Last month I had the privilege of spending time with 60 amazing entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneurs' Organization Entrepreneurial Masters Program at MIT. We are the class of 2011.

We all spoke about what we had been doing in the past year, what we are planning for this next year, and how we will get there. This was the week where it all became very clear to me. Now I can articulate the value of what I do and what, exactly, my company does.

At MIT we learned about ourselves and what we should be doing based on our natural skills and predispositions. It hit me like a ton of bricks—teaching. Of course, when I taught snowboarding, that was the best time of my life. Now it's my mission to teach other business owners what I've learned and to coach those who work for me how to achieve their goals.

I’m running workshops designed to get entrepreneurs into the world of social media and explaining how my company, Salty Waffle, can help.

Here is the information that I sent out for the Chicago workshop I’ll be running July 22, "Inbound Marketing: Online Content Strategy and Execution:"

"Content is the moat around your business; we dig the moat while you build your fortress. Salty Waffle will train you and your staff, or we will build a plan together and do the work while you build your business. Content will bring your site up in higher in searches. You can use it to get press and in newsletters for your customers and vendors to keep them informed. Across all industries, studies show that the amount of content that you produce equals a proportionate increase in sales.

Thursday, July 22, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Chicago, prepare to learn how you can organize and automate one year of meaningful content all in one day! Learn what your site says about you. Listen to what is being said about you and your competitors. Insert yourself into the conversation with confidence. You will have a 52-week plan with themes for your content, systems for automation, and tools to best get your messages out. You will understand and plan weekly and daily rhythms with Twitter, Facebook, press, and blog or article posts. Social media will become second nature!

We will break out into smaller groups to discuss your primary strategy, including strategic partnerships that will boost your rankings through link-backs and ongoing information sharing. We want you to engage in meaningful exchanges with those that matter most to sustain and grow your business. Create systems to show clients, customers, and vendors that you appreciate them on a consistent basis.

We will give you a dashboard to track your progress. We recommend that the person who has authority to make decisions about your social-media activity, PR messaging, and marketing initiatives attends, along with the primary person or people involved in executing the initiatives. Please click here to register.

Since purchasing and implementing our strategy with SwankyMoms.com, we've doubled our Facebook fans, increased Twitter followers, and more than doubled our website traffic! Since implementing with Salty Waffle, our grade has gone from 74 to 90 in just one week! We are currently 15 weeks ahead with our foundation content on Salty Waffle, and two weeks ahead with SwankyMoms. That means that I can go to Hawaii and not worry about updating anything! For the first time in 3.5 years, we are taking a real family vacation!

We believe in community first, writing in a respectfully authentic tone, having fun, being hip (always new, constantly cool), and always acting with purpose."

BigRuby, our software tool, is at the heart of Salty Waffle, it's one of the tools that we use in every social-media campaign. The improvements on BigRuby are very exciting, as is the traction that she is getting. It's humbling to see how wrong I was about some of my ideas for BigRuby. We will have many iterations before I think we'll be officially out of beta.

Ride Like a Penguin, my book, is getting rave reviews, as are my speaking engagements. Tears fill my eyes when I read emails like this, even though they are now a daily occurrence. “Ride Like a Penguin catalyzed a major shift within me to move past my ego and sense of intimidation into humility and courage. Nicole’s candor brings light to the shadows of reality for business owners, and her success brings legitimization to the usefulness of the tools and action items presented. My sincere gratitude goes to Nicole for sharing so much with all of us.”

The world of inbound marketing, new media, social media, and all things online is moving so fast that there will be demand for applied knowledge which we can offer through our testing with our clients and our own websites, including SwankyMoms.com. The Salty Waffle newsletters contain case-study data that is fresh and varied so that our readers can use it to make decisions about their next moves.

I'm so excited to be able to offer insight, training, systems, and processes that will create measurable value to any business no matter the size. Since my last post, we have assembled an amazingly talented team to drive this business forward! Becoming clear has allowed people and work to fall in place.

All new business developments will now be hosted on SaltyWaffle.com

Back to creating meaningful content!

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Nicole Donnelly was until recently president of BabyLegs, a Seattle-based company that provided colorful leg warmers for babies. She's now getting ready to embark on new ventures including writing and speaking on the global economy.