Metromom. connecting women, creating change

When I began my online entrepreneurial business I was not as sensitive as I am now to the HUGE  importance of growing your list (or in language I prefer to use – growing your community).

The fact is without a pipeline of new people learning about who you are and what you do, and how it can benefit them, your business will dry up. Your community are those that follow you, observe what you’re doing, share it with their friends (if they like you) and will ultimately be those that purchase from you.

I have 2 business girlfriends who I want to introduce you to who offer resources to support you to expand your list…

• First is Gina Bell. As the founder of the International Association of Women in Business Online, Gina is hosting a F*R*E*E event called List Attraction Week (starting March 8th) that is devoted to list attraction with a team of expert mentors who will walk you through this essential piece of creating success online. You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again… The money is in your list! But what does that REALLY mean?

During List Attraction Week you will discover how to increase your list of relevant and responsive subscribers quickly and constantly so you can save time, get clients and make money! (And… how to do it with authenticity and ethics too!). And the promise of “The Money is in Your List” will finally make sense!

Gina has put together a panel of 12 experts (myself included) that includes Alexis Neely, Leesa Barnes, Wendy Y Bailey and MaryKay Morgan. Together you’ll learn information about…

…auto responders, double opt-ins, squeeze pages, ethical bribes/freebies/pink spoons, ezines, newsletters, virtual events, joint ventures, speaking, article marketing, blogging, social media, follow up strategies and much, much more.

Just one golden nugget of learning (if implemented) can make a huge difference in your list building efforts.

You can get all the details of List Attraction week and register here:  http://budurl.com/LAW10

• My second business girlfriend (and mentor) is Carrie Wilkerson. I first learned of Carrie’s skills around list building over a year ago. She grew her list by 24,000 people in one year with no paid traffic resources, and I wanted to see what she was doing.

I immediately purchased her 12-week Magnetic List Building course, which has suggestions (and valuable exercises) to grow your list.  Carrie has a gift of taking what can feel complicated to making it very manageable and easy to execute. I highly recommend checking her product. It’s very reasonably priced at just 3 payments of $27 and I promise that by executing some of her ideas, the investment will be worth it.

You can get all the details of Carrie’s Magnetic List Building course, visit my affiliate link:  http://budurl.com/maglist

 Community/list building in an ongoing process, and it requires commitment to develop essential skills in this area. There are so many list-building tools that I believe it’s important to just focus on 1-3 at a time so you can do it effectively and not be spread so thin.  Just one strategy that you can confidently implement with consistency can completely transform your results. With both Carrie’s Magnetic List Building course and Gina’s List Attraction Week event, you’ll get dozen of ideas that you can quickly put into work.

I’d love hear what’s working (or not) as you build your community.

As I was picking up pizza last week for my kids I had a very interesting conversation with the owner about his business. It illustrates what fear of selling can do to an entrepreneur.

With some stores in the shopping plaza closing he shared that his business was slow. He said people weren’t even calling for deliveries. As a regular customer I had no idea he even offered delivery. Clearly he was not communicating this information.

“Why not put it in a big sign in your window to capture the traffic from plaza?” I asked.

“Oh, they should know that I deliver. All pizza places deliver.”

The fact is it’s very easy for an entrepreneur to blame the economy but the truth is no one will buy if they don’t know what you’re selling.

Here’s another example…

One of my favorite clients called me to say that she was discouraged that she hadn’t made any money from an information product she’d created. She felt frustrated that she wasn’t getting it done.

As we backtracked a bit, I asked her what she’d done to spread the word about her product. “Nothing,” she said, “I was scared that if I told them I was selling something they’d think I was being salesy and get off my list.”

Now the plot thickens…

The interesting thing about this woman is that she (like most of us) has something REALLY helpful that she’s created and would like to share with her community and sell it. She’s got a product that can help a lot of people.

The question then is “what’s getting in her way of putting it out there?”

Fear of selling. Fear of “someone” thinking she’s selling something. Fear of people dropping off her list because she’s doing more than just sending out nice content newsletters. Fear that she’ll be perceived a certain way.

Remember the Value of What You’re Offering

The good news in her case was I knew the prescription. It’s clear (at least to me) that the “simple” action she needs to take to get it done and achieve her short term goal of bringing in more money is to write an email to her list sharing with them what she’s offering. She needs to overcome her fear of selling.

Simple task but overwhelming to her because that email feels scary and has lots of strings attached. But I reminded her, “You’re not selling heroin, or used cars, you’re selling a product that makes people feel better.”

