This year has brought great impact and change to many of the blogger community here (and it’s the launch year of Women Grow Business to boot!). Many bloggers have shared recently what they’re most grateful for in their businesses in 2009.

The first few:

Liz Scherer, producer of Flashfree:

I’m thankful for a wonderful team of consultants who challenge, stimulate and create; an amazing local community that has allowed me to develop and grow; an evolving interest in women’s health that frequently provides fodder for my blogging efforts.

Thursday Bram, founder of Hyper Modern Consulting:

I’ve realized I can create successful projects beyond working for freelancing clients. And this year, my success in my business has allowed my husband and I to purchase a home. Also this year I was able to hire an assistant who’s happy to take on tasks that have gotten in the way of my writing, letting me get back to the work I love.

Shana Glickfield, producer of DC Concierge:

It’s been an incredible year meeting an amazing community of women entrepreneurs. I’ve started working with clients who understand the benefits (and pitfalls) of social media. I’m really grateful for the social technology that enables so much of these connections and my work.

Jen Nedeau, media consultant/director of digital strategy for AirAmerica Media:

This year I was thrilled to see AirAmerica received the most web traffic in its existence during the month of November 2009. A great organization I volunteer for, the New Leaders Council, doubled in size going from five to 11 chapters across the country. And this will end up training more than 200 young progressives this year on how to be better, more successful leaders. I’ve been editor at WomensRights.Change.Org which turns one year old this year and continues to drive discussion about the feminist movement.

What about your business? What benchmarks and successes are you grateful for?

Last Monday, J-Lab i.e. The Institute for Interactive Journalism hosted the New Media Women Entrepreneurs 2009 Summit in downtown Washington, DC. The one day event brought together female panelists from diverse backgrounds in journalism to discuss how new forms of online journalism are emerging new entrepreneurial opportunities – and the steps you can take to cultivate them.

From savvy bloggers to entrepreneurship
Many of the panelists have had their own successes in transitioning from local bloggers, niche bloggers, and citizen journalists to full-fledged new media entrepreneurs just by being savvy online publishers.

Here are just a few of my takeaways from the summit including the keynote speaker from Placeblogger’s Lisa Williams:

• It’s okay not to know everything, just start.
• Include your personality in your site and take a personal approach.
• But don’t let your personality be so engrained in your site that it could not function without you (be able to let go).
• There are revenue models that work, often in combination (consider business models around ads, conferences, and content).
• Don’t do anything for free that you wouldn’t do for free indefinitely.

The gist?
As the journalism landscape is rapidly changing, new media entrepreneurs see this as an opportunity, while traditional media outlets see it as a threat.

So whether you are exploring a career – in blogging, online community building, citizen reporting, aggregating, publishing, creative writing, or any other forms of interactive journalism – it’s absolutely possible in today’s online environment. There’s a career there if you carve it out!

More from Women Grow Business:

• Shana Glickfield and her series on starting a business and event coverage for business owners;
• Top women in tech entrepreneurs and the SmallBizCool video series at Blogworld Expo this year;
• Jen Consalvo on bold entrepreneurship.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom, a broadband association. Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Pictured:
From the New Media Women Entrepreneurs Summit are Maria Ivancin and Jan Schaffer (among others) presenting a new study of women and media. The image is used with permission by photographer Anna Tauzin.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Effective just recently, Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom (a broadband association). Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Looking first at legal and tax steps
Before you start reaping the benefits of having a business, like generating income and taking tax deductions, you need to set the record straight with the authorities. Yes, that means formally incorporating with the government. This is such a critical step because it will ultimately define your business as far as taxes, legal liability, growth options, and more.

If you’re wondering whether to incorporate at all, take a look at this recent posting by Startup Company Lawyer for important reasons to consider it.

And then, follow these three simple steps:

Step 1 – Do some research
You will likely be deciding among the following business entities; sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), S-Corp, and C-Corp. The IRS website provides a good description of each,

…however, meeting with a legal or accounting professional that specializes in small businesses will be well worth the time and money.

Again, the implications of this decision will affect many aspects of your business over the long term, so it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.

Step 2 – File your forms
Each state has different forms to fill out and file once you’ve decided on an entity. Most state websites have business centers with additional tax, licensing and general information, as well as the forms to download. Filing will likely require a fee of around $100 (but consider this a business start-up cost, which is then tax-deductible) and Articles of Incorporation, which is just like a formal mission statement.

