Happy New Year!

I am not sure if I will get a chance to post again before the New Year so I wanted to send this one out now. I am leaving MI this morning, Carmen and I are going to spend New Years in Cincinnati, OH. I will tell you more about this in another post when I have more time. Please everyone stay safe, make those New Year's resolutions, write down your goals for 2006, and stay safe!

Just a little fun

Ok, I had to take a break and post something that I found to be a lot of fun. I found this website yesterday, I spent about 30 minutes goofing off with it last night. So I am going to warn you before you get there. Are you up for the challenge? Do you have what it takes? You can book mark this page and come back later or just send it out to a friend.

Here is the challenge! Have fun.

Earn huge interest on your Paypal account

Wow, I just looked at my Paypal account and saw that my Paypal money market is earning 4.20% interest as of this writing. I would highly recommend anyone looking to place money in a relatively safe place for the short term to consider a Paypal money market account. Opening a Paypal account is extremely easy, simply go to paypal.com and follow the step by step instructions. Once you open the account they will send two small deposits to your bank account attached to your Paypal account to verify that you are indeed the bank account holder. When you receive these two micro deposits (usually within 48 hours) simply log into your Paypal account and verify the account by entering the amount of the micro deposits. At that point your Paypal account is verified, you may except payment from customers or anyone else online or you may simply transfer money from your bank account into your Paypal account so that you can make payments online using Paypal.

Once you set up your Paypal account you will need to sign up for your Paypal money market account to start earning interest on your Paypal balance. This is very easy, simply click on the link beside your balance that directs you to start earning interest on your balance. That link will direct you to the money market legal documentation once you review that and agree to it; that's it. You are now earning some pretty competitive interest rates on your Paypal balance. I actually use my Paypal account as an investment/savings account. This is why, money markets are relatively safe investments with little risk of capital depreciation. Paypal's money market accounts offer some of the best interest rates available compared to other money market accounts. Currently you can earn more interest with Paypal than you can with any savings account that I am aware of. Unlike some money market accounts which limit the number of withdrawals you can make. With your Paypal money market account you have immediate unrestricted access to your money via Paypal debit card or by transferring money directly from Paypal to your bank account. Another great thing about the Paypal money market account is that your interest is paid on a monthly basis; therefore, your money compounds MONTHLY!

I would recommend putting money in Paypal account if there is a good chance that you made need it during the short term. For example, start a Christmas fund for next year with your Paypal account, save money for your next vacation in Paypal, also if you own a business, a Paypal account would be a good place to keep money for your projected tax payments. Any money that you normally set aside for use during the next 3 months to 12 month, a Paypal money market account may be a great place for you to put that money. Why not let your money work for you. At the same time you still can get access to your money if you need it, without any penalty to you. I would encourage you to take a look at a Paypal money market account it free, easy, and just plain smart.

What a lull

Business is definitely a little slow right now. My leads from Cutting Edge are between lead cycles, so this week is expected to be a little slow. I am taking this time to develop a personal/business budget for the new year. One thing that I definitely have to improve is my frivolous spending. There is no telling how much money I am wasting on just fast food, stopping and getting a drink at the gas station, ect. As the year wraps up I will be posting a year end report on my personal life and business life.

Just to change the subject, Carmen's business is typically a little slower during the holiday season. Her and I had an opportunity to watch a movie night before last, we watched The Chronicles of Narina. I wrote a review of this movie on my friend's blog. I will not be writing a review here so go check it out on his blog, right here.

I hope you have had a Merry Christmas

I truly hope all of my readers have had a very Merry Christmas. I know I did! I spent Christmas Eve day with my Mom, Donnie, Stacy and his family. I have the world's cutest niece! Sorry, just had to get the doting uncle bit out of the way. Early this morning, Carmen and I flew in to MI to spend Christmas Day with her family.

