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How To Build A Business with Little Money

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how to build a business

A Newbie Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating a Business from the Ground Up

INTRODUCTION – THE INTERNET AND DECREASED BUSINESS COSTS

Entrepreneurs today are lucky to be hopeful business owners during an era of resources. It used to be that business owners would work hard and only have a small hope that their business would take off in their area, but the Internet has now globalized the way we think about how to build a business.

The best part? It’s extremely inexpensive. Unlike marketing methods of the past that would cost entrepreneurs an arm and a leg, we’re now living in an age when social media, digital and content marketing strategies are inexpensive and easy to utilize, vastly increasing a business’ ROI potential.

Traditional physical business models are always going to be here to stay, but the age of the Internet is upon us. Entrepreneurs who want to save money while still creating and owning a business can now lease digital room at a rate that’s a fraction of the cost of a brick and mortar storefront.

The Internet is a Global Platform. It allows business owners to introduce themselves to a virtual audience while making real profits they can take to the bank.

Not only does the Internet give entrepreneurs a platform on which to reach their audience, it opens them up to audiences from around the world. Businesses that have a global potential can find success via the more than 3 BILLION users online as of August 2015. Since 1995, the Internet has grown at a staggering rate with 42% of the global population now having access to the Internet in some way.

This allows entrepreneurs to grow incredibly large businesses without investing that much capital. As businesses grow, of course, more money is needed to maintain the company — but profits grow with businesses online. Jeff Bezos created Amazon as an online bookstore and didn’t have a sale for a year. Now he owns the largest online retailer of any product imaginable.

When you use this ebook article as your guide to starting a business, you learn the benefits of the Internet as an online business platform, how to maintain costs and keep them low, as well as learn about incredible resources that can help your Internet storefront thrive.

I. BUSINESS MODELS THAT WILL KEEP COSTS LOW AND PROFITS HIGH

Let’s back up. At this point, you haven’t made a business yet, whether it’s a brick and mortar storefront or an online ecommerce hub. Before an entrepreneur ever launches any kind of business, crafting an executable strategy is the first step to success. 

First, entrepreneurs must test their marketplace. When you know your audience and what they need, you can better plan for your business launch.

The first step in marketplace testing should always be to examine market presence and competition. The easiest way to do this is to simply Google your potential business’ purpose online, like “haircare for kids” or “pet training kits.” What ads show up? How many relevant results are there? Perform your searches with quotation marks and examine how many results there are — any number under 50,000 is your sweet spot. This means competition will be minimal.

From here it’s easy to examine the competition that does exist and adjust business expectations accordingly. If a business idea has too much market competition, it may be time to rethink things.

Now we can examine the benefits of information marketing and media downloads. This is the sale of information online and media, respectively.

Information marketing is one of the most budget effective forms of business because it’s original, based on information a person already knows and only requires two things to be actionable: a website and a .PDF. Selling ebooks or online courses also help an entrepreneur grow their credibility. It’s one thing to sell a product, but the knowledge about that product is much more valuable. For instance, a dog training kit doesn’t present the same credibility as an ebook on simple dog training tips.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a downside to information marketing. An ebook isn’t worth a lot of money in the long run, and entrepreneurs who marketing ebooks or online courses at exorbitant fees will find they don’t move a lot of volume.

In general, you make what you put into information marketing. A five or six-page ebook isn’t worth as much as an in-depth, professionally designed, four-week course package. The amount of money to be made will vary based on the quality, length and credibility of the product.

Media downloads are similar but include a different formatting. Instead of “print” media, media downloads include videos, podcasts and other forms of auditory or visual media. These, however, require more investment capital — it costs a lot less to write an ebook as compared to selling a successful podcast.

Do you have a talent or skill that can translate into online sales? Selling online services can be a great way to make money online with a personal brand as a business.

Whether you’re a writer, a graphic designer or video specialist, you can make money online without a fully-realized business to invest in. The goal may be to build up to a content marketing firm, but brand establishment is important when you’re starting out. Sites like Freelancer, Fiverr, and Upwork are great for advertising your services so you can work your way up.

There are obvious benefits and negatives here. The pros are that you get to make money without spending money and you’re performing a service you already know how to do. The negative is that you aren’t protected in the way you would be if you owned a business of your own.

On the other hand, you may already have a brick and mortar store or physical products. How do you translate a physical business into digital sales?

This can be a bit trickier when it comes to keeping things on a budget. This requires a true online business, though it doesn’t mean a lot of capital has to be invested. There are either different skills or objects needed to make this happen:

• Knowledge of ecommerce solutions

• Web design skills

• Graphic design skills

• Online-to-offline business integration

• Attention to detail

• Copywriting abilities

• Domain name & website hosting

• Customer service

With all of this work comes a lot of profit, however. The benefits of an online storefront include owning your own business, there are resources that make the process easier and easy access to scaling up a business.

