Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

Want the power to grow your company. Here it is!

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I have talked to hundreds of people who own their own business.  Most of them had the same exact problem, they worked way too much.  They never had enough time in the day and usually never got to the important things that needed to be done to take their business to the next level.  They worked too much working in and for their business and not enough time working on their business.  This is a plan that will keep you stressed out, busy and poor.  There are two things that must be done when you are in this situation.

Bar Graph showing growth
Grow your business, learn how

The first one is to make systems for everything.  You need to write a system for writing an invoice, a system for cleaning the bathroom, a system for opening and closing your business.  When I was in business I wrote over 50 systems for various things, from how to pack a computer for shipping to how to make a phone call to a business.  You also need to create the paperwork and checklist for these systems.  We had a document for when a customer would leave a computer at our store, to documents for figuring out commission.  Later on I moved the most popular forms online and customers and employees would fill them out at a hidden website.  So this is what you need to do, systematize, document the system then create the resources (Documents, tools, equipment, etc.) to make system work.  Having a system makes everything you do predictable and much easier.  Buying a franchise is usually little more than buying a system with a marketing package, a high quality system will run your business, and is worth the tens of thousands they charge, but it is even better if you make it yourself.  It took me less than two months of working after we closed to write all of our systems and support material.

Now that you have a system in place you need to leverage it.  That brings us to part two, duplication/delegation.  When you have a system in place it is much easier to train people, to measure there performance, and get them to exactly what you want them to do.  People like to know exactly what is expected of them, most people like to have a system in place.  Now that you have a system you can start to delegate things that you have always done.  In many small business the owner does everything, they clean the bathroom, they do the banking, they service the customers.  One thing I have heard often is that if you can find someone to do something that you do and they can do it 80% as well as you do then have them DO IT.  When you have delegated to too many people that you can’t manage them, then promote someone to be a manager and delegate the delegating to them.

Think about what your company will look like if you doubled its size.  Then think about what would happen if you doubled it every month.  Without a system and with out delegation you will be sunk.  This is the number 1 thing that keeps most small business small.  You have to design and run your company as if there were 100 locations, what would you do different?  If you own a small business and working without a system and delegating, 60 hours a week you really have a glorified job working for your “business”.  A business is a system, it becomes viral, easy and fast, and other people do all the work, and you simply manage it.

For much more information here are some books you need to read on this subject.

HERE is another blog entry by one of my friends that expands on this concept.  Please read it.

I am Jason Dragon and I hope you enjoyed this, subscribe to my blog, and tell others about it.

Why you need to understand Elasticity

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You may have never heard this term, or you may be an expert at it.  Most people under estimate the importance of this subject to their business.  Price elasticity is one of the MAIN reasons that businesses fail or succeed.  When I was growing up I was always told “It is better to make three fast nickels than one slow dime.”  This is what I will get to.

Elasticity is the different demand of a product at different price points.  Let me take a very easy example.  I will use the humble water bottle.  I buy them for less than 10 cents at my local grocery store.  They sell better when cold and it costs about 1 cent per bottle to make it ice cold.  Now we go to sell them, what price do we do it at.  Well many places sell them for $1.  I would make 90 cents each but the demand is low, I may be only able to sell to 5% of the people because most know that is too much.  Now what if I lower the price to 50 cents.  The demand jumps by a lot, I have seen it jump to 25% or more.  Then I offer an option where they can get 3 for $1, and you now get 20% buying 3 and 20% buying 1.   Now let us see how much we make on 100 people.  Option 1, we make $4.50 profit (5*.90).  Option 2 we make $10 profit (25*.4),  Option 3 we make $22 profit (20*.4+20*.7).  Which one would you rather have?  It is a huge difference, and one that most people simply do not notice.  They equate profit per item with over all profit, when in most cases you make MORE profit with lower prices.

You look around all over the place and people just don’t get it.  They sell things for way too much, so they sell very little.  The smaller that a company is the MORE I see this.  Today I went to a local owner operated Asian restaurant, the food was good but we paid almost double what we would have paid for twice the amount of food at Panda Express.  The larger a company the more they understand this, in fact the largest and fastest growing company, Wal-Mart, is built on the concept of Everyday Low Prices.  They do whatever they can to make sure they have the lowest price.

