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.Another month is in the history books! This year is going so fast I can barely deal with it! How was April for your business aspirations? Here's how it was for me:

Last Month's Business Goals & Results

1. Spend more time writing and editing blog posts. So...I didn't do too hot with this one. My plan was to write something everyday, even if it was only for 10 minutes. I failed at this miserably as I was still scrambling to get posts out.
2. Make site improvements based on blogging course. Didn't do this either! Like at all! I have a list of tweaks and changes I know I need to make to the site but I just didn't have the time to do them this month.
3. Conduct some interviews/panels. Eek! Another failure. Not one interview conducted Cheryl of FoxyMango so graciously reminded me that I was partially successful with this -- I had an interview with her! This totally slipped my mind since I reached out to her and completed the bulk of the interview in March, even though I scheduled the post to go live in early April. Gotta give myself more credit, no? :-) Additionally, I did reach out to another blogger I'd like to do a video interview with soon.
4. Plan my first event. So I did at least made progress on my event! I have a preliminary name, set-up, prospective location, day of the week and time, and a "theme". I have two local women in mind to sit on my panel as well. On top of that, I meet with my event accountability buddies, Tori and Kellee, from Black Girls Social tomorrow for dinner to discuss.
5. Begin working on an e-book. Eeh. This was a mostly failure because I didn't write anything, but I do have a preliminary title and an idea for the e-book concept. I even "picked the brain" of a few of my subscribers to see what kind of book they'd be interested in. Still, I didn't work on this as much as I would have liked. I'm going to put this on the back-burner until I get my other goals together.

This Month's Business Goals

Last month was a bit of a whirlwind -- I definitely didn't get to do everything I wanted to. This month I want to refocus and get back in a rhythm. My goals for this month are to:

1. Write Daily. Even if it's for only 10 minutes. I didn't post nearly as much as I wanted to last month because I'm still struggling with developing a regular writing schedule. The lack of a writing routine was especially problematic this month because April was so stinkin' busy! May is another jam-packed month for me as I'll be traveling nearly every weekend, so committing to writing everyday is all the more important. Even if I only spend 10 minutes writing some days, that's a lot better than zero!
2. Follow my editorial calendar. To make it easier to write everyday, I'm going to spend time drafting and actually following an editorial calendar via google calendar.
3. Conduct some video interviews/panels. I didn't get a chance to set this up last month so I'm going to try again this month. There are SO many up-and-coming, interesting women I've "met" online that I'd like to interview. Picking others brains is my specialty!
4. Continue plan my first event. I'm really excited about my initial event concept, I think this is going to be fun! Now I need to confirm the location and start hashing out the details, which is my goal for this month.

Current Challenges

1. Writing Procrastination. Though I love the finished product from writing, getting started can be so hard! I like to think that I don't have enough time to write but if I'm honest, I do. I just goof off when I should be writing. Hopefully my "write daily for 10 minutes" goal is enough to conquer my procrastination.
2. Organization. I was doing really well at this and then I kind of fell off last month. I definitely approached things more haphazardly than normal in April. This weekend I've committed to doing a major planning session at a local coffee shop (gotta get away from the house to be productive!) so I can review my goals for the rest of the year and structure my blog activity accordingly.
3. Social Media. Posting regularly on social media can kinda take over your life if you aren't careful! I'm considering subscribing to CoSchedule, an app that helps to manage you blog posting and social media channels all in one place. I will definitely let you know how it works for my if I do end up using it.

Current Successes/What's Working

1. Emailing with my newsletter subscribers. I LOVE my newsletter subscribers! Those ladies are so interesting and I love getting a peek into their lives! I always make sure to ask direct questions in my newsletters and encourage my subscribers to reply to me, which has turned into some really interesting conversations! I'm really enjoying the direct connection with my readers via email.

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