This also applies to selling someone else’s physical goods as a reseller. If you want to create a business based on selling physical goods that haven’t yet been, understand that creating goods increases business startup costs by a large margin.

Sometimes it’s possible to make money in business without creating your own products or even selling your own services. Entrepreneurs can make money via other business owners via commission.

Affiliate marketing is a way to make money online without even creating a website. How is this possible? Essentially affiliate marketing is the art of sending traffic to someone else’s website or product. When that person makes a purchase, the company makes money AND so does the person that sent them there — A.K.A. you.

Owning a website and affiliate marketing for multiple companies is the best way to make money in this “business,” but it’s not something that’s required. If you already own a business, affiliate marketing isn’t something you can’t participate in. It’s all about promotion and being paid for this promotion.

The cons of this method of money making include being at the mercy of the business in question and being distanced from the product itself. On the other hand, it’s money that can be made easily with little to no time or capital investment. The company is the one dealing with products and customers — not you. In general, affiliate marketing is great for entrepreneurs that want to put their foot in the door while still making some cash at the same time.

There’s also CPA — cost per action marketing. The difference here is that there’s no selling of a product, but instead the money comes when you get someone to take some type of action. This can include something like a trial membership, newsletter subscription or another type of CTA (call to action). The purpose? Businesses know that getting in new customers or creating actionable leads is worth commission.

Finally, entrepreneurs must look at this variety of startup models and ask themselves a few questions that cement their identity as a business person.

Before deciding on a specific type of business model, these are three questions that you need to ask yourself:

• What is it that you’re good at?

• What do you enjoy doing, and can it be actionable as a means to make money?

• How much of your own business are you capable of handling yourself, whether because of your skillset or time management?

How you answer these questions may determine the business model you should choose. It’s important to know the answers to these questions in order to create a business that you’re comfortable fostering and continuing — it should be based around your wants, needs and capabilities for the sake of longevity.

II. ESTABLISHING A SENSIBLE BUSINESS BUDGET

You’ve asked yourself some hard questions and decided your business model. Now what? The next step is deciding what your budget is going to be. While the cost of your business model will vary greatly depending on the model you chose — for instance, creating a product and then establishing a website won’t be as inexpensive as an affiliate marketing site investment — it’s also worthy to note that there are always inexpensive options to choose, no matter the model you went with.

For your business start up, avoid spending money on all the business bells and whistles. Look for free tools and resources that will lower your costs.

For both startup investments and continuous operational costs, there are three different types of costs that factor into these different business areas.

The costs being discussed are:

• Fixed — These are one-time investments that you’ll only have to spend once or very rarely.

• Recurring — Costs that are cyclical and will be a constant concern, whether monthly, weekly or yearly.

• Invisible — Hidden investments that relate to a business but not specifically.

To keep things simple, let’s break down each type of cost and common expenses that fall into that category, as well as an estimated cost for that expense:

FIXED COSTS

• Software needed to run a business (can be free or up to $500)

• Web design (free to $2,000)

• Extra development (up to $500)

• Branding creation (free to $300)

• A computer for work ($350 to $1000, laptop preferred)

• Business cards and other startup marketing material ($20 to $50)

RECURRING COSTS

• Domain registration (varies depending on your host, but typically $10 to $15 a year)

• Web hosting (varies depending on host, $6 to $15 per month at startup)

• SSL certification ($70 to $300 per year, not totally necessary but recommended)

• Maintenance ($100 to $2000 depending on your experience level)

• Payment processing (usually 2.9% commission)

• Advertising (free to varied, like $5 per day via Facebook advertising)

• Email autoresponder ($20 or more per month depending on email volume)

• Shopping cart (free to $200 plus per month)

• Cloud storage (free to $10 per month)

• Site backup (free to $5 per month)

HIDDEN COSTS

• Time, in the context of wage and business cost

• Rent or mortgage of your own home, A.K.A. your business hub

• Bills for Internet, phone and electricity

• Education required to run said business

• Email management

It’s important to make a very obvious note here:

This is an example. It is used as a starting point for one type of business model. Some expenses may apply to your business model, some may not. Some may not be listed. Your own budget depends greatly on your business model, experience and the tools you need to get started.

Smart business owners will look for ways to cut their costs and vet any only deals they think can lower their budget. For your own reference, copy this sheet to a document of your own and edit it accordingly. What does your own budget look like?

