I started white water kayaking when I was 18. It’s not a sport that attracted many women, but I was not a very girly woman anyway. I was not immediately hooked to the sport. The first time in a kayak on a wild river was during the Christmas holidays. Imagine how cold it was….I flipped over immediately when I entered the river and I felt as if I nearly drowned, so I was not very keen to go on another trip a few days later. It took a lot of convincing of others, and when I decided to get into my kayak I had tears running down my cheeks from fear. I was terrified. I was the last one to enter the river and the rest was already gone. Here I was in a situation that scared me a lot and with no support at all.
What happens when you surrender to your fear?
I could not stop the damn kayak anymore, so I decided to follow the river. I started to understand the water a little bit so I felt more in control and I could let go of the fear and starting to enjoy it bit by bit.
Boy am I glad that I did this second trip. I did not flip over, did not get cold. I learned to maneuver the damn thing and when we finished, I was hooked.
That’s how it all started
I started my first business when I was 25. And guess where it was all about? Indeed, whitewater kayaking. I took people from our flat country, the Netherlands to the rivers of the Belgian Ardennes.
I started my business on my own with 5 kayaks on the roof of my car. And my clients following me in their car, driving happily to Belgium. I did not have a plan for my business only that I wanted to teach as many people as I could, the sport that I started to love.
My business always grew by the demands of my clients. when they asked why we did not offer mountain-biking, we started to offer mountain-biking and so on. In 22 years, this developed into an international SME that was operating in 4 different countries at 6 different locations.
When the kids came, I did not go away so much anymore, and I started to employ more staff. It was a difficult period because I now had to hire people who did the work I used to do and I also started hiring an office because I could not work from home anymore. My expenses increased a lot.
On the other hand, it also allowed me to start to scale from a one-person business to a real business with an office, a warehouse, staff, vans, trailers, and so on. I was very proud of what I achieved.
It’s going on
In the meantime, my hobby always remained white water kayaking. Every holiday was spent on the river. With our first child sleeping in the pram next to the river when mom and dad were training on a particular spot.
I got selected for the Dutch freestyle kayaking team and became the national champion in 2003. It was a busy and vibrant time. Running the business, raising the kids, and training a lot. Which was often abroad.
Eventually, I sold this business after 22 years because I saw no more growth. When I started there was hardly any competition and we created a whole new industry in our country. “The outdoor and survival industry”. Too much competition was born, and clients started to be more concerned about the amount they paid than about their own personal safety.
The next business was born
I started mentoring other business people to help them to scale up their business because that is what I did myself.
When I look back at it, running a river is very similar to running a business.
Goalsetting for businesswomen
Before you go on a river, you always have to know what the start is and the end. You have to know when you finish when you reached the endpoint. If you et off at the wrong part of the river, it might be very difficult to find your way out, but when you paddle to the end you can get out smoothly and walk to the car that is already parked near the end.
Goal-setting is the same. When you try to stop halfway, you are nowhere, and you might not even know how to stop or when to stop. But when you reach your goals the next goal is very obvious, and you can start all over again smoothly.
When things get rough
When the river gets rough the first thing you do is try to stop and get ashore. You take a distance and walk along the river to find a clear route to navigate.
Often when things get rough in our business we forget to let go and take a distance to find out what is happening. You cannot see a clear rout if you stay in the midst of the roughness in your business. You are surviving. When you do this in a kayak it is like putting your life at stake. So you would not do it, but why do it in your business?
Let go of control
When you want to control everything in your business and are top of it all the time, you are constantly (and often secretly) scared that things will go wrong. You are working hard to avoid things from going wrong. It is so much easier to follow the flow and let go of control See what appears and then course correct instead of preventing everything from going wrong.
When are not following the current in a kayak it is wasting a lot of your energy, you will be fighting the water and that is a foolish thing to do? With a few gentle strokes and with following the water of the river you will get down smoothly and easily and not very tired at all.
Doing everything yourself
On the river, you can’t be on your own unless you like to play with your life. (of course, this depends on your level of expertise and the difficulty of the river)
You always need people to help you carry your kayak when the river gets too
complicated or to post on difficult passages with a safety-line, or even rescue you when you flip over and can’t come back up and have to take a swim. It is pretty difficult to grab your boat your paddle and get all of it to shore when it is very rough. So, on the river, you are always a team. And you need to trust them with your life sometimes.
Why do so many small business owners do everything on their own?
To save money? It is what I thought too when I had to employ someone because my first baby girls were born, but it appears to be a false belief. Because I could scale up all of a sudden because there was more capacity.
On your own you can never paddle on the very difficult rivers, you can only scale up in difficulty when you paddle with others who are there to show the way, to protect you, and help you when needed.
Always find a better person than yourself
It is so important in business that you learn from someone else. Someone who already did what you are about to get your business into. That is the safest, fastest, and easiest way to get better.
Same with kayaking. When an experienced one paddles upfront and you can see the best route, you can follow that is a lot easier than deciding yourself what is the safest route.
And I can tell you in both situations I felt a lot more at ease knowing that someone showed me the way.
Teaching others
I was teaching people to learn how to kayak and improve their skills and now I am a mentor for business people that want to scale up.
I love to support and help business owners with my 29 years of international business experience. It is so rewarding when they take steps and start to grow.
First, we work on the basics and fundamentals. As you do with kayaking, Work on the techniques and the skills and then go rougher.
The basics of business are your:
core values
mission
goals and targets
systems
and procedures. All of this is the foundation you need when you want to scale up.
Spend a lot of time on the fundamentals
In kayaking, it can be very dangerous when you start to paddle too difficult rivers when you are still a beginner. There are techniques you need to practice over and over. And often that is a lot less challenging than conquering dangerous and challenging rapids.
