Are You Really a Business Owner or A Business Employee?

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Posted on 2nd August 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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If you own your own business you probably think the answer is pretty obvious. Not so fast! You need to answer some simple questions to determine the true answer..Here we go:

· Do you open and/or close your business daily?

· Do you go out for Lunch?

· Do you take weekends off?

· Can you leave your business and go on vacation?

· Would your business still be running if you left for a month?

Unfortunately, if you answered no to any of the above questions then you’re not really a business owner if your business can’t run without you. Just because you were the founder and started your company and you are a sole proprietor or even if you are incorporated it simply doesn’t mean you own a business using the definition we are talking about here. We might buy the fact that you’re a business manager, and in all probability if you are honest with yourself your business most days probably feels like it owns you.

The good news is that there is a way out. It is not an easy way out but I promise it will be worth it. A few years ago I invested a lot of money and time getting certified to teach people about implementing systems into their businesses to finally get them freed up to enjoy the things that drove them to start a business in the first place. If you have not read the book by Michael Gerber called The E-Myth Revisited I encourage you to do so.

The book is a snapshot of most of the small businesses in the world today. It will show you why most small business don’t work and some things that can be done to fix them. It is a book that talks about applying the lessons of franchising to your business so you can finally be in a position to fulfill all the reasons and dreams you created for starting your business.

The business system definition is: ‘A repeatable process that produces a profit.’ If it doesn’t produce a profit, it’s not really a valuable business system. So the key is to systemize your business so you don’t need to be there in order for it to operate. If your business doesn’t run like this, then you own a job, not a business. You may pay yourself but you still have a job, and to top it off, you are probably working for the craziest boss you have ever been associated with…You J All that said, it still makes you an employee and you probably can’t pay yourself as much as you could earn working for someone else minus all the pressures of owning you own business! The sad fact is you are probably like most employees – so broke you can’t even afford to pay attention, let alone establish any future wealth.

Some of you are probably familiar with Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad fame and his Four Quadrants. As you remember ‘E’ stands for Employee – You have a job and are working for someone else’s dream. The ‘S’ of the four quadrants stands Self employed. This simply means you own a company but you are the one providing the primary service. Without you nothing happens, it all depends on you, without you the company ceases to exist.

That leaves the final two quadrants and interestingly enough, the only two ways to create wealth. According to Rich Dad the only two ways that you can create wealth are the ‘B’s and the ‘I’s, the Business owners and the Investors. The equation is pretty simple here…you probably will never break out of the rat race working for a salary.

Bottom line is if you need to be in your business in order for it to run than you are going to dramatically limit your income. The reason is pretty simple: you are only one person and your time is limited. In order to become wealthy the rich study duplication. If you can’t learn to duplicate then you will never move into the wealth quadrant. Your enemy is time.

I need to let you know I am not putting anybody down for being employed or self employed. I just want you to realize than owning your own business is wonderful but you need to be able to start working ON the business not IN the business. If you decided to make a shift in your thinking and start to think systemically that would be a huge step toward creating wealth for you and your family.

In order to systemize your business all it requires is a pretty simple shift in thinking. You need to put on your owner hat and look down on all of the day to day processes and ask, “How am I involved and how can I get out of the picture?”. We are not talking about abdication of responsibilities but creating a system that gets you out of the day to day doing of the different aspects of your business. Start with the stuff you hate to doJ This is not an easy process but IF you are ready it can be most rewarding.

Stay tuned for more!

Eating Fire In Las Vegas

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Posted on 16th July 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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What Goes On Here Doesn’t Necessarily Stay Here

A couple of weeks ago my wife, Lynn, and I made the trip through the desert from San Diego to the city of lights – Las Vegas. Now I know that what we see and do in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas but this was so incredible I felt whatever the punishment is for breaking the Vegas code would be worth it. Having said that, I probably should find out just what the punishment is before spilling the beans….but what the heck – here goes.

We were invited to a two day seminar by a friend of ours that was going to change our lives. Has anyone ever heard that before? I informed my bride that it was going to be exciting, she would love it and, did I mention, it was in Las Vegas? Once again she informed me she wasn’t new here and to stop the hype and please stop selling her and yes she would love to accompany me to Las Vegas.

To make a long story short we went to the seminar bright and early on Saturday morning and the speaker told us we would have one morning break and then break for lunch around 1:30 pm. Now, I don’t know about you but I have attended a ton of seminars and I have never wanted or had to wait until 1:30 for a lunch break. I sat there saying to myself, “What have I gotten myself into”?

I have been teaching and going to sales and marketing seminars for over 30 years and I believe if you can find one thing you can take home it is well worth your time to attend. One thing has led to a lot of money in my life and if you can get two or more you have hit the jackpot! But for me to even imagine a little bit that I could sit until 1:30 with one break was asking more than I was willing to give. Can you relate?

Ok, ok long story short – I remember. The bottom line was I didn’t even realize what time it was when he said, “Let’s break for lunch”. That is unbelievable! I was so engrossed in the material and my note taking that the time just flew by. In fact, the whole two days flew by and we were not even awar. It was almost like time traveling. Ok , no I don’t know anything about time traveling but if I did that’s how I would imagine it.

The things we learned were incredible. He even had us up on stage holding an aluminum rod with fire belching from it and we took that rod and placed the burning end in our mouth to extinguish the flame like we were some kind of Vegas act. Imagine, holding this fire stick with your hand and seeing the flame coming closer and closer to your mouth and at the same time feeling the heat that is being produced by the fireball which is blazing and voluntarily putting it in your mouth to extinguish. Wow! Power!

We can’t wait to go back. I know, CRAZY you say… and I say you need to experience it for yourself then I’ll listen.

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Terry Guilfoyle is a trainer from San Diego with a passion to make a difference in peoples lives. He has been fortunate enough to learn sales and marketing from the best, and now spends his time teaching others to do the same. If you would like a FREE REPORT On How To Make MLM Work For You CLICK HERE

Attitude

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Posted on 8th July 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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ATTITUDE. How many of you would agree that our attitude plays a major role in just about everything we do today…Yes or No? Yes, attitude is everything! It’s the difference between a good marriage and bad marriage, attitude is the difference between being the top producer and the bottom producer, attitude is the difference between being rich or poor, and attitude is the difference between being healthy or unhealthy. Most people know it they just don’t adhere to those simple little changes.

Now how many of you WANT those next six months to be better that the last six months? If you do than there’s only one thing you need to do and that’s CHANGE! And the first thing to start with is your ATTITUDE. Turn your sheets over and let’s go over attitude. One of the biggest reasons why people fail is simply their attitude. In fact, let me give you the definition so you have a better understanding on how attitude plays a major role in just about everything we do today.

The definition of attitude is: a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways. What that really means is Attitude is based on how you think and how you feel based on your perception.

Would you agree that most of us have a tendency to be more negative than positive? Why do you think that is? This is not necessarily our fault, it’s a product of growing up in a negative society; from the home, to the school, to the workplace and especially the media. For example, what is one of the first words out of our mouths?…NO! Simply because we hear it a thousand times a day from our parents. Listen to the news or weather. Why do they always say partly cloudy never mostly sunny? What do most people in America call traffic lights? They call them stop lights. Why not GO lights? It’s green more than it’s red. What kind of clock do most people set to before they go to bed at night to get them up in the morning? An “alarm clock“, why not opportunity clock? See it’s in the words we sue and unfortunately most of us are hypnotized into responding with the negative.

Attitude is a gift, because we have a choice everyday. There are only two types of attitudes to choose from POSITIVE or NEGATIVE. We choose to be positive or we choose to be negative. Next to negative would you to write down lazy, complain, and procrastinate. If a person was lazy, complained, and procrastinated could they fail in this company during their first 30 days? Now next to positive replace those words with ones like passion, driven, and committed. If a person was passionate, driven, and committed could they be successful in this company during their first 30 days? That’s how we should feel EVERYDAY. Once again, I know that you know, but we have to ask ourselves how many times do I need to hear it before I actually…DO it.

Terry Guilfoyle is a trainer from San Diego with a passion to make a difference in peoples lives. He has been fortunate enough to learn sales and marketing from the best, and now spends his time teaching others to do the same. If you would like a FREE REPORT On How To Make MLM Work For You CLICK HERE

Working From Home?

