As part of Success Secrets, this and every Friday, we talk with entrepreneurs and other professionals about building a business.

This week, I’m talking with Patrick O’Keefe, author of Managing Online Forums. If you manage any kind of community online (through a forum, a blog, a chat room), Patrick’s insights will help you.

Plus, if you don’t think you need an online community, hear what Patrick has to say.

(Image courtesy of Shannon Cherry of BeHeardSolutions.com)

In this week’s Monday Media Marketing Minute, you’ll learn why the unhip newsletter and ezine is still a great marketing choice, and how to use it to the max.

All in less than 3 minutes!

In this week’s Monday Media Marketing Minute, I share how you can start getting noticed online - without having a blog.

In less time than it takes to grab your Starbucks, you’ll learn a great way to get a real buzz.

For more weekly free publicity tips, go to http://www.beheardsolutions.com

I was reading an article in BusinessWeek on Consumer Vigilantes.  And it seems my pals over at HomeBizNotes.com is concerned with this too.

Mary Emma talks about now that any consumer can blog, if one is not happy, they can almost instantaneously start harming your reputation.

Customers are now putting up websites, videos and blogs to show their dissatisfaction.

I’ve also seen it happen with editors. Wired Magazines editor posted a list of bad PR people who had, in his opinion, spammed him with unsolicited press releases.

The moral if the story: customer service is key.

What do you think?  Can you prevent this from happening to you?

Welcome to the 18th Carnival of Entrepreneurs which features some of the best entrepreneurial content from around the blogosphere. As always there’s tons of content for you to enjoy, and I hope you will all find something of value - discover a new blog, get more interactive with these bloggers and help them out.

Carnival Highlights

• Silicon Valley Blogger presents How To Manage The Financial Stress Of A New Business or Startup. Starting a business is always a challenge, and a big part of that is dealing with the finances of it. How will you pay for things, feed your family, grow the business and survive?
• Ispf tackles the pros and cons of being a weekend entrepreneur. Lots of us dream about starting a business, and many of us do so on the side, while maintaining full time jobs. It’s a huge challenge. This is a well-balanced article looking at the pros and cons of taking that approach.
• John McCrea has 5 Keys To Surviving Dry Spells. John’s talking about people who are self-employed and get into those inevitable periods of time where there’s no work and you hit a bit of a funk. I liked this thought: “…time is the ONE commodity that can’t be replaced once it’s lost. And downtime is just that – the gift of time.” But John, why can’t I comment on posts?!?!
• John Ingrisano presents 10 Rules for Surviving and Thriving as a Small Business Owner. It’s a great list. #1 and #2 are great points, and many will look at them as contrasting points as well; the trick is, they’re not.

Pratical & Helpful Guidance

• Edith Yeung presents The 7 Rules of Networking Made Easy. Few of us are great at networking, so it’s always worth revisiting how to do it effectively and successfully.
• Joshua Dorkin has some very important advice on establishing partnerships for real estate deals.
• CA presents What to do when your small business screws up. CA writes, “There will be times when your small business screws up big time. Despite best intentions, screw-ups happen. It happens in the best of businesses. How you deal with the problem will determine your success at retaining customers in such circumstances.”
• Harrison offers advice on whether you should buy a franchise or start your business from scratch.
• Naomi Williams has some basic advice on developing a strong company brand even for small businesses or stay-at-home business owners. The key point is that the smallest of biggest can still have a very powerful, effective and slick corporate brand. You don’t need millions of dollars to pull that off.
• Sagar Satapathy presents Leadership 101: How to Command Respect through Body Language.
• Debra Moorhead suggests that we’re all managers of some kind and we need to learn how to manage things properly.
• Ponn Sabra offers us a time management system she uses to help her manage her online business.
• Dave Prouhet presents Poor Employee Performance. Dave is providing some practical advice on how to handle poor employee performance and the importance of doing so properly.
• Samuel Peery presents Applying GTD principles to your personal finances. We can all use help managing our personal finances. Heck, I could use help finding my T4 right now! Anyone?

