Karla Rendall arrived in Des Moines in 1999 with a new degree in special education and the goal of finding a teaching job. While the path she eventually took has allowed her to educate others, it looked much different than she anticipated.
“I had gone into a local commercial bank branch to open a local account, and the gal that was behind the teller line helping me started asking me a lot of random questions,” Rendall said. “I finally said, ‘I’m sorry, I feel like I’m being interviewed.’ She said, ‘Well, technically you are. We’ve got this new manager trainee program.’”
Thus kicked off Rendall’s long career in banking and finance. She has worked in management, commercial lending, treasury management, retail leadership and marketing positions. Each step offered the opportunity to learn how the financial system works. She especially enjoyed working with businesses to help them understand and manage their money.
She briefly left the banking world for five years to own and operate her own business, Rendall Insurance Agency. She eventually sold that business and found her way back to the banking world, but that time period helped her better understand the experiences of business owners.
Today, Rendall is the senior vice president and commercial banking marketing leader at Lincoln Savings Bank. She talked with Fearless about the barriers women business owners encounter when trying to secure capital and what can be done to ease those struggles.
The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
What are the barriers women business owners tend to run into when securing financing, and how have those barriers shifted throughout your time in banking?
The biggest obstacles I see for women in business is getting access to capital, hands down. And I think just understanding and being confident in knowing their financials is the other piece of that. I would probably guess many women are not comfortable or they’re intimidated by the financials of their business. And quite frankly, the financial industry has been very male-dominated back to the beginning of time, so a lot of women are intimidated by it. It really hasn’t been all that long since a bill was passed that allowed women to take out a business loan without a man co-signing. We’ve come a long way, but we’re still so far behind, and I think that’s why getting access to capital is still harder for women today.
What are the specific barriers making that access to capital more difficult for women?
One of those barriers is that women don’t know where to go to get access to capital. Everybody thinks that banking is the only way. Banks are conservative – you have to have a really strong balance sheet. You have to have historical performance that shows you’re profitable. Banks don’t like startups anymore because they’ve been burned too much in the past. Even in the banking industry, there are a lot of ways to get access to capital if you know where to look. There are many national and statewide grants that you can apply for. There are angel investors and even just some individual investors. I think they just don’t understand all the different options available to them, and it takes somebody to sit down with them and coach them to find those funds.
When you decided to open your own business, did you encounter similar struggles accessing capital despite having your own experience in banking and commercial lending?
Maybe a little bit, but the advantage I had is I knew exactly what a bank was going to look for and what they would want to see. I waited until I was a year in and made sure that I got my financials where I needed them to be, and then reached out to my bank and they gave me a line of credit. But a lot of women don’t know how to do that and they go right away and ask. Or they don’t have their stuff together. There are a lot of women that get turned down for loans because they don’t know what a bank is going to want to see.
How do we open up access for women business owners to both the knowledge about where to go to find capital and how to manage it once you have it?
The National Association of Women Business Owners is a great education source. There is a lot of education with lunch and learns, newsletters and access to resources. There’s a lot of people that don’t know NAWBO exists, and it’s not in every state. We need enough people out there speaking to and talking about this and getting in front of women business owners to show them where the resources are and how to access those and get involved.
I think the biggest thing is that it takes a village. I can go out and talk about this every day with women business owners, but I’m only going to hit a small few. We need more women and men stepping up and educating and sharing their knowledge. I think people don’t realize that there are others out there, especially women, that can really use the knowledge they have. Anybody and everybody out there who has any knowledge of owning a business or providing capital should be sharing that with everybody they know and getting them involved in the right groups. FemCity is another really good resource. There’s the Women of Worth group here in town that does a lot of educating. So I am constantly driving and guiding women to those resources and encouraging them to get involved. If more of us did that, imagine the larger impact it would have.
How do we build access to financial literacy for women?
It starts with them having the desire to want to learn it. I have worked with business owners that really don’t want to get into the weeds on the financials. My caution to them is always, even if you’re not an expert, you need to understand what you’re looking at. That’s the heartbeat of your business. You need to understand what it means. You don’t have to be a CPA or a financial expert, but you’ve got to understand the baseline. Surround yourself with people, women and men, who have that knowledge. Make sure you’ve got a strong CPA who’s in your corner, a strong commercial banker, a strong insurance agent, financial adviser, attorney. I always call it the circle of five, because any business needs to have those at a minimum. If a business doesn’t have those, there’s going to be gaps. And if you don’t know it, learn it. Take the initiative to learn it and not be afraid of it, but face it head on. If you find the right people, they will be more than happy to share their knowledge and help you benefit. It’s not scary. It’s just always been taught to be.
If you don’t have a strong relationship with your business banker or commercial banker, you need to. If you don’t feel like you have that relationship, you need to find one where you can. That is going to put you leaps and bounds ahead of others.
Where can Iowa women business owners go to find grants and investors outside of banking?
I send a list to a lot of business owners that aren’t ready for a business loan with a bank. Iowa Economic Development is a great one. SBA is an option because it shares the risk with the bank. If you go to their website, there’s a ton of resources there. I have a list of state of Iowa investors that I have sent businesses when they need to expand. Then there are companies who buy businesses or invest in businesses and then eventually get bought back out.
