May 17, 2009

Yes, But I’m Not Interested in Residual Income

: India.Arie via last.fm

These were the words uttered to me by a young man to whom I had been speaking about my business opportunity. I admit that I was so surprised that I just said “OK, bye”. In retrospect I should have asked him just what he thought residual income was! After all, who wouldn’t want income that you work for once and continue to make month after month and year after year?

Well here is a short tutorial for those who don’t know or understand what residual income is.

Residual income is also know as passive or recurring income- passive because once you do the work that one time(sign a new business partner , sell an autoship for a product, or sign someone to a membership program) the money that’s generated from that one transaction will continue to be paid to you at specified intervals.

Imagine that you work at an Exxon gas station where you provide such good customer service that people actually return to this location because of you. Chances are that you still only earn your $10 hourly salary no matter how much your loyal customers spend. This is what residual income is not, even if you were to earn a bonus based on your hard work, you would only earn it once.

Now lets pretend that you are a bass player. One day you’re at the home of a friend who is working on a demo that he hopes to present to a popular young singer (like India Arie maybe), and he asks you to lay the bass line. The song is good enough to not only get on the new album, but it becomes a hit, and… they keep your bass line. Guess what? Suddenly, every four months or so, you’re getting a royalty check from this work that you did one time, just sitting at a friend’s house.

What’s the difference between the Rolling Stones and The Temptations? Publishing. The Temptations did not write their own songs and missed out on millions in publishing, while the Stones wrote and performed their own music and go to the bank every time anyone uses a snippet of a song for commercials, cover tunes, movies etc.

So what if you aren’t a songwriter, artist, or author? How do you create residual income? Well you can invest in the stock market directly or through a mutual. Or you can get into a business that pays you month after month and year after year on the work that you do once.

Frankly, I can’t think of why anyone would say that they are not interested in residual income, unless of course they simply have no idea what it is.

What are you doing to create residual income? Yes feel free to leave your wonderful business opportunity links -:)

Denise Lee

May 9, 2009

Do I Need A Crash Course In Love?

The Love Course

As you know from reading my last post , my relationship with love has been less than stellar. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t come a long way from the kid who cried herself to sleep at night cause her Daddy lived somewhere else, but I did bring a lot of baggage on the journey – and I think that I may still have at least one train case with me (admit it, you have no idea what a train case is do you?).

When my blogging sister Lucy Lopez suggested that I try her Love Course, I jumped at the chance. The Love Course promises to (in Lucy’s words) :

Explain some of the most perplexing things about ‘love’
De-myth-ify the most commonly held myths about love and relationships
Lead you gently through a series of questions, exercises, meditations and visualizations to help you identify and sort through your own beliefs, doubts, (mis)understandings and expectations about love
Give you many opportunities to reflect on and re-assess your dominant and conscious as well as subtle and subconscious thoughts, words and behaviours that characterize your relationships
Teach you specific skills to help you overcome unloving habits of thought, speech and behaviour
Help you build the confidence you need to love effortlessly, freely and fully.

Over the next 6 weeks I will immerse myself in LOVE and share the experience with you. In the meantime do visit Lucy at www. lucylopez.net.

Denise Lee

May 4, 2009

If You’re Serious About Finding A Job, Don’t Do This…

In the average month there are at least 300 resumes that come to me via email. I am writing this post as a service to those of you who are unemployed or underpaid and are seeking gainful employment. If you know someone who is currently job hunting, please ,please pass these tips on; let them know that if they are serious about finding a job:

