10 years ago this month I walked away from a very successful career in corporate America with a dream to become a successful online business owner.

Looking back on it now, as a single parent with a 4 month old and a 4 year old, it was a pretty gutsy thing to do.

The “how” wasn’t clear to me when I made that decision.

But the “why” was very clear.

I wanted to be able to run an online business from my home and have the flexibility to be as hands on in my kid’s lives as possible. I also had a lifelong fire burning inside of me to be an entrepreneur.

So for me, not only is every Thanksgiving a celebration of blessings, it’s also a celebration of entrepreneurship.

Your “Why”

And I know that each and every one of you have your own personal “why” for running your business.

Whether it’s family oriented, financially based or personal fulfillment, behind every business is a person with an important “why”.

An Entrepreneurial Thanksgiving

So I wanted to take a moment on this “Entrepreneurial Thanksgiving” to tell you that I’m honored to be able to bring you the “how-to’s” that will help you successfully accomplish your business goals and fulfill your personal “why”.

Whether through training classes, coaching groups, consulting, emails or blog posts, I am dedicated to bringing you the high-quality, leading-edge strategies and tactics that will help you get where you want to go.

Finishing 2011 Strong and Looking Forward to 2012

We have a lot of exciting new things planned for 2012!

And I’ll be sharing those with you in the coming weeks.

But first, we need to finish 2011 strong!

For some that means Black Friday Power Sourcing tonight!

For others, there’s listing, packing and shipping tomorrow.

I’ll be hitting the Black Friday sales for some arbitrage  sourcing tonight and early this morning, so that I can ship more boxes to Amazon FBA on Friday.

(If it’s not too crazy, I’ll try and get a video at the stores.)

So whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving today or getting ready for the weekend, I’d like to wish you a “Happy Entrepreneurial Thanksgiving”!

- Lisa

PS: If you have a question about how to finish off 2011 strong, post it below!

(I originally published this post last Mother’s Day, but I loved it so much, I decided to republish it today. ) I don’t often blog about my life as an entrepreneur mom. I frequently want to, but there’s only so much time in the day to blog, and ecommerce strategy posts usually take precedence.

But since it’s Mother’s Day, I wanted to reach out to all the other entrepreneur moms (and those who are thinking about becoming one!) to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day and share some of the tips that I have used to balance life as a mom & business owner over the past 8 years.

I left a high-paying corporate job in 2002 to strike out on my own as an entrepreneur. A lifelong entrepreneur at heart since age 8, I had always wanted to own my own business, but never had the courage to do so. I grew up in a family where the message was, go to school, get a good job, work hard and you will be rewarded. I didn’t know any other entrepreneurs and thought for sure they must have some “special gene” which I was pretty sure I didn’t possess. Figuring if I did have “it” I would be able to start a business without being scared.

Having my two children changed all that. Tired of leaving my son with a babysitter (even though she was great) and dreading the prospect of starting child care all over again with my infant daughter, I decided to make the leap. I was going to “work from home” in my own business.

I wanted to be home with my kids every day.  And I’d seen all the stories about work at home moms with the kids playing happily by their side while mom built a brilliant business on the computer.  I also felt that if I had a dream this big and didn’t

Bellie & Noah - 5 months after I became an entrepreneur!

pursue it – what was I modeling for my kids? By doing this, I was showing them how to pursue their dreams someday.  (Which by the way, actually has impacted their lives in a positive, now that they are old enough to understand it.)

An added factor in the equation was that I am a single parent. So leaving the safety of a corporate job, with vacation, benefits, insurance, was not a decision I took lightly.  (In fact, for anyone considering this, I highly recommending starting the business first, and then when the income starts to come in, make plans to leave your job.  It’s much less stressful and a financially more sound decision.) But I knew if I didn’t do it all the way – and get off the corporate gravy train, I wouldn’t do it at all.

Choices, Guilt, Rewards, Choices, Guilt, Rewards, Choices… (Well, you see where this is going.)

