Do You Have A Personal Theme?

What do you use to get yourself back on track?  If you are in a funk or if something happens that takes you off your game, what do you use to bring yourself back to your sweet spot?

I learned this technique from Vanessa Duplessie who did a session for Johnathan Budd’s Life Transformation Now program.  The lesson was about having a Personal Theme.  Do you have a personal theme or mantra?  Well, this is how you can get one.

Personal Theme

A Personal Theme is a 3-5 word statement.  This statement is used to bring you back on track.  How you develop this theme is through deep thought and mediation about where you are, where you were and where you want to be.  This process can take little effort, or depending on the transformation that you are going through, a considerable amount of time.

It is not a good idea to live in the past, but to use is only in times of conscious reflection.  So, when developing your theme look back over the past year: what did you accomplish, what did you not accomplish?  What worked last year, what did not work last year?  What do you want next year?  What do you want to be?  What is your driving purpose this coming year?

Examples of Personal Themes

Here are some that have been used by others which you can apply to yourself.  But remember, we are all different so if you can think of one that applies more to you that would be great.

• Make It Matter
• Think Big
• Now Is The Time
• Just Do It

So the next time you are going it to a sales meeting, a meeting with your boss, a new client or even a friend in need or a family member, remind yourself what your personal theme is.  Take a few deep breathes, and repeat 2 or 3 times.  This should feed your soul for whatever arises in the near future.  Remember to keep it top of mind and use it every day.

One other idea is to change your theme from time to time.  Things do not stay the same and neither do we.  You could have a yearly theme, such as an overall theme, and then one for each month.  You could change it based on the holidays of the month, such as in May you may want to have one that reminds you of your Mother or being a Mother.  You can change it or leave it the same, whatever suits you the best.

When I was developing my own, it came pretty quickly.  One of the ideas that motivates me is the feeling of Love, pretty common I am sure.  The other idea I had was that I wanted to find success in my new venture and I thought about how that made me feel.  What came out of that was my new theme: Love is Success.  I will find success when I love what I do, love the people that I meet when doing it, love my clients (even the seemingly unlovable ), love my life!!

I wish you the best in your journey and would love to hear what your themes are.  Please take a moment and leave me a comment on what you are thinking about using.

Peace…

Kathy Sammons

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To receive a series of incredible online training tips, just put your name and email in the form at the top of this post. Hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs have achieved success in their online business using these amazing tips in the last year, now it is your turn. Online Success For You

Find Success Offline Too:

Mobile The Mode Of The Future!

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The Keyword In This Business Is: Network

This could be your business network or your personal network,

bottom line you need to create a network.

When you are looking at going into a network marketing business there are vital questions you must ask.

• How do you get paid?  Some companies only have a couple of different ways to get paid while others have multiple ways of getting paid.
• When you do get paid?  Is it one time payments or is it recurring/residual income?
• Is the residual paid on people that you sign up as reps or on recurring purchases by clients?
• When you get a percentage of sales, what is the average sales amount and what percentage of that do you get?
• Is the product or service a one time purchase or is it a recurring purchase, and is the product/service something that is relevant?
• Is the product consumable or service renewable?  If not what is the expected life span of the product?

Some More “Network Marketing” Considerations

The more ways of getting paid the more chances you have of making money.  Think about it, if all you get paid for is signing up reps that is going to get old fast!  The “network” part of your business should only be part of it.  The dream of network marketers is to build a business for a given number of years and then you relax and reap the benefits of your labors through residual income.

The question above, concerning where the residual income is coming from is a huge concern here.  It could come from other reps in your down line, from recurring billing of a business, or both.  Without residual income there would be no incentive for working many hours with no pay while you are building for the future.

Another big question concerns the price point of the product and the percentage of which you get to take home.  When you look at a networking company if the product is a one time purchase, it has to be big enough that the pay out is worth it.  Even then, it is hard to build a residual income from any place other than signing up new reps.  Not a good place to be.

If you can find a business that sells a service that people use everyday and one that does not require a change in their behavior, that is better than a product that they can do without or get locally with less effort.  I hope you can see the difference here.

So, another option is business to business sales, again this has to be a product or service that is necessary and not easily gotten from another source.  Such as Mobile Media Marketing.  This option, thankfully, helps reduce the demanding efforts of building your personal network.