DO NOT have inappropriate music (I don’t care if it’s rap,rock, country or gospel) on your phone message. After all why should a recruiter have to listen to 30 seconds or more of your favorite song before they can leave you a message about the job that you applied for? Just yesterday, a recruiter I know was treated to” u got one more time to feel on my booty, you’re turning me on” and then (this is the same call mind you) he was played an entire song (Angel Of Mine) and finally there was a beep; just a beep no message. He hung up, because he felt that this person does not really want a job, if they did they would have taken a few moments to ensure that their message to incoming callers was an appropriate one – end of story.
While I am on the subject of voicemail, let me just say that the serious job seeker will ensure that their mailbox is set up correctly, and that it is never so full that a prospective employer cannot leave a message.
Don’t save your resume as resume.doc or some other generic title. You want your resume to stand out in all of it’s glory and this is just another one of those little things that can make the difference between getting a second call and being buried in a pile of resumes named resume_2008.doc .
Do not use your current personal email address on your resume, especially when said email address is sizzlingblonde@hotmail.com or hotnbothered@yahoo.com. Don’t use any email address that describes your sexual proclivities, race, ethnicity, or political orientation. You never get a second chance to make that first impression, so don’t blow it with an email address that sends the wrong message about you.
DON’T send your resume in a format that is not widely used . Send a .doc or .pdf or even .txt file; there just aren’t that many businesses using WordPerfect or Microsoft Works. To avoid sending your resume in a format that will never be opened, go out to openoffice.org and download a free office suite.
If you don’t actually have an “Objective” or can’t think of an objective to put on your resume then just don’t put an objective. Let me show you what I mean about objectives that don’t improve your chances:
1. Objective: To obtain a career with advancement in the company.
2. Objective: To get a job.
3. To get a job at a company that I can retire from
Don’t get me wrong on this one, I think that proper English is a beautiful thing. Actually I am so passionate about good writing that I won’t read certain authors because I just don’t enjoy their stilted writing. Here’s the thing, I have read some cover letters that were nothing but “words of the day” strung together to create sentences. Please don’t write a cover letter that requires a Thesaurus. Don’t over do it to the point where your cover letter doesn’t make any sense.
This is the epitome of “tacky” (yes I realize the use of this one word exposes my age) and unprofessional: sending a copy of your resume and cover letter to 2 or more companies/recruiters at once and not even using bcc. Why i s this a bad thing? It reeks of desperation and throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks. I certainly won’t respond to you, because chances are you aren’t organized enough to know who I am. And if you are applying for a job as (for example) an administrative assistant and you can’t organize your own job search, then how can I expect you to organize my office?
Every prospective employer and recruiter out there can tell that you are not serious about your job search when you neglect to put an area code on your phone number. Not in your cover letter, not on your resume, not in your email – no area code anywhere. It’s 2009 , everyone has an area code, here in the Atlanta area we have 3 area codes which renders the number 555-1212 totally useless to me even if it comes with an address.

Help me to finish this post by providing me with number ten and I will give you a free copy of the “Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D. Wattles.

Leave a comment I want to know what you think.

Denise Lee

April 23, 2009

What is a Funded Proposal & Why Should You Care?

One of the ways to make money online is teaching a skill to others – from how to write a business plan to how to attract prospects to your opportunity, knowledge products are big business. This video discusses what a funded proposal is and why you as a marketer should drop what you are doing right now and get on this train. Watch the video and leave me your thoughts!

Denise Lee

April 21, 2009

Is Retirement At 65 The Final Fantasy?

: Image by k4dordy via Flickr

I’ve been working since I joined the Marine Corps at age 17. Prior to age 46, I had only worked at four (4) jobs (can you imagine? what a dinosaur I am) , five if you include my part time job at Blockbuster back in the 80s. I thought that was the way to show loyalty and end up with a nice retirement package at age 65.

It worked for my Mom (not so much for my Dad he died at age 60, more on that next post), so I figured that if I played my cards right I would be able to bounce the grandchildren on my knee while sitting on the front porch of the finest retirement home (which my son Rahsheen has been promising to place me in for years-:).

I was laid off at age 46 and recently I have spoken to more and more “middle-aged” men and women who have also been laid off in their later years; and it got me thinking is retirement by age 65 the final fantasy? More fallacy than actual truth? Something that only happens for a small percentage of the population?

As a network marketer here is where I am supposed to tell you about the 4 year vs the 40 year plan, so yes do consider a home-based business as a way to build retirement income. Network marketing will build your retirement nest egg a lot faster than a corporate job, as long as you are willing to work hard at it and get through the ups and downs.

