The Business School

I was reading Robert Kiyosaki’s book “The Business School for People Who Like Helping People” in which he talks about the tremendous learning opportunity in having your own business. Specifically he writes about having a network marketing business and how that can teach you to be a successful sales person. In order to be a success at life you have to be good at sales. Now, I know there are going to be people who will be totally turned off by that statement, and I think the only reason that would be true is because of misunderstanding.

There is a misconception about sales in general. “Oh, no, here comes the sales pitch” might be something that comes to mind. BUT everyone loves to buy things, so the logical step is that something sold them on whatever you are buying. So do you really hate sales, or do you hate being sold to? The answer is pretty obvious or people wouldn’t be buying.

How do you decide what you are going to eat? There is the taste factor, but there is also information on nutrition that enters into the picture and also commercials on TV, radio, billboards and what else? Opinions of people in your life. The opinions you share are actually a sales pitch. If people listen to you and go to a restaurant, or try a recipe that you recommended; you have sold them on that idea. So you are doing sales, but not getting any commission on it. The reason that you are comfortable doing this type of sale is exactly because you don’t feel like you are selling and the person who is ‘buying’ your opinion doesn’t think you have ulterior motives.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could earn a commission every time someone followed your suggestion for a book, movie or restaurant? On the web, this can often happen. If you have links to products you recommend, and they are affiliate links, this brings you a small commission. In life, the only way you earn money this way is if you have a sales job, or a network marketing affiliation. The difference between the two is that in a traditional sales job, you only earn money on your efforts. In a network marketing company you earn on the efforts of those you bring into the business, as well as on your own efforts. This is the power of leverage.

There is apprehension in people about network marketing, or multi-level marketing as it is sometimes known, but in truth the concept has come a long way since the concept was first introduced. Many companies once thought to be fringe are now accepted as common place. In fact, most people don’t even think of Mary Kay or Tupperware as MLM, just as household names.
What does all this have to do with your growth as a business person? The right network marketing company will provide training to teach you how to grow a business. They will teach you how to become a leader and get over your fears of approaching people. The people in your organization will help you make your business a success and will truly care about you as a person. You will learn, grow and become the person you always knew you could be, because you will have self-confidence and know you are a winner.

Robert Kiyosaki wrote that there is a winner and a loser inside of everyone and if you let your doubts, fears or low self-esteem win, the loser inside you wins.

If you force yourself to get past your inner barriers and out of your comfort zone, the winner inside you will come out.

LSD

This really doesn't fit in well with the purpose of this site, but this article was rejected because of content by my main article distributor, so I am posting it here.

LSD was synthesized for the first time in 1938 by Dr. Albert Hofmann. He found the compound growing naturally in a fungus that grew on rye. He was the first person to ‘trip’ on acid (AKA LSD.) He took the substance and rode his bicycle home from work. He reported his strange bicycle trip to his fellow scientists the next day; citing ‘breathing buildings’ and other distortions. He then began self-experimenting to a small extent. Amazingly enough he is still alive at age 101. (As of the writing of this piece 10-24-07. He’ll be 102 next January)

Moving ahead to the cold war era, both the CIA and MI6 tried using LSD in mind control experiments, and as a truth serum. All efforts failed, but the mind altering drug eventually came to the attention of Timothy Leary, a professor at Berkley and a lecturer at Harvard. Leary’s experiments took the drug to hippy culture and the Acid Test was born. Mountain Girl, former wife of Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame, described the acid rock concerts as a safe place to freak freely.

LSD has been described as a mind altering drug that can cause people to have personal revelations and stimulate mental evolution. It has also been described as a drug that can permanently damage your thinking process and cause ongoing delusions and impairment. I have personally observed both and would recommend staying away from LSD. In the best circumstances it can cause a shift in your awareness and give new perspective. Unfortunately, the results seem to be totally random and acid is mostly an unknown quantity, as are most illegal laboratory created drugs.

