My hubby and I attend a gazillion seminars each year - it’s just what we do. We love personal and professional growth and subscribe to the Kaizen/constant-and-never-ending-improvement approach to life. (We met in ‘99 at the fab Money & You seminar!)

It can take a lot to impress me after attending so many high-end, big-name speakers’ events. I just attended and spoke at Alexandria Brown’s 5th annual - and last ever - Online Success Blueprint Workshop as I wrote about here live from the event.

I’m delighted to say Ali’s event was nothing short of spectacular. Certainly it was a profound honor to be the ONLY female speaker at the 3-day OSBW event and to share my contribution about Facebook and social media marketing. Additionally, the positive vibe of the entire event was palpable!

I tweeted up a storm with the hashtag #OSBW. (Hashtags make it easy to follow and search for tweets from specific events). Here’s the main tweetstream for all #osbw tweets.

My primary takeaways from Ali’s event:

Global effect of women in business:

More women entrepreneurs and business owners will help bring peace to the planet. Amen. And, we heart our guys too of course!! When Ali shared this nugget - there was a chorus of "YESSS" from the few guys in the audience! I love that Ali has claimed her purpose to inspire women business owners around the world.

The importance of self care:

Self care is a vital component of running a successful business. We must take time for ourselves to rest and to re-energize. This is a huge one for me as I continue set up more effective systems to free up more of my time. I appreciated how Ali’s team schedule all her beauty care, for example, at regular intervals far in advance. It’s the small things like this that can make such a big difference - no more stressing about how to fit it all in. Just plan well!

The importance of a TEAM:

Ali emphasizes seeing hiring help as truly helping yourself and helping the service provider. My own team is growing in leaps and bounds: I’m now working with a business manager, project manager and several VA’s (virtual assistants); a graphic artist, marketing expert, platform sales coach, productivity/focus coach (yes, I need help focusing. lol!) and more. Plus, I’m delighted to have on my team two-time Ironman Triathlon finisher, Ashley Mahaffey, as my fitness coach - whom I met on Twitter, I might add! (Ali’s fitness coach is the amazing Laura Mak in LA who I got to meet at OSBW too).

The importance of a supportive environment:

Okay, this isn’t new of course… but when I took a look at my uber flexible, mobile, hybrid lifestyle - I realized I need to make some changes coming up. I just love RVing with my hubby and now that we’re back in SoCal at least for the winter months, I need a bigger space to be more nurtured and productive at the same time. Stay tuned for what we create next!

By the way, Ali talked about having both a supportive emotional and physical environment. Look at your life and see who may not be fully supporting you right now - could be it’s some family members and you may need to limit your contact with them. And with your physical environment, clear out any clutter and make sure your work space is nurturing. (On another note, my money expert friend Joan Sotkin says that the "urge to purge" is a sign that more money is coming your way. Love that!)

The power of mentorship; think big, manifest fast:

If you’re going to be thinking up ideas for your business anyway, you may as well think BIG!! One of the highlights of Ali’s event was meeting her BILLIONAIRE mentor, my fellow Scot, Anne McKevitt. Anne is often referred to as the "Martha Stewart of the UK." She runs 22 businesses, has 1800 employees and is incredibly REAL. Everyone just loved her to bits.

Anne never learned limited thinking: from an early age, she surrounded herself with powerful successful people and, as she says, "by process of osmosis" (say that in a brrrogue!) she became very, very successful herself.

For many years, Ali has been the Ezine Queen. Yet now with Anne’s guidance, Ali is stepping up to a much, much bigger game to fulfill her own powerful life purpose as an international leader of women.

The power of knowing your life purpose… and life lesson:

My life purpose is to be the "Innovative Messenger in the Spotlight" says hand analyst Baeth Davis. I was truly blessed to have a reading with Baeth - when she explained to me my life’s purpose I was moved to tears. I felt SO grokked (gotten). My purpose is to take the complex, simplify it and teach it to my peeps. I’m a leader of leaders. YES! I am SO on track with my career passions as a social media business coach.

