Does the thought of getting everything in order for your taxes make your heart stop?
Well, you’re not alone. And it’s a good idea to solve this problem before the holidays and tax time roll around. I’m always on the lookout for good resources to support mom entrepreneurs, and I’ve found a webinar I know will benefit many work at home moms.
My colleague, Rebecca Tervo, CPA, is offering a free teleseminar to help you get your financial books in order so you know exactly where you stand when it’s time to do your taxes.
How would it feel for you to go into the end of 2010 confident and secure? You can learn how in Rebecca’s FREE webinar, “No More QuickBooks Fear”, where she outlines exactly what you need to know in QuickBooks, including what to track for taxes. This will be a jargon-free zone! No accountant talk, no weird terms you don’t understand. Just clear, simple explanations of the different sections in QuickBooks and what they mean for your business and taxes.
Rebecca has helped me get setup with my own QuickBooks account, and I really appreciate her professionalism coupled with an easy-going nature.
Why not tell a mom entrepreneur friend about this webinar?
Does tax time terrify you?
Does the thought of getting everything in order for your taxes make your heart stop? There IS a better way! My clients feel great when tax time rolls around because they know that their books are in order and they have a clear picture on EXACTLY what they owe and how much money they’ve made.
How would it feel for you to go into the end of 2010 confident and secure? You can learn how in my FREE webinar, “No More QuickBooks Fear”, where I’m outlining exactly what you need to know in QuickBooks, including what to track for taxes. This will be a jargon-free zone! No accountant talk, no weird terms you don’t understand. Just clear, simple explanations of the different sections in QuickBooks and what they mean for your business and taxes.
I just love talking to mom entrepreneurs about passion, work and money all in the same sentence .
So tomorrow, I’ll be doing just that. As part of the WoMEN: What Mom Entrepreneurs Need Teleseminar Series, I’m going to interview Rich German, author of “Monetize Your Passion: Follow Your Heart and Create Life’s Ultimate Win-Win-Win.” And Rich knows how to do just that.
We want to share with you how to do the same. Join us for the call tomorrow to learn:
Rich’s own story about how he turned his passion into a lucrative business
The top three hurdles that stop most people
The #1 key to turning your passion into a successful business
One baby step you can take to get started turning your own passion into a business
Make sure you hurry and click here to register for the call so I can get you the details before the teleseminar starts tomorrow at 12p ET. (Can’t make it live? Still register and I’ll email you the replay.)
Wondering if it’s really possible to make money with YOUR passion? Leave a question or comment below, and Rich and I will do our best to address it during tomorrow’s call.
I’ll be taking part of Shawna Seigel’s New Life Event weekend of webinars, and thought I’d let you in on it
Shawna is passionate about training and education for small business owners and throws a huge learning party once or twice a year. Starting at 4pm ET today and continuing through Sunday night, Shawna’s New Life Event will offer a total of 30 webinars covering tons of online business topics. . .all for free!
The idea is “to breathe some new life into your business.” You could use some new ideas, right? And maybe you’d like to win some prizes? Shawna is giving a ton of stuff away. Read all about it on the website when you sign up.
His “Notes From the Universe” have inspired me again!
I just finished my group coaching call with the Mom Biz Makeover Program gals, and one of the mompreneurs was discussing how her business seemed to continually evolve. She was telling us how hard it was to let go of the brand (name, logo, website, etc.) that she has worked so hard to build, yet that she knows doesn’t represent where her business is heading and where she wants it to go anymore.
She’s not the only one. It happens to all of us mom entrepreneurs: you have to put a stake in the ground, give your business a name, and start building your message, your platform and your brand. But over time, you grow, get better at doing certain things, find that your market wants more of something and less of something from you, and if you’re going to thrive, you evolve to meet these changes.
So you wind up with a brand, a logo, a blog and a website that has cost you tons of time and money, but doesn’t convey the message you know will take you forward. And so you wind up doing something totally normal, but totally wrong: you attempt to straddle both. Or to put it another way, you say something like this: “Well, I really want my business to be X, but I’m not sure that I can get it there, so I figure I’ll keep holding onto my old stuff.”
Here’s the quote that I got from Mike Dooley today:
If someone wants “A” to happen, Lara, yet they prepare for “B,” they will always get “B.”
Prepare for “A”
Simple, isn’t it?
Take a look at what you’re committed to. Are you planning and preparing for that, or are you planning for it not to work out?
I spent a fantastic hour today interviewing Nancy Anderson, a wife, mother, counselor and author of Work With Passion in Midlife and Beyond: Reach Your Full Potential and Make the Money You Need. What a breath of fresh air!
There were so many nuggets of wisdom that Nancy shared with me and my audience on the WoMEN: What Mom Entrepreneurs Need Teleseminar Series. I thought I’d share some of them here with you. In no particular order, here they are:
The difference between hobby and passion: a hobby is you doing for yourself. Passion converts you to an evangelist of something you love for others.