Business owners, men, in particular, like to scale up fast. But when the fundamentals of the business are not right the business can collapse under its own success.
Before scaling up the procedures, the technology, your team, your business partners, the communication, the client journey everything has to be ready. And then scaling up your business is very easy. When more clients come in everything works smoothly and there need to be no constant course corrections. Which are often costing a lot of stress, money, and time?
I remember once that I was really proud that I paddled my first grade 5 rapid and I thought I made it without a problem. There are only 6 grades. So, it was very difficult and dangerous. My mentor corrected me and showed me where I went a little wrong and where I had to course correct a few times, and that I had been lucky that nothing went wrong.
Business owners are proud of course correction, solving a problem gives a good feeling, but what if this is not needed? What if everything goes the way it is supposed to go, because all your fundamentals are in place and everything is working the way it is supposed to be, and everybody knows exactly what to do and say?
Why looking for the adrenaline of scaling up too fast?
Distraction or focus
It is unthinkable when you are paddling a big rapid that you can look around and enjoy the scenery. That is distracting and you could hit a rock that completely changes your direction, or worse it flips you over which makes you very vulnerable. Being upside down in the water is not a good place to be.
So, you stay laser-focused and watch everything closely in front of you what is coming next so that you can immediately course correct.
In business, being laser-focused is not so easy anymore because of all the distractions that are there on your phone nowadays. And yet it is one of the most important skills. Having a laser-sharp focus that is guided by, your core values, your mission, your goals, and your targets, make doing business really easy.
Take good care of yourself
The fitter you are the easier kayaking becomes. I assume everybody agrees to this. The fitter you are, the easier doing business becomes. Why do I see so many businessmen with large stomachs?
Because they need no energy?
Because they do not have to work long days sometimes?
When this applies to you be honest with yourself. Everything is easier when you lose weight also when you are doing business.
When you can’t see what’s coming behind the corner…..
When you paddle on a high level you will often find a lot of big boulders that are blocking your vision. What to do? Getting out of your kayak can be time-consuming. What we do is find out if you can see the next stop down the river where you can paddle to and lay still to find out what’s next. If you can always see just 10 or 20 meters ahead and you are very sure that you can make it there and stop there it is the best way of going down a river. And most often you can continue like this down the whole rapid or the whole river.
In business, it is the same. You set a goal and often you have no idea how to get there. You can’t see it yet. But you can see the next step that you can make. Well, guess what? Make that step, because it is the same as when you paddle down the river. The landscape has changed, you have a new perspective and you can see the next step.
I love this way of achieving my goals. I believe setting SMART goals is limiting yourself. You can’t know exactly which steps to take when you start. Because you can’t see them yet.
Want to learn kayaking from a beginner or a pro?
Everybody would give the right answer and would say: Of course, a pro. Nobody would trust their life to a beginning instructor.
But…. when it comes to seeking help for your business so many business people turn to consultants or coaches who are self-employed and/or have worked years in the corporate world, got their monthly paycheck, and never ran a business of themselves.
They never had to employ or sack staff never had to invest in property to accommodate the business, never had to work in various countries with various languages and different business partners of their OWN. They did not have sleepless nights because the responsibility weighed so heavily. And I can go on and on.
Why are we so concerned about trusting our life to someone and are we less critical when it comes to trusting our business to someone?
Choosing the right business mentor or coach is a serious matter and should not be the first person you meet. Because often they are out there hunting for you.
If you are ambitious and you love to grow your business join our international Facebook group where businesswomen from all over the world share their ideas about growing their business.” And besides that, you’ll get a ton of value of the admin of the group, Tineke Rensen. Check out the website why you should become a member.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
Believe me, initially, every businesswoman had issues with finding the time to work ON her business.
Omitting the appointments, emails, social media and people you work with, also require attention.
And very often then the people from your private life that you would like to spend a lot of time together will get rid of it and that does not feel right.
Just as it does not feel good that you feel that you are not ahead with your business because your to-do list will only get longer.
And when I’m very honest about it, it happens to me too. It is too easy to give all the issues around you in the day-to-day worries. And for businesswoman that is even more difficult than for men, because men can usually focus better.
Not doing enough with the future of your company or making sure that your business is running so that doing business becomes easier and easy to solve. But because entrepreneurs do not make choices about this or do not know how to deal with this, they just keep going the old way.
Two things play an important role in this.
Your feeling and practice.
And what time is meaningful time.
Your feeling and practice
It does not feel right if you do not work on your business. It does not feel right if you are always too busy.
It does not feel right if you think you are not moving forward.
But where do you set the criteria for whether it goes well or not. Is that your feeling or is that reality.
For example, if I look at last month, I felt that it would not be a good month. That’s why I always felt slightly less good. When I came up with the end of the month; is this really true?
Then I started to count. And what turned out to be financially a good month.
I had also spoken to many customers that I could have helped ahead.
A successful trajectory with a loyal customer.
I also gave 3 workshops on all kinds of themes of entrepreneurship.
I had many successful meetings in Switzerland where I found several sponsors for my business network group there.
What then made me feel like it was going bad?
Because after my idea, I did not have enough time to do everything that I wanted to do.
What a bad indicator is that when it comes to how your company is going.
What time is meaningful time for a businesswoman.
Still freeing up the time to work on your company because it will also deliver time.
Every time I do something, I ask myself, do I do this once or do I have to do this more often?
If I have to do it more often, I spend extra time on it and make it a process.
As a businesswoman I think I’ll outsource it next time. If this is the case, I also work that out for the person who takes over. Then next time it is very easy to outsource it because otherwise you will quickly do it yourself in between.
If I do it the next time myself, I have a checklist, templates or templates ready for myself which makes me go faster this time and it will be a routine job.
