Ladies, if you're in business for yourself, you are no doubt aware of the challenges associated with starting a new business. Whether it's not getting the emotional support you need from your family, lack of knowledge to execute your vision (or even write your vision) or not knowing about the resources available to you.

Now is a great time for women to be starting their own businesses because of the myriad resources available to help this influential segment.

Where to start? Here are a couple of social networking Web sites that enable women to learn, share resources and offer each other moral support.

MOMSTOWN

MomsTown was started by Mary Goulet and Heather Reider, two ambitious authors and entrepreneurs based in North San Diego County in California. Their books include "The MomsTown Big Break Manual," "The MomsTown Guide to Getting it All" and the forthcoming "It's All About You," to be released by Hay House in October 2007.

MomsTown (www.momstown.com) offers an active forum for female entrepreneurs to introduce themselves and name their intentions and goals. It's a global network that emphasizes moral support to help its members manifest their dreams.

A few benefits make momstown.com the gift that keeps on giving:

1) A clean, easy-to-use and elegant forum. Mary and Heather provide highly sophisticated technology to operate their forum. On this dynamic and interactive site, you can create a profile for yourself, send messages to other members, post a photo and attachments and even search for long-lost fellow entrepreneurs. If you're looking for a site that's truly supportive, this is the place. If you list your birthday, you'll also see it appear on the site's general calendar.

2) Daily e-inspiration. If you join Team Manifest and subscribe to the newsletter, you'll get daily affirmations via e-mail from Mary and Heather and learn what the goals of the other members are so you can send them positive intentions as well.

3) Free resources. www.momstown.com is chock-full of free resources such as tips by fellow members, special reports and pod-casts, each of which empowers you, the entrepreneur with the information you need to lead a successful life and business.

4) Leadership opportunities. As members and subscribers to MomsTown, you can volunteer as a MomsTown mayor in your hometown. This way, you can network with women in your area and eventually host motivational gatherings. If you enjoy writing and want to share with others, you can also become an MomsTown editor and write about your lessons learned and successful experiences.

5) Listen while you browse. In addition to operating MomsTown, Mary and Heather host a powerful radio show on Internet station Hay House Radio (www.hayhouseradio.com).

"The Mary and Heather Show" broadcasts every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific time and rebroadcasts from there every four hours throughout the day. After that, the show is permanently added to the Hay House Radio archives so you can always listen again. On their show, you can call in and plug your business as well ask questions that relate to their show topic or any other issue related to being a woman/mom/business owner.

By joining this sites, any doubts you have about the success of your business and the choices you've made to follow your dreams will instantly dissolve when you see how supportive and informative this networks is.

MY WOMAN OWNED BUSINESS

Started by an Orange County editor, My Woman Owned Business (www.mywomanownedbusiness.com) brings female entrepreneurs together. It's features:

1) Create and customize your own page. You can use your own color scheme and upload images to create consistent branding between your own site and your MyWOB page.

2) Share your message. By blogging and posting forum discussions, you can share the message of your business and learn best practices from others. Also, depending on your blog topic, you can increase the chances of your message appearing with search engine inquiries.

3) Broadcast yourself. This cutting-edge platform allows you to post videos, photos and other widgets to promote your business.

4) Tell the world about MyWOB. Like the other popular social networking sites, MyWOB offers a number of different badges you can post on your own Web site. It looks great at (ahem) www.judyasman.com/contact.

Good luck!

Judy Asman Communication

www.judyasman.com