"These first results from the pilot of the Key4Women Confidence Survey, elicited from the W-Biz Insight panel, provide an interesting snapshot of how a varied group of women business owners are responding to the challenging economic climate," said Gwen Martin, PhD, director of research and interim executive director of the Center for Women's Business Research.
The W-Biz Insight panel is a diverse group of women business owners, including new and veteran business owners from a range of industries, whose companies have annual revenues from less than $25,000 to more than $15 million. The companies range from being sole proprietorships to those with more than 100 employees. The panel includes, but is not limited to, Key4Women members.
"By getting a better sense of what women business owners are thinking and doing, we can better identify, track and respond to emerging trends, and provide information to support programs and policies that benefit women business owners," said Beverly Holmes, chair of the Center for Women's Business Research.
Conducted in the last two weeks of April, the survey polled 400 members of the W-Biz Insight panel. Eighty-four women business owners completed the survey. The Center plans to conduct the Key4Women Confidence survey twice a year, with the second 2009 survey in the fall.
"We believe that the W-Biz Insight Panel and the Key4Women Confidence Survey will over time provide important benchmarking information," said Maria Coyne, executive vice president and founder of the Key4Women program. "With more than 10 million women business owners in the United States, this is an important segment of the business population, and their opinions are important to us as we develop our programs and services."
"One of the things we found in this inaugural survey is the recession is prompting this group of women business owners to refocus on business basics," Coyne said.
For example, two-thirds of responding women business owners said they are watching their cash flow much more carefully over the past six months and 42 percent said they are collecting receivables more aggressively.
Additional highlights from the survey include:
- Nearly 11 percent of responding women business owners increased the average selling price of goods and services during the first quarter of the year, while 25 percent decreased their average selling price during the same timeframe.
- The majority (73 percent) of respondents plan to keep prices the same during the next three months, while 11 percent plan to decrease prices and 17 percent plan to increase prices.
- Nearly 18 percent of responding women business owners decreased the number of people they employed during the first quarter of 2009, while 13 percent added staff.
- More than half of the responding women business owners said they have not sought credit since September 2008, likely reflecting a tendency of many business owners to pull back during difficult economic times. Nearly 17 percent of responding women business owners were able to get all or most of the credit they wanted in the last seven months and 20 percent were unable to get any of the credit they wanted.