Even in the controlled experiments done in academia and by the CIA there were many different results coming from the same batches of LSD. One famous case went to court where an Army scientist unknowingly ingested LSD and eventually either committed suicide or was pushed out of a ten story window, depending on who you believe. That event happened many weeks after the LSD trip, so it is another example of the long reaching effects of this drug. Congress eventually voted to award a six figure sum of money to the family of that individual to stop the court case. Was this a cover up of the events that led to his death or to quiet public awareness of the methods of the CIA? The answer to that seems obvious, but it is supposition. Luckily today’s US government and the covert operations undertaken are all above board and nothing like the LSD situation could ever happen today. We are so lucky to have such an honest and straight shooting man at the helm. Uh, right.

To put it quite bluntly, even in the most controlled environments run by college professors, and in experiments by the CIA, there were far reaching negative consequences for taking LSD. The questionable benefits are far outweighed by the extreme danger posed by this seemingly innocuous substance. Delusions causing total inability to reconnect with reality and suicides have both been attributed to this drug. Bottom line is that it is not worth the possible damage you can do to yourself.

Ongoing business

Working at a somewhat feverish pitch. I am trying to write at least two new articles a day, and I want to up the quantity of videos I am producing. I have one new one (posted today) on the commercials for prescription drugs.

Sometimes it really seems like you are working, but getting nothing accomplished. Other times it feels like you are really in the groove. Lately it's been a little of both. I am in the groove, but not seeing results as much as I would like. That is changing and results are now starting to pour in. As my name gets more widespread across cyberspace and real-life, people are starting to notice and are buying my books and products at an amazing rate. Awesome. I think the book will end up as a movie within the next year. I am starting to write the screenplay now.
check out the new video and let me know what you think.



It's weird how sometimes I see myself as not especially attractive, and other times I think, you know what, I look pretty good here. I find that still photos don't reflect my true appearance, but the videos do. And that's a good thing.

5048 E-mails today

well, so interesting. I signed on to my one e-mail account and they started pouring in. I was surprised when the number of new e-mails passed one hundred. I started to make a comment to Deb, but then they kept coming. one hundred, two hundred, one thousand, two thousand,

could they all be ordering my new book, Someone Else's Tomorrow? www.SomeoneElsesTomorrow.com Would it be that giant payday we know is to be?

Are people ordering 10MinuteTransformation in droves realizing the value and trying to snap it up before I increase the price? www.10minuteTransformation.com

Are there thousands of people ready to start their own business, and they all are writing from www.ProsperityModel.com ?

alas, no. Someone highjacked my e-mail account from wealthtrainingsource.com and all the e-mails are bounce backs from illegitimate e-mail addresses. So I guess that means maybe, what 10 or 20 thousand went out?? If you got one, it's not from me. I didn't include my 'regular' spam in that 5048 count, so you can add another 6 that were, oh, get a larger penis, russian woman want love, a guy in Nigeria wants to give me money and I won the lottery again (twice).
plus my normal legitimate e-mails.

anyway, life moves on and I have managed to post two videos to YouTube, one of self esteem and one on viral marketing (sort of a companion piece to the article below)
check them out...

Get in the Driver’s Seat

So many people don’t rule their own lives. How do you feel when you enter a room full of people at a party? This is usually dictated by the makeup of the group. If you are acquainted with most of them, odds are you will feel at home unless you have anxiety about groups. If you don’t know them, there are many behaviors you might adopt. Which one of these sounds like you?

a) I head for the buffet or the bar. I need something to occupy myself with while I check out the situation

b) I look for a friendly group of people and join in the conversation

c) I look for a convenient corner to hide in and observe the party

d) I calmly and coolly circulate the room looking for someone I know

For the sake of this article – it really doesn’t matter what course of action you choose, the question is what causes people to have reactions like these. What would a young child do? I am not talking about a 5- or 6-year old, I am talking about a two-year-old. Generally they would head right into things and not have a care in the world about what anyone thought. They would do whatever came into their cute little heads. Now I am not suggesting that all your cultural mores should be tossed out the window. Barging into a situation is not particularly the best way to go about things; only a toddler could get away with such behavior because they are what they are.

