Tag Archives: wordpress

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.

Yahoo Groups as a Great Business Tool

Computers, Internet, Marketing, real estate, , , , , ,

I don’t know if you have ever heard of Yahoo Groups.  As the name implies it is owned by yahoo and it is a way for you to build and maintain a group of people.  It is actually very easy to use.  I have been a member of different groups for years now but today I started my own.  I started a group of local people who are interested in real estate investing.  If you are interested in that topic click here to sign up, it is focused on Phoenix Arizona but anyone can join.

There are many things you can do with this group.  It works a lot like a blog.  You can change most everything, and it is very fast and user friendly to set up.  You have the choice of making things private or open.   It will manage members, and send them all new messages in their email.  You can choose to moderate the messages, you can mange who is a moderator.  You can post photos, polls to ask questions, post a community Calendar, have databases to store information that every needs, and you have a section add files that people can download.  (You even get 100MB of free space)

All and all it is really a great service offered for free.  The only semi scary thing is that you don’t have real control, what if yahoo decides to stop offering the service, or what happens if they decide your group as not a good group and they delete it.  I think the chance of both is very slim.  You also run that same risk with wordpress.

Very interesting article from a counterpoint. The Lottery Class

Business, concepts, Government, Money, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have always believed in counterpoint, or whatever the proper name is. I define it as reading from someone or something that is totally opposite of what I believe in. I do this for a few reasons, first to see where their point has logic so that I don’t become completely one sides. Also to see what is in the mind of the person I may one day debate.

This year, as you know, is a presidential election. I am a republican, I have always voted republican, and I plan to do so. I simply don’t believe that the government should be in our personal lives as much as they are. And every democrat I have ever heard wants the government to have more control, more rules, more of my money, and do more things that I disagree with.

Now that all of this has been said democrats OFTEN come up with interesting points. I have been a subscriber to the MoveOn.org newsletter for over 4 years now, but recently I have have been reading and writing blogs, one that I found early on, and is full of good info is one by Jon Taplin. I will say that most of the time I totally disagree with him. But when he is just stating facts, his facts are very interesting. Today he posted an article about ‘The Lottery Class” You will notice something VERY interesting. The poorest people spend over 5% of their money on the lottery. These people also spend at least 5% of their income on transaction costs that the rest of us usually get for free. I mean, they pay to cash checks, then they pay to buy cashiers checks. Also many of them pay a huge amount of their income to very high, and often abusive fees for borrowing very small amounts of money.

I have never been able to understand the logic that many of these people have. I had a good friend that was like this. Was always borrowing at 20% per month interest rates and such, he never had money and over 10% of his income was going to these things.

About a week ago YouTube featured a video that was made by and about this subject. It was crazy, but so real in the subject matter. Please watch this video. It helped me understand this underbelly of our economy a bit more.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAKJKBCyPUY]

Now what should be done about this. Well first off even if rates were lower these money loaning companies would be still highly profitable. Here in Arizona they are getting ready to regulate these much more. I am PRO government regulation that protects people, I am against government regulation that makes the burden on all of us higher, such as having to file a Tax Return.

Lottery’s are almost always ran by the government and the profits go to the government at the expense of the poor. State and local government have gotten very used to the money they receive from this. (Not to mention the 8% or so that the place selling the ticket gets) Now you should not totally get rid of the lottery because a certain amount of our society will resort to illegal betting to get their fix, but you CAN have the government stop promoting it. They can stop all forms of advertising, they can stop listing the numbers on the news broadcasts. You could also limit the number of places sell it, to say only places that have a liquor license. That would remove the kiosks in the malls. And of course they should remove the automated vending machines that people under 18 use to buy the tickets.

I have not played the lottery in a decade or so, and in my whole life I have spent under $50 on tickets. But the lottery is such a rip off, they only pay back 45% or so of the money to the winners. And even when they do that the government takes 40% of the winnings of major winners in taxes. Basically half of all money spent on lottery tickets is a donation to the government, and comming from the people who can least afford it.

That being said I am not so strict on gambling. Games of skill such as poker are much more fair, you can have a positive expected return based on your skill. And games that payback almost all of what they take in are better, they are more like entertainment. For example craps, if you play the passline, pays back about 98%. So if you bet $10, and do it 100 times (Which would take HOURS), on average you will only lose $20. Sounds like a lot of fun for a small cost. Black jack is about the same if you play correctly. Even slots are MANY times better than the lottery, though MUCH more boring.

