Hello and welcome to The B-Side, a mastermind group for entrepreneurial women! On the first of each month, I share my business-related goals, challenges, and triumphs while inviting you to do the same! I'd love for you to join me; you can learn more about participating by clicking here.I am SO glad it's March! Definitely ready for some warmer weather. :-) As we move into the last month of the 1st quarter of 2015, here's how I did in February :

Last Month's Results

1. Get my business "foundation" in place. I did not totally finish getting my business foundation in place because this was (is?) a way bigger project than I anticipated. I will definitely be working on this all through March, possibly through April as well. If you haven't checked out my last B-Side post, I stated that I wanted to get some "foundational" things in place to move my business forward. Thing like - completing my "work with me" and product pages, updating my LinkedIn profile, getting my email marketing system in place, opening a new bank account in the name of my LLC, etc. In February, I did a good job setting up my email marketing system (side note: if you have any kind of business online, having an engaged email list and an email strategy is crucial for you business. I'm kind of mad it took me this long to learn that but I digress...) and re-writing my bio but that's pretty much all I got to. Next month I want to make greater progress in getting my "foundation" items in place.
2. Create and follow an editorial calendar for my newsletter. I did really good with this goal last month! Many of my subscribers are telling me they are enjoying my regular emails. I even relaunched my #NoExcusesChallenge for March, which is an email challenge for my readers. Maintaining regular email newsletters for my list is something I will definitely continue next month.
3. Post everyday (or nearly everyday) on Instagram. This was a complete fail. I did post more on instagram but definitely not everyday. Honestly, I set this goal because I thought it would be great for marketing (and it is) but I abandoned it early on in the month because I focused my attention to another marketing strategy, which I'll talk about under "what went well" below...

This Month's Business Goals

1. Update/Create my About & Products/Services Pages (Business Foundation). Since I made the mistake last month of trying to tackle my entire "business foundations" project, this month I'm focusing on finishing just a portion of it. Lately I've been receiving opportunities to speak locally here in Dallas, so I want to make sure my website has an updated bio (with my new headshots!) and includes all the products and services I now offer. Right now there is a link in my navigation to buy my book only but I've also been doing a lot of coaching and I have some other training products planned. To make sure my website visitors can learn about everything I do and offer, I need to set up new webpages that detail all my offerings.
2. Launch my "Launch Your Life" workshop online. At the end of January, Natasha (Go and Glow Project) and I hosted a business and life strategy masterclass in Atlanta titled "Launch Your Life". This workshop did really well and we got a lot of request to make the workshop available online. Natasha and I JUST finished recording the online version, so my goal this month is to work with her in getting that all set up and launching it to our respective audiences. If you were one of my readers interested in the workshop, stay tuned!
3. Launch my new audio training course. As if the above weren't enough to do, I have a new training course that I'm working on. I'll keep what it is a surprise for now but I've wanted to create it for a while because it addresses a problem I've noticed A LOT of women are struggling with. People ask me all the time about self-discipline, motivation, etc, etc, but there's some "pre-work" you have to do internally before any of those self-discipline and motivation "tips and tricks" will even work. This training course will help women do just that. My goal is to launch it by the end of the month...eek!

Current Challenges

1. Email. In many ways, I'm sure this is a good problem to have. The #NoExcusesMarch challenge I recently launched added over 700 women to my email list in 4 days. While I'm extremely grateful for the growth, with growth comes....tons and tons of email. Like, tons. Someone didn't get an email from the challenge. Someone else has a question about my workbook. Another person wants to ask me a question about blogging. The amount of email I'm getting now is crazy. I already said last month how I'm getting dangerously close to the point of needing a virtual assistant...email is making that need even greater.
2. Self-care. So...I kind of fell off with my healthy eating, working out, and just generally taking care of myself last month. I had so many projects going on that most days I didn't have time to do things for myself like paint my nails or even do my hair. I also just moved into my new house last month, so my time (and energy!) was extremely limited. I think the issue was I didn't set a clear cut routine for my self-care as things started ramping up with my blog and new house. This month I'm focusing on creating "non-negotiable" routines and blocks of time for my personal life and self-care.

Current Successes/What's Working

Facebook. Is so funny how things change! For as long as I've been online, Facebook has literally been my least favorite social media site, both personally and professionally. Then when they changed the algorithm for Facebook Fan Pages so that post would no longer be shown to the majority of a page's fans, I was pretty much done with Facebook.So what changed for me? Two things: Facebook groups and Facebook Ads. Facebook groups are awesome because they allow you to develop a deeper relationship with your community. Since creating the Facebook Group for The B-Side, I've launched 2 more groups to much success. I don't expect to launch new Facebook groups every month (way too much work) but I am thinking about how to better use them in my business strategy.As for Facebook ads, I recently tried them out and was shocked by how well they worked for driving new, targeted women to my brand. They also weren't that expensive for me as I only ran ads for a very specific target. I'm learning a lot about Facebook ads and different ways to market my brand and products, so I will continue to put in practice everything I learn!Focusing on 3 things. I may have mentioned this before but everyday, I choose just 3 tasks that, if completed, will move my business forward. With more "irons in the fire" than ever, there is just no way for me to get everything done I set out to do on a daily basis. Even though I end every day with things still left on my to-do list, I'm making more progress than I ever have before because I'm getting the right things done everyday. Every morning, I pick those 3 tasks and I focus all my attention on getting them done.Side note: If you want to try the "focus on 3 things" method for yourself, I recommend you read the book Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. Also, if you want a simple way to keep track of your 3 things daily, you can check out my custom "Today" notepad, which is designed around this concept.

Your Turn!

Mastermind Rules

• Share your goals, challenges and successes in the comments.
• The goal of this mastermind is to support each other, so be sure to read all the comments and check out all the participating blogs and businesses! If you have something to offer, leave a comment and help each other out!
• If you are a blogger, feel free to create a post sharing your entrepreneurial goals, challenges, and successes (via the format above) on your blog and link back here. You can even grab the button and include it in your post:

B-Side Facebook Group

Be sure to join the B-Side Facebook group! Since the B-side post will come out monthly, this women-only Facebook group will serve as a "hub" for us to ask questions, share what we have going on, and generally connect with each other on a day-to-day basis. You can join right now: http://facebook.com/groups/bsidebythinkandgrowchick