The first thing I discovered about being an entrepreneurial mom is that things don’t work like the pictures in the magazines. The vision of the kids happily playing with Legos on the floor next to you while you’re on a business call is not a reality. When your pre-schooler sees mom, he thinks “Mom is available to play!” not “Oh mom is building her Internet business, I’d better give her some time to work.”

And the photo of the beautiful baby sitting on entrepreneurial mom’s lap while mom types on the computer and builds her empire? Nope! Babies love to pound on keyboards when they are sitting in your lap.

Uh oh.

It quickly became apparent to me that I was going to need…childcare. Child care!?!?!  But that’s why I left corporate America!  So I wouldn’t have to do childcare anymore.

I fought it for several months, before I could see that this situation was going no where fast.  I wasn’t making progress on the business, my oldest was getting frustrated with mom’s “available unavailability” and I wanted to hold the baby.  But I knew that in order to generate an income, I was going to have to start treating my business like a business.

It was at this point, I began to realize what it was really going to take to be a successful entrepreneur mom…

The 5 Tips for Being a Successful and Happy Entrepreneur Mom

It’s what I tell all my coaching clients and the principal my Business Growth Group is founded on:

Entrepreneurial Mom Tip #1. “Treat your business like a business and it will pay you like a business. Treat your business like a hobby and it will cost you like a hobby.”

Once I made the decision to treat my business like a business, and set a specific schedule for work time (and yes childcare time, although not nearly as much as when I had been in corporate America.) my business started to grow rapidly.

I had made the choice. It was rewarding to see the business grow. But I also had tons of mom guilt.

Why? Because now my kids  knew I was “home” all day and they wanted to stay home with me too.  I can’t tell you how hard it was to bring them both to the babysitters each day. Those big brown eyes looking up at me, and what I really wanted to do was take them to the park.

Oh and just to add mom guilt on to more mom guilt…  I loved my business too.

And that was the dawning of the realization. As an entrepreneurial mom, you’ll never feel like there is enough of you to go around. You can never give 100% of you to all the things you want to do. And it can demoralize you until you look at it with perspective.

Entrepreneurial Mom Tip #2. You can’t give 100% of yourself to everything. There will be choices. Things you wish you could do, that you can’t. Don’t spend the years wracked with guilt. It doesn’t serve you,  your business or your children.

The best thing you can do is talk to your kids about this. Tell them how you feel. My kids are fully a part of my life.  If I would have loved to volunteer at such and such event, or wish I could have made the cake for the carnival instead of buying it – I share this with them. Sometimes they wish so too. But most of the time, it doesn’t matter to them.  What matters is that as an entrepreneurial mom, I am around enough to have conversations with them. They can walk into my office in the afternoon and show me a school paper. They can pop their head in the door and ask me how to spell something.

Which brings me to my next entrepreneurial mom tip…

Entrepreneurial Mom Tip #3. Don’t try to make everything perfect. Something’s always gotta give.

When I first thought about writing this blog post, I was surveying the condition of our house.

On the kitchen counter lay the contents of yesterday’s lunch boxes.  Sure my kids know to pick stuff up and put it away, but I was working at my desk when they got home from school and well… the sunny weather and basketball hoop outside were calling their names.

Dishes from dinner dotted the kitchen.  Normally the kids and I pick up after dinner together, but last night we headed straight to a function at my son’s school (chocolate cake courtesy of Costco) and there wasn’t time to clean up.

As I looked around the house, I was tempted to get stressed.

“Why are there dirty socks on the mantle?”

(Note to self – Remember to talk to 13 year old son when he gets home.)

But then I looked around the room some more.

This is a picture of what was supposed to be a business white board in my office. Except my kids kept coming into my office and writing messages to me on it. After a few weeks of telling them “This whiteboard is for business, quit writing on it.” I got another whiteboard for business. I’m glad I did.

My daughter’s beautiful art project in one corner of the room, brightly colored markers sprinkled all over the carpet.

The basketball from yesterday’s game, strategically placed right in the middle of the doorway between the living room and dining room.  How many times did we walk around it this morning and yet no one (including me) put it away?

Signs of life,  fun and living.

And the home of a entrepreneurial mom.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t always look like this…  There was that one day last month when the house was spotless …

There are days I go directly from teaching a webinar on search engine optimization for websites to driving a carpool full of laughing 9 year olds and middle schoolers.

