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’m a big believer in showing my kids what I do professionally, and use any opportunity I can come up with to include them, whether that’s helping me type up blog entries (which my 9-year old son loves to do) or using my postage meter to send out CD mailings.

Fortunately, my local news station in New Haven CT, keeps inviting me back. The timing’s worked well for each of my three children to participate separately and see what it’s like for mommy to get all wired up, and have the commotion of the cameras, buttons and different stage sets. This morning I brought my 6-year old son Dane with me while I was interviewed by Chris Velardi about how women can best utilize the web to grow their businesses. While I don’t think Dane focused on the content of the interview as much as where we were going for breakfast afterwards, I know that these messages are seeping in.

With our current economy, you’ve probably been hearing a lot of bad news lately. Well, I want to share some good news with you. Women entrepreneurs, especially moms, are harnessing the power and flexibility of internet marketing to design businesses and lifestyles on their own terms. They’re making millions of dollars working-at-home on their own schedule.

Take a look at a recent article in Time magazine about our changing times, “At no other time in recent history has it been easier or cheaper to start a new kind of company.” The article goes on to discuss the advantages of Web-based businesses that cost almost nothing to get off the ground and can turn into great moneymakers.

Whether you want to get a new business off the ground or just want to use the Internet to expand your current business income, you need more than great ideas. Basically, there are the three things you must know in order to grow your business and maximize your time and energy.

• You need to know which internet marketing strategies will work best for your business.
• You need to be building your team because you can’t go it alone.
• You need to start implementing proven systems that will get the money pouring in.

If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level I hope you’ll join me for on May 1st & 2nd for the F^REE Metromom Online Success Telesummit. It really is F^REE to listen to 18 online marketing experts (like Nancy Marmolejo, Shannon Cherry, Beth Schneider, Michele PW, Alicia Forest) share the latest techniques and creative ways to build your business and thrive in this new economy.  During the Summit you can listen to what you want, when you want (completely around your schedule) so there isn’t a single reason why you shouldn’t check it out.  #mtmm09

In preparation for the Metromom Online Success Telesummit on May 1^st and 2^nd, I’ve been very busy interviewing 18 internet marketing experts, and quite honestly I’m amazed by the quality of content they’re providing. What really struck me yesterday was the constant underlying theme that kept coming up from all of the experts – 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.

A mom entrepreneur that I find especially inspirational – because of her authenticity – is Amy Miyamoto. As a mother of 3-year old twins, Amy is (in my mind) the ultimate Metromom! She will also be speaking at the Telesummit on How to Leverage the Power of Social Media to Create a Community of Raving Fans and Still Have Time for Your Family and Yourself.

I love the way Amy is promoting her talk. She created the YouTube segment above to explain what she’ll be sharing.  What really appeals to me about video messages is that I find it to be a great medium to let your personality shine through. (FYI – Amy will share how she created this message really quickly.)

If doing business authentically and on your own terms is important to you, you don’t want to miss hearing from these experts. Visit this page to learn more about what they’ll be sharing. #mtmm09

While connecting is clearly one of my intentions in all that I do, I’ve discovered that not everyone understands its intrinsic value. Are connections important? How many do you need? This week’s podcast examines the value of connection.

 

 Networking and the Value of Connection - Quality vs. Quantity [Metromom Podcast] [9:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

According to a recent article in Time magazine men make up 82% of the recession’s job losses, which means a lot more women are looking for work to make up for the lost paycheck. The problem is there are not a lot of jobs to be found… so more than ever women want and need ideas on how to start their own profitable business.

Thankfully the internet gives us options! There are five steps you MUST know in order to grow your business online AND maximize your time and energy:

-How to Create Effective Design & Motivating Content
-How to Increase Visibility, Buzz, and Revenue
-How to Streamline Your Digital Back Office
-How to Put It All Together With the Right Mindset
-How to Get the Support You Need to Keep Moving Forward

A lot of us are feeling pressure to generate the income we need but we’re not sure the best way to go about it. On Tuesday April 21st, my business girlfriend Laura West and I will be sharing how to use the internet to take control of your income and how to do it quickly during their one-time-only FREE teleseminar!

