get vicarious enjoyment hearing about my entrepreneurial adventures, and I benefit from their experience and perspective. 

Somehow my dad had never heard this story about our accountants though. 

“What?! They waved their whole fee? Without you asking?” My dad exclaimed, his face a picture of amazement.  

“We had the same reaction,” I laughed, before continuing. 

The accountants were right, their fees accounted for about 90% of our overhead and we were starting to worry we wouldn’t be able to stay afloat until we got more steady clients. So we gratefully, but also somewhat sheepishly, accepted their offer. Jen and I definitely struggled with accepting their support without feeling like we were failing so badly that we needed charity. But our learning curve that first year was much steeper than we expected, and call it what you will - charity or grace or support, we needed it. And that belief in us, motivated us even more to create the business we imagined. 

Two months later, we closed our first client, and then our second, and third, and so on, to the point where 8 months after receiving Melissa’s call, I called them and told them we wanted to start paying them again. Melissa’s response was ‘We’ve loved watching you grow, but we committed our support to you for 12 months, and we’re going to honor that.

It wasn’t long after that when we received another call from our accountants. This time it was to congratulate us for growing over 400%. 

This is what happens when women do business together

My dad’s face slowly transformed from amazed to thoughtful. “Wow. I guess this is what happens when women do business together, huh? In all my years in business, I’ve never had anyone outside my company care that much about my success.”

He was right. We quickly let go of any negative feelings about accepting their offer because we realized that by accepting their offer, we were going to be able to thrive and provide jobs for dozens of women and business support for dozens of small businesses. But from the accounting firm’s point of view, they were betting on a long term relationship. By not charging us for a year, so we could stay in business, they have now had our business for five years and counting. They also have our business from Move Forward Virtual Assistants, another VA agency we were able to acquire in 2022.  That is in addition to countless referrals we have sent their way. It is an amazing feeling to know that their belief and investment in us had paid off so well.

On less of a spreadsheet level - having them show their faith in us in such a tangible way was an unbelievable morale boost at a time when one was desperately needed. We absolutely credit them with being pivotal in our success in that first year.

We Can Prioritize Profit AND People

As I drove home after lunch, I kept turning over my dad’s words in my head:

This is what happens when women do business together…

This is what happens….

WHAT happens when women do business together?

Empowering, profitable, affirming, things happen when women do business together.

But not just when women do business together, but when women do business like women. 

The magic happens when we choose to do business like a woman. But you don’t have to actually be a woman to do business like a woman - anyone can adopt this orientation toward work and relationship building. 

During Sparent’s five years, we’ve done a LOT of networking, discovery calls, and client meetings, with both male identifying and female identifying persons, and we noticed significant differences in the way men conduct business and the way women conduct business, and we realized that we vastly preferred doing business like a woman, and so we immediately started to articulate what that looks like to help us be more mindful of our business practices and habits. 

What It Means To Do Business Like a Woman

• Building businesses around strong core values and a work-life integration culture

• Prioritizing authentic relationship building over winning and ego stroking.

• Fostering collaboration over competition

• Embracing vulnerability as a strength

• Leading with humanity, and an awareness that work is not life.

• Creating employment opportunities in positive, diverse, and inclusive work cultures.

• Being unapologetic about having and enforcing boundaries

• A reverence for prioritizing people before profit. Profit is important, but not at the expense of exploitating or harming people.

• Respecting other professional’s expertise and processes without offering unsolicited advice. 

• Exercising our wealth, privilege, and influence to lift others up, and be an advocate to those in marginalized, oppressed, under represented, disenfranchised, and vulnerable communities. 

• Build wealth ethically so we can wield economic and political influence. This is how we take down the patriarchy and the systems of racism and oppression that spawn from it.

Powered by Feminine Energy

We have found so much power, success, and profit in doing business like a woman, that we want to do our part to uncouple feminine qualities and characteristics from negative connotations and associations with being less. 

We hope that eventually the business principals we listed above will simply be universal best practices. 

Letting go of business practices built around “doing business like a man” - based on concepts of competition, ego, strength and misogyny, has meant rapid business growth for us, but also a much more enjoyable selling, buying, and working experience. (If only because we spend so much less time having our business explained back to us when we’re selling to women #mansplainingisreal.)

Let’s Write Our Own Rules

We’re done hearing - and accepting - statements like “Would a man apologize? No? Then women shouldn’t either.” Or “Would a man have his kid in the background of a zoom? No?? Then you shouldn’t either.’’ or “If you don’t take control of the conversation immediately, no one is going to respect you.” or “You should negotiate more like a man!”  

We’re done wasting time and energy fighting to be graced with acceptance into the proverbial boys club. 

We’ve started a new club and to become a member you just have to do business like a woman - and if you haven’t tried it yet, we think you’re going to like how it feels and what gets accomplished.

Join Our Campaign! 

• Using the hashtag #dobusinesslikeawoman when you share business success, champion another woman, or see an example of the business practices we outlined above. 

• Tell your own story about a time that you did business differently, or another woman owned business supported you in a unique way, and use the hashtag and tag @Sparentco!

• Be deliberate and conscientious about how you do business, what you accept from your clients, prospects, team members and partners when it comes to how you do business and build your culture to embrace qualities unique to doing business among women.