Food for Thought

• Kelly Anderson asks Where are the women at college business plan competitions? Women still don’t make up the proper proportion of business folk but we know the number is growing. Kelly has some suggestions to get more women involved.
• Majic has 13 things people worry about too much. It’s an interesting list, and Majic also wonders about creating businesses to play on those fears, and how successful that might be.
• Almomento presents 9 Ways to Incorporate Win-Win Philosophy Into Your Business. Taking a slightly different perspective on things can you turn a competitor into a partner? It’s an interesting question…
• Steven Silvers presents The good, bad and ugly of creating research to get publicity. He has a warning to companies that take the tactic of sponsoring research for the purposes of getting PR.
• Golbguru takes a hard look at the milk bottle game at Carnivals. It’s funny and interesting at the same time. Maybe I’ll open up one of these games on the street instead of a lemonade stand…
• David provides some resources for apparel manufacturers and designers looking for business help in New York.
• Wayne Hulbert says that blogs are a secret weapon for small business. He writes, “A blog provides global reach for your independent business. In the past, a startup entrepreneur was confined by geography and limited cashflow to a very localized area. In countless cases, that small trading field was insufficient to develop a viable customer base. Opportunites for minor niche markets were simply not possible. If not enough potential customers and clients were within easy travelling distance of the company location, the business failed from lack of revenue.”
• Allen Torres breaks down the concepts behind emotional intelligence.
• Steve Faber lists a number of reasons why home-based business opportunities fail. If you’re thinking of starting a home-based business, take a look.

Inspire Me!

• Alvaro Fernandez presents Brain Exercise FAQs which is an interesting look at brain plasticity and brain exercise. My brain needs a good steam…then maybe I’ll put it on the exercise bike, OK?
• Susan Velez writes about keeping your motivation up. It’s definitely a challenge, but one that the most successful people in the world have surely mastered.
• Wanda Grindstaff asks What can we learn from Don Imus? She sums it up here, “…our goals are greater than we are. Our desires are huge and drive us to be giants. Our dreams are real and in order for us to achieve those dreams, we are bigger than the crisis of the moment.”
• Jim uses racing as a metaphor for business success in his blog post The Business 500.

Success on the Web

• Matt O’Connor offers up some basics on Internet marketing strategies.
• Matthew Paulson has a few ways that you can’t make money online. I don’t believe in easy schemes, making money online takes time, research, strategy and smarts.

Conclusion

Another huge Carnival with tons of great content. Thank you to everyone that’s submitted - I hope you’ll spread the word!

Next week the Carnival rides out of town to visit Roberto Alamos and you can make your submissions at the Blog Carnival website.

Enjoy!

The Carnival of Entrepreneurs is back at Startup Spark for its 17th edition. Rolling along nicely - every week we get a few new people sending in submissions, which tells me the Carnival continues to extend its reach through the Web. Thank you to everyone that has supported it so far…

My Carnival Highlights

• Over at A Top Ten List Everyday we get Top 10 Surefire Ways To Come Up With A Million Dollar Idea. It’s an entertaining look at coming up with great ideas, with some worthwhile links out to other sites. I particularly like reasons #3, #6 and #10.
• CA provides 6 leadership mistakes made by small business owners. These ring very true, and I’ve seen them many times over. All 6 reasons are bang on. The last one, which CA sneaks in at the end, is particularly interesting because it’s about survival mode, something I’ve talked about previously and not everyone will be thinking about.
• Debra Moorhead offers up her 10 Simply Successful Secrets which are habits she employs on a regular basis. She includes 5 daily habits, and I particularly like #3 and #4 on her list, although I constantly fail to accomplish both at any useful frequency.
• Ririan has 20 ways to easily overcome your worries. I like a great deal of Ririan’s points; too many to list here. Go check it out.