In 2008 when I spoke at eBay Live! in Chicago, the kids came with me. While I worked, they were at eBay Live Camp.  We had a blast.

During times like this I feel on top of the world!

And then there are the mornings where there is no food in the house, because I worked late into the night and didn’t get to the grocery store.

Or I wake up to a flurry of questions “Mom did you do this? Mom you said you’d do that! Mom can we do this, this and this today? Aw.. do you have to work today.”

Last month when I was speaking at the 2010 Ecommerce Summit in Las Vegas, they didn’t make it to their sports practices, a book project didn’t get done on time, but they did have lots of fun spending time with their dad!

Entrepreneurial Mom Tip #4. Involve your kids in your business and in your life and let them participate!

Kids from Front to Back: Bellie (mine), Indy (Lynn's), Noah (mine), Houston (Lynn's)

The message my kids have heard from me since very early on is that we are all in this together! They participate in my business, in keeping the household running smoothly (i.e., chores!), they know the names of many clients I’ve worked with over the years, read my blog posts, and are always on the lookout for product trends!

This is a picture of the kids and I with Lynn Dralle, the Queen of Auctions when we all got together last summer at Lynn’s mom’s house up in Bellingham, WA. While the kids played on the beach Lynn (a successful entrepreneurial mom) and I did a teleseminar on eBay’s Fall 2009 changes. (You can get out latest audio on the 2010 Spring Changes here.)

My kids love the fact that I am an entrepreneurial mom. They are proud of what I’ve achieved.  And they feel like they are part of that success.

And now that they are 9 and 13, I see them applying skills they’ve learned from watching me in their everyday lives.

They hear me talk about persistence and how it’s the number key to success – and they draw on that when they are facing a challenging task at school.

Over the years, they’ve heard me talk time and time again about making choices.  And how the hardest choices are between two worth options. They find comfort in this when they have a hard decision to make.

One day my daughter said to me “Mom, it must feel really good to create a successful business out of nothing – just starting with an idea.” My son chimed in “Yah, I think that’s so cool. I have this idea…”

They get it. They see it. What I set out to do.

Entrepreneurial Mom Tip #5. Don’t try and do everything yourself. Ask for help. Hire help. Accept help when offered. Learn to say no. (I’m still working on these.)

For a long time I took pride in being super-entrepreneur mom. I did it all. And did it all pretty darn well. But about a year ago, I realized that “it” was continuing to expand. And even I have my limits of what I can accomplish in one day. And if I wanted to grow my business, be a good mom, and not burn the candle at both ends and in the middle, I was going to have to start bringing people into my life to help.

It takes a village to raise a family and build a business.

Whether it’s an offer from a friend to pick up the kids after school on the days I have a 5:00pm webinar or hiring someone to clean the house every two weeks (which I did and it’s been some of the best money I’ve ever spent!)

It also means learning to say no.

It means saying no to things I do in my business that eat up time, rather than grow the business.

It means saying no to things that people “expect” me to do but that are not in alignment with my personal or professional goals. Time is my most precious asset.

It means that even though my nature is to give and give  of myself to my customers, clients, potential customers,  friends and family (because I want to)  until there is nothing left – I need to say no before it gets to that point.

And so do you.

There is only “one of you”, entrepreneurial moms.

And you owe it to yourself to take as good care of you as you do everyone else!

So a very Happy Mother’s Day to all entrepreneurial moms, grandmoms, and aunts and sisters who are moms!

You are special beings, on an amazing journey.  And this is your day.

-Lisa

PS: I woke up earlier than the kids this morning to write this blog post. As I was writing at my desk, I heard the rustling of paper, whispering and giggling…

Every Sunday millions of online business owners read their Sunday newspaper, throw it in recycling and don’t think much about it until the next Sunday

Wait! Before you recycle that paper, read on to find 7 ways you can make money in your online business  from that $2.00 investment!

Your Sunday newspaper is what I call an Idea Hotspot™. Idea Hotspots are fertile ground for money making ideas, topics to blog about, products to sell and marketing springboards!