If your former job had a pension plan or you put money into a 401K, please, do not spend the money on a new car, a boat or your bills! You will place retirement that much farther out of your reach because once your savings are gone they are gone – and if you are not over 59, the biggest portion will be going to the IRS and not to you (sucks, I know).

Holding on to and reinvesting your retirement funds rather than spending that money to survive right now, will ensure that you are able to retire before you’re 80 with a substantial monthly income.

Yes the old idea of working for one company for 40 years and retiring at 65 is the final fantasy of my generation, but do not despair. Our talents, skills, and experience will ensure that we get another job. But opening ourselves to the other options out there – internet marketing, home-based businesses, small businesses – will once again make retirement a reality for this generation. Although, if you find something that you totally love doing, and affords you luxury cruises and other great vacations, you may say instead “Why would I want to retire?”

So what do you think, is retirement a thing of the past? Leave a comment!

Denise Lee

April 14, 2009

The Great Surrender| Learning How To Let Go

: Image via Wikipedia

In ” Living the Science of the Mind” author Ernest Holmes introduces the idea that in our search for that which makes us “whole and happy”, “safe and secure” and confident that we will “live forever somewhere” it would be wise to follow the rules that Jesus laid down for us. One of the most important in this case being “he that loseth his life for my sake, will find it”.

This, of course, means different things to different people. I cannot tell you what it ought to mean to you, but I can tell you that in this recession, there are many who need to hear this.

Once upon a time I thought that I was losing everything – the American Express Gold card with unlimited spending, my road trip mini-van with built in DVD player, my great credit score, and the hidden wealth in my 401K. This was like death for me, my credit worthiness was so important, my possessions were so important.

In my despair, I received a revelation – there is life and there is stuff . My stuff did not define my life, my stuff did not define me.

I realized that I had to shed these things that only created noise in my life, so that I could find the part of God that lives in me. I had to turn from the outer to the inner and find peace and abundance within myself.

This led me to believe that the first step on the path to success is surrender. Ernest Holmes mentions, this surrender does not mean that we should live in poverty or limitation, but that “when we put our trust in external things alone we are certain to become disillusioned, for a person may have a fortune one day and lose it the next; he may have a position of high power and suddenly lose all public acclaim”.

The Great Surrender means to let go of all the things that have gotten between you and your Spiritual self. To release the things that you thought put you above the rest of humanity. Sometimes we have to be stripped of just about everything before we find the true meaning and purpose of our life.

Do you remember that song by Kenny Rogers “The Gambler” where he says “You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run”? Our Father has promised us a whole and complete life, a life without struggle, a life of abundance. But when we choose to fight for the unnecessary things in life, we effectively reduce our ability to attain these blessings.

“Fear not little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on surrender and learning to let go, please leave a comment whether you agree or disagree with me.

Denise Lee

April 7, 2009

Manymoon & Me – Getting Things Done

I am the most disorganized entrepreneur on the planet. I have great ideas that I never actually do anything about since I am always too busy to do what I should be doing (did that make sense to you? cause I think I just confused myself). I sometimes feel like I am just spinning my wheels, accomplishing nothing, and definitely not making good use of the 24 hours that I am gifted with each day.

My son Rahsheen started writing about GTD over a year ago and did of course introduce me to every single tool and application that he came across. I finally made the switch to GMAIL (since Comcast was frickin useless to me as a business owner) and adopted Google Docs, Mozy, and My DropBox as my “cloud computing” tools.

Unfortunately, applications are only as good as the person using them and my self-diagnosed ADD causes me to forget what I should be doing and even where I stored my task list! I would keep notepad open and write my thoughts, ideas and daily tasks there - I now have 50 or more of these lists orphaned on all the laptops that I have used in the past year ( and one or two on Google Docs). Needless to say, I have not been getting very many things done.

