Validation of My Newest Business Venture

Three months ago I got myself a new business venture as an Independent USANA Distributor and not being new in the network marketing business this is somehow just a review on how it is faring compared to the previous companies I have been with. 

Before USANA, I was with with three major network marketing companies namely UNO, VMobile, and Planet Mobile. UNO had a mediocre product line. VMobile just lost its marketability with the introduction of affordable post-paid plans, and Planet Mobile just didn't have any unique product lines and the support from your mentors was just not there. Sad to say, all three ventures didn't produce any results and I became one of those people who got 'negative' with network marketing. 

And then USANA came and by far it has been amazing. USANA not only has unique healthcare products but also it's the leading company in cellular nutrition. Just this year, USANA had another breakthrough with InCelligence which activates powerful cell-signaling pathways, which instruct cells to initiate a network of natural protection and renewal processes. 

USANA also has a patented marketing plan which all other MLM companies have patterned theirs from but not fully copied. And with an outstanding product line, USANA simply has the best profitable marketing plan in the industry. 

Most importantly, USANA provided the best support both from the company itself and from the mentors. USANA has a proven system that is being shared in our weekly training as well as individual coaching sessions with mentors which is very helpful and valuable to those who are new in this industry. 

And now we have come to the validation part of this write-up. Having failed in three network marketing businesses before, how has USANA worked for me in the last three months? Let me show you one of my earnings:

So far I have earned P13,178.80 in commissions for the last three months with only 50% effort on my part and the rest is my team's effort. That still does not include the profit I have with my retail sales which also matches that amount. Based on the results that I have so far, I can safely say that USANA had turned me from a 'negative' to a 'positive' in the network marketing industry. One thing I learned is that if you want to venture in a profitable business with exponential returns with zero risks find yourself a good network marketing company and start working on it.

If you want to know more about USANA, check out my company website at www.girome.usana.com or shoot me message in my Facebook account www.facebook.com/girome.

The Perfect Business: An Excerpt by Eric Worre Part III

The NEW Economy

The world as you know it has changed. For the people who don’t recognize that fact, it will

be the worst of times. For the people who do, it will be the best of times.

Over the last 100 years, an interesting phenomenon occurred. The rise of the corporation

became the standard in society. The safe and respected place for people to exist in the workplace was as an employee.

Step one: Go to school to learn how to be an employee.

Step two: Find a company that will employ you.

Step three: Work for that company for 40 years.

Step four: Retire.

In recent decades, the promise of being rewarded by the company for your loyalty and hard

work has been exposed as a myth. People began to realize the loyalty they were giving to their

company was not being given in return. So a different process evolved.

Step one: Go to school to learn to be an employee.

Step two: Find a company that will employ you.

Step three: Switch companies for various political and economic reasons every three to five

years over the course of your career.

Step four: Find that you can’t retire comfortably after 40 years, so you keep working.

And now we are going through the biggest shift in any of our lifetimes. For a century,

companies have paid people by the hour, by the week, or by the year. That’s changing on a

global level.

The world is moving toward a performance economy. And it’s already happening. Here’s

what that means: In the future, you’re only going to be paid for performance. You won’t be paid

for your time anymore. Servers in the food industry already live in this model. They get a very

low hourly wage required by law and they make their living through tips, based on their

performance.

If you can imagine the same model being applied to virtually every job in the world, you will

see what is coming. The person cleaning the rooms in a hotel won’t be paid by the hour

anymore. They’ll be paid per room.

For office workers, here’s an example. A person has a $60,000 annual salary.

Step one: The company will lower that salary to something like $50,000 because with

today’s marketplace there are other people to take the job for a lower amount.

Step two: They will reduce their “base” salary to something like $20,000 a year.

Step three: They will tell that person that they can get an additional $30,000 over the year if

they hit certain performance benchmarks on a monthly basis.

In other words, if they hit their numbers, they can make an additional $2,500 a month. Now

the pressure is on, and the company is loving it. If you don’t hit your numbers they can save

even more money. If you DO hit your numbers, guess what’s in your future? They are going to

raise your requirements.