III. TOOLS ENTREPRENEURS CAN USE TO HELP STAY WITHIN THEIR BUDGET

You now have the business model you want to go with and the budget required to make it happen. Now the next step is to further estimate those costs via reliable and cheap service providers that can further decrease your budget.

It’s worth saying that just because a service is cheap, it isn’t worthless — many big name companies still use “tight budget” companies because there’s no use spending lots of money on a service when you could be saving all that cash for something else.

For each area, three different inexpensive service providers are listed. Choose one of these or do your own research on a cheap service alternative!

If your business requires one of these services, consider the recommendation:

DOMAIN REGISTRATION

• GoDaddy.com

• Domain.com

• Name.com

WEB HOSTING PROVIDERS

• Ehost.com

• iPage.com

• Bluehost.com

For more information on choosing a provider for your business, check out this best web hosting provider resource from Digital.com.

WEBSITE PLATFORMS

• WordPress.com

• DoodleKit.com

• Moonfruit.com

ECOMMERCE SOLUTIONS

• WooCommerce (Free plugin for WordPress, but expensive for additional features/extensions)

• Shopify

• 1shoppingcart

FREE BUSINESS LISTINGS

• Google My Business 

• Bing Places for Business

• Yahoo Local

We also suggest using a PASSWORD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM to protect your information. Check out this complete password management systems guide from PasswordManager.com

These are just a few types of resources and a few examples of each resource — this gives you a starting place for looking for your own inexpensive resources.

IV. YOU’VE STARTED A BUSINESS…NOW HOW DO YOU STAY ON A BUDGET?

Creating a business and setting up a budget are actually the easy steps within this ebook. Now we get to examine how to continue to stay on a budget as your business grows and resources necessary to keep things on track.

Maximizing business profitability is something a lot of experts talk about, but new entrepreneurs often don’t understand how to make it happen. Thus, they’re often lured into profitability scams — or resources that live by the old adage “you have to spend money to make money.” The sad thing is that entrepreneurs will spend money on these services, then find they aren’t making the money they were promised.

Starting a business doesn’t mean you have to spend lots of money to make it work. It’s essential to understand how to manage a business while simultaneously making money doing what you love.

First, don’t throw away your day job just because you got your first ecommerce sale. A startup company shouldn’t be what you sacrifice a living wage for, especially when you don’t know if your first attempt at business ownership will be successful or not.

Learn how to barter for goods and services. Being cash poor doesn’t mean you aren’t extremely wealthy due to your assets, skills, abilities and connections. If you can’t buy graphic design work, why not leverage your content writing abilities for a logo design?

Do you watch Shark Tank? You don’t have to go on national TV to find a great business investor. There are venture capitalists out there that would love to give you money to run your own business in order to see an expansive return.

Always look for ways to be thrifty. Don’t ever spend money without thinking first: “can I find a less expensive way to accomplish this task?” If you like looking for deals while grocery shopping, apply those same techniques here. Look for coupon codes, do your research and always be willing to haggle.

Finally, don’t spend big bucks on invoicing or accounting. Budget marketing tools like TurboCash or FreshBooks exist for a reason.

It’s also unnecessary to spend big bucks on marketing. Online marketing is cheap, easy to do and gives businesses an incredible ROI.

Online reviews are your friend. When a business is starting out, credibility is paramount. CTAs (calls to action) and requests for reviews can make all the difference in the world. Promote your business on sites like Yelp! or Google+ Local for an added incentive.

Blogging can be another way to make your business more credible while simultaneously creating marketable content. Blogs are easy to link to on social media, create SEO potential and establish yourself as an industry expert.

Speaking of social media, businesses that aren’t on social media are behind the times. Promoting products and deals on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (depending on whether your business is B2B or not) can bring in new traffic, generate new leads and give businesses the ability to connect with consumers.

You should also consider joining industry groups. Whether they are forums or chat rooms, these are vehicles for building great industry relationships while also promoting SEO in search engines.

Sites like HelpAReporter.com, or HARO, will help to promote your business via press releases or news stories you provide them. This helps media channels to find verified information about your business.
Connect with other businesses via a tit-for-tat relationship. Promoting another business via testimonials or cross-promotion efforts can mean they’ll do the same for you.

CONCLUSION – CREATING AN ACTION PLAN THAT WORKS

It’s one thing to have all the information necessary to start a business, and yet quite another to actually make it happen. I’ve provided you with advice and resources — now it’s your turn to turn it all into an incredible business!

You now know:

• It’s possible to make money online and to lay the foundation for an Internet business without investing a lot of capital.

• The Internet can give any business global reach.

• How to create a budget and stick to that budget with easily actionable tips.

• You can start and own a business for as much as $1,000 to as cheap as being completely free!