Can you consider how effective this can be if you have a larger company?
It really pays the time to work on your company. If you do this systematically and make a sport of how you can make it as simple as possible for you and the people you work with, you will see how much more you can do in a year and how much further your company is.
My customers Karin and Jaap also did this. They have always started to apply systems, work more systematically so that they can scale up much more easily and now get more done.
When you are a businesswoman and you want to know more about Tineke
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years.
Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you within your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Download the free report of the thoughrow study: How Women do Business”
Tineke is the CEO of Powerful Business Academy, which is situated in The Netherlands.
email info@powerfulbusinessacdemy.com
phone +31(0)15-7851592
For businesswomen, outsourcing is one of the scariest things to do when they encounter it for the first time.
Businesswomen often feel that they can do best when it concerns their own business.
What a mistake to believe this, I would say. Why would you be the only one who is capable of doing a specific task?
And even when you are the best, you will never be able to grow your business with this kind of work ethic. Chance are that you will be stressed most of the time and feel the pressure of too much work. A time will come that you cannot take on more clients, which is a waste of potential for you and your business.
You might have to work during your holiday, or you might want to close your business during your vacation and therefore you could lose potential clients. I cannot believe that this is a very attracting for-sight.
Why businesswomen Fear of outsourcing?
There is also another thing that hinders women to outsource, FEAR. They are afraid that they will lose control. Businesswomen are afraid that clients will be less happy. And guess what, even when this would be the case, you have to accept this, for you to be able to grow your business. Of course, you put time and money to prevent this from happening.
One of my clients who has a large business lets her private clients walk into the office and she believes that her staff does not have all the knowledge she has, to be able to help these people correctly, so she does this herself. Most of the time this is for spare parts or maintenance. It will cost her 15 to 20 minutes of her time and the average amount spent by the client will be 20,00 euros. It took me a lot of persuasions to let her see that when she continues doing this, she cannot scale up her business to the goals that we have set.
Her time is a lot more valuable than spending 20 minutes for only 20 euros.
What about you? Are you doing the same?
How you value your time is a big issue for women. Which is not only about the price you ask but also about where you spend your time on.
My clients feel stressed because it distracts her from her own tasks, and she cannot get everything done that she needs to do.
I gave her 2 options,
1. Teach your knowledge to some of your co-workers (not only to one, because when this person leaves, you still have the same problem. It makes you and your business vulnerable)
2. Only have a few opening hours per day or even per week for such kind of questions.
And you have to know that we are changing the focus of her business to a different target audience. From less private clients to working with bigger groups. Because it costs the same amount of time and brings in more money. So why keep spending time to private clients who are walking into the office and distract you. Because women will give everything for happy clients. And that is a great treat but not when it stops you from growing. Because when you grow your business you will get more happy clients.
The proposals are too complicated I cannot outsource that
All of my clients that are in the process of scaling believe they still have to make the proposals themselves, because they know best how to do this, do it the quickest and every proposal is different. I always argue about this.
When you are scaling, more proposals will have to be made which takes even more of your time.
There are always a lot of parts in every proposal that is the same.
You have to capture those parts and standardize them.
The next thing is looking into past proposals for parts that you can re-use.
If you copy and paste all of those things in your standard proposal and take some extra time once, to write a paragraph about everything that your business can offer, it is simply a matter of deleting parts in your proposal. And what’s easier to outsource than that?
Everybody can change the name, the address, the date, and delete everything you tell them to do.
You can even systematize this. Have one page where you add the things that need to be added. And tick the sections that have to be deleted. You can then add this task to someone else task list. It will cost you only 5 minutes instead of over 1 hour.
There are so many things that you can systematize in your business and that is essential when you want to grow.
The problem is that most businesswomen don’t see this because they have always been doing it the same way. And you can’t know what you don’t know. When you want to grow your business, getting the right help is key!
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-around business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
When you’re making a business decision, how long does it usually take you to arrive at a definite answer? I’m asking because I’m noticing a distinction between how businesswomen and businessmen make their decisions. Men will almost always provide a “yes” or “no” answer to a straightforward question. Women, on the other hand, would take much longer.
I get it. We women usually have a lot to consider. Most of us want to make a decision when they have the time to think about all of these. We want to make decisions once we possess all the information so we can make the right decision. We have a lot of doubts. Sometimes, we want to be in the right state of mind, and we wait for the “right time” so we can properly think about all the factors.
And I understand why women feel this way. Making business decisions carry a lot of weight, especially if you want your business to grow and be successful. And as a female entrepreneur who is the main business decision maker, that’s a huge burden. Business decision making, no matter how big or small, can be the difference between success and failure.
I am a woman too. However, I typically make fast business decisions. I usually cannot understand why deciding should take so much time. Usually, as a business coach for female entrepreneurs, when I tell a client to do something, she had already thought of it. What she didn’t do is take action towards it. She needed to hear me first as a second opinion.
Business decision making can be hard, but it does not have to be like that. It becomes hard because people love to know the outcome before they make a decision. That’s, unfortunately, not how it works. I, myself, have to make robust business decisions each day. It’s part of running a business, or shall I say, what keeps you in business.
While business decision making has a lot to do with scaling and growing your business, it’s only one of many areas you need to work on if you want to be successful. There are 9 major areas in your business that need constant work. You can learn all of them in my system, “The Women’s Blueprint to Business Success.” Making business decisions is a sub-area of Area 1, Mindset.
I have run my own business for decades, and through all that time, I have come up with a solution in business decision making where you can predict the outcome to an extent. And though absolute, 100% certainty is not possible, it still goes a long way to helping you make sound business decisions.