Recently Rahsheen mentioned Manymoon in passing and I decided to give it a shot. Manymoon “allows you to track your tasks and projects online”, so it’s basically project management software, but not as cumbersome as a tool like Microsoft Project for example. At the time I had just taken on several projects and was in a state of confusion as to what I should be doing for each and when /how I would get them done. I took a look at Manymoon found it aesthetically pleasing and created a project and some tasks but had some trouble , so I sent them feedback. I was pleased when they responded several times via email ( but I had already determined that the trouble was due to operator error).

Two weeks ago I got an email from Amit Kulkarni at Manymoon customer service asking if I was interested in seeing a demo of the new version that they were working on. Of course I said “Yes” and he called me late on a Friday afternoon to do a demo. He showed us (Rahsheen was jealous and got on the phone with me -:) the different options they were considering and asked us which changes we found more useful and what we liked or disliked about the various designs.

Let me stop here to explain why I am telling you all of this. If you are a marketer of any sort, what Amit did should resonate with you. He made a personal call to me an average (and heretofore unknown) user of his internet product, showed me things that others hadn’t seen yet, made me feel that the company really cared what I thought about the product, and gave me a say in the future design and therefore direction of Manymoon! Because he involved me in the creative process I am now more interested in the success of the product, and definitely more likely to use it and tell friends and co-workers about it!

Right now I am using Manymoon to get focused, I create projects, assign tasks to each project assign people to each task and so on. The cool thing is that Manymoon integrates with Google Apps, so I can pull documents over from Google Docs and add tasks to Google calendar. Not only that, but I can send emails to task@manymoon.com and the email shows up as a task, I can use this for marketing, keeping track of prospects, and keeping on top of emails that require some action on my part. That’s what my world needs now, seamless integration so that I can finally get things done.

As someone who has a home-based business, a full-time job, and multiple blogging duties, Manymoon is a great addition to my bag of tricks. Imagine what you can do with Manymoon and go do it!

Denise Lee

April 2, 2009

How Can I Work At Home If I Have A Full-Time Job?

: Image via Wikipedia

You’ve decided to start building that business from home , you have a work schedule, you’ve got a marketing plan, you have your training schedule, you are so ready to make this money – then it hits you, you have a job already, when are you going to find time to work your plan? Don’t worry, I was in the same boat and I also asked myself:

How Can I Work At Home If I Have A Full-Time Job?

The answer was “where there is a will, there is a way” and I told myself that when I found that way I would share it with everyone else who struggles with the same issue. In addition to a will, you do need a WHY, I know,I know everyone tells you this. You see, a WHY is your reason for going through the pain of building a business, it will keep you going when what you really want to do is kiss your biz goodbye. If you don’t have one, trust me you will convince yourself that your job is all you need, and they are going to keep you around until you die or retire and heck you don’t really mind your commute anyway. Then you’ll slowly quit working your business and before you know it you won’t be in business anymore.

“Empty the coins of your purse into your mind and your mind will fill your purse with coins.” – Benjamin Franklin

I have a two hour commute each way. I could spend my commute reading a romance novel, the latest Dean Koontz, or re-reading one of my favorite Stephen King novels; but I don’t. Instead I carry at least 1 book ( right now I am reading 3 “The Greatest Salesman in the World“, “Think and Grow Rich“, and The SEOBook). I also have an mp3 player, I put some music on it but I rarely listen to the music, instead I listen to Jerry Clark’s Standing On The Shoulders of Giants interviews, Jack Canfield, team training calls, and the 20 Simpleology 1 lessons. As I get new audios I remove the music and add the good stuff. So training can be done on your commute, keep books, cds, and audios in your bag or in your car ( well don’t read in the car unless you’re stuck in traffic, that would not be a good thing).

Communication & Marketing

You’re out and about in the world, use that time well. As far as marketing I keep flyers, postcards and business cards on my person at all times. I try to leave something behind everywhere I go, and also I just never know who I might meet and what need they have that I can fill.

To avoid storing documents on my work computer, I use Google Docs. You can start working on something at home , upload it to Google Docs and finish it at work without having to download it.I write many of my blog posts in Google Docs and transfer them later. It makes your training material, leads spreadsheets, ads etc. accessible from any computer with internet access. Something else I love is My Dropbox I can store ebooks, audios and other documents there and share them with my team, I think it’s pretty awesome.

