Why You Should Care about Social Media?

Information moves much more quickly in today's world because social media. More and more folks continue to join social networks of all kinds to meet other people that share the same interests and to find the information that is important to them. Some people are content creators while others choose to watch what other people say or post.

Social Media Statistics that you should know:

1. Facebook now has 750 million users. If it were a country it would be the third largest in the world. 
2. 38% of online US consumers "Like" a brand on Facebook. The average fan Likes nine different brands.
3. LinkedIn has over 1 million users.
4. Nearly twice as many men use LinkedIn (63% compared with 37% of women) All other social networking sites have significantly more female users than male users.
5. 57 million people read and follow blogs.
6. One word of mouth conversation is worth 200 TV ads.
7. 91% of consumers trust peer recommendations, but only 14% trust advertisements.
8. 87% of people trust a friend's advise over a critics review.
9. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
10. Nielsen published stats showing "three of the world's most popular brands online are social media related (Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. This equals 22% of all time online or 1 in every 4 1/2 minutes.
11. According to BlogHer.com familiar bloggers are preferred over celebrities and over 50% of active blog readers in the US have made a purchase based on a blog recommendation.

Social media CAN NOT replace your core business activities, which are to sell (share stories), meet and recruit. If you neglect your money-making activity in favor of social media, you will fail.

Social Media enhances your ability to connect you core business activity by targeting your efforts and helping you work more efficiently while meeting people you wouldn't normally have the opportunity to meet.

Social Media tips to help you with your business

• Connect with new people
• Re-connect you with previous customers and re-establish a business relationship.
• Provide you with referrals from friends and fans.
• Present your opportunity to the people who are looking for one
• Help you learn more about your customers and what they want.
• Save you time in distribution news to your customers in a fun, more engaging way.

9 Things more important than Capital

Excellent article by Jim Rohn...

When starting any enterprise or business, whether it is full-time or part-time, we all know the value of having plenty of capital (money). But I bet we both know or at least have heard of people who started with no capital who went on to make fortunes. How? You may ask.

Well, I believe there are actually some things that are more valuable than capital that can lead to your entrepreneurial success. Let me give you the list.

1. Time
Time is more valuable than capital. The time you set aside not to be wasted, not to be given away. Time you set aside to be invested in an enterprise that brings value to the marketplace with the hope of making a profit. Now we have capital time.

How valuable is time? Time properly invested is worth a fortune. Time wasted can be devastation. Time invested can perform miracles, so you invest your time.

2. Desperation
I have a friend, Lydia, whose first major investment in her new enterprise was desperation. She said, "My kids are hungry, I’ve gotta make this work. If this doesn't work, what will I do?" So she invested $1 in her enterprise selling a product she believed in. The $1 was to buy a few flyers so she could make a sale at retail, collect the money and then buy the product wholesale to deliver back to the customer.

My friend Bill Bailey went to Chicago as a teenager after he got out of high school. And the first job he got was as a night janitor. Someone said, "Bill, why would you settle for night janitor?" He said, "Malnutrition." You work at whatever you can possibly get when you get hungry. You go to work somewhere—night janitor, it doesn't matter where it is. Years later now, Bill is a recipient of the Horatio Alger award, rich and powerful and one of the great examples of lifestyle that I know. But, his first job—night janitor. Desperation can be a powerful incentive. When you say, “I must.”

3. Determination
Determination says I will. First Lydia said, "I must find a customer." Desperation. Second, she said, "I will find someone before this first day is over." Sure enough, she found someone. She said, "If it works once, it will work again." But then the next person said, "No." Now what must you invest?

4. Courage
Courage is more valuable than capital. If you've only got $1 and a lot of courage, I'm telling you, you've got a good future ahead of you. Courage in spite of the circumstances. Humans can do the most incredible things no matter what happens. Haven't we heard the stories? There are some recent ones from Kosovo that are some of the most classic, unbelievable stories of being in the depths of hell and finally making it out. It’s humans. You can't sell humans short. Courage in spite of, not because of, but in spite of. Now once Lydia has made 3 or 4 sales and gotten going, here's what now takes over.

5. Ambition
"Wow! If I can sell 3, I can sell 33. If I can sell 33, I can sell 103." Wow. Lydia is now dazzled by her own dreams of the future.

6. Faith
Now she begins to believe she's got a good product. This is probably a good company. And she then starts to believe in herself. Lydia, single mother, 2 kids, no job. "My gosh, I'm going to pull it off!" Her self-esteem starts to soar. These are investments that are unmatched. Money can't touch it. What if you had a million dollars and no faith? You'd be poor. You wouldn't be rich. Now here is the next one, the reason why she's a millionaire today.

7. Ingenuity
Putting your brains to work. Probably up until now, you've put about 1/10 of your brainpower to work. What if you employed the other 9/10? You can't believe what can happen. Humans can come up with the most intriguing things to do. Ingenuity. What's ingenuity worth? A fortune. It is more valuable than money. All you need is a $1 and plenty of ingenuity. Figuring out a way to make it work, make it work, make it work.

8. Heart and Soul
What is a substitute for heart and soul? It's not money. Money can't buy heart and soul. Heart and soul is more valuable than a million dollars. A million dollars without heart and soul, you have no life. You are ineffective. But, heart and soul is like the unseen magic that moves people, moves people to buy, moves people to make decisions, moves people to act, moves people to respond.

