Recipe For Success

It's time for women to even the SCORE.

The number of women small-business owners may be growing--more than 8 million at last count--but of the 12,000 Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) counselors nationwide, only 1,200 are women.

Although the organization hasn't exactly kept pace, Patty DeDominic plans to change all that. In an effort to regain some balance, in November, SCORE appointed her as Special Counsel to the board of directors on women's issues. Her first order of business? "To assist SCORE in recruiting more counselors, specifically female counselors," says DeDominic, who hopes to register 800 additional women by year-end.

Attaining a more representative pool of counselors offers a host of benefits to those seeking advice from SCORE. And DeDominic, founder of PDQ Personnel Services Inc. in Los Angeles, is just the one to guide the recruiting process. "Many women-owned businesses are on the cutting edge, and they've had to overcome a number of hurdles," she says. "SCORE wants to make sure it has sufficient resources, and it knows that many of the women are fabulous resources who haven't been utilized in the past. It should put some new vitality into the organization."

This article was originally published in the April 1998 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Recipe For Success.