Unless you are extremely specialized, this will happen to you if it hasn’t already. Count on it.

And it will happen in every single profession worldwide. The evolution has begun.

Why is this happening? One, it’s a better model for the company. They’ll get better results

with less expense. Two, the New Economy needs fewer people, so the company has more people competing for fewer and fewer jobs.

Let me explain why the New Economy needs fewer people. The exponential rise of

technology has changed everything. Over 100 years ago, 90% of the population worked in

agriculture. Today, because of dramatic efficiencies, it’s less than 1%, and the farming jobs are

gone.

Remember customer service call centers where you talked to people? Today, you talk to a

machine and those jobs are gone. Remember when companies had a massive amount of

salespeople? Now people order online and those sales jobs are gone. Remember Blockbuster

video and all of its employees? Now people watch movies on their handheld or tablet devices,

and those jobs are gone. I love books, but go to your local bookstore while you can. They will

be history soon, and so will the jobs provided by those stores.

I could go on and on through virtually every work category in the world. Technology and

efficiency are eliminating jobs every single day, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. In fact,

it’s only going to accelerate. If you are sitting there waiting for the economy to bounce back and

for jobs to return, don’t. They aren’t coming back.

Just like the children of farmers saw the handwriting on the wall and left farming for new

vocations, the same thing is happening for people working in Old Economy jobs. To survive,

they’ll need to open their eyes to this reality and find something new.

Network Marketing is BETTER

The best way I know to not only survive, but to thrive in the New Economy, is Network

Marketing. There are important products and services in the world today that need to be

promoted to the people who need them. Consumers still need to be educated.

Companies have choices. They can dive into the ever-fragmented world of advertising to get

the word out, they can hire a large and expensive sales force to sell their products or services,

or they can utilize Network Marketing to tell their story to the world.

More and more companies will choose to use Network Marketing because it fits the New

Economy. They can provide all the corporate support and pay distributors on a purely

performance basis to promote their products. It’s extremely efficient because in the New

Economy, word-of-mouth advertising continues to work better than any other form of promotion.

The company can just take the money they would have spent on advertising and promotion and

pay it to their distributors to spread the word.

What that means for you as an entrepreneur is that you can receive all the benefits of

traditional business ownership without the typical risks. And there will be no cap on your

income, because Network Marketing companies WANT you to make as much as possible. If

you’re going to be paid for performance anyway, why live with the cap?

The “Catch” To Network Marketing

This all sounds great and it is. But there is a catch that most people won’t tell you. Here it is:

You must accept a temporary loss of social esteem from ignorant people.

That means for a while, people still living in and trying to function in the old system will think less of you. They won’t understand. They’ll think you’re crazy for being involved in Network

Marketing.

And actually, the word “accept” isn’t completely accurate. You need to do more than that.

You need to embrace the temporary loss of social esteem from ignorant people. YOU are

seeing the future before it becomes apparent to everyone else. YOU are the smart one. YOU

are the person taking action to live a better life.

There is a reason why people will think less of you, and it’s not just because they are stuck

in the old system. Let me see if I can help you better understand this, because if you decide to

make Network Marketing your profession, it’s important to know.

Most people have either joined a Network Marketing company or know someone who has.

This is what goes through the mind of virtually every person who decides to get involved.

“Hmm, I can think of five or six people who might do this too! My sister would be great! My friend

loves this kind of thing. I know this other person who could be amazing! Okay, I’ll join.”

In other words, they aren’t joining a profession. They’re just hoping to get lucky, sign up a

few people to cover their own start-up costs, and sit back and wait for the money to roll in. The

allure of being paid for someone else’s efforts is powerful, but often badly misunderstood.

They haven’t started a real business. They just purchased a glorified lottery ticket. Imagine a

lottery ticket with six scratch-off spots. Those spots represent each of the people the new

person thinks will certainly join. They approach those people and try to get them to join. And

because of their lack of skill, most of them end up with nothing—just like the lottery ticket. This

becomes just another lost opportunity, and since they have acted in unskilled ignorance, they

may have damaged some friendships as well.