Then Baeth shared my life lesson (we all have one): guilt about my gifts. Whew. You know that profound Marianne Williamson quote about how we’re more afraid of our LIGHT than our dark? Well, that’s me to a tee. However, the good news is Baeth encouraged me to simply "feel the feelings and go for it anyway."  LOVE that! And I am - BIG time! Speaking at Ali’s event was a fantastic experience and opportunity for me.

Ali’s EMA model:

You may be familiar with the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. We often get so good at what we do - the technician in us - we get stuck IN our business rather than working ON our business. I love Michael’s book. But I just love the simplicity of Ali’s model more: it’s a three-step pyramid with A at the bottom, M in the center and E at the top.

A stands for Administration - this is where many business owners are stuck; handling all the minutiae of day-to-day admin, running ragged. But when you implement systems, outsource, delegate and hire help - you can free up your energy and attention on the A to then focus on the M which stands for Management.

With your team and systems in place, now you get to manage your business. But management can have it’s mega demands too… and, fortunately, much can be delegated as well freeing you up to focus on the top level. E is for Entrepreneur. You get to be a true entrepreneur with the Admin and Management handled for you.

There were many, many more profound nuggets of wisdom and awesome aha’s. Plus, meeting SO many amazingly successful and powerful women and men too! I could write a blog post about everyone I met! [See party pic: Dr. Cindy Brown, Katrina Sawa, MaryKay Morgan, Kelly O'Neil, Michele PW, Mark Anthony Bates, Fabienne Fredrickson, Melanie Benson Strick, Mari Smith, Lesley Bohm, Erin Thoms Melnick.]

2009 is going to be a mega year for all of us. There is profound change and a huge positive shift in the air now! What is on the horizon for you? I’d love to know - please share below:

Ali Brown is a dynamic, successful business woman and internet marketer that I’ve admired for many, many years.

You may be familiar with Ali’s former brand "The Ezine Queen." Her new brand of Ali has blossomed into an incredible venture, complete with the Ali Magazine and, launching in January, the Ali Boutique! See pic right - taken today at Ali Boutique pre-launch at her mega event. Ali’s line includes clothing, jewelry, fashion accessories, even branded flip cameras! Love it!

I’m writing this post from my hotel room at Ali’s last ever Online Success Blueprint Workshop in LA. I am truly honored to be a guest speaker at the event, teaching about marketing your business on Facebook. 500 attendees will be here - 90% women! I’m launching the next phase of my own brand and product line. Stay tuned!

Though Ali and I had known one another peripherally for years, it wasn’t until (a) we connected further via Facebook and (b) we met face-to-face at a special event with David Neagle earlier this year. (Plus, we discovered that my hubby and I are actually in the same real estate investment club as Ali’s brother and sister-in-law! Neato, small world, eh!)

Pic left: taken at David Neagle’s "Just Believe" event in April.

Ali’s tagline is "Live your good fortune." What would you do if you knew you could truly live your dreams? If money and time were no object, what would you be doing with your life, your business, your brand? I’d love to know. And if there’s any way I can support you, do let me know!

I just had the most awesome social network business cards designed and printed… in record time. And, I found the designer/printer via Twitter!

The gal I’ve been using for my business cards for years suddenly became unreachable for some reason. I was in a pinch. I needed new cards for an upcoming event (jvAlertLive in Las Vegas!).

I thought about sending a general tweet as I’ve done in the past when looking for a specific product or service provider. However, oftentimes that strategy can yield a lot of results which is great in most circumstances. But, in the interests of time, I tapped my mental rolodex for who I knew on Twitter in San Diego who might be able to refer me to a great designer/printer.

Tues @ 11:14am - I reached out to my friend @AmyMiyamoto via DM (direct message. By the way, you can only send direct messages to people on Twitter where you both follow each other - one of the primary reasons I like to follow peeps back).

Tues @ 11:25am - Amy responded very promptly and suggested I contact Laura Beulke @VPG_Printing. She mentioned that our mutual friend Angie Swartz of the SixFigureMomsClub (@aaswartz on Twitter) had used Laura’s services and was very happy with the results.

