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.

I  so enjoyed interviewing Victoria Colligan, the founder of Ladies Who Launch, at my recent Online Success Telesummit. Victoria is passionate about supporting women as they launch their business and their dream. We spoke about how the first step in starting a home business is to be clear about why you want to do it.

An interesting survey by Ladies Who Launch revealed…

· The #1 reason women launch businesses is for more freedom and control over their lives.

· The #2 reason is creativity.

· The #3 reason is money.

When you really look at why women are starting a home business, it is very much a lifestyle choice for them. When lifestyle is your first priority you might make different choices about how you grow, launch or move something forward. Victoria explained, “I should say that when they do launch their businesses, they are looking at their lives and business in a very holistic way. They’re not necessarily compartmentalizing the yoga class from the QuickBooks session. They are going from one to the other seamlessly, picking their children up from school and returning emails at midnight. All of those things relate and tie back into lifestyle.”

Victoria and I then discussed how women launch a little bit differently from men and the “traditional” business model would dictate. The typical masculine business model usually includes intensive business planning, raising financing etc. With women, there’s a more organic approach to creating their businesses.

Women like to remain open to opportunities and take small steps along the way. They take one action and move forward, and then they tackle another action. The great part is they celebrate each step as they go along. Because of their flexibility and openness women don’t pigeonhole themselves. This works in their favor because if you’re too rigid you filter out opportunities. You fail to see what might be right in front of you is the thing that will move you forward.

You can download this interview and learn Victoria’s “7 Steps to Realizing Your Dream.” These seven steps were designed for women starting a home business that supports their lifestyle.

I just finished recording my Wrap-Up call for the Metromom Online Success Telesummit where I shared my highlights. It’s been a fascinating two weeks as I interviewed 18 different internet marketing experts who shared tips on how to maximize your online presence.

I think what I found the most interesting was how the expertise of the different speakers weaved together. In the end I discovered consistent references to what it takes to be successful in today’s economy.

Let me share some of my highlights of the four online success principle I discovered:

1. You Need to be Authentic

One theme that kept coming up from was the importance of being authentic in your marketing. I heard it from Nancy Marmolejo as she talked about social networking, Michele PW as she shared copywriting tips, and Wendy Maynard as she discussed blogging. They all said basically the same thing – the key to being successful online is to be authentic and create relationships that are mutually beneficial. Laura West then really pulled this authenticity theme together when she spoke about “Attraction Marketing.”

2. Make Sure You Use Every Avenue to Connect

Jennifer Odear and Caleb Scoville really helped clarify how you can maximize your expertise by using all the different ways of communicating. Jennifer spoke about recycling your content and using it in your blog, articles, press releases, newsletters and more. Then Caleb shared how to take that very same content and use it in podcasts and YouTube videos.

What’s great is that once you have some content there are so many ways to get it out there. Alicia Forest gave great tips on using content to build your list. Amy Miyamoto showed how to tie your content into your social networking, Shannon Cherry shared publicity tips and Ty Downing shared easy-to-implement SEO ideas.

3. Women Need Foolproof Systems

Busy women juggling a business and a family need more then great ideas. They need help implementing proven systems that will get the money pouring in. Beth Schneider and Erin Blaskie gave fantastic tips on how to build a solid team and then create systems to keep things running smoothly. Jennifer Haubein shared how technology can help you set-up a website that helps you build relationships effortlessly. Debbye Cannon shared tips specific to moms on how to keep their family thriving as they build their business.

4. Get Your Mindset Prepared for Success

No amount of internet marketing strategies will help you achieve your goals if you’re stuck with a negative attitude or mindset. Victoria Colligan and Traci Long , from Ladies Who Launch, were truly inspirational as they shared how to take the next step in your business. Gina Bell shared how to identify and eliminate resistance to self-promotion and success.

The Metromom Online Success Telesummit (now called The Online Success Toolkit) is available for you to listen to. Click here to learn more! Once you listen I’d love to hear your feedback so come back and post your comments. What were some of the highlights for you?

