Connecticut businesses that are mostly owned by women have seen a steep growth in business in the last decade. The state’s women entrepreneurs have far outpaced their national counterparts in terms of revenue generation and increase in employee strength. This has dispelled all misconceptions about women owned enterprises- that they start small and stay small.

Women entrepreneurs in Connecticut benefitted from the existing business support groups, microloans for women ,friendly public policy and an atmosphere of inclusiveness. The state’s women owned business only lagged in terms of number and this is not at all surprising as Connecticut itself has fewer number of business establishments in comparison to other US states, regardless of gender.

An American Express study has found that businesses run by women of Connecticut reached $15.4 billion in revenue in 2011. This is a 66.4 percent increase over last 14 year period. Employment at women –owned businesses of Connecticut have increased by 17.3 percent to 92,200 workers. The study is based on data collected by U.S. Bureau economic censuses of 1997, 2002 and 2007.

Women in Connecticut when they become entrepreneurs are transformed to real players and change makers of their community in-spite of constraints in terms of labor, energy and terms of doing business. Marcu

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The other week over at Small Business Trends, I saw an interesting poll. The sole question: “What’s your biggest business mistake?” Though there are various options to choose from, such as “Failing to market my business,” and “Selling myself short,” the overwhelming favorite response is “Borrowing money.”

While this may come as a shock to those who still believe that the banks should be handing out more credit to businesses in order to jump start the economy, several well-regarded reports, such as this recent one by the NFIB, have pointed to the fact that many small business owners these days are not looking for credit, and a significant amount of businesses are actually focused on dumping the balances they’ve already racked up.

But this brings up a dilemma of sorts: part of a healthy cash flow strategy when running a business is having options to borrow, both in the short and long term, and without investment , growth will typically be impossible.

So how do you know if it is good for you to be borrowing money for your business? Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help ensure that your business borrowing doesn’t end up being a business blunder:

1. What are you borrowing

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NEW YORK — David Sokol, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. executive who resigned last month, violated company policies and misled senior management about his personal investments, according to a report by the audit committee of Berkshire’s board of directors.

Sokol, who bought shares of a chemicals company shortly before recommending that Berkshire acquire the company outright, may face legal action from the Berkshire board to recover gains from the trades, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by Berkshire.

Sokol insisted in conversations with Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett and in public statements that his departure was unrelated to the stock purchases. On Wednesday night, Sokol’s lawyer, in a statement, took issue with the report’s conclusions and said the audit committee hadn’t contacted him.

The audit committee report examines in detail a conversation Sokol had with Buffett about the chemicals company, Lubrizol Corp. , in January. In response to a question from Buffett, the report says, Sokol said he knew about the company because he owned its shares.

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In today’s era of globalization, small and medium sized businesses have been credited with significantly helping the economy. SME’s have contributed to over 50% of the GDP and provided over 60% of the total employment in so-called developed, high income countries. As a result, world events have taken their toll on small and medium sized enterprises.

Small businesses were the hardest hit, by events like rising oil prices as well as sharp rise in price of gas, following unrest in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. This has affected shipping orders, business flights, and every day travel expenses. In fact, smaller companies find it difficult to survive in the new cost structure.

Small enterprises are in constant requirement of funding, for which they would require to prove their effectiveness. Costs, sales and profits are the three things which financial institutions take into consideration before lending funds to budding entrepreneurs. So a person willing to join the transportation business would find it very difficult to secure capital.

The recent developmental crisis which hit Arab was due to the rising fuel prices, even when the economy was recovering from the 2008 main street recession. In

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