You don’t have to fully commit to all of these tasks yourself — outsourcing can be an incredible asset to new entrepreneurs.

It’s always important to consider what you’re capable of and what you can delegate to someone else. As your business grows, so will your need to ask others for help and to create new jobs for new employees. Every business starts with one person, but great business owners will soon realize their small startup has the potential to be something much bigger than they ever thought possible…

…and all of that is possible thanks to the Internet and low-cost business techniques.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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How To Know If your Business Idea is Worth Pursuing?

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Idea is Worth Pursuing?

You have that near-mythical flash of brilliance at 3:00am on a Thursday morning. You jot it down and roll over to finish sleeping. In the morning’s light, it still looks like a pretty good idea, whether it’s for a new business, a new hobby, a book to write, or a blog post. Here’s four quick ways to help figure out if it’s worth following up on.

Research

Each type of idea requires its own type of research. No need to spend hours at the library for a quick blog post. A google search with an eye towards others who have written on the same topic would make sense. For a new business, it may be time to do some deep digging into the market, competitors, current offerings, technical requirements and limitations and the legal structure surrounding the business. While the specific method for the research will depend greatly on the type of idea, the research should be focused around two major areas: potential and risks and costs.

Potential

How well can the idea do? A blog post about knitting dog sweaters on a blog about food tourism probably has a limited audience. It probably also doesn’t have a huge amount of return, in that even a wildly successful dog sweater knitting post probably won’t bring in a huge amount of traffic or revenue. While that alone isn’t enough to discourage following the idea, it needs to be noted and understood. For a business or product idea, market needs to be understood. How many people could you sell to? How often? For about how much? The exact price point doesn’t need to be determined, but the difference between tens of dollars and tens of thousands of dollars should be clear. Once you’ve determined the upsides, it’s time to consider the opposite.

Risks and Costs

Using the blog example, a short, easy post on dog sweaters probably doesn’t cost a lot of effort, even if the return is low. Other risks need to be considered, too, like losing audience, market confusion, mudding your brand. A business idea has risks too, like financial cost, time spent away from family, legal ramifications, or damage to your reputation. Risks aren’t necessarily guaranteed to occur, but the likely ones need to be fully grasped.

Calculate

Now it’s time to put the research together. Figure out the risk versus the rewards. A long article with a high research time cost that might annoy some of your audience and has little likelyhood of growing your audience or revenue probably won’t make sense. A quick article that keeps people engaged may make sense, even with little direct return. A business idea that will be unlikely to ever break even with a large time commitment that will ruin your reputation if it fails is probably not a great idea to pursue.

Feedback

Once your idea has passed this stage it’s time to share it. Get feedback from people you know, find out what they think. Particularly pay attention to the people who don’t like it. Feedback from a negative perspective can be invaluable in helping you see risks or costs that you’ve missed. Also, don’t be afraid of having your idea stolen. Implementation is almost always more important than the idea itself.

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Powerful Ways to Make the Most of Your Brainstorming Session

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Most of Your Brainstorming Session

Coming up with new ideas takes work. And if you’re tasked to come up with fresh ideas frequently, it can be easy for you to hit a brick wall. This is when brainstorming sessions are essential. Brainstorming is the process of collecting as many ideas as you can and filtering them to get the best ones. During a brainstorming session, every idea should be heard. The goal is to just let the creative juices flow and gather as many ideas as possible without criticism. Remember that there are no bad ideas during brainstorming.

Here are five ways how you can make the most of your brainstorming session:

  1. Be clear about your objective

For a brainstorming session to be effective, make sure that you communicate your objective clearly. A well-defined objective will prevent your team from losing focus and going astray. It’s futile to gather your team, hustle them in a room, and ask them to throw ideas without a goal in mind. Effective brainstorming needs a plan and a plan must have an objective.

  1. Start the session relaxed

The mind works best when it’s rested and relaxed so start your brainstorming session on a light note. Encourage easy conversation and allow your team members to speak out. Everyone is encouraged to participate. The goal is to get people unstuck and urge them to come up with thoughts and ideas. When the mood is light, ideas are bound to flow.

  1. Time the session

To get the thought process rolling, make sure to time your session. A clock is a good reminder that there’s a deadline and this will help propel your team to think quickly. You can keep the session to as short as five minutes or it can run to as long as 45 minutes. Make sure that you make your session long enough for ideas to flow freely.

  1. Write everything down

Make sure that all ideas, good or bad, are noted down. Use a whiteboard so that your team members can see all the ideas that have been shared and add more suggestions. Do not judge or favor any idea and just welcome everything: big ideas, bold ideas, and even totally ridiculous ones. Brainstorming sessions are all about quantity, not quality.