So they rip up the ticket, and instead of taking responsibility for not really starting their

business, they blame Network Marketing and make sure to tell the world, “Look, I’ve been there.

I’ve done it. I talked to every person I know, and Network Marketing just doesn’t work. Save

your money.”

THAT’S what you’re dealing with if you choose this as a profession—the opinions of

ignorant people who think they’ve done it right and it doesn’t work. If that’s going to be too hard

to handle, then Network Marketing isn’t for you. But if you can embrace it, the world is yours.

The people who embrace this get paid BIG money. Companies will pay unlimited amounts

to people who can help blind people see, who can educate the ignorant, and who can build a

community of like-minded people.

Some people like to say, “Perception is reality.” I hate that saying. All great leaders in the

world have ignored it for centuries. What if Nelson Mandela had said perception is reality?

What if Martin Luther King Jr. had said perception is reality? What if Steve Jobs had said

perception is reality? The great leaders of the world said, “Reality is reality, and I’m going to do

everything possible to help people understand that fact.”

The truth is, Network Marketing isn’t perfect. It’s just BETTER. And that’s reality!

Part I: http://toycameraproject.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-perfect-business-excerpt-by-eric.html

Part II: http://toycameraproject.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-perfect-business-excerpt-by-eric_26.html

The Perfect Business: An Excerpt by Eric Worre Part II

Part I: http://toycameraproject.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-perfect-business-excerpt-by-eric.html

Traditional Business Ownership

Some people opt for the big dream—building their own business where they are the boss and they call the shots. It’s an exciting idea, isn’t it? Here’s the reality for most people:

Step one: They use their life savings, take on new debt, and many times borrow money from friends and family to get started.

Step two: They take on more debt in the form of leases and personal guarantees in just about every direction.

Step three: Now instead of focusing on what they are good at (let’s say they were great at sales and decided to start their own business), they have to be all things to all people. They act as attorney for legal matters, accountant for financial matters, babysitter for employee matters, negotiator for purchasing matters, and collection agency for accounts receivable matters. They even get to take out the garbage. They are doing EVERYTHING but selling, which is what they were good at in the first place.

Step four: They struggle. Instead of owning the business, the business owns them. They are the first person to work and the last person to leave. And after everyone else gets paid, they might be able to take home enough money to pay their own bills, let alone reduce the debt they incurred to start the business in the first place.

Step five: They succeed or they fail. They either hit a point down the road where the business is successful, or they fail, many times filing for bankruptcy and falling back into a corporate or sales job. And even if they are successful, that usually means a lifetime of long hours and stress.

Sounds romantic doesn’t it? If you haven’t started your own business before, ask friends who have if this description isn’t accurate. Most people who start their own traditional business aren’t worried about getting a return on their investment. They just want a return OF their investment. It’s pretty clear that traditional business ownership can’t provide the Perfect Career as we’ve described it.

The Investor

The last category of ways to earn a living in the world today is to be an investor. And what do you need to become an investor? Money, right? If you don’t have a lot of money, it’s going to be very difficult to earn a living from the return on your investments, especially if you try to be conservative to reduce the risk of loss.

But let’s say you do. What’s the next thing you need in order to be a successful investor? You need to have incredible knowledge and skill. I know more people than I could count who were skillful real estate investors over the years. But when things radically changed in the real estate market, their skill couldn’t help them. They lost big.

Would you like to invest in someone’s traditional small business? Good luck. In most cases, you won’t be an investor; you are more likely to be a philanthropist.

How about the stock market? People do great there, don’t they? A few do, at least from time to time. But I know more people who’ve lost than have won, especially in the past decade. It’s very difficult to have guaranteed returns when you’re not in control. And trust me, as an investor you are NOT in control. Anything can happen. And it can happen overnight.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate that point. In late 2001, I was living large. I had sold a company I co-founded and was working as a very highly paid consultant. For my part of the sale I received approximately 170,000 shares of stock in the new company. It was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and selling for about $44 a share, which meant the value of my stock was around $7.5 million. I had big income and a great portfolio. Life was GOOD.

