It’s no secret that we are big fans of Toastmasters.  In my mind–there is nothing more important for a business person to develop, than communication skills.  Up until now there hasn’t been a local club that focused entirely on Small Business.  Up Until Now That Is!

Join us here in Vancouver for an organizational meeting to establish a new Toastmaster Club.  This could well be the single most important thing you can do – to grow your business this year.  Our next meeting is Tuesday, March 27th at 6:50 PM here in Vancouver, WA.  Full details follow.
Warmest Regards, Alexis Mason and Rusty Lee.

SMB Pro Toastmasters
Small Business Professional Toastmasters

What Is It?
A Toastmaster Club for Small Business Professionals

Who Is It For?
Entrepreneurs, CEO’s, Sales and Marketing Professionals, Customer Service and Human Resource Professionals, Business Owners.  Those who are just getting started in business and those who want to take an existing business to the next level.

When and Where Do We Meet?
Next meetings: March 27th, 6:50 PM — April 10th, 6:50 PM
2nd & 4th Tuesdays.  6:50 PM to 8:15 PM
Courtyard Village, 4555 NE 66th Avenue, Vancouver, WA

What’s In It for Me?
This club and program are specifically designed to help build Communication and Leadership skills.  They are the two most critical skills for any business person.  Working as a team, we’ll help you to develop those skills in a professional business environment. Learn how to:

1) Present yourself and your company in a professional way
2) Market your business using the latest technology.  Video, Social Media, etc.
3) Conduct effective meetings
4) Build your Brand
5) Use networking in person and with technology
6) Effectively lead your team

Mission Statement:
The mission of SMB Pro Toastmasters Club is to provide an educational, fun and supportive environment that focuses on building Communication and Leadership Skills for Small Business Professionals.

What to Expect:
Demonstration of the meeting format and discussion about the benefits for your business.  You’ll hear from business owners who understand the value of Toastmasters and learn how it has helped them.  We’ll be accepting membership applications and you can get started right away with your checkbook or credit/debit card information.  Please dress for a professional environment (business casual).

For More Information Contact:
Rusty Lee, (360) 687-2838
Alexis Mason, (360) 314-6463

Visit us on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/mybusinesslaunch

We’ll be talking about Social Security!  No–No—Not “that” kind of Social Security.  The kind you need if you or your business are online and using the Social Media Sites.  Join us for a free call hosted by Alexis Mason and Rusty Lee at My Business Launch.  Our special guest will be security expert Jeff Ferdinand.  We’re starting early so we don’t interrupt your work day.

In this Highly Interactive Program You’ll learn:

• The most important “Must Have” for safety on the social media sites.
• What to expect about Privacy.  What Privacy you have and don’t have.
• How to overcome the “Fear Factor” when you are working online.
• How to build a profile that supports your needs and avoids exposure to unnecessary risks.

The session will be recorded so you can download and listen later.  We’ll also have an online webinar component available for those visual learners.

To Attend:  (we don’t mind if you come in your jammies)

1. Call (218) 844-0850 just a bit before 7 AM PDT
2. Enter Access Code: 648810#
3. Announce yourself and enjoy the call.
4. For the webinar component (not required) go to: http://www.freescreensharing.com
5. Under Join a Meeting
• Enter your name and email address
• Enter Meeting ID: 716-687-078
• Follow along as we chat
6. Make sure you have your toughest questions ready and we’ll get them answered!
7. Enjoy the call and plan to be actively involved–this call is for you and we encourage your participation!

Jeff is definitely an expert in online security.  He  has taught Network Security for the last two years at a local college and has worked in the field for over ten years. As a certified technical trainer (CompTIA Security+), Jeff can translate highly technical information into something you can understand and use.  For the full details on his credentials: Visit His Website.

It’s fun to share your life on Social Media—but it’s hard to stop sharing and easy to share too much!  Jeff often asks, “You’re network is technically secured, how are your people?”  Minimize the risk to your security and privacy by learning more.  We hope to chat with you on Wednesday morning August 10th at 7 AM!

