Healthy Business » Motivation

Team building – why people join this business

wbhawkins — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:00:35 +0000

Your reason for joining us is important to know!

Another really good person joined my team at Healthy Business this week. She is someone I have known for two years or so through a business we worked in together. She came to a focus group I ran to get people’s feedback about the business and she asked about the business at the event. My new team member joined for a number of reasons which included earning extra money, to meet new people and to reach her full potential, amongst others.

Although I introduced her to the business, I have not done this on my own. My sister-in-law has spent a lot of time with her, talking to her about what she wants to achieve and helping her to make the right decision for her. That’s another aspect of this business which I like. Although I am running my own business, I’m not running it on my own. There is a huge amount of support and team spirit which is unusual in many of the businesses I have worked in over the years.

People join for different reasons which might be for extra income, or the desire to help other people, for example. But, the fact is that the people who do well have their ‘reason why’ instilled in all of their activities. If they are not clear why they are putting in the effort, they will find it more challenging to succeed.

Recently, I wrote a page about why people join this business which, I hope, puts the beauty of this business into perspective of the everyday realities of our daily working lives.

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What it feels like to be in a royalty business

wbhawkins — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:48:32 +0000

Someone keeps writing me cheques

When you start a business you have to do many things to take it from conception to birth to growth to maturity. My business has just gone beyond conception and it has been born. This was marked by the first sales of the business and the first bonus cheque to come into my bank account this month.

It was a small cheque but a significant one. It marked the start of the royalty-based business I have started. Royalties are a fabulous result of people buying your products over and over again. If you are a successful artist, you will know what this feels like. You do something once and well. People continue to buy your product and you keep receiving a royalty. That’s why bands want to release catchy Christmas songs. Every time a shop plays ‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby, the person who owns the rights to the song gets a royalty. Year in, year out.

So, running a business which receives royalties from the efforts that you have put in feels great because if you put the effort it, the company keeps rewarding that effort. It’s not like pay which gets paid regularly in most jobs and stays the same no matter how hard you work. Royalties keep on coming in and growing as long as you keep putting the effort in.

But, more importantly, this business feels great because by helping people with either your products or by helping them to grow their business, you get rewarded handsomely. But this is no ‘get rich quick scheme’. No, this is far deeper than that. This is a business which continues to grow even if you continue to work a consistent 10 hours or more a week.

A royalty business is not for everyone but it is for those who understand that royalties keep coming in while you are sleeping, on holiday or helping people.

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What type of people start network marketing businesses?

wbhawkins — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:23:22 +0000

All types of people succeed in Forever

It never ceases to amaze me how many different types of people start network marketing businesses. I first really understood just how diverse the backgrounds of the successful people in Forever Living are when I went to a ‘Success Day’ in Leeds recently. (A ‘Success Day’, by the way is a monthly event in different locations around the country where the company recognises the achievements of its people).

At the event, I made a point of being introduced to as many people as I could who are already in the business and who are doing well. I met one inspirational woman who had been a doctor in a hospital but had left the profession to pursue developing her Forever Living business which she was doing very successfully.

I another woman who was doing very well and had reached a senior level within the business after leaving university and being introduced to the business by her mother. One of the presenters in the day had been a ’shelf stacker’ in a supermarket and is now one of the leading people in the business. Another speaker had been in a band in the 1960’s with a hit that reached number seven in the charts above The Beatles, who then went into academia and had decided to leave to pursue his Forever Living business full time.

My sister-in-law, Cora, also introduced me to the managing director of the business, Bob Parker, who still runs his own Forever Living business, who was a very approachable man which is typical of the type of people within the business. Unlike many people in traditional companies, the people in Forever Living are happy to share their expertise in being successful in the business. In addition, their are no ‘big egos’ which makes for a more inclusive feeling in the business. This is part of the ethos.

So, you can probably see that there many people in the business from all types of backgrounds that succeed in this business. You don’t need to be a brain surgeon or a sales superstar to do well. Everyone who succeeds in the business follows a simple marketing plan and follows three principles of network marketing. I will explain these principles in my next blog entry.

An article I read today about the personality of some network marketers makes for interesting readers. It’s by Dr Robin Rushlo. I am not sure it is entirely true but it gives an insight into how energetic some people are in network marketing.

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Why people in network marketing are so happy

wbhawkins — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:29:14 +0000

Being happy is encouraged

From the outside, people you may know who run their own network marketing based businesses probably appear to be highly enthusiastic about what they do. You might even think that this enthusiasm is evangelical in its fervour. I have heard that some people think that people in network marketing are “brainwashed”. They are keen, effervescent and highly motivated.

To many people, this enthusiasm seems odd. Our culture sometimes discourages people from being overtly enthusiastic about their work. Occasionally, I hear people comment about anyone who smiles a lot. “What’s wrong with him or her?” “Why are they smiling all of the time?”

I have just started my own network marketing business and I did it for very good reasons. I have spent many years working in large or medium sized businesses which include the British Army, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard. Much of my business career has been disappointing in terms of the level of the leadership, management and enthusiasm. I have had moments of great fun in my working career but I can count the number of years where I was truly happy at work on one hand.