This is a great time of the year guys to really stop and remember the most important things in life. Most of my readers are entrepreneurs and therefore are very ambitious people. Let's be sure to take the time to remember the important things outside of our own monetary goals. Such has our health, without it quality of life really sucks despite financial capacity. Also let's not forget our loved ones. Many of us are seeking monetary strength so we can be in a position to spend more time with or to help out our loved ones. However, it is important to be thankful that they are here, happy, and healthy. Hopefully, you had an opportunity to spend quality time with the ones you love most.

Freedom, let's not forget the freedom that we have in this country. If it wasn't for the men and women who have served and still serve in our armed forces we would not be able to enjoy the freedoms that we have in this country. Because of their sacrifices we are able to pursue our lives and dreams of owning a homebased businesses. Whenever I interview someone who serves in any branch of our armed forces I make it a point to stop and thank them for their service to our country. I would encourage you to do the same.

Last but not least, let's not forget the reason for this season. Over 2000 years ago a carpenter's son was born in a stable because an inn keeper had no vacancy. The world quickly found out that the son of God was born in Bethlehem. Thank you God for giving us your only begotten son, so that whoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Happy Birthday Jesus!

Finally Goals and Interventions are Complete

Ok, here it is. I have finally took the time to sit down and write out my goals and interventions for myself in the coming year. I had to ask myself why was I so reluctant to make myself put this on paper and I think has to do with the fact that I knew by writing it down it kept me accountable. There are no excuses I have mapped out a plan that will lead to an income of $250,000 after the "cost of goods" in 2006.

Here it is...

Goals:
- $250,000 after cost of goods
- 4 of my current team members qualified out as Level III Directors in Coastal
- 5 new clients qualified out as Level III Directors in Coastal

Interventions to reach goals
For myself:
- Listen to Dani's free training conference call every week
- Attend 5 Team conference calls every week as long as I am not on vacation
- Attend Dani's "First Steps to Success" and "Creating a Dynasty" Seminar every month
- Start 1 on 1 coaching with Dani in February
- Create a dream board in January and post in my home office to help keep me focused throughout the year
- Post my goals in my home office
- Evaluate my goals on a weekly/monthly basis
- Maintain between 5-10 new leads coming in on a daily basis
- Take Dani's Prospecting or Closing Seminar every quarter

For Team:
- Go back and listen to Renae's 90 day action game plan training and stictly apply that to all new associates to help ensure their success.
- Make sure each new team member uses all resources available to them
- Maintain two weekly conference call for personal team members to brainstorm and discuss their personal progress among each other
- Encourage team members to take similar actions as I have above to reach their personal goals.

Today was a slow day

Today was a slow day. My brother came over, this was the first chance I had been able to spend time with him and his family. I was hoping we would get some time together before now but we didn't. I did have a few interviews to conduct and I got about 10 new leads in requesting further interviews. I will be doing some follow up calls tomorrow and conducting some preliminary interviews. I also have to get some Christmas shopping done, mainly for Carmen.

Too many things and too little time to get them done. I have got to get my goals for this coming year written up with a clear plan on how to accomplish them. I want to apply some of the coaching that I am receiving from Dani's Growth Strategy Teleseminar. I should have already done this but once again I have procrastinated. By my next post I will make it a point to publish my goals with a clear plan on accomplishing them. I have recently published my goals but I did not publish my interventions to accomplish those goals.

Stacy is home

My brother is home, I spoke with him this morning he got in last night. I will probably be getting together with him later. I am excited about seeing my niece. He will be down for a week and a half; thankfully since he is working with Coastal as well he could determine how long he wanted to be gone based upon his schedule and not the schedule of an employer. I remember when he use to leave for vacation when he was in the Air Force, he always had to let them know where he was and how long he would be gone just in case then ever needed to call him back. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first vacation that he has went on in 8 years that he didn't have to leave a contact number for someone. I know that he has a great peace of mind knowing that he does not have to worry about being called back. Stacy, and I will see each other again in Dallas, Texas when we go to Dani Johnson's seminar in January.

