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MLM Woman Issue 50 This free monthly newsletter is made possible by our advertisers and customers. We thank them for their support!
MLM Woman Issue 50
This free monthly newsletter is made possible by our advertisers and customers. We thank them for their support!
From the Desk of the Editor
Welcome to the 50th issue of the MLM Woman Newsletter. This month we feature articles to keep you going strong when the going gets tough.
Remember Your Why . . .
Starting and building a business is never easy. There are all too many people who will tell you it can't be done. Friends and family will try to persuade you to give up this madness and get a good, steady job with a regular paycheck. Prospects will turn you down, recruits will abandon you at the first sign of work, and a tiny commission check will make you want to quit. Don't!
"But it's so hard," you say, "No one believes in what I'm trying to do, my friends and family think I'm crazy, I'm just not sure if I am up to it!"
When you have days like this - and you will -- the one thing that will sustain you and keep you going is your Why. In other words, the reason that you stepped out of the long line of people following the regular path and started your own business in the first place. Maybe it's because you want to stay home with your children, or that you want to finally get out of your dead-end job that pays you a pittance, or that you'd like to buy a home, or spend more time with your family, or to spend your day doing what you want to do. Whatever your Why is -- it's unique and special to you. Cherish it and honor it, because your Why is what will keep you going when all the obstacles seem stacked against you.
Succeeding in your own business is hard -- after all, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. It takes a lot of energy, drive and passion to make it through the tough times on the road to success. It's like you were a rocket that has to expend tons of jet fuel to break free of the earth's gravity. Your Why is your jet fuel that burns hot and bright within you. And once your orbit has been successfully achieved, you can look back and see that all the energy expended is worth it and your path is high and wide.
So, the next time you feel like you want to quit -- just remember your Why and stay the course.
Linda Locke, Editor MLM Woman
Don't Quit...De-Stress! Copyright 2001 Terri Seymour
I recently received an email from a friend who was considering quitting her online business. She is going through a stressful time, as we all do, and feels her business is just not worth it anymore. If this sounds familiar to you, then join the crowd! We are all human and there are times when the everyday stress of life just takes its toll.
What you need to do when this happens is not to quit your business, but to step back, give yourself some breathing room and take care of what is causing the excess stress. If you are having family problems, take a break from your business and tend to your family. When that problem is resolved you will be anxious to get back to business.
Think long and hard before quitting.
There are times when I have felt the same way, but I know that I would never want to quit my business. Besides getting to work with so many wonderful people, this business is now a part of me and my life. I am sure that a lot of you feel the same way. There are many things you can do to de-stress and be ready to get back to business.
** Exercise is one of the best stress relievers there is. Walking, aerobics, dancing, or whatever form of exercise you choose has many more benefits also.
** One thing I do when business gets the better of me, is to shut the computer down for the day and turn my attention to other things that need to be done. Just taking a small break from business can help. When things are really stressful, we may need to take a longer break.
** Another thing I do, is to take a few moments and just reflect upon how lucky I really am. I have a home, wonderful family, great job, my health and I also get to live on this beautiful planet. I do not take any of these things for granted for even one minute because in a minute it could all be gone!!
** As you are taking those few moments to think about what you do have instead of what you don't, you should also be taking some nice, deep cleansing breaths. And also stretch out some of those tired muscles. I guarantee doing these things will revitalize and refresh your mind and body.
** Take some time to think about why you started your business and if those reasons still apply. Are your goals still the same, do you still have the motivation? If the other areas in your life need more attention right now, that is fine, it happens to all of us. Just do what you need to do and then get back to business. Do not make the decision to quit when you are stressed out or trying to deal with other problems. Wait until you can think clearly!
** Here are some sites that might give you some more good ideas for de-stressing and life management.
http://www.stresscure.com/ http://www.stressrelease.com/strssbus.html http://imt.net/~randolfi/StressLinks.html
Stress is a serious matter and should not be ignored. But it can be controlled and reduced. Do not make any life changing decisions when you are over-stressed. Take a break, clear your mind, de-stress and things will look a lot different!