She’s offering a valuable service. I’d even go as far as to say that if she doesn’t offer it, she’s being selfish with her gifts.

Will some people unsubscribe from her list because they think she’s being salesy? YES

Is that okay? YES

She’s in business and the definition of being in business means that you make money by providing value to people. The more people you, the entrepreneur, help, the more money you make.

You can’t make money if you don’t let people know what you have to offer. Having the fear of selling is a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs (especially women) make over and over again.

If you’re ready to move forward, but are still struggling with the fear of selling, check out my next blog. I’ll share with you 3 tips on how you can get the right mindset to sell so that you can attract more clients, make more money and have more fun!

I love hearing stories of other people’s successes… partly because it’s always inspiring to see people doing well, but mostly because there’s ALWAYS something that I can learn from them.

A few months ago I had the good fortune of participating in Sandy Grason’s Fabulous Formula. I learned about her concept of the Empire Chart which really shifted how I look at my business, and gave me one of my biggest inspirations for all my Get it Done programs.

She’s releasing a series of Case Studies  which are detailed, in-depth video reports on people (myself included) who have done very well for themselves using her Fabulous Formula — including exactly what they did that made their business breakthroughs so successful.

I highly recommend taking a look at her free videos.

Also, please join us for our Virtual Cocktail Party where Sandy will be sharing all about her Empire Chart model.

My business is going through lots of growing pains right now, which means that I’m going through lots of growing pains right now. Our businesses mirror our lives, and vice versa.

If your business isn’t where you want it to be, then you’ve got to take a hard look at who you’re being and how you’re showing up. The answer always lies within.

Last week, after some intense masterminding, I chose to give myself permission to do nothing. I needed to decompress and internally process all that I’d absorbed. That’s a real challenge for a Type A do-er like me. I don’t sit still well, meditating doesn’t come easily, and I don’t sleep enough. My brain and body are always on the go.

During my self-imposed down time, I re-read my favorite parable The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg and John David Mann. I turn to this book when I want to regain clarity and truly focus on why I’m really in business. Yes, I want to make an income to support my family. Yes, I want to share my gifts with the world. Yes, I want to make a difference.

But my core reason, and my life’s purpose, is I want to serve a lot of people, and provide them with a lot of value. For all entrepreneurs, that’s the key question we must continually answer: How can I serve?

Answering that question always gets me back on track again. (With that in mind please feel free to share with me how I can serve you better.)

A lot of entrepreneurs I know are trying to get it done. They’re taking classes, buying info products, watching what others are doing. BUT they’re not necessarily doing it. You probably turn to your coach, or top internet marketers or your mastermind partners when you get stuck. That’s great! I’m definitely encourage that as I too get a lot of clarity learning from others but…

Here’s my experience, all those support people really do help you figure out WHAT you need to do but somehow you’re left to figure out HOW to do it all on your own. I mean HOW do you fit a big project into you’re already busy life? For me personally I’m a mom of three children (7, 10, and 11). I pack lunches, volunteer at school, drive carpools, help with homework, manage my home, and do my best to exercise regularly and keep my house clean.

So, as the “Get it Done Girl”, I’m going to share with you HOW to do it.

Imagine that you have a model so when you have an idea you know the steps to put it into action. You now generate income from that idea, and you can feel great knowing you’re making a difference and serving your client,

Yes, there is a method to the madness! I have a great system and now I want to share it with YOU. The 5-Step Get it Done System I created is really a culmination of all I do personally and what I’ve learned that can help you get your brilliant ideas out of your head and out there into the world where they deserve to be.

I am SPILLING THE BEANS and revealing all 5 Steps to the Get It Done System! Check it out and you’ll get the complete layout of the system that I’ve developed to help you get out of overwhelm and get your brilliance out into the world.

My philosophy is I could just give you the steps for each individual project but that means the next time you have a project you still won’t have the system to get it done. I believe in the old proverb: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

I would love to get your feedback on the Get It Done System so please post your comments and let me know what questions you’ve got!

The past few weeks of the summer have been really exciting for me because I’ve been working on a really big project – the revamp of my members area – now called the GET IT DONE Circle. I’ve even updated my Metromom tagline to be: The GET IT DONE Resource for the Motivated Mom Entrepreneur.

The relaunch of this part of my business came as a result of member feedback, my own intuition, conversations with mastermind members, and honestly that magic X-factor of something that’s just much more aligned with who I am and what I know I’m good at providing.