This is also the point at which you should formalize any partnership or investor agreements.

Although most forms will only require the names of partners to be listed, it’s best to have all income and loss arrangements in place (and in writing) before the business transactions that follow incorporating take place.

Step 3 – Separate yourself from your business
To enjoy the perks of being a business without any trouble from the IRS, it’s essential to act like a business entity!

What does this entail?

Make sure that your business transactions are separate from your personal ones. To do this, you’ll want to use a separate business name (even if just, say, Shana Glickfield Consulting LLC) in your business transactions, such as email, invoicing, and public appearances.

Furthermore, you’ll want to set up a business bank account. Most banks will be eager to work with you to establish an account that is right for you. Again, make sure to use your business name on the account and use the corresponding debit/credit card in the business transactions that you’ll later claim as deductions.

A note about your new business online
It’s also easy to set up a Web presence for your business, even if your business is not Web-based. Use a template of a blogging platform to post general information. Or, if the website or blog is integral to your business, consider splurging on a professional.

And a few personal tips

• Employee agreements: If you are currently employed elsewhere [in addition to starting your own company], read your employee agreement to see if forming a business is an option for you. And always keep your side business resources separate from your day job.
• Your professional partners: Do short phone or in-person interviews with potential legal and accounting professionals. This will likely turn into a long-term and more involved relationship as your business grows, so you’ll want someone you feel comfortable with!
• Find model Articles to reference: Ask a friend or fellow entrepreneur in your state to share their Articles of Incorporation so that you have a model to work from.

Questions to you
Are you considering next steps for launching your business? What else would you like to know? Or if you’ve started a business already, what helped you make these types of decisions?

More from:
Shana Glickfield and her ongoing series at Women Grow Business, on starting a new company.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Effective just recently, Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom (a broadband association). And she guides both locals and tourists around Washington, DC through her blog, DCConcierge.com. Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Uniting women in technology via webinar and phone
The 2nd Annual TeleSummit for Women Who Tech took place [recently] and united women from around the world via webinar and phone to share knowledge and discuss professional issues around women and technology. Women registered for panels of their choice online and then simultaneously dialed in and logged on to hear from expert speakers on those topics.

Women in communications, marketing, business management and more enjoyed a panel about how technology should be embraced for marketing in a recession. As budgets are getting cut, this is one area experts recommend to hold on to because of the increased visibility, low-cost tools, and high value-add of online marketing.

The great panelists
Panelists Fran Boscker of Vantage Communications and Hilary Zwerdlin of M+R Strategic Services joined moderator Jennifer Kutz of Vantage Communications to share their experiences.

Comprehensive and relational
Boscker walked through several social media sites that marketers should have a comprehensive presence on, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (see NGW’s 5W’s of online video!). She urged that the key to these tools is relationship-building, so it’s important to be a part of the conversation and not just push information out.

Gauging online stats for your organization
Zwerdlin shared the nonprofit angle and cautioned that although social networks are free, it’s important to keep in mind the staff time is required to manage all of these tools. With that, Zwerdlin recommends that nonprofits take advantage of Google Grants, manage their search engine optimization, and keep an eye on their analytics to see what’s working. A new benchmark study that many nonprofits use to gauge their statistics is coming out on Thursday at http://www.ebenchmark.com.

Educational, neutral, newsworthy
Kutz reminded participants to get back to public relations basics by using press releases and customer programs in addition to attending local networking events. Positioning yourself as a thought leader can be very low cost and valuable as long as you share information that is educational, neutral and newsworthy and use online tools to help release and promote things like white papers, events and news.

Now of course all of this information is just as valuable to men, but it’s nice that Women Who Tech is helping women succeed with broadband!

(cross-posted with permission from NextGenWeb)

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Effective just recently, Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom (a broadband association). And she guides both locals and tourists around Washington, DC through her blog, DCConcierge.com. Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Blogging has become an integral part of entrepreneurship in so many ways.
So it was not surprising to find so much blogger and entrepreneur crossover at WordCamp MidAtlantic. Not only is blogging vital for sharing and gathering information online, but for positioning yourself as an expert, improving search engine optimization, and for building relationships with customers, potential customers, and journalists.