Most of the rest of the time was miserable. I was expected to work hard and be grateful that I was working in such a well-known business. Or the business had employed me to do something which turned out to be impossible to achieve because they had not appreciated just what was needed to make it feasible. Sometimes, I was given a target to achieve to which a bonus was payable when it was achieved and exceeded only to be disappointed when, at the last moment, it was denied to me despite having beaten my targets. Working in corporate life became increasingly dissatisfying and my morale was often low.

Contrast that to the network marketing business I have joined and started, Forever Living. The team of which I am part is full of enthusiastic people who love what they do. They like their products. They enjoy helping other people and they enjoy the support and enthusiasm that the business they work with shows towards them.

But, more importantly, having talked to lots of successful people in Forever Living, I began to realise why they are so happy. The products and the company are excellent, yes, but there is more to their enthusiasm than meets the eye. I realised that the reason they are so happy is that they are very clear about why they are running their independent businesses. They run their businesses to help them achieve their dreams which might be a great holiday each year, financial independence, putting their children through good schools, international travel or just having more time with their families. They are happy because they make the choices about their lives and what they want to do with them.

Contrast that with traditional businesses or workplaces which provide you with a way to get through each month and which are often filled with people who care little for you. I know where I would rather work.

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The Reason Why

wbhawkins — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:06:34 +0000

It's out there and I'm going to get it

Starting your own business is a brilliantly brave thing to do. Most entrepreneurs make calculated risks about their business start up or business take over which, from the outside, can seem like madness to employees.

I have started several businesses and, I admit, all of them have been failures so far. I started a cycle tours company which broke even on its first tour and broke up the weekend afterwards. I started to sell wine for a local vineyard but I could not make enough money to make it worthwhile. I started an online delicatessen which was getting sales but which wasn’t making profits. I gave up my full-time job to start a business with three other guys to train IT professionals over the internet which got great clients but not enough of them.

I lost money in all of them and I gained a whole load of experience, skills and lessons which I could never have done if I had just read about running a business. I failed magnificently.

At this point, I should have given up. But, no, I was inspired. I was lucky enough to spend six weeks working out in India at the end of 2008, training staff in a mobile phone company’s call centre. It was inspiring to see a country where the young people I was training were hugely ambitious and keen. Despite the contrasting poverty and wealth in the country, I saw how people were doing their utmost to get off their backsides and do something about their lives.

At the same time,I was working alongside an Irishman, who, as it happened, had also come out of running his own unsuccessful business. In our quiet moments during the courses we were co-teaching, we used to talk about our experiences. They were surprisingly similar. We both had debts, we had both lost money and we had put our family relationships to the test.

Nevertheless, the two of us were still determined to come out of our challenging time in our own businesses fighting. And it was at this point, that I became far more clear about my future than I had ever been before starting my own businesses. So, did my Irish cohort. We started reading business books and swapping ideas from them. We discussed types of businesses we would like to be in. We laughed at some of the decisions we had made in our own businesses.

But all the while, we were training numbers of keen students how to improve their ‘game’ at work bit by bit to make a huge impact on themselves and the business. And I loved every minute of it. Inspiring people to do better is one of the most incredible feelings.

I had not really considered network marketing before I was in India last year. Cora, my sister-in-law, had built her network marketing business for years and I had been keen to hear how she was progressing. But, it had never seriously occurred to me to get involved until I went along to a business presentation about it and it dawned on me just how incredible the strategy is for developing a sustainable, profitable and enormous business which has a start up cost of about £200.

So, here I am now. I have signed the paperwork and I have started to build a list of people to contact about the opportunity which network marketing offers to start a business which will transform their lives. It’s unconventional but that’s good. I like unconventional and I am wildly excited about this business. Because, finally, I have found a way that will allow me to keep focused on why I will put in the groundwork to make my dreams happen.

My other business ventures were training grounds for this adventure. My goals are clear and the way to achieve them is here. It might be a rollercoaster of a ride but I just have to keep focused on why I am doing it to succeed.

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Just doing it

wbhawkins — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:22:15 +0000

Just getting on with it is liberating

I have procrastinated for far too long. Five years, in fact. I have watched, listened and spoken with my sister-in-law about her business for so long that I just got to the point where I could not see why I should not join her in the business.

My sister-in-law, Cora McKeown, has steadily and steadfastly developed her business from almost nothing into a full-time business which is set to make her very wealthy in more ways than just financially. Cora has developed from being a highly qualified and experienced nurse into a highly motivated businesswoman and leader in five years.

Her business is based around two aspects: a) health and nutrition/wellness industry b) coaching and leadership. It’s a business which is part of a larger organisation, Forever Living, that is growing enormously and which has an utterly different way of doing business than the ‘traditional businesses’ where many of us work today.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to write about this business and my part in it. It’s going to be tough. I am going to have to unlearn lots of things that traditional businesses do as the norm and which I do a second nature which will not be relevant in this business.

I am excited and apprehensive as I have ever been about this and I will share why over the coming weeks.

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