Healthy Business » business

Seeking to understand is a lesson in life

wbhawkins — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:03:05 +0000

Seek to understand and you will be more effective

It is always surprising to hear people when they don’t want to learn how to do something which will benefit them. Working with technology for the last twelve years has shown me that you have to keep learning and accept that it never stops. You are always learning because the technology keeps changing and improving.

Of course, when you learn, you begin to understand. Understanding means you have to listen. By listening you cut everything else out of your mind and absorb what you are hearing. The Army has a good acronym which is the basis of all of their training: ‘EDIP – Explain, Demonstrate, Impersonate, Practice‘. It’s simple and it works. By practicing, you transfer all of that ’stuff’ that you see and hear into your long term memory. When you do that, you become skilled and things make sense because you have gained experience.

To learn takes effort. To practice takes discipline. When you put the effort in and keep ‘at it’ new perspectives on your subject appear. This is when you ‘get it’. But you have to start with an attitude of seeking to understand. That simple phrase is one of the pillars of being effective in whatever you do in life.

It took me five years to ‘get’ this business. It took that long because I started off not wanting to understand how network marketing works. But, my sister-in-law persisted and I started to see how it works and I was amazed at its simplicity. This simplicity is often an aspect of the business which most people find suspicious about network marketing. Most people seem determined to make a simple plan complicated because they think it sounds better and gives them some sort of comfort.

Network marketing is designed to simple and replicable. Being replicable is what most people in traditional business want to avoid. They want to be unique. Being able to replicate the business is a cornerstone of network marketing. And understanding these and others principles is when you suddenly see how far you can take the business.

However, most people are very wary about network marketing. They have prejudices about it which are founded in activities which were made illegal thirty years ago. This stops people from wanting to understand about the business. They block it out. They think it is a ‘get rich quick scheme‘ when, in fact, with persistence, time and duplication this business is actually a ‘get rich slow business‘.

It’s shame. Because it is an amazing business strategy which can change your life. But, you have to understand it, drop your misinformed opinions and learn. It’s worth it.

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Network Marketing is so Web 2.0

wbhawkins — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:06:22 +0000

Network marketing was built for Web 2.0

If you read what’s happening in marketing, of which advertising is a part, then you will know that this world is changing dramatically. For example, no longer do we watch TV when we are told to watch it. We can record TV using our digital boxes and watch it when we can fit it into our busy lives. When we watch the show we recorded, we can whiz through the advertisements.

Print advertising is no longer as effective as it used to be. People are buying less newspapers and magazines, and it less than certain at best that your advertisement is going to have an impact. Telemarketing is getting blocked out by ‘telephone preference services’ and email is getting blocked by spam filters. Direct mail is getting placed directly into the bin (let’s hope it’s the recycling one).

So, the new phenomenon is called social media where friends, colleagues and contacts congregate online and share what’s going on in their lives, whether that’s telling the world what they are eating right now (I can see a tweet on my screen now from someone telling me they are eating bread, cheese & marmite and washing it down with a bottle of aloe vera drink!). Some people scoff at it as a waste of time. But, the reality is that it is becoming a major source of influence for many people.

Social media and the term ‘Web 2.0′ are all about the new capability of web sites and tools, as well as the desire of people to share thoughts, ideas and information with people they know. This is from where much of our influences in choices about products, people and services derive today. And, on that matter, this is not new. We have always spoken to our friends, family and contacts for their thoughts on their experiences on a product or service. It’s just that the internet now makes it much easier to reach to people than was previously possible.

Big companies with big marketing teams are now struggling to handle this new approach. They are all geared up to ‘interrupt’ our lives with email blasts, TV ads, direct mail, SMS, poster, inserts, wobblers, banner ads on web sites, people shoving poor quality newspapers in your hand in the street, and activities which were deemed normal in the past but which are now blocked out by people at the receiving end.

It’s now a recognised fact that about 70% of all products and services are researched on the internet today before they are purchased. People don’t go to a manufacturer’s site to find out whether a product or service is any good or not. Oh no. They ask their friends, they check out web sites, blogs and forums for opinions and reviews. They block out the traditional marketing from the manufacturer knowing that it is biased.

So, what has this got to do with network marketing? People scoff at network marketing as some sort of ghastly, brainwashed cult that sells products through illegal pyramid schemes. It could not be further from the truth. Like social media, network marketing is based upon people who know, like and trust you.

The business I am in, Forever Living, does not advertise its products and it does not sell them through high street shops. Our products sell through recommendation. Anyone who owns a business wants people to recommend their product or service because they know it is powerful, more powerful than some marketer saying their product is great so you should buy it.

Take last night, for instance. I spent some time last night with two people who came along to hear about my products. I knew one of them from work in the recent past. She’s a great person who knows me quite well. She brought a friend of hers along, who was lovely, with her to see what all the fuss was about who had never heard of our business and products.

I showed them our products, let then try them and talked about how they had helped other people. My old workmate, without prompting, said she knew someone who had used one of the aloe vera drinks we produce to help them with a problem with their digestion and it had worked. Another mutual friend has used our aloe propolis creme for a long standing skin condition on her face. She had told me that within three days the creme had started to make a positive difference to her skin.