1. Spot the trends! Your Sunday paper is filled with product ads showcasing the latest products, styles, colors and trends! All you need to do is observe! What colors, styles and products are the stores advertising? What is the messaging that you see? If an says “Save 20% on our brand new line of bicycles.” and you sell bicycles, pay attention to what they’re advertising!  What are the features, the benefits, the brands?  What are the new “it” buzzwords.  These are clues that will help you expand what you sell online.

2. Improve your sales copy. One of the hardest things for online sellers can be writing snazzy sales copy for their products. Your Sunday paper is filled with great sales copy! Look for headlines, phrases, clever sound bytes, attention grabbing headlines and jot them down.  Copywriters call this a “swipe file”  – a common practice used by copywriters and advertisers to create a reference of ideas for projects.

Note: This is not about plagiarizing other people’s work!   Swipe files are a great jumping-off point for you to use your own creativity in your copy.

You don’t need to have a degree in marketing to do some great marketing for your own business.  There are marketing ideas all around you – you can learn by observation.

3. Put your finger on the pulse of  timely blog, Facebook, eBook or teleseminar topics. What’s the world talking about? You’ll find it in the Sunday paper! Whether you’re an online retailer, an information marketer, or an author, speaker or consultant, you’ll find pages after pages of timely topics to blog about, use for Facebook marketing, create content for your product pages in your online store.

Take a look at the Lifestyle section of the paper and see what the latest fashion trends or home improvement trends are. Papers are built around these types of articles. Are you an eBay education specialist? Check out the Business sections for articles on the rise in popularity of home based businesses. Want to create and market an eBook on a topic that people are interested in? There was a great article in my local paper recently on the huge popularity of in-city vegtable gardening.

This article could spawn ideas for blog posts, a value-add eBook for your physical product sales, an eBook to sell on Clickbank, a blog post, even a brand new business that you might start as a speaker on the topic of in-city vegetable gardening!

When you look at your Sunday paper as an Idea Hotspot, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll find there!

4. Retail Resale. If you sell products online, you’re always looking for great deals on inventory. Sunday papers are chock full of coupons and limited time deals. By One, Get One Free Offers, door buster specials and clearance sales are all advertised in your Sunday paper. Grab a paper when they come out on Saturday and hit the sourcing trail early Sunday morning for some great inventory at below wholesale prices.

5. Classifieds. While Craigslist has taken a huge chunk of ads that used to be posted in the Classified section of your paper, there are still people who prefer to post a classified newspaper ad over using Craigslists. Yard sales, estate sales and merchandise for sale or for free can all be found listed in the Sunday Classified Ads.

6. Learn about upcoming consumer shows. Do you sell wedding products, home remodeling products, products geared to women, vintage jewelry, boat accessories, motorcycle products, RV accessories, sewing products, craft products? Then there’s likely a consumer products show in your niche coming to your city or a city near you soon.

If so, you’ll see it advertised in the newspaper. Consumer product shows are a great way to scout new merchandise, talk to vendors, even find out about exhibiting your products at next year’s show! Use these shows to get out there and see what’s happening in your niche or potential niche.

7. Find Centers of Influence. Every Sunday paper contains articles about experts or people who are centers of influence in a certain niche. You can learn about people to connect with on Facebook and Twitter. Maybe you’ll see the perfect expert to contact for your next teleseminar. Some of these people may even be appearing at events in your local area! The perfect way to get connected!

As you can see there are many creative ways to use the Sunday paper to make more money in your online business.  Opportunities come to those who learn to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. If you’re reading the paper anyway, why not make the most of it and read for profit!

-Lisa

There’s a fast growing, silent business movement happening all across world.

It’s changing people’s lives, strengthening the world economy. And giving people people who participate the potential to chart their own destiny.

Are you part of this new movement?  And if so, what does it mean for your business success?

Take This 7  Question Quiz to Find Out…

Are you a solopreneur trying to build a successful online business without outside investment money, sans access to big lines of credit, and on a limited business building budget?

Do you have more dreams, ideas and drive then time or money?

Do you wear most or all of the hats in your business, and you know you could accomplish more with additional resources?