The single accomplishment that I am most proud of since I started this business is by taking my brother on as a client/team member. He was by far the most skeptical person in my life. However, I never tried recruiting or talking to him at all about this business. I just let him sit back and watch my results. Eventually when he saw my success and realized that this was a legit business he became very interested. He got started and quickly excelled as one of my top team members. I never gave him any slack, I was afraid I would disadvantage him by giving him a discount or cutting him some lack. If anything I was so worried about his future success, so I was unreasonably hard on him. He is currently a level III Director within Coastal. I have the piece of mind knowing that I never gave my brother a fish, instead I taught him how to fish. I know that he will never have to worry about finances or working for an employer again!

OK I am back...

Sorry guys,

I have been away from my blog for a couple of days because I had trouble setting up this new template. I switched the template because I felt that this one is more pleasing to the eye. I first saw this template on my best friend Gary's blog. Gary has started two blogs related to television and movies.

Just an update, my leads are coming in pretty regular now so I am staying busy. Several of my clients are working hard right now which gets me excited because I know that activity breed results! The fact that these clients are prospecting full force in the midst of December even with the holidays closing in on us; tells me that they are dead serious about their business and where they are headed in the new year. I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to work with such ambitious and motivated individuals.

One thing that I am personally struggling with within my life and my business is setting goals, writing them down, and evaluating them each month. I truly believe in writing down my goals and this is a technique that I want to pass on to my clients. However, how can I expect my clients to do that when I am not able to do it myself. I believe in leading by example and I have to be that example in the coming year for my team. I want to implement a process by which my team and I come together each month and develop goals for the coming month, write them down with a plan to reach them, and follow up at the end of the month to evaluate our progress together. I know this will help us become more efficient homebased business entrepreneurs. I will work on writing out my goals and developing a specific plan to reach them tomorrow.

Goals for 2006 and beyond

I was recently on a web forum and the subject of goals came up for 2006. So I figured it would be a great time for me to post on my blog for my goals in 2006 and the subsequent years as it relates to my Coastal business. When the accountant gets done and the dust settles this year I should finish up with about $60K to $80K net. Net meaning, net profit after taking wholesale profits for travel packages gross sales. I don't feel that is too terribly bad after all about 8 months of that was created when I was working full time as a Registered Nurse and part time with my homebased business. So for 2006 I expect to hit $250K net. I do not believe this will be too difficult as I will increase my current advertising budget. With that alone my numbers show that I should get pretty close to that goal without taking anything else into consideration.

However, I also plan to hire Dani Johnson on as a full time personal one on one coach. I will listen to her and follow her advice even if it does not seem to make sense to me. To be quite honest with you the reason I will follow her advice so faithfully is because she has already impacted my business in a huge way. Also she has had a huge amount of success with a homebased business far more than I ever have; so she obviously knows something that I do not.

I also plan to continue to leverage my team and my prospecting efforts toward Level III and Platinum clientele. If I did nothing more than brought in just one Platinum client a month then I would easily hit $100,000 net. That is only my personal sales and it does not include any of their training sales. So by increasing my advertising budget, hiring Dani as a personal coach, and by leveraging my team and future clientele to the Platinum businesses; I am extremely confident that I should hit $250,000 net in 2006.

In subsequent years I would like to increase growth to $500,000 net by 2007. In 2008 I want to hit $1,000,000. Now these are extremely optimistic goals for 2007 and 2008 however, they are not impossible. I have at least one year to play with in there. My goal is a million dollar year before the age of 30. I am currently 26 so that gives me 4 years to work with. Stay tuned to this blog and you will be able to witness my life as I work towards those goas. What are you goals for the new year?

Working From Home is Awesome

Today, I was back full force. Started getting my leads in last evening and started calling them today. I received 17 leads and interviewed 4 and added them to our pipeline. The pipeline is nothing more than our term meaning that I entered them into our automated marketing system after the initial interview. Also when I add someone to the pipeline, it means that I have scheduled a follow up interview to make sure they understand the information that they have read on our websites.

After the follow up interview, if they are interested then I simply direct them to a live support and training call so that they may experience the support and training first hand. After the support and training call, if I have selected this person as someone I am willing to work with and they are willing to work with me; we discuss options for the interviewee to get started their homebased business. I always make sure they understand the different routes they can use to get their business off of the ground depending if they want to get a slow start with their business or get it off of the ground as fast as possible. We also discuss any ongoing expenses which are very minimal; I always want to make sure that their are no surprises when someone decides to hire me as their personal coach and mentor in this business.