That meeting last night with two people I know was all about knowing, liking and trusting people and their views. That is what successful network marketing businesses are built upon. Recommendation from your friends and contacts. It’s what marketing teams in big companies dream about and which they are failing to achieve through the ‘interruption techniques’ they have used until now to let you know about their product or service.

Networking marketing is powerful and relies upon good people recommending good products to people who know, like and trust them. People who own network marketing business understand ‘inbound marketing’ where they don’t rely on old marketing techniques to sell their products. They rely on trust and word of mouth which is exactly what social media and ‘web 2.0′ is all about.

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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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My First Recruit

wbhawkins — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:43:06 +0000

It's about who you know, like and trust

It has been about two weeks since I started working on my new business in earnest and I have learnt a lot already. It’s not easy but when it works (and it does work), it is the most satisfying feeling to experience success. My first success has come in the form of my first team member.

My team member is running his own business already and wants to run his Forever Living business in parallel to his vending enterprise. We worked together in a former life and we got on well. He had looked at the business five years ago but had not known anyone in the business to understand what it was really like.

He got in touch with me after I emailed him asking if he knew anyone who was looking for an opportunity to start their own business or to earn some extra income. He called me to catch up and my up-line manager, Cora, and I took him through the details of the business.

This business is really built upon people who know you, like you and trust you. I’m looking forward to working with my new team member again and helping him to reach his goals. This business will enable him to work around his existing commitments while he develops his retail sales and his own team.

I have now planned to run my first ‘product launch’ next week in conjunction with a new, local spa who have offered me their ‘relaxation room’ (which is fabulous) to show people our range of health, nutrition and well being products and presents.

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Three principles for success

wbhawkins — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:19:00 +0000

Follow the principles to succeed

I think it was Eddie Cochran who said that there are ‘three steps to heaven’. His three steps were finding a a girl to love, followed by getting her to fall in love with you and ending by kissing and holding her tight. It sounds easy and romantic.

But finding a girl to love is, generally, quite hard to do when you are young. Some people don’t achieve it at all. Many keep their girl for the shortest of times. Getting her to fall in love with you is the next challenge. How the heck do you do that? You take her out, make her laugh, make her feel special and hope one of these methods sticks, because you know that prize of her kiss is waiting for you when you succeed. Eddie Cochran knew that holding her tight was important because you have worked so darned and invested so much of yourself in the process that you don’t want to lose her. That would be a disaster.

In this business, there are three steps to heaven too. They sound easy. They are easy to understand. They make sense. But like anything, anyone following the principles needs to follow them religiously to get the prize.

The first success principle is ‘consistent effort‘. This business needs you to do certain things each day and everyday. You need to put the business in front of people every day through phone calls, meetings, presentations and training. By doing this, you make sure that you increase your chances of selling products and recruiting people to your team.

The next principle is ‘duplication‘. Over several decades, Forever Living has fine tuned a business model which is easily duplicable. That sounds odd to most people but it is a sound principle which ensures that the business model is easy to learn and to follow so that people can get going quickly when you recruit them and train them in the business.

Finally, you have to ‘give it enough time’. Most people think this business is either a get rich quick scheme. It’s not. You need to be patient and work it along building it up steadily through hard work and following the plan. That’s why many people drop out just at the point when they could have seen it grow hugely.

I am at the early stages of my business and I am already getting success. Following the plan takes discipline, dedication and some sacrifice. But when you have worked hard and remained patient you will reach that goal which compelled you to start the business.

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How network marketing works

wbhawkins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:23:36 +0000

Network marketing is about knowing, liking and trusting people

Networking is part of my being. It is part of most people’s way of life but they often fail to realise this because they just do it everyday. When you work with someone for a number of years, you get to know them. When you go to school with someone, you spend six to eight hours, at least, with them every day and you soon get to know them and they get to know you too. Over a period of time, you understand their habits, their passions and dislikes, their taste in music, fashion, food and friends. It’s natural.

Every week, I attend a business networking breakfast at a hotel where a group of us get together and talk about our businesses. One of the group gets up each week and gives presentation about their business and how they can help people. In addition, one person gives a quick ‘learning point’ about something they believe will be applicable to everyone around the table in their businesses. There is time to chat over our breakfast with whomever you are sitting next to and to hear their news. The group is diverse. There are solicitors, health and safety experts, accountants, web specialists, printers, financial experts, HR specialists and sales training experts.

I have been going to this for over six months and it has been interesting to see how many people in the group stick with the networking group and how many drop out. Most have stayed the course but some have dropped out. Those that have dropped out of the group left because they were not getting any business from it, as far as they could see. But, the funny thing is that after a few months of slow business, the group has started to increase the amount of business beig carried out.

The reason is clear. It is down to the simple fact that we are starting to get to know, like and trust each other. Those that have persisted with the early mornings have started to gain from it. The level of humour and noise has increased as people have begun to understand each other. People have done business amongst themselves and they have seen how professional they have been with them and so they now feel comfortable to refer them to their own contacts.