"Take Charge of Your Economy – 5 Steps on How to Use the Internet to Prosper and Profit," will be April 21st at 2 PM Eastern. All you need is a phone. Reserve your space here.

This is a FREE preview call for the Metromom Online Success Telesummit, taking place May 1st and 2nd.  #mtmm09

In this podcast, I share some reflections on lessons learned over the past year as I’ve launched my business, Metromom.com. A key lesson…the need to stay open to what’s possible.

 

 Open Up to What’s Possible in Business and in Life [Metromom Podcast] [6:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

An interactive website encourages your website visitor to stick around so they get to know you. Since  blogs are very interactive, they give you the opportunity to authentically communicate who you are and what you have to offer so you can attract the right customers.

Let me tell you a story about how my blog helped me interact…. Last week I was at sitting in the waiting room at one of those less-than-fun (but necessary) appointments and I decided to re-read The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea. It’s a beautiful parable by Bob Burg that I’ve enjoyed several times and each time I’m reminded of key lessons that serve as the foundation for my business.

Fast forward a couple days…I had an hour’s break while carpooling my kids one afternoon and took advantage of a few quiet moments waiting in the car with my laptop and wrote a blog post about The Go-Giver and the key lessons I’ve learned from it. When I got home I uploaded it to my blog and within a few hours Bob Burg (best-selling author) had added me as a friend on Facebook and a follower on Twitter and was promoting me to his list. This was amazing to me and certainly the kind of interaction I thrive on!

Blogs are also easy and inexpensive to set-up and manage. Don’t have a blog? At my upcoming Metromom Online Success Tele-Summit, #mtmm09,  Wendy Maynard will share steps to creating a blog for the first time quickly and without spending any money.

A blog is a fantastic way to start forming a bond with your visitor by letting your individual style and approach to business shine through. Blogs are also great for busy work-at-home moms because they’re very flexible-you can blog daily or weekly, you can post long or short blogs, you can be have informational posts or entertaining ones.

You can also make your blog interactive by inviting the reader to leave a comment or ask for their opinion on a hot-topic. This is a great way to start a dialogue with your customers, find out what they’re thinking and start establishing relationships. Ideally, you should provide your blog readers additional ways to connect with you. On your “side bar” you can provide links to your website, Facebook and Twitter pages or newsletter sign-up.

Sometimes we hesitate to move forward with our business because we’re afraid that we just don’t have enough experience or skills to implement our ideas. What I’ve learned is that if you know WHAT needs to be done, you can always get help on HOW to get it done.

I’m experiencing the truth of this as I put together the Metromom Online Success Telesummit #mtmm09 that’s coming on May 1st and 2nd. It’s a BIG, multi-faceted event – like nothing I’ve ever done before – so I have little hands-on experience, but I’m loving every minute of it.

Here are the things that help me as I navigate through this new experience:

• Benefiting from the confidence, excitement and support from my team and mastermind friends.
• Utilizing of past experiences that relate to organizing information, content and people.
• Focusing on my end goal of providing women the online information they’re looking for based on my survey results.
• Not worrying about perfection, but more importantly taking action.
• Thrilled at the quality of people who are agreeing to participate.

There are moments of stress (and waking up in the middle of the  night wondering about details I might have missed) but I’m really enjoying the process. We all have doubts about our lack of experience running a business or expanding in some way. And, while experience is important, resourcefulness has a BIGGER impact on your long-term success.

I really want you to benefit from all of my resources and learn how to get the MOST out of your time and energy with a knock-out internet marketing strategy. Please sign up for the Metromom Online Success Tele-summit for F.R.E.E.! #mtmm09

p.s. – a great thing that’s come out of this is that I’m chronicling all my learning through this telesummit process into an information product to share with others about all the steps involved. Stay tuned…

I received so much great feedback on my last article about How to be an Authentic Entrepreneur that I chose to continue on the theme of authenticity and how it relates to online social networking. I think this is really valuable to women working from home because we need to form authentic relationships, both online and offline.

 

 Creating Authentic Online Relationships [Metromom Podcast] [8:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download