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Behind every successful man, there is a woman?

21st Oct 2011
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I went on a client visit today. The client is a husband and wife limited company doing well. Once again I found the interaction between the couple enlightening. It just made me think and has resulted in this blog post.

A major part of my client portfolio is made up small limited companies.  These in most cases are run by husband and wife. My client visits and exchange of emails have been interesting to see the role each party plays in the business.

In all cases the wife appears to play a key background admin role. They do this extremely well. On further thought they do so much more. They tend to steer the husbands in the direction for what would be in the husband’s best interests. By doing this they play such a key role in the husband's success.

My meetings with couples have shown time and time again it is the women who are not embarrassed to ask the most basic questions and the awkward questions. Where this does not happen it is so obvious that the husbands were coached to ask the questions.

My experience has shown that behind every successful man there tends to be a woman.

So what is behind my success – limited as it is. I would say my sisters who have always supported and helped me. Being honest, I was not the same with them. I was too engrossed (selfish) to achieve my own success.

Why is it that women help so much? I think this is because they would like to see close family doing well before they work on themselves?

What is behind every successful woman? Man/Men?

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Replies (4)

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By ShirleyM
22nd Oct 2011 07:59

Success needs support

I'll keep off the men v women for obvious reasons, but I believe that every really successful person has one, or more, 'supporters' helping them.

These may be family, loyal staff, colleagues, ... but it will be 'somebody' behind the scenes who takes care of the day-to-day tedious stuff so enabling the successful person to have time to devote to their 'vision'. The 'supporter' may also work two jobs, just to keep some income going while the 'successful' person starts from scratch building up their dream.

Quite often, but not always, there may be other people who 'open doors' (the well connected), or can apply influence somewhere along the line, ie. the mentor, guide, or canny wife/husband. Finally, a bit of luck never goes amiss, ie. being in the right place at the right time   :)

Yes, FirstTab, I think there is a big army of people out there who help the successful people and don't care about receiving any 'glory' or credit for what is achieved. They may gain from the eventual success of the other person, but even this isn't guaranteed.

Anyone going into self employment, or business, without the support of their family is in for a tough ride. It isn't impossible to be successful without any help of any description, but it makes it a damned sight harder!

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FT
By FirstTab
22nd Oct 2011 10:42

Great response

Thanks Shirley a great response.

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By User deleted
22nd Oct 2011 16:27

Support

Shirley's right, support of some kind is essential, particularly at the start. When I started out my parents were remarkably unsupportive (which in itself drove me on) but I've had a close friend to back me up and be a sounding board. Not sure if the sex of the person matters (though FT's mention of the wife asking the awkward questions certainly rang true and made me smile) as much as the attitude as I'm sure there are plenty of supportive men and unsupportive women out there but having someone to tell you you're doing okay when you're doubting yourself makes a big difference.

What is behind every successful woman? Why another woman naturally ;)

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By carnmores
24th Oct 2011 17:13

when you look back at Artic

one wonders if there were any partnered officers at HMRC

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