Here are three things you should consider:
1. When making a business decision, don’t let limiting beliefs get in the way.
Female entrepreneurs have many thoughts running through their heads when they make decisions.
“First I have to resolve this other thing so I can make this decision. I’ll come back to it.”
“I need to discuss it with my team first.”
“I am not the right person to deal with this decision.”
These are just some of the false thoughts and beliefs that businesswomen have when they don’t want to make a decision. What I see here is doubt and fear, and they are not true unless you believe them to be true.
What happens when you delay or avoid making business decisions? Somebody else takes that opportunity. Your momentum is lost because of the time it took, and circumstances have changed. So don’t wait too long and don’t make these mistakes.
2. In business decision making, making no decision is also a decision.
When you don’t make a decision, a decision will be made for you. Will that the right choice for you? That’s the question. Not making a decision in the least is letting life take over. It takes your power away. It is not a good method of doing business.
If that’s the method you use to make your business decisions, you need to work on yourself and help yourself. It will also be good if you find help and support from others. Make sure you’ve got a business buddy, coach, or mentor––they’ll provide you with the support you could need. They have no alternative agenda than your prosperity and helping you surpass your limiting beliefs.
3. Listen to your intuition when making a business decision
A woman usually has excellent intuition. We have that gut feeling and somehow, we know. Only when she has not learned to concentrate on that inner voice that she often decide to ignore it.
This inner voice is always a voice that empowers. It never tells you that you simply cannot do one thing. Or that you are too young, too old, not good enough, or adequate enough or it is not the right time. If that’s what you hear, it’s not your intuition. It’s your limiting beliefs talking to you. Learn to trust your inner voice or your intuition.
4. When you have to make a business decision, ask yourself these 3 questions
The trick for female entrepreneurs when making a business decision is to ask themselves these simple questions:
What is the most positive outcome?
What is the worst attainable outcome?
And what is the most probable outcome?
These 3 easy questions will clear your mind and help you to be centered, declare your doubts, and help you make a quick decision. Once you’ve answered these 3, count back from five to one, and decide without hesitation.
Summing it up
Business decision making is crucial. They can make or break you. But as female entrepreneurs, we can train ourselves to make them quickly and easily. And if you need help, you can always enlist the support of a buddy, a group, a mentor, or a business coach for women such as myself, to guide you in making business decisions that bring you success.
It’s important to note, also, that making business decisions is just one of the many areas you need to work on when you want to scale and grow your business. In total, there are 9 areas with 45 sub-areas, all of them equally essential to making your business truly successful. Learn more about these areas in my system, “The Women’s Blueprint to Business Success.”
Learn more
My name is Tineke Rensen and I am a business coach for women. I created the system “A Women’s Blueprint for Business Success,” where I work with female entrepreneurs in 9 major areas in their business.
There are many out there who call themselves “business coaches” but have never had their own business. What you need is a business coach who has experience in scaling and growing businesses. And I’ve had plenty. In my 31 years of experience, I’ve become an expert in many areas, and I can help you with whatever topic you need help with. Because it NEVER is about changing just one thing that’ll pivot your business around
If you want to learn more about what makes a good business coach for women check out this article about the 20 questions you should ask a business coach for female entrepreneurs.
Interested to learn how you can work with me one-on-one to build your one-woman gig to a proper business and double your income within a year? Click here now to schedule a quick 15-minute call with me and get started.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
60 % of the female business owners do not make a financial plan.
It is therefore not a surprise that 35 % of the female entrepreneurs have less than 25.000 euro turnover. You cannot call that a business!
In 2016 I studied female entrepreneurship because there was so little to be found on the internet about women in business, in my country Holland. I questioned nearly 400 self-employed entrepreneurs and business owners.
Some of the results shocked me. (if you are interested in the total report, you can download it for free here)
I remember very well that I was well on my way as a business owner when I made my first financial planning. It was after 15 years that I decided I needed to make one.
So you don’t need to tell me that it is possible to run a business without and my business was making a profit. Although that always was a lucky surprise to me. But I can also tell you how stupid it is not to make one. Only when I started making financial planning I realized how much it helped me to gain control over my business.
It gave me more confidence, I had a tool which I could monitor. I now felt like a real business owner.
Why did I not make financial planning earlier?
Maybe you recognize some of my reasons as one of your own?
In the beginning, I did not even know that as a business owner you were supposed to make a financial plan.
I had no idea how to do it?
I postponed it and told myself I had no time and I was making a profit so why bother.
I did not want to admit to other business owners I did not do it and that I did not know how to do it.
I felt stupid for not making one. It seemed that all the other business owners I spoke to did make a financial plan.
The biggest mistake many entrepreneurs make for financial planning for business
They outsource their finances, which is totally fine. But this is also the reason why, often, they have no clue how they are doing financially.
I am a firm advocate of outsourcing whatever you are not good at or what you don’t like to do.
But you need to know your numbers.
Usually, a bookkeeper does what you ask them to do. So you need to know what to ask.
Most female entrepreneurs
Do not know how to read their annual financial report
Get their financial report far too late when the next year is well on their way. Sometimes even as late as November!!
Do not understand that when they make a profit, how it is possible that they can still have too little money to pay the bills.
Don’t make financial planning.
Have no idea how much their fixed monthly expenses are.
Don’t know what their turnover was last year if I ask them in January or February.
For me, this is so weird and this needs to change!
Overall women are naturally not very good at finances. Now you cannot be good at everything but finances are essential parts in the business.
Although I know many women want to argue with me about this. Most of the time these are exactly the women who do not have a thriving business. Often it is easier to say that money is not that important then to have a good look in the mirror and acknowledge that they are being ignorant.
Yes, you need a very good service or product and yes you need to give a lot of value. But money makes doing all of this possible. Your business cannot grow without money and it all starts with knowing your numbers.