Now many things can effect the elasticity of an item, such as lowering supply or raising demand.  Lets go back to water.  What if you are at a 6 hour long seminar and the ONLY drink is the bottled water, you could price it at $1 and sell a lot of them.  Now what if you had 50 people but only 24 bottles of water, now not everyone can get one and you can charge $2 for each one, people will wait until they really need it or until it is almost out of stock and they will buy.  (They may resent your operation and remember to bring their own water next time they come.)  When something is not elastic it is called inelastic.  In the case of 50 people with only 24 bottles and 6 hours with no drinks you could hold out for $5 a bottle, and at some point people may start to buy.

Elasticity is caused by many things but one of the most common is competition.  If company A sells something for $4 and it is well known this is the price, and you sell the same thing for $4.10 your sales will plummet, but as soon as you go to $3.90 your people will be lining up to buy your item.  Gas companies know this, that is why they watch their competition VERY closely.  But so many companies operate in a vacuum, they have no idea what others are selling the same item for, and they may just be 5% too high, and by dropping their price by 5% they could DOUBLE their profits.  Small restaurants are a very good example.  The local taco stand sells tacos for $3 each, and they are almost always empty, it is rare to even see 2 people in their store.  But down the street taco bell does a similar sized taco, for $1.  Of course the taco stand is better, but is it really 3 times better especially when all you want to do is get full.  Lack of competition also is true, we all have seen the gas station 50 miles from any other selling gas for $1 more than anyone else simply because they know you need to buy.

Another thing that causes changes in elasticity is economic conditions.  When you sell something that is optional, in a time of tight economic conditions your demand will plummet, so you must start lowering prices will do to get your customers back, sometimes you have to lower so much that it no longer makes business sense to stay in business, this is why starbucks just had to close over 600 stores. (It also did not help them that every corner store and McDonald’s started selling quality coffee for 1/3rd the price of starbucks.)

Some things do better when economic conditions are worse, I know many people that are buying more Ramen and Mac and Cheese, it is simply much more affordable if you have $4 gas, less money coming in and you still need to eat.

You also have to think about Complementary Goods.  This is where you must buy A and B together to use them.  Lets think about Peanut Butter and Jelly, and lets assume the only thing you can do with them is make sandwiches.  What happens to the demand of Jelly when the price of Peanut Butter doubles, the demand of both falls, even if jelly lowers the price a bit it will still sell less because the total price of the combo is more.  This is why SUVs sell much less when gas costs $4 a gallon.

So next time you price something look around, see what the market is doing, and don’t be blind to your competition, and for all means don’t over price your product.  One way to test different prices is to have a sale.  (Why do you think large companies have so many things on sale, they often are testing different price points.)

I hope this helps with your business.

July, A record month for this blog and why

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This month has really been a great month for this blog, it looks like Jason Dragon is getting some critical mass. July of 08 had over 2.3 times the unique visitors as the second best month, May of 08. Blogs are suppose to go up but this is a lot faster than normal. July 30 was the best day ever passing July 24 by 6 hits.

The stats say that this is due to a few things. First I started a Computer Entry section which is simply a page that has a list of all the blogs that I wrote on the subject of computer, but this page is very popular, it is on the top 5 of my pages every month. In that section I wrote an article about Laptop computers, and from the day I wrote it it has always been in the top 2 of all the pages. It now is by far the most popular article that I have ever written. But there is an article I just wrote yesterday, about StoresOnline, that had the LARGEST first day viewing of anything I ever wrote, it had more views than my entire blog was getting last month. The subject is something that many people are asking about online.

I also did a few things differently, I blogged a bit more with 14 entries, my previous record was 12. I also added my blog to StumbleUpon, I did not put the links from my blog so I really only got a few hits from that. But the MAIN area where I got more hits was by finding great blogs that had content that was much like mine and if I found a place where I could push the conversation forward, almost half of my new visitors came from that. I also was added to the Planet section of PF Buzz along with many of the top Finance blogs. I also was able to get more hits by adding more tags to my articles, I have about 20% of the hits coming from this. I also added myself to twitter finally, I have been trying it out before I publicize it but you can check it out if you like. I also rewrote my personal webpage at JasonDragon.com.

My best blogging moment of the month was due to a fairly unpopular buy very important blog I wrote, about why our country is in trouble economically. I linked to the Perot Charts site and the right hand guy, Mike Poss, of Ross Perot noticed the link and came to my blog, read it and took the time to email me about it. I always liked Ross Perot so it made me feel good to get this note.

