When Suzanne Pease worked as a schoolteacher in Illinois some years ago, an involuntary sabbatical interrupted her employment: the school district for which she worked insisted she abstain from teaching for five years after becoming pregnant with her son. Pease chafed at what she saw as an arrogant attempt dictate the way in which she balanced family duties with career aspirations.

Since then, Pease has moved with her family to New Jersey, where she founded the Morganville-based Ampersand Graphics, a design firm specializing in small-business branding. As built her business, she noticed gender-based biases like the one she’d experienced before pervade the business world, hampering female entrepreneurs’ efforts to seek business financing and government contracts.
Over the years, Pease has striven to bring about a business landscape in which gender equality is the norm.

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Entrepreneurs often think about seeking a loan, but too few know what a lender looks for.

In this post, we will offer some guidance for business owners who are confident a loan could help them, and who feel they can cover the interest payments that borrowing entails. Specifically, we’ll offer a view from the lender’s perspective:

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Entrepreneurs who lack the right tools struggle to find success. Photo: Flickr/L. Marie

Entrepreneurs are known for working hard and dreaming big.

Too many, though, focus solely on delivering their product or service while ignoring basic, nuts-and-bolts aspects of managing their firms. Their tunnel vision places their businesses at risk of liability, financial mismanagement, and incurring high fees.

To determine which components are necessary for a business to thrive, I’ve drawn from the experience of the scores of entrepreneurs with whom the Intersect Fund has been lucky enough to work.

Here are the five prerequisites of business success:
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What do you talk about when you talk about your business?

For many entrepreneurs, the answer is the product or service they sell. If they paint houses, they mention how much they charge for a paint job, they talk about the nice materials they use, and they promise to complete the job in a timely manner.

These are all good things to mention, but they fail to sufficiently differentiate a painter from his or her peers. It’s not so hard to find someone who can paint houses for a competitive rate, who uses quality materials and can complete the job promptly.

Wouldn’t you buy from him? Photo: Flickr/Ted Lipien

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