In this economy, following your passion IS practical! How logical is it to suffer thru doing work you hate?
Discovering your passion can unleash your fears–What if you’re not good enough? What if you fail? This happens because your passion is so important to you.
We often get in touch with our passions when we’re young, but then they get covered up by so many things as we get older: fear, inhibitions, others telling us we don’t deserve what we want, etc.
For most of us, it’s actually difficult to articulate what we most want to do. Nancy recommends writing an autobiography so you can learn for yourself where your motivations and interests came from, as well as how you learned to cover them up or let them go.
It was a fantastic hour. I am grateful to have had the chance to talk to a woman who really has her head on straight and is willing to help all of us love what we’re doing with our lives. Mompreneurs especially need to make sure they spend their time doing purposeful work if it’s going to take them away from their families. I spend the first month of the Mom Biz Makeover Program helping my mompreneurs figure out their strengths, skills, their style and what motivates them to do the work they do.
By the way, if you haven’t already registered for my f*ree teleseminar series, the WoMEN: What Mom Entrepreneurs Need calls can all be heard via phone or webcast every Tuesday at Noon ET. Just click here to see the list of upcoming topics and speakers and fill in your name and email address. You get access to all the upcoming live calls and a replay of the last week’s call!
We’ll continue our discussion of working with your passion and making money at it when I interview Rich German as my special guest on the series next week. Don’t miss it!
Everyday, I get an email from a guy named Mike Dooley who offers inspirational messages. Some days, I feel too busy to read them and simply delete them. Other days, it’s like he has somehow been able to read my thoughts and sends a perfect message at just the right moment.
Here’s the message I almost deleted this morning:
Stop thinking that you have to make it happen, Lara, and let it happen… That you have to be better, and be yourself… That I’ve ever judged you, and be free.
What stopped me in my tracks this morning was that this is the exact message I decided to use for a keynote speech I’ve been asked to deliver at a Women’s Leadership Conference next year. And I just came up with this yesterday afternoon.
Since I don’t believe in coincidences, I’m taking this as a sign from the Universe that I’ve chosen the perfect topic. I’ll be talking about authentic leadership, and how the first step is self-acceptance.
Crazy things happen when we accept ourselves–we become a magnet for others who want to accept themselves, too. And all of that has nothing to do with being perfect or better than others.
I just got back from Boston after a month of near-constant vacation with the kids in one state or another. My kids are a little confused and wondering what to do with themselves after living a Disney life for so long. Let me just say: we have made some fantastic memories this summer! I am so grateful for all the wonderful places we’ve been and the friends and family that have made our travels so lovely.
So it’s time to get back to real life, right?
Yep! I hopped back on twitter tonight (that’s like saying I went back to my “office”…since twitter is my office and wound up having an interesting discussion with some other mom entrepreneurs.
It all stemmed from a conversation I had with Jill Daniel, of www.pastaqueenpr.com (or @pastaqueenpr on twitter) today. We discussed how mompreneurs have to figure out how to balance their business goals with their family goals. I told her I have to say no to many of the opportunities that come my way since I have to consider the impact they have on my role as a mom and a wife. We’re driven to see our businesses succeed, but we can’t lose sight of our top priority: family.
It can be hard to remember that sometimes.
If you’re like me, you started your own company when you had your kids in order to have the freedom, flexibility and fulfillment you needed. It seemed like the key to work/family balance.
But then the business started to grow, we got excited about more customers or clients, which meant more work, and of course more money…and then one day we woke up to the fact that we’re working too hard to make the money we want, and we aren’t spending the quality time with our family that we wanted to because we’re just too busy.
That’s why we mompreneurs have to remember how important it is to say no sometimes. If you’re doing a good job with your business and it’s growing, good for you! Your hard work is paying off. The key is for you to be strategic with how you spend your precious time.
Having time off to spend with your family is not a luxury–it’s a requirement for a mom entrepreneur. And that means you’re going to have to turn down a number of the opportunities that come your way, even when they promise you’ll make more money.
At a loss trying to figure out what to say yes to and when to say no?
Start with your values. Does the opportunity support them or cause you to compromise them? (For example: I’m just starting to travel for speaking engagements and TV appearances, which is thrilling for me. But I have to keep that great growth opportunity for my business in check with my desire and commitment to be a full-time mom for my kids.)
Next, take a look at your business plan and goals. Will this opportunity move you towards your goal? Will it help you get there faster or more easily?
Finally, be really honest about whether you even want to do it. Is this ideal for you, or are you settling for something? The more time and energy you expend on projects and opportunities that don’t showcase your best strengths, talents and passion, the less time you have to take on projects that offer exactly that.
