It appears to be entirely true that the high-profile image that drives the marketing of Women in Business is largely a function of the central role played in the emergence of the organisation by the popular local fashion personality Sonia Noel. That, however, as the Stabroek Business found out for itself, is not the whole story. The engine that drives the movement is what appears to be a collective sense of self-esteem that the group has derived from her leadership. What is noteworthy about the group is that it appears to function smoothly without the benefit of any burdensome bureaucracy, the engine room seemingly driven largely by the fashion designer’s leadership style.
Prior to sitting down with Sonia to talk about Women in Business, we undertook at least four prior interviews with members of Women in Business. We spread the net wide, selecting interviewees ranging from a highly successful businesswomen who is about to undertake a further multi-million dollar investment in the education sector and an astute trained nursery school teacher with a passion for plants to a businesslike woman running a beauty products store in South Georgetown and a hard-working West Bank woman seeking to establish herself as a service provider in the domestic services sector. These and the others, ‘sold’ Sonia to us as the source that has ‘topped up’ their initial impetus. They are, each of them, commendable examples for the concept of women in business.
Afterwards, we sought an interview with Sonia Noel, keen to understand the unanimity with which they saluted her leadership.
“Sometimes,” she told us, “you have to instill a sense of self through persistent reinforcement.” That, she believes, is probably her most significant input as the prime mover behind the movement known as Women in Business.
She had told us what to look for and we had found it in each of them… self-belief, confidence, determination and a feeling in each instance that they were ‘on to something.’ They had, each, without an iota of prompting, attributed to the gains that they have made up until now, to Women in Business and, in fairness, to Sonia Noel.
What makes the search for the thread that holds Women in Business together like searching for a needle in a haystack is the vast differences between and amongst the women who comprise the group. They range from the Chief Executive Officer of a multi-million dollar private education investment to an earthy but enormously vision-filled woman who is seeking to effect a giant leap forward from serving in a local fast food establishment to establishing her own Domestic Service establishment. It is not customary to find women so different in their pursuits, as members of such an organisation.
It is a question, Sonia says, of “making people feel worthwhile in themselves… of making them feel that there is relevance, even importance in what they do. You get them to look at themselves differently by making them feel good about themselves,” she said during our interview.
Her perspective had been borne out in the outcome of our earlier interviews with the women. The levels of their intensity, their determination to ‘make a statement’ was unmistakable. It was as if, in most instances, the discovery by these women, that they could actually be successful, had galvanised them. It was, as well, as though the further the distance that they had had to travel to get to where they are, the more determined they were to stay the course, to push forward harder.
Sonia explained that the collective journey and the attendant strides that these women have made under the Women in Business umbrella have been a function of the manner in which the organisation is run. There is no pecking order there. It is a matter of affording everyone to feel, equally, a sense of self-esteem. For Sonia herself, it has been, she says, “a matter of “providing leadership.” She puts the progress that she has made down to “always thinking, about what I can do next.”
The challenge of giving leadership in such a circumstance is “much tougher than one might think,” she says. “You have to be aware of people’s challenges and be able to find responses. In business, sometimes there is a whole host of different problems and challenges, like those who have problems with planning, with marketing, with providing good customer service or sometimes with just not having a budget for marketing.”
“One of the issues that came up had to do with creating avenues for women to have events where they can showcase their products and their services. I decided to engage the Pegasus Hotel on the holding of an EXPO for Small Businesses. We got lucky. We got to use the Victoria Lawns. Other businesses chipped in to help us.”
On the day of the Pegasus Women in Business Event, the Stabroek Business reporter had met several of the participants. They appeared ‘lifted’ by what, for some of them was, in all honesty, an unprecedented level of exposure. Sonia Noel, was strutting around in customarily eye-catching attire, pausing to exchange pleasantries with one of the exhibitors or another, or else, keeping an eye on the comings and goings of visitors, quick to recognise representatives from the media then moving to have the exhibitors engage them.
Women in Business has about 60 registered members. Since becoming members they have had exposure to training in marketing, branding, packaging and business management. All of this, Sonia says, has happened “at no cost to them.” The journey, she says, does not end there. Her focus is on pressing into service the various niches in the business community in order to get more for Women In Business. It is time, she says, for there to be closer links between the established business community and what she calls “up and coming small businesses.”
“Some of them will admit that they were in a shell, so to speak, when they became members of Women in Business. I believe that marketing is about marketing yourself as much as your product. You have to have a presence, a sense of self. So we had work to do in that area. The great thing about that is that we worked together. We discovered things about ourselves and we learnt from one another.”
Notwithstanding the pretty widespread view that the high profile local private sector agencies do little to help raise the profile of small businesses, Sonia gives a generous measure of credit to the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) for its role in supporting Women In Business. “There is a sense in which they have been there for us. We are an Associate Member of the Chamber,” she says.
Going forward, Sonia says, the focus of Women in Business will be on seeking avenues through which the women who are part of Women In Business, can benefit “in every way possible,” from the local content benefits to be derived from the oil & gas-related investments that will come to Guyana. The other key ambition is to create a business incubator through which the challenges, “all of the challenges,” facing women wanting to take their businesses forward can be addressed. We will take them as far as we can,” Sonia says.