So, best case scenario is a product or service with a moderate to high price point, that is consumable or renewable and then combine that with multiple ways of getting paid and you have a winner!

Finally, keep your expectations in check and be aware of changes in the market place and your product sector.

As you can see below there is a constant change in the world of entrepreneurship created by the life cycle of  businesses.

Here’s the average failure rate of all small businesses:

First Year – 85% success
Second Year – 70% success
Third year – 62% success
Fourth Year – 55% success
Fifth Year 50% success
Sixth Year – 47% success
Seventh Year – 44% success
Eighth Year – 41% success
Ninth Year – 38% success
Tenth Year – 35% success

This is not to discourage you, but to make you aware.  Remember nothing ever stays the same, you just have to learn to ride the waves!

Thanks for coming by,

Kathy Sammons

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To receive a series of incredible online training tips, just put your name and email in the form at the top of this post. Hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs have achieved success in their online business using these amazing tips in the last year, now it is your turn. Online Success For You

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In the sister/brother (just trying to be fair) post Advanced Tools For Online Marketing Part 1 I listed some resources for outsourcing marketing tasks to enable you to be more efficient and effective in your marketing without working 70 hours a week.  As promised, I am now sharing with you Advanced Tools 2.

So, the next level is to have someone available to do customer service via a phone call.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a professional person call your potential clients to let them know how important they are to you, direct them to training that you provide, and get them started.

A possible scenario could be, the professional customer service assistant in your virtual office has helped set these clients up in their back office of My Lead System Pro, and these clients were already on their way to the next  step, marketing.  At that point they get the opportunity to get a personal phone call from you, the leader.

The advantages of this are numerous, first of all you would already know that they were willing to do the initial work, i.e. they were not “tire kickers.”  Secondly, they would be ready to start marketing.  Thirdly, having reached the marketing stage, utilizing affiliate tools provided in the sales funnel, they are already providing profit for you.

So, you may say that you are not there yet.  Well, there is no better time to plan than now.  To help you set your sites on the future I am providing some resources for you to put in your planning folder for when you are ready to use them.

For those of you that are ready to take that next step I hope that this is useful.

For more expert customer service or client contact help, the following four companies can offer you high quality assistance.

What makes the following companies interesting is the advent of cloud sourcing.  This is similar to outsourcing, in that you are going outside of your company to have a task preformed, but with cloud sourcing there is more emphasis put on using off-site computer services.  Cloud computing is simply the fastest way to generate high value from IT infrastructure, platforms, and software all delivered as a service.  Another great aspect of cloud computing is, if you your need increases, there are services available, that is, the scalability is virtually unlimited.

First we have LiveOps.  They deliver full-service outsourcing solutions that can meet any call center need. In addition to handling all call types, they offer on-demand access to expert services for a variety of inbound and outbound calls.

http://liveops.com/

• Inbound Direct Sales
• Commissioned Agent Services
• Casual Dining Services
• Customer Care
• Licensed Insurance Sales
• Outbound Consultative Sales
• Bilingual Phone Services (Spanish & French)

The second one is Alpine Access Consulting, a provider of a wealth of hands-on experience and current industry best practices that comes from 11 years of implementing more than 100 at-home programs.  They offer access to their extensive knowledge of proven at-home business processes, technologies, workforce management tools, knowledge management and talent acquisition.

http://www.alpineaccess.com/en/

Next is West Corporation, who pride themselves on providing a higher level of customer care.  They want to make a difference in your bottom line.  They are a leader in providing outsourced communication solutions.  West at Home utilizes thousands of home-based agents located across the country combined with the industry’s most robust and advanced infrastructure to deliver superior service to you and your customers.

http://westathome.com

Lastly, Working Solutions claim that their advantage is their extensive agent network, proven technology, unmatched knowledge and expertise, and their tenured management team.  They have worked with many industries, you can see case studies for each of those industries on their site.  They have what they refer to as agents on demand which are  highly educated home-based call center professionals that are trained and available, as needed for specialized industries.

http://www.workingsolutions.com/

So, there you have it, your future!!  There were some interesting aspects of outsourcing that I learned from collecting these sites.  One is, the age of cloud sourcing has arrived and the virtual office is more useful than ever.