When I started planning my Metromom Online Success Telesummit I was torn on whether to focus exclusively on marketing techniques or to expand it to include mindset tips as well. Then I realized that no amount of learning will help you achieve your goals if you’re stuck with a negative attitude or mindset. That’s why I created the final track of the Telesummit to be about – How to Put It All Together With the Right Mindset.

I’m really excited to have two fantastic speakers from Ladies Who Launch join me for this track of the Telesummit: Victoria Colligan, the Founder of Ladies Who Launch, is one of my personal heroines. If you’re hesitating about taking the next step in your business make sure you listen to this call on, 7 Steps to Realizing Any Dream.

Traci Long the Chief Revenue Officer of Ladies Who Launch specializes in competitive marketing positioning. She’ll get you motivated and then show you how to execute your plan during her talk on Building the Foundation of your Brand to be a Lucrative Business. Traci will show us how building your brand isn’t just about your logo and your tagline.

I’m also really happy to have two of my “business” girlfriends sharing mindset tips at the Telesummit:

Laura West, the founder of Center for Joyful Business, specializes in supporting women entrepreneurs in creating a business that is meaningful AND that makes money! She makes marketing simple and takes the confusion and fear out of promoting your business with integrity and grace. I’m really looking forward to her talk on, Attracting Clients and Building Strong Relationships: 5 Easy Attraction Marketing Tools

According to my friend, Gina Bell, “Belief is the bridge between your dreams and your dreams come true!” Gina is the co-Founder of TheNetworkingMasters.com and creator of JVmavens.com. Hers passion is to work with motivated entrepreneurs who are ready to identify and eliminate their resistance to self-promotion and success. If you feel stuck, you’ll love her talk, Not Sure You Can Succeed? Get a Believability Makeover!

I honestly believe that the right mindset is the number one determining factor of success in business and in life. Which why I can’t express how grateful I am that these four wonderful women have agreed to share their “mindset gems” at the Telesummit. Especially now, it can be challenging to stay positive. It’s easy to become negative when faced with negative influences in our life – be it a skeptical friend or family member or the never-ending media cycle of more and more bad news.

If you feel like you could benefit from some positive (and practical) encouragement please join me and listen in on these calls May 1^st and 2^nd – there is no charge to participate in the Metromom Online Success Telesummit.

I’ve learned a lot of crucial lessons this year as I launched Metromom — one of the biggest has been the need to stay open. Open to change, open to feedback, open to trusting my intuition and open to new opportunities that perhaps I never considered before.

Many of you remember that I started Metromom with a focus on providing a community for women in direct sales. My member’s area was called The Metromom Direct Sales Association. Soon after launching I realized that my focus was too narrow, and I needed to open up to the possibilities.

This realization came to me as I led a 4-week Incubator Program in my local area for Ladies Who Launch. During this time, I met with 6 fabulous entrepreneurial women. Not a single one was involved in direct sales, yet they were very interested in what I was doing with my Metromom community.

These women were entrepreneurial and they were moms. I suddenly realized that they could benefit from connecting with like-minded women that were a part of Metromom. But how could that be, since I had worked so hard to establish my niche?

I made a decision. I expanded my niche. I realized that being a Metromom isn’t about being in a particular kind of business or industry – it’s really about your attitude. A Metromom is a driven, evolving woman committed to caring for her family, nurturing her career and achieving success on her own terms. So in October I officially changed our member’s area to The Metromom Entrepreneurs Association™.

I didn’t abandon moms in direct sales, in fact, by making our community more inclusive they benefit even more because I truly believe that every member has something valuable to share and teach.

During one of my Coffee with Kim calls my recent decision to expand my community was confirmed. I listened to the interaction between a new member, not in direct sales, with another member who was. They both were benefiting from the connection and I was so pleased that I was able to provide the space for this new relationship to develop, and for their businesses to thrive.

The lesson I learned was that by staying open I was able to expand my business and reach out to more women.