In the end people need to think a lot more, keep their eyes and mind open. Too many people walk around, close minded, they do things in the old ways and get the old results. Poverty and being out of control of their life.

What you need to get set up for a successful MLM business

Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Marketing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is the second article in my series on the MLM concept. Here is the first one with links to the rest.

I am going to define success as a business that is large enough to replace your entire normal income and also make a large positive change on your lifestyle. To be successful you first need to have a success mindset. You need to know how to make sales, how to make presentations and you need a team

For this blog I am going to assume that you have all of this in place and it is time to get started. Here is what else you need to get started quickly. These are the tools that I use.

Computer: You MLM is probably online, and you need to keep track of your customers and use your computer for marketing. (If you need a good deal on a computer go to Emerald Computers)
An office: You need a place where you go to work. This can be in your house or outside. It should be easy to bring potential customers there to talk with. I like to have a desktop as my main computer because you can use it longer with less fatigue. A laptop is also very useful.

Ok those are obvious, as should be having a good vehicle and an email account.

Now let me get a bit deeper, on what you need. I will assume that you are building an online business because most MLMs now are mostly online.

First you need your own domain name. You company has a web page and a domain name, but they control that. You need your own, something that is good for what you do, easy to spell, easy to remember. You then will get an email address on your domain. Never run a business using the email address from your ISP or one of those free sites like yahoo, msn or gmail, it really looks bad to many people. I use GoDaddy for my domains, it is cheap, had good support and works well.

Next you will want software to track your contacts. We use a program called ACT. With this program you enter in all the information about the people you are contacting. It them allows you to keep notes about them, update the info when you are on the phone, and most importantly it reminds you of the times you need to follow-up with these people. I also use a Palm Pilot to take all of this info and make it mobile, so that I can access and update it on the road.

Next you will want an auto-responder to manage your emails. What this does is track all of your contacts that wanted to be added to your various mailing lists. You also can preset automatic mailings, and send mass broadcasts to your prospects. There is much more you can do with it. I use a company called GetResponse and for the $150 a year I pay I get unlimited usage and it is well worth it.

Next you need your own website, you can make a simple site that you control. You should have a site for your prospects to visit. Another for your customers to visit and yet another for your team to visit. You need to learn about making a squeeze page, a way to extract data from your customer to feed to your auto-responder. I use a company called PrecisionWeb for my hosting. They offer much more than others for a great price. Check out the main Capital Active site for a great example of a basic page.

Next you should join networking websites like linkedin, Myspace, YouTube and make sites here for your business. You also can find many people who may be interested in your products.

Next it helps to have a blog, it is great way to establish yourself as an expert, as well as get a following of people finding out about you. It also really helps get you on top of the search engine results. I use wordpress because they are free, easy to use, fast and give you a ton links.

I found a lady who seems to have done everything PERFECT. I don’t know her, I just found her site from her blog today. She has her own great domain wealthcreatorsinc.com, and a nice blog. But you may not notice the two most important things she did, she made her page a squeeze page, where you must give her your information to go on. And second she DID NOT mention the name of her MLM this keeps you courious and willing to go on, and it lets her advertise without worrying about the rules of her company.

Next you need to create business cards with YOUR business name on it. I would suggest NOT to use business cards with the name of your MLM on it, they limit your advertising, and they are less flexible when you are marketing. Now carry many of these cards with you wherever you go. I hand out over 80 cards per week on average. More important than getting your card out is getting the cards of other people. I usually flip them over and write on the back details of what we talked about so I can remember.

I also often print up fliers with an upcoming event on it, as well as info about my website. Using this you can get a few more people a month to join your team.

You now need professional clothes. Depending on where you live you will have a different dress code. For Arizona pants and a nice button up shirt is good for most meetings. For the east coast you should wear a suit most of the time. No matter what, you need to have a suit for special events.

When I leave my house, I always have my Palm Pilot, my wallet with at least 20 business cards, my keys, my cell phone, an ink pen, a comb for my hair and usually I have my green laser pointer because it comes in handy all the time.

Well I hope this helps you be more successful.