In other blogging news I am still in the race for the 7m7y contest. This is a contest that could be described as mentorship by a really great and successful guy. He is going to mentor only 7 people and he is willing to do it for 7 years. He will help them all become multimillionaires. He will document the process and write a book on it. In two weeks or so the final 7 will be selected, I really hope I am one.

Thank you to all my readers, and all the people that subscribe to this blog, if it was not for you I would not be doing this, and this process has really taught me a lot.

Thanks, Jason Dragon

The StoresOnline meeting, what I thought

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I always am trying to learn about business. Today I attended an event that I received an invitation for. It is for a company called StoresOnline or StoresOnline.com. It is a company that sends our huge amounts of direct mail with invitations to an event about how to make money on the internet. They promise free dinner and a free (128MB) MP3 player to everyone who shows up and stays for the whole event.

Well let me tell you what it is all about, and what you should expect if you ever go to one. First off they seemed professional and they really has their act together. While we waited for it to start they were showing a slideshow with facts about the internet and how big of an opportunity it is. It started on time then they spent about 30 minutes telling people about the internet, and how powerful it was. They then offered a website you could build yourself, selecting from about 40 templates, inserting your text and photos, and setting up your shopping cart with the items you want to sell. It was almost like the one that I currently use, PrecisionWeb, but they made everything through the website, no FTP, no domain name, no email or any of that (At least they did not mention this). For this service they charge a set-up fee of $199 (That if you bought before you left the room and thought about it would be reduced to $50.). Then they charged a hosting fee of $24.95 per month. I pay only $19.95 a month for my service and I get MUCH MORE than they offer.

Now here is where it starts to get really bad. They took some polls. First off most of the people there were over the age of 65. Next of the 200+ people there only 7 of the people in the room currently had a website of any kind. (That includes MySpace or blogs or anything) Next at least 2/3rds of the people I talked to there did not even own a computer. Now at the end of the meeting they handed everyone a order form/contract. If you sign it says they will bill your credit card the monthly fee until you cancel in writing. For me it was crazy. But I was surprised when I looked around almost half of the people there were signing up, handing over their credit card info and their money. One guy who signed up for his own web site did NOT even have a computer, and only used one a few times in his life.

The people who run StoresOnline know that almost all of these people will NEVER make even one sale. Whenever they talked about their success rate they always said “Very active clients” or something to that extent. Should you really be selling this service to people who you know with 98% certanty that they will never do anything with it, is that really ethical?

Now I would say that everything they said was very honest (They were careful about this), and they did disclose a lot of things about but they did not mention and success rates or anything that would make people think twice about this. Many times the pointed out how much that they were disclosing, even though the most important things were not. It was very polished.

Now they started talking about the fact that if you have a web site but nothing links to it, and no one knows about it, it will never be successful, which is very true. They now said that they have the fix for this, and they will show you how you will found with ease and how you can make a ton of money using their secret tricks to get listed first in every search engine. They then showed some examples of their clients, like the one who is FIRST on google with the keywords “inland empire thomas guide”. OK anyone that knows about SEO is laughing right now, I know. It was hard for me not to. If you search for “thomas guide” they are middle on the second page, not too bad. They listed 10 different methods that they will teach you to drive traffic to your site, such exciting things as, “Permission Email”, “Newsletters”, and “Affiliate Programs”, and they promised to teach you all the secrets of these. What was missing from the list is anything that is Web 2.0, such as blogging or and community like linked in or myspace. Everything they were showing was right from 2001.

Next they pushed an event in two weeks where they would be talking more in depth about internet marketing. You would need to buy the plan today in order to go to this event. And then they dropped the bomb, at this event in two weeks they will offer a package that will give you access to these secrets and the other things that you need to get people to go to your site it will ONLY cost $3,600, but they will make a special offer at the event, but you have to go to hear about it. They then talked a bit about dropshipping and how it is the KEY to success, then they told the only lie of the night about how people can go to your site, order something and some of the money is “Wired” to your paypal account while the rest of the money is sent to your dropshipper and it all happens while you sleep with nothing from you. I talked to them later and they said that it really is not possible to do this but they just wanted to make it simple to understand for the people there, and I found that acceptable. They talked a lot about dropshipping and that they had a special secret list of dropshippers. I do not know for sure but I would bet you that this is NOT included in the $3,600 that it is an extra charge. They also talked about 1 on 1 consulting and how important it is, this may or may not cost more.

