Denver, January 1, 2020 — The end of 2019 marks the second time in a row that Big Buzz, a woman-owned business, exceeded $1 million in revenues. In 2018, the first year Big Buzz crossed that threshold, Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) reported only 1.7 percent of U.S. women-owned businesses generated more than $1 million in revenue.
In 2014, Big Buzz CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips pitched her firm for the Make Mine a Million initiative, which inspired her to go for the goal. The number of businesses generating $1 million run by women increased by 46% in the past 11 years, as reported in American Express OPEN’s State of Women-Owned Business Report.
Success has come with its challenges. Just last year, despite the fact that she was finically qualified and approved weeks later by another bank, Phillips was turned down for a corporate line of credit with a prominent national bank. She was told in writing, “I know you don’t want to do this, but we need your husband to cosign on the loan.” Big Buzz is 100% owned by Phillips.
Harvard Business Review reported recently it will take 165 years to close the gender pay gap in North America. CoBiz reports a study found that 29% of businesses in the Denver-metro area are female-owned and operated, and that Denver has “one of the better pay gaps across metros in the country.”
Phillips says, “By starting their own businesses and growing them to $1 million and beyond, women can create more jobs for both genders and help more readily close that gap. It’s well worth getting over any hurtles for that reward.”
At Big Buzz, our vision is to help people create marketing, careers and lives they never believed possible. It is our mission to offer healthcare organizations result-driven marketing that moves more quickly and easily to market than ever before, all with top-notch customer service. We are relentless about our commitment to agility so that we can help each client organization attract their ideal patients or clients and become more readily productive, profitable and successful.
