I have had the pleasure recently to join a mastermind group and intend to join another. It has been a great experience so far and has already helped my focus, determination, and work output. I thought you might appreciate some resources to review this idea, to get you thinking about how you can benefit from joining in with others to build your business.

The articles are short and designed to give you a taste. It won’t take much time for you to plant the seed in your mind and let it grow. When you allow others in to help, the creativity and power grows exponentially. I regret that I have waited so long to do it, and encourage you to take action. I mean it when I  say – Together, we are stronger!

Passion For Business: What Is a Master Mind Group and How to Create?:

MasterMind Group Planning Guide ebook

Some Thoughts and Different Approches to Running a Mastermind Group

Evan Carmichael’s Mastermind Resources Blogsite

Tips by Wendy Maynard at Kinetic Ideas

Meet and Grow Rich: How to Easily Create and Operate Your Own “Mastermind” Group for Health, Wealth, and More Book by Joe Vitale and Bill Hibbler

Qassia is this great encyclopedic website where you can post “intel” for free and get backlinks to your website, advertising credit, and advertising revenue. It’s in private beta-version now so you can only join through invitation so here’s the link
Qassia Private Invitation Link

You add info–not just egghead stuff, but normal stuff–and you get points for it. You get points for posting intel (if it’s original & never published, you get the most). You get points for reviewing and rating other people’s intel. You get points for referrals.

Unlike Wikipedia, your stuff won’t get edited but the users rate it. You can write in any voice or style you want. It can be something as simple as the great neighborhood bars in Soho to a thesis on evolution. Whatever floats your boat!

The points are rewarded in ”Qassia dollars” that determine your ranking on their pages. More networth, more visibility. They are also tossing around the idea that you might get to spend your virtual dollars on other stuff, but that’s not decided yet.

Also, they will pay you 100%  of the revenue from the Adsense ads that people click through while they are on your intel page. So, if you have good stuff that people like reading (and more of it), the likelihood of people clicking on relevant ads goes up. That could mean cha-ching in your bank account!

I have added 16 articles about search engine optimization and internet marketing. If nothing else, go read my articles. If the site looks interesting to you, sign up. Why not, right?

Qassia’s goal is to bloom into a vast intelligence engine, with content that real people, like you and me, create. The community does not encourage pitching, so don’t do it–you will be smacked down for that, but I have had many people visit my blog and email me from the articles I’ve posted.

If you provide real value and service, you will be rewarded. Here’s the link again:
Qassia Private Invitation Link

See what you think!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

p.s. If you sign up, BE SURE to validate your account through the confirmation email you will receive, otherwise you won’t be properly signed up.

A few years ago, when I first launched smartwomanguides.com, it was a community website for women 35-55 worldwide. It’s focus was not entrepreneurism, although it reached out to the same group as this blog.

I had the great fortune to receive many articles, submitted by women all over the world, about a variety of topics that women our age care about, ranging from Aging to Health to Spirituality to Work and more.  Some were comedic, some informational, some enlightening, but all heartfelt and real. It was a bountiful, beautiful embarassment of riches.

Since I have converted that URL to this blog, you may notice that, if you google “smartwoman guides”, that there are articles that no longer link to the right place. Bummer.

And, on top of that, I have received requests from people who knew the old site, asking where the information moved to. So, I decided to spend a work day repurposing those articles so everyone who visits here can also read them.

To see the Library, click on on the Tab “Article Archive” above or click here. You can also see the articles that are ready to go on the left sidebar.

Please read them and enjoy them as you desire, and by all means, go visit the people who wrote them that have a presence on the web. (I am working as quickly as I can to add them all, so if they are not all there yet, just know that there are about 30 of them and I am posting them as fast as I can.)

Not a day goes by that I am not impressed by the calibre of women who live on this magnificent Earth and I am grateful that I get to commune with them–I am a better woman for it.

Thank you for being one of those women. Go check out the writings of your sisters!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

I found this great website for female entrepreneurs and thought you might want to check it out.

Filled with helpful how-to articles, videos and tips,  the site is fun, well-layed out, and easy to navigate. The owner of the site, Kate Skow, and I may do some things together soon, so check it out and go visit her.

EntrepreneurGoddess.com

One of my primary goals in developing this blog is to unify the field. In my own research for help with my entrepreneur adventure, I have found many resources, but mostly they are scattered and frankly, they vary in their relevance wildly.

In the larger business journals, you only get a smattering of female focused articles, mostly ones that compare how we do against men (how many businesses we start, how often we fail, how effective or not we are in obtaining financing, etc.) I guess that can be helpful, and I hold out hope that the larger establishments come around to fully embrace our power group, but for now, we have to turn to more progressive thinkers.

Since there are many types of female entrepreneurs and lots of business models they follow, I intend to gather together the tools and help we all need to be successful. Not just the hard fact type of help but also the emotional and psychological assistance. Entrepreneur Goddess is a good example of what I mean.

So, go visit her and tell her I sent you. And, if you have a favorite female entrepreneur focused website to recommend, be sure to post it. The more we all communicate and share, the stronger we become!

Vicki Flaugher