Thursday, July 23, 2009

Training, Action and Determination

Picture this:

It's your first day on a regular job and after a little tour and a meet and greet where you forget half the names you hear what happens next? Well now you start going over what you're going to be working at and the tools or programs (just another kind of tool really) that you will be using.

Why do this? Well training gives you a solid platform to launch from, the success you have later is up to your determination. Think about it, even outside of work, you can find training in sports, hobbies and other places. Hell, even in our infancy we are trained in how to interact with people.

Well if you're involved with network marketing there - in the past - has always been a lack of real training. Oh sure your company told you to go to the "pink kool-aid" meetings, you know the ones that happen every week or two and are typically a low or no cost deal. And sure, at those meetings they tell you the importance of a face to face kind of meeting with your prospect or they run through a skit of what the company thinks the presentation should look like. They're not all bad, once in a while you can gleam something that works from one of these meetings but you really have to know how to pick them.

Well times change, Tivo is now one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century because now you don't need to watch commercials and there is no need for a library of VHS tapes. The bombardment of adds nowadays turns people off, they want things that give them real value. Well take heart friends, because with a new mind set and some proper training (no "dream boards" or emotional puff pieces) you can position yourself as a good and proper network marketer online.

Of course what I'm talking about is going back to school of sorts to the Renegade University. Don't worry, this is one of those free training centers, and you will learn how to add value to people online and thereby attract people too you instead of having to sell them on something.

I hope you understand the importance of proper training, attitude and the right tools because otherwise you might just find yourself chocking on the dust of people who do. For now I will leave you with this: Napoleon Hill once wrote a book "Think and Grow Rich" well in this digital world of ours it should be "LEARN and Grow Rich"

Friday, July 17, 2009

Twitter this past week

Twitter for the few left who don't know is a site where you simply get 140 characters to "tweet" about what ever the heck you're up to. There isn't much more to it than that, unless of course you took notice of the sheer number of people addicted to twittering anything and everything. Some people are even trying out in the tub, though with a sad ending.

This week has been an interesting one for the folks at twitter and not just because of people and laptops in bathtubs. Bruno, staring the man who assassinated comedy, opened last friday to some wonderful projected numbers. Then the people who saw it on the friday whipped out their mobile weapons and that simple little 140 character limit took a serious toll on Bruno's numbers, in fact they wound up under their initial estimation by approximately one million dollars. Either way you look at it, that's a whole lot shy.

This past week also saw the report by a 15 years and 7 month old English lad make financial headlines - The world according to Matthew Robson aged 15 and a half - talking about the social habits of teens form their use of phones as instant messaging devices to using game consoles as home phones and even saying, "twitter was aimed at adults." which many people took as "twitter is for old people." Being the ripe old age of 22 myself I have no idea really what he means, my tweets don't cost, either way the kid is now the "talk of Tokyo" and could wind up as a force to be reckoned with later in his life.

Twitter was also hacked this past month and the hacker sent the files they got straight to the folks at the Tech Crunch blogs. Yes it raised some questions about "cloud computing" but what I found reading through the articles was this: The people behind Twitter are in no way putzing around, there's no doubting it, they have a detailed plan to be the "pulse of the planet" and they want no one, not even their investors, to get in the way. Powerful stuff there.

I hope by now it's dawning on you, If you're in any kind of business and not using at least a few parts of the social media scene then, WHAT"S WRONG WITH YOU? Sure you can post signs and fliers or if you're a little savvy you can use PayPerClick advertising but why would you when things like Twitter and Youtube (to name a few) are some of the most powerful forces on the internet, or interwebs for some. They provide a massive sharing of information with little to no cost at all.

One of the more important tips in business is to know where the people are, what they're doing and where they're going. Well they're going in droves to twitter.

Now If you'll excuse me I have to go watch BHO's broadcast in second life and read some more about customer buying cycles while listening to people whack metal poles around or set off fireworks in the field behind my house.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Bill Maher, North America and My Own Luck

Green pools.

To the average person who knows me that might mean a salt waster pool maintained by rain water and solar heating. I wish that was the case here. If it wasn't for a little tie in here this post would be something to see on my other super fun blog As Seen on TV. In Arizona with all the abandoned homes there are many pools that are going untouched, uncleaned and unused. That is with the exception of the algae and mosquitoes. The only answer they've come up with is introducing a species of mosquito easting fish that will apparently kill off the indigenous fish if introduced into the wild. Well at least I'm not the only one to whom this sounds totally asinine. But perhaps Bill is right and the fish are the perfect metaphor for the US today, to fix the problem throw something worse at it and hope for the best.

Now I'm not claiming that our Canadian Politicians are any better, in fact it's abundantly clear to me that from the time I was eight years old I've known more about sustainable development and environmental technologies than any of them. But perhaps that's just the luck of having my parents.

I'd say the moral here is you really can't wait for a government solution to anything, most of those people aren't fit to run their own lives let alone the lives of anyone else. By the time a solution comes from the government it comes in the form of the killer fish I mentioned above. It's not that Governments are inherently bad, governments are people and the people are governments after all, but so often our elected officials don't understand the choices they make... at all.

Once again the bottom line here is make your own solutions. Figure out your problem in all its' forms. Just remember, like they said in men in black - the first one - "A person is smart, people are dumb stupid and panicky." Hopefully you took that as a good thing.

Monday, July 13, 2009

It's been a while...

I saw an interview on The Hour the other night with Eckhart Tolle where he talked about his books on being in the now, at one point he mentions a zen master watching an Olympiad try his hardest and not succeed and afterwords the zen master says "his desire to win robs him of his power"

On this side of the world that statement seems to contradict what we've been taught over the years of our lives, in fact I've had people wonder just what the hell I'm saying when I mention the zen master. For those who don't know Eckhart wrote a little book by the name of The Power of Now and it deals with the idea of staying in the moment and not focusing too much on the future or the past. Instead Just Stay focused on where you are and what you have to do right now, not a week from now, not a day from now, not even an hour from now. Focus on what needs to be accomplished and you will see it happen.

for the majority of my life so far I've been conditioned (possibly not unlike yourself) to worry and plan and prepare for the future while a plan is good it needs to be open to change, for instance say you have what is commonly referred to as a five year plan. and say for years one and two things go smoothly. Well now part way through year three you break your leg (or other large bone) what happens? Does your plan dictate that you keep marching on or do you put it on hold? It's really up to you in the end, people are comfortable with either idea or may have other options. Bottom line here is you could have the best laid plan but life finds a way to through a hiccup your way once in a while.

I want to leave with a little exercise for anyone reading this. The next time you put in place some thing, some plan, some event that you're sure will help you along in some way shape or form, Or even if something pops up to hinder you just STOP for a moment, take a breath and say to yourself "we'll see."

Is that going to help anyone? We'll see...