Well that is the very basics of how our marketing system works. I am really glad to be back working in my home office. I am extremely focused and geared for a successful month. By the way a big congratulations goes out to April. April, is an awesome client and friend of mine who is beginning to have a very successful start in her business. She completed her first follow up interview successfully today! Congratulations and way to go April!!! It is a privledge to work with you!

Home Sweet Home

I am finally home, I got in yesterday at 4 pm. It was like a 16 hour drive, which was much longer than it usually is. In Michigan and Ohio they were having a snow storm and the roads were not in the best of shape so I was driving about 40 mph instead of the usual 70 to 75 mph. I was in bed last night by 8 pm and woke up this morning at 10:30 am. I should be caught up on sleep now. I was glad to be home but I already miss Carmen terribly.

Well the game plan for today is this, I will be giving Jason Cole over at Cutting Edge Media a call to order more leads. I expect to get about $1,000 worth. When I was new in this business and did not have much money I always ordered $300 to $500 worth but with time and using my profits I started getting more leads and better quality leads.

My grandma and my uncle want to meet for lunch, so I will be meeting them as well. You gotta love the flexibility of a homebased business. Where else could I stay on vacation for 5 weeks and then come home and have lunch with the family that I missed while I was gone? No where but as the owner of a profitable homebased business.

5 Week Vacation Coming to An End

Carmen and I are going to get something to eat and maybe watch a movie. I will be sleeping to till 2 am or 3 am and then I will start driving back to NC. I should get back by 6 pm EST tomorrow, maybe a little sooner. It's about a 12 to 15 hour drive just depending on how much construction I run into. Anyway, please pray for my safety.

While you are praying please remember my friend and business partner Eric. Eric's family is going through a difficult time. His family will appreciate all of your prayers. Eric, you are in my thoughts and prayers as well. I love you brother!

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Homebased business success tip #3

Homebased business success tip #3, be sure to find a business with the right compensation plan. Now you may ask what does that mean? Well different pay plans are right for different people. I will explain the basics and then I will give you my recommendation on what pay plan I prefer and why. There are two types of pay plans, there are one time payments often termed as bonus, signing bonus, customer acquisition bonuses, straight commission, ect. These are normally a percent of a sale or sign up fee. The next type of pay plan are known as residual income plans; usually you will earn a continued commission from a customers spending. These plans can also be broken down into MLM or multi tiered pay plans or non tired pay plans. MLM pay plan just means that as you bring people into your business you will earn a % or flat fee depending on the work they do. Non-tiered pay plans or non MLM pay plans just mean that you only get paid from your own efforts and not the efforts of others that you bring into the business.

When working what is known as a flat fee pay plan or a customer acquisition bonus plan, you basically need to ask yourself. Can I make enough sales that the amount I am paid will cover all of my expenses including all business expenses with enough left over that I will be able to afford the life that I want. I make this statement because I have often seen people who are promoting business opportunities or services where they only earn a $20 or $30 per sale or less! Unless you are a super sales star or you some how have the market cornered that is not a feasible compensation plan for someone looking to earn a full time income. These are only feasible if you are paid enough that you don't have to make a tremendous volume of sales to earn of living. For example, in my current home business, I have clients who earn up to $9,705 per sale. Needless, to say the average person would not have to make many sales to get by on that kind of income. The compensation does not have to be that high to earn a living, you just have to know that with your current resources can you move enough product or service to earn enough money to achieve your goals.

The next compensation plan to consider would be one that offers a residual income. The best residual incomes are ones that pay you a percentage over and over for a customer's subscription payment. In other words you can get paid annually or monthly for as long as a customer remains a customer. This is great as long as customers have some degree of loyalty to the product/service. It's worthless if the customer only remains a customer for a couple of months; that would completely defeat the idea of a residual income. Some companies offer a residual income on a consumable basis. In other words for example with Mary Kay, if you develop a loyal customer they will come to you each time they need new make up. This type of residual income is fine as long as you can develop some customer loyalty; however, it's not as consistent as a residual from a subscription based product. By the way Mary Kay, has not trouble with customer loyalty.