So here is what I what I think about it all. If someone is clueless about what is out there, and they are really motivated to build a business and need someone to hold their hand they could be successful with this system. (But how many smart motivated business people are clueless, they don’t coexist.) There is always the few successful people in any group. But for the VAST majority of these people it will keep their hopes up, BUT they will never make a penny, and many will spend thousands. I think their products seems good, I have seen others sell less for more money, but I also know if you look you can get much more for much less. Of course when people pay a lot for a little many of them get angry and upset, I just found a blog that some of these people have created, visit it HERE. Be SURE to read that site before you do business with this company.

One really annoying thing is that during the break I started talking to some other people there about computers and how I sell them. One of the StoresOnline people came up to me and was not happy, he basically asked me to sit down and stop talking to people. It was too late, I already gave them my business card.

I am really impressed with their presentation and how it all works, it was very slick, and I am sure they make a ton of money. They really controlled the room, no one could talk to each other and every time someone tried to ask a question they would stop them, one guy even got mad and yelled over them, but he was ignored. Who would of thought you could sell $100 worth of stuff for thousands and still have people lining up. They are able to send out targeted direct mail, then hold a meeting, give away free food, and free gifts and STILL make a profit. I need to figure out how to do this with one of my businesses. Maybe get business owners in a room and talk to them for 90 minutes on how to get the most out of computer technology, then sell them computers, and show them send out cards. At least I would only talk to people who I knew could use the product, not just any dumb person with a credit card like these guys do.

Daily Self Motivation Made Easy

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If you read any good book on self motivation one of the main things that they say is put your goals in writing.  It is proven over and over that those who do are MUCH more successful.  As you know the top 5% of our nation owns about 80% of the resources of our nation.  It is also proven that among this top 5% over 90% have written goals.  They may have done that because they are success driven, they also may have become successful because they had written goals.  But the same data says that of people in the bottom 80% on income earners only 2-3% of them have written goals.  This is a huge contrast.  If there is anything that can determine success it may be having written goals.

I also have been talking to successful people, and almost all agree that you will not be really successful until you have a WHY, a reason why you NEED to be successful to meet the purpose of your life.  Many tell you that you need to have a BIG why.  You need it do be 10-20 years out.  For many people they like to put their why as a photo montage on top of just writing it, have the photos of the car, the house, and the lifestyle you want.  This makes it more real.

I take this much further, I also make a HOW.  It is great to have a why, but with no plan you can never get there.  Next I have Mid Term Goals, these are usually goals that are 6 months out, something that is hard enough that it will push me but not so hard that it is unrealistic.  Some of them are Goals on what to do with the success we make, others are business benchmarks to make sure we get that success.  Lastly, and most important, I have a Daily Action sheet, this is a list of activities, that I need to do daily in order to get to the Mid Term Goals.  If I do this action then the goals should be simple.

Now I take all of these and put them in 28point font and print them out and hang them on the wall of my bathroom.  It is a place where I have time to read a few times a day, but also a place where not too many others will see my goals.  Because I am a business person, I try not to share my goals with W2 people, you know the people who work for someone else.  The reason is simply because they don’t get it, and they almost always are more negative than positive.  But because my readers here are NOT like that I will share my list HERE, simply click HERE to download it, edit it so that it has meaning for you and post it.

Action Plan for today. If you don’t have it already, then write down your Why, How, Mid Term Goals, and Daily Action, and put it somewhere you can see it daily.  DO IT NOW, WHILE YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT IT

Tell me what you think, leave a comment, and you made your own signs I would really like to hear from you about what you put on your sign.

I am torn between all that is possible

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Right now I feel that I am at a cross roads. I know so much, I know so much that I could never hold down a job, I know what it out there, and working for someone else is not an option. I am a true entrepreneur. Now that being said there is so much out there that I can do but I have limited time and limited focus. I choose to spend a good deal of time with my family because that is a priority. Let me tell you, my readers, what I am thinking about right now.
My main company for over a decade has been Emerald Computers. It was a great business from 1997 until about 2003 but then the industry changed, and got much more cutthroat and less fun. Also the profits dropped out. I lost my passion for it. Passion is a subject I have been thinking about a lot recently. If you do not live your life doing what you have have passion for you are living a wasted life. 80% of people can not stand their job, they can not stand what they now do for a living. 20% of the people their work is their passion, and they love to do it. For years I loved computers, not because of the technology but mostly because I could open peoples eyes up to what is possible and I loved that. But my business did less and less of that and more and more of the grinding out work that was not fun. When the passion left so did the profits. I went from averaging 70 hours a week working my company in 2002 to about 30 in 2005 to almost less than 5 in 2007.

