by Erin Shell Anthony, MBA

If you love lists – and you love Twitter – I’ve compiled just the thing for you:  a listing of the Top Ten Inspirational Business Women to Follow in 2012.

Before I get into why I have each one of these women on my Rockstar-Womenpreneurs Twitter list, I want you to know that even though my blog is primarily about expressing your purpose through business, business and purpose are just two facets of being a Rockstar Womanpreneur.

At the end of the day, balance, priorities, joy, family…all of these are important, and they all help you to be more well-rounded and authentic with your followers, subscribers and customers.

Why Did I Choose Them?

I didn’t choose these women for their number of followers (even though they have quite a few)- but for their substance and style.  They are dynamic, insightful, funny and full of wisdom about business, social media, balance and family.  They also capture both inspiration and sincerity in their tweets, which makes them fun to follow.  I absolutely love following them – and I think you will too.

Top Ten Women Tweeters to Follow in 2012

@jenniferbourn:  Jennifer is a graphic artist and web designer who I started following several years ago not only because I was inspired by her clean, beautiful web designs, but also for her business knowledge and transparency in sharing her journey.  Follow her for quick tips on design, optimizing your site and enjoy her musings on family and business.

@MelissaOnline:  Creator of sheownsit.com (gotta love the name of her site!), Melissa Stewart “celebrates, connects and supports women entrepreneurs” and she does it through producing insightful content full of resources that help women be better, stronger entrepreneurs.  She also tweets her knowledge and actively engages her followers.  Follow Melissa for entrepreneurial tweets on happenings on the web as well as a lot of friendly interaction.

@powermommy:  Powermommy is actually a personal friend of mine who has been inspiring women for years!  She has a beautiful (and big!) family and manages them with such ease and grace you would think that anybody could just whip up homemade meals, balance a career as a Corporate Executive and take their teenage sons to spoken word events any day of the week.  She’s the bomb Mom!  Follow her for tweets on balancing life, career and family.

@isazapata:  Isa is an artist and it shows in her tweets.  Inspiration moves people to action and she shares the best of it through quotes, ideas and art through words.  In her own words, Isa wants to “remind everyone that life is simple and beautiful.” Follow Isa for mindful, positive tweets and to incorporate the beauty of art in your daily life.

@ElenaVerlee:  I began following Elena a few years ago and she has just about the best blog I’ve ever read for PR tips and tactics.  She’s a fabulous business woman, and her tweets and blog posts always introduce others to new ways to create positive PR for their businesses.  Follow her to learn more about public relations and implement her tips to attract more business.

@SheriMcConnell:  Sheri McConnell is the CEO of the Smart Women Institute, which is a community of women 50,000 strong.  She’s a master of membership based businesses and is generous with her wisdom – both on Twitter and on her website.  She’s also an inspirational connector of women! Follow Sheri for business advice and simply great mentorship.

@Womenworking:  An online community for women who want to advance in their careers and enjoy life, I love @womenworking for their concise, impactful tweets.  Their mission is to dare women to go for their dreams, and I retweet them regularly because their tweets are so inspirational!  Follow them for ways to optimize your career as well as for business motivation.

@AnnTran_:  Ann Tran specializes in sharing quick ways that you can optimize social media – but she also sprinkles that social media wisdom with beautiful quotes, like a recent one by Bono – “Grace defies reason and logic.”  With over 270k followers, she’s a great example of how to use Twitter, and make it useful for both yourself and others.  Follow her for really good information on social media and for inspiration.

@ponderful:  Lynn Ponder is the founder of webcitygirls.com, a multi-cultural social media press team.  Another great example of how to use Twitter, Lynn fills all of her tweets with such a positive vibe, you can feel it!  Follow Lynn for tweets on social media news and happenings as well as to interact with someone who truly takes interest in her Twitter followers.

@drtiffanybrown:  If you like affirmations, you’ll love Dr. Tiffany Brown.  On a regular basis, she posts morning prayers that are truly positive affirmations for a healthy mind and spirit.  Her prayers are easy one-two sentence tweets that are perfect for getting your day started right, and perfect for retweeting.  Follow her for inspiration and mental clarity.

One Extra Shout-Out!

And although I can’t put him on the list above for obvious reasons -I couldn’t end this post without thanking Sean Gardner, aka @2morrowknight, one of my Twitter friends who introduced me through Twitter to two of my top 10 (@ponderful & @isazapata), and who, even with almost 300k followers, takes time out to respond personally and connect others.  Through his example, he demonstrated what is, in my opinion, one of the most useful ways to optimize Twitter and establish real connections.

