Greetings Sisters
Here is an event that you may be interested in.
MADE IN AFRIKAH EXHIBITION 2010 which is due to to be held in Cape Coast Ghana 15th-21st September 2010.
From the organisers website:
We are looking for groups from all over the world to attend this exhibition. This is the platform for Africa / Caribbean Diaspora to unite with economics and progression in mind.
We are providing a platform for skills exchange and business with people on the continent of Africa. We are working with the people at the grass root of the
magnificent continent of Africa to bring forth the opportunity to invest
in small to medium scale businesses.
We welcome speakers and exhibitors and visitors from everywhere. Our goal is to provide a vehicle to investment on a scale that means that things actually get
done because organizations and groups will become aware of each other
and join forces with a common goal in mind. To rebuild, resettle and
re-establish Magnificent Africa.
Below are some of the criteria that need to be met. Your establishment should meet at least one of these, but we do hope that you will match more, especially the last one:

Content is Still King and the future of blogging....read the full article here
http://webworkerdaily.com/2010/03/03/the-future-of-blogging/

I’m not suggesting that glitz and glamor are better than substance and message. On the contrary, I firmly believe content will always remain the most important aspect of any blog, newspaper or magazine. I’m just saying that we cannot ignore the obvious truth of today’s readers and viewers. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and hope that the quality of our content alone will win the day. We need to deliver our best work (be it blog post, article, movie, book, etc.) in the best packaging available if we want to give it a chance to be consumed/digested and, ultimately, appreciated.

Don't forget March is Women's History Month. That You President Carter. A link of note is http://womenshistorymonth.gov/ .
You can find another awesome link for Women's History Month at my blog
www.sonyamacdesigns.blogspot.com

work n to get my blog (www.sonyamacdesigns.blogspot.com) tight n up and over the week end I designed a simple static page for my website(www.sonyamacdesigns.com). I am not happy with this design at all..............
so a redesign is in order already) but it is so much more than I had before (I have owned this domain for at least 2 years). Still work n hard to get ready for the blogger mash up, over at http://www.sfgirlbybay.com/blog-it-forward/ ....please
plan on ck n out my post on Wednesday March 10th. I really need your support. My business website is www.eastwindproductions.net and my portrait photography site is www.ursobeautiful2me.com.

Greetings Empresses!

I know that you have Big Dreams & Many Goals that you have your Heart & Mind set on for the future.
Well, The Future is NOW! Give your self & your business that jumpstart you need right out the gate!

Industrious Empress...

A Network of Women striving to reach the same goal of financial success & stability through our own creative works
A Resource for ideas, advice & support
A Conglomerate of businesses with the same target markets,audience,customers & clients
A Financial base to create funds to invest in our individual & collective businesses (advertising, festivals, manufacturing)
An Organization to build, merge & emerge stronger businesses and industry

We Need, Organization & Finances!

Let's work Smarter not harder from this point forward, Let's Do This!

Industrious Empress is an Organization I have started to Support & Develop Afrikan Centered Artists & Artisans. If you are interested in combining resources with other sisters with African, Culturally-minded businesses & products please visit & join us. This is not a social network this is a union, association of entrepreneurs who want to make progress both individually & collectively for the betterment of our people & essentially the world!

One of the main goals is to create a fund to finance our business goals. Read the plan, and join the movement!

http://industriousempress.ning.com/

Peace & Prosperity,

Yes Lioness!

As you can see my name hints at transformation, unfortunately a few of us find ourselves caught in a never ending cycle of wanting to live up to new years resolutions but not quite, wanting a home business that we can celebrate but fail at finding a way to make it work, wanting to blog but finding that priority somewhere in the laundry basket.

I believe that evolution leads us to working smarter not harder so that we would find time an energy to really contribute our vital enegies to peace and serenity. One of my resolutionS was to become a certified Diva, healthy, sexy and free. I created sexierhealthierme, an informative blog that I hope visitors find as a life changing life improving experience. Now I just set up the blog and I set it up for free so you probably wont find the best graphic format that money can buy, but it is intended to be informative. The latest post is called "Ready for a makeover, the weight is over"

Check me out.... www.sexierhealthierme.wordpress.com, Thats where Ill be.

Peace, Love and Guidance
Became Become Becomming.

Greetings, YMIB Sistas:

All of you hold or have held diverse professional positions of varying degrees and are seeking to positively elevate to the next level in your lives, so I would like your feedback.