Hope you find this useful, let me know by leaving a comment below.

Sincerely yours,

Kathy Sammons

To help you grow in your business here are a few books that I would suggest that you read.

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If you want to work with me, learn how to generate leads, and become successful in your online business you can send an email to kathy@kathysammons.com, please indicate in the subject line the that you are interested in joining me.  The training that I provide is extensive and unparalleled in the online marketing industry.  Hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs  have achieved success in their online business with this training in the last year, now it is your turn. Online Success For You

Do you ask for help when you do not have the time to finish all of your tasks of online marketing?  If so, who do your ask that you can trust?   To help you answer that, we are first going to learn about the problem, then we will answer the questions.

So, you have been marketing online for over a year and you are now so busy following up on leads that you are running out of time to do your marketing.  Well,  you cannot stop doing what is working, you cannot ignore what got you where you are.  So, now what are you going to do?

You started this business so that you could have extra time with your family.  But, now all of your time is spent trying to keep up.  The good thing about having all of those leads coming in, you should be making money!  So, now you have a decision to make, is it time to start out-sourcing?

Outsourcing often refers to the process of subcontracting to a third-party. While outsourcing may be viewed as a component to the growing division of labor encompassing all societies, the term did not enter the English-speaking lexicon until the 1980s.  It has been perceived in negative terms when seen as international outsourcing of jobs.  But, what we are talking about here is a way of streamlining all of the tasks that an independent entrepreneur has to preform to succeed in their business.

Let’s take a look at a few of them:

http://www.elance.com/

Elance is a great way to get your work done.  You will find quality experts and you only have to pay for results.  Elance is an easy, cost-effective way to help you become more productive.

http://www.guru.com/

There are over 1 million members at Guru.com.  It is actually the largest online source for freelance assistance and they focus on quality freelance services.  They are proud to be noted as experts with a proven track record.  They work very hard at talent-to-project matching and business performance improvement.

http://freelanceswitch.com/

FreelanceSwitch is a community of expert freelancers from around the world.  If you have a job that you want done, just post that job on the free job ad board.  They have professional designers, bloggers, photographers, illustrators, as well as, many other freelancers.  Just post a job and you will be contacted.

This is and update to the original post:

http://www.odesk.com

Once I submitted this post, it was brought to my attention that there is another valuable resource for outsourcing.  Odesk.com lets you select professionals based on work history, portfolio, feedback ratings, and test scores.  You pay only for time verifiably spent working for you!  They have a unique Work Diary where you can see that the time billed is time worked and of course you only pay for time verifiably spent working for you. It’s also secure, accurate and safe.

So, if you are at the stage in your business that you are feeling the need to relieve some of the stress of over work, I am sure that you will be able to find some help from these service providers.  The cost of using them at first, maybe a little painful, but the benefits of higher productivity and lower stress will certainly out weigh that pain!

Keep your eyes open for the next post on this subject, where we are taking outsourcing to the next level.

Let me know if you are using any of these sources and how you would rate them by leaving a comment below.

Here’s to your success,

Kathy

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If you want to work with me, learn how to generate leads, and become successful in your online business I can be reached at 314-882-7622.  The training that I provide is extensive and unparalleled in the online marketing industry.  Hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs  have achieved success in their online business with this training in the last year, now it is your turn. Online Success For You

In the sister post Social Networking Tools Part 1 there are some great tools for keeping abreast of your social networking sites in one organized platform.  Many of the tools allow you to do real time updating on the sites, as you see them.  That way, you can better monitor what is being said and can respond to it.  You can even direct them to one of the other sites where similar conversations are taking place, there by expanding your reach and theirs.  In this post you will find a very special tool for collecting and storing information.

Here we are going to look at a tool that will save you time when you are doing research.  You could use this when you are looking for information on a topic for your next blog post, research on a new opportunity, or a new online lead system.  You might even be on a mission to learn a new skill, or you may be collecting information for some other purpose.

For all of these purposes this tool I believe you will find it very helpful.

So, here is the problem,  we have all been in situation where we read something and we want to keep it for future reference.  I do not know about you, but I try to keep items in folders on my desktop to keep them organized.  Then my desktop gets too messy.  So I start a folder, such as one titled Internet Marketing, then I drag and drop all of the folders pertaining to that topic into that new catch all folder.