Take a moment to follow these fabulous folks in 2012.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy them as much as I do!

Follow Erin @erinsanthony for tips on finding your purpose and expressing it through business, solid business & marketing tips and especially for #RENEW Wednesdays which are full of Erin’s affirmations for a joyful business and life!

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by Sheri McConnell

To get the most out of this article, visit our site to watch the accompanying video complete with a Map of the Infinity Business Model.  Read both the article and watch the video and by all means please share!  As one of our followers put it:

“I have known for a while now that the funnel approach is one that keeps us focused on the up sell, always the up sell. It also seemed too restrictive and was more apt to treat people like numbers and projects. I haven’t known another way though… until your model!! Yours is much more realistic about the marketing process, keeps the energy up and flowing, and focuses more on client engagement, rather than squeezing them through the narrow bottom of the funnel… love it!” – Maryann Ehmann

The Energy of the Infinity Business Model

As you look at the map of the Infinity Business Model, you should take notice that your marketing is always in movement. Your marketing is also a combination of free strategies and activities and paid ones that your customers invest in, to expand and take big leaps.

You should also notice with this model, there are no boundaries as far as where new leads can come from… they don’t always have to enter in through the “top of the funnel via a free give-away”.  In fact, many of your leads will come into the Infinity Business Model through many of the paid strategies and activities.  So remember, your job is to keep the energy moving in your business and to keep problem solving through free and paid forms of marketing and clients will be pulled in because the energy of the Infinity Model is absolutely magnetic!

Now let’s talk about the speed of the energy with this model.  You’ll notice there are bigger arrows and smaller arrows… for demonstration purposes the larger arrows represent faster movement.  Which brings us to my favorite place to be in the Infinity Business Model and that is the Sweet Spot!

The Sweet Spot of the Infinity Business Model

As your clients or customers move energetically along the model by engaging in the free and paid options you offer, they begin to experience what I call the Sweet Spot of this model.  Here in the center of the map is where they take big leaps, they expand, they have breakthroughs, and the eventually become the leaders they were meant to be.

In my opinion, many people may have to cycle through the model many times learning new lessons and expanding before they are ready to lead.  The Sweet Spot represents growth nonetheless, and as you and I both know, ALL GROWTH IS GOOD.

Now, here is what you must be cautious about in the Sweet Spot. It moves fast, it can be overwhelming to grow so much so fast. So practice self care when you are in the Sweet Spot.  Entrepreneurs are challenged neurologically in a completely different way than non-entrepreneurs.  If you are tired from building and growing your business, that is normal.  Your energy output is in hyper speed as you move through the Sweet Spot over and over again.

Ways to Play in the Infinity Business Model

With this model, there is a real sense that through all your marketing activities you will have many chances to lead them into a relationship.  There is no need to push or pull, you only need to serve and teach through your marketing and focus on being graceful and positive as you help them problem solve.

With the outdated business funnel model, you needed to progress (push in a sense) them through higher and higher amounts for them to uplevel.  I am not saying that you still won’t have 20% of your clients experiencing your premium services or products to uplevel. You absolutely will.  And they will do this over and over again in the Sweet Spot.

What I’ve come to know is that building and growing a successful business is about so much more than what we’ve been taught up until now with previous business models.

Remember, with all your followers, customers, and clients moving along this model faster and faster, they will create a magnetic attraction and begin to pull more and more people in.  The Infinity Business Model accurately represents how successful businesses grow.  Because there is literally magnetic energy happening in your business, you begin work less and make more.

80/20 Rule Applied to the Infinity Business Model

With the outdated Business Funnel Model, you spent your time trying to get everyone through the hierarchical 80% to be the 20% high level client.  In the Infinity Business Model it is not about getting them to higher priced services and products at all, it is about having them create success for themselves so they cycle back through the Sweet Spot over and over again.

So you can visualize that the center of the map (the Sweet Spot) is the 20% and your clients and customers successes or love for your company in general will begin to magnetize business to you.

So for the first time ever, the 80/20 rule is about the customer being successful and how that makes you and your company successful instead of the other way around.  The funnel essentially was really focused on the company.