9. Personality
You've just got to spruce up and sharpen up your own personality. You've got plenty of personality. Just get it developed to where it is effective every day, effective no matter who you talk to, whether it is a child or whether it is a business person, whether it is a rich person or a poor person. A unique personality that is at home anywhere. One of my mentors, Bill Bailey, taught me, "You've got to learn to be just as comfortable, Mr. Rohn, whether it is in a little shack in Kentucky having a beer and watching the fights with Winfred, my old friend or in a Georgian mansion in Washington, DC as the Senator's guest." Move with ease whether it is with the rich or whether it is with the poor. And it makes no difference to you who is rich or who is poor. A chance to have a unique relationship with whomever. The kind of personality that's comfortable. The kind of personality that's not bent out of shape.

And lastly, let's not forget charisma and sophistication. Charisma with a touch of humility. This entire list is more valuable than money. With one dollar and the list I just gave you, the world is yours. It belongs to you, whatever piece of it you desire whatever development you wish for your life. I've given you the secret. Capital. The kind of capital that is more valuable than money and that can secure your future and fortune. Remember that you lack not the resources.

Great Example of Social Media Communication

 Social media is effective communication through any medium, ie.. phone or in person conversation, text message, content in all forms video, RSS feeds etc.. What people respond to is something they perceive as genuine and agenda-free. That is why studies show up to 85% of people distrust ads.

A great example of using social media to "spread the word" about Shaklee comes from Arthur, a professional musician who teaches and performs around the country. He is a good friend of Bob Ferguson Shaklee Master Coordinator, and they were talking one day and Art asked if Bob had anything that would clean up his diet which you can imagine was a mess being on the road all the time. He shared the Cinch Plan and got started 3 days before he went back on the road.

Being the entertainer he is, and wanting to see if the stuff worked, he decided to shoot video progress reports daily on his IPhone. The funny, entertaining and amazing results of his succesful Cinch journey are documented at: http://www.youtube.com/artoflosinglard.

Many folks are using the whole site, or sending the URL for a specific video to prospects or people using the Cinch Plan, with great results. This video blog is credible, because, of course,  Art's 25 pound weight loss is documented, and obvious in the videos.

So, this is the ultimate anti-advertising.

Here's a guy who is standing on the scale in the first segment (scroll down to the first segment at the bottom of the list of videos) with his belly in full view to the world, letting everyone know what he's up to, including his discomfort! Then the fun begins as everyone can follow his progress and misadventures on the way to Cinch Plan success.

Benchwarmers Need Not Apply..

I’ve never seen anyone make a shot from the bench or catch a touchdown from the sideline. I’ve never seen a top producer, a top performer sit around waiting for someone to call and buy his or her products or services. In order to have any chance at winning, you gotta get off the bench and get in the game!

Star athletes can’t stand to sit. It doesn’t matter if the team is 20 points ahead or 20 points behind; the all-stars want to be part of the action. That’s why they’re all-stars. An all-star athlete can’t wait for the next play, and an all-star marketer can’t wait to give the next presentation or recruit the next distributor. True all-stars take the initiative to get in the game; they make things happen.

You can’t sit on the bench and be an all-star. There are plenty of benchwarmers. You gotta want to be in the game! You gotta want it with an unstoppable, driving desire!

Everything you have (or don’t have) today is the result of the actions you’ve taken (or haven’t taken) in the past. It’s like putting your car in gear. You can start the car and sit in it all day, but you’ll never go anywhere unless you shift into gear and step on the gas pedal.

You see, a decision without action is only a good intention, and good intentions pave the road to nowhere. We all have the option to take action and get into the game, but most of us never do it. Why do we put off doing the things we know we should do? There are many reasons, but usually it’s procrastination – waiting for somebody or something else to make it happen for us, “paralysis of analysis” and fear or lack of confidence.

My experience has been that people procrastinate for a number of reasons. We tell ourselves that it’s going to be too difficult, take too much time, cost too much money or require too many resources. But this rarely is true. Taking action usually starts with one simple step that isn’t difficult, time-consuming or costly. And even if it does require resources we think we don’t have, if it’s a priority we can find the resources to make it happen. We always find the resources for the things we make a priority.

To get in The Game you must first make a clear, conscious decision that “I’m going to make it happen, no matter what. That’s it, period.” Too many people are walking on the edge of the ledge. They are not committed, therefore anything that comes along seems to knock them off track. Sometimes you gotta take a giant leap and leave yourself no outs.

So, getting in The Game starts with making a decision. But It also involves taking massive action.

Most people don’t take action and they justify their lack of action with excuses and rationalizations. They’re always saying things like, “Someday when everything is perfect, then I’m going to really, really, really get in the game.” They are waiting for the next degree, until the kids get out of school, or the new marketing plan is in place. They have no purpose and therefore they have no passion and drive.

Great Lesson about Life: Donkey in the Well

This story should be a reminder to you about never giving up, no matter how bad things look on the surface.
“One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.Finally, he decided the donkey was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey did something amazing.  He shook it off and took a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple lessons in life to be happy:

• Free your heart from hatred – Forgive
• Free your mind from worries – Most never happen
• Live simply and appreciate what you have
• Give more
• Expect less

The rest of the story….
The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had  tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.
The moral of the story….When you do something wrong, and try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.”