Some bigger type ideas when we run out of our warm market people

OK, I've been thinking a lot about how we can grow this business after we've run out of our "warm market".  These are the people we know and who know us.  These can be family, friends, old high school buddies, co-workers, people at church, etc.  These are the people on our names list we should all have done when we were going through our training through live well and the ebds.  Quick note on that: if you haven't developed your names list, do it.  We need a names list.  We need to have it written down for a couple reasons.  One is that we need to constantly be adding to our list.  When we meet a new person, put them on the list.  When we get a referral from someone, put them on the list.  Our list should constantly be growing.  Also, we need a list because we, at least I, feel like some times I'm out of people.  But then I look at the memory jogging questions, and I'm quickly reminded of a lot of other people.  One way to manage a lot of these people is to use facebook or myspace.  There are SO many people on these sites, and I bet you will find people on there that you never would have remembered otherwise.  

What I've been thinking about when I start running low on my warm market, which I don't think will be for another month or two.  But once that starts slowing down, there are a few big ways that I see as having incredible potentials to grow our business:

1. College initiative - I've spoke about this before.  I am fully convinced that if we put together a huge campaign and completely rock the college campuses in our area with this opportunity, students are going to catch on, and this business will explode.  Young entrepreneurs are who I want on my team.  They have the brains, energy, connections, motivation, and drive to make this super successful.
2. Mall initiative - Have you ever walked through the mall with the mindset of sharing USANA?  It's pretty interesting.  I was doing this last night while Kati was shoe shopping.  I was thinking, "I have access to like 10,000 people right now."  Now, I think this project will need to be very strategic in its approach.  However, if we do it the right way, it could be incredibly profitable for our business.  It has to be personal.  We have to step out of our comfort zone and talk to people.  There are 100s of employees there.  There are 1000s of consumers there.  Everyone is out, having a good time, spending money.  The employees are probably not too satisfied with the fact that they're wasting their life working in a mall. If we could just start conversations with people.  Start building a relationship with them.  See what their needs are.  Figure out how we can meet them.  Have materials with us that we can give to them.  For the employees, I want to develop a publicity piece that caters directly to those working in a retail/mall type setting.  It will talk about things like: "Are you tired of trading hours for dollars?  Do you feel like you're being given the opportunity to work to your full potential?  Are you paid directly off of the effort you put it?  Wouldn't it be nice to be working to make yourself rich, not the owner of your store?"  I also want to burn a bunch of copies of some cd's I've been listening to about the network marketing industry and how sweet it is.  If we have these things with us, and if we are starting conversations with people, figuring out how we can give them hope, and we give them these pieces of material, I think it would be a great way to prospect.  
3. Wealthy initiative - I haven't put much thought to this, but I see HUGE potential in going after the upper class with this business.  Think about it, these people already have money, so the main excuse we normally get ("I can't afford this") won't be valid.  These people are probably working the "American dream" by putting in 70 hours a week, dealing with employees, working with versatile markets, worrying about the stability of their positions. Also, these people have huge networks of people.  If we can some how figure out how to break into this upper class and get one or two super influential people, this thing will grow!
4. Online systems initiative - There are ways that people have set up systems to where they are filtering through thousands and thousands of people online, and pulling out a few select people who are honestly seeking a home based business opportunity.  Tina even told me that some companies even filter the people out more and make sure the leads you get are informed about USANA and our opportunity.  I am not sure about cost or really how this works.  However, how sweet would it be to not have to bug 100 people to get 1 or 2 people interested in our business?  How cool would it be if people were filtered through multiple layers of information before you ever even talked to them.  That way they know what network marketing is, they know what USANA is about, and they are almost ready to just sign up and join the business!  It definitely sounds too good to be true, but I know that people are doing this.  Anywhere you look online about how to grow your network marketing business you'll see people like Todd Falcone, Peter Mingles, Jonathan Budd sharing with you how to set up these systems to work through the masses for you.
5. I also had an idea the other day.  It seems like people either don't know or don't care about the effects of the lifestyles they are leading.  I'm not sure if degenerative diseases are "real" enough to a lot of people.  We eat, drink, smoke, do whatever we want with our bodies.  It's sad to me, and terrifying now that I know the eventual results of this kind of living.  What I want to do in the future is to develop a video or something to get the word out about this.  The first thing that comes to mind is the giant campaign to inform people about smoking and the REAL effects it has (like those commercials we've all seen on TV with the super shocking information or pictures).  I want to do this, but focused on how our lifestyles are doing nothing but leading us down the inevitable road to destruction.  If we could get enough video footage of people with the major degenerative diseases, having them speak about their life now and how they wish they would have made better choices when they could.  If we can make it "real" enough, scary enough, honest enough, informative enough, I think we can start to make some noise in the world.  I mean, from everything I'm reading, the absolute biggest killer today is caused by the poor choices in diet, exercise, and supplementation that we are all making.  Why in the world would we not try to get the word out about this?  The world is dying, and we've been given the information and some of the resources to be able to bring some redemption here.  In the words of Kati's sister Sara: "WHY WOULDN'T CHA?"

