Women run 48 percent of the small businesses in the U.S., but only 2.6 percent of them make more than $1 million in revenue. This statistic gnawed at Nell Merlino, the entrepreneur who created Take Our Daughters to Work Day. So Merlino founded Count Me In, an organization dedicated to educating and connecting women in business through online communities, one-on-one coaching and workshops on business growth. “Women have their heads buried in their desks,” Merlino says. “The key is to get them to look up and focus on their vision and what they’re best at. Then we look at who they can hire to help them get to that next level.”
Leah Brown, CEO of Aten Solutions in Cary, North Carolina, a firm that manages clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies, has already reached the next level, thanks to coaching provided by Count Me In. For years, Brown’s business flirted with the $1 million mark without reaching it. Within a year of joining Count Me In, Brown’s team passed $6 million in revenue, created dozens of new jobs and now has its sights set on the international arena. “My coach is my right-hand partner,” says Brown, who learned to change her thought processes on everything from hiring to administration. “I used to hire people who seemed qualified on paper, but my coach really taught me to hire people who believe in me and my mission as a first requirement.” Brown now enjoys low turnover from a committed staff that shares her vision for growth.
Count Me In’s networking opportunities have meant the most to Vimala Anishetty, president of Environment Compliance Office in Detroit, Michigan, a company that helps businesses satisfy environmental regulations. She felt a powerful impetus to succeed after verbalizing her goal of reaching the $1 million mark in front of a crowd of 500 women at a conference. “I like the idea of huge numbers of women business owners sharing their concerns and goals together,” Anishetty says. “While I know a lot about the environmental business, my knowledge about creating and running a business is minimal. Why reinvent the wheel? I talk to the women in the [Count Me In] community and learn volumes.”
Around the nation, women running small businesses try to do it all: make money, raise children, run families. Merlino works hard to teach women that growth comes not through doing everything themselves but by creating jobs and maintaining better work-life balance. Brown, for one, thinks Merlino’s idea is working. “As women, what we don’t do is take care of ourselves economically,” she says. “Count Me In teaches women to sustain themselves, gives them independence and helps their dreams come true.”
