Entrepreneur aha! moments: from the trenches, simple actions that did the trick
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 8:13AM 
Inspiring art from Valentina Designs! Click the photo to see more of her great prints!We tend to take the long, hard, expensive and emotionally draining road before we realize it's about the simple actions that help our businesses soar. Ok, lessons learned. Now we need the scoop, the real deal, no fluff, tried-and-true simple actions that really work. So, I went straight to the sources - entrepreneurs in the trenches, making it happen right now - to ask them...
Share the simple actions that had a profound impact on your business.
Here's what these inspiring entrepreneurs had to share:
Beth Schoenfeldt with Collective-E, an Entrepreneur Agency with a Community Twist focused on bringing you the services, PR & marketing platforms, exposure and connections you need to nurture your ideas and build your brands. Personally, I'm a member and love this team! They offer up lots of real how-to's and serious PR tools to build your business.
Beth: The action that has made the most impact on my business Collective-E was going into a partnership with Sabina Ptacin and Katie Hellmuth. I have a background in business strategy (focused on revenue models), Katie builds websites and social media, and Sabina PR. We believe that these elements, along with a strong supportive community, must be in harmony to build a successful business. So partnering has made a profound impact, it allows us to offer everything to entrepreneurs under one roof!
Jenn Hardaway, Founder of Klean Bath & Body, home-spa goodies with cocoa butter, shea butter and all the exotic yummy stuff we can't live without. If you're in retail and want to follow someone who has mastered an effective outreach campaign via newsletters, sign-up for Jenn's here (plus you get a coupon for 25% off. I told ya she's got it going on!).
Jenn: There are so many things that have made an impact on my business, but one of the biggest is to have the support of other entrepreneurs. I have done this by joining a few women’s networking groups. SMARTY and Savor the Success. This is not only motivating, but so educational to me. I started my business not knowing anything about it (my kind of biz or biz in general).
The second thing is to be a part of a Mastermind Group. It’s one of the suggestions from the book Think and Grow Rich. It’s a small group of people who are trying to grow their businesses. Almost like group therapy for your business. Why not have 6 minds working on your business rather than one!
The theme here - you can't do it alone!
Share one or two simple actions that had a profound impact on your business. You could be featured in upcoming Entrepreneur Aha! Moments! Click here to email them to me!
Entrepreneur Aha! Moments is a weekly column where entrepreneurs share their truths and power tips to inspire others into action. Click here to read past ones.
Reader Comments (3)
How do people form a mastermind group? I can only think of large entropreneur networks where I meet people that I don;t necessarily trust to bounce ideas off of. I am actually scared of looking for people that I can share my ideas with. What if they steal them?
When I walk into a Costco and see 100's of cookbooks, I realize there's still opportunity for someone to come along with the same idea, wrapped up differently and be successful. Besides, it's YOU that makes the idea come to life and the reason why people buy your product - no one can steal that :)
To form a mastermind group, find local networking organizations where you can meet up with credible, like-minded people to break off into a smaller group and meet on a more frequent basis. Thanks for the comment! Misty
It’s amazing how simple actions could bring huge impacts on businesses don’t they? Thanks for sharing these stories. I believe joining partnerships and mastermind groups are indeed important. Going into business alone and experiencing success is great, but making something work from the collective efforts of a whole team of people is, I believe, better. There’s always something to be said for having different perspectives and opinions to help balance and improve the ideas. As they say, two – or more – heads are better than one. :-D
P.S. Read on http://budurl.com/8m87 and see how else you could strengthen your business.