Those are all of my ideas for now.  I hope that at least one of them caught your attention.  

It's interesting trying to grow this business.  I'm finding a LOT of very difficult people.  I'm finding a lot of flaky people.  I'm finding that it's very easy to get discouraged.  At the same time, I'm finding that I am growing.  I am learning.  I am finding a small amount of people that actually see something in this opportunity.  When I find these select few, I feel like I'm on top of the world.  It's been a roller coaster to be sure.  I'm in this for the long haul though.  Most everyone in USANA talks about how much time it will take to make this business work.  It's just going to take 4 or 5 years in order to make this thing substantial.  It's going to take a lot of work.  But in the end, it's going to be SO worth it!  So, I hope you're in this with me.  I hope you're trying as hard as I am to figure out ways we can be successful at this.  

I heard a quote today: "If you want to really succeed at something, you have to double your failure rate.  You need to fail your way to the top."  I've faced a lot of rejections in the past month.  It's hard.  Really hard.  However, this business is all about taking our experiences, learning from them, and going out and using what we learned to do it better.  On a lifemasters CD I was listening to the guy said, "this business is like a personal development system, with a compensation plan built around it."  That's so true!  This business will grow you; it will develop you, if you let it.  So don't be so discouraged if you're not seeing your business booming right now, or if your getting rejected left and right.  Just brush the dirt of your shoulders and do it again.  This is a long term project, not a sprint.  Hang in there...

Reverse Engineering Your Life

I've been working on putting this document together for a while.  This is something I've used for 3 or 4 years now to really anchor down what I'm doing in my life.  It's kind of a glorified goal setting exercise that goes into much greater detail than typical ones.  So I will post the link to the document.  Use this as a template.  You probably want to add a whole other page just for your USANA business, defining exactly where you want to be in a certain amount of time.  It will help you to discover your "why", and that's what will drive you to succeed in this business.  

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfhm5js5_13cwfsfggf

Thoughts for the day

It's been a while since I've last written.  I wanted to post my notes I took at the luncheon we had at Parisi last Saturday for Team Purpose:

• Life is all about relationships
• Who will I take to the top with me?
• BE CLEAR IN YOUR VISION!
• Your "why?"  This gets you up in the morning.  This is the engine that drives you
• You odn't need to know how.  It can be different for each person.  Let your why drive you.  Then figure out how the "how" fits in.
• If you want to know what type of vibration you're putting out, look around you.  You attract what you are putting out there. 
• Who am I?
• Who do I want to be?
• What do I need to change to be who I want to be?
• In this business you will be stretched.  
• Are you having fun?
• What are your gifts?
• Who do you want to work with?  What do you need to do to build this team?
• What goals do you have?
• What are you doing to achieve these goals?  They do not just happen.  There is no instant gratification.  
• What are your priorities?
• What is the language you're using?  Don't say things like - "think", "can't", "I need to", "try").  Be aware of your words.  Be aware of your body language.  
• What's the next step?  One call at a time, one email at a time, one facebook at a time, one conversation at a time.  
• Follow up!
• What are you grateful for?  Are you celebrating?  What have you accomplished so far?  What didn't you accomplish?  What are your current opportunities?  What are your current challenges?
• Ask people who else they know (referrals).  
• Do not compete!  It's an abundant universe.  Show people what you have to offer.  Educate them.  Leave it up to them to do their research and make a decision.
• Where is your peace and joy?
• Sloppy success is better than perfect mediocricy!

Not sure that will help all too much.  The big things for me were:

• I really need to be clear on my vision, not only with this business but with my life in general.  Life is way too important to be living so unorganized.  I need to set priorities, boundaries, and goals, and then I need to stick to those!
• Who do I want to work with?  This struck me big time.  I've been acting like I need to try to get anybody on earth to sign up for this business.  In reality, isn't it going to be way more valuable in this business to focus on finding a few leaders who are going to grow and nourish this business as opposed to 20 people who I have to convince to do it who don't work the business at all?  So I want to do that.  I want to offer the business to anyone in need.  But I want to focus on those who I think will grow this business. 