I always was thinking about Real Estate, how it is a business where you make real things that stand there for many years. I know people that drive around a city and point out buildings they had a hand in making a decade before. Also I LOVE the art of the deal, where you negotiate price and terms and come up with a deal. It is like a huge game, trying to get the best for your side in every deal, nothing in business is more fun for me. Real Estate is the land of the largest deals, and the fastest way to make real big money. You can be creative and make transactions by bringing parties and ideas together in unique ways.

Now the problem with real estate is that you need knowledge or you need money. I don’t have this type of money because my computer company took it all, and my knowledge is all theory. I think I know at least 90% of what I know, but every time I think I have it all figured out I find out more I don’t know. Because of this a fear has set in so I do nothing, which is the worst thing of all to do. When you do real estate with no money to invest you will find the deal every now and then but it is far from steady, so I wanted to have something that was more steady.

Because of this I started looking for a MLM, because before Emerald Computers, and even during it I made some good money in the world of MLM business. With all the tools I have for online marketing and communications I figured I would have a huge advantage at any MLM that I would join. So I spent a good deal of time looking into everything that I could do. After looking for months almost all of the major MLM businesses that I saw were promoting a health product that they produced for $5 and sold for $50. I figured out that I really don’t have a passion for doing a MLM that is based on a health product, I think deep down that many of these don’t work, and that even if they do I don’t want to spend my life selling them, I have more important things to do.

So after a while I decided to work with a company called Nouveau Riche. What they do is have a college right down the street from my house. For 1 week every two months they teach a full week of really high quality classes about Real Estate. I bought the CD version of these classes, they were good. Next they provide a community of investors. It all sounded really great, just what I wanted to do. Then I really pushed it hard, trying to find people to invest with, trying to find people to pay to go to the college. They had an event where you could invite people to and they would have a 6 hour sample of classes that were taught by the school. I had been to them in the past, and they were great. At the end they would have a short 30 minute sales pitch for the college. This time there was new leadership and they promised it would be even bigger and better than before. I was really excited. I invited over 100 people. I got 40 people to say they would be there. It was all going well. Then on the day it was backwards, it started out with over two hours of hard sales, worse than if you went to a timeshare. That was followed by even more sales, and then an hour of decent education, followed by 2 more hours of hard sales. The people I had there all felt screwed, and lied to. They wanted education and what they got was this junk. After that day I have not gone to any meetings and have not talked to any leaders in the company, it was a bust for me.

So then I started looking a MLM that was for something that I could stand behind. I set down some rules. First it had to be something that was a good value, it had to save people money or make them money. Next it had to be something that was product driven, I wanted to product to sell the company. (One of my best friends Fred Coit is a big leader in Monavie and they have a great product driven company.) But next I wanted to do something that I would have a passion for. Last I wanted something with no marketing restrictions. You many not know that most MLM companies have many restrictions on how and where you can market, and I wanted something I could hit heavy online, and be creative with my marketing.

After about 2 months of looking I finally decided on SendOutCards, they offered a product that was only 1/3rd the cost of the competition with better service, it was product driven meaning that most people in it only really promote the product. I think that they are the BEST MLM for my style.

Now I am torn. What do I do with my days, I have a computer company, I have a ton of time, energy and passion devoted to getting into the real estate business, which is my true passion. And now I have this new business that is really fun and has a great product. For the last two month I have been floating. I have been like my 10 month old son, I focus on whatever seems the best at the time, but I may change on a whim. Last week a typical day was for me to wake up and talk to a few computer customers, then talk to a real estate agent about some houses then call a few people and tell them about SendOutCards. For the last few months when people ask me what I do for a living I really don’t have a good answer for them. I was at a meeting last Wednesday where I stood up and talked about Emerald Computers and SendOutCards, handed out flyers for SendOutCards and business cards for Capital Active (The Real Estate Company). I must have seemed very confused to some of these people.

