We talked to Frances Wright, founder and Managing Director of Trinitas Consulting (Pty)

Two family members are discussing career options. One is a manager in a corporate and the other owns her own business. The manager says that she is thinking of starting her own business because she needs more time with her children. The entrepreneur laughs and tries to remember when last she managed to fit in any family time between running the business and furthering her studies so that the business world would take her seriously as a businesswoman.

It is not that the world has not caught

up to the fact that woman are holding their own in business, it is the challenge of still having to cope as wife, mother and housekeeper while maintaining friendships and some sanity in the process of establishing and building a business. Is that at all possible? Well of course it is; we are woman after all. But whether you are a woman or a man, business is challenging. It is about managing a number of

variables simultaneously, identifying which variables you can control and which you need to work around. For a woman, it is not just the macro - and micro-business environment that she has to consider; it is also work and home life, it is procuring for the business and buying groceries for the home, it is about motivating your staff while helping children with homework.

During a recent literary study it was

found that there are eighty eight variables impacting on business success. When talking about business only, there are many issues that have to be managed and controlled. When personal and family life is added to that, it becomes more complicated.

Why then do we do it? According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report of 2007, entrepreneurship in low and middle income countries is mostly need driven, thus people are starting businesses despite little or no business experience. Only 3.6% of entrepreneurial businesses in South Africa show growth potential and most do not become employers.

Despite the fact that entrepreneurial

activity is needs driven, successful entrepreneurship is still a major contributor to the alleviation of poverty and creation of employment opportunities. In the White Paper on National Strategy for the Development and Promotion of Small Business in South Africa (1995) it is stated that small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMEs) assist hugely to address the challenges of job creation and economic growth in South Africa. SMEs play a vital role in absorbing labour, penetrating new markets and generally expanding economies. But still, what is in it for the entrepreneur and, especially, for female entrepreneurs?

August 2011 | Management Today 105

Many entrepreneurs are experiencing the pain of balancing work and personal life, while trying to build the business and face all the challenges the business world bring, such as; cash flow problems, employee conflict, client satisfaction and corporate governance. The pain of entrepreneurship and management of a business is a constant and has to be tolerated by the entrepreneur. The one characteristic that will separate the survivors from the 96% of entrepreneurs that fail is tenacity and the ability to tolerate the pain.