I am developing a series of workshops, specifically geared toward women of color, that will explore issues we often face pursuing our careers. Of course there are the various "isms"; however, there are a multitude of other challenges as well. Rather than assume I know what they are I'd like to hear from you! So my question is...

If you were to attend a workshop to broaden your professional/personal development what topic(s) would you be interested in and why? What's important to you?

Greeting Everyone
Here you will find correction on the link for Besele Virtual Administrative Assistance www.beselevaa.com

Have a Great Day! Peace and Blessings ~Esubayi

Alaafia Everyone

Announcing the launch of a new hand~crafted boutique Etnico Totes www.etnicototes.com
Etnico Totes features Ecclectic Culturally Inspired, Handbags, Totes, Wallets and Clutches!
Custom Orders Are Welcome! Check It Out!

Also visit Besele Virtual Administrative Assistance www.beselavaa.com
My company's goal is to help entrepreneurs and business consultants put more time, freedom and flexibility back into their lives by rescuing them from their administrative burdens.

In the process, we improve their business systems and allow them to better serve their own clients.

I specifically work with entrepunuers, business consultants, non-profit organizations, and community improvement programs. Contact me via my website for a compementary consultation on how I may be able to better serve your administrative needs. Peace and Blessings to all ~Esubayi

Greetings SiStars!,

I hope this message meets you in health, wealth and blessings!
Starting this month I am launching some exciting EYE AM YOGA programs. In October is Yoga for Nubians and next month is SiStars Yoga.The programs offered are:

*Yoga for Nubians
*Yoga for Youth
*SiStars Yoga
*Yoga for Street Youth
*Prison Yoga
*Warrior Men Yoga

I also launched a fundraiser to help with the cost involved to launch the programs throughout the year. Your help would be much appreciated and assist in bringing the healing,uplifting science of yoga to many!. To chip in you can go to www.eyeamyoga.com/support.html. For full description on the programs go to www.eyeamyoga.com/programs.html. If you would like to join one of the programs contact info@eyeamyoga.com

Thank You!
.:Mafdet Maat:.
www.eyeamyoga.com

Greetings!
It has been a very long time since I have reached out to my people on ymib. I pray that Each One of You is Maintaining on the Highest Level Possible.
I have an idea to create a union for women artists,designers, entrepreneurs etc. I would like to gather all of us so that we can not only combine resources but also support each other. There are so many of us who really work hard and sometimes struggle with our businesses that I feel it's overdue for us to come together and help each other get to the next level. Now I know this is a grand idea but this is one worth following up on and bringing to REALITY. I would like for everyone who reads this bulletin to contact me through my e-mail: yeslioness@hotmail.com and we can begin the process of flesching out the organization.

Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. I can only cry out WHY? Such Big Business ventures (click the link below) appear to rape the land and extract the Spirit out of everything it touches. Is the governmental corruption in US/Africa so bad, that we can't hear the voices speaking out for the people? What do you know? Share...

http://www.crippssears.com/Chevron-begins-production-at-Angolan-oil-fiel...

New boutique is opening August 2009 to promote and nurture indie artists and designers. It will be THE place to find innovative fashion, home, and accessories for the fashion-forward.
Located in the heart of a city in transformation, Newark NJ, the boutique will be amongst the renaissance of a part of downtown that is being compared to South Street in Philly and even Soho. The brand new storefront is 1800 sq ft and will be below luxury loft NY-style apartments and in a row of equally fabulous shops, restaurants, galleries, and cafes only 12mins from midtown NYC.
It is surrounded by Rutgers University, NJIT, Seton Hall Law School and the burgeoning art community.

Strategy, leadership, innovation, and marketability…all are crucial to business success; however can your business execute?

Small business owners normally spend countless hours organizing business plans and marketing plans without considering if they can execute the plan. Creating a plan whatever type of plan, should be your game plan to achieve your vision. This requires one of the most important skills of any business-Execution.

What is execution? In business, it’s exposing reality so that you can act on it. Execution is not just about doing what you say you’re going to do. It involves being realistic about your business in all areas including your own skill sets; it also involves having a ‘business mindset’ so that you can take action, and lastly it involves creating a success team that has execution integrated into their skill set.

So how do you begin incorporating execution into your business? Here are 5 areas to start with:

Many people ask me, “Sherese, how do you continue to thrive even in a down economy?” The truth is, although I’m thriving, times are still tough. The challenges of keeping our profit margins on track keeps me on my toes and reveals that the foundation I've built works!