One thing you need to watch for when choosing a company with a residual compensation plan, the smaller your payments are on a per product basis the more customers you will need, to create a full time income. Also, the smaller the payments the more loyal the customers should be to the company or product. You need to be sure you are able to bring more customers in quicker than you lose them; otherwise your income will eventually plateau or worse decrease!

When choosing between a MLM or network marketing compensation plan versus a more tradition direct sales compensation plan it really comes down to ones personal opinion. Many people hate network marketing and MLM, however, it is a legal and ethical business model. I for one have not succeeded with that type of business model yet. But it does not mean that you can't. The only thing I would caution you against, be sure when choosing a MLM or network marketing compensation plan, that you could earn a living by your sole efforts and not the efforts of your "team". I say this because many network marketing companies like to explain their compensation plan with a theory similier to this "If you bring in two people and those two people duplicate your efforts, then those four people duplicate their efforts.. and so on" These companies try to show a compound effect. This can look very enticing on paper. However, it has been my experience that I am usually one the handful of people working hard on my team; at least that was the case with my MLM efforts. It is unrealistic to assume others are as serious as I am about my business. However, if you work with a MLM company be sure that your personal efforts can sustain you, as time goes by you will begin to develop a team of hard working individuals, but don't depend on that early in your business.

My personal recommendation would be any compensation plan that you are comfortable with. Companies always scream,"We have the best compensation plan, better than anyone else's". That's ignorance because it's always a matter of personal opinion. As long as you work with a compensation plan that you feel is fair, and that you are confident in, then you can succeed with it. My personal preferences are compensation plans on high ticket items that offer at least a 50% commission or better. If it is a flat fee product or service than I expect to it to be a higher ticket item. On a flat fee product such as with my current compensation plan I don't expect to earn no less than $1,000 on each sale. Although, I love residual income earning that kind of flat rate payment, I can use that money to create my own residual income through real estate and other investments. I do not have to depend on a company to pay me each month. I hope you find this information useful when looking for a homebased business that is right for you.

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Dani Johnson's free call this week is eye opening

Good Afternoon,

Today, I took some time to listen to Dani's live free training conference call. All of Dani's calls are amazing but this week it was a very eye opening call. Let me tell you a little about Dani, this is a woman who at 19 years old started a homebased business. She failed for 6 months before going to a seminar that was suppose to change everything. She did not have the money for the seminar but, was extremely serious about changing her life so she found the money to get to that seminar. Just two years later she had earned her first million dollars. She decided to quit and get married. Two months after the marriage her husband had left and went to Japan with another woman, she woke up broke and credit cards maxed out. She was left with $35,000 worth of debt.

Dani went through depression, she was even suicidal at one point. She ended up with a job as a cocktail waitress and settled into that sort of a mundane life. After several months she decided to try to build a business in the home based business industry again. She started with $2.03 to her name, homeless, working out of the trunk of her car using nothing but a pay phone.

Each week she offers a free training. To access the training this week, become a member of her website it's free. They will give you a username and password. Then, log in and go to the audio training labeled Monday, November 28, 2005.

Dani talks about how to make sure that 2006 is better than 2005 in every way. Listen to reasons why someone should be an entrepreneur and/or start a home business and how to succeed. How to equip yourself to be successful beginning TODAY!

Topics include:

Are you part of the 98% or part of the 2%?

What is your plan and where will you be this time next year?

The difference between a home business and a standard job

What are you doing to make your future all that you want it to be?

Where can you go for a guaranteed job forever?

Who are you competing with in the marketplace?

What is the average income for an income-generating home business owner?

Which group brings in more income, a standard job or a home-based business?

What are real businesses measured by?

What is the 80/20 rule and which side do you want to be on?

Common myths about home-based businesses

How to be unusually successful in any business

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