Jennifer Ransaw Smith is setting amazing and audacious goals for herself  – and she’s doing it barely a year after she couldn’t  bring in enough to cover all her basic bills.

Now she aims for a seven figure income within two years and an IronGirl competition in 2011. She also wants to fund her Roar Foundation to assist 50 women and 50 girls, mostly in foreign countries, go back to school or develop themselves.

Smith, who’s the subject of my latest Washington Post Capital Business article, calls herself a brand strategist and business success coach.  She’s also a motivational speaker and a woman on a mission. “I want to help people build legacies,” she said. “Women… want to help people and change lives. How do you change your community? How do you change the world?”

She owns Roar Coaching and Consulting in suburban Maryland. She also owns a positive, driven, engaged mindset that she’s using to create a wonderful business and life, with summers in Tuscany with her husband and three children. She has such enthusiasm, passion and zeal to change the world one woman or group of women business owners at a time.

Here’s Jennifer Ransaw Smith’s five career tips for women entrepreneurs and anyone planning to rise:

1. Develop a strong brand and position it for success. Nothing is more important than your personal brand – it is your reputation. Many entrepreneurs don’t put together a concrete plan on how they want to perceived. Be known as an industry expert and act like one—then you will be paid as one.
2. Identify a distinct target audience. Too many entrepreneurs are so anxious to make money and get clients, they will serve “anybody who walks in the door with a credit card and pulse.” This doesn’t build success and longevity. Instead, know and understand your clients, their stresses and solutions to their most pressing concerns. Narrow your niche and watch your bottom line expand.
3. Expand your circle of influence. Take time to develop quality relationships that will help propel you to success. Don’t sit on the sideline and “admire people” or “wish we connect with someone.” It’s crucial to  “uplevel” your relationships and meet those you  “always wanted to meet” for lunch, coffee or dessert. Do  this 12 times a year  to build your circle.
4. Leverage your talents to create multiple streams of income. Avoid “linear thinking.”  Look at your talents and write down all the ways to leverage your skills and bring them to the marketplace. Consider author Suzy Orman. She speaks, writes books, coaches, does workshops, is on radio, television. “This is the kind of expansive thinking that helps build empires.”
5. Raise your monetary thermometer. Women, Smith said, are often afraid to discuss money. This can hold you back from earning your true worth. Increase your fees. Said Smith: “I can almost guarantee that you probably aren’t charging enough. Stop thinking you have to charge what you can get. …. Decide right now that you are worth more.” This requires a shift in mindset, she said, ” so you truly believe you deserve to be well compensated for bringing your skills and talents to the marketplace.”

Smith shared these tips with me for the Post Capital Business; but they were not included because of space constraints.
Many of these ideas spring straight from Smith’s life and experiences. Others she gained from mentors and her own coach. Some she picked up from reading books and listening to the stars of personal development. She offers this quote from Jim Rohm, the late business motivator and philosopher: “If you invest in your business you’ll make a nice living. If you invest in yourself, you’ll make a fortune.”

Smith invested in herself through coaching, and through a Mastermind group and more.  “One of the reasons this will be my most succesful year to date is I have spent so much time working on the mindset…. People are dramatically attracted to me. I started to believe I was that person,” that game changer.