Last Thoughts About the Infinity Business Model

• Creating a magnetic, energy filled business is more fun and less work.
• Marketing can be simple and still be more effective in overall business success.  Yes, this does mean more profits.  Remember, money is power. The POWER to create more positive change if you have the intention to do so.
• It is normal if some people move extremely slow around the Infinity Business Model (even stop off for a decade at Starbucks!) and then get going again.  Remember you have a WHY, a purpose that drives you and you will be here for the longterm.  I consistently have women from my very first company (the National Association of Women Writers) that I owned from 2001 – 2010 resurface and engage over and over again.
• Your team will speed up the energy along the Infinity Business Model. Wow. Think about it.
• And lastly, part of the Sweet Spot’s sweetness is creating leaders.  You get to be a leader to more leaders.  That means we all begin to shift into a businesses with a higher vibration and much bigger WHYS!

Want To Use This Article In Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Sheri McConnell is the CEO of the Smart Women’s Institute of Entrepreneurial Learning (formerly the National Assn of Women Writers-2001). You can visit Sheri, access her free article archive, and grab lots of free stuff at http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, their four children, a weenie dog, and three hermit crabs.

Dear Smart Women,

Welcome to all the new Smart Women Members this week! So happy to have you as part of the Smart Women Family.

I’m having such a great week here on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas with my Smart Women Mastermind and Circles members. Here’s a picture below of a few of our Smart Women Mastermind members in the courtyard at the Alamo during our lunch break in between mapping out the next six months in their businesses. I also want to congratulate Meredith Hill who is standing next to me in the picture. She will hit 6 figures this month for her new business that she just started in January 2011!

Did you miss last week’s big free call? I created SMART SUMMER BUSINESS REBOOT to help you be productive and balanced this summer. Remember I run a I very busy household (at least I try!) and have been running online businesses for over 11 years now. I want to share some strategies with you to help you maintain your sanity throughout the summer. And this just isn’t for mom’s… everyone seems to experience a lull in productivity during the summer months because of travel and/or the beautiful weather.

Download the call immediately–I will help you learn how to relax AND manifest exactly what you need this summer and beyond!

Want to learn how to unplug this summer and move your business forward at the same time? Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it. On this call, I’ll share:

• 3 strategies for using the summer to create profits gracefully in your business
• Why you must follow the energy of the season to create cash flow
• Time management strategies for managing summer interruptions
• Two ways to create the space to grow now and in the fall!
• Plus much more!

Take Care!

Sheri McConnell

The Smart Women’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Learning™

http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com

This “intro” was taken from our latest newsletter. Not getting our newsletter? Sign up by clicking on “Send My Kit” at the TOP of this page and you’ll also receive our FREE Smart Steps to Success kit!

Watch this brand new Pricing Mindset video now! This one can “change everything” if you really listen and then take an honest inventory of your own beliefs systems.

Dear Smart Women,

Happy Mothers Day!

Head on over to our Smart Store now and get 35% off everything. It’s our gift to you!

Be sure to enter coupon code “MOMSRULE” at checkout to grab your 35% discount. This sale ends at midnight EST on Friday, May 13th so do NOT miss your chance to learn, leverage, and lead!

Here are just a few titles you have to choose from:

Create and Grow Your Network Now

Smart Women’s Marketing 2.0
Everything You Need To Know To Grow

Smart Women’s Guide to Publishing a Book
that Build Your Business Fast and Easy

Smart Women’s Guide to Publishing
Infoproducts Fast and Easy

And Much More!!!

P.S. Remember, you MUST enter coupon code: “MOMSRULE” at checkout in order to receive 35% off your order. This coupon expires Friday, May 13th at Midnight EST.
Shop the Smart Store Now!

To Your Success!

Sheri McConnell

The Smart Women’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Learning™

http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com

PS: And just in case you didn’t know, our new Web Design and Business Services division is open and getting very busy. So make sure to check out the new website if you are in need of talented and dependable Smart Women to help you get your company moving towards profits faster. Our Smart Team includes certified bookkeepers to web designers to author specialists and much more!

This “intro” was taken from our latest newsletter. Not getting our newsletter? Sign up by clicking on “Send My Kit” at the TOP of this page and you’ll also receive our FREE Smart Steps to Success kit!

Dear Smart Women,

Our Mothers Day Sale is Underway!

Head on over to our Smart Store now and get 35% off everything.  It’s our gift to you!