Only then you can see which actions you need to take.
For example:
Investing
Expanding
Cutting down on expenses
More marketing
More sales
More staff
etc.
Here are the basics of making your first financial planning?
First of all, you need to know the turnover for last year.
Next, you need to know how much you want to increase your turnover next year.
You need to know all the expenses you have. The fixed ones, producing expenses, and the incidental ones.
Fixed expenses: expenses you have regardless of producing your product or service.
rent of office space
interest
office supplies
cars
depreciation
machinery that is not producing
etc.
Producing expenses: expenses you make to produce your product and/or service
launching expenses to launch a new product or service
the making of your product or service
etc
Incidental expenses: expenses that are not regular
celebration event
investing in equipment
etc.
The next thing you need to know is what are the categories that your expenses will be allocated to. Some examples:
Marketing
PR
Salaries
Rent
Internet
Travel
Cars
etc.
How do you know how much you did spend for each category?
Most of the time your bookkeeper has done this already without even asking you. You just ask for this overview. This is a very good exercise to do because then you will see immediately how much you spend on each category. And often you can see very easily where you can cut expenses if you need or want to do this.
If you have different products and services you can allocate how much you want to make per product or service. See what it was like last year. Think of which promotions you want to do and then predict how you want it to be for this year.
If you want to grow your business usually this can be done by increasing marketing and or sales activities. As well as online as offline. If you want to grow substantially you need to allocate more money to salaries, because you will need to employ or hire more staff.
Now you know how much you want to grow and what all your expenses are.
Your expenses should be less than your turnover. The difference is your profit.
How do you set a target?
Next, you need to look at is your productive months. Every business has month’s that are destined to be better than others. Due to seasonal influences, holidays, or other issues.
How many productive month’s do you have. If this is 10, you divide your total turnover by 10 and that will be your monthly target.
So every month you need to make a minimum of this amount to stay on track with your financial planning. This means you need to stay on top of your sales. Good is to check this once a month, but better is to do this every week. If you are behind you know you need to start making some phone calls, or increase the advertising budget or see what else you can do to get more clients.
You can either allocate the moment that you confirm the sale to your monthly target, or the month that you can send the invoice. That is up to you. I did the last. Especially by the end of the year that is the best way to do it.
It is easier as you might think
All of this might seem like a lot of work. The first time I made my financial planning, took me half a day, so that is not so bad.
And guess what. It became so much easier for me to make money. Every month I knew whether I was on track or not. I felt a lot more relaxed, at ease, and in control. Also, I knew when we needed to step up a little more and take some more action.
And I think it is needless to say that together with your financial planning you also need to make your year planning for your business.
You have allocated a budget now to the various categories. What actions are you going to take to spend this money and by when and with who?
If you are ambitious and you love to grow your business join our international Facebook group where businesswomen from all over the world share their ideas about growing their business.” And besides that, you’ll get a ton of value of the admin of the group, Tineke Rensen. Check out the website why you should become a member.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
What do women need to know to grow their business?
Have you noticed how different it is for us women to grow our business compared to men? We just have a different way of doing business. And sometimes that’s a good thing; but most of the time, it’s bad. I’ve seen this as a business coach for women and a businesswoman myself, time and time again.
For example, 66% of female entrepreneurs do not make plans. And a further 60% of them do not make financial plans. This is a major contributor to why they are less successful than their male counterparts.
I’ve experienced this first-hand when I ran my own business for 22 years in my male-dominated niche. And because I was working in a hyper-masculine industry, I had to learn to do business the male way. But what was it about their way that make them more successful when running and growing businesses?
So I did my own research. How do women do business, and how can they scale and grow successfully? With all my insights and knowledge from more than three decades of being a female entrepreneur, and later on a business coach for women, I came up with “The Women’s Blueprint to Business Success.” It is a holistic approach to scaling and growing your business, with 9 areas that you need to consistently work on. This article touches on Area 1, Mindset.
I’d like to point out here that it’s never just one area that you need to fix when you want to seriously scale and grow your business. Adopting male traits of doing business, on its own, will not make a significant difference when you don’t have other systems in place to make sure that your operations run smoothly.
Women are not wired to have the masculine skills to grow their business successfully
We women don’t innately possess some traits that men naturally have that help them succeed in business. In general, men:
Like to compete
Have focus
Are system thinkers (a business can be a system if you manage it well)
See more opportunities
Are not afraid to take risks
Are goal-oriented
Keep a good overview of the whole process
Are action-oriented
Do not shy away from promoting themselves
Say yes before they know how to do it
Like to negotiate
But just because we don’t possess these traits naturally doesn’t mean we can’t learn to adopt them and use them to our advantage.
Women find it more difficult to grow their business
In the course of doing my research, I was surprised to know that women have their own way of doing business. I used to think that the masculine way is the only way and the right way to run a business. It was how I learned, and most of the books I read (which were written by male authors, by the way) supported this notion.
From the male perspective, female business owners:
Have businesses that are too small
Don’t position themselves well
Don’t seem to have faith in their own product or service because they are insecure
Cannot level with men in a conversation
DISCLAIMER: not my words, but I’ve actually heard businessmen say these words.
And I’m sorry to say that I used to think the same. I was, after all, doing businesses the male way.
Running and growing a business is not a fair playing field
We like to think that everybody has equal chances in business. But sadly, this cannot be farther from the truth.
We have to face the fact that men have it better in business. Why?
The language of men is spoken.
Their behavior is expected and accepted.
Their way of doing business is common.
Only 1% of the big business deals in the world are going to female-owned businesses. Now this can be due to a variety of factors, but I’m inclined to think that the women who succeed in business adopt and accept the male style.
