“The First Hour Is The Rudder Of The Day” – Henry Ward Beecher

I absolutely love Brian Tracy.  I have read just about everything he has put out and will continue to do so. He has an amazing way of getting ideas across and also of keeping simple things simple and making complicated things simple.

“Focal Point” and “Eat That Frog” are two books that have helped me streamline my life in every area. ” Goals” and “Million Dollar Habits” have helped me to achieve things at a much faster rate.  While I am not in sales, I still read Brian Tracy’s sales books, the most recent being “The Art of Closing the Sale“.

In the chapter titled “Developing A Powerful Sales Personality”, Tracy talks about feeding your mind. He has actually brought this up in almost every book, audio, newsletter, and program.

“Make the decision today to read in your field for thirty to sixty minutes each day. Each morning, instead of reading the newspaper or watching television, invest thirty to sixty minutes reading something that will help you to perform better during the day.

What you put into your mind in the first hour sets the tone of your mind for the rest of the day.  If you feed your mind with something positive, educational, and uplifting in the first hour, you will perform better all day long. You will be more cheerful, relaxed and self-assured. You will also be more resilient and will bounce back faster from rejection and disappointment.

Get up every morning two-hours before your first appointment. Spend an hour reading and then get ready for your day. All the top successful people arise early and get going immediately. Average folks rise at the last possible minute, run around in circles, and then dash off for the office with no time for thinking or preparation.”

Which one are you? Do you hit the snooze button three or four times before dragging yourself out of bed? Are you running out the door with seconds to spare or maybe even late?

For the next thirty days, make it a point to wake up an hour earlier. Spend the first thirty minutes of each day reading in a book either in your field or on personal development. Keep a journal and take note of all the changes that you notice. Increased energy level, higher sales, more positive attitude. After thirty days you will wonder why you didn’t start doing this sooner. You may also, like me, start reading an hour or two a day instead of just thirty minutes.

Getting Back In The Habit

Once again, a long time has lapsed since my last post. I have been enjoying life so much that I have not made the time to write like I had planned. Luckily in life, we are able to hit the reset button and start over. As I sit here on the balcony of my hotel room in beautiful Acapulco Mexico,  I am inspired to start writing again.

I spent the day deep sea fishing for Marlin and will be posting pictures and videos soon, but in the six hours I spent out on the water alone, with the exception of the crew, I had a lot of time to think and reflect. To acknowledge how amazing my life is and to take responsibility for creating it.

From the books I choose to read, to the things I choose to watch and not watch, right down to the thoughts I choose to think and the friends I choose to have. It is so empowering when you realize that the choices that you make, determine your life and that you have 100% control of those choices.

Take some time in the next few days to look at your life. You don’t have to go on a trip or spend six hours on a boat, but maybe take a bubble bath, or go to the beach or the park. Somewhere where you are happy and won’t be interrupted. What in your life right now are you dissatisfied with? What in your life do you enjoy and want more of? Make a list. Now go through that list and brainstorm what you can do to eliminate the things that are not adding to your life and a list of what you want more of.  Last but definitely not least, take action immediately and every day.

Over time you will notice that you will find more and more things you enjoy. You will also find that some things that once brought you joy don’t anymore. I would do this exercise every three to six months to chart your progress. Your list of dissatisfaction should get smaller and your enjoyment list should get bigger. It will also help you add to your goal list of things you want to experience in your life, and if you don’t have one you should make one right away.

When you put things on paper, amazing changes start to happen almost immediately. Start today and take control of your life. Only you have the power to change it, and if you are not creating a life you want, you are creating a life you don’t want.

To see the amazing life I have created visit my personal website. To learn more about the opportunity I have used to create this lifestyle click here.

The Best Time To Call Your Prospects

I was talking with a new associate earlier today and something came up that I felt was blog worthy. In my business this seems to be more of an issue than in a business where you send the prospect to a website, or you send them a package of information, but really it goes for any business.