Registration is Not Required, but if you get us your email address we’ll make sure you have access to the recording and slide deck for later review.  Please let us know you plan to attend at our Facebook Event Page:  https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=245665992121998

Hello Everyone,

We are pleased to announce the title you helped us to select for our book and that you can now buy it on Kindle.  Just click here for more details:  Launching Your Business:  End the Mystery ~ 101 Practical Tips. We hope you’ll get a copy and that it will help to build and promote your business.

A special thanks to everyone who participated in our survey and helped us to name the book.  The final title is a combination of your most popular selections. Congratulations to the winners of our drawing:

Third Prize (copies of the book) went to:
Awilda Schuler
Debi Kyle
Beth Duvall

Second Prize (two tickets and workbooks for Get Motivated, March 14th) to:
Linda Wright

First Prize (Certificate for a Full Day Workshop) to:
Russell Mickler

Alexis has been busy with some new blog posts at AskAlexisMason.com and here on our website.

We have a number of events scheduled over the next couple months.  Get the details on our Events Page.

Enjoy the Spring Time — we hope it arrives soon!  Make it a season of growth and success for your endeavors!

For your success,

Rusty & Alexis

You’ve decided to start your own business in 2011.  Now What?  Where do you start?  What help will you need?  What will you need to learn?  What are your strengths?  What obstacles do you have?

One thing is for sure; you’ll need to take action.  You can’t do it home alone on the internet.  You’ll need to get out and talk to people who can help.  You’ll need to talk with potential clients.  You’ll need to tell everyone you know!

If you are near Southwest Washington or Portland, Oregon, then this is for you!  The workshop is based on our 11 session, 22 hour, live business launch program: “So, You Want to Start Your Own Business?”  We’ll share some of our best material to get your business off the launching pad.

What: Start Your Small Business Workshop
When: Saturday morning January 29th, 2011.  8 am to Noon.
Where: Courtyard Village, 4555 NE 66th Ave, Vancouver, WA 98661
How Much: $50 includes four hours of interactive training. Breakfast also provided.
Bonus: Group Coaching Session from Noon to 3 pm for $25 additional.  Lunch included.  Must attend the morning program to register for the afternoon session.

You’ll Learn Tools To:

• Find Your Passion and Entrepreneurial Style
• Determine if There’s a Market for Your Idea
• Manage Your Time, Set Goals and Keep Business Records
• Be Professional in Person and Online
• Name your business and Create a Tagline
• Build Your Brand
• Get Your Domain and Host Your Site
• Setup Business and Personal Email

Learn how to get your business idea off the launching pad.  Work on your business, not on meaningless exercises. Learn how to launch your business without hiring expensive consultants.  Get real world tools you can use immediately.  Not a sales pitch.

Special Bonus Coaching session from Noon to 3 pm to work specifically on your business. Includes lunch for an additional $25. Special discounts will also be available for future programs.

Prerequisites: Register before January 25th to guarantee your place.  Only online registrations below will qualify.  Bring your completed pre-assessment survey to the workshop. It will be provided when you enroll.

Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” We’ll help you avoid the awful regret that comes from not pursuing your dreams!  Enroll now.  Take that important first step towards the successful launch of your own dream business!

Click on the following links and register today!  Space is limited.

Start Your Business Workshop Morning Session
8 AM to Noon, Includes Breakfast, $5o

Start Your Business Workshop Bonus Session
Noon to 3, Includes Lunch, $25

Have you dreamed of starting your own business? Do any of these statements sound like you?

• You have a strong desire to “Be Your Own Boss”.
• You are underemployed or unemployed because of the economy.
• You’ve ever said: “I can do better, I should have my own business!”
• You have been preparing to retire, but can’t for financial reasons.
• You are retired but haven’t pursued your dream business idea.
• You have a great business idea, but you don’t have a lot of money to start it.
• You have a business already but it isn’t doing as well as you would like.

If any of these strike a chord and you are near Southwest Washington or Portland, Oregon, then this is for you!  The workshop is based on our 11 session, 22 hour, live business launch program: “So, You Want to Start Your Own Business?”  We’ll share some of our best material to get your business off the launching pad.