So this is where I sit now. Emerald is the business that is putting food on my table, it is what I live on but every time I want to make money I have to trade large amounts of time for it. Sometimes it is easy and I get a call and make $500 in 2 hours, other times I make calls all day and make nothing. SendOutCards could be a huge business and with two months of good effort I could have a team large enough that I could pay all my bills from the money it makes. And Real Estate could make millions with ease and joy if I could get all the pieces to the puzzle together.

So my question for my readers, is this multitasking normal for someone who is a serial entrepreneur, and what would you do? This is interactive so please leave a comment, I will reply to them.

Follow-up is the key to customer growth and retention

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Follow-up is the key to getting a new customer.
Sales Statistics
•    48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
•    25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
•    12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
•    Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts
•    2% of sales are made on the first contact
•    3% of sales are made on the second contact
•    5% of sales are made on the third contact
•    10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
•    80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
WHEN ARE YOU GIVING UP ON YOUR PROSPECT?

Follow-up is the key to keeping customers.
Why Customers Stop doing business with you.
•    1% Death
•    3% Move Away
•    5% Buy from a friend
•    9% Sold by a Competitor
•    14% Product Price
•    68% Perceived Indifference

The easy Follow-Up and appreciation solution
So what is an easy way to do both.  You want to keep your image and your marketing message in front of as many customers as possible.  One of the best way to do that is to send out greeting cards.  If you were to send out thank you cards and other marketing to your top 25% of customers you could add as much as 50% to your sales revenue.  If you send follow up marketing messages and cards to your prospective customers you will gain many more customers, and explode your sales volume.

So most people know this, but they don’t do it, because to most people sending out greeting cards is HARD.  They have to shop for them, buy them, write them, stamp them and then mail them.  They have to keep track of what was sent to who and when it was sent.  What if we used the power of the internet to do ALL of this for you.  All you do is log on, select the card, customize it if you wish and click send.  The rest is all done for you.  That is exactly what a great new company called Send Out Cards will do for you.  They have over 8,000 different cards to choose from, organized so that they are easy to find.

Because you are a reader of this blog you have access to a special account where you can get 2 free cards.  All you need to do is go to http://www.sendoutcards.com/az and click on the big red button in the middle.  If you have any questions about this process or if you are ready to take your business to the next level right now email us at dragon@capitalactive.com or call us at 602-579-4919.

Thanks and I hope you act on the message, and take your business to the next level.

The best MLM for me, and why

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I finally did it, after about 3 months of research, investigating, going to meetings and trying to figure out what I wanted I finally selected the BEST MLM that I could find.

I have been in many MLM / network marketing companies, I have been to hundreds of meetings over the last 15 years, I have built teams, I have sold products, I have marketed many things but this is the first time that I stood back, and researched the pros and cons of different MLM concepts. You may remember back in April I wrote a series of blogs about the idea of a MLM. You can read them HERE, HERE, and HERE. I never wrote the last two in the series because I was still doing my research. In the process I actually joined 4 other MLM companies even before I was sold on them and all of them did not pan out. But now I finally found the best MLM company I have ever seen, more on that later.

So what makes this company better than anything else I have ever seen. There are so many reasons why. Read these reasons and compair them to any MLM that you are looking at.

Well first it is a product that EVERYONE can use, it is easy to understand, and everyone has a need for it. It also is something that you can easily prove, too many MLM promote a product that you just have to have faith that it works. (Most nutritional companies.) But for me the MOST important reason I think that this is the best MLM is because it is a great value, cheaper than normal way of doing things, and the reward of using this product is measurable and instant. You can sign up and start making money the same day, and with only three sales you are already in the black, in MOST MLM companies it is very hard to become profitable, in this it is easy. There is no other company doing anything even close to what they are doing. They are old enough to have their act together but not too young to be saturated. They are in a multi-billion dollar industry and with a radical new way of doing things will take huge market share from the two companies that have over 80% of the market share. Another thing I really love, is that everyone who hears about this product says something like “Of course that is a better way to do it, sign me up.”

If you are in a MLM now, or are thinking of joining one read that list and objectively think about how the company you are with stands up to all of these things.

The name of the company is something you probably never heard before. It is Send Out Cards. What they do is print and mail physical greeting cards that you select, customize and order online. It is a great business tool, allowing you to follow up and keep in contact with all of your co-workers, customers and business contacts. It is also a great personal tool, helping you make the people around you feel good. If you would like to try it out right now I have set up a special offer for all of my blog readers, you can CLICK HERE and you will receive a free account where you can send out two cards to anyone you like, you can play with all the features and see how it works.