At the end of June, I shared a blog post that alluded to new GET IT DONE things that were in the works. Funny thing is that even as short as 7 weeks ago, I hadn’t thought of revamping my members area. It wasn’t until I attended Carrie Wilkerson’s mastermind in July, and had some some pretty great conversations with other entrepreneurs that this idea came to be.

The fact is what I’m really good at, and what I really love is helping women with lots of brilliant ideas to get them out of their heads and into the world, so their customers can benefit from them, and they can reap the rewards. So often the women I speak with share their frustration about things in their business not coming fast enough—be it more clients, more visibility, more money or the difference they know they want to make.

Please watch my short video (filmed by my 10 year old son Beck) about why I really created the GET IT DONE Circle and how I hope you can benefit from it.  Then, please check out more about it and let me know what your think. http://metromom.com/gid

In my last blog I spoke of how important it is for women in business to have a clear vision. The interesting thing is, once you have that clear vision it becomes apparent what action is necessary for you to take. When Victoria Colligan, the founder of Ladies Who Launch, and I spoke during the Metromom Online Success Telesummit, she shared something really important, “taking any action is better than taking no action, even if the action you take leads you nowhere.”

Why? Because you learned from it. You now have information so you can adjust your course. The key is that you have momentum and can just keep on moving.

Let go of the Need to be Perfect

A really important message I want to communicate is there’s no such thing as perfect. The beauty of having a business, particularly an internet-based business, is how forgiving it is and how easy it is to make adjustments along the way.

I’m a recovering perfectionist so I know it’s not easy to overcome that tendency. It’s not an easy thing to walk away from. But if you acknowledge how much your desire for perfection is holding you back (which is incredibly eye-opening in itself) that can often give you the motivation to just move forward and take action. I sometimes have to remind myself of this when I’m stuck in the desire for perfection when launching a new service or product to “just get over it because a blank page doesn’t sell anything.”

Start with a clear vision and then take consistent imperfect action as you work towards it. Embrace the organic business process and you’ll not only be successful, you’ll have much more fun.

FYI – You can download my interview of Victoria Colligan and listen to “7 Steps to Realizing Your Dream.” These seven steps were designed specifically for women in business.

Please share how you’re taking action in your business, I’d love to hear about that.

As women entrepreneurs we tend to start and run our businesses very organically. I’ve noticed that the women in business who are flourishing are the ones that remain open to new opportunities, new connections and taking small steps along the way. They take one action, move forward, and then take another action.

But sometimes we run into roadblocks.

We have been conditioned to think that the traditional way of running a business is the only way, so we sometimes find ourselves paralyzed in moving forward. We are told by society, and often the men in our lives — our brothers, spouses, teachers — that we need a business plan, financial backing, experience and education in a specific area.

As we hear these messages they often become roadblocks to us moving forward, and our success. The interesting thing is that many truly successful women in business rarely have any of these things in the beginning. Many of us start without a business plan, without crunching numbers, and even without much money.

So if these “traditional” things aren’t necessary – what is? What do we as women need to have to move our new business or new idea forward?

Start with a clear vision.

As you get started with your business, it’s paramount to have a clear vision. When you have a vision of WHAT you’re trying to do, like the problem you’re trying to solve or the quality of the product that you’re trying to produce, the HOW will eventually come.

As entrepreneurial women, the path we take as we work towards our visions may twist and turn a bit. Imagine you’re driving a car. If you know you’re driving from the east coast to the west coast, you know you’ve got to take some combination of east-west roads. There is not just one right and perfect route for you to take. You, as the navigating entrepreneur, have the choice of your route (as crazy and twisted as it might be).

It’s the same with your business vision. As you gather new information, ideas and connections along the way you might adjust your route. The key is to keep focused and continually move forward towards that final destination – your vision.

In an upcoming post I’ll share another key aspect of being successful as a woman in business and share what I learned from my interview with Victoria Colligan, founder of Ladies Who Launch.

Debbye Cannon, the Business Mom Mentor, is an organizing guru and has created SmartCUTS ™ to support others create ease in the home and business. In her spotlight feature, she shares how repurposing content allows her to work smarter not harder.

 

 Debbye Cannon - Metromom in the Spotlight - Repurposing Your Content [21:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As a serial entrepreneur, I share in this podcast part 2 of the meaningful lessons I’ve learned since I launched Metromom.com over a year ago. These go beyond learning how to use Twitter or do my own viral video, these are lessons that have a deep impact on who I am and what I want to create for my life as a mom and as an entrepreneur. Here’s the link to the first set of lessons.

 

 Lessons Learned from a Serial Mompreneur - Part 2 [Metromom Podcast] [8:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download