On my lunch hour (when I have one that is) I open my leads list in Google docs, take my laptop to a private place and call a couple of people. Or I will spend 30 minutes or so responding to inquiries that I have received overnight.

After dinner, usually around six, I dedicate some time to calling new leads and following up with those who asked me to (the fortune is in the follow up). I only spend two hours on this, 8 to 10 is family time, no exceptions. We do all have laptops so I can drop Entrecards, chat on Facebook and Twitter and still be with the people I like the mostest.

A schedule keeps you from trying to do your business only on the weekends, you are busy on the weekends and so are many of your prospects. So while I do follow-ups and marketing on the weekend, I carve out the time during the week so that I am not doing my business totally on the weekend ( and so that if I do no business on the weekend I don’ feel guilty).

Are you a business owner who has a job? What other tips do you have for us?

Denise Lee

March 23, 2009

7 Affirmations I Never Leave Home Without

affirmations do work

I use affirmations all of the time. I wish that I had known about them when I was young, chances are I did know, but did not care or did not believe ( I met a dude the other day who told me that karma doesn’t exist, he’s in his 20s give him time). If you are going to do affirmations remember that they do not work if you don’t think that they do, and also that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need. OK that’s a Rolling Stones song, but it applies anyway.

My all time favorite, never ever leave home without it. We were renovating our kitchen and I was looking for a stainless steel refrigerator back when stainless steel became popular again and I specifically wanted a side by side, ice and water dispenser etc etc. Well everything we looked at was 1500+ and being quite frugal I just was not about to spend that much on a refrigerator. We were out doing something or another one day and I was saying in my head “I expect the unexpected, my glorious good now comes to pass, spirit don’t let me miss a trick“. I had a hunch to go to yet another appliance store before we headed home, well what do ya know, they had my refrigerator (with a tiny, still can’t find it, scratch) so it was marked down to just over $600!
Recruiting and business building – I borrowed this one from another network marketer who’s famous but I can’t remember his name (LOL) and I don’t want to put the wrong name – “To my reality I now attract quality likeminded individuals who I can partner with to generate 6 figure results in the next 12 months“
Interviews, face to face presentations and stuff like that : “I am identified in love with the spirit of (person (s) name), God protects my interests and the divine idea now comes out of the situation“
Forgiveness – We like to say that nobody’s perfect all of the time, and for the times that you have been more than imperfect this does the trick. I like to call it a karmic cleansing, start by acknowledging that you made a mistake and accept responsibility for it. “I call on the law of forgiveness. I am free from mistakes and the consequences of mistakes. I am under grace and not under Karmic law”
Casting the Burden – Just lost your job, bill collectors calling, marriage crumbling, resenting everyone including your spouse, your former boss, and former co-workers who didn’t get laid off? Then you need to start by casting the burden so you can move on. “I cast this burden of (name your own poison here examples are lack, resentment, unhappiness) on the Christ within and go free (to have plenty, to be happy and harmonious etc)” So an actual affirmation woud read “I cast this burden of lack and resentment on the Christ within and go free to be loving, harmonious, happy and prosperous “
You know in Napoleon Hill’s Think & Grow Rich he emphasizes the need to be decisive, if you find yourself suffering from indecision and/or insecurity here are two affirmations that could save you:
1. “I am always under direct inspiration, I make right decisions quickly”
2. “I am fully equipped for the divine plan of my life”
Two of my favorites for success and prosperity. Notice it says ” Irresistible power and determination” how can the Universe possibly resist you?
1. I now draw from the universal substance with irresistible power and determination that which is mine by divine right
2. I give thanks that the millions which are mine by divine right now pour in and pile up under grace in perfect ways

Most of these come directly from the book “The Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn”; this book was not my introduction to metaphysics, but it came at a time when I was ready to receive the message. I had been laid off, been on many interviews and still no job, was about to lose my health insurance and was delirious most of the time from the flu. I read the book cover to cover and began to cast all those dang burdens immediately. Find even more affirmations in Florence’s book , but remember your cynical request will be answered in a like manner.