Be sure to enter coupon code “MOMSRULE” at checkout to grab your 35% discount.  This sale ends at midnight EST on Friday, May 13th so do NOT miss your chance to learn, leverage, and lead!

Here are just a few titles you have to choose from:

Create and Grow Your Network Now

Smart Women’s Marketing 2.0
Everything You Need To Know To Grow

Smart Women’s Guide to Publishing a Book
that Build Your Business Fast and Easy

Smart Women’s Guide to Publishing
Infoproducts Fast and Easy

And Much More!!!

P.S. Remember, you MUST enter coupon code: “MOMSRULE” at checkout in order to receive 35% off your order. This coupon expires Friday, May 13th at Midnight EST.
Shop the Smart Store Now!

To Your Success!

Sheri McConnell

The Smart Women’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Learning™

http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com

PS: And just in case you didn’t know, our new Web Design and Business Services division is open and getting very busy. So make sure to check out the new website if you are in need of talented and dependable Smart Women to help you get your company moving towards profits faster. Our Smart Team includes certified bookkeepers to web designers to author specialists and much more!

This “intro” was taken from our latest newsletter. Not getting our newsletter? Sign up by clicking on “Send My Kit” at the TOP of this page and you’ll also receive our FREE Smart Steps to Success kit!

Yes, You Are Brilliant Right Now

Just in case a little voice in your head said, “Oh, I don’t have brilliance to leverage…” I want to laser focus right in where you are at for a moment and show you how you are brilliant and your life is full of possibilities right now.

So picture yourself in a long line. Yes, there are many people in front of you who know more than you do, their brilliance is shining and you are inspired.  And you feel like, “Who am I to leverage what I know?”

What you don’t realize is that there is a long line of people behind you… and they see your “Smart Glow” and they are waiting for you just to turn around and start teaching them, inspiring them, and sharing your brilliance in a way that only you can.  They need you to lead them or they won’t be able to live their purpose and go out into the world and create positive change.

So you have a few choices, you can turn around and start to shine or you can step out of line for a month, a year, or a lifetime and be a disservice to yourself and others.  You have the brilliance to leverage, but you absolutely must decide if you will step up and step in to your purpose and share your brilliance.

Now, that you have embraced your brilliance, let’s talk about the best ways to leverage it to reach the most people.

These smart methods below are powerful because they are scalable.  They cost you the same amount of time to do them for 50 people or 500,000 people. And they have an extremely long shelf life, especially when they are interwoven with the Internet. How you get the tools in front of 500,000 people eventually is what we teach here at the Institute in our many programs.

One-Articles

The Internet is driven by words.  Nothing is more powerful today than words.  Really.  Your ability to teach through writing or to have someone listen to you talk and create articles for you is very powerful. Articles can be written once and then used in multiple ways as soon as you create them.  You can run it in your newsletter, post it on your blog, post it at ezinearticles.com, reslant it for a future book, link to it on your blog from the social networks, incorporate parts of it into a signature talk when you speak, and so much more.  From one single article, you can change the world if you understand how to leverage it over and over again so that your brilliance can shine where ever people are standing in line.

Two-Books

One of my absolute favorite ways to leverage brilliance in business is by packaging information (essentially many articles) into book form.  Physical books and digital books are highly respected tools in our society and their shelf life lasts for decades. You do the work once and leverage it for years and years.  Books are such a part of our culture that people carry them with them where ever they go in physical form of a book or in their digital book readers.  And books are one of the best tools I know of to leverage PR opportunities, speaking opportunities, and money making lead opportunities.

Three-Videos

Nothing is more scalable and easy to produce than a video.  With so many low cost flip video cameras available that you just plug and upload, you absolutely have no excuse not to shine in front of the camera and share your brilliance in either short or long videos.  People love to learn and be entertained with video as well as share it with others.  And remember, you create it once and it can educate 50 people or 500,000 people. 

Four-CDs/DVDs

Never miss the opportunity to package your brilliance in the physical form also.  Remember, if you are teaching once, it can live on forever off the Internet too by creating CDs and DVDs from teleseminars or from videos.  These physical tools are passed around and easy to listen to away from the computer.  I do think as more and more people become savvy with all the digital devices, CDs and DVDs will become obsolete in probably the next five years…  but for now, there are a lot of people still sharing their brilliance in a big way with these simple leverage tools.  For instance, here at the Smart Women’s Institute of Entrepreneurial learning, 1/3 of our revenues are based on information products alone.

