Angolina Amores won the Miss Australia title in 2014 but since then her life has moved away from the beauty industry and into the world of entrepreneurship. As CEO of The Alpha Femme she helps women succeed in business and leads them to financial freedom. She encourages women to take risks and follow their goals with the help of her mentorship, in particular, because she still sees that women need to fight for representation in business. “It’s a male-dominated industry and a male-dominated world in general,” says Amores, who notes that things can be particularly challenging for women of color.

Whether you’re a business owner, you want to start your own company or just succeed in your career, take a look at Amores’ expert advice for to help you get there.

6 Tips for Female Entrepreneurs

1. Passive Income
The goal is to always also make passive income instead of only an active income. That’s because it’s income you don’t need to physically be there for. You can just own a little bit of a fund and put it to work — you don’t even need to put a lot of money in. Set up an automated system that generates you money weekly or monthly without doing any physical work. Always look for opportunities with that angle instead of looking for opportunities focusing on how much money you can make.

2. Networking
Networking is the number one thing that can help you accelerate your success and that’s because someone always knows someone who could help you. By building a network of people you can also provide value and help. That’s going to open up so many more opportunities and revenue to you that you didn’t know was there.

3. Launching your own business
It depends on what industry you’re in, but my advice is to not try to do everything by yourself. I think you should go on websites like Upwork and make appointments or calls with experts in the field and get advice. You can get a lot of free advice just by having a phone consultation. Instead of trying to figure everything out by yourself, make connections, talk to different people, and see what they have to say before you make a mistake and waste your time and money. After talking with people, I would recommend writing a plan of action, jotting down strategies and milestones for every month, and re-evaluate every month to see if what you’re doing is effective or if you have to improve it. One last thing would be Facebook groups. By joining groups that have the same interests as you, you get free advice from the people there.

4. Funding
If someone doesn’t have savings I always recommend getting funding because you don’t want to be limited in the growth of your brand. For example, I own a photoshoot rental space and I maxed out my credit card completely to start the business. However, I knew I was going to get the return I needed so that’s the risk I took. I believe that if I didn’t have funding back then, I wouldn’t have been able to grow the business even more. All I needed was a strategy and good credit. To anyone that wants to start a business and has average or good credit, they definitely need to look into getting funding.

5. Balancing personal life and business
This is really difficult and one of my biggest challenges because when I want something really bad, I spend all my time on it. I have a schedule and every single hour of the day is busy. One thing I do is add free time to my schedule and make the mental decision that I’m not gonna do anything. It’s still one of my biggest challenges.

6. Mentorship
It’s something I recommend but it’s hard to find. It’s hard to get a mentor for free. If you have a mentor, it’s probably going to be like you’re their assistant and you’re offering value as well. If you’re serious and you know what you want, you’ll be ready for mentorship. You need to be serious about your time, your effort, and your money. Make sure you go through everything your mentor wants you to do. Don’t slack and be on point. Be the best you can be and make sure you really invest your heart and soul into it. Don’t ask a busy person to mentor you if you’re not really sure what you want to achieve in life.

Follow Angolina Amores on Instagram for more tips for female entrepreneurs.