Tips, Tricks and To-dos

• Sagar Satapathy presents Top 25 Gadgets and Gizmos Every Manager Needs. Sagar mentions a wireless mouse which I just purchased recently, although the one that’s offered at Mogo Mobility looks much cooler.
• Priya Jestin has 50 Tips to Retain Customers. Most interesting is the list of statistics presented at the beginning of the post about customer loss and the cost of acquiring new customers.
• Janet Green recommends leveraging your Chamber of Commerce for success. But Janet has a good warning: you have to work the opportunity once you’ve joined, you can’t just sit back and wait.
• Caroline is doing a Q&A with people about stress and brain fitness. She has some interesting resources available.
• Ryle presents Education and Time Management. Ryle is a strong proponent of combining better time management and continuing education, leading to faster personal and business development.
• Robert Alamos Moreno introduces us to factoring your accounts receivables which can help when your company has a hard time collecting money from clients (and who doesn’t have that problem?)

Business Insights and Ideas

• Murad Ali has a formula for credibility in the workplace. Take a pinch of trust, and time and honesty and you can start building worthwhile relationships between employees and bosses.
• Mike Buckley reminds us that it’s Spring time and that means tax time with some ideas and advice on how to handle taxes for small businesses.
• John Peter presents Joint Ventures - One of the fastest and most profitable ways to skyrocket your online sales! Joint ventures can add value for companies looking to sell online or offline. The goal in business is to always look for and find opportunity - joint ventures and partnerships are an excellent example of that.
• Erek Ostrowski presents Creating a Culture of Productivity and Success. Too many companies pay too little attention to building up a corporate culture, and it most definitely hurts them.
• Wayne Hulbert recommends that you think about recession management and personnel relations. Having suffered through the dot com crash of 2001, I can tell you that it’s critical to think about the things Wayne is talking about. Most importantly - you should be prepared. The good times don’t last forever.

Inspire Me!

• GP asks, “Have you ever experienced a time in your life when everything seems to be going wrong for you?” GP has some tips for you on how to get through the tough times.
• Karen Lynch presents No Matter What. It’s a healthy reminder that we need to follow our own passions to succeed. “Know Thyself” is something everyone just stick on their wall as a reminder.
• John Ingrisano suggests that you choose your personal board of directors carefully. He’s not talking about an official Board of Directors for your business, but more about the people that we surround ourselves with on a daily basis that are there to support and help us.
• Wanda Grindstaff suggests that the biggest enemy to success is your limiting beliefs.
• Donald Latuhamina presents Self-Check: Are You Doing What Matters to You? It’s a common theme - do what you love, find what you should be doing - but a lot of people struggle with this more than they should or need to.

Online Success

• Lifuchi Kalechi offers some basic advice on making money with blogs and AdSense. There’s a lot of advice floating around about how to make money with blogs, and AdSense is still the #1 way people do it. I don’t like it, but I’ve seen it work for others…
• Sundance takes things a bit further with a 25 step plan for creating, marketing and making money from your blog.
• Azmi Mufti recommends that you think like an entrepreneur if you want to make money online. There are certainly entrepreneurial traits and practices that will benefit people who want to make money online.
• Nenad Ristic presents 8 Reasons Why I Hate Internet Marketing Videos. Marketing products (Internet-based ones and otherwise) through video is growing in popularity. I don’t think this trend will stop but it’s always good to look at both sides of the coin when deciding whether you want to take an approach or not.

Conclusion

Thanks again to all the contributors! I hope everyone will link back to this post and help us promote the Carnival of Entrepreneurs.

Next week the Carnival stays at Startup Spark but I’ve got to organize a list of hosts after that. This Carnival is bursting at the seams and it needs fresh eyes and attention from new bloggers that want to host it. Don’t forget: You can host too! Just email me.