  1. Evaluate the ideas

After you have gathered all the ideas, the next step is to evaluate them one by one and separate the good from the bad. Remove all duplicate ideas and assess all the remaining ideas one by one. Is the idea fresh? Is it unique? Does it provide a solution? In choosing the best idea, you need to go back to the objective and ask yourself if an idea meets your objective.

Brainstorming sessions are one the effective ways to come up with new ideas. If used wisely, it can a very effective tool to come up with great ideas and help take your company to the next level.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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Business Meeting Mistakes Many Entrepreneurs Make

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You can’t call yourself an entrepreneur if you haven’t gone to at least one business meeting. Business meetings are a useful tool and standard part of business. They allow you to share ideas, knowledge and projections with a team of people or your staff so that everyone is on the same page.

As an entrepreneur, you’re likely to be the one heading these meetings, which means you’ve got some responsibilities here to set the tone and lead the team. If you can’t successfully accomplish this? Your meeting is in trouble.

The best way to fix this problem is by knowing what mistakes NOT to make before ever setting foot into your meeting location. Here are a few that are common, but that should be avoided at all costs.

Not Being Prepared

This is one of the biggest meeting sins: not being prepared before starting the meeting. As the meeting leader, it’s your job to make sure that you know exactly what you’re talking about. You need to be able to answer questions correctly and inform the team as accurately as possible.

Whether you can achieve this by writing an outline or using notecards, know that you HAVE to make sure you’re prepared to the best of your ability. There’s no faking it until you make it in meetings — if you aren’t prepared, it WILL be obvious.

Being Robotic

On a similar note, there is such a thing as being TOO prepared. Let’s say you write down all these important facts and figures on notecards and read them off to your team. Someone asks you a question about the information…but you totally draw a blank and have no idea what to say.

You can’t just go into a meeting with hard facts — you also have to have comprehension and confidence. Be able to talk about what you want to discuss fluidly and accurately at the same time. Be prepared to answer questions that you may not be totally confident in.

No Purpose In Mind

It’s great to have weekly staff meetings…but why? Do you have an objective every time you call your staff together?

You should. Whether it’s something as simple as refining an existing business practice or talking about a new partnership, every meeting should have a clear purpose and talk about a problem to solve. Without an agenda, you’re really just rambling co-workers.

You Don’t Listen

Finally, one of the worst things you can do in a business meeting is make it all about yourself. When you bring people together, the idea is that you can all communicate and share ideas with one another. Many bosses decide to use business meetings to push their own thoughts and agenda, but that’s not respecting their employees.

Even if you have explicit directives you want to give employees, make sure that they also have time to share their thoughts. Listen to what they have to say. Even in cases where you disagree, employees appreciate knowing that you listened and thought about what they had to stay instead of not caring to listen at all.

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Reaching Out to Others for Motivation: How and Why

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reachingout When it comes to our motivation in life we often look inward or focus on tools we use separately by ourselves. Even when you buy the motivational audiobook or research everyday positivity tips, you’re still going it alone on this journey – but why?

Sometimes it’s because we believe we need to be strong by ourselves and for ourselves, and this isn’t necessarily false. We all like to believe we’re the one person army we’re supposed to be, and even when we need help making it through we should still help ourselves over extending a hand and asking for it, essentially showing weakness to someone else.

The problem is that sometimes we can’t get motivated or stay positive on our own, and there’s no fault in that. Weakness isn’t admitting you need help, but it is being too scared to ask for it. Reaching out can actually be a great way to get – and stay – motivated, but you do need to learn how.

Friends and Family

First, consider your loved ones. These are the people who would do anything for you and would gladly help you when you’re down and out. This should be the first place you look for motivation when it comes to asking others.

Why? First and foremost, your loved ones are who you’re most comfortable with. If you share your fears and flaws with anyone, these will be the people who will accept you above all else. They’re also the people whom you have easiest access to.

Similarly, friends and family are also great tools to use on your motivational journey because you want them to see you succeed. You want to accomplish your goals and make them proud. There’s nothing worse than letting down a loved one, so you definitely have something to prove when it comes to being motivated.

Peers

Sometimes the best motivation can come from someone we aren’t as close to and that’s because they’re a peer. When you go to work every day and see someone doing better than you, this can either make you self-conscious or it can drive you to be better.

Reaching out to a peer is a good way to push yourself to succeed like they have. Ask them their strategies for success and how they motivate themselves. You’ll often find they’re perceptive to your questions because they appreciate being looked up to and seen as a success themselves.

