Can I throw humility out the window at holiday time?

I was just profiled in a brand new book.  A Cup of Cappucino For The Entrepreneur’s Spirit (Vol II) is now published and on sale thanks to the wonderful folks (especially Cindy Thompson) at Entrepreneur Enterprises.  It’s chock full of stories by and about entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes.  Makes for an interesting read over the holiday season–you can revv up on your momtrepreneurial spirit by checking out these profiles!

Happy Holidays, all.

This musical momtrepreneur has become a tastemaker in the music industry, all because of her devotion to great tunes.  Might I suggest that you check out a playlist on her site and listen while reading this interview?  You will thank Val later.

What business did you start up?

I started a boutique music website, Valslist, that targets the over 25 crowd.   Many in this age group have lost track of music and find it hard to keep up with new music. So Valslist does it for them. We search for the best new artists and introduce you to music you might not find on your own. We collect the best tracks, list them on our site in easy-to-download playlists, and add new music each week to keep you current. We take the hassle out of the music search and help you get great music back into your life and onto your iPod. We’re an iTunes Affiliate, so the format is familiar. Read more

My favorite marketing genius, Seth Godin, has posted a free e-book for all to download.  I highly recommend that you download it. (Look for the “Download PDF FREE” button).

It’s a huge collection of thoughts on things to do and think about this year…a nice recap from some serious players in the blogging world.  Enjoy.

I think most moms occasionally have those moments where we think, “Why on earth did I sign up for this?”  And most momtrepreneurs have moments of wanting to trade our crazy juggling acts for regular, normal jobs.  This week I had a day that combined the worst of both – I had a day of nonstop appointments and needed to get my paperwork together, but right before school started, I had to take my younger son to an emergency orthodontist appointment to have his spring re-attached – for the 27th time, I believe.  Since I’d thought it would be fairly quick, I hadn’t brought work to do, so I ended up having 45 minutes to thumb through outdated issues of People.  (And while I appreciate knowing why Jon & Kate split up, I still had other things I needed to do!)  I was already crabby as I drove Ben back to school, so it didn’t help when he announced, “Oh, Mom, you
need to bring my dress clothes to school, it’s final rehearsal for the drama team play.”  As we waited in the office to sign him back in,  I envisioned frantically hunting through Ben’s room, having to reach behind the rat cage for his crumpled white shirt, and meanwhile my son stood as far away from me as humanly possible, since of course 8th graders would rather die than publicly acknowledge the existence of parental units.

We walked out at the same time, with me prepared to make an anonymous exit, and suddenly Ben came up to me and said, “Mom, sorry about that, but there were some cool kids in the office and it’s sort of embarrassing to have your mother at school.”  I said I understood, turned to leave (of course, without doing anything really embarrassing like waving or kissing him), and then Ben called out, quite audibly, “Bye, Mom, I love you!”

Needless to say, I barely made it to the car before I burst into tears.  That one, unexpected gift made up for the 45 minutes at the orthodontist’s–in fact, it made up for the $400 band trip fee, the nights I sat up with him when he had the stomach flu, and even the 12 hours of labor.   What a great reminder of why I made the choices I’ve made – if I had a ‘regular’ job and a nanny to handle all my tedious tasks, I would have missed a wonderful moment.  (On the other hand, I wouldn’t have minded letting a nanny look for the dress shirt and clean up around the rat cage . . . oh well.)  And if I’d never had kids, I wouldn’t know how it feels to cry with joy because a 13-year-old said something to me that didn’t begin with “Mom, I need . . . . . “

Sometimes being a momtrepreneur really is the best job in the world!

-Lauren Mayer, The Psycho SuperMomtrepreneur

Palo Alto Software let me try out their business tool program, Start, Run & Grow.  This clever business kit includes a variety of “essential tools to build your business.”  They offer links to sites and companies that help with tracking your time, bookkeeping software, payroll guides, managing customer emails, and plenty more.  There are a lot of discounts to these different offerings through using Start, Run & Grow–a lot of which can be very useful, especially for you starter-uppers.

I’d asked the company, once I perused the program, if I was missing something–I didn’t know if there was an interactive portion along with the site recommendations.  They said:  “The idea behind this particular product came from our customers. We knew from our popular resource section in Business Plan Pro that people were looking for services and products they could trust and would be essential to their business success.  So, we contacted several existing partners and quite a few new ones to put together a “tool box” of offers – free and discounted – to help small and medium businesses. We grouped them into sections we thought would be more helpful for different advents of a business. Those starting out, those running a business and those in a growth mode.”

How clever are they?  I obviously needed the “grow” section of their program and found myself clicking away throughout it.

The downside to investing in a program like this appeared initially to be that I would only use 1/3rd of their offerings–but as I started thinking about it, I clicked on the “start” section and noticed an abundance of opportunities that I hadn’t considered when I did start my companies.  (An eye-opener, really).

Do you want to try a copy?  The three people to post a comment here about one of the links in this post will be mailed a FREE copy!