How to list references when you owned your own business?

When you find yourself in the unique situation of needing a reference from when you ran your own business, you have a few options.. here are the three main ones: Customer, Supplier and/or Partnered Business. So you can contact a customer that you had a long-standing relationship - and ask that they give you a reference. You can contact your suppliers, and specifically list the business owner - make sure that you had a sterling relationship with the supplier. Finally, you can ask the business owner of a partnered business to provide you a reference.

With any reference, make these contacts aware that you are listing them on your resume as a professional reference.