Here are five ways that I keep Effició on the success track no matter how many drops the business rollercoaster has:

1. Collaborate. Business owners have many needs and want their solutions based on their unique situation. I try to address these needs by collaborating with other experts to provide an enhanced learning experience. Not only do our customers enjoy the benefits of our expertise but myself and my collaboration partner become better business people for working together vs. going it alone.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: SET UP GOOGLE READER

If you are serious about selling art online you need to get to the important information others share about the topic. One of the most useful tools to accomplish this is a feed/rss reader. It lets you subscribe to your favorite blogs so you don't have to actually go to the site all the time to check for new content. Instead you get an account at Google Reader and let it deliver all new posts to your reader inbox. It actually works quite similar to an email account.

Here is a quick video on how it works:

Many artists, musicians, designers, crafters, writers and other creative people have Facebook accounts and can use these to reach more people and grow their creative business. There are many things to be done that can help you promote and market your work and I will name 25 that I think would be useful to implement.

This is not a post about markeing though, it's more about the little things Facebook offers that you might have overlooked but that can have a big impact on your creative biz because you streamlined your profile to work for you. The tips reach from fairly basic to pretty advanced, so there should be something for everybody.

1 add your website/blog url to the info box under your profile pic:

It was -10 that evening but a warm +25 in our hearts as we celebrated the 'mZansi-Life' in Oslo last weekend. All South Africans know the mZansi-Life. It's the life that many here in Norway yearn for. The life of sunshine and colour. Orange and green instead of grey, black and white. Choice instead of chain stores. Sunshine instead of grey skies.

I left my good Art Director job in Durban and moved to Oslo 10 months ago. It was not the crime or general frustration most South Africans site for leaving. Rather it was love. I had fallen in love with a viking and now was to leave my life behind and move to the coveted Scandinavia. Taking on 'love immigrant' status was harder than I thought. I found myself bewildered at this new life. Everything I had come to know and love of South Africa was suddenly gone, the fashion, the colour, the options, the people! I was wishing for that life again, the mZansi-Life so much I began to blog about it.

If you would like to catch my latest blog posts please visit the following:

http://tomokastwists.blogspot.com ~ Business Tips & More
http://carmennc.blogspot.com ~ Sisterlocks, Give~Away Announcements & More

Blessings my SiStars,

Sharing an awesome resource!

http://EtsyAOC.ning.com

I joined them last year right as things were being organized. At some point I realized I wasn't "emotionally" ready for the commitment to logging on, checking in, and participating on a regular basis. But I've recently reinstated my membership and a lot has happened in a year! Those of you on etsy, if you haven't already done so, should look into this. It's just another avenue for shared interests and common goals. And can help with business exposure and support.

Blessings SiStars,

Making things is a wonderful experience. What we create with our hands can make wonderful gifts for the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and more. It gives us a feeling of great joy when someone appreicates the love that we have put into our creation.

...and sometimes, we go into business, selling our arts and crafts and being able to sustain ourselves financially by doing something that we love. That is indeed a blessing.

Eighteen years ago, I began blending fragrance oils for personal use and eventually went into the business of selling my creations. My formulas are unique scents that delight the senses.

The Joy of Blending Fragrance Oils for Fun or Profit is...

"An extraordinary eBook that shows you how to create fragrance oil blends for fun or profit."

Tonya reveals for the first time her original formulas. Contains an introduction to perfume oil blending, tips for making fragrance oils, bath salts, shower gels, lotions, incense and potpourri.

Supply outlets are provided, as well as guidelines for retail sales.

Included are 50 fragrance oil formulas, 14 incense oils and 3 potpourri blends.

Great for gift-making, or profit.

Keep in mind that we’re trying to up our ‘it’ factor so we’re not talking about the regular stuff, we’re talking about being extraordinary – dynamic – just wanted to remind you…

3 Strategies to Up Your "IT" Factor - (3) is the key number...

1. Lead with Intension:
Leading with intension is simply a matter of supporting the achievement of extraordinary goals through increased awareness of the connection between teaching, learning, and leading...and doing it on purpose.

How do you start? Grow – Gain - Give

Grow – grow the bottom line by being strategic and taking action on the right things, but also grow in character – be a the person that you look up to – be the person that you like the most.

Gain – leaders must gain respect in order to gain team cohesion. Start by respecting your business, respecting your people even if they don’t deserve it, and respecting your environment. Not just internally, but externally as well. Are your operations contributing to the economy and creating jobs for the community you serve?

