Guest Post by Anna Kelleher, of ANNACOLIBRI: In case you didn’t know, Pinterest is a social network in the form of a digital pin, or bulletin, board. You can grab images from the web or upload them from your computer and pin them on boards you create.

You can pin videos and, important for product-based businesses, images from catalogues with prices and links to buy. In fact, all pins come with links, and that is part of Pinterest’s traffic driving magic.

You may have started with a small business that needed nothing more than one or two people to run it, but sooner or later you’ll have to face the prospect of growth. It’s just one of those things that come in the event of success. If you want to keep succeeding, you need to let your business grow – even if it *does* drive you nuts. And you better believe it when people tell you that it’s easy to go mad when you’re trying to balance regular day-to-day operations with the challenges of expansion.

As overwhelming as a growing business can be, there are many ways by which you can maintain control over the entire process. Here are some tactics you can use to ensure that you can keep calm while expanding your company.

Want to know how many times IndigoTea has been stiffed for services? None. That's right - zip, zero and nada. Would you like to know the three rules that have ensured that enviable collection rate? I'll share them here.

Whenever two or more small business owners/entrepreneurs get together, the conversation is almost always dominated by their respective businesses. Budgets, marketing, customer service, vendors - you name it, we talk about it. 

Once all that's been covered, the next thing that usually comes up in conversation is how little time we seem to have left over for our families, friends, and personal enrichment/maintenance.

Now that IndigoTea is entering it's second year as a full-time business, I've been contemplating ways to thank everyone who's been so supportive. Not everyone has the same needs to fill, and the one thing I know that everyone can use more of is something to tuck in the wallet

Wow - this has been a crazy month! Busy, busy, busy - a new print ad for Dream Hats, new clients, big projects, and even more big things coming in November.

I haven't gone anywhere; I've just been so busy lately, that I haven't had time to finish up the half-dozen articles I have draft versions waiting.

However, I have been pretty prolific elsewhere of late; my first article as a contributing author over at The Work At Home Woman came out yesterday (woohoo!); my mojoPortal tutorial articles are ongoing at Arvixe, and I've had puh-lenty of work from my customers (including new ones!) 

Our guest post today is from Sharon Sullivan, of Dream Hats. Dream Hats serves a wide range of clientele, including a strong contingent of historical/fantasy re-enactors. Where better to make contact with this market segment but at the conventions they convene at? As a result of this in-person interaction, Sharon's developed the following tip list for entrepreneurs considering live events.

It's easy to get aggravated when there's constant distractions, and people you work with may not be available.  However, instead of pulling your hair out in frustration, take a step back and look at it from another perspective.  Maybe this isn't "the doldrums" - maybe this is the time you can look at as "Powerhouse Prep".

This is an ad management tool created by IndigoTea, and used by our customers.  This is a great add-on feature, and designed to be very easy for non-technical people to use.  It's flexible, so it accommodates all sizes of ad banners, buttons, and even supports animated .gif images.

Some of the other features of Ad Manager for MojoPortal:Start/End dates for ad, Advertiser integration, Click-thru tracking, Payment history.