I loved that Laura was a fellow Twitterer! I checked out Laura and saw she was already following me. So, I quickly followed her back so I could DM (direct message) her. (Though my policy is to always follow peeps back who follow me, at times I get behind on my following back).

Tues @ 11:39 - Laura responded with "I would LOVE to help. Do you want to email me your artwork? [email address]."

Wow. I was IMPRESSED already! I sent Laura my design mockup and high resolution artwork. Within a few hours, Laura had a proof to me and after just a couple tweaks I had my fabulous new biz cards in my hand in LESS THAN 24 HOURS from sending that first tweet to Amy!! I just new it was possible with a little help from the Law of Attraction and the power of Twitter. I’m excited to give out my new cards here at Ken McArthur’s jvAlertLive in Las Vegas now!

Go look at your own business cards now - if they don’t reflect your current branding or you don’t have links to your favorite social networking sites, then for sure go connect with Laura on Twitter. She’s @VPG_Printing. Her customer service is exemplary.

And, get this - when you connect with Laura via Twitter and mention you were referred by @MariSmith, Laura tells me she’ll give you a nice discount to boot!

Let me know what you think of my new biz cards::

FRONT:

BACK:

 

(I’ve x’d out my mailing address on the backside image; due to my mobile lifestyle, I go to great efforts to receive *very* little paper mail so I don’t publish my snail mail addy online).

I’m a huge believer in "do what you love and the money will follow." BUT, there is a caveat: you have to have a viable business model. You can’t just goof around with a hobby and hope and pray the money will flood in. You need to work, and work hard!

A huge source of inspiration for me is WineLibraryTV creator, Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary totally tells it like it is. No BS. No hype. Just straight plain truths spoken with complete authority, given all his success.

I got to see Gary speak at the recent Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. He was one of my TOP picks of all 270 speakers. [See pic right: @CoachDeb @GaryVee @MariSmith @DonnaFox.]

I sat on the edge of my seat and tweeted about Gary more than any other speaker! Here’s a Twitter search string to read some of the tweets from that talk and a few faves:

 

Also, visit Erik Boles‘ blog for access to a video of Gary’s Blog World Expo talk.

Plus, my fave, check out this incredibly motivating 15-minute video of Gary speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo NY. I’ve already watched this vid many times and it’s fast becoming my daily morning motivation. (Well, not that I need much - I’m already very motivated! lol)

What is YOUR passion? Are you doing it every day all day? If not, what’s stopping you?

After enjoying many years of a gorgeous web design on my signature site at MariSmith.com, it was time to upgrade this baby to a trendy new blogsite. Huge kudos to the talents of Shama Hyder and her team at AfterTheLaunch.com!

Hiring an excellent service provider who delivers the exact result you want (or even exceeds your expectations), on time and at a reasonable rate, can be quite a feat. Would you agree?

Well, I’m delighted to share that my experience with Shama Hyder’s company, After The Launch, was absolutely STELLAR!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Earlier this year, I was undergoing a shift in my branding and my main website needed a good overhaul. I tried a few ideas with other design and marketing providers but wasn’t satisfied. Then, I met Shama on Twitter. From the getgo Shama listened intently to what it was I wanted to create. She asked intelligent questions. I described in detail the look, feel, colors and features I wanted on my blogsite.

Much to my delight, I found Shama took direction extremely well, her team produces the highest quality work, she has great attention to detail, customer service, follow through, follow up and is just the sweetest person I’ve ever hired, frankly!

Shama created two mockups for my blogsite and I was simply stunned. I’m over the moon with Shama’s services and recommend her wholeheartedly.

Shama’s company specializes in (1) acting as a virtual marketing department for small to medium sized companies and (2) training small business owners and independent professionals how to excel in marketing.

On my new and improved MariSmith.com I’ll be writing posts specifically about professional relationships and relationship marketing. For posts about Facebook, see my WhyFacebook blog. (For posts about my completely mobile lifestyle traveling the US in a motorhome with my hubby, see this blog BeFreeGoMobile).

Also, take a sneak peek at all my upcoming events - I’d love to meet you at any of these events!!

Cheers,

Mari