SCORE to host Pinellas Women’s Small Business Symposium

Female entrepreneurs are a formidable force in today’s business landscape, with a recent study finding 42% of all U.S. businesses are owned by women. Recognizing the importance of supporting and empowering women in business, SCORE, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping small businesses succeed, is hosting a Pinellas Women’s Small Business Symposium.

The in-person event, March 21 at Banquet Masters in Clearwater, will bring together 150 female entrepreneurs for a day of education, inspiration and connection to local resources to support their business journey. The event quickly sold out, showing organizers how desirable this type of leadership programming has become in Pinellas County.

“There are several chapters within the southeastern Florida district that do some sort of special function for women in small business, so we thought that would be a good thing to do in Pinellas County in conjunction with a lot of the other organizations that small businesses, like the Pinellas County Economic Development Council,” said Dr. Walter McCracken, SCORE mentor and chapter chair.

McCracken was introduced to SCORE after his business plan was turned down by two banks. He brought his plan to SCORE, where professional mentors reviewed it and gave McCracken pointers on how to improve.

“They gave me very practical information, the kind of advice that comes from experience, not textbooks,” McCracken said. “They must have used at least two red pens, marking it up. But the next bank I went into, I got a line of credit.”

After his positive experience, McCracken joined SCORE himself as a certified mentor in 2016. He said next week’s Pinellas Women’s Small Business Symposium is part of SCORE’s goal to reach and uplift diverse groups of small business owners.

“We looked at, what do people really want to know?” McCracken said. “It’s not our typical ‘How to start a business’ program that SCORE does in our normal workshops. We host over 120 workshops a year, but that doesn’t mean they meet everyone’s needs, so why not try to help people who are looking for help and striving to do better?”

The topics that will be covered at the symposium include: 

• State of business and forecast for women-owned businesses in Pinellas County & FL
• Finding access to capital
• Building a team: Finding great employees who will stay
• Creating a board of advisors
• Negotiating 101: Being your own best advocate
• Balancing your growing business and the rest of your life

Tricia Manning, a Pinellas-based leadership coach, speaker and author, is the keynote speaker at the symposium. The topic of her speech is “Unleashing the confident female leader.”

“Seventy-five percent of female leaders, which includes business leaders, experience imposter syndrome,” said Manning. “I think that speaks to the importance of building a community of women and building connections so we can uplift each other. If you can find somebody who’s one year ahead of you to bring you along on their journey, and then you find somebody who’s one year behind you that you’re bringing up, then we can all be female coaches who are all supporting one another in that way.”

Although registration for the symposium has closed, SCORE offers free business mentoring year-round to anyone who’s looking start, currently owns or is even thinking of closing or selling a small business. For more on SCORE’s mentoring, workshops and events, visit score.org.