In my three step business, the second step is to send qualified people to a twenty minute business overview call where they get all the details on the company, the products, and our compensation plan. Because the business overview calls are live it gets very easy, especially for new people, to complicate things.

I know when I got started, I would find myself trying to schedule my prospecting around the calls. My thought process was that if I scheduled them too far in advance of the call, that they would start trying to get information before the call and never even make it to step two of the system.

I kept running out of time to call my prospects because I would only prospect right before the calls and I would have more prospects than time that I was allowing myself. I would listen to the other leaders talk about their schedules and I noticed that almost everyone in my company has a different prospecting schedule.

Wendy prospects from 12pm – 4pm. Rachel prospects for an hour at a time from 8 am until she has ten people on the calls. Other leaders only prospect at night, some only in the morning. But they were all making money. Then my friend Tony told me, “the best time to prospect, is when you want to prospect.”

I realized that the key to my business, the reason we make a lot of money fast, is that it is fun. I also realized that a large part of my business is sorting. In order to get to step two of our system, the overview call, you have to participate in a five to ten minute interview call with me.

Once I got to thinking about it, I realized that the sorting does not stop at the interview call. I am looking for people that are able to follow directions, learn my system, and get results. If I talk to someone in the morning and schedule them for a call in the afternoon or evening, and they decide to start gathering information on their own, they disqualify themselves. Odds are that they would not be successful here anyway.

It hit me that whether or not I prospect right before a call, or hours before a call isn’t what matters. What matters is whether or not the time I spent prospecting I was enjoying it and in the “zone”. Who was I “being” while I was prospecting? Am I wishing I was doing something else, or am I really being present to the people I am talking with?

When you are running your own business, there are so many other things to focus on other than the best time to call your prospects. Don’t worry about if you catch them at home, if they are serious they will return your call. Don’t worry about them going out and reading some crap on a website about your company. If your business is the right fit for them, they will get started no matter what they read.

Remember, the internet is a great place for information, but it is also a great place for people to post their opinions. There is a huge difference between someone’s opinion and actual information and I would much rather get details from people that are getting the results I want, then people that have “tried” things, didn’t get results, and are now complaining about it to anyone who will listen.

So, the best time to call your prospects is when you feel like it. Make it fun and schedule it around your life, not around theirs. Your prospects want to learn to create the life you have. I make more money when I am calling people from the boat, the pool, the ski slopes, or even Starbucks, then I ever make working from my desk. I also make more money when I have the dogs in the background playing or my family over.

I am the CEO of my own home based business. So I work it how I want and when I want. If someone is bothered by my dogs, or the sound of brewing coffee, or the fact that I can’t call them at an exact time because I am out enjoying my life, my business is not the right opportunity for them. On the other hand, the people that do get started, are people who are attracted by the way I run my business and my lifestyle and want to create the same thing.

Detachment

If you have been in business for any length of time, you have probably heard the saying, “What you lack in skill, make up for in numbers.” I totally agree that in the beginning of a business, especially when you are still building confidence and getting used to your script, it helps to have a lot of people to talk to. The more you go through the script, and the more conversations you have, the more confident you will become and confidence is what attracts business associates. 

When someone is deciding whether or not to join your business, they are really deciding whether or not you are the person that is going to lead by example and show them how to achieve their goals. They are looking for a leader. Of course if you talk to enough people, the odds are eventually someone will get started with you, but it could take thousands of people.

I am not saying that’s bad, and really if you had to go through a learning curve of talking to thousands of people to get rich, would you? The real questions would be, can you handle all that rejection and keep going, and can you afford to generate thousands of people to talk to until you make that sale.

This article is actually less about having thousands of people to talk to and more along the lines of, at least for me, what having an abundance of leads did for me mentally to speed up the learning curve so that I didn’t have to go through thousands of NO’s to get to my first yes.

When I say an abundance, I don’t mean 50-100 leads showing up in your inbox everyday. The details of your specific business with determine how many leads you need. In my business, our system consists of a 5-10 minute interview, booking qualified people on a 25 minute business overview call, and collecting a decision.