Oh and the house is mine , I’ll share that affirmation and the story behind it …next time.

What are your favorite affirmations? Care to share one with us?

Denise Lee

March 16, 2009

Does Phone Fear Leave You Cowering In a Corner?

: Image by zharth via Flickr

When working your home based business, do your hands tremble, like an alcoholic in delirium tremens, as you reach for the phone to make the first call of the day? Do you sweat in unmentionable places as you run through your prospecting spiel? Does every “No” or “Not Interested” bring you that much closer to just throwing in the towel on network marketing?

There’s a cure for that you know, and it doesn’t involve giving up on yourself or your dream of earning a full-time income from home. Have you ever heard “You’re too attached to the outcome” and wondered what the heck you should be attached to if not the outcome, or at least wondered what your upline was trying to tell you? Well thank goodness you found this post, because I am going to explain to you exactly what that means and how to get yourself detached and maybe even recruit some folks into your opportunity or sell some product.

Remove the “tele” from your marketing moniker

You are not a telemarketer, so don’t get on the phone sounding like one. You bring a lot of negative energy when you do that and your prospect is turned off before you can even get warmed up. So, rather than asking for your prospect (“Hello can I speak to George?”), assume that they are the person that answered the phone : “Hi George, it’s Monica how’s it going?”

Do you think that you’re in this business to make money?

If you believe in your heart that the purpose of your business is just to make money, then that right there, is your problem. The outcome that you’re attached to is earning money by marketing this product or enrolling this new business partner. You are oozing scammer slime and your prospect hears you drooling down that phone line.

Your special purpose ( as Steve Martin said in “The Jerk”) is to help people solve their problems – whether it’s a lack of money problem or a bad skin problem or a need to lose weight problem or a “my son is a teenager now and I want to spend time together before he heads off to college” problem.

Your special purpose is not to be the solution to their problem, or make your solution fit their problem, it’s simply to figure out what that problem is. So lets practice, you’re still talking to George. You’ve already told him that you’re calling him back to give him that information that he requested about starting his own business (or working at home or whatever). Now George is going to try to get you to launch straight into your pitch, but you need to pace yourself, because first you need to find out what George is all about and what makes him tick (because when you close him on this call or a follow up call, you will need to be able to push those buttons).

The next step in your prospecting call should be an easy give and take – a discovery process if you will, where you move the focus off the “sale” and put it on George and his problem. Is George currently working? What does he do? Does he like it? Why does he want to work from home? How much money does he want to make? What’s he going to do with all of that money? And so on, note that you should follow every answer from George with another question; this means you have to really listen to George and try to understand what he means (use a feedback technique “So George what I’m hearing is…”)

Sometimes you are able to determine fairly early on that you just do not have the solution to George’s problem, and that’s alright, that’s detachment.

That’s exactly what not being attached to the outcome means; especially in network and affiliate marketing where you have got to be “OK” with not being the solution to everyone’s problem.

Denise Lee Porter

faith,hope, crochet and anything else that\'s on my mind

Category Archives: Creating Wealth

Yes, But I’m Not Interested in Residual Income

Do I Need A Crash Course In Love?

If You’re Serious About Finding A Job, Don’t Do This…

What is a Funded Proposal & Why Should You Care?

Is Retirement At 65 The Final Fantasy?

The Great Surrender| Learning How To Let Go

In my despair, I received a revelation – there is life and there is stuff . My stuff did not define my life, my stuff did not define me.

How Can I Work At Home If I Have A Full-Time Job?

How Can I Work At Home If I Have A Full-Time Job?

“Empty the coins of your purse into your mind and your mind will fill your purse with coins.” – Benjamin Franklin

Communication & Marketing

7 Affirmations I Never Leave Home Without

Does Phone Fear Leave You Cowering In a Corner?

Remove the “tele” from your marketing moniker

Do you think that you’re in this business to make money?

That’s exactly what not being attached to the outcome means; especially in network and affiliate marketing where you have got to be “OK” with not being the solution to everyone’s problem.