I have to admit that I didn’t think very positively about female entrepreneurs before because I myself had adopted the male way of thinking, communicating, and doing business.
This was great when I did business with men. But it did not work with women at all. They couldn’t connect with me. They didn’t want to see just the successful image I had created––they wanted to see the real me.
And guess what?
I had no clue because I did not accept my femininity.
Women can be strong entrepreneurs and grow their business successfully
There are many misconceptions about how women run and grow their businesses. So let me set the record straight and give you very good reasons why women’s ways and strategies in growing a business can work just as well as men’s.
Women hardly ever go bankrupt
Women’s businesses always deliver (a woman will not say yes if she is not convinced that she can deliver)
Employees prefer to work for female-owned businesses
Women don’t always have to have facts; they trust their gut feeling
Women are very creative
For women, relationships are more important than money
Women are very thorough
Women easily find consensus. They are open and willing to listen.
We need more people in the business industry with these characteristics, don’t you agree?
What women can learn from men when growing a business
When growing a business, it doesn’t have to just be one or the other. We can integrate both the masculine and feminine ways. We can adopt masculine skills while remaining feminine.
1. Planning
We women can make yearly plans and take into account our relationships, as well as work on improving our service or product, all at the same time.
2. Self-promotion
We can also benefit from promoting ourselves so that we can grow our businesses faster. You may think that this is bragging, but it’s not. The truth is women underestimate themselves most of the time.
3. Financial literacy
We need to spend more time in understanding our finances. This may not come naturally to us, but having a good grasp of our numbers will give us more control.
4. Focus
We don’t need to take on and act upon everything. Having a clear direction will help us get to where we need to be faster and more efficiently.
5. Goal setting
We tend to forget the big picture when we focus too much on the specifics. On the other hand, when we put too much emphasis on the broad plans, we fail to work on the details that can make those a reality. Having clear goals will help give us focus and balance.
Summing it up
Growing a business isn’t just about learning to do it the masculine way, or the feminine way. As a business coach for women and a businesswoman who used to do it the male style, I strongly advocate the combination of both the masculine and the feminine. There are very strong points on both sides that can help us grow our businesses successfully.
What will also help you scale and grow your business is working on the other areas that can make or break it. Don’t focus on just one––there are 9 areas that need your attention if you want to be truly successful. Learn all these areas in my holistic system, “The Women’s Blueprint to Business Success.”
Checkout our FB group for international self-employed businesswomen
Learn more
My name is Tineke Rensen and I am a business coach for women. I created the system “A Women’s Blueprint for Business Success,” where I work with female entrepreneurs in 9 major areas in their business.
There are many out there who call themselves “business coaches” but have never had their own business. What you need is a business coach who has experience in scaling and growing businesses. And I’ve had plenty. In my 31 years of experience, I’ve become an expert in many areas, and I can help you with whatever topic you need help with. Because it NEVER is about changing just one thing that’ll pivot your business around
If you want to learn more about what makes a good business coach for women check out this article about the 20 questions you should ask a business coach for female entrepreneurs.
Interested to learn how you can work with me one-on-one to build your one-woman gig to a proper business and double your income within a year? Click here now to schedule a quick 15-minute call with me and get started.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
Women in the Business World.
Nowadays women became more competitive and are exploring different career paths and they excel wonderfully. One of those paths is starting their own business. However, a major problem for businesswoman encounters is how to manage or balance all her various responsibilities.
Balancing business and personal responsibilities can be a big challenge to a businesswoman to excel on both sides. In order to succeed, she constantly needs to make choices. Because women feel guilty very easily this is not easy to do. Actually, she cannot make the right decision because she always loses in the other area of her life.
Balancing Responsibilities
A businesswoman is not only a career woman – but she is also a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, and a friend. Responsibilities between career and personal life can be a success in both ways. Running a business and taking care of a family needs both a lot of time and effort. Without proper support and understanding, it can lead to feeling overwhelmed, feeling guilty, and feeling frustrated. So she may be successful in her business career than she feels she lacks in her family commitments or it can be the other way around.
What is the Ultimate Solution for business women?
It may seem impossible but there is a way to have the best of both worlds. A businesswoman can also be successful in her family life. In order to make this happen, some of the ultimate solutions are:
Be Organized – time management is the key! It is important to be organized. The best way to balance time for career and family is to have a precise and scheduled plan. Writing down all the meetings, due dates, family gatherings, school activities, vacations, and others will make you have the power to prioritize and organize the time spent in your business and with your family. This way, there will be no forgotten appointments, disappointments, and cramming.
Prioritize – being able to manage your time is one thing, but being able to know your priorities will make life easier. This is useful to situations like choosing between attending your child’s recital and a business meeting. Understanding the importance of each priority can make decision making much faster. For example, if possible, moving the time and place of the meeting to be able to accommodate the recital, then you have the best of both worlds.
Here is more
Goal – know your goal. It is best to have a goal in every aspect of our life. Goals can be a reminder of why you are doing this and where you are heading. It gives focus and focus makes it a lot easier to prioritize again.
Mindset- If you believe you cannot have others taking care of your child (ren) you make it very difficult for yourself. What believes are hindering you and therefore create your guilty feelings?
And of course there are many more tips for you to make doing business so much easier.
Being a businesswoman should be fun. You should feel thrilled, energized fulfilled, and a lot more. But in reality, sometimes it can be tough.
But with the right principles in life and the support of your loved ones, it will be a great experience.