My personal goal in the beginning to grow my team, was to have 10 qualified people booked on our overview calls 4-5 days a week. So for me, I needed between 10-20 people to talk to a day day to hit that. That doesn’t mean I needed to generate that many leads a day, it just meant that I needed to have that many people to talk to, so people I had previously tried to reach or that had called me back and left a message, counted in that.

When I first got started, I kept hearing the stats that out of 100 people that you talk to, that usually 3 will make it all the way through the system and get started. So I was determined to talk to 100 people and find my 3. Of course in the beginning of my business I was only generating 10-20 leads a week not per day. (This is a whole other article but it really came down to realizing that lead generation is easy, thank you Tony Rush.)

Well, I got through the 100 and no one got started. People were interested but were not taking that final step. Hmmmm. So I went through another 100 and again, no one got started. So one day I was listening to a company training call and they were discussing the importance of not being attached to your leads. When you sit and focus on each individual lead as someone you NEED to have get started, it actually repels them.

When I went back through my journal, I could see that because I had a limited amount of leads (what I thought was a limited amount) that I was taking each one way too seriously. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I catch them at a bad time? What if they are not interested? What if, what if, what if.

It was then that I started seeking help in my lead generation and you can see my earlier article, Online Advertising With Google and Zango, to learn exactly my main forms of advertising. What I noticed was that the more leads I had to talk to, the less important it was that each one got started. I stopped being so attached to each prospect, got out of “pitch” mode, and got into qualifying mode. I went from wanting anyone to get started, to wanting the right ones to get started.

I wasn’t someone struggling to make my business work anymore, now I was sifting through people to see who I wanted to work with, not begging people to work with me. There were no what ifs because i had plenty of other people to talk to next. I record myself on the phone and I can tell you that I didn’t change the wording of my script. I already had it memorized so it wasn’t getting to know the script any better that did it. It was totally and completely in my energy that the change came. Now at the same time, don’t generate so many leads that you get overwhelmed, unless you have a team of people that are working and deserve to get some of your overflow.

It is true once you start getting results in your business, the confidence, success, and leadership does show through in your conversations, and it will take less people through your system to make sales. But in the beginning, it is important to have some kind of goal of how many people you are going to put in front of your product/opportunity everyday, and have enough people to talk to so that with every call, you are putting out positive energy and excitement, instead of worry that if one more person says no, you are sunk!

A couple of extra tips for lead generation and prospecting:

1 – Smile, your prospects will hear it in your voice.

2 – Get up and walk around while your on the phone, your energy with skyrocket.

3 – Prospect in different locations. I prospect from my boat during the summer, on vacation, at Starbucks, on the side of a mountain while snowboarding. I even got a waterproof phone so that I could prospect from my pool.

4 – Have fun with it and make it a game, and this actually goes with lead generation as well. When I am out having fun, I make more money and get more leads than when I sit at home and watch the clicks in my Adwords campaign. If you have placed your ads or called all your leads and nothing is happening, get out, do something fun, something you enjoy. Suddenly people will start calling you back to get started.

5 – This last tip I learned from my adviser. A quick way to stop being attached to your leads IMMEDIATELY, is the next 10 people you call, try right off the bat to disqualify them. No matter what they say, probe and try to disqualify them. The ones that are aces will rise to the occasion and prove to you that they deserve a chance to be a part of your team, the rest will weren’t right anyway, but when you get on the phone, determined that the person you are calling is NOT getting started, there is no attachment.

This is what has worked for me in my business and what has worked for others on my team to create an incredible group of wonderful, qualified people in a very short amount of time. It is all in your energy and positive energy will always get you positive results.

You Are Absolutely Right!

I talk to people every day that want to make more money but they are serious about it until they are called to action.

I spoke with a man earlier this week who had been to my website, http://www.ItIsThisSimple.com, had requested a call back, and in our interview, had told me that he wanted to make at least $200,000 in the next 12 months becuase $100,000 isn’t enough to live on and he wants to spend more time with his son.

He qualified to move on to the second step of my system which is getting all the information, and after the call sent me an email saying, “I don’t think its worth signing up for because you don’t get paid unless they spend 1,500 dollars. Nobody has that kind of money these days.” 

My reply was, “You are absolutely right!”

In the past, this one sentence response would not be how I would handle this email. I would have written back telling him how well we are doing, how many sales we have made in the last 7 days, how well the company is doing etc, but I have learned that if you respond to them in that way all you are doing is selling them. I love my business because I don’t do any selling, telling, or explaining so I am not going to start now. Plus in reality, the best people you can have join your business, are the ones that after receiving the information, sell themselves.

So of course, I received an email back asking me why I lied to him. There it is! He opened the door for me to set him straight, without selling him, without being defensive about my company. He has now given me the opportunity to enlighten him. So I did!

I told him that if his belief is that no one has extra money to spend, he should definitely NOT start my business because he is only going to attract people that don’t have money. I let him know that I did not lie to him, my husband and I personally, our team, and our company, are not only making the $1500 sales, but we are also making a ton of $7995 and $12,995 sales. Here he is focusing on $1500 being tough, and we are focusing on $23,000 being no problem. Do you see why we are having such incredible results?

Needless to say, he has not written back. Sometimes the light bulb goes off, sometimes it doesn’t. But the next time someone hears your presentation and comes back at you with, “I don’t have the money” or “No one has that kind of money” or “the economy is bad”, or really any reason to not get started other than ”It is not for me”,  I challenge you to write or say, “You are absolutely right!” and then be quiet and see what they come back with.

I have had a lot of success since I learned to let my business sell itself!

I Challenge You

Have you ever had one of those days, when it seems like everyone you run into and everyone that calls you wants to complain?

Luckily I have the LLI community and a small group of friends that “get it”. Those that don’t I choose not to talk to. Hopefully at some time they will have some good news but until then they will continue to get my voicemail and I will continue to not return their emails.

Why? Because neither one of us will benefit from me listening to their whining. If they would actually listen to my response, they might benefit, but time has shown again and again that regardless of what I say, they will remain in “victim mode”.

Which brings me to my topic. Our book in our book club the last couple of weeks has been T. Harv Eker’s “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”. The first wealth file is “Rich people believe “I create my life”. Poor people believe “life happens to me”.”

So as I was deleting voicemails and emails of my “victim” friends and family, I decided to bring this up in the hopes that maybe some of them might read it and take a hint. The first hint being, GO BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT!!!!

The lesson in this first wealth file, talks about the 3 clues to recognize being a victim. Blame, justification, and complaint. When you are doing any of these things you are NOT taking control of your life and situation. I think he puts it best in saying, “when you are complaining, you become a living, breathing CRAP MAGNET.”

He issues a challenge which I think is great and I have used for quite some time now. He says to challenge yourself to not complain at all for seven days, not out loud, not in your head. The full seven days is important because the first few days you may have some “residual crap” left over.

He goes on to recommend that every time you do catch yourself being a victim by blaming, justifying, or complaining about something, take your index finger and slide it across your throat to remind yourself that you are “slitting your financial throat.”

This simple activity can transform you from victim to victor and can dramatically change your life. I challenge all of you to do it. Especially if you want me to call you back!

Make it a great day, you have the control.

Contact Me Today To Find Out How To Be A Part Of This Successful Team!

Teri Elmendorf McLean

Home Office: 951-332-7824

http://www.ItIsThisSimple.com

Misery Loves Company

Yesterday I decided to go to the bar around the corner from my house to have a late lunch, early dinner. When I got there, there were only a handful of people at the bar.I have been going to this bar for about 8 years now so I know everyone that works there and I know a lot of the patrons. I sit down, say hi to those I know, order a drink and lunch and start reading my book.

My phone keeps lighting up and to my excitement they are leads popping up in my email. (I have a blackberry and get my email on my phone)

The guy across from me is reading the newspaper. The two guys sitting to my left are watching the soccer game on tv. The two guys on my right are talking, in very loud voices, about how bad things are and the economy, the usual negative talk.

I call the girl behind the bar over and ask her to do me a favor and buy a round for everyone on my tab. “Sure! No Problem! What are you celebrating?” she aks. “Nothing, just feel like buying everyone a drink.” I answer.

Here is where it gets interesting. While she is getting the drinks, the guy next to me looks over at me and says, “Thanks for the drink. I notice your phone keeps going off, you must be popular.”

“No, actually I have my own business and people are contacting me for more information.” I say.
“Wow, your own business huh? With the economy the way it is, it must be tough.” He says.

“Actually it is doing awesome thanks! Business is out of control.”

He leans back away from me and gets this real nasty tone and attitude and says, “How is it that everyone else is losing their homes, big businesses are shutting their doors, people are getting laid off, and your business is doing well. You’re telling me that everyone else is suffering and you are doing just fine?”

“Yes, I am thriving. The economy is not bad, it is just different (I quoted Brent from the visionaries call) and I know a lot of people that are doing far better than I am.” I said back with a big smile on my face.

He stopped talking to me, (which was fine because I didn’t want his negativity) and went on to bitch to his friend about me. He was mad at me for doing well, mad at me for being happy, and mad at me for not being a victim. Because I didn’t see things from his point of view and because I wouldn’t be part of his pitty party, he was actually hostile toward me.

You hear all the time at people being mad at someone because they are the downer or the party pooper but how do you like that? Being mad at someone because they are taking control and living their life full out.

And yes, I still bought him his beer. I was doing that for my benefit in the first place!

Contact Me Today To Find Out How To Be A Part Of This Successful Team!

Teri Elmendorf McLean

Home Office: 951-332-7824

http://www.ItIsThisSimple.com

The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

When reading last night, I came across a chapter in my current book, “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” by T. Harv Eker, that inspired me to post a quick blog. I was very fortunate that when I started my business back in 1999, I was surrounded by mentors that already knew these lessons and taught them to me.

For those of you that were not so fortunate, I would highly recommend getting yourself a copy of this book. It is a quick read and the lessons are simple and easy to put into action.

The lesson struck home for me is, “Wealth File 10: Rich people are excellent receivers, Poor people are poor receivers.”

I am one of those people that will bend over to pick up a penny, or a nickle and I get excited about it. I get just as excited when I win $5 on video poker as I do when I win $5000 at the craps table.

The point is I am grateful and open to receive any amount of money, big or small. Usually the people complaining about not receiving any money or not receiving enough money are poor.
It also talks about giving and receiving. They are two sides to the same coin. You can not have one without the other. I am sure you have heard the saying, “It is better to give than to receive.” I think Eker puts it best, “What a crock!”

If all you do is give and never receive, then how can you continue to give? I know from personal experience, the more I give, the more I receive, and the more I receive the more I give, and it goes on and on in a big circle. When I stop doing one or the other, it puts a halt to the energy and the flow.

Some tips that Eker gives to become better receivers follow:

1 – Practice receiving. When someone gives you a compliment, say “thank you”. Don’t return the compliment, just receive it, accept it and be grateful for it.

2 – ANY money you find or receive should be enthusiastically celebrated. Scream out, “I’m a money magnet. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” This goes for any money that comes into your life, whether you find it on the ground, receive a paycheck, money you get as gifts, money you get from the government.

3- Pamper yourself at least once a month. Do something special to nurture yourself and your spirit. Get a massage, a manicure, a pedicure, take yourself to an extravagant lunch or dinner, rent a boat or a weekend cottage. Do things that will make you feel rich and deserving.

