Are you an Everyday Entrepreneur?

I know that I normally write about health related issues and how supplements can enhance and elongate your life but today, well today, my mind is on a different sort of enhancement to your life-specifically, your wallet.

What do Puffy, Eve, 50 Cent, Nelly, Naughty by Nature, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Jay-Z and Beyonce all have in common. It should be a pretty easy observation but just in case it isn't...they are all entrepreneurs.

It's pretty amazing when you think about it. All of these people have created multiple streams of income through marketing. They all took the one check they were receiving as a result of singing or rapping and parlayed that into multiple streams of income wherein, they receive checks for the many ventures they have embarked on as a result of their hard work and marketing efforts. That's one tenet I want to impress upon you through this reading.

These people were visionaries in that they were able to see that they could leverage one income and turn it into-at the very least-two.

Even other entertainers such as Kimora Lee Simmons-who started out as a model and is truly one of the pioneers of our generation, Serena Williams-professional tennis player and Sara Jessica Parker-actress, realized how beneficial it would be to leverage their income in return for more.

Not only did they leverage their income, they personally branded themselves so brilliantly that the other projects they've taken on that have net them multiple streams of income seemed almost...well, seamless in their simplicity.

Because they had achieved celebrity status, the marketing efforts of their respective PR teams was really an easy task. They simply had to promote their message to the appropriate audience effectively-which is a simple implementation of the 4 P's of marketing and 1 and done. The sales practically became passive and residual income for them.

The product (the entertainer and their line of clothing, cologne, etc.) was promoted (commercials, billboards,etc) for the right price (whatever number they felt would be comfortable for the intended consumer) and the message was placed (everywhere) with the right audience. If you already have a platform, in all honesty, the world becomes your target market because you just never know who you have touched with your talent/skills. A celebrity can literally throw spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks in instances like these because celebrities have far-reaching influence.

Now, I put all of the above information out for your consumption to get you thinking. As an entrepreneur who doesn't have a following, it's really incumbent on you to find your audience and nurture them. Once you, as an everyday entrepreneur find your niche audience, you have the potential to be just as golden as the celebrities that have a loyal following as well. Heck, if you think about it, those celebrities worked just as hard at their first job as a lot of nine to five employees do everyday. The difference is that their first job really created an opportunity for them to accumulate that passive and residual income they now enjoy. You and I can do that too. We simply have to rely on the product being really good and our personalities making such an impact on those we come into contact with that they too will want to have us and our products in their life in some tangible way.

That's really the only difference when you look at it. Celebrities have followers that like what they do for their day job. So they follow them to their other job to try to capture a piece of them. Some may even believe that by buying a celebrity's cologne or clothes that makes them more like the celebrity they envy or revere.

Everyday entrepreneurs have followers who like what they have to offer which, in my opinion, has a lot more depth to it. Most entrepreneurs have a tangible service or product that genuinely improves the lives of those they share it with. They aren't just selling something to be selling something because they know they can make a buck.

I guess this is my food for thought for today. What do you think?

Persian Pomegranate Mango Body Scrub

Can I just say how happy I am that the new body scrub from Soul Purpose has arrived?! The founder, Nadine Thompson, has really put her foot in this one!

Persian Pomegranate Mango body scrub, is formulated with lush, moisturizing oils, shea butter and pure cane sugar. There is an exclusive antioxidant blend used by Soul Purpose that contains, green tea, Oregon grape, red wine and Acai berry.

Now, on to the Mango. Not only do we have the Persian Pomegranate Mango body scrub, we have the Malaysian Mango line expansion. It's available right now! http://tinyurl.com/cbl8u4

Mango is a delicious fruit that tastes wonderful but now, Soul Purpose has taken Mango to a whole other level of good! We already had the Malaysian Mango perfume essence in our Fruits & Passion collection. Because it received such rave reviews and requests for expansion, your wish has been granted! We now have the Malaysian Mango body lotion and shower gel to further ensconce you within the Soul Purpose experience! It is truly divine deliciousness going on here. Nadine Thompson has been in the lab working it out and look what we have to offer you as a result! I can't wait until my Food for the Soul and Senses Celebration! It will be so amazing to have the Persian Pomegranate Mango scrub and Malaysian Mango collection in the house!

I can only imagine the pandemonium that will erupt once we get the candles for these fragrances! I'm going to be placing my order for 10 of my very own!

I hope to see you there so make sure you contact me for further details.

Happy Holidays!

Well, here we are again folks! Another holiday season is here and about to be gone, along with another year. Lately, I've been in a retrospective state of mind, like many others, I think, wondering where the year has gone so quickly. As I think about the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year, it makes me feel so good to know that I've accomplished much of what I set out to do this year, what about you?

More than just accomplishing tasks or goals, I really set out to find my true happiness this year. In keeping with accomplishing a task that can take a lifetime to accomplish, I think I did pretty good this year.

My online business has come a long way from just one year ago. I am still very committed to making it a success, which, from what I understand, is a task in and of itself since most businesses fail the very first year. After the business storms I've weathered this year, it's not hard to see why.

It's so very hard to stay committed when times are tough and no one seems to be paying attention to you or your business. Trust me when I tell you, there have been times this year when I was tempted to just throw in the towel and rush back, as quickly as possible, to my old corporate organization. When you get used to security, it's really tough to give up security; especially a paycheck you can count on every two weeks like clockwork.

Yes, indeed, when you know your mortgage is due in seven days and you aren't sure your month end sales will gross you the money you need to get that payment in on time, the first thing you want to do is cry, "uncle, alright, now give me my money!" but, then you get that order online or you receive a phone call from an old customer who would like to make a purchase or you meet that person by chance who really 'gets you' or your products and then you're reminded of the reason why you set out on this crazy venture in the first place.

Why, you ask? Because if you have that true entrepreneurial spirit, you know that calling your own shots and flying by the seat of your pants is worth the risk. The potential reward is worth all of the struggle. The possibility that just around the corner is your big break is the reason why you keep believing that one day, one day soon, you will have proof positive that this will all have been worth it. Because, you are a Rhinocerous! You claim with unbridled glee, you have grown a thick skin, little did you know and not a cow.

Now, after all of that is said and done, have a look at my newly updated website! www.lapoluxuryspabaskets.com

MLM at its' best!

Multilevel marketing doesn't get much, if any respect in the world of business. I'm not quite sure why. It's totally legitimate as long as there is an exchange of product and/or services. Sure, there have been some bad apples who sully the profession but, what profession exists that has never had people in that profession perform in such a way as to put a blight on the whole profession. Even when that happens, the profession continues and respect is doled out based on what most of those within that profession do. Not Multilevel marketing though.

Both Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki are huge supporters of multi-level marketing, but they choose to call it Network Marketing. As far as they are concerned, network marketing is the only way to truly create an empire. Anyone who has intentions on becoming a multimillionaire must engage in network marketing. Such as it is, the definition of network marketing is to share an opportunity with another (or more accurately, many others) and receive compensation for introducing someone to this opportunity that they decide to take advantage of and leverage for their success.

It seems as though we prefer traditional methods of being paid for a hard days work, punching a clock and not messing with that whole traditional idea. It seems as though it is inconceivable to share an opportunity with someone else, whether it is the opportunity to start your own business, the opportunity to avail oneself of life changing products such as vitamins, herbal remedies, makeup, spa products, etc, and be compensated for helping someone improve their life. When mentioning the opportunity to start your own business and change your life, fire your boss, set your hours as you see fit, work as hard as you want (or not), I'm often met with frowns and suspicion as to "what my real motives are" as though I'm not above board and totally legitimate in my quest to build my own business by helping you improve your life, whether it is by starting your own business or purchasing one of my products.

It may be difficult but follow me here. Isn't this exactly what Obama just did with his brilliant multichannel media campaign? The only difference is, he wasn't offering us (his supporters) the opportunity to start our own business. He offered us-through his brilliant use of the internet and mobile texting-the opportunity to help him financially in order for us to have the opportunity to have him as our next President of the United States of America. Brilliant! So many of us bought into the idea of helping this person we felt was worthy of this help that he was able to raise $659 million dollars ($150 million in one month alone) that would enable him to get the word out to enough voters so as to bring about change of historical proportions. This, my friends, is network marketing at it's finest hour. I wonder if it can ever be done with this degree of success again. He didn't let up! The campaign was like a machine. From personal experience, once you gave to the campaign, they kept urging you to give again and again, even providing incentive (the rally tickets, improving the state of America, change, etc) to compel us (me) to keep digging in my pockets even when I knew I couldn't afford to because he compelled us (me and many like me) to believe in his mission.

I'm sure I've gone on far too long about this subject but my point is that there is more than one way to 'skin a cat' if you will. The traditional and current multichannel marketing methods seem to still be encased in one little area when there is so much more to be had.

We had a speaker a couple of weeks ago telling his story about the agony that most CMOs and Heads of Marketing go through when trying to determine who will get credit for a sale when there are various channels that the customer may have used before making the final purchase as well as the possibility of returns.

In Network Marketing, that is not an issue. Regardless of where the customer purchases or possibly returns the merchandise, the credit goes to the person with whom that customer began their relationship pertaining to the product. How? Simple. When the relationship is initiated with a consultant, that consultant has an ID number. If the customer makes a purchase, more than likely they will want to purchase from the person they initiated with (at least 90% of the time) due to comfort levels and most especially when a large purchase is involved. Upon purchase, credit is given to the ID number which belongs to a consultant who is usually on a team that leads to a director or head of marketing. The consultant gets credit for making the sale due to the ID and credit is also doled out to that consultant's 'upline' which could be a director, team leader, executive, etc. The same is true for a return. That credit would be taken away from the ID and upline. I'm not sure why this isn't the norm in traditional marketing but...doesn't it make sense?

I found this article referring to Obama and how his marketing campaign influenced the election. Check it out. http://www.google.com/bookmarks/url?url=http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/quelch/2008/11/how_better_marketing_elected_b.html&ei=pSEUSY6qK5qWMsL2oDA&sig2=642USb_VrVC-pFFMT5Te3g&ct=b