Welcome to Episode 34 of our podcast, The Executive Edge. This week we have Jaime Gennaro (www.practica.consulting), whose background is in her family business as well as start up’s, ad agencies and digital marketing.

Jaime has a wealth of experience and helps people recognise what is needed to run their business well. We began by exploring what entrepreneurship is. She explained how working in her father’s business had helped her work out what was truly needed. It isn’t enough to have a great idea, you must be willing to take risks and fail. So she believes that many of us have an outdated view of what it is to run a business. Working 80-hour weeks isn’t sustainable for most, especially if they want to have a family.

In the start-up phase, it’s understandable that many of us push ourselves hard. But, the number 1 differentiator between corporates that want to innovate and small business, is their ability to take risky decisions and fail. It can be scary, but you must get over your fear. It’s great to build confidence and go in to a space you’ve never been she says.

I asked what stage should we expand?

Jaime’s belief is there are two schools of thought. One that says do this quickly and invest in your people. Another that says keep it simple. Her belief is that it’s better to wait until you have the income and the cash flow to make this feasible. Men tend to take more funding, taking bigger risks and believe that debt is a natural result of business. Whereas, women can hold themselves back by not taking these risks or borrowing.

“We mustn’t hold ourselves back through outdates beliefs” she says. Instead, be tough enough to charge what we’re worth and overcome self-doubts”.

Rather than looking externally, the answers are often internal especially when it comes to stumbling blocks to our success!