Grocery Shrink

The company we are featuring today is totally new to me. This product line brings different spin on direct sales that may interest husbands to work alongside their wives. Here’s Amy Johnson to tell us more about it.

My name is Amy Johnson. A couple of years ago, when our traditional business began suffering the effects of the economy, my husband and I started looking for our “Plan B”. After prayerful consideration, we were introduced to ACN.

A Little Background On ACN:

ACN is a traditional direct sales company providing essential home and business services that people need and use every day, including digital phone service, video phones, local and long distance calling, Internet, wireless, satellite TV, home security, computer support and energy (yes, Energy!). ACN offers familiar, trusted brand services that everyone uses on a daily basis. Imagine receiving a residual income every month when someone turns on their lights, heats their home, talks on their cell phone, uses the Internet, arms their security system and watches TV!

Why We Chose ACN:

First of all, my husband and I really like the idea of no inventory and no monthly minimums. Since I don’t consider myself a salesperson, I love that we don’t have to convince anyone they need our services or ask them to spend outside of their monthly budget, or hope they order more next month. We share the business with a few others, gather a few customers and help others do the same. It’s that simple and we can do it on a part-time basis.

After we understood the concept of the business opportunity, it was important to my husband and me to make sure ACN was a stable company that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We were looking for something that we could build over time. What we learned is that ACN was co-founded by four men of faith and incredible integrity. The company is 18 years old, debt free and is now doing business in 23 countries. ACN is the world’s largest direct seller of telecommunications.

Our Journey:

Having the comfort of the company’s stability behind us, we began our journey. Let me first say that surrounding yourself with leaders is instrumental to the success of any direct sales business. We are fortunate to have some of top producers in all of ACN mentoring us and our team. Having the right leaders, being coachable and putting into action on a daily basis, what our leaders teach us, has led to our continuing success.

Once we became independent representatives, we immediately became our own customers. We now receive a monthly residual income on our cell phones, satellite TV, home security, business phones and computer tech support. The next step was to contact friends & family and see if we could help them save money on services they are already using. Even if we couldn’t save them money, many became our customers just to support us. We now earn monthly residual income on their services as well. Significant residual income takes time to build so while that is building, ACN offers awesome bonus opportunities to sustain our business. In February I was able to help a home schooling mom of five (ages 4 months-18) earn a $1,000 bonus in her first month of business!

Training & Support:

ACN’s award winning training is phenomenal. We have local training weekly, regional and national training quarterly, regular conference calls with leaders and co-founders, product and business opportunity webinars and video training available at anytime through our back office support.

Another key to success in our business is putting the success of our team before our own. When you’re helping others be successful, your success will fall into place, but if you put yourself first, you’re sure to fail.

Benefits Beyond Income:

Beyond the income potential of this great business opportunity, we are blessed to be able to help others achieve their goals and dreams. We have established life-long relationships with so many positive people. Our personal growth has been absolutely amazing and I love that my husband and I can do this together.

Going Primetime:

ACN has been endorsed by one of the world’s most successful leaders in business. This multi-billionaire entrepreneur sought out our co-founders when he learned of ACN. Because of his belief in the company, this Sunday, March 27th, ACN goes Primetime with its encore appearance on NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice. ACN’s home-based business opportunity and our revolutionary IRIS V Video Phone will be featured.

If you can’t watch, feel free to call me or contact us through our website if you’d like to learn more about the opportunity or the services we offer.

Amy Johnson
Executive Team Leader
ACN Independent Representative
Cell: 208.640.1053
Web: http://davejohnson.acnrep.com

If you are just joining our Blog from yesterday’s segment on the 700 Club, I am doing a small business focus this month to help mom’s who’d like to earn money from home.  If this topic doesn’t interest you, hop over to the archives from February where we did a whole month on saving money on groceries. 

If cosmetics aren’t your thing, cooking supplies might interest you more.  Here’s Maggie to tell you about why she loves her Pampered Chef business:  Note:  It’s interesting when you look at the birth of most of the Direct Sales Companies–most were started by a woman with a dream from her living room.

My name is Maggie Miniard and I’ve been with The Pampered Chef for four years.  I absolutely love being a consultant because what I do is not just about the products we sell, but the service and information we provide.  I love being able to  help busy moms and dads spend less time in the kitchen and more time together as well as give them the tips and tools they need to prepare healthy, nutritious meals that make the cooking experience fun.  Being a consultant also provides me with the opportunity to control my schedule, spend more time with my family and earn an extra income!  I have been asked if my business has been suffering since the economy has been so bad, and the honest answer is- “No” I actually had my best year ever last year.  I have found that not only have my sales increased, but sales for the Pampered Chef overall have increased because more people are eating at home instead of eating out.  And they want to know how to do it fast, easy and healthy.  Everyone loves to eat- so this business appeals to everyone!