About the Author
Terri Seymour is the publisher of Web Success Ezine and owner of Web Success central. You can contact her at: ter02@newnorth.net Subscribe to Web Success Ezine and get two free gifts by sending any email to web-success-subscribe@egroups.com or visit http://www.websuccesscentral.com for more resources, moneymaking programs, and information.
"Persistence, Patience and Perseverance" By Beth Brawn
So you want to know if you have what it takes to be in Network Marketing right?
Well, I'll tell you, it takes "Persistence, Patience and Perseverance"
If you possess these qualities then you can succeed.
Persistence is defined as "continuing, especially in the face of opposition."
Patience is defined as "being patient, calm endurance." (Endurance being defined as "the ability to last, stand pain, etc.")
Perseverance is defined as "continuing a course of action in spite of difficulty."
These questions are not intended to scare you off, but, statistics show that nearly 95% of people who join Network Marketing companies fail within the first year. I see this happening for two main reasons.
1. The person who joined and failed never really made the commitment to take this as a serious business opportunity. You don't have to be serious in the business, you should have fun doing it, but you should at least commit to stick with it. Serious enough to follow the three "P's", "Persistence, Patience and Perseverance"
2. The person's up-line leader (the one who signed them into the business) didn't give them the support needed to help them grow and maintain the three "P's". You shouldn't have to do the business by yourself. There should be enough leaders around to help you succeed. (This is only going to work if you are willing to help yourself first)
Realistically, the Network Marketing opportunity may not be for everyone, but anyone with the determination to make it work, probably can do this business. Given the proper tools, resources, up-line support, and training, even someone with no prior Network Marketing or prior business skills, can build a successful Network Marketing business. I can share with you people in my organization who were previous stay-at-home moms (and still are), general laborers, musicians, car salesmen, dentists, doctors, utility workers, etc... The only limitations in this business are the ones you place upon yourself.
You can email Beth at the following address beth@sysr.com For the complete 7 part series "Introduction to Network Marketing" visit her site at: http://bebcmj.tripod.com/intronetmktg/ Also visit her business website and find out how balanced your life is: http://www.5pillars.com/healthyfinances/
Use Your E-mail Address As a Branding Tool (c) By Wanda Loskot
Even before you launch your website, you can (and should) begin to use your domain name. Why? Because it is the world's cheapest advertising tool and an excellent way to brand your business. How? By using your domain name in your email address and in your signature file.
If your email address reads yourname@aol.com or you@bell.com - you are branding the name of your Internet Service Provider. Why should you do it? Your ISP doesn't pay you for it. Indeed, you pay THEM a monthly fee!!!
Quite likely you were not aware that you do have a choice here. Instead of advertising Earthlink, GTE, BellSouth, or AOL, you can advertise and brand your own business and your own name.
In case you didn't know, here is how it works. For example, my own service provider is home.com -- but my e-mail program is configured so, that the address I use in my "from" field says "wanda@loska.com". I can do that because my web host provides me with a forwarding service. That means, any message sent to wanda@loska.com is forwarded automatically to my *home.com* account.
Don't think that you need to launch your web site to be able to do this -- even if you are not ready, you can use this feature. I suggest that once you get a domain name, you set up a simple page like this: http://internetsuccesscoach.com/bizcard.html -- but even this is not necessary.
To use your domain name in your email address, you only need to have a domain name and a decent web host. Yes, really. With domain name registration costs as low as $9.95 per year, and with web hosting fees around $15-30 per month -- can you afford NOT to do it? I don't think so!
To register a domain name, you might want to use a special name-find tool at http://BuyDomains.com -- it allows you to search for the domain names containing your specific key words. Excellent time saving device!
When choosing your domain name keep this in mind:
Using your own domain name is not only a cost-free branding tool. In addition this type of email address adds instant credibility to your correspondence and - even more important - your e-mail address will stay the same even when you change your ISP (and most likely you will, trust me!).