If you are ambitious and you love to grow your business join our international Facebook group where businesswomen from all over the world share their ideas about growing their business.” And besides that, you’ll get a ton of value of the admin of the group, Tineke Rensen. Check out the website why you should become a member.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
Believe me, initially, every businesswoman had issues with finding the time to work ON her business. Having too many appointments, e-mails, social media, and trying to give attention to the people you work with, often consumes most of your time. And very often the people that you would like to spend most of the time with, your family and friends, you don’t see them as much as you want. And that does not feel right. Just as it does not feel right that you don’t seem to go a lot faster ahead with your business because of your To-do list will only seem to get longer. And when I’m very honest about it, this sometimes happens to me too.
It is too easy to give in to all the issues around you in the day-to-day routine and worries. And for businesswomen that is even more difficult than for men, because men can usually focus better. Not working towards the future of your business or making sure that your business is running smoothly so that things become easy does not feel good. Many business women don’t choose to work towards the future and run their business as a system, because often they don’t know how to and that is why they keep on doing it the way they are used to.
As a businesswoman, two things play an important role in changing this.
Your feeling and the daily reality And what time is a meaningful and useful time for your business?
Your feeling and daily reality
It does not feel right if you do not work on your business.
It does not feel right if you are always too busy.
It does not feel right if you think you are not moving forward.
But what criteria do you have if your business is doing well or not? Is that your feeling or is that reality? For example, if I look at last month, I felt that it was not a good month. That’s why I did not feel good about the results. Inwardly my results were measured by what I had accomplished. When I came up towards the end of the month; I asked myself the question: this really true? Then I started to count. And what turned out:
I had also spoken to many customers that I helped ahead.
A coaching program with a nice and loyal customer was successfully completed.
I also gave 3 workshops on all kinds of themes of entrepreneurship.
I had many successful meetings in Switzerland where I found several sponsors for my business network group there.
What then made me feel like it was going bad?
Because of my idea, that I did not have enough time to do everything that I wanted to do. What a bad indicator is when it comes to how well your business is going.
What time is a meaningful time for a businesswoman?
As a businesswoman scheduling time to work on your business because this will also give you extra time. Every time I do a task, I ask myself, do I do this once or do I have to do this more often? If I have to do it more often, I spend extra time on it and make it into a process.
I think can I outsource this the next time. If the answer is yes, I make a procedure for it. I make an action plan, I describe the various steps. I sometimes even record it with video on my laptop screen whilst I am actually doing the task. All of this I do, because the next time when this task comes up again, I can outsource it very easily. And then it saves me a lot of time. Had I not spent the time to make it into a task for someone else I probably would have done it myself again, because I know I can do it faster than anyone else.
And if I do decide to not outsource it my task is easy because; I have a checklist, or templates ready for myself, making me go faster this time, and now it will be a routine job.
Just think for a moment how much time this can save you as a businesswoman especially if you have a larger company?
You only have bite-sized chunks and yet you can continue to deliver custom work to your customer. If they ask that from you or if you want to deliver custom work.
Potential Client for a businesswoman
For example, an offer to a new potential client is no longer something that you have to recreate and each time, but a list where you simply delete all options that are not taken. It really pays the time to work on your business. If you do this systematically and make a sport of it on how you can make it as simple as possible for you and the people you work with, you will see how much more you can do in a year and how much further your company will be.
My customers Karin and Jaap also worked ON their business under my guidance and coaching. They have a lot of systems in their business now which makes work so much easier for them. And therefore they can scale up so much easier because they have more time, more KPI’s and more overview on well they are doing.
If you are ambitious and you love to grow your business join our international Facebook group where businesswomen from all over the world share their ideas about growing their business.” And besides that, you’ll get a ton of value of the admin of the group, Tineke Rensen. Check out the website why you should become a member.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
In this dawn of advanced technology where the internet is ubiquitous and social media channels take a chunk of everybody’s time, branding is important. Likewise, trends in business marketing are also evolving. If people are working with companies, nowadays the consumers are more willing to do business with people rather than companies. They now prefer human interaction. The values people look for when doing business have also changed, as well. Nowadays, they look for sincerity and honesty; involvement and availability; excellent service, and speedy delivery.
With branding, you attract clients that match well with your niche and business.
There are two types of branding: personal and business branding.
Personal branding is focused on you and who you are. You can ask for guidance: who you are, what you want to do, how you want to be remembered, and how other people see you. You can ask people, especially your employees, what they see when they look at you.
Many entrepreneurs do not do personal branding, but if you like it, you are a personal brand. You need to know who your brand is, otherwise, you will not be consistent. The trick is to make sure that you are in synchronization with each other. For example, if your business is about sports apparel, then there’s something wrong with your branding. A lot of entrepreneurs do not like to be in the limelight. This is normal, however, please keep in mind that people want to deal with people-real people. When you are just starting up and your business is still small, the owner is the face of that business. It is wise to create a personal brand with your clients; they are more likely to deal with business owners that know and like.
Targeted Audience
Of course, there are other things that count, as well as the quality of your products or services. People will have a look at your business when they like you, and when your product and service is marketed to the right target audience, and then you have everything in order.
As a personal brand, you want to be an expert in your niche. As an entrepreneur, you have something which many people want and/or need. This is always the case with business owners. owners, if you do not look at that way. It is wise to invest in knowing and learning about your niche and what makes it work. It is very important to find out what distinguishes you, as a person, from your competition.
If you are ambitious and you love to grow your business join our international Facebook group where businesswomen from all over the world share their ideas about growing their business.” And besides that, you’ll get a ton of value of the admin of the group, Tineke Rensen. Check out the website why you should become a member.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion.
She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years?
Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
Are you a female entrepreneur starting or thinking of starting your own business? Any business coach for women will advise you to always be ready with sound financial planning. Every business has its risks, after all. And any business, no matter how fool-proof you believe it to be, is a potential for failure if not managed properly.
So, what is financial planning? And how can you make the most of it to properly manage and handle your business?