How to Reach Out

It’s often seen as awkward to reach out, but that’s because we think of the scenario as if we’re reading from a script. Don’t open with “I’d like you to help me get motivated” – instead, be more specific. As mentioned above, ask for advice. When it comes to friends and family, ask if they’d like to do something related to the task at hand with you, like help you sort through receipts or jog every day.

Reaching out doesn’t have to be hard – it’s only hard because we imagine it that way. Take a chance and reach out. You’ll certainly be better for it.

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Female Entrepreneur Blogs to Start Following Immediately

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It isn’t exactly a man’s world anymore. Though many sectors are still dominated by male presence, it’s becoming more and more common for women in the workplace to take over positions of power.

However, women who are just getting started on their career paths often find it hard to thrive in an environment that has been filled with roadblocks for so long. Even though the overall business culture is changing, it’s still common that they’ll run into misogyny in the workplace.

In cases like these, it’s important that female entrepreneurs and career women have someone to look up to – an example of female success. Here are a few blogs run by female entrepreneurs and businesswomen worth looking into.

Marie Forleo

Born and raised in New Jersey, Marie Forleo graduated from Seton Hall University in 1997. She held a degree in business finance which helped her secure a job as a trading assistant in the New York Stock Exchange. From there she moved on to work for the magazines “Gourmet” and “Mademoiselle” where she began to branch out into the world of branding and began to create her own image for herself.

You may recognize her as the author of the famous book “Make Every Man Want You: How to Be So Irresistible You’ll Barely Keep from Dating Yourself!” Forleo is currently running her blog and works as owner of Marie Forleo International, as well as the companies B-School and MarieTV.

Amber Rae

Amber Rae’s entrepreneurial attitude began at a young age. She sold candy to her neighbors, leaving notes on cars as a form of marketing and documented the entire journey in her journal. Now she works with hundreds of different creative and entrepreneurs. At 11, Rae launched an e-zine for teenage girls and she hasn’t stopped creating since.

Clients Rae has worked with include Apple and The Future Project, and her work has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times and Forbes. Her blog covers her journey and life experiences that have led her to the current points in her life.

Kristi Hines

Since 2008, Kristi Hines has been writing about marketing and business. If you need to know anything about a marketing topic, Hines is the person you should go to before anyone else. She’s the owner of marketing curation blog Kikolani and you’ve likely seen her post work to other big marketing blogs – Search Engine Watch and Social Media Examiner to name two. Hines has also worked with big marketing companies like KISSmetrics and Sprout Social. Hines has written over 1.5 million words across 1,000 blog posts.

Maren Kate

If there was ever a business “Jack of all trades,” it would be Maren Kate. After dropping out of University of Nevada at Reno, Kate found herself needing to find a way to make ends meet. She picked up odd jobs, like selling jewelry on eBay and working as a social media guru for “The Pawn Stars,” just to name a few of her entrepreneurial gigs.

Kate’s claim to fame is Zirtual, a company that helps to connect entrepreneurs to virtual assistants. Now Kate has left that company and is back to escaping the 9 to 5, much like her new book suggests.

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Female-Friendly Business Resources for the Savvy Business Woman

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Let’s be real – the business world isn’t exactly female-friendly. You’ve probably experienced this at some point in time during your career. Whether it’s a few smug male glances or all-out sexual harassment, you’ve got a lot to deal with as an entrepreneurial woman in a world dominated by men.

It’s more important than ever for everyone to support women in fields of expertise. As a woman yourself, it can be hard to find people who are willing to be in your corner. Thankfully there are indeed female-friendly resources out there for support, ideas, networking and help for all of your entrepreneurial needs.

Feminology

If you need someone in your corner that is willing to go to bat for your business, Feminology is there for you. Their female-empowerment message is perfect for women entrepreneurs who are just starting out on their first official business venture. For a yearly fee, Feminology will guide you and your business through your fledgling phases, making sure it succeeds.

Feminology also regularly holds and endorses workshops geared toward giving women the tools they need to succeed as a businessperson, including marketing ideas and networking tips.

American Business Women’s Association (ABWA)

As a female entrepreneur, it’s important that you network in spaces that are safe and welcoming to you. If you’re going it alone, it can be hard to find opportunities to branch out and network outside of small circles. The ABWA gives women from all different business backgrounds the opportunity to get together and learn about leadership and education, as well as providing a great pool of female entrepreneurs to connect with.

BizyMoms’ Small Business Center

You should never stop learning. You could have a PhD in literally every subject possible, and there would still be new information to learn. Maybe you aren’t there yet, but the point still stands – BizyMoms’ dedciates a portion of their site to offering female entrepreneurs access to e-courses, directories, informative articles and even a newsletter to subscribe to for updates on women-friendly resources.