Those were my main two lessons among a bunch of smaller ones.  Hope that gives you a bit of insight.  Let me know what you think.  

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or stories make sure to utilize this blog.  It is a cool tool to get the word out there and at least have all of this stuff documented.  When we are HUGE in this business, it's gong to be good to be able to go back and see what we were thinking in the beginning.  

Peace and Love

Thoughts for the day

Had a ton of thoughts in the past couple days.  A lot of the thoughts have been directed toward what I want my/our first huge push to be on our team.  At work on Tuesday I was listening to some LifeMasters stuff on my Zune and I started to realize how diverse this company really is. There are people from so many different walks of life who are becoming successful at this business. Then I started asking myself this question: "What is my niche going to be in USANA?  In about a month or two when I start to run out of people I know to talk to, how am I going to continue to expand this business?"  I know that one of the ways Carment and Tina (two of our successful uplines) built their business huge by going into clinics, chiropractors, saloons, and the like and just presented our products and opportunity to them.  What a brilliant move!  Think of it, those people talk to people about their health for a living.  People come to them for help, and they respect what they tell them.  So if you can successfully get some of those type places on your team your business will grow rapidly.  

"But what is my niche?"  Very quickly a thought came to mind.  "What about college campuses?  What about young entrepreneurs like myself?"  For the rest of the day, and ever since, I have been running these thoughts through my head.  To me, getting these type of people is just as huge as getting the people in the clinics and such.  Just think of it, if you share the business opportunity with a young, energetic, positive, motivated entrepreneur, they are going to do everything in their power to make this business grow.  Once they catch wind of the potential for the exponential growth and leverage that can possibly be created in this business, it will just light them up, and they'll take it to the extremes.  

What major connections do college students have?  For one, they have their entire campus network to work with.  They are rubbing elbows every single day with thousands of student.  If you get ahold of a business major, they are CONSTANTLY with like-minded people who they can share the business with.  They have ample opportunities to get into groups, study sessions, leadership roles, church groups.  Each one of these things presents a giant opportunity for them to share this business.  On top of their campus network, they have a very unique opportunity to get in with their immediate family. Most parents of college students will do anything they can to help their kid succeed and move forward in life.  So if their kid comes to them and truly believes that this business is the key to a successful future, it's pretty likely that they are going to at least try the products, if not try to create a family business out of it.  

Another beautiful thing about the younger generation is that they aren't as ingrained with the whole "old school" method of "success".  These people don't want to spend the next 40 years working for someone else, climbing the corporate latter just to get to the top and realize that there is nothing there.  They see their parents hating their jobs and being so tied down, and they don't want that!  Like me, they want to have the time and financial freedom to be able to live life to the absolute fullest.  And this business provides that opportunity.  

Also, the younger generation is what shapes the culture.  They are young, motivated, creative, and know how to use the latest technology to create culture.  

So, what does this look like?  It looks like beginning to shift my mind a little bit.  Start to think about how to market this business to the younger generation.  From what I can see right now, this business is definitely attractive to families and such.  But I/we need to create marketing materials, presentations, methods, and systems that speak to the early-mid 20's aged people.  

I have so much to say about this, but I'm not sure it's coming across as clearly as I would like.  All I know is that I see HUGE potential here and I want to make a huge thrust towards developing this idea.  This doesn't mean I'm only going to focus on this age group - that would be foolish.  I still want to explore this business in all cultures, backgrounds, and ages.  However, I so want to spend a significant amount of time trying to break into the university scene.  

If you have any thoughts or ideas about this let me know.  

Thoughts for the day

Another day full of thoughts and ideas.  Here are a couple:

• We need to be walking advertisements for our business!  This means that we need to do everything we can to be the healthiest, most fit people we can possibly be.  This involves supplementation.  Take your essentials.  We all know the value of this.  This also involves taking control of our diets and truly being disciplined enough to eat what we know is right and not eat what we know is wrong.  And thirdly, this involves getting our exercise on a consistent, routine schedule.  For me this is the hardest thing in the world.  I cannot stay motivated to work out.  But, it is an absolute must!  Not only because it is simply the right thing to do, but now because it is a testament to our business.  If people see that we are healthy, fit, energized, and feeling good, then they'll be attracted to that and start coming to us to see how we got that way.  LETS BE A WALKING BILLBOARD FOR HEALTH AND FREEDOM.  
• We need to go after leaders!  Leadership is crucial in this business.  If you're not the best at leadership, don't fret.  That's why you have an upline to help you in that department.  HOWEVER, I think it is crucial to go after the best leaders we know and try to get them in our downline.  Top sales reps, vitamin reps, people with upper management experience, pastors, company owners, etc.  These people, if they catch the vision of USANA, will take our business and skyrocket it beyond all belief.  
• Let's not chase people!  For those of us in Denver, there are about 3 million people in our metro area.  Don't you think there are enough people out there for us not to have to chase people down, trying to get them to be a part of our business?  Yes, we need to be persistent and follow up, but the reality is if they don't get it, they don't get it.  If someone doesn't see the value in this business you probably don't want them on your team anyways.  So let's share this opportunity with as many people as we can.  If the person gets it, let's go after them.  If they don't get it, it might not be the right time for them, or it may never be the right time.  
• Get every single person you know on the Essentials.  It currently cost $1.71/day to be on the Essentials.  This in not a lot of money to invest in yourself.  People need to see that these products are the best they can find, and that IT IS WORTH IT to spend $1.71 per day on becoming and remaining optimally healthy (with a good diet and exercise routine of course).  

Those are my thoughts for the day.  It's late.  I'm going to bed.  

Thoughts for the day

1.  We need to discover and focus on our "WHY?" in this business.  On the LifeMasters CDs I was listening to, some Diamond Director said that 80% of your success in this business is based on the "WHY?", and only 20% is based on the "HOW".  I thought that was complete bull at first, but I'm starting to realize that there is some truth behind it.  You need to ask yourself this question: "Why am I doing USANA?"  Is it because you want to be optimally healthy?  Is it because you want to grow a giant business and make a ton of money?  Is it because you want to help people get healthy and financially secure?  What is it that is going to power the engine of your business?  

Here's what it is for us: 

My/Our whole life is dedicated to figuring out how to bring redemption (hope, love, joy, peacemaking) to this world.  That's one of the reasons I love the church when it is done right, because that's what it's all about.  I'm starting to find that this business allows us to bring redemption to two of the major areas of people's lives - health and finances.  Through this business we are given the opportunity to get people to start respecting themselves and their Maker by treating their body right (through eating right, exercising, and supplementation).  We also have the opportunity to give some hope to people when it comes to finances.  This business, when done correctly, will make you money.  

So, the primary "WHY?" for us to be doing USANA is because we're given a stellar opportunity to make a huge difference in this world - to bring redemption to people's lives.  

WHAT IS YOUR WHY???

2.  This business is all about relationships.  Some people like to build this business by setting up huge email marketing campaigns and create lead capture pages and draw in hundreds of people into a website explaining their business so that a couple might call them and want some more information.  Now I am not discarding the power of social networking and using it to build our business.  However, I do know that what we've experienced so far is that if people see that you're truly passionate about this business, and that you are truly genuine about their well being, they are MUCH more susceptible to opening up to the opportunity that USANA presents.  It's all about talking to people!  Talk to the people you haven't talked to in a while.  See how their doing.  Genuinely seek to grow your relationship.  100% of the time it will lead to a conversation about money or health or jobs or hobbies.  Use these topics of conversation to ease the USANA opportunity into their lives.  Talk to people you don't know.  Start building relationships with people.  The more they know and trust you, the more they are going to let you come into their life and possibly help them out in some of their areas of need.  

TALK TO PEOPLE!!!

3.  Check out these two verses I read tonight in Proverbs:

22:4 "The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life."

22:29 "Do you see a man skillful in his work?  He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men."  

Unbelievable insight!  The first talks about how to get three things that we ALL desire: riches, honor, and life.  And it tells us how to get those things: humility and fear of the Lord.  I don't have a firm grasp on either of those two things, but I sure am willing to try to figure it out if those rewards will follow.  Our USANA business must be characterized by these two things, and a natural outpouring of riches, honor, and life will be the result.  

The second gave me chills down my spine.  It spoke to the very depths of my soul.  Let me speak to the men for a second.  We men were created to work.  This is what we spend a majority of our lives doing, and it is what gives us a major part of our purpose in life.  Now all of us men desire to have a great purpose in life.  We always look at things outside of what we're currently doing.  This verse, however, speaks brilliantly of how much honor and purpose resides in just being skillful in our "work".  Let's be skillful at this "work"!  Let's do it in a way that is worthy for us to stand before "kings" with honor and dignity.  

Sorry for such a long posting.  I've just been thinking a ton tonight and wanted to share it with you guys.