The evidence is out there: more women in Canada now own businesses and more women in Canada are now engaged in starting businesses.  The count varies according to who reports what and where.*

But what our brokerage can report firsthand is that more women today are selling businesses and buying businesses:

• The percentage of women clients selling businesses is around 20 percent, and
• The percentage of women clients buying businesses is around 30 percent.
• Other members of the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) have also experienced an increasing percentage of business sales and purchases by women.

I was pointed recently to an online article in Entrepreneur on why women entrepreneurs should consider buying a business. The article was accompanied by a large infographic “Women and Acquisitions” that showed dramatically how only 3 percent of women were involved as buyers and 7.5 percent of women were involved on the buy-side or sell-side of an acquisition.  And of those selling their business 50 percent were involved in female-based niches i.e. home décor, baby and mama. That the infographic was based on a three-year study of women participation in buying or selling online businesses appeared in smaller type.

Raising kids doesn’t come easy. Neither does running your own business.

So, what about combining the two?

No, I don’t mean raising kids AND running your own business.  Many of us do that already.

I mean having your kids run their own business.  Or at least learn the ropes of what being in business means.

I was recently shown two articles on just that.  One was "The Values Entrepreneurship Teaches Children" by Dale Turken;   the other  "Why I Challenged My Kids to Start Companies Before College"  by Ray Sheen.

The key life lessons in Turken's article were: