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.And just like that, April is gone! This year is moving by SO fast. I can't believe it's almost summer - I feel like I was JUST setting my New Year's goals. Have you been making progress on your business since the beginning of the year? Here's how it's been for me:[symple_divider style="dashed" margin_top="20" margin_bottom="20"]

Last Month's Results

1. Update/Create my About & Products/Services Pages. Okay, this is getting kind of embarrassing. This is what, the third month I've straight up just NOT done this??? It's not even like I started working on this but couldn't finish in time - I literally just didn't do it. So what gives? Honestly, I don't know. But to be real, I think I'm dragging my feet on this because it's turning out not to be a high priority. I know I need to do this because it's kind of ridiculous not to have your products and services listed on your website but the truth is...I've been doing surprisingly well sales-wise even without a product page! People are buying right when I launch a product or they're contacting me directly for coaching. Plus, my focus has been on developing a strong collection of products and services so subconsciously, I think I've put off creating the products page because I want to finish creating all of my products first. Anyway, it's still an excuse and I'm not even sure it's a rational one but that's why I think I've failed to do this for so long. So...until I can really commit to this, I'm just going to go with my gut and focus on building out my product line before beating myself up about not having a products page.
2. Finish and launch my new audio training course. This I didn't do because I ended up moving faster on my blog training program (below) than I expected. My goal last month was to only plan out the blog training program then launch my audio course. I ended up doing the opposite by planning AND launching the blog training program, which ended up working well! I share the details below:
3. Plan out a blog training program. This was successful! I've wanted to offer a blogging training product for a while now so I'm happy I finally got it out there. I was spurred on to do this after the response Natasha and I received from our Idea to Income webinar. During that webinar, I shared a story about how I realized that if I wanted to succeed in business, I needed to change my mindset from a "blogger" to a business woman. That quote kinda caught on, so I based my program around my own transition and titled it the Blogger 2 Business Woman program. I announced this program to my newsletter subscribers only, since this was the first time I was offering a program like this (another good reason to sign-up for my email newsletter if you haven't already!) and the response was great! I hit my goal for sign-ups so I am very pleased. Because I hit my sign-up goal, the program is closed for now but based on the feedback I receive after this first go-round, I will definitely be running it again. So stay tuned!

This Month's Business Goals

1. Get some personal systems in place. I'll talk about this more in the "current challenges" section in a second, but I struggled BIG TIME this month with getting some systems and an overall "rhythm" for my business in place. I'm always doing a lot of work and it works out, but it feels really "ad hoc". Now that I've experimented a bit with what works and doesn't work in terms of creating and selling products, I want to put some systems in place so I don't have to stress myself out trying to "recreate the wheel" every time I start a new project.
2. Go back to posting 2x per week. It's a really fine line trying to balance the "blog" part of my brand with the "business" side, but one thing I didn't like last month that I only averaged one post per week. That's not terrible - probably the minimum I'll ever post - but of course, I really enjoy blogging and I want to make sure I'm always giving a lot of free value in addition to my business pursuits. More than a business, Think & Grow Chick is like a calling to me - I'm genuinely passionate about helping women take their lives to the next level. So I want to ensure I have a steady stream of accessible content to help my readers do that.
3. Get the website and back-end stuff in place for upcoming virtual conference. I signed up for a virtual conference recently and I LOVED it! Loved the concept, the execution, the everything, so now I'm planning to do one for Think & Grow Chick. From what I've researched thus far, virtual conferences have a lot of moving parts logistically speaking, so this will definitely be a new challenge for me. I'm totally up for it though, because I remember when webinars scared me to death and now I feel like a pro not a total newbie! So my goal with this is to finish the conference website and get all the back-end stuff (landing pages, sign-up forms, etc) together.

Current Challenges

1. Balance and Consistency. I actually have a whole post planned to dive in and talk about this in more detail, but this month I really struggled with keeping it all together. Things still happened and I was able to move things forward - but I didn't like the way I felt doing it. Most days I felt very rushed and like I was doing things "ad hoc." I HATE feeling like that - I don't mind being busy but I like things done in an orderly way, which was not the case last month. Halfway through the month, I decided that I really need to get some personal systems in place - routines and standard ways of doing things so I'm not always starting from scratch for every project. I'm testing out some now so we'll see how it goes...

Current Successes/What's Working

Email Marketing. I've said it before but I'll say it again because it's still working - building your email list is one of the most important things you can do for your online business. I've heard that for years but I dragged my feet on putting any energy into an email list because it just seemed like more work to do and I didn't understand the value. However, now that I am building my email list and I send out regular newsletters - I see why other internet entrepreneurs harp on it so much. More than any other platform, subscribers to your email list are truly "your people". People who follow you on social media and, to some degree, casually follow your blog, do not have the level of commitment to your brand the way those who sign-up for your regular emails do. So for me, making sure I engage with my email subscribers by offering them cool virtual events (webinars, challenges, live calls, etc) has been a great way to market my products and services and overall grow my brand.

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