Some people that come to the group expecting instant business have totally missed how networking works. They think that they need to sell to everyone around the table. But the opportunity for business is not immediately at the table. The opportunity is with the contacts of the people at the table. The hard earned contacts of the people at the table will not be easily handed over without that person knowing that you are a trustworthy person.

When you are known, liked and trusted then you will find that your persistence with networking will bring you business which is profitable, sustainable and strong. And that is why people who have good reputations and who have good contacts and networks do well in companies like Forever Living. They succeed because they contribute to their network by helping people first and foremost. They don’t push their products or services onto people. They listen to people and understand people’s circumstances and recommend people who can help them if they cannot. Network marketers are in it for the long term and not just for a quick buck.

So, when someone approaches you with their network marketing business, it is probably someone you know well and you probably like and trust them. So don’t dismiss them as just someone trying to sell you something. They are doing something which is far deeper than that. They are paying you a great compliment because they know, like and trust you and would never approach you with something which they did not believe was anything but the best.

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Why people are suspicious of network marketing

wbhawkins — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:26:26 +0000

People are prepared to accept the grind of life but not that there is an honest alternative

It’s a funny thing, the human mind. It’s prepared to accept and reject the most bizarre things sometimes.

For example, some people have faith in their god. I admire that because it shows that people are strong minded and they believe in something. They will have moments of doubt about their beliefs, of course, but they fall back on their values, their faith and their community to help them keep on track.

In our working lives, we are educated, trained and conditioned to work in a routine that revolves around our societies working in a routine which, in general, a day which starts at about 9am and finishes at about 5pm.

To get to our places of work or study, we all set off at about the same time and try to get through an infrastructure which cannot cope with the numbers of people who want to get through a space designed for fewer numbers. This is why traffic jams occur at the same time and place each day, and which many people just sit through because they think they have no other alternative to this routine. People accept this bizarre waste of time and only feel able to express their exasperation by honking their horn or swearing at other people in the same jam.

And yet, with small adjustments to your daily routine, you can travel the same way to work in much less time, be more productive at work and feel less stressed by simply, say, working from home for an hour in the morning when you would normally be in the car thereby missing the ‘rush hour’. Try it. If you have a job which allows a little flexibility then ask for it. It will change your life in a small but significant way.

When it comes to network marketing or ‘team marketing’ people dismiss it as ‘pyramid selling’. Their perception of network marketing is one of innocent or vulnerable people buying a stack of products from the top of the ‘pyramid’ and desperately trying to sell it to people lower than them in the pyramid. That could not be further from the truth.

Network marketing is a distribution strategy which cuts out the traditional route that products take to reach their market from the manufacturer such as agents, distributors, wholesalers, sales people and retailers and which provides a greater share of the profits to the manufacturer and the distributor.

Part of my working life in a traditional business involved me persuading wholesalers to buy a large amount of products of which I would only accept a small amount of their orders to be returned to our business if they did not sell it. My customers had to make a calculated risk on how much they thought they could sell to their customers knowing that mistakes in purchasing would cost them a lot of money. Far from being vulnerable, my customers in that business were very astute and had a lot of market knowledge which enable them to forecast their sales and, therefor, their purchases.

This is the vital factor for why pyramid schemes were so bad because innocent and naive people bought products, such as water filters, about which they had no information about the real market for these products compared to highly skilled and experienced buyers in professional companies.

In good network marketing companies, the manufacturer supplies all of its distributors directly at the same price at all levels of the team. Products are ordered by the distributor when a customer orders and pays for them. Anyone who has any business sense knows that this is good business. No stock is held by the distributor. Cash flow is good because no money is tied up in unsold stock. Distributors are rewarded for training other people in their teams who sell products as a consequence of the training. It’s a business, remember, and products need to be bought and sold.

So, why are people suspicious of network marketing? It comes down to two things. Firstly, the bad experiences of people who were scammed by pyramid schemes in the 1970’s still linger in people’s conscience. They have a blind reaction to something which was made illegal nearly thirty years ago and they have no desire to seek to understand how network marketing works.

Secondly, we are conditioned to believe that there is only one honourable way for businesses to work because this is how everyone else is carrying out business. People are more prepared to put up with the grind of their daily routines than they are prepared to get into a business which will allow them all to achieve all of the things that they dream about doing with their lives rather than what their employers allow them to do. People are prepared to take huge risks with new business ventures which fail more often than they succeed, and which run the risk of them losing their health, wealth and families than they are to get into a business which has no financial risks and which has a simple, proven business model.

So, if you are suspicious about network marketing and you think it is nothing more than a shoddy pyramid scheme, then I suggest you do two things. Firstly, contact me so I can show you what a good, honest and ethical business I am part of and running. Secondly, come along to one of our events and meet other decent, honest people I work with who will never put you under pressure to enter a business which you don’t first understand.

When you have done this, then you might grasp just how amazingly good network marketing business can be for anyone who is prepared to persist with a simple, proven business which changes people’s lives for the better.

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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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