OK, now I am sharing too much about myself, oh well!  Here it is… one of my short comings is being able to remember where I put things or what I named them!!!!  That is why this tools is such a great one for me to have.

Zotero.org is the time and effort saving tool to beat all.  Here you can organize your data collection all in one place.  The best part is that it does not matter the format of the data collected, you can still put it all together.  It could be a PDF file, a website URL, and a note created on the embedded Word platform, all in one collection.  As you collect data you can add tags to each item that you collect and also define a related topic.

The purpose of that is, when you return to this data and you want to find a new string of information you can search on that topic and create new folders or sub folders of related material to develop a whole new collection of data.

For instance, if you were collecting information on SEO, the folder for that might contain a URL to SEO Networker where you can find valuable information about this topic.  You will probably also search blogs written on the topic.  When you find information that you like,  you can capture a snapshot of the page and it will place that in your folder.  Then you remember that you have something in your documents on your computer that would work nicely in this piece, you can attach a stored copy of that file.  As you collect each one and attach tags to them, such as SEO, Internet Marketing, Computer Progamming, Lead Generation Tools etc., you are preparing those pieces to be used in the future for other topics of interest.

What is even better, Zotero sits in the bottom edge of your Firefox browser so it is always there when you want to add to your collection.  One last critical function is that when you are saving information is it syncing to the web based server so if Firefox has a problem you do you loose your valuable research.

Stay tuned for other tools that will make life easier for you when doing the multiple tasks of online marketing.  Here’s to your success!!!

Kathy

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If you want to work with me, learn how to generate leads, and become successful in your online business I can be reached at 314-882-7622.  The training that I provide is extensive and unparalleled in the online marketing industry.  Hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs  have achieved success in their online business with this training in the last year, now it is your turn. Online Success For You

The evolution of network marketing continues to happen and it is getting more and more fun.  People are no longer willing to consume a product that someone says is good for them and will do XYZ, and start selling it.  As Internet Marketing grows, people are exposed to a lot of different types of companies and different types of products.  In this post I am going to explain where I see these changes happening.

Avon was at the very beginning of the wonderful thing we call network marketing, all the way back in the 1890′s.  In the 1940′s most of the new direct sales/network marketing companies sold household products or natural vitamins, such as the ones from Shakley, which are still around today.

As Americans started aging in the 1990′s and we became more health conscience, there were more and more wellness products sprouting up every day.  Every type of juice, pill and powder can be found in abundance.  From the Acia Berry of Brazil to the Aloe based products of Hawaii, they are everywhere.

Now I am seeing a shift to more intellectual products, ones that are computer based, such as data collection, personal and business training and development, and even personal finances.  Another trend is towards commodities such as, gold and silver.  I see us moving into the golden years (no pun intended ) of network marketing.

Because these companies are making money and are becoming very popular, and people see how well they are doing, there are going to be copy cats.  As always it is in your best interest to preform your due diligence in researching the company and product.  Many times these copy cats are not well thought out or well developed.  They are created on the fly by people that just see an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

These copy cats many times make it very easy to sign up.  That is, for free!  Well, we all know that free never pays out.  How can it?  When they “launch” they will come asking for money, but for what?  Be cautious when looking at companies like this.  It is best to get a second opinion from someone that you trust and check it out on MLMWatch.org (although the information on this site is a little dated and is focused on MLMs selling wellness products) or you can check with MLMWatchdog.com.

So, as this evolution continues be reminded to ask lots of questions and search upline to find where the money is.  Once you find it, ask what it will take to get there.  You have to know when you can expect a return on your investment and then, when you will actually turn a profit.

Keep your eyes open for more of these data collection companies to come along.  This is the information age and data is king.  Data has always been in great demand and the use of network marketing to do the collection is a trend that I see just starting and one that will continue far into the future.

What do you think?  What kind of data collection do you see that can be converted to an MLM?  Remember there needs to be some sort of product to be a legitimate MLM.  Leave your comments below.

Kathy Sammons

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If you want to work with me, learn how to generate leads, and become successful in your online business I can be reached at 314-882-7622.  The training that I provide is extensive and unparalleled in the online marketing industry.  Hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs  have achieved success in their online business with this training in the last year, now it is your turn. Online Success For You