In order to gain respect, you have to give respect to your business, your people and the community you serve.

Selling African American Black Expressions 2008-2009 Collection

Holiday Cards, Figurines, Calendars 2009, Photo Frames and much more!

The Holidays are coming up and there will be long lines. Skip the lines and come to me for some of your Holiday needs and wants! With prices starting at 5.00 you have shop with us.

Free Shipping * Free Shipping * Free Shipping * Free Shipping

Contact Me For more Details!

Have a Blessed Week

"See a Blessing, Be A Blessing"

How do I go about getting companies to advertise on my blog ? Is there anyone that can help me figure this out?

My blog is a fashion blog (non- gossip) offering tips on style, your latest celebrity fashions, national International fashion event coverage and announcements, and local ( Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area) fashion finds and events.

I 'm new to this and I would love some information and help from a few experts!

Thanks Ladies,

Markeysha
Your Fashion N Fast Forward
www.yfff.blogspot.com

Imagine your life starting out this way....

...You grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive family environment, with chaos and pain all around you. You were born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenage mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood. You were raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Then you were sent to live with a man you call your father, a barber in Tennessee.

Okay, what would you have done if you had that kind of start in life? Many would have quit, lived with anger and bitterness while blaming others for their terrible upbringing. But not Oprah Winfrey.

Stop Spending All Your Time on the Little Stuff.

This year is already moving pretty fast, therefore, your time management needs a quick pick me up.

If you’re ready to grow your business and generate sales you have to function in an environment that facilitates execution. I’ve accomplished the almost impossible in the last year with my new launch and brands.

How did I do it?

I Broke My Growth Barriers and Divided Up My Time.

If you’re ready to grow and need a little push, here are six broad categories to divide your time and what three activities you can start with. Other type of work can be added customized to your business:

Client Work – Clients or customers. This includes providing services and products to them.
• Follow Up to Questions, Requests, and Inquiries from Clients
• Update, Organize, and/or Finish Client Projects and Research
• Create Quarterly Communication Program for Announcements, Special Offers, and New Product Introductions
•
Administrative Work – This includes paperwork, phone calls, email, scheduling and other busy work to keep the business running.

I was chatting with one of my assistants about social media and marketing. We were talking about how many business owners are really achieving the success they proclaim or are they glorifying their success in order to get your business.

I know…a touchy yet intriguing topic.

We decided that a lot of people are selling dreams instead of reality whether they are online or offline, it doesn’t matter. Marketing 101 is about appealing to the needs and wants of your target market with emotional triggers, dynamic verbiage and subliminal messages. Here are a few things to watch out for when looking for resources, education, training, coaching, consulting, and everything in between to help you start, grow, and explode your small business:

Sorry to maybe sound so troubled with the title of this blog, but I am learning that it is better to let the emotion out instead of it troubling my insides and lingering to do damage. Anywho... I have been holding on to this "student position" for two years now. I am a call center representative for a complaint and general HMO Help center for the state. At first, being a shoulder to cry on and having to understand that the name calling and anger was not towards me but towards the HMO changed me into an emotional wreck. Then I started to manage and become better at my job. I got a raise and started to get a bit of respect from my supervisors and other branches within the department. I felt I was on a roll. So just to do a little more I started to pick up the hours that other agents wouldn't touch with a ten foot poll. I worked Monday through Thursday 1-6:30pm, Saturday mornings 12am to 7am and then on Sundays 7am until 3pm. I also went to school full time. I am a broke student, so the money was ok. But with the more times the supervisors seen me, the more issues they had with me.

I just read this over at Afrobella(http://afrobella.com/2008/08/04/small-businesses-need-love-too/), and I find it quite disturbing, especially when there are so many wonderful body care companies that could never afford to pay FDA fees, please pass this along to all of those you know who buy from or run a business where they make & sell their body care products. If something like this ever passed, I would try my hardest to boycott large body care companies!
____________________________________________________________

FDA Globalization act of 2008

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is trying to draft a law that would have every handmade cosmetic product treated basically in the same way that a drug like Tylenol is. That would mean that all of the body butters, hair conditioners, lip balms, and shower gels produced by up and coming businesses would have to get approved by the FDA before they can be sold. To do that, these companies would have to purchase licensing and registration fees, which can cost up to $12,000.

Click here to Read More: http://energycommerce.house.gov/FDAGlobalAct-08/index.shtml