What: Start Your Small Business Workshop
When: Saturday morning December 11th, 2010.  8 am to Noon.
Where: Courtyard Village, 4555 NE 66th Ave, Vancouver, WA 98661
How Much: $50 includes four hours of interactive training. Breakfast also provided.
Bonus: Group Coaching Session from Noon to 3 pm for $25 additional.  Lunch included.  Must attend the morning program to register for the afternoon session.

You’ll Learn Tools To:

• Find Your Passion and Entrepreneurial Style
• Determine if There’s a Market for Your Idea
• Manage Your Time, Set Goals and Keep Business Records
• Be Professional in Person and Online
• Name your business and Create a Tagline
• Build Your Brand
• Get Your Domain and Host Your Site
• Setup Business and Personal Email

Learn how to get your business idea off the launching pad.  Work on your business, not on meaningless exercises.  Learn how to launch your business without hiring expensive consultants.  Get real world tools you can use immediately. Not a sales pitch.

Special Bonus Coaching session from Noon to 3 pm to work specifically on your business. Includes lunch for an additional $25. Special discounts will also be available for future programs.

Prerequisites: Enroll by October 7th to ensure meal availability.  Bring your completed pre-assessment survey to the workshop. It will be provided when you enroll.

Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” We’ll help you avoid the awful regret that comes from not pursuing your dreams!  Enroll now.  Take that important first step towards the successful launch of your own dream business!

Click on the following links and register today!  Space is limited.

Start Your Business Workshop Morning Session
8 AM to Noon, Includes Breakfast, $5o

Start Your Business Workshop Bonus Session
Noon to 3, Includes Lunch, $25

Only One Week Left before our next workshop. If your career has left you high and dry, we’ll help to launch your business so you can sail off into success. If you’ve been procrastinating, now is the time to take action and get registered. This intensely interactive workshop will help you identify the areas you need to work on and those where you are strong.

One of the great obstacles for any business owner, especially someone getting started, is putting together a support team to help with the things you can’t or don’t want to do for yourself. As Henry Ford said, “I don’t need to know everything, I just need to know who to call.” That’s where we can help.

This program will help you to create your own team, your own Mastermind Group of professionals who can help you to build your business. When someone asks about your business or what’s new, you can reply: “I’ve put together a team of local professionals and we are working on My Business Launch!”

Join us Saturday morning, October 9th, 2010. Let’s get your business on the launching pad.

Register Today!

Have you dreamed of starting your own business? Do any of these statements sound like you?

• You have a strong desire to “Be Your Own Boss”.
• You are underemployed or unemployed because of the economy.
• You’ve ever said: “I can do better, I should have my own business!”
• You have been preparing to retire, but can’t for financial reasons.
• You are retired but haven’t pursued your dream business idea.
• You have a great business idea, but you don’t have a lot of money to start it.
• You have a business already but it isn’t doing as well as you would like.

If any of these strike a chord and you are near Southwest Washington or Portland, Oregon, then this is for you!  The workshop is based on our 11 session, 22 hour, live business launch program: “So, You Want to Start Your Own Business?”  We’ll share some of our best material to get your business off the launching pad.

What: Start Your Small Business Workshop
When: Saturday morning October 9th, 2010.  8 am to Noon.
Where: Courtyard Village, 4555 NE 66th Ave, Vancouver, WA 98661
How Much: $50 includes four hours of interactive training. Breakfast also provided.
Bonus: Group Coaching Session from Noon to 3 pm for $25 additional.  Lunch included.  Must attend the morning program to register for the afternoon session.

You’ll Learn Tools To:

• Find Your Passion and Entrepreneurial Style
• Determine if There’s a Market for Your Idea
• Manage Your Time, Set Goals and Keep Business Records
• Be Professional in Person and Online
• Name your business and Create a Tagline
• Build Your Brand
• Get Your Domain and Host Your Site
• Setup Business and Personal Email

Learn how to get your business idea off the launching pad.  Work on your business, not on meaningless exercises.  Learn how to launch your business without hiring expensive consultants.  Get real world tools you can use immediately. Not a sales pitch.

Special Bonus Coaching session from Noon to 3 pm to work specifically on your business. Includes lunch for an additional $25. Special discounts will also be available for future programs.