The name WordCamp stems from WordPress, a very popular blogging platform, but the conference offered a lot of valuable information that is applicable to any platform. The first speaker of the day was the conference organizer Aaron Brazell, founder/chief blogger at Technosailor and WordPress consultant extraordinaire.

Brazell finds that challenges facing bloggers often fall into three categories – Marketing, Message, and Brand.

Here are the takeaways he believes bloggers really need to know:

• Market your message through various social media channels. And conversely, convert engagements on social media sites to your message and blog.
• Pay attention to your statistics as they offer very valuable information. Chances are 10% of your traffic is “loyal” and 90% is “driveby”.

So how do you convert “driveby’s” to “loyals”?

• Blog information that is relevant for longer than a newscycle.
• Offer links to related content after the posting.
• Make it easy for readers to find other relevant content on your site.
• Give readers what they want. Remember, they don’t care about you, they care about what you give them.
• When it comes to frequency, just stay consistent. If you’re not going to post every day, that’s okay, just find a pattern.
• Your brand is determined by fans, not you, so make sure they trust you.

Take more breaks (and more tips from Jared Goralnick)
DC’s very own productivity evangelist (and AwayFind founder) Jared Goralnick offered his wisdom to help WordCamp attendees be more efficient when blogging (or really doing any kind of project). Some of Goralnick’s best tips:

• Purge your mind by making a list. Once things are on paper (or on whatever gadget you use for task maintenance), your mind will be free to concentrate.
• Make sure you are looking at website analytics that count and not just analytics that make you feel good.
• Spend some time to evaluate if there is any correlation between post frequency and conversions/traffic OR post length and conversions/traffic. If not, you might be able to get just as much out of doing less!
• Take more breaks! After every 50 minutes of work, take 10 off.
• Social media content is moving constantly and it’s impossible to keep up. Try to just dip in and dip out. Get your value, and then get AWAY.
• Schedule tasks around your body’s cycle. -Wide awake? then do thought intensive and creative work vs when you’re dead tired, when doing bite size tasks makes more sense.

If you missed WordCamp MidAtlantic, don’t worry because these conferences are taking place around the country. Check out WordCamp Central to find a WordCamp near you!

With today’s marvelously fast paced news and technology cycles…and the combination thereof, it can be easy to want to indulge feelings of being unable to keep up (image Old Man Look At My Life by Jenny Rotten, Creative Commons). Add even a touch of personal or professional disruption to the mix and side projects seem to quickly drop to the very bottom of your priority list.

The solution?

Even if you can’t be making direct progress on growing your small business, you can help yourself by staying motivated and informed!

Recovering your mental bandwidth
When you don’t have the mental bandwidth to blog, code, or do anything in front of the computer screen, you can still be actively moving things along with reading. My issues of Inc., Fast Company, and Wired have become standard reading for my unwind time at the end of the day. I also keep my Kindle close where I’m currently flipping between books like Outliers, Here Comes Everybody, and Outsmart!: How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t. However, I often refer back to biographies for real inspiration.

Personal interaction with similarly situated people is also a great way to stay motivated.

I keep a close group of peers that I know are available whether I want a pep talk, a sounding board, or just a chat. Often talking to someone about that other item on my plate can free up my mind and energy to get back to building my business.

Inspiration through TED Talks video
If you really can’t disconnect but don’t have the energy for plowing through a task list, I recommend enjoying the inspiring thoughts of the best and the brightest by perusing the TED Talks library. Hundreds of presentations in varying length are available to you from your laptop or smartphone.

Already been there, done that? Most conference keynotes are available on YouTube or conference websites. Spend 20 minutes with Gary Vaynerchuck and you’ll be back in full swing in no time!

Main takeaways for recovering your motivation ‘mojo’:

• Business and technology magazines provide disconnect while still feeding your business.
• Connect on a personal level with fellow small business folks to have a ready ear for emotional or professional support.
• Find motivating videos online on TED Talks, YouTube or conference websites.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Effective just recently, Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom (a broadband association). And she guides both locals and tourists around Washington, DC through her blog, DCConcierge.com. Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Effective just recently, Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom (a broadband association). And she guides both locals and tourists around Washington, DC through her blog, DCConcierge.com. Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Starting a business is challenging in itself…
But many people have the additional stress of doing so in their spare time while they maintain their regular jobs. South by Southwest Interactive 2009 sought to help the many attendees in this delicate position by presenting a panel of experts who have successfully navigated entrepreneurship in their spare time.