Wanda Loskot is the Internet Marketing Coach. Sign up for her FREE course "7 Strategies For Lasting Internet Success" -- learn what you need to know about Internet marketing in just one short e-mail per day. To subscribe go to http://InternetSuccessCoach.com
Advice from A-Z
When You Have Two Partners - Your Spouse and Your Business Partner A Three-Way Partnership With a Spouse and a Friend is Tricky Business By Azriela Jaffe, copyright 2001
It's not easy being married. It's not easy being married to your business partner. It's not easy being in a business partnership with a friend. Now, imagine that you are in a business partnership with your friend AND your spouse, at the same time. Some partnerships are pulling it off, but it's tricky.
Both a business partnership and a marriage are intimate relationships. Intimate relationships crave exclusivity. It's not unusual for a spouse to become jealous about their wife's or husband's relationship to a business partner, and the passion he or she shares with another individual outside of the marriage.
It's also not unusual for some married folks to be much closer to their business partners than their spouses. They are spending more time at work, involved in the most exciting endeavor of their lives, and so, over time, they can start feeling closer to a partner outside of their marriage, even if they aren't sleeping together. When a three-way partnership develops, it's complicated managing all of these various intimacies.
Here are some cautions and tips if this kind of partnership opportunity presents itself to you.
Beware of taking sides: The problem with a three-way partnership is that two of the partners can always side together on a controversial issue and "gang up" on the other partner. (That's how the other partner experiences it). Three-way partnerships can be very helpful - they eliminate two partners in a power struggle who won't budge - but decision-making must be handled carefully. If two partners feel strongly about something, and it differs from the third, there can be general agreement that the majority gets their way, or that the partners will dialogue until they find a solution that satisfies all three of them.
However, when you are in a partnership with a spouse and a friend, this same interaction can be interpreted differently. If the spouses consistently agree with each other, and not with the friend, the friend will start feeling that he or she is at a disadvantage because of not being a part of that intimate relationship. He or she will start viewing the other two partners as one unit, always connected at the hip and voting together on controversial issues, instead of being two independent individuals.
If one of the spouses consistently sides with the friend in the partnership - if it was his friend, for example, the wife might accuse him of aligning himself with his friend, and against her. If the spousal relationship is a conflicted one, agreeing with that friend might be misinterpreted as a personal vendetta against the spouse, a way to score a win in their ongoing power struggle.
These dynamics can be mitigated with a simple rule that is sometimes difficult to enforce: All three partners must be strong and self-assured enough to operate as individuals in the partnership, speaking their own minds and not being afraid of disagreeing with a spouse or a friend if their opinion differs.
Another dynamic that may evolve is this: The spouses spend a lot more time together, and discuss business at home, over dinner, in bed, while driving together to work. The third partner starts being angry about getting left out of decision-making, not informed about shifts in business planning, or simply not being present enough for much of the crucial business conversations. This one is a tricky one to master because no matter what rules you develop, people living together are going to talk about the business, period. Here are some solutions to try:
Make a point to have a brief meeting with the third partner every morning, if necessary, to update him or her on conversations the night before. If you have a home computer, email that partner with pertinent thoughts and details from your at-home conversations. Sometimes, you might want to call the friend from home and include him or her in a conversation. Be sure to schedule regular business meetings with all three of you, so that the third partner feels satisfied that he or she is included enough in regular planning. If you are the friend, don't hesitate to inquire of the other two if there was anything discussed the night before that is relevant to you.
When these partnerships work well, it is usually because all three in the partnership are excellent communicators, the conflict in the relationships is low, and when something uncomfortable arises, the partners deal with it right away. What happens when a fight occurs between two people in the partnership? That's when the partnership might live or die, depending on how it is handled. In that case:
Spouses must be very careful not to put the third partner in the middle of a marital fight, asking that person to take sides, or talking down about their spouse to the third partner. Take your complaints outside of the partnership to a friend that is not connected to the business. Harder still, the spouses must try not to complain to each other about the friend, or the friend will feel that it is impossible to have conflict with one partner, without the other jumping in. If serious conflict arises often in your partnership, consider bringing in a professional counselor or mediator to help improve communications.
A last thought on this complicated subject: Be sure that all three partners want to be there, and have the skills to perform their job. Nothing will destroy a working partnership between friends faster than when one of them brings in his or her spouse without the full endorsement of their partner, and a clear job description that makes it possible for the spouse to make a strong contribution. Likewise, bringing a friend into a marital partnership requires that all three people like each other, and are committed to working out the conflict that might result.
