National Women’s Small Business Month: Insights on how women SMB owners are finding ways to get creative and stay inspired

After the challenges 2020 brought to small business owners around the world, 2021 has been just as difficult to navigate. With re-openings, ever-evolving rules to follow, and complicated guidelines to adhere to, small business owners still found themselves looking for creative ways to stay afloat.

October is National Women’s Small Business Month, and this year small business owners, solopreneurs, and side-hustlers have taken stock of what is needed for their enterprises to not only survive — but also thrive. Adobe recently surveyed 3,500 small business owners who identify as women across five global regions to measure how they feel about any changes they’ve made in light of the pandemic, where they get their creative inspiration, and how they feel about their future. One thing is clear: creativity is an essential skill for entrepreneurs everywhere.

Changes that are here to stay

COVID-19 has been particularly challenging for women who own small businesses, with nearly 90 percent stating they needed to get creative to weather the pandemic. This creativity took many forms — from restaurants offering to-go cocktails, retailers providing expanded delivery routes, or fitness studios introducing outdoor workout classes — and small business owners had to think on their feet to meet new guidelines and keep customers and employees safe.

A surprising discovery: these creative pivots often led to a new way of doing better business. Most women (66 percent) plan to keep the changes they made as re-opening continues.

Creativity is no small task, however. The average owner spends 9 hours and 12 minutes a week thinking creatively about how to improve her small business. Interestingly, the amount of time spent on creative ideation varies drastically by the size of the business. Solopreneurs are only able to eke out a weekly average of 4 hours and 24 minutes of blue sky thinking, compared to the 13+ hours spent by bosses with businesses of 20 or more employees. Similarly, creativity is contributing to a generational divide. While Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X entrepreneurs are averaging between about 9-10 hours a week of creative thinking, Boomers stick to the tasks at hand, only carving out about 6 hours of weekly brainstorming.

Becoming more digitally minded

With the need for creativity and flexibility only continuing to increase, small businesses have gone all in on their digital presence. In fact, the majority (61 percent) of female small business owners believe their business’ online presence is more important than their physical location.

With brick-and-mortar becoming less and less relevant, sharp social media skills have become a must-have for entrepreneurs. 61 percent of female small business owners say improving their social media skills would be most impactful for their business.

While the majority of women who own small businesses aim to spend over 6 hours a week on social and digital marketing, they still feel like their digital presence is not up to snuff.

Solopreneurs need the most help on the digital front, as 56 percent of them rate their business’ digital and social media marketing as either fair or poor.

83 percent noted that creative design will help them stand out and fuel their business’ success — however, they just lack the time, tools, and training to actually get there.

Speaking of time, it is clear that staying on top of all the many social media platforms at a business owner’s fingertips is a job in itself. 42 percent of entrepreneurs cited posting and managing content across channels to be the most time consuming marketing activity, while creating shareable materials (40 percent) and planning the digital strategy (38 percent) also top the list of time intensive undertakings.

The search for inspiration

While time is often a constraint, sometimes the hardest part about being creative is just finding the spark of an idea. That’s where the internet comes in, as 53 percent of women find creative inspiration for their businesses while browsing social media. Analogue activities also rank highly when it comes to creative fuel: reading books (43 percent) and exploring the outdoors (42 percent) round out the list for sources of inspiration.

Millennial and Gen Z small business owners are the ones feeling the creative #inspo from social media in particular: a majority cite social media as their source of marketing (52 percent) and creative inspiration (58 percent).

A little friendly competition also doesn’t hurt. 85 percent of female small business owners say they are inspired when they see another business doing well online, and it makes them want to up their game.

Reaching their #Goals

Being a small business owner is certainly no easy feat. 75 percent of female business owners acknowledge they face major hindrances to their creativity. Most notably, many cite a lack of budget (36 percent), lack of time (24 percent), and a lack of proper software (22 percent) as the top three blockers to success.

Adobe Sparkis designed with small business owners, solopreneurs, and side-hustlers in mind. The tool gives entrepreneurs the power to create professional graphics, flyers, menus, videos, and animations in just a few taps. Best of all, Adobe Spark’s starter plan is free to access.

Creative solutions are also essential for streamlining a small business’ back office. Adobe Acrobat helps transform tedious paper-based tasks into fully digital workflows so that a small business owner can spend time on their true passion and not on pushing paperwork.

With so much uncertainty still facing small business owners, this month gives us an opportunity to reflect on the incredible creativity demonstrated by women around the globe. Here’s to another year of innovation and putting goals within reach for entrepreneurs everywhere.