The Carnival of Entrepreneurs hit the road again today with entrepreneur Emmanuel Olawutosin. He’s been featured himself a few times in past Carnivals and now he’s hosting!

Check it out at The Carnival of Entrepreneurs 12th Edition Hits The Road Big Time.

Next week the Carnival will be back here at Startup Spark.

And if you really want to dig into things check out the Carnival of Entrepreneurs Archives.

A big thank you to Emmanuel, and we’ll see you again next week!

After 2 very successful sojourns into the blogosphere the Carnival of Entrepreneurs is back home for a quick stopover with its 11th edition.

As always we’ve got a great list of entrepreneurial posts for you and I hope you take a look and enjoy.

Spread the word, link back, tell your friends and keep the Carnival of Entrepreneurs going strong! It helps everyone involved…

My Carnival Highlights

• Silicon Valley Blogger presents Top 20 Dumbest Business Ideas That Made Millions…Or Not! The key take away point is that even if an idea seems totally nuts to you, it just might fly. There’s some great, hysterical and absurd ideas that have succeeded (and failed). For pure entertainment value (and you’ll probably say a few times, “I should have thought of that!”) this post is worth reading.
• Paul helps explain the ups and downs of the economy and what is called “Creative Destruction.” I found this sentence particularly worthwhile, “Our economic system continues to outperform the rest of the world because of the radical innovation that our entrepreneurial culture produces.”
• Debra Moorhead presents How to Set Clear, Definite Goals. I particularly like suggestion #2 - keep a goals book. I may just start doing that…
• Matt Everson has 8 Ways To Improve Your Business With Gratitude. First, I love the post title. Second, the information is well worth reading. Matt wants you to create a gratitude system that you can apply regularly, that becomes habit. I think that’s a great idea.

Give Me The Practical Stuff

• Alex Shalman presents Money Management for Beginners. It’s a good intro to some money management issues, and a good reminder that you should start managing your money as soon as you have $1.
• Collis Ta’eed is working on a multi-part series on What it Takes to Start a Business Online. He’s talking about time first - time management, and more. A good element of this is managing cash flow, which is a time-related issue.
• Charles Green argues that freedom of choice is not always a good thing. At the end of the day, with too many choices, we look for someone to trust, and it’s harder to find trust with more choice. Go read the article, he’ll explain it better than me.
• Bonny Albo presents Get Free Mailing Lists: Work With Other Entrepreneurs To Find and Use Free Mailing Lists. Bonny isn’t suggesting that you trade email lists with others (which could result in you sending things to people without their opt-in.) But she does recommend that you find other entrepreneurs in your areas of expertise and work together to exchange content and ideas to maximize each other’s mailing lists - which could prove very effective.
• John Ingrisano has some tips for how husbands and wives can survive working together. I’d venture to say that “keeping business out of the bedroom” and “getting away from each other” are going to be the 2 suggestions people agree with very, very quickly.
• Urban Gyrl has a basic and practical guide on what you’ll need to setup a home office. For anyone just getting started with a home office this is a worthwhile article to check out.

A Heavy Dose of Inspiration

• Dennis has 20 Questions to Change Your Life. There are some very interesting questions in there, including some that you wouldn’t immediately know the “right” answer to get the “score” you want. That’s a good thing. But, the one problem is that there’s no real way to evaluate your answers after, so it’s not as great a reference tool as it could be.
• Wayne Hurlbert presents Entrepreneurship: Overcoming your fears. Wayne points out that the same factors that drive entrepreneurship can be equally frightening for many potential, self-employed people. Overcoming your fear is key to making the leap and being successful.
• Stephanie West Allen suggests that you make some promises to yourself and improve your week.
• Michael Cavano reminds us to follow our purpose. First, you need to understand your purpose - why you’re doing what you’re doing, where you’re going in life, etc. Figure that out and you’ll be much better off in the short and long term.
• Praveen presents Business Lessons From Goldman Sachs. I particularly like, “Long-Term Greedy.” That just sounds so interesting…
• Walt reminds us that it’s our actions not our words that really measure our success.