One of the greatest features is our Consultant Kit.  The Pampered Chef offers two start up kits-The full sized kit costs $155 and contains about $570 worth of kitchen products, all the paperwork for your first six shows, training materials, hostess gifts, an apron, the bag to carry it all in and the software you need to submit your shows online.   This alone is worth the investment, but we give our hosts an opportunity to use $20 or $40 of their free product value to offset the cost of the kit.  The very least a hostess would pay for the full sized kit would be $115!  The mini-kit costs only $80 and contains approximately $200 worth of products, all the paperwork you would need for your first 4 shows, training materials, the apron, hostess gifts, and the software to submit your shows online.  For the month of March only- any consultant who signs up by the 31^st of March and qualifies in their first 30 days will receive half the cost of their kit back! 

As you can see, just from the kit price itself that The Pampered Chef is very generous to its consultants and hosts, and that generosity begins on day one!  They provide incentives for new consultants to strive for when they qualify in their first 30 days.  What does it take to qualify? –Simply submit $1,250 in product sales.   Many consultants (me included) achieve this in their first three shows.  The earning potential is limitless, but just to give an idea of what an average consultant can make look at this example.  A consultant who does just two average shows (an average show is approximately $450 in sales) each week can earn $850 each month.  Where else can you work just two days (or four hours) a week and earn that?

The training provided for new consultants is wonderful.  First off is the training DVD contained in the kit and the paperwork that helps a new consultant step by step get their business off to a good start.  There are online and tele-classes available 24-hours a day on The Pampered Chef website, along with a full library of videos that demonstrate how to prepare a variety of recipes, or show you how to use different products.  Team meetings take place once a month for more training and recognition.  And of course the consultant who signed you would take the lead in helping you get started.   Since there are no territories, a consultant can recruit anyone in the United States to join their team.  Assistance is provided that helps to connect new consultants that live apart from their recruiters with directors in their area.  Once a year, the home office prepares and schedules national conference and regional training meetings that any consultant can attend and receive further instruction from top sellers and motivation from leaders on how to be a success or how to take their business to the next level.  In fact, it is possible to promote to director in your first 90 days and they show you how!  I hear this over and over- “You are in business for yourself, but not by yourself” In the Pampered Chef community there is an abundance of help and resources available to ensure a new consultant’s success.

Another advantage is that there is no inventory to maintain.  In fact the only product a consultant is ever required to purchase is the kit itself.  Twice a year consultants are given the opportunity to earn the next season’s new products for FREE and each month special items are offered as incentives to the consultants as well.  This could be anything from special aprons, to clothing items or bags that help the consultant to advertise or enhance her business. 

The Pampered Chef home show format is one of the most fun I’ve been involved with, and its super easy- any one can do it!  The show itself can take anywhere from one to two hours.  The hostess buys all the ingredients needed to make the selected recipe for her show.  The consultant then demonstrates how to prepare the recipe, or has the guests prepare it under her watchful eye. Letting the guests try the tools out for themselves is a great way to “try before you buy.” My hosts and guests have so much fun and everyone chimes in with their own kitchen tips.  One of the things I love best about the cooking show is meeting someone who says they don’t cook or don’t like to cook, and at the end of the show they discover that not only can they cook, but that they enjoyed it too-they just needed the right tools! 

I hope this information has piqued your curiosity enough to take a closer look, and honestly I haven’t even scratched the surface on all the benefits and incentives consultants receive.  I would be thrilled to discuss this business opportunity with you further.  If you would like to browse the online catalog, place an order for products or schedule your own fun cooking or online catalog show-you can simply go to my website!  I look forward to hearing from you.

Maggie Miniard
Consultant #513399
Team Leader with The Pampered Chef
757-498-4229
aminiard@cox.net
www.pamperedchef.biz/maggieskitchen2

It’s no secret that I’m completely biased in the Direct Sales market, so I thought I’d start with a focus on the business I personally chose, though many other companies will follow.  If you click on the Mary Kay links, you will go to my personal website and I’m offering a 20% discount on any sales through the site March 23-30th.  To take advantage of the discount, order through the site but do not pay. I will send you a paypal invoice with the discounted total plus sales tax (but shipping is free.)

