Career Online Training for Female Entrepreneurs
One organization is offering a career online training (Click here) course specifically for female business owners.
The Small Business Administration recently announced its plan to release "Winning Federal Contracts: A Guide for Women Entrepreneurs," a new online training course meant to teach female business owners about the federal procurement process.
The training course is comprised of a self-paced scripted and audio guide that helps women learn about contract rules, gives suggestions on where to find contracts and offers proposals on how to sell to the government. The SBA already had 2,300 people participate in the training during the first 14 days the course was available.
The course is an offshoot of President Barack Obama's effort to promote federal contracting opportunities to women-owned small businesses and minority-owned small businesses. The overall goal of the training is to enable women to better understand the process of obtaining federal contracts.
"It's designed not only to provide an overview, but also to provide links to resources," Jim O'Conner, director of SBA's small business training network, told Inc. "We covered all the basics in the procurement arena, with particular focus on how to win recovery-based contracts."
The Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, which was established in 1994, requires that federal agencies award at least 5 percent of their federal contracts to women-owned small businesses. However, only 3.4 percent, or about $14 billion, of federal contracts are currently awarded to women.
Therefore, the SBA has been committed to helping agencies achieve that 5 percent goal, and this new training course is part of that effort. The SBA also offers several new outreach programs through its women's business centers to help women understand the procurement process. The organization also is working on a training exercise that is expected to be completed soon.