Shelagh Cummins is the CEO and founder of The Road to Seven ™ a coaching, training, and financing company that guides women entrepreneurs in building a profitable and fulfilling business. Shelagh has successfully helped struggling solopreneurs to transform into flourishing CEOs. And my favourite part: Shelgah’s firm works to change the capital access rules for women!

The importance of staying open to opportunities till you find your dream wor

Shelagh grew up in Montreal and her openness to exploring multiple opportunities finally introduced her to her dream work. She began as a school teacher in Toronto. A need for more led her to start her own tutoring company. However, much like teaching, this was not her passion either. Shelagh was an early adopter of communicating and working in the online space, a skill she put to good use with her parenting blog, which she monetized.

She says she gave herself the freedom to explore until she finally struck the right chord. Her primary focus was curriculum, teaching, and learning and that’s what a friend who ran a corporate training company reached out for. Shelagh built him modules on sales, strategic sales, and Crucial Conversations. “And then he said, ‘Actually, I need you to facilitate as well.’ My reaction was - So I have no corporate background, and you're wanting me to stand up in front of 250 sales guys, four months postpartum to deliver this, are you sure you want me? He said: ‘It's your course, so yes.’ And I did."

Shelagh calls that a transformational moment in her life that set her on her journey to where she is today. She began her corporate training focusing on women entrepreneurs. She understood that coaching was her forte and is a certified business coach for impact-focused women entrepreneurs who need to grow their business.

The state of funding for women entrepreneurs

“I see so many women coming to their next strategic hire which is going to be a big ticket spend. I am a fan of hiring up, meaning we want to hire someone who's smarter than we are, and has a proven track record. And that means they're going to cost us more than a contractor or you know, somebody who's less experienced. In order to achieve that, business owners often need a loan. And even with a positive P&L for several years, many women find funding hard to come by. Many women are asked to have their husbands co-sign on bank loans. On a personal level, I ran up against that as well.”

The genesis of a financing component in a coaching business

“It was just like this epiphany one day. I thought to myself micro businesses do not need huge loans. And some of our banks here in Canada are designed so they don't want to talk to you unless you want a loan of $100,000 or more. Well, that amount is going to bankrupt a micro business. Wait a minute, micro business just needs micro lending, I realized! $5,000 - $50,000 to make a strategic hire, or an investment in a piece of operating machinery or something, they don't need massive loans. Currently, these women are turning to their credit cards at 20% interest to get this money so they can make these strategic moves.”

The Future of Micro Lending

Micro Businesses have typically been left out of many government funding programs in Canada and Shelagh really built on the opportunity here to offer digital micro-lending services to women entrepreneurs.

She is currently working with the Accelerator Center at the University of Waterloo to build a new micro-lending platform for businesses across different industries and sizes. When it’s ready, the platform will be a custom-made, personalized, high-interface, and smooth micro-lending platform for women entrepreneurs.

Shelagh says, “We're wanting to offer a platform for women to become investors and experience what it's like for their money to grow without them putting in hours and hours of work.”

Fun, Frank Advice from Shelagh Cummins

“I think of three words that come to mind when you ask: trust, possibility, and belief. We have to trust that we can achieve whatever it is that we want. And we can handle anything that comes our way. We have to be hopeful and open to the possibilities that are in front of us. And know that no matter what it is, you belong. And the third thing, if your mind can create a vision, then the next step is simply you believing that you are the right person to make that happen. And that belief is so, so powerful.”

For more entrepreneurial coaching nuggets and ways to access micro funding, please listen to Shelagh Cummin's conversation with Colleen O'Connell-Campbell. 
Listen to the entire podcast here: https://iamamillionairesonowwhat.libsyn.com/ep215-changing-capital-access-rules-for-women-entrepreneurs