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Posted on 24th May 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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One of the toughest obstacles we face when working from home is making it appear that we’re not, in fact, working from home. When clients or prospects call and there are kids screaming in the background, pets barking and meowing and timers going off for laundry and cooking, it doesn’t appear professional. So, how can we appear more professional?

Tip # 1: Have a clean, professional website with your own domain name.
Do not, under any circumstances, have a “free” website hosted on another domain name with other company’s ads all over the place! This is one of the biggest no-no’s out there! Decide, instead, that in order to appear professional, you must invest in a professional website. If you aren’t skilled in web design, hire someone to do it for you or barter with another home-based business owner who does do web design. Choose a domain name that is closely related to your business’s name.

Tip # 2: Invest in a separate phone line or in a distinctive ring tone for that line.
Most phone companies offer a plan where you can have two or more numbers ringing to one phone line with distinctive rings. It’s usually better to have a separate phone line in your office, in order to avoid after-hours phone calls from clients. This also enables you to “shut the door” on work when you’re not there. Use a professional voicemail message or answering machine message and check the messages often.

Tip # 3: Think about how to display your business address.
How are you going to display your physical location? There are a few different options available. Most home-based business owners will say that they accept meetings by appointment only, to discourage clients from “dropping in” while they’re still in their jammies and haven’t had their morning coffee yet. If you don’t want your customers to know you work from home, another option is using a P.O. Box or attaching a “Suite” number to your address. If you use a P.O. Box, you really look like you are working out of the home and will have to give your home address out for packages and anything they want to courier to you, but it does provide anonymity and discourages drop-in visitors. Attaching a suite number to your address in order to make it appear a “business office,” is an easier solution just make sure you mention to your postal carrier that you’re running a home-based business and that’s why there’s an addition to your address. I like the option of paying the UPS Store for a box and using their address. They will also accept packages on your behalf so you are not tied to home if you are expecting a shipment.

Tip # 4: Define your office etiquette rules to your family.
What are the rules going to be for your kids and family members when you’re on the phone or meeting with a client? Are you going to set a timer so they know when you’ll be available? Are you going to have set office hours and not meet with clients outside of those times? Are you going to have a play space in your office? This is especially important if you’re going to have small kids playing nearby (quietly) while you work. It is a lot easier to set up the rules before you start your business.

Tip # 5: Invest in professional-quality promotional products and marketing pieces.
Don’t print off business cards from your printer, unless you have a top-of-the-line printer. Invest in professional-quality business cards and brochures. If you can, have some letterhead printed up, too, for contracts, letters to prospective clients and any correspondence that is business-related. If you’re printing promotional products like T-shirts or apparel, coffee mugs, mousepads, etc., check the quality of the products put out by the printer you wish to use. Don’t just “price-hunt,” look around for the best quality and invest in your business. Remember you only have one chance to make a first good impression.

To Your Success

Terry Guilfoyle

Terry Guilfoyle is a trainer from San Diego with a passion to make a difference in peoples lives. He has been fortunate enough to learn sales and marketing from the best, and now spends his time teaching others to do the same. If you would like a FREE REPORT On How To Make MLM Work For You CLICK HERE

Selling Your Product or Opportunity

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Posted on 20th May 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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If I gave you the money and told you to build a hamburger restaurant where would you want to build it?  Would it be close to the college so you could sell to students?  How about in the cool part of town where everyone want to be?  Maybe build it downtown to catch the business lunch crowd?  All of those places might work and you might make a lot of money.

But, if you asked me that question I would say I wanted to build it where people were hungry.  Don’t you think it would be easier to sell hamburgers to a hungry crowd than to try and get people to come to our restaurant?  That sounds like the perfect answer, doesn’t it?  But, what if all the hungry people were vegetarians?   Now we are back at square one.  Are you beginning to see there are many questions that need to be answered before we have the perfect location for our restaurant?  This leads me to one of my biggest gripes about MLM and the way most people are taught to do this business.  We are taught to go make a list, go running around and doing the 3 foot rule, bothering all our friends and relatives with our vision of the latest and greatest and boring everyone to death.  We start feeding them before we find out if they like hamburgers and are hungry or not.

How much easier could you make your business by finding out where the hungry people are and spending our time and effort with them?  That sounds great.  So how can I find out where they are?  I believe the first thing you need to do is get to work on you and they will be drawn to you like a light draws bugs.  It’s amazing – the better you become the more you seem to attract the right people.

How much easier would it be if you decided to first find people who show a need or are interested in your products or opportunity?  I know, I know.  Everyone needs your product or opportunity.  But that’s just your opinion or what you have been taught to think!  You can’t possibly know what your prospect wants until you have spent a lot of time asking the right questions and finding out what their needs or interests are.  Until you find out if their needs and desires correspond with your products or opportunity then please keep your mouth shut.  They will respect you more and you might save a friendship.  Let them get hungry before you try to feed them.

To Your Success…

Terry Guilfoyle

402-990-8812

Terry Guilfoyle is a trainer from San Diego with a passion to make a difference in peoples lives. He has been fortunate enough to learn sales and marketing from the best, and now spends his time teaching others to do the same. If you would like a FREE REPORT On How To Make MLM Work For You CLICK HERE

May Goal Check Up

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Posted on 11th May 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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Most of us spent quite a bit of time setting goals for 2010 last December. As Dr. Phil like to say “How’s that working out for you”? Wow! What a great question to ask ourselves. How are we doing on everything we wrote down? You didn’t write them down you say? Then you have a wish not a goal. Goals must be in writing!

We are now over 4 months into the New Year. How is your business doing? Are you working your plan or have you filed it away after you created it and haven’t looked at it for 4 months? We are now only 8 months away from 2011. Where will your business be at the end of 2010? What are you doing to move your business closer to your goals? How are you growing to become the person you need to become in order to get all the things you want out of life?

Are you going to end up at the end of this year the way you have seemed to end up every year before, on the outside looking in? Or is it finally time to say I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, catch your second or third wind and do the things you know you need to do? It’s only May. Dust off your goals and get moving one step at a time toward them.

The good news is it’s not too late to kick into gear and make 2010 the best year you have ever had. Pull out your plans, if you need to do some revising then by all means revise. If you are on track congratulations and keep up the great work. Remember that Nike slogan: Just Do It!

To Your Success…

Terry Guilfoyle

402-990-8812
Click Here for More MLM Help!

Terry Guilfoyle is a trainer from San Diego with a passion to make a difference in peoples lives. He has been fortunate enough to learn sales and marketing from the best, and now spends his time teaching others to do the same. If you would like a FREE REPORT On How To Make MLM Work For You CLICK HERE

Closed……….Sorry We Are Out Bread!

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Posted on 9th May 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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That’s what the sign said at my local sandwich shop. Now, if you are in the business of selling sandwiches this is really a problem. When I first saw the sign I was disappointed because the shop was recommended to me and I wanted to try it out. I left and went across the street to another strip mall and got myself a sandwich. No harm – no foul.

As I was eating my sandwich I suddenly thought the sign in the door of the closed store across the street was professionally lettered and fit perfectly in the window. I wondered how many times this must occur in order to pay for a sign. If you are in the sandwich business how could you keep running out of bread? I had to find out…

The next day I made a point of stopping in the store again. I told them I was by yesterday and they were closed because they were out of bread. I asked if they baked their own bread and was told they just order it from a supplier. I asked about the sign and the person behind the counter told me that they were always running out of bread because they didn’t ever order enough to last the whole day so they had the sign made up. I stood there in total disbelief and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I immediately wanted to talk to the manager and find out why. Then I realized that’s not my job. It’s someone else’s business and they could run out of bread if they wished.

I then started thinking how many times I had run out of bread in my MLM business. How many times haven’t I followed up a lead, how many times did I not ask for the order? As I stood there I started to make a list of all the little things that I allowed to happen to cause people to wonder why I didn’t just order more bread…. Think about it. I’m betting you can make your own “Out of bread” examples in your own business. Maybe it’s time to place another order.

To Your Success….

