Serial entrepreneur Cheryl Williamson is offering coaching and training courses for women 45 years old and up start their own businesses.
AUSTIN, Texas — It’s never too late to pursue something you’re passionate about. That’s the message one Texas female entrepreneur is passing along to others who want to follow the same path.
Cheryl Williamson is a serial entrepreneur who has a variety of businesses and brands under her belt, including being the founder of her own successful magazine, author of several books and founder of Soul Reborn, an organization created to help disenfranchised and formerly incarcerated women.
Williamson is executing a campaign throughout the month of August, also known as “Black Business Month,” that will connect Black women who are 45 years old and older with all the tools they need to start the businesses they’ve been dreaming about.
“The beautiful thing about when you get 45, you’ve already, in most cases, raised children and you’ve made some decisions and now you’re ready to move forward and do that thing that you’ve wanted to do because the opportunity is available,” Williamson said.
Williamson said a lot of woman in the 45-and-up category may be finding themselves at a crossroads. They may be empty nesters, recently divorced or just realizing that they want a change but don’t know what direction to take or how to make that change happen.
Through her “I Am a Millionaire Mindset Academy,” Williamson offers coaching and training to help women realize their strengths and purpose and to offer tips to make their businesses happen. Williamson said through writing, participating and taking advantage of business classes, the women she works with have all the tools to be successful.
“I take them through a series of six weeks of classes, teaching them the art of influence, how to create your vision, how to respond to the things on your vision board. And this is absolutely blowing women’s minds all across the country because they realize that they have everything within them in order to carry out this thing that’s been burning inside them that they may have put off for a few years,” Williamson said. “But it’s never too late to be great.”
The Texas resident said something she tells people all the time is to take advantage of the classes available to them, like through the Small Business Administration.
“What people don’t realize is a small business cannot become big if we don’t support it while it’s small. So we want to reach out and help those businesses that have poured into the communities in which we live, and especially women-owned businesses. We want to help them and propel them into places and spaces where they thought that they couldn’t get into,” Williamson said.
Another tip Williamson shared for aspiring CEOs is to have a board of directors that consist of people who will tell you the truth. Also, find people who don’t mind mentoring and bringing you into roles that you don’t even know are available.
“Do not surround yourself with people who can always tell you why your dreams will never come true. ‘You’re too old. It can never happen for you.’ You want to surround yourself with like-minded thinkers,” Williamson said.
According to a report earlier this year from LendingTree, just 2% or 915 out of the Austin metro’s 44,908 businesses are Black-owned.
Williamson said for any woman considering starting her own business, it’s never too late. She also said you shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for help. She offers everything from one-hour personal development coaching to one-on-one mindset sessions.