Rich Woman

You can already tell this is a site for you, right? Rich Woman is dedicated to female empowerment in the business world by connecting with other like-minded business women. There’s also an added element of financial education and business presence for entry-level female entrepreneurs that still need a little bit of help getting their foundation set.

The BOSS Network

 Are you a BOSS? If you are, then you’re a pretty smart lady – this network of women is all about being empowered and aligning together as businesswomen. They’re all about promoting the health and wellness of women, both in the business and spiritual sense. If you want to network and just swap some business stories with some savvy women, this is the place you should be.

TED for Women

 You’ve probably heard of TED conferences, or at least seen snippets of them on YouTube. If you’ve never seen a full TED conference, you should definitely check one out. If you want one that piques your interest, check out their videos tagged “women.” Most of these videos talk about women issues and their place in the working world. Watch a few and be totally inspired.

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4 Unique Brainstorming Methods for your Next Project Meeting

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Brainstorming methods

Being the owner or employee of a small business means being a constant idea machine. You’ll have to learn how to come up with solutions and ideas on the spot at any time of the day. At first, this can be pretty easy – you’re a fresh mind with fresh ideas and you’re spitting them out left and right. After a while, though, the well starts to run dry. You’re grasping at straws, trying your damnedest to come up with whatever you can and what you do deliver isn’t very good.

This means you’re going to have to learn how to brainstorm. No matter whether you’re totally new at this or you’ve exhausted your entire idea bank, it’s never a bad idea to develop a talent for brainstorming – especially with others.

Group brainstorming activities can be the best way for you and your team to come up with brand new ideas, or even fine-tune old ones. One half-formed idea you have combined with one half-formed idea from another coworker can add up to be the best idea you’ve seen all year.

But sometimes the common forms of brainstorming don’t work as well as they should. Everyone will get pretty burnt out on just shouting out ideas, so implement these four new and innovative brainstorming strategies during your next project meeting. You’ll be amazed by how much synergy you guys will share, and the ideas will come pouring out.

Change the scenery a little bit

Sometimes what’s really blocking all of your creativity is staying in the same old meeting room and office space over and over again. Even if you work in the most inventive and creative office in the world, staying in the same place every day stagnates your creativity. Instead of staring at the same wall again, suggest everyone move somewhere else.

The best place for sparking creativity is somewhere engaging, like the outdoors, but even moving to a different room can get the juices flowing again. Being in a different setting can give you a refreshed sense of newness. Oh – but if you’re a cool boss or have some pull in your workplace, definitely go for the work picnic option.

Stop applying all that pressure

One of the reasons you’re drained of ideas is probably that you’re trying too hard to force them out. The best ideas are organic – they simply spring out of you without effort. When you sit there and think, think, think yourself into a stupor, you aren’t going to get anywhere.

This idea is two-fold: first, always keep a pen and paper handy – even in every room in your house. Don’t let that idea slip past you in the shower. Hop out and write it down! Just let your engines rest and write things down as they come to you.

Utilize some group therapy techniques

No not in a somber way. When you all pile into the meeting room, sit in a circle and just talk – you can pick a question or topic to answer, but just get talking about something other than brainstorming.

When you engage with others on a more personal level, you get your mind working in ways that get it ready for more extensive brainstorming work ahead. Talking about critical thinking or personal questions makes you actually think about your answers, so you aren’t just regurgitating ideas using the same old brain techniques you usually use.

Also, try the opposite strategy

Sometimes what really gets people motivated is keeping them apart from the rest of the pack. Skip the meeting once and tell employees that they have an hour to come up with an idea – just one. After the hour, bring everyone to the meeting room and go around in a circle, reading off the ideas.

Also work in making small groups with different dynamics, instead of just one large group. Some people work better with other personality types – if you can make an ideal match made in heaven, you’ll get brainstorming ideas in no time.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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Check out these 3 social networks for Women Entrepreneurs

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LeanIn
Over the last decade, women have really been changing up the business climate, being incredibly innovative, and simply inspirational. Ubeam innovative wireless, Hopscotch’s element for teaching kids how to code, and other great ideas such as Hitlist were all founded by women. From CEO Mathilde Collin who created the “Front” application, to Danielle Morrill who dreamt up the game-changing Mattermark, women all over are bringing their sharp focus, prime empowerment mantra, and hard work ethic to investors and other elements of the digital think tank worldwide.

Mattermark has software that lets users look at information about startups based on Twitter feeds, CrunchBase, SEC data, and more. We wanted to show you some of the best social networks out there today available for women, so you could find your own hive to cultivate the next bomb you drop on the ever-changing business landscape.