The real question is when do we lose the fearlessness of a child? If you move forward just a few years, the reaction would be totally different in most cases. The shy child hanging onto their mother or father’s leg, hiding behind a skirt, and the general reaction, “Oh, she’s a shy one. Isn’t that cute?” And it may be sort of cute for a youngster to be shy, but how does that serve you today? Does that shyness develop into fear? Fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of what other people might think? How do we get past the fear to get to the success that we all want?

The truth of the matter is that most people never get over the shyness that they had as a child. With few exceptions, the successful people in life did not get that way by hiding in a corner. What can you do to get out of that corner and into the driver’s seat? You do not want fear ruling your life or driving your career, do you?

This is the part that is going to be hard for people. Do you want a solution, and will you actually take the steps to get out of the hole you are stuck in? If I can tell you the tools to build a better future, would you take them? What you need to do may be the opposite of what you have been doing. Have you been to networking events and actually talked to people about what you want to accomplish? Have you told people of your goals, so that you will have something to drive you? The accountability factor can really drive some folks to new highs and push them past their inhibitions.

What is your goal? “My goal is to _________.” Tell people about it. Don’t do that in a way that you are using them or trying to enlist their help financially or to join your business. Do it so they ask you, “So, what about_______ what are you doing about that? Is it going well? What steps have you taken to make that happen?” Ask them to help goad you into continuous action. And don’t ask just one person to do this. Get your mother, father, best friend, siblings, co-workers, minister, mentor, business associates involved. If you ask ten people, maybe five of them will come through for you, and that will push you to achieve what you want to achieve.

If there are naysayers in the group, drop them from this aspect of your life. You will never star in a Broadway show or write the great American novel with people dragging you down. The biggest naysayer can be you. Don’t let you stop you either. Self confidence is what successful people owe their success to.

Did you know that many years ago (over 40) a young singer opened a show for an unknown comedian at the Hungry I nightclub in San Francisco? Almost no one came to that show. The singer was a nineteen-year-old Barbra Streisand and the comedian was Woody Allen. They didn’t stop pursuing their dreams because of fear or rejection or an empty house. I’m sure they both did have fears, but their self confidence drove them to succeed. What are you doing to build your self confidence and muffle the voices of fear and doubt?

One thing you can do is to visit my website www.SelfEsteemBuilder.net and take advantage of the free workbook available there. Take an hour and go through the exercises. Another resource I have is a website called www.10MinuteTransformation.com which takes the basic premise of the power of self-talk and helps you to cement your goals into your subconscious mind. I am also available to take your e-mails and phone calls and help you to succeed.

OK, now what is your excuse? It is time to move on with your life. Get behind the wheel and start driving.

Viral Marketing

The latest thing going on in the world of marketing is viral marketing. What is Viral Marketing and how can you make it work for you?

The first thing you need to understand is that viral marketing is marketing that uses the technology of the internet to spread your message. What is your message? How do you get it out there now? And, how effective has that been for you? Are you getting a good bang for your buck?

A good example of viral marketing would be a video on YouTube. Now hopefully you know what YouTube is, if not, go do a search and find it and spend a day or two staring at things that have been created there. The site was not put together to host stupid videos put together by ten year olds, although that may be your first impression. Like many sites, it is, itself a viral campaign. The message is “come to my website and look at all the crazy videos.” No, that’s not the message. The real message is come to my website. With enough traffic, you can sell advertising on any site and make enough money to retire.

Popular websites like XANGA, MySpace, EZine, FaceBook and Blogspot are all in the same game, advertising. This is the beauty of true viral marketing. People going to the website really don’t think about the real reason for the website, they are going for the fluff that is provided as the bait. Do you get that? Even the very site you are on now is in the same game. Look around the edge of your screen; what do you see? It’s not a pretty frame to make my writing look good, it’s advertising to #1, pay for the web hosting and staff, and #2 to make the owners money. People blog willingly, and BlogSpot doesn’t have to pay for content (bait) .