  I chose Mary Kay because:

1.  50% profit on all sales

2.  Excellent training

3.  Debt free company with a geat reputation and a Christian foundation

4.  I love the products and am a happy customer–my skin has never looked better!

5.  No sales quotas

6.  The products are consumable, so I get lots of reorders and even in a recession, cosmetics sell great.

Part of why I joined Mary Kay is my amazing director, Andrea Costley.  I asked her to share a few words with you about her journey in Mary Kay. Although her success is not typical or average, I believe anyone with the same drive and dedication that she has can achieve similar success.  Mary Kay has more of these success stories than most direct sales companies.

Here are just a few of her accomplishments:

1.  Do let the people around you know that you are in business, but don’t be a pest.  While my friends and family support my business, I’ve found my best cutomers are strangers.  If someone tells you “no”, don’t be offended or pester them to get a “yes”.  There are plenty of people in your sphere, just move on to the next one.  No means next and it’s not personal.

2.  Give excellent customer service:  Deliver products on time or ahead of time.  Add samples and little chocolates to order bags.  Send personalized thankyou notes to the hostess and guests after a party.  Follow up a few days after a  sale (or delivery) and make sure each customer is satisfied with her products.  Remember your customer’s birthdays and send a coupon gift.  Take advantage of catalog mailing promotions from your company.  Keep records of your customer’s favorite products or wish lists.

3.  Manage your money well.  Be careful if you buy inventory to only buy multiples of what sells well.  If you are too new to know, ask an experienced colleague in your area.  Keep your business money separate from your personal money and never dip into your business money to take care of a personal need (In the corporate world this is called embezzling.)

4.  Have a cheerful and professional phone voice.  Make people at ease to call you or happy to hear your voice.  Have an enthusiasm that’s contagious!

5.  Use your own products.  You are the best adertising for your business.  If you sell purses, never leave the house without one from your company.  If you sell cosmetics, be loyal to your brand.  When people ask the secret to your gorgeous skin and beautiful eyes, you won’t have to wonder which product did it and you’ll have a perfect lead in to offer some samples or a free facial.

The next couple of weeks, I’ll be featuring several small businesses.  It’s my hope to give you ideas about what’s possible, to showcase things that are done well, and to introduce you to some businesses that might bless your life.

First up is Say Mmmm

Overview – Say Mmm is about helping parents save time and money getting dinner on the table. The website has several free meal planning, grocery shopping, and recipe organizing features to help people go from Hmm to Mmm:

Meal planning – Easily plan meals by day, week, or month with an online calendar designed to work with your recipes and shopping lists.

Grocery lists – Simplify grocery lists with smart features that help you remember and organize the things you need to get.

Recipes – Save all your recipes and meal ideas in one place, organize them as you like, and just click to use them in meal plans and shopping lists.

Say Mmm Plus – In addition to the many free features, Say Mmm Plus has some additional premium features for $3/month.

Blog Features – Bloggers can add printable shopping lists, printable recipes, and recipe index features to their sites.

What I love:  The site is well designed, easy to navigate, provides a useful service, and has some amazing free features.  These advantages are sure to bring a ton of quality traffic to the site.  It has a built in lead capture when new members register for the free service.  If he chooses to add more streams of income to this site or another one, he’ll have a huge list already grateful to him ready to hear about it.

The advanced features are very affordable, $3 a month, for the average family.  And the added features of calorie counting, price tracking, and an additional recipe bank will save a subscribing family enough money or give enough benefits to more than offset the cost.  When he gains a large group of  paid subscribers, it can generate a sustaining monthly income without financial hardship on any party.

And of course, I love Say Mmmm because it helps organize the shopping and planning method that saves families the most money possible!

There are several low or no cost ways to drive traffic to your blog or business.   If you have an online business, you need a blog.  This helps people get to know you and your products in a more personal way.  Also, don’t underestimate the power of video blogging (vlogging.)  My friend recently sold me some innovative hair clips.  I had seen them on her website and wasn’t that interested until she showed me how they worked.  A vlog showing new hairstyle tips and tricks featuring the clips will have the same affect but reach hundreds or thousands of people instead of just one.  I can see this idea applied to cooking supplies, decorating items, craft supplies, cosmetics….don’t just tell us, show us.

Before driving traffic to your site, make sure it is ready.  Otherwise all that traffic will be wasted.  To be ready, make sure your site looks great and is easy to navigate with good content and eye catching photos.  Have a welcome page for your new visitors.  If they will be coming from a specific place (like the 700 Club) then make it personal to that venue.  And have a lead capture portion with a great giveaway to your site so you can keep track of who is really interested.  On this site the lead capture is the newsletter subscription with a cleaning recipe giveaway reward for signing up.  The subscribers get a weekly email full of helpful content and no pushy sales.  This keeps most of the subscribers from removing themselves from the list and helps them not forget this resource is available.