The panel, called “Building a Web Business After Hours,” featured:

The conversation ranged from the emotional to the practical, both of which seem to be equally important to address.

The key takeaways from the panel are below:

1) Consider working with a partner.
Find somebody who shares your vision and passion, and who has complimentary, but not overlapping, skills.

2) Protect your intellectual property from your day job.
Do this no matter what level of permission you have to use company resources.
Don’t do ANYTHING on your work computer/phone/ etc to completely avoid ownership debates.

3) Growing your business can take several years, so be patient.
Don’t beat yourself up if things move slowly.

4) Set expectations with family and friends.
So they understand why you are less available and, ideally, so they can be supportive.

5) Imagine the worst that can happen if you fail.
Truly play the scenario out in your mind in order to really let go and move forward.

6) Conserve cash to prepare for transitioning your side project to full time.
Also, use caution when raising funds externally.

7) The hours between 8pm to midnight are a beautiful thing.
Take advantage! And don’t be shy in asking for help.

More from:

• NextGenWeb’s coverage on a related entrepreneur-esque SxSW panel, What your Startup Can Learn from Barack Obama and Howard Dean;
• Learning to Launch, Shana’s initial post in her series about converting a hobby into a business;
• Unstructured Ventures and long tail entrepreneurs at SxSW seeking venture capital;
• A motivational video clip from Solutions Are Power, interviewing once-miserable-attorney-gone-happy-business-owner Jonathan Fields of Career Renegade.

So many brainstorms:

…on helping women become entrepreneurs, emerge as thought leaders, grow expertise, utilize social media, and triumph in business with a sense of service and integrity (and fun!).

It all happened this weekend at The Ritz Carlton where many of our regular core contributors and thought leaders behind the blog’s development met for afternoon tea.

Video: a fun (8) minutes
Meet them face to face here as they celebrate National Women’s History Month and why they’re involved with the Women Grow Business community:

Want to be a guest contributor?

Please get involved!

I invite you to consider the different ways to participate with Women Grow Business (now!).

And again, Happy Women’s History Month.

More from:

• Melissa Meeks Makfinsky, Network Solutions Marketing Manager, on the National Women’s History Project;
• How in Queens, NY, women are launching new businesses at a higher rate than men;
• SCORE’s mentorship and other resources for women entrepreneurs.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Effective just recently, Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom (a broadband association). Shana guides both locals and tourists around Washington, DC, through her blog, DCConcierge.com and can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

From expert hobbyist to entrepreneur
Washington, DC, is a city of transition. From the musical chairs workforce, to the downtown migration to the suburbs and back, to being the internship capital of the country. People in DC are constantly coming and going. And with that, people often struggle a bit to acclimate to their new, local surroundings. Where is the best Thai food in the neighborhood? -least expensive dry cleaners? -place to impress my girlfriends visiting from L.A.? -quiet restaurant to entertain my uncle who is hard of hearing? All questions that only a local expert can answer.

And I did, over and over and over.

And so I began to publish these exchanges on a blog.

“I-might-be-on-to-something-here.”
Writing quietly from my living room in my spare time, I watched the traffic to my website grow. My first true moment of I-might-be-on-to-something-here was when I was contacted only six months after I began the site by a Washington Post reporter seeking an expert opinion on where to get a feel for the character of DC (my answer – a protest on the National Mall).

As traffic and mainstream media attention continued to grow, so did my encouragement to develop my website …

…which I did this past summer with a professional redesign and the addition of an interactive metro map.

Officially incorporating
I have spent the last few months exploring the opportunities to grow the site even further, but now into a business and officially incorporating. Thanks to my involvement with numerous and various networking groups involving tech, entrepreneurship, and tourism (not all in one), I have gained invaluable feedback and inspiration on my next steps.

My three takeaways so far:

• Starting a blog on a specific topic is an excellent way to position yourself as an expert;
• Be patient with growth of traffic and attention;
• Ask contacts from varying and diverse backgrounds for input on your endeavor and be open to their feedback.

I just took the symbolic step of incorporating and will begin transitioning my project from a pastime to a profession. I look forward to sharing my journey here at Women Grow Business as I navigate through and further establish my first business.

More from:
1. Solutions Are Power and a great, diverse series on business plans (for newly launched or soon to start businesses).

2. Jenny McCune at Third Age on converting a hobby to a new business.