Prerequisites: Enroll by October 7th to ensure meal availability.  Bring your completed pre-assessment survey to the workshop. It will be provided when you enroll.

Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” We’ll help you avoid the awful regret that comes from not pursuing your dreams!  Enroll now.  Take that important first step towards the successful launch of your own dream business!

Click on the following links and register today!  Space is limited.

Start Your Business Workshop Morning Session
8 AM to Noon, Includes Breakfast, $5o

Start Your Business Workshop Bonus Session
Noon to 3, Includes Lunch, $25

We hope this finds you and your family enjoying some beautiful Spring weather.  It’s been a while since we last posted to our blog but that doesn’t mean things have been quiet.  Alexis and I have completed our first two live sessions of the program:  So, You Want to Start Your Own Business?

That’s a total of 22 weekly sessions at two hours each–live and in person, plus lots of homework for all of us.  As we look back at this program, we are very pleased to announce that 100% of our students have successfully started their own business.  Please join us in giving each of them a big round of applause!  They have earned it!!

Today we have some exciting new webinars to tell you about.  As always, we value your feedback.  These webinars are designed to help you, and we need your input.

Our first webinar was about Finding your Passion and Making it a Viable Business. For those of you who already own a business, you’ll learn how to use your passion to diversify your business model.

We’ll also discuss the importance of your business name and tagline.  Learn what it takes to create a memorable package that will bring prospects to you.  Future webinars will explore branding and how that ties into your business name and tagline.

Here’s how you can help. If you could ask us any question about Finding Your Passion and Making it a Viable Business, what would that be? What do you need to learn about naming your business or developing a great tagline?  What are your big questions we can answer in the webinar?

Please either comment to this blog post or visit our contact page to submit your question.  We’ll be ready to answer your questions during future webinars.  Thanks so much for your participation.

We’ll be looking for Your Questions and answering them during the webinars.  Hope to see you there!

Have a Great Day,

Rusty Lee & Alexis Mason

We hope this message finds you enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  We are now in full swing with the first program and are launching a second one in January.

In our current economy, more people are thinking about starting a business than ever before. Many who have started a business are thinking about kicking things up a notch to make their business more profitable. But where to start? How do you get things rolling? How to spread the word and get it going? How to do that on a tight or non existent budget?

Alexis Mason and Rusty Lee have scheduled three new preview sessions to demonstrate the power of the program. These one hour previews will provide valuable tools to help launch your business. Even though they are free–we’ve packed plenty of value into the time. We are also seeking candidates for the next program starting on January 15th.

For detailed information on the previews — click on the links for the date and time below.

Monday, November 30, 2009, from 5 to 6 pm
http://bit.ly/7Upw0l

Tuesday, December 1, 2009, from Noon to 1 pm
http://bit.ly/8LAMS6

Friday, December 4, 2009, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm
http://bit.ly/5YaN5k

All three workshops will be at Courtyard Village, 4555 NE 66th Ave, Vancouver 98661 in the theater room on the first floor. Please don’t worry about a hard sell at the workshops—because it won’t happen!! If you are unable to attend a preview class, let us know and we’ll send what’s needed to make the right decision for you and your business. You can also get more detailed information about the full program at: http://MyBusinessLaunch.com

We hope you’ll take the first step towards your brighter future by catching at least one of the free workshops. You can either sign up through Biznik at the links above, or contact us directly. We stand ready to help launch Your Business!

Cordially,

Alexis Mason & Rusty Lee

So, You Want To Start Your Own Business? Perhaps, you weren’t able to join us for the inaugural class that started back in October.  Perhaps, you didn’t know where you could get help with launching that new business.  Or, perhaps you have an existing business that needs help to get you on the road to success.

We are pleased to announce our 2nd six month business course starting in January on the 15th.  Live classes begin Friday afternoon at Courtyard Village in Vancouver, WA at 4 PM.

You’ll also have several opportunities to get a free one hour preview right after Thanksgiving.  Check back here or visit the contact page to request more information.  And please don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter!  There you’ll learn how we can help you to get started and about coming events.

We are looking forward to helping you Launch Your Business!

Have a Great Day,

Alexis & Rusty