Even if you are already busy building your own business you need to look at Send Out Cards as a marketing tool for that business. What would happen if you were able to follow up with EVERY prospect 2-3 times? What would happen if you sent a thank you note to each of the top 20% of your customers, how much extra business would they bring in. Think about it, try out a demo now.

I hope this blog shows some light on your journey to success. If you are looking for the best network marketing company around this one may be for you, it may not.

Phoenix Business Expo – What Fun

Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Internet, Marketing, MLM, Money, , , , , , , , ,

On June 25th We went to the business Expo. This is a once a year event put on by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. It had 200 businesses that purchased a space there. One thing they did that I really liked is that they made the price very cheap so that even the smallest business could afford it and they limited each business to only 1 booth. Most were 10×10, about 50 were just a table around the outside and 5 were larger for the sponsors. I have been to many events where some large company buys up 10 booths to show off everything and drown out the competition. None of this was here.

To me this is one of the most fun things I get a chance to attend during the entire year. You get ideas of what other people are doing. You get to see what people think will be successful. You also get to see booths from distributors for many of the MLM’s, it lets you see which ones are popular beyond the internet.

The motto of the expo this year was “Stay Up in a Down Economy”.

The highlight of the expo was a free seminar they hosted. It was all about the new way of marketing, using relationships, the first speakers was Victoria Trafton from the Referral Institute of Arizona. She talked about how it is so important to build up relationships with your customers and get them to refer your business.

The second speaker was Raymond Lambert. He is an expert at using a website called linkedin. Here is his LinkedIn page. I have known about linkedin for a long time now I even created a profile about 6 months ago, but I never realized how big and important it is. After going to his event I would suggest that everyone create a linkedin page. It costs money to get the advanced features but it may be worth it so most people. He really made it hit home that this is a great way for you to build any business you are in, or to just promote yourself.

The last speaker was Dave Barnhart from Business Blogging Pros, here is his blog and his other blog. He has a business where he helps people unlock the power of blogging.  Most of what he said is stuff that I already knew, but I only knew them because I am a blogger and a techie.   After it was over I talked to him for a few minutes and he was very smart and knowledgeable.  He suggested that I try Feedburner, and that I also try Typepad instead of WordPress because it has many more features.  If you are looking for someone to help you blog you can call me for the basics, but if you really want the advanced stuff call Dave.  (He lives only a few miles from my office, I think I will call him later and ask if he wants to market eachothers products)

As a direct result of this Expo I have already wrote over $1,500 in business and I have reminded many previous contacts about our company.  I have upgraded my linked in page, and added more features to this blog.  I also handed out over 100 business cards and collected about 100 so that I can call them this week.  After the expo was over they had a great reception, free food and 2 hours of mingle time with about 400 other business owners.

All and all it was a great event, that I look forward to all year.

You are meant for much more than you are now.

concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, , , , , ,

Yesterday I saw the movie “Wanted“. In general it was a great action flick but one of the main premises was that most of us live up to only a very small part of our potential. There is so much more that we should be doing, and most of us have tragically missed our calling. Here is a quote from the movie, it is not perfect but close.

It a choice, Wesley, that each of us must face: to remain ordinary, pathetic, beat-down, coasting through a miserable existence, like sheep herded by fate, or you can take control of your own destiny and join us, releasing the caged wolf you have inside. ……. This is the decision that lies before you now: the sheep, or the wolf. The choice is yours.

This is something that I have always thought about, There is so much more to living than the meager existence that most people live in. This is something that has always challenged me, I know that I have been called to be much more than I am today, I know I have wasted a ton of time and a ton of effort with little progress.

There is a group called SwitchFoot that sings about this concept. They have many songs about this the best of these is “Meant to Live” and “Dare You to Move”

Here are some quotes from these songs.

The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we’ve been livin with our eyes half open
Maybe we’re bent and broken, broken

We want more than this world’s got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

They are good poets. Click the links and watch the videos.

You we are all meant to live for something more than our current existence. This is something that I strive to go for often, but usually it gets lost in the busyness of the day. To remind myself I wrote down my “Why” the reasons that I do what I do. I posted this in my bathroom so I read it each day as I get ready. I also posted my “How” and my short term goals.

Find your calling and go for it.  Do it today.  Don’t wait for an uncertain future to do what you want to do with your life.

Thanks for reading, please post a comment.