Lean In: This is a web-based platform that lets you literally create your own “circle” of strong peer support. Developing from the pleasantly-changing comfort of men and women having the gall to step further out of their comfort zones, this is different then Facebook: you really put a bit of thought into the kind of circle you want to begin, and then interact in many different forums, private and public. Examples of what you can find in a large city such as Denver are “Women Warriors”, “Lean In Colorado University”, “Working Girls”, “Fire Within Me”, and “Victory Torch”. These circles grow together by collectively putting to use the benefits of peer mentorship, and over 80% of those who participate claim that belonging to a Circle led to a positive change in their life.


Walker’s Legacy: This excellent online Women’s social group is full of Industry knowledge about personal finance, resident experts, business, health and well-being, and many other topics that are perfect for startup innovators and entrepreneurs. Local Women’s Leadership Brunches are an excellent way to meet others with similar interests, understand your strengths and weaknesses, and clearly define the vision you want for your future AND your business. This entity was founded in 2009 as a quarterly women in business lecture series, designed to inspire all types of women to understand their purpose and learn from others who have had great success. The very first series was named in honor of Madam C.J. Walker, who was a true pioneer and innovator, and also the first self-made millionaire in the history of this great nation.


World Pulse: This online network really caught our eye because of its truly global reach. Tens of thousands of women leaders from more than 185 countries all over the globe connect here and create strong ripples of emotion and hope leading to change, and thereby changing thousands of lives. The community consists of community voices where you find journal posts, training where you can access information to cultivate your own growth, a resource exchange, a library where you can share tons of great information to others, and a group directory. You can browse the member directory for women with similar interests as yours, and best of all, it is a cost-free service. World Pulse themselves do not provide direct funding, but they do a top-notch job of connecting you with the entities that do. An emphasis on financial needs, a very diverse and innovative community, and a focus on humanitarian issues are just some of the great things that sets World Pulse apart from others.

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Best Entrepreneurial-based Books Hitting the Shelves this Spring

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entrepreneurial books

The notion of building wealth and becoming prosperous is not a strange desire; many have dreamed of this for ages, since money is one of the factor’s that ultimately gives us freedom. Many of the best books of the last five years have talked about social media marketing, how to allocate wealth once you have it, and the art of public speaking.

This year is going to be a big year in the entrepreneurial space: the popularity and usefulness of drones is rising, web commerce is still driving a lot of traffic, and people are really starting to travel again. Here are some great picks for the year ahead, as the entrepreneur in you will be encouraged by curling up with a great read.


The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from Their Founding Entrepreneurs, by David Kidder

Just 5 years ago, more than 550,000 businesses were concocted just within the borders of the United States, all hoping to become financially stable for life. This New York Times bestselling author and expert on the current economic climate shares experiences from some of the globe’s most successful entrepreneurs and startup players; picking the brains of those you want the most advice from.

He goes very deep into his duty, and here you can glean information about how companies such as Paypal, LinkedIn, Ted, Flickr, and many others became a common name instead of just a pipe dream.
Selecting a successful business model, finding funding for your venture, and dealing with hurdles you may encounter along the way are all some of the topics covered in this book that we conclude are one of the most valuable of the decade! We know it wasn’t written this year, but it is a drop-dead contender.

Mad Genius: A Manifesto for Entrepreneurs, by Randy Gage

One of the reasons we deem this one so important is that it shows us how conventional business thinking is not always cutting it in the market these days and talks about the candid reasons why. This book really goes deep into what it takes to change the culture to get results in the business world, and even change what is taught in the educational institutions about an entrepreneur’s mindset.

Whether you want to have an excellent product for sale, gain inspiration for your own call to action, or need pointers on never settling for the second best, there are tons of valuable tips and ideas here for you. This is one author that recognizes the difference between the entitlement mindset and sitting down and actually getting something done, and he has inspired many to think big worldwide.

Wouldn’t you be thrilled to be sitting in the driver’s seat of an incredibly awesome business idea at the start of 2017?

The Conquer Kit: A Creative Business Planner for Women Entrepreneurs, by Natalie MacNeil

The best thing about this work and the reason it really caught our eye, is that it’s very interactive! The open invitation to doodle, sketch and record what you are seeing in your mind’s eye in many ways is one of the best things about this book.

It seems like a simple notion that you may sometimes overlook, but when you are reading other great books about how to get a killer startup up and running if you don’t choose to write things down, you may completely lose them in the most crucial moment!

Finding the perfect name, the right kind of legal status, constructing your team, and fully bringing the business to life are the 4 crucial components of business strategy covered here. AND: it’s exciting that it’s geared towards women, the innovators that will continue to shake up and define the world in 2016!!

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