When you are putting out the energy of being wealthy, you attract wealth. When you put out the energy of being abundant you attract abundance.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of T.Harv Eker’s “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” and put its lessons into use immediately. It is a quick and easy read and can have you on your way to wealth and freedom no matter what your current situation.

Contact Me Today To Find Out How To Be A Part Of This Successful Team!

Teri Elmendorf McLean

Home Office: 951-332-7824

http://www.ItIsThisSimple.com

It’s Been A While

Wow it has been a while since I have posted. Between moving, remodeling, adding dogs to the family, vacationing, and living an amazing life, I have not made the time to post to be honest.

I had an interesting conversation today and it sparked some things I have talked about previously.

Today was really my first day back working, if you call what I do work. I was talking to a man that had requested a call through my website, www.ItIsThisSimple.com .

When I called him for a brief interview, I asked him if he was serious about starting a business of his own. He said yes, he had no money right now to start a business, but he wanted the information for “when he was ready”.

I told him that I only spend time with serious people, and that in my experience when something is important enough to someone, a little thing like money won’t stop them.

He was shocked and started telling me about a recent experience at the dentist. He had horrible pain in his teeth, and it was going to take $2000 to fix, and when he weighed the pain with the cost, it was more important to find the money to fix it.

So I asked him, how much pain his current situation was causing him? “How uncomfortable are you?” He said uncomfortable enough to do something about it.

I went on with the interview call, he told me about himself and I asked him, “If there were no limitations placed on you, what would your ideal income be?” He said $2K a month. I was shocked and asked him if that got him excited? He said $4k a month would get him excited, but that the economy was just awful right now and no one is buying anything, etc. etc.

I told him that this opportunity was not the right one for him and wished him luck. He came back at me angry and asked why it wasn’t for him, and I told him that I only work with people who have a MINIMUM goal of $100K in the next 6-12 months. He again, said he watched the news and no one is buying anything, even big companies were shutting their doors.

I told him that I haven’t watched the news in seven years and last week alone our team had well over $50K in orders come in. That doesn’t even include the rest of the company. I gave him my website address and told him that when he was ready to take responsibility for his life and ready to make things happen, give me a call back. Less than 2 hours later, he had placed an order for $1500, a $1000 profit for me, but more importantly he took his first step in living his life on his terms.

Don’t let anyone or anything dictate your life or lifestyle to you. You create your reality. A friend of mine was saying just tonight that he doesn’t look at the economy as good or bad, it is just different.

So stop using the “bad” economy as an excuse for not living up to your true potential. Take aciton, take responsibility, and make things happen!

Contact Me Today To Find Out How To Be A Part Of This Successful Team!

Teri Elmendorf McLean

Home Office: 951-332-7824

http://www.ItIsThisSimple.com

Enjoy the Journey

Last night I was watching one of my favorite movies, “Dazed and Confused”. I love this movie for so many reasons, from all the great cars in it, to the fact that at 16 my now husband and I watched this movie together at his house and I got grounded for coming home at 3am because of it.

Every time I watch it I notice something new. Well, last night, I am watching this awesome movie and a scene, that I have seen 100’s of times struck a new chord with me.

3 of the characters, Mike, Tony, and Cynthia, are driving to a beer bust. They are talking about life and what is going to happen after they graduate high school. Tony brings up that he feels like this time of his life is preparation. Cynthia asks what they are preparing for, and Mike says death.

Here is where something sparked for me. Cynthia then says that if we are preparing for death, then shouldn’t we be enjoying our lives now and enjoying the present now. AHA!

Stop being one of those people that goes through the motions to get to the next best thing. Enjoy the process, enjoy the journey and then when you get there relish the moment. Then continue your journey to the next destination.

Along the journey you will have several wins some small, some large, celebrate all of them! But if your whole life consists of arriving and never the journey, if you do arrive, is it going to be worth all the time and moments that you missed out on?

Contact Me Today To Find Out How To Be A Part Of This Successful Team!

Teri Elmendorf McLean

Home Office: 951-332-7824

http://www.ItIsThisSimple.com