Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Friday, May 29, 2009

Blogging: Not Just a Hobby Anymore

Blogging is a great way to express yourself, keep in touch with family and friends. Blogging is not just something you do for fun anymore. It is a great tool to also increase traffic to your website and your business. While we have had a tough economy, it's also one of the best avenues for free advertising. There are many ways you can blog and make money. I see blogging as one of the best Marketing tools to help boost my business, and any leads I get from it I see as a bonus to what I am already doing.

Blogging has been very successful for many people, but don't count on it to be a stable income. What you want to do is build multiple streams of income. Most successful bloggers have been doing it for several years. I have been now blogging for one year, and I am happy when I do get the occasional paid blogging job.

Here's a great post:
13 Tips to Recession Proof Your Blog

Some of my friends have great blogs:
http://doubledeej.blogspot.com/
http://www.joelcomm.com/

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Direct Selling Home Decor Business Review

Last month I wrote an article on "Questions You Should Ask an MLM Company Before You Join". The same kinds of questions apply if your thinking of starting up your own business in direct selling. I recently had the opportunity to review several companies all with similar products. All of the companies I reviewed are all MLM companies but are all structured differently. With this review I have listed the companies that are the best to work with, all others that I didn't care for I left off this list. They were graded on several factors; Cost of startup, Consultant Benefits, Customer Service, Ease of Selling, Quality of Products, Tech Support and Training.


Home Decor Direct / Cuadros Y Cosas A+
Startup Cost - $0 if you sell $150 (supplies are free with this method) or $59 for products and a supply kit ($150 value). A
Consultant Benefits - The very best income opportunity over any other company I reviewed plus you are rewarded for everyone you recruit and get cash bonuses for extra sales. A
Quality of Products - Excellent quality, most products are hand crafted in the USA and reasonably priced. A+
Ease of Selling - I signed up with $0 and got $268 in orders my first month. A
Customer Service - Most items are received within 1-2 weeks after you place your order. Customer service is excellent. A
Tech Support and Training - I had the opportunity to attend two training seminars before I started, with excellent one on one support. I was able to meet personally with the Vice President of the company. A

Southern Living At Home B+
Startup Cost - $199 for a $400+ value of products and supply kit A-
Consultant Benefits - Consultants get discounts one item one time per year and 25% commission, plus you are rewarded for every recruit. B+
Quality of Products - Excellent quality, not a big variety of home decor items, lots of dishes. A-
Ease of Selling - Not too hard to sell, but some items are pricey. B+
Customer Service - Can't contact customer service via phone, email took 4-5 days to respond. Items shipped slow, took more than 2 weeks. B
Tech Support and Training - Training was over the phone and audio CD's. B+


Celebrating Home / Home & Garden Party B-
Startup Cost - $99 for $200 in product or $149 for $300 in product. B+
Consultant Benefits
- Consultants get 30% commission, plus you are rewarded for every recruit. A-
Quality of Products
- Some items are not very high quality. Products range from reasonably priced to pricey. B-
Ease of Selling
- Good variety of products, some quality issues. B
Customer Service
- Can't contact customer service via phone, email took over a week to respond. Most items received within 2 weeks. C+
Tech Support and Training - No one offered any one on one support, I did find some videos on You Tube. C


For your convenience links to company websites have been posted in this blog.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Positive Thinking is the Key to Surviving Tough Times

With our current economic crisis and hundreds of thousands of people getting laid off across the nation, it is troubling to think where we are headed. Our nation is in a full blown depression. The fall of our economy was caused by greed and dishonest people that worked at the top of major corporations refusing to accept accountability. I refuse to buy into the political schemes of these companies that are seeking bailouts. The majority of these bailouts have not been used to recover losses or save jobs. They have been used for the wrong reasons to cover there own ass-ets. There is a way to turn this around. POSITIVE THINKING, and helping others.

I am determined to make the best of my own resources, while educating myself to find creative ways to make money and utilize every resource that is available to help everyone where ever I can. Recently I have posted a job board on my website www.LayZDaisy.com/jobs.htm I hope by having this job board on my site it will help those find a job that needs one. I think when ever we can help someone else, it is this kind of thinking that will turn around our economy. Here are some other tips that will help.