I used part of the stock to secure a home construction loan of about $2 million for a dream house I was building. As for the rest, I didn’t diversify because I knew the company was in great shape with a good product and an amazing sales force.

Then something out of my control happened. Overnight the stock went to $37 a share because a group of investors had targeted the company and shorted the stock. In other words, the lower the stock price went, the more money they would make.

I thought it was ridiculous because the company was doing great, so I bought some more shares at $37, using my existing shares as collateral, knowing the price would go back up. It went to $33. I bought more shares. It went to $27. I started getting margin calls, which meant if I didn’t send them money, they were going to start selling my shares to cover the losses. I didn’t have it to send.

The stock continued to go down. It went all the way to $10 a share and my $7.5 million was gone. Poof! All in less than 90 days. Now, the stock eventually came back and the company was taken private for $65 a share. But I wasn’t there to capitalize on it. I was wiped out.

Could I have been smarter? Sure. Did I make mistakes? Absolutely. But here’s the lesson: If you’re going to be an investor, you have to accept that things will be taken out of your control from time to time. And when that happens, it can be very expensive.

So, back to our Perfect Career List. Can being an investor deliver on that list? I don’t think so.

We’ve talked about blue-collar work, white-collar work, sales, traditional business ownership, and investing. And none of them can deliver on our Perfect Career List. So is the perfect career even possible? The answer is yes, but to get there you need to understand that everything is changing. The old models of compensation are dead or dying, and we are going through the biggest economic shift in any of our lifetimes.

To be continued...

Part I: http://toycameraproject.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-perfect-business-excerpt-by-eric.html

The Perfect Business: An Excerpt by Eric Worre Part I

Do you feel restless? Do you feel unsatisfied? Do you feel there must be a better way when it comes to your work and the way you make your living? 

The good news: There IS a better way, but it’s different than what you were taught in school. Let me explain. 

As I travel and speak around the world, I like to play an audience participation game. I ask people to help me create the ultimate business and to tell me specific things they’d like to have in that business and things they’d like to avoid. It always makes for a very interesting list. If we were face to face, I’d do the same thing with you now. But since we’re not, let me summarize what people from over 30 countries have told me while creating what I like to call “The Perfect Career List.” 

People usually start naming things they don’t want: 

• No boss 
• No commute 
• No alarm clock 
• No employees 
• No politics 
• No compromises 
• No discrimination 
• No educational requirement 

And then, as people start to use their imaginations in a more positive way, they start to visualize some positive attributes: 

• Something positive 
• Great product or service 
• Unlimited income 
• Residual income 
• Enjoy the people you work with 
• Time freedom 
• Something meaningful 
• Personal growth 
• Lots of perks 
• International Contribution to worthy causes 
• Low risk 
• Low start-up costs 
• Economy-proof 
• Tax benefits 
• Fun! 

Now, you might add some attributes of your own, but wouldn’t you agree that’s a pretty good start? Imagine being able to enjoy a career with all those attributes! 

All “jobs” that I know of fall into one of five categories: 

• Blue-collar 
• White-collar 
• Sales Traditional business ownership 
• Investing 

Blue-Collar Careers 

Here is the Wikipedia definition of blue-collar. “A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor.” My definition is someone who labors to fix something, make something, clean something, build something, or service something (or someone). 

In my life, I’ve worked many blue-collar jobs. And, for anyone who’s ever engaged in this line of work, there is a certain satisfaction in a job well done. 

But here’s the big question: Can blue-collar work deliver on The Perfect Career List? The obvious answer is no. Sure, it can deliver on some of the attributes. It might have a great product and a low start-up cost or any number of other individual items on the list, but if you really look at it, blue-collar just can’t get you where you want to be. Not “The Perfect Career.” 

White-Collar Careers

Here is the Wikipedia definition of white-collar. 

“The term white-collar worker refers to a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work, in contrast with a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor. Typically white-collar work is performed in an office or cubicle.”

My definition is a person who is employed by someone else to do work other than manual labor or sales. 