Five-Memberships

Lastly, one of my favorite ways to leverage is by building a community in an industry and then leading it.  This method is a business model, not a tool.  It is extremely powerful when you understand how to do it. Creating a package of scalable products and services that you create once and sell over and over again is just simply smart and one of the many highly leverageable ways to use this model.  And memberships also create equity for the company as you sell them.  Check out more details on sharing your brilliance as a leader with this model at http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com/workshop

Want To Use This Article In Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Sheri McConnell is the CEO of the Smart Women’s Institute of Entrepreneurial Learning (formerly the National Assn of Women Writers-2001). You can visit Sheri, access her free article archive, and grab lots of free stuff at http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, their four children, a weenie dog, and three hermit crabs.

Dear Smart Women,

Welcome to all the new Smart Women Members this week!  So happy to have you as part of the Smart Women Family.

Just wanted to share an amazing photo to help you visualize your 2011. It is the daughter of a dear friend, Jacqueline Hadden. When I first saw this beautiful picture, I thought was the perfect example of how we should end each of our days… and our entire year.  No matter what 2010 was like for you, end it with the grace of knowing you finished it and you didn’t quit.  I also put a quote with it that my husband sent me just this morning.  Enjoy and here is to all of the Smart Women I know and those I will meet this year…. I will see you in my mind’s eye finishing each of your days just like this (no matter how chaotic, simple, or frustrating they might be.)

“Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way.
Stay away from what might have been, & look at what can be.”
-Marsha Petrie Sue

Last Chance to Grab the Last Spot in the Smart Women 2011 Mastermind

My 2011 Smart Women Mastermind has room for 1 more person? Is it you? You can still join us up until Monday, Jan. 14. It includes in person and virtual group masterminding, 1on1 coaching with me, lots of infoproducts and so much more! Details and application here: http://www.sherimcconnell.com/coachsulting and take a peek at some of the other participants here: http://www.sherimcconnell.com/2010/12/smart-women-play-big/

Sheri McConnell

The Smart Women’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Learning™

http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com

PS – This “intro” was taken from our latest newsletter.  Not getting our newsletter?  Sign up by clicking on “Send My Kit” at the TOP of this page and you’ll also receive our FREE Smart Steps to Success kit!

Perhaps you may have read the recent article by Sir Richard Branson on the Five Secrets To Business Success. I loved the article, agree with it completely and found myself still not connecting to it at the deep level I have grown accustomed to.  As a woman entrepreneur, I thought you might have felt the same.  So I offer my version of the five secrets below. Enjoy!

Live Your WHY

Women who are able to connect their business to a larger meaning or movement are more likely to create a longterm profitable business. This is because the business has a WHY for them. As they inevitably run into problems that are part of creating and running a business, they are able to sustain themselves through it all because they know how important it is that their business survive.

Be A Challenger

Successful female entrepreneurs eventually master a graceful balance of being able to challenge themselves, their clients, and the world as a whole in an way that inspires and allows people to proactively move forward on their own. These women know that by challenging their clients and customers, people know how to fish for themselves instead of showing back up hungry again later.

Inspire Your Staff To Quit

Successful women entrepreneurs create cultures in their company that are centered around growth. They walk their talk behind the scenes so much so that often their staff becomes so completely upleveled that they literally have to go out into the world and live their own purpose. Successful entrepreneurs know that this is all part of the big picture and these women or men will help them from the outside of their companies too.  Successful women entrepreneurs take pride in the growth that happens collectively from the culture they created because they know it all comes full circle and is exactly what is supposed to happen.

Be A Visionary

You guessed it.  Successful women entrepreneurs look to the future intuitively.  They don’t ask how until they are in the trenches building it. They plan around the what and the why and then once they run the numbers for profits, they jump in and just get started knowing the how will be revealed.

Create Positive Change for Others Each Day

And finally, really successful women entrepreneurs can do many things at once each day for their families, their friends, their team, their clients– all because they focus on scalable positive change.  They ask what can I do with the least amount of effort that will cause the largest ripple.

Want To Use This Article In Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Sheri McConnell is the CEO of the Smart Women’s Institute of Entrepreneurial Learning (formerly the National Assn of Women Writers-2001). You can visit Sheri, access her free article archive, and grab lots of free stuff at http://www.smartwomeninstitute.com. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, their four children, a weenie dog, and three hermit crabs.