  1. Stop the worry and have POSITIVE THINKING. If you worry it will take you ten times longer to accomplish something than if you have POSITIVE THINKING. Worrying is a waste of time. POSITIVE THINKING will get you a lot farther in life and you will reach your goals in less time. POSITIVE THINKING will help you accomplish anything that you desire by attracting these good thoughts everyday and sharing your good thoughts with others. We need to lift each other up and filter out the negetive.
  2. Be Creative and find other ways you can make an income with NO investment. Some of these ways can be selling a product or service you can provide through free internet classified advertising. www.craigslist.org
  3. Prioritize the things that are most important. By prioritizing I mean prioritizing everything in your life starting with your finances, cleaning your house etc. Prioritizing will also relieve a lot of stress and you will be able to look at everything with a clear picture.
  4. Cut expenses and be frugal, you can live with less. When times are tough financially being frugal is way to cut the expenses you don't need without being cheap. If you remember to recycle and reuse this will in becoming frugal. Then when ever you can prepare for the future.
  5. Share the lessons you have learned with others. Be willing to help someone and share your POSITIVE THINKING. Then if everyone helps someone else it will spread like wild fire.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Questions You Should Ask an MLM Company Before You Join.

How many people out there signed up for an MLM company with big expectations of making money then find out later that it’s a very hard way to succeed. There have been many times I have been sucked in the pretty picture they paint. I hate when some of the people working with these companies lie to you just to get as many people as they can underneath their organization, then offer you no help once you join. The majority of MLM companies make it sound easy and say “anyone can be successful”. I don’t want to knock all MLM companies out there. There are some good ones that are legitimate. There are details you should look at with every company before you spend the money to invest. One of the most important things you should do is research. You will need to find out how stable each company is are and compare them to their competition.

  1. What is the start-up cost and what does it include? Beware of huge upfront fees, the risk is usually much greater and make sure you are getting a good value for the money.
  2. What kind of training do I get once I start? Make sure if you sign up that you sign up with someone that has proven to be successful and is willing to spend the time with you to properly train you.
  3. What type of service or product will I be selling? Is this something you can truly believe in and feel good about selling?
  4. Will I be expected to put in a minimum order every month or every quarter? Make sure you can sell more than the minimum amount required each month or quarter.
  5. Will I be expected to recruit a minimum amount of people? Many MLM’s require you to recruit a specified number of people in order to make money in your downline.
  6. How much commission will I make?
  7. If I want to purchase something do I get a special discount off the retail price?
  8. Is shipping & handling additional or does it come out of my commission?
  9. How long do items typically take to ship to my customer?
  10. What kind of Guarantee or Warranty does the company have on their products?
  11. Will I need to purchase supplies such as Catalogs, order forms, etc.?
  12. What other company benefits or incentives does this company have and how easy is it to achieve those goals?

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Something US Auto Makers Have Forgotten

It seems that today many companies and their officers are driven by greed. The Government bailouts are not being used in the proper manner to save these companies from failing. This is disturbing to me that General Motors plans to close 500 dealerships and layoff thousands of jobs. Even more disturbing is that GM officials say that without the second installment of $5.4 billion dollars they will run out of money by March 31, 2009. It makes you wonder what are they doing with all that money that would make them run out? With $5.4 billion dollars you could save a whole lot of jobs. I think this is poor management to get this far into debt and not be able to pay your bills and save jobs.

When the whole auto industry is in trouble, instead of looking at the bottom of the food chain to cut costs, they should start from the top. This rather large house cleaning project should begin at the home corporate offices and look at over spending that is unnecessary, then go down to the branches of the company. Top executives refuse to take a pay cut when there are families that have worked in the Auto Industry for years living from paycheck to paycheck. Chrysler and GM need to take notes from a few competitors take some responsibility for their actions and realize it is their employees that are the core of the company and it’s what makes a company better.

As I was browsing around the internet I found a quote that I think the US auto makers have forgotten about. “There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” ~ Henry Ford

BMW makes a strong statement that they take responsibility for their actions and they exist to make the world a better place. They wouldn’t be where they are today if it weren’t for the employees that make up the most important part of their company.

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The information in the blog is the opinion of the writer, articles were provided from the following sources;

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEBxMmCfl0xY

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090121/gm-henderson/

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Bailouts: First the Banks, now the Auto Industry?

Over this past year many national banks have been in trouble. This happened because of bad investments and bad judgments of people that worked for these banks that did unethical loans. Because of the giant loss of banks across the country, the Federal Government decided to step in to bail out these banks in an effort to save the economy. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very well thought out plan. There were banks that used the money to pay themselves big bonuses and pay for luxury vacations, instead of using the money for what it was intended for. Then there were banks that used the money to pay for new investments, some of these banks didn’t even need the bailout money. Now the auto industry is seeking bailout money from the Government. Should these companies be bailed out? Or should they be held accountable for their actions, and file a Chapter 11 while they clean up their act.