For more information on how to handle potential conflicts between your marital partner and your business partner, read my book, "Let's Go Into Business Together, Eight Secrets to Successful Business Partnering" available at Amazon.com.
Azriela Jaffe is a syndicated columnist and author of the new book "Starting from No: Ten Strategies to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection and Succeed in Business" and several other self-help books. She welcomes reader response and questions to PO Box 209, Bausman, PA 17504 or az@azriela.com. For free online newsletters for entrepreneurs, visit her Anchored Dreams website at: http://www.isquare.com/crlink.htm
How To Succeed Working at Home When you have kids climbing all over you.
By Dr. Kevin Nunley
I get a BIG chuckle out of experts who preach the joys of working from home. Magazines often feature a photo of a nicely dressed model with her full attention focused on a client on the phone. Her equally nicely-dressed child quietly explores an educational toy on the floor beside her.
That's never the way it works at my house. As I write this from home, my 15 year-old is bouncing a basketball off the outside of my office, my 12 year-old is blaring her new Back Street Boys CD, the kindergartner has just let the neighbor's dog into the living room, and my toddler is trying to climb onto my shoulders while attempting to shut the computer off.
Experts advise this isn't the way a successful work-at-home business is supposed to operate. The professional home-worker is told to make clients think she is in a big, plush office in a mirror-covered professional building. "Never allow noise from kids and pets and never answer the phone 'hello.' Clients won't take you seriously," they write. Uh oh, I'm in trouble.
Let's be realistic for a second. Of the six million North Americans who work from their houses, I'll bet more than half have noisy kids, dogs, and unfolded laundry competing for their attention. Yet, studies routinely show work-at-homers often get as much or more done than those in the office.
Here are a few ideas to help you succeed with a home business when you have lots of family responsibilities to deal with at the same time:
1. Don't worry about kids interrupting a phone call. Being there for family is cool these days. The vast majority of business people wish THEY were at home with their kids.
More often than not, when a small voice starts demanding a popsicle in the middle of an important negotiation, the client on the other end will be delighted. "Are you working at home? How neat! Isn't it wonderful that you can be there for your kids," your client will say.
2. Working non-stop with full concentration is only for people locked in a corporate office. Get used to working in a start-and-stop fashion. When you see your work is about to be interrupted, don't stop at a natural place. Stop in the middle. It will help you get re-started when time allows.
The feeling you MUST be constantly productive at all times is a recent invention of our industrial societies. The majority of the world's people are much more laid back. Take a little more time to get a project finished. Oddly, your productivity will increase.
3. If you are a firm of one, promote your one-ness to the world. Every customer wants to feel like they can talk to the person in charge. That's never a problem for people who do business with you.
Think of all the big corporations that strive to be identified with their founder. Microsoft has Bill Gates, KFC has the Colonel, and Wendy's has Dave. They spend millions to insure you identify their mammoth corporation with a single individual in charge.
4. Get over the idea that TV is bad for kids. It is a popular, healthy, worthwhile activity when used wisely in moderate doses. Most of TV's criticism is perpetrated by people who sell books. There are a lot of terrifically educational TV programs and videos that kids love to watch. Plan to get a project underway while the kids (we'll include spouses, too) engage in some quality TV consumption.
A few hundred years ago people ALWAYS worked with their kids under foot. It was only when business became dominated by factories that workers were forced to leave their children at home (and even then, it took at least 100 years to make workers change).
You certainly CAN be a success working at home while taking care of children--even if your children are rowdy, noisy, and demanding. The articles I've written (which are read by 1 million people each week) were all written with various children sleeping on my lap, pulling my hair, or trying to delete the file.
I earn a good living working at home and YOU CAN TOO! Just don't expect me to always pick up the phone when you call. It's not that I don't want to talk with you, but probably that my 2 year-old has just swiped my keys and is heading for the garage.
Kevin Nunley provides marketing advice and copy writing fast and at low cost. Before beginning his work-at-home business in 1996, he spent 20 years enjoying office politics at major radio and TV stations. Read all his FREE marketing tips at http://DrNunley.com/. Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com.
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