Many people choose a white-collar career, as it is one of the most socially acceptable of the options available. It has long been viewed as the safe and secure option. Recently that has changed. The implied contract that, if you are loyal to the company, the company will be loyal to you, is long gone.

I’ve also been a white-collar worker in my career. In my experience, there are two types of people who do this type of work: Achievers and Hiders.

Achievers are the people who want to perform at a high level. They are ambitious, motivated and energetic. They are full of ideas and want to move up the corporate ladder, which are great attributes to have. But there is a downside for the Achiever.

The moment a person decides to be an Achiever, they become a target. Their boss sees them as threatening to their job, so they start to hold them down or take shots at their reputation. Their peers see them as a person who will either embarrass them or keep them from getting a promotion, so they start to do what they can to undermine their accomplishments.

So, to remain an Achiever and survive in this hostile environment, a person must become good at one thing that has nothing to do with their productivity—and that’s politics. They must learn how to navigate the political world by diminishing their enemies and strengthening their relationship with powerful people. In fact, some of the most successful people in the corporate world aren’t Achievers at all. They are pure politicians.

So if you decide to work in the corporate environment and to be an Achiever, you must accept the fact that you must become a good politician also.

Now, let’s talk about the Hiders. These are the people who HATE politics, but still need a job. They learn not to be the ambitious Achiever. They don’t stand out. They don’t speak up in meetings. They don’t bring new ideas. They HIDE. They keep their heads down and do as they’re told. They do just enough so that they aren’t talked about negatively. They survive.

And this has worked for decades. But in the New Economy, it’s becoming much more difficult to hide. And people are running out of time.

So, back to our Perfect Career List: Can a white-collar job deliver on the list? Again, the clear answer is no—certainly not in very many areas.

Sales

Some people choose to get away from being an “employee” and get involved in a sales career. This is certainly more adventurous because typically salespeople are paid on their production instead of by the hour.

I’ve known thousands of salespeople. There is a common theme I’ve noticed over the course of my career. The typical salesperson will have a period of time where everything goes perfectly. Everything they touch turns to gold and they make some really good money.

As soon as that happens, they almost always set their lifestyle to that level of income. They buy a new house, get new cars, put their kids in better schools, purchase a vacation home—the works. Everything is great for a while.

And then something changes.

The company changes the compensation plan, their territory gets reduced, a competitor shows up, they lose their best customer, the economy goes into recession, new technology makes their offer less valuable, or government regulations change their industry. These are just a few examples. There are hundreds more reasons why the salesperson’s world could (and probably will) get more complicated.

When that happens, with the big lifestyle they’ve developed, now 40 hours a week isn’t enough to pay the bills. So they go to 50 hours a week. And then 60. And then 70. And then their life gets very small. Yes, they have the stuff, but they don’t have time to enjoy it.

The other challenge for the sales career is, no matter how a person does, they still start at zero the next day. It can be tiring to live under that kind of pressure over a long period of time.

Can a sales career pay the bills? Sure. But can it deliver on The Perfect Career we described earlier? Again, the answer is no.

To be continued...

Got A New Business!

So as of today June 9, 2016 I am officially an independent USANA business owner! I went to the USANA office this morning and was welcomed by my good friend Ratchelle and Benson who is one of the business leaders in Cebu. 

They guided me through the registration process which was done online through the USANA website. Ratchelle had me download the USANA app which will be my personal portal to the business. After the entire registration process, I was already able to get my ID Number as well as a password which I can now use to login to the app.

Once everything was done, Benson and Ratchelle congratulated me for making the first step towards success. We scheduled another meeting tomorrow where they will orient me on how to do the business successfully. I'm truly excited for things to come!

On a different note, I was able to get in touch with one of the first models I've worked with when I was still starting out in photography and she is now a financial planner for PRULife UK and I arranged a meeting for next week so we can talk more financial planning. June already starts to look pretty good!

Now if you're interested to know more about USANA please visit their website at https://www.usana.com/ or drop me a note on the comments section below or a text at 0923-265-2963. I may still not be able to answer all your questions obviously but I know some awesome people who can.