The Government I think is going to go about this in a smarter way this time. Some things to consider are what will happen to the economy if they give the money to the auto industry? What type of stipulations will be enforced? We as tax payers do not have a choice. When ever the Federal Government gives a large sum of money to anyone, we pay for it, and usually the money comes from one of two sources, they raise taxes to pay for it or it comes out of social security.

Here are some additional articles related to this post.

How the Feds will Govern GM and Chrysler

Potential GM Bankruptcy Catastrophic for Economy

Wallstrip: Does the Auto Industry Deserve a Bailout?


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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Banks in Trouble

In this troubling time in our economy, we have many uncertain things going on right now. Our real estate market is down, and the stock market has crashed. We are now in a recession that may take years to recover from. I am not writing this article so you will panic. I am writing this article to keep you informed in what is going on in the Banks today. This is a follow-up article to the the last article I wrote on September 30, 2008. This is part of the "Is your money safe?" series. With any article I write, I do extensive research, and usually provide some web links to verify my information. This is to ensure that you get the most accurate information that I can give you.

Most Banks are insured by the FDIC, Credit Unions are also insured by the NCUA. What this means is, your money that you have in your bank account located at each Bank and Credit Union is required to insure your money for up to $100,000. Bank watch list as published by The Bank Implode Meter, these are banks that have all been audited and written up for something. More information can be found on each individual bank FDIC, NCUA.

Level 3 watch Bank List.

  1. Fifth Third Bankcorp 11-06-08 (crashed, waiting on implosion)
  2. UBS Bank 11-04-08 (crashing)
  3. Mitsubishi Financial 10-27-08
  4. Citigroup 10-16-08
  5. Merryl Lynch 10-13-08 (may still come out alive)
  6. Bank of America 10-07-08 (settlement, not in the clear yet)
Failed Banks/ Credit Unions List.
  1. Security Pacific Bank, CA 11-07-08
  2. Franklin Bank, SBB, TX 11-07-08
  3. Freedom Bank, FL 10-31-08
  4. Alpha Bank & Trust, GA 10-24-08
  5. National City 10-24-08
  6. High Desert Federal Credit Union 10-17-08
  7. Meridian Bank, IL 10-10-08
  8. Main Street Bank, MI 10-10-08
  9. HBOS PLC 10-09-08
  10. N & W Poca Division Credit Union 10-03-08
  11. Watchovia Bank 9-29-08
  12. Washington Mutual (WaMu) 9-24-08
  13. Ameribank, Inc., WV 9-19-08
  14. Interfaith Federal Credit Union 9-17-08
  15. Lehman Brothers 9-11-08
  16. Silver State Bank 9-5-08
  17. Integrity Bank, GA 8-29-08
  18. Columbian Bank and Trust, KS 8-24-08
  19. First Priority Bank, KS 8-1-08
  20. First National Bank of Nevada 7-26-08
  21. First Heritage Bank N.A. 7-26-08
  22. Indy Mac Bank Corp 7-11-08
  23. First Integrity Bank 5-31-08
  24. ANB Financial 5-09-08
  25. Carnation Bank 5-09-08
  26. St. Luke Baptist Federal Credit Union 5-07-08
  27. Hume Bank of Hume, MO 3-10-08
  28. Douglas National Bank 1-28-08
  29. Huron River Credit Union 1-19-08
  30. Green Tree Federal Credit Union 1-19-08
  31. Metropolitan Savings Bank 1-19-08
  32. Miami Valley Bank 1-19-08
  33. Net Bank 1-19-08
  34. Sharebuilders Federal Credit Union 1-19-08
  35. Freemont General
  36. Bear Stearns
  37. Northern Rock PLC
  38. Coast Bank

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 11:27 AM Posted by LayZDaisy.

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Friday, October 10, 2008

Economic Crisis: How low is the market going to go?

The announce of the stock market crash on September 15, 2008 marketed the largest crash since 9-11, 2001. As most of us know the stock market has continued to crash everyday since. What most people don't know is the bailout plan was the government's way of placing a band-aid on a very large wound already in progress, to hopefully prevent a recession. If that happens, the depression would be larger than the great depression of 1929. Once a recession starts it usually takes many years to recover. This makes you wonder how low is the market going to go? I think unfortunately a recession has already hit. Many people are in denial. With Banks collapsing among other businesses. This leaves the next five years very uncertain. We need to figure out a better way to prepare for the future. Now in our country there is a record number of foreclosures, billions of people have no retirement and thousands of people are currently unemployed. This gives you some things to think about doesn't it. Here is what other people are saying about our economic crisis.

A Pastoral Strategy for an Economic Crisis

Declaring War on the Meltdown

Economic Crisis

Web Exclusive: Economic Crisis