Other Great Submissions

• Matthew Paulson suggests that you Stay Away From Store Credit Cards. Given how inundated we all are with various credit card offers, it’s good to get some advice on this. How many credit cards do you have?
• Robert McIntosh presents Entrepreneurial tools you will surely love. If there’s a way to save a bit of time or money using a more efficient, simpler and better tool, I’d suggest you take a look. Of course, it’s easy to get sucked into using too many tools, so don’t go crazy! Find what works for you, and leverage that.
• Michelle has 4 tips to decrease how often you’re checking your email. We’re all obsessed with email, there’s no shame in admitting it, but how we manage email and stay productive through it is critical.
• Slade presents Martha Stewart Style Blog Marketing. Slade’s point is this, “Rather than trying to sell the perfect cookie to everyone in America, Martha decided to make a buck selling information about how to make a great cookie. Transforming her expertise into a career lies more in her ability to communicate.”
• Jack Yoest presents Mothers Working At Home which reminds us that reforms are still needed by the IRS and governments to help support the growing number of women that choose to work at home and take care of their children.
• Kumiko Suzuki presents How To Make Money Online Uploading Videos - The Ultimate Guide. Online video is set to explode online (even more than it has) and entire businesses are going to emerge from it. Monetizing video is still hard, but here’s a list of sites that can help.
• Tatum Manny asks whether you want to be rich or wealth and has an interesting way of separating the two. Which would you prefer?

Thank you to everyone that submitted for this week’s Carnival of Entrepreneurs. As always we have a broad assortment of content and information that can help entrepreneurs in all stages of their lives.

Next week the Carnival will be hitting the road again - with Emmanuel Olawutosin. You can go to the Blog Carnival profile page and submit your content there!

A quick note to everyone — please go check out the Carnival of Entrepreneurs which hit the road this week with Laura Young.

Laura’s blog is well worth reading too, so don’t just stay for the Carnival. She’s taken a slightly different style to the Carnival and I applaud her for doing that. I think she can now attest to how much work is involved!

Also, you’ll want to read her ABOUT page, which I’ve taken a snippet of:

I’m part Life Coach, part Death coach. After all, you ARE going to die someday and that DOES have implications for how you are living today, even if you don’t like to think about stuff like that. You’ll find pretty quickly here that I’m not afraid to call it like I see it because I think an awful lot of people are just dinking around with their lives and need to take a good hard look in the mirror once in a while. One of my clients recently described me as “brutally compassionate”. Hey, we’re all human, just don’t let that be an excuse for not giving your best to this life you’ve been given.

That gives you a great sense of what Laura is all about.

Please visit The Carnival of Entrepreneurs and support Laura and the other great bloggers.

Next week the Carnival stays on the road and heads to Pick the Brain by John Wesley.

I read many blogs about entrepreneurship and blogs by entrepreneurs on a regular basis. But I wonder what resources you turn to for entrepreneurial advice and inspiration?

Surprisingly enough, after a quick search, I didn’t find a lot of lists of “best entrepreneurship blogs.” About.com has a very good list of entrepreneurship blogs but I don’t know how up-to-date it is.

I’m not going to throw in my own thoughts on this right away. I want to see what you come up with.

Leave a comment here or send me an email and tell me which entrepreneurship blogs are the best and why.

Note: I’m only looking for blogs that focus on entrepreneurship. So if there’s a blog written by an entrepreneur but the focus is that person’s personal life or company progress it won’t count. The blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about entrepreneurship, but that should definitely be the focus.

My hope is to collect an extensive list, check them all out, comment on them and go from there. I don’t know if I’ll put it up for a vote after (I don’t want to focus on ranking as much as I do on why people think certain blogs are the best.) You can tell me if you want to vote!

Which blog about entrepreneurship stands out? Why?