Saluting Women Business Owners in the Proposal Industry

This week is National Business Women’s Week® — did you know that women own 42% of all businesses in the United States and that these businesses generated $1.9 trillion annually? Our company is majority woman owned. Three of our four partners are women. We don’t even think that much about it anymore.  As owners we don’t have the same pressures as women in larger companies competing for management roles.  Unfortunately, equality in the workplace has not improved as we had hoped, especially in technology. Making the decision to start a business may still be the best way for women to break the glass ceiling. My partners and I established Expedience Software after selling our first proposal software company, Pragmatech Software. I took several years off but I missed the work and my former colleagues.  I learned that our previous product suite, the RFP Machine, had been discontinued.  It was a shock to me as it was an industry leader and very popular. I felt that it left an important need unmet, so I decided to reimagine that earlier product.  I am happy to say my former customers and colleagues felt the same way. I’m proud to lead such a wonderful group of innovative thinkers in the proposal automation space. We embrace a virtual operational model – that means our team is dispersed all over the country, though we share a common passion for helping proposal and sales teams. The ability to collaborate over the web and work from virtual offices means that we don’t have the same obstacles of time and distance that we used to have. I love that freedom and flexibility, which I think is especially important to women. At Expedience, we love working with proposal writers. I am so pleased and impressed by the evolution of the proposal writing profession.  The Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) has done a wonderful job in promoting standards and well-deserved recognition for the profession. I congratulate all those women within our industry who are following their dreams to be entrepreneurs. I encourage them to join the APMP community, network, share knowledge and above all, support each other – because there are a lot of us out there. We’re stronger as a community. It’s never been a better time for women to chart their own path.