One of the most important, but sadly often overlooked by female entrepreneurs when running a business is financial planning. There could be many reasons for this:
– Not realizing how important it is – Not having an idea where to start and how to do it – Just do not want to be bothered with the task of creating it
No matter what the reason is, it isn’t going to be good for business.
Financial planning and analysis help you see the bigger picture of your business. It guides you in setting both long-term and short-term goals with regard to your finances. It’s a major determining factor of whether your business will fail, survive, or in the best case, thrive.
However, financial planning alone cannot guarantee business success. In total, there are 9 major areas in your business that you need to work on if you want to seriously scale and grow. Financial planning is part of Area 2, Planning. Learn about all the other areas in the system I created, “The Women’s Blueprint to Business Success.”
Unfortunately, though, 60% of female entrepreneurs neglect their financial planning. So, it should come as no surprise that about 35% of them have less than 25,000-euro turnover. You can’t call that business, can you?
Financial planning isn’t that hard if you have all the information you need. To start, there are 3 things that you should know before you start planning your finances:
1. If you’re creating a financial plan, you should know your numbers
Not a lot of women are good with finances, so they resort to hiring a bookkeeper. This is totally fine, as long as you are still aware of what your numbers are. A bookkeeper can record transactions and produce financial reports, but these data are futile if the businesswoman does not know how to understand and analyze them.
The first step in financial planning is knowing your turnover in the previous year. You would need to know:
How much did you make?
How much did you lose?
Also how much was your profit?
How much were the expenses?
2. In financial planning, it’s important to know your expenses
Your bookkeeper most probably already has a record of the previous year’s expenses. You just have to look at the overview to see:
How much did you spend?
Where do you need to cut expenses?
If you sell different products or services, you should also consider:
How much do you want to spend per product or service?
Do you have a marketing and advertising budget?
Do you need to hire more workers to grow your business? If so, will you be able to afford to pay their salaries?
Those are some of the expenses that you would have to consider when you’re in the process of financial planning in your business. Essentially, your expenses should be less than your profit. Weigh up your expenses and see where you could cut corners.
3. Know your target when creating a financial plan
Lastly, you need to look at your productive months. Some businesses are seasonal, and every business has months that are likely to be better than the others. Take a good look at your financial report. How many productive months do you have? Divide your total turnover by the number of your productive months. This is your monthly target.
Every month, you need to make a minimum of your target to be on top of your finances. Check on this at least monthly to stay ahead of the curve. If you’re getting behind, you can make adjustments such as increasing your marketing efforts.
Now, this may seem like a lot of work, but trust me, you are missing out on your business advancement if you do not plan your finances. Plus, it also gives you a sense of control, along with knowing when you need to step up a little more
Summing it up
Many female entrepreneurs fail to do financial planning for reasons that are totally resolvable. Financial planning is an essential task that doesn’t have to be complicated. It starts with having complete awareness and understanding of your numbers. And from there, you can make the necessary adjustments in your goals and decisions.
As a business coach for female entrepreneurs, I understand how women may feel intimidated by finances. But my advice is this: knowing gives you control. And the more you are in control, the better your chances of steering your business to success.
And while you’re creating your financial plan, you should also look into the other important areas of your business. A business is a holistic entity, after all, and you need a holistic approach to make sure that everything is in sync. Learn about all the areas in your business you need to constantly work on in my system, “The Women’s Blueprint to Business Success.”
Learn more
My name is Tineke Rensen and I am a business coach for women. I created the system “A Women’s Blueprint for Business Success,” where I work with female entrepreneurs in 9 major areas in their business.
There are many out there who call themselves “business coaches” but have never had their own business. What you need is a business coach who has experience in scaling and growing businesses. And I’ve had plenty. In my 31 years of experience, I’ve become an expert in many areas, and I can help you with whatever topic you need help with. Because it NEVER is about changing just one thing that’ll pivot your business around
If you want to learn more about what makes a good business coach for women check out this article about the 20 questions you should ask a business coach for female entrepreneurs.
Interested to learn how you can work with me one-on-one to build your one-woman gig to a proper business and double your income within a year? Click here now to schedule a quick 15-minute call with me and get started.
About the author:
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years. Tineke was a national whitewater kayaking champion. She now is one of the most all-round business accelerators you can find. There are very few topics she cannot help you with your business. Many people find it hard to believe when they hear this. How much do you think you know about a topic if you live it day and night for 28 years? Tineke works with female business owners to grow to their full business potential. She uses her own system the “Blueprint for a Successful Business Makeover”. She is a women’s business coach.
Tineke is the author of “Maximum Business Growth For Women”
If you want to watch business videos with Tineke Rensen you can like the Powerful Business Academy Youtube Channel
info@PowerfulBusinessAcademy.com
You can call, email or send a direct message for a response.
In the meantime, my hobby always remained white water kayaking. Every holiday was spent on the river. With our first child sleeping in the pram next to the river when mom and dad were training on a particular spot.
It is unthinkable when you are paddling a big rapid that you can look around and enjoy the scenery. That is distracting and you could hit a rock that completely changes your direction, or worse it flips you over which makes you very vulnerable. Being upside down in the water is not a good place to be.
When you paddle on a high level you will often find a lot of big boulders that are blocking your vision. What to do? Getting out of your kayak can be time-consuming. What we do is find out if you can see the next stop down the river where you can paddle to and lay still to find out what’s next. If you can always see just 10 or 20 meters ahead and you are very sure that you can make it there and stop there it is the best way of going down a river. And most often you can continue like this down the whole rapid or the whole river.
time.
Tineke Rensen is in business for 29 years. She built an international Outdoor and Survival business from scratch and sold this after 22 years.
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