1.  Add a link with a short description or motto in your email signature.  Then be active on online groups (such as yahoo groups) where the content is related to your business.  This is not the same as spamming.  You are not actively promoting your business, just offering helpful conversation with the group and having the link there as a passive invitation.

2.    Have a facebook page for your business or blog and invite friends to like it. Set up your blog to automatically post to your facebook page.

3.  Have a twitter account for your business.  Set up a feed to automatically tweet when you update your blog.

4.  Upload helpful videos to Youtube with a link back to your site.  You do not need to have a fancy video camera to do this. 

5.  Write guest posts for blogs with related content that are receiving good traffic.

6.  Offer giveaways on other blogs.

7.  Buy ads on other blogs.  Look for blogs with great traffic and that offer perks, such as end of the post links, monthly features, group giveaways only for advertisers,  or a feature post with 3 months of advertising.  I once took a risk and purchased 3 months of advertising on a popular blog for $300.  It came with a guest post opportunity.  That $300 earned me $1000 a day for the first week! 

8.  In short, be everywhere.  Be on facebook, twitter, Youtube, all over the popular blog world.  Google your own name.  The first page should be covered with all of the places you’ve been.  Find where your target market hangs out and be there too.

There are several ways to make money with a blog:

1.  Cash from Advertisers

2.  Affiliate Marketing

3.  Promoting your own products

4.  Swagbucks

5.  Free stuff from advertisers

The key to making money with a blog, is traffic. Traffic is worth money–a lot of money, to advertisers. It is possible to build a huge following in just a few months by word of mouth. In order to do this you need to give away top notch information daily or twice a day. That takes time, but it can be worth it. Three examples are: Ana-White, The Nester, and The Lettered Cottage.

Ana-White formerly Knock-Off Wood gives away free furniture building plans that are based on Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware store pieces. The plans are all free, complete and geared toward the beginner wood worker. She grew her site to amazing proportions in just a few months because the content got a lot of people excited. All of a sudden the designer looks that were out of touch before were in reach for middle class families. She has been featured on TV and in popular home magazines. She makes money from ads, but is hoping her blog will be a springboard to her own TV show or a book deal. I hope she gets it–She deserves it!

The Nester writes a home decorating blog that gives magazine worthy results for very little money spent. Her motto is: It’s doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. Her real personality and permission to make mistakes makes the world love her. She earns money by selling ads on her site and by a few affiliate marketing relationships. Her small ad spots are $100 per month. Currently she has 9 small ads (includin mine) and several large ads. I estimate she brings in around $2,000 a month just from her blog sponsors. She adds benefits to her advertisers by sponsoring giveaways for her sponsors several times a year. This brings targeted attention to each small business driving even more traffic their way.

The Lettered Cottage is also a home decor blog. Their home is very small and started out very average. They took it from yawn to eye popping–with mostly elbow grease. We love their personalities and willingness to take a risk. Layla sells an ebook, but the bulk of their income comes from advertising.

Advertising isn’t the only way to make money with a blog. There is also affiliate marketing available. For example, you can sign up with Amazon. By using specific links they provide to talk about a product on Amazon (could have been one you wanted to tell everyone about anyway) you earn a comission every time someone buys through your link.   There are lots of other affiliate relationships available.  I currently have 3, but I’m really picky.  I make sure that the affiliate is something I would personally do before offering it to other people.

Also Swagbucks is something anyone can do. By simply using their search bar to search the internet, you earn points.  (I average 12-22 points a day just doing the research necessary for this blog.)  You can trade your points in for prizes.  My favorite prize is 450 points for a $5 gift card to Amazon.  The giftcards never expire, and you can save them up for a big purchase.  If you sign up using the link here, I earn a point every time you do, and it helps my family a lot.  You can also encourage others to sign up under your affliate and really increase your earnings.  I know moms getting all their diapers free this way.  I’m saving up my swagbucks to get my son a dresser–right now his clothes are stacked on the floor.

Just because I have a blog with a reasonable amount of traffic, CSN stores gives me gift cards just to mention their latest product in a blog post.  When I do that, I reveal that I’m being paid.  And I can use the cards to purchase household items that we need.

There is also a free opportunity with blog owners at www.Booksneeze.com You can select a book to receive for free with the expectation that you write a review about it on your blog.  Currently Darren and I are reading our free copy of When Couples Pray. 

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the best ways  to drive traffic to your blog so you can grow your money making potential.