Are you missing all the answers for success, but figuring it out one piece at a time, and building on your daily success?

Is your business growth steady, maybe not as fast as you’d like, but you’re making progress?

Do you sometimes question if you really have a shot at building the business of your dreams?

Are there days you feel like an odd-man out with your friends and family, rather than a real business owner positioned on the track of success?

If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions… congratulations! You’re one part of the new wave of bootstrapping business owners.

And you’re a part of one of the fast growing silent business  movements in the world.

What Does Bootstrapping a Business Really Mean?

The traditional definition of  bootstrapping a business means to start or grow a business with little or no money.

But in today’s world of entrepreneurship, bootstrapping a business means so much more than that.

• Bootstrapping your a business embodies a specific spirit of success.

• Relying on your moxie, creative use of resources, sweat-equity, and willingness to be a self-starter who makes things happens.

• Taking $1 and turning it into $5. Taking $1000 and turning it into $10,000.  Taking $10,000 and turning it into $100,000.

• Bootstrapping business owners don’t wait for circumstances to be right for business success, they take their current circumstances and figure out how to profit with them or how to change them to be profitable.

In fact, studies show that bootstrapped companies are far more likely to survive and prosper than those who were funded by venture capital or had an angel investor.

Remember the dot.com bust? Thousands of companies were started with billions in venture capital money.  Not many of those are still around.

But there are millions of successful businesses that were bootstrapped to success. According to a Wells Fargo/Gallup study, most businesses are started with $10,000 or less.

Over 90% of all businesses began and grew as a bootstrapped business.

An it’s an approach to building a business that, done right, practically guarantees success.

A Bootstrapped Business Does Not Mean Small, Mediocre or Unprofitable

If you think that bootstrapping a  businesses means starting small and remaining small, consider this:

• Apple and Dell, companies that now generate billions of dollars in revenue were both started with less than a $1000

• Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com out of the basement of his Seattle home with a box of books and a dream.

• Jonathan Garris worked in a small shoe store, before he started selling overstock on eBay.  Today his company Gotham City Online,  is a multi-channel, multimillion dollar ecommerce business with presences on eBay, Amazon as well as their flagship site, Gotham City Online.

All of these businesses were started with just an idea. And grew because of the bootstrapping spirit…

…Putting time and energy into offering remarkable products, serving your customers and establishing your brand as something unique.

The same holds true for your business. Just because it is bootstrapped, doesn’t mean it can be “so-so” and still make money.

Maybe Your Goal Isn’t to Build the Next Billion Dollar Company

Many bootstrapping biz owners don’t have a goal of building the next Microsoft.

Maybe your goal is to build a comfortable 5-figure or 6 figure a year income from your business.

Or you’re bootstrapping a business to replace a downsized job.  Millions of jobs that were lost in the recent recession aren’t coming back. Bootstrapping a business with your existing skills may be an alternative or a necessity for some.

Bootstrapping is especially prevalent among Internet entrepreneurs. Because the cost of starting an online business is minimal, and online entrepreneurs can begin to build their empires with as little as an idea and a blog.

Back in 2002 I started my business online as a single parent of a 4 month old and 4 year old. Armed with a lifelong dream of owning a business and a burning desire to be home with my kids, I walked away from a 6 figure-a-year job in the technology industry and parlayed my background in retail merchandising & technology to start a business selling on eBay and Amazon.

I bootstrapped my business to my first six-figure year in 2004 and continue to bootstrap my biz, even as I expanded into other areas in my business as an author, speaker, mentor and trainer for other bootstrapping biz owners.

Why It Pays Big-Time to Have the Bootstrapping Spirit!

The best thing about having the bootstrapping spirit is that is pays off. Both financially and personally. Bootstrapping biz owners are hungry for success.  They aren’t sitting around waiting for success to happen to them.

They’re out there every day, making success happen. Thinking creatively. Spotting opportunities. Looking for ways to get more visibility for their businesses.

How about you?

Are you bootstrapping your business to success?

Do you have the bootstrapping spirit?  Would you like to get it?

Tell me below!

-Lisa