What are you gonna say no to? And by saying no to that thing, what are you saying yes to?
If you’re still stumped and can’t seem to say no to anything for fear of missing out (all the time), you might be ready to hire a coach. Your business will grow the way you want it to when you apply some planning and strategy to it. Have you checked out the Mom Biz Makeover Program yet?
I saw a quote on twitter this week that gave me a great reminder about something I think needs repeating (often):
Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. ~Robert Fulghum
OK, so I regularly question my kids’ hearing since I find I have to repeat myself a thousand times if I expect them to act on the things I say: “Turn off the DS. Wash your hands. Set the table.” Yeah. Apparently they don’t hear commands so well.
So they may not be listening to me, but I know for sure they’re watching me.
Here is some proof I know they’ve been keeping an eye on me:
My seven-year-old son offered to help my three-year-old daughter use the bathroom. (I resisted the urge to direct or monitor him, strong as it was.)
My daughter was overheard yelling at her dolls: “I’m sick of it! I can’t take it anymore!” (Not a terribly proud parenting moment for me.)
My six-year-old son was telling his brother that he wanted to be an entrepreneur when he grows up, so he could like his job. (Imagine my pride.)
I overheard my daughter “reading” one of my business cards to herself: “Mom Business Coach. Mommy is the best business coach.” (I had no idea she had a clue what was on those cards, nor that she had noticed them before, nor that she knew my job title. Not that she has any idea what that means, but it’s clear she has noticed the cards and watched enough of what I do to learn that they are related to my business.)
These are just a few of the examples that come to mind from this week. Clearly, some of what they pick up from watching me is positive, and some of what they learn from me is less so. I accept that I’m imperfect and do the best I can to model the things I most want them to learn.
What are your children learning from watching you? Take a moment to reflect on this. Is there anything you see them doing that you can celebrate as a job well done? And what do you see that you want to model differently?
In my next post, I’ll share some of the values that I most want to model for my kids. I’d love to hear what you’re trying to teach yours!
I know you’re busier than ever now that summer’s here. You’re the party-planner, play date coordinator, your children’s favorite toy, the vacation organizer, and a zillion other roles on top of your usual routine of wife, mother and business owner.
Some of the mom entrepreneurs I coach have been feeling a little overwhelmed trying to get it all done. I’ve had some panicky moments myself, due to the fact that my family’s travel season is in high gear and I’ve already taken three weeks off of work. I have even more planned .
The only way I can enjoy my time off with my family is to remember that I am not the only one who can do some parts of my job. If we mom entrepreneurs are going to successfully run a business while also thoroughly enjoying the freedom and flexibility that mompreneurship provides, we have to delegate.
Here are a few of the things I have successfully delegated for the summer (and beyond):
Setting up my QuickBooks and making sure my bookkeeping is in order so tax time is easy this year
Getting a marketing strategy and marketing plan in place
Creating a press kit to help me be “media-ready” for some fantastic speaking opportunities and TV appearances
Vetting and gathering information for each of my guest experts in the WoMEN: What Mom Entrepreneurs Need Teleseminar Series
Loading new info products into my shopping cart
Can you hear me breathing a sigh of relief over here? I am grateful to the team of mompreneurs who support me in my business. They do what they do much better than I do, and I get to focus on the parts of my business that only I can do. AND I get to get away from my work and spend my precious time with my family, making memories that I know will last a lifetime.
Take a look at your calendar or your to-do list right now. What is ONE THING on your list that must be done, but that someone else could do for you?
Do you need a recommendation for a VA (virtual assistant) who could help you get some things off your plate? I work with several and can highly recommend them. Leave a comment below if you’d like details.
Day two of EVO 2010 has concluded and I wanted to quickly pop in to wrap things up for Lara via her Twitter and Facebook stream and to also post this fantastic video that Lara did this morning about her thoughts and intentions on what she wanted to accomplish during day two.
“@hypeparkmom Says when looking for guests on @Oprah, they first go looking for them on FB and twitter and blogs.”
“Fascinating! Listening to folks from Oprah / Harpo Keyote at #EVOconf talk about getting @oprah on twitter and facebook.”
“Out of 300 people in the room listening to keynote from Oprah/Harpo producers, just learned only 1 person watches Oprah show live.Others DVR it”
“Key to pitching to a PR agency: SASS (gr8 Story, how u can Activate it, how2 measure Success,Sustain relationships) via @ssmirnov”
“@ssmirnov is a fabulous speaker–smart, funny, related and engaged with her audience. Not to mention gr8 storyteller.”
I know that Lara can’t wait to catch us up on all of the information that she wasn’t able to tweet out! So, until next week when she catches us all up, enjoy this great video!
My colleague, Rebecca Tervo, CPA, is offering a free teleseminar to help you get your financial books in order so you know exactly where you stand when it’s time to do your taxes.
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