Terry Guilfoyle
402-990-8812

www.MLMFirstAid.com

Your Attitude Is The Secret Key To Success

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Posted on 13th March 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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Have you ever noticed how it’s almost impossible to have a negative attitude when you are excited? Ask yourself this question right now: “What is my attitude right this minute”? We really only have two choices…positive or negative. If you really want to be successful then that narrows the choice to only one, it must be positive!

In fact the secret to success can be summed up in six words. The secret to failure can also be summed up in six words. They are actually the same six words. That’s why we say attitude is a choice… the same six words will signify success or failure. Here are the six words:
We Become What We Think About
Wow, how powerful is that? Think about it.

Are you trying to say that I am where I am today because of the way I think? The answer is absolutely! We are awake for about 16 or so hours each day. Ask yourself how many of those hours we are thinking positively? The idea that we become what we think about can also be expressed as the Law of Dominant Thought. What that means is we can’t be positive for 10 minutes and spend the rest of our 16 waking hours thinking negatively. Positive thought needs to become a habit.

Take this challenge… spend one day with a notebook and every 15 minutes reflect on what you were thinking about. Ask yourself was it Positive or Negative and mark it in the notebook. At the end of the day add up the marks. I think you will surprise yourself with the total.

The good news is when you find yourself being negative, you can reframe your thoughts or actions. It’s a simple choice we can choose to make and start creating a new habit – a more positive habit. Try it you might just change your life!

To your success….

Who Took The Marketing Out of MLM?

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Posted on 6th March 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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What a great question. The answer, in my opinion, is no one; it was never there in the first place. Now calm down, calm down. Now that I have your attention it’s time for all of us to take a closer look at HOW we do what we teach and do on a daily basis.

Most of us are taught to make our list and use the 3 foot rule and to not only do this every waking moment of the day but to teach our downline to do the same thing. How sad! Any person with any degree of intelligence knows in their gut this is just not good business and just plain wrong. But we continue to do it day after day after day without question because that’s what we are taught and what we are teaching.

For most of us it doesn’t take long to figure out we are uncomfortable doing things this way but we line up like sheep to learn better ways to do the same thing over and over again no matter how awful we feel inside if we ever try it. Then we wonder why people in our downline drop out.

The industry solution to this problem is to go out use your list and the three foot rule and share the dream with others and train them to do the same thing over and over again. We are caught in a never ending cycle that just will not produce consistent results over time. If using the techniques that are currently being taught worked, why isn’t everyone successful and fulfilling their dreams? What would happen if we became students of real marketing and incorporated it into our MLM business? I’m just wondering….

Trust

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Posted on 3rd March 2010 by Terry in General Topics

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What are we without that word? Nothing. Amazingly enough we don’t stop and consider how hard it is to gain or regain the trust of someone before we take action. In your home- based business trust is the key to your survival. If people like and trust you they will probably buy your product or get involved in your business. If there is no trust then there is no hope of success.

Keep this in mind before you badger your friends, relatives and strangers about your current opportunity. How can someone trust you if you don’t even take the time to find out if the product you are promoting is needed or wanted by your prospect? In the MLM and internet world we get so caught up in what we want to happen we forget to consider how those around us feel with the constant badgering that many in our industry consider just a way of doing business.

I’m not saying your upline and leaders are wrong for teaching and encouraging you to use the 3 foot rule, to make your list and to tell the world about your amazing new product. I am saying that if you are taught to do this without first finding out if you product could be of possible help or finding out if the prospect might have interest before you slam them with the latest and greatest new money making idea or product then they and you are dead wrong!

I hear you…… “But my product is for everyone”….. “It benefits everyone”….. “People just don’t know they need it yet”. The problem with that argument is people don’t do what they need, they do what they want. So we are slamming them with facts, and fear in most cases, and they have completely shut us off because there is not any trust. Think about it. You are slamming your latest and greatest opportunity on someone before you even find out if they are remotely interested in using the product or service. It’s not about them at that point…. It’s about you and your dreams and goals.

Think about how to keep the trust alive before you open your mouth. I think you will find that sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut until they express interest. Start looking at your prospecting this way and all of a sudden you will be using the Law of Attraction. Imagine having people wanting to talk to you about your product or service. I promise you will become more successful and have a lot more fun having people chasing you…not the other way around.