Now why do writers submit articles and why do people blog and why do people submit videos? Is it for the glory and fame of being on YouTube? For some people it is…mostly for the unimaginative or the young. Other people see the opportunity to promote themselves, their products, their religion, their hobby or whatever. Now how do you promote yourself or your business? The point of it all is to get name recognition out there for yourself, your product or your website. The trick is to have the right type of viral marketing working for you.

There are two types of viral marketing; the good kind and the kind that totally sucks. If you are making a straight commercial and you put it on YouTube, it will go down in flames; verbal flames. If you make your commercial amusing, it may get some play. How many people liked those Budweiser frogs? You actually liked watching the commercial, sort of like the Superbowl. People watched for football, and then suddenly a new audience was added as the commercials became a highlight. (Some of the games were suck blowouts, that the commercials really were the best part after halftime.)

So what constitutes a sucky video? How about a guy standing on the side of a road telling you about his business? One camera (shaky) and a monologue about the benefits of toe jam juice. Or someone preaching at you to repent and join their cult? These types of videos get no play and soon are forgotten, even by the people that made them. If there is no amusement factor, don’t even upload. If you can incorporate a funny concept and blend your advertisement in a minute or two, your video may get passed around and become famous, along with your message.

Well, that is enough of my viral attempt. Now go to the side of this screen, check out my profile, visit my websites and buy my products.

: )

The Next Level

yesterday Deb and I went out and bought a laptop to use for presentations and health fairs. I found out about a 'work at home' expo near here that is looking for people to set up tables. Fantastic!

We also bought a new video camera. The old one was from the early '90's and loaded full size video tapes. It was also the size of a studio camera - well that is a slight exaggeration, but it really is about 9 pounds and twice the size of a shoe box. The new one can plug right into the computer and is 14 ounces with the battery and mini dv tape. It also, of course, fits in the palm of my hand. Handycam HC28 for anyone who wants to know, and comes with firewire capabilities - very much needed to edit and upload to the 'puter.
The point is, we are moving to Web 2.0 and it is going to drive our businesses to the next level. This blog is also a part of that web presence, so this isn't just for me sharing with the planet, but also part of the overall plan.

Enough for now. I need to get to work...

Metamorphosis

What does it take to move to the next level? We aren’t caterpillars literally waiting for some physical transformation to take place. We can’t wait for someone else to bring the change to us; we need to make the change within ourselves.

I am not talking about you necessarily, but talking about me as well. I keep buying the next book or course thinking that the missing piece is out there somewhere, or that my internal processes need just one more bit. But what if that really isn’t the case? I have more educational materials around my house that haven’t been finished than most people probably buy in a lifetime. Are the answers in there? No. The answers are in me. I know the things that I need to do. What is the real blockade that is stopping me? What internal struggle is taking place and how can I push myself over the edge?

I talk and write about making changes in your life, while I still need to make changes in mine. Is this surprising? Not really. Everyone I have met has room for improvement and life is constant change. I thought that getting my book published would be the thing that would take me over the top and really get me going. I made a mistake with that, but still have been blaming the publisher instead of myself. I should have looked into the practices of the publisher instead of rushing into a contract. I was so happy to have a contract that I didn’t look past the contract.

The secret to success in anything is marketing and that is one area I am lacking. I think the course Deb is taking in internet marketing may be the key to that aspect of our on-line businesses. If I write the holy grail of articles or a great novel, who is going to know about it without a solid marketing plan? If my USANA business is the great vehicle I believe it to be, how do I communicate that to the masses?

I am attracting the resources into my life that I need and getting out of my own way. The metamorphosis I need is to get me out of the cage I have built for myself. You may not be a Pink Floyd fan, but we all have a wall around us that we have built to make us feel comfortable and safe, but that wall is a prison we have constructed… and it is limiting our growth.