Make Finding & Funding Gifts Simple

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Make Finding & Funding Gifts Simple ..

Shopping for holiday gifts can be stressful. Deciding what to buy, how much to spend, and figuring out if your friends and family will actually like the gifts can be pretty draining. And when you calculate how much debt you might incur, the holiday bliss goes right out the door.

Last year, a Gallup poll said that Americans planned to spend an average of $715 on gifts. For some people that’s a mortgage payment, rent or a great vacation, but for many that hefty sum equals tremendous financial pressure.

To save money and time this holiday season, I suggest you:

To save money and time this holiday season, I suggest you:

• Start with a budget. Based on your monthly discretionary income, after you’ve paid your bills, how much can you afford to spend? Then take out a little "pamper me" money. What's left over is your holiday spending fund. So, if you shop or save for three months, say from October through December, three times the amount of money you have left after you pay your bills and pull out the "pamper me" money is your total budget for the holidays.

For the rest of the tips, click here to see my column Yes. You Are A Superstar! on Headdrama.com.

Tis The Season To be Jolly. So, Kick Out Your Inner Scrooge!

The holidays are supposed to fun and joyous.  Children should be frolicking, adults caroling, the aroma of fresh baked cakes and pies in the air, and laughter in the halls—at least that’s what I see on greeting cards and Hallmark specials.   In real life, the holiday season is the most stressful time of year for many people.

According to a Harris Interactive poll of 2,173 adults, 90% experience some level of anxiety around the holidays and the biggest concerns are gift giving and familial relationships.  With 10% unemployment, the pressures of the season will likely increase for many.

So how do we get to a happier, less stressful holiday?  Let’s deal with three key areas directly: your mindset, money/gifts and relationships:

• First, make a conscious decision to enjoy yourself.  Write a list of what you love and dislike about the holidays then make a personal resolution to eliminate as many of the negatives as possible and to indulge more in the things you love to do.

For the rest of the tips, visit http://headdrama.com/profile/41855/10044/success-coach-celest-turner,

Your Daily Success Affirmation

Words have power!  To welcome success into your life every day, here's a daily affirmation that you should say each morning. 

Opening The Door To Success

I believe in me and all I am meant to be.
I believe in me and all of my possibilities.
God has given me infinite abilities.
God has blessed me with opportunities.
But it is on me to be exactly who God has ordained me to be.
I am strong and resilient.
I know I am brilliant.
Thank you lord for the greatness you’ve planted in me.
I will succeed if I believe in God’s intentionality.
I will succeed if I believe in my authenticity.
I will succeed if I continue to believe in me.

(Pass along and share with someone you want to encourage)

(c) 2011 Turner Marketing & Consulting

Take The Easy ROAD Sometimes

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know. 
- Ambrose Bierce, Editorialist and Satirist 

We all want to be an original or invent something great, but sometimes it is better to take the easy ROAD (i.e. Rip Off And Duplicate).  The most resourceful people and businesses save time, energy and money by leveraging the knowledge, failures, achievements and challenges of others.  Between the Internet and your immediate and extended people networks, there are rich pools of information.  Take what works and use it.  Learn to duplicate the best, and you will free yourself up to create real innovation and success in less time. 

Getting Naked Is A Good Thing

“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Author of The Little Prince

I love this quote from the early 1900s because when you replace the word "body" with the words "heart and mind", it is an articulate summary of my Naked Principle. As a success coach and transformational speaker, my goal is always to help people shed their layers of perception, personality, what they know, and socialization to get to the core of who they are.  The Naked Principle is very simple: To achieve your best and to feel most successful, you must strip away all the stuff you’ve become and realign yourself with who you truly are (your authentic self).

From the day we are born, we go through a transformation. We are nurtured by our parents, educated by our communities, and guided into adulthood by the people around us. Most of us are taught to be respectful to elders, obey adults, and listen to teachers. Our person is significantly defined by our environment (people, opportunities, experiences...), which creates layers that can start to hide, crush or alter who we are. More importantly, because it starts at childhood, most of us don’t know it has happened—or how far away we are from our authentic selves.

How many people do you know, including yourself, fall into these categories:

• They have good jobs with good salaries and they are respected, but they are miserable at work.
• They have a handsome husband or beautiful wife who seems to treat them well, but they are unhappy and don’t really like their mates.
• They feel trapped in their lives. Generations of their family were born and raised in the same hood. Their house, friends and possibly their jobs are all within a 10-mile radius. When you see them, they repeatedly express a deep desire to leave or do something different, but they never do.
• They are entrepreneurs with profitable businesses. Their work consumes most of their life. They don’t seem to have much going on besides making money, and they don’t seem to have many deep personal relationships outside of their families. 

Most of us know quite a few people who fit the examples above. Despite the appearance of success or contentment, their is real discomfort or angst about were they are because their lives or decisions don’t align with their true needs and real desires. Like many, their authentic self has been hidden, blocked or ignored for so long that it is unrecognizable until they hit a breaking point (also called a decision point) that leaves them to two choices:

• Continue on the current path despite the nagging feeling that something is not quite right.
• Search for the something that is missing or the something that will fulfill them.  

When the person makes the decision to search, that's when my Naked Principle helps them understand what they really need because it helps strip away the layers of film, mud, and residue they've accumulated since birth. Let's start with the present:

• First, write every single thing in your life as a noun in a list.  Example: my house, my job, my wife...
• Next describe each one of them as they currently exist with great detail.  Example: I have a blue 3-bedroom house with a beautiful lawn in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by tall trees. 
• Then write exactly how you feel about each noun you listed.  Use descriptors and adjectives like happy, hate it, excited, depressing...  
• Ask yourself why you feel this way about each one.  Be honest and descriptive. Write your response next to each noun.
• Now ask yourself if each noun listed, as it exists today, is good for your well-being.
• Next ask yourself why? Write down your response.

There are more steps to the process.  But, as you start to go through the exercise, the introspection that it takes to complete each part will reveal the layers you have on top of your authentic self.  You will start to see the things that feel good to you and don't as well as dive into why.  Your feelings and emotions are the keys to helping your navigate deep inside to pull out your true self and help guide you toward true success. 

Contact me at getstarted@theturnerconsulting.com for the rest of the steps to peeling back your layers to get to a naked you.  

Go DEEP Before You Make A Move

Before every major financial, professional or romantic move, I recommend using the DEEP method:

• Decide - All progress starts with a decision to take action. You must resolve to do something that will get you closer to your goal. Without commitment, you simply become like the millions of dreamers who "would have", "could have" or "should have."
• Educate - After you've made the decision to move forward with your goal, educate yourself.  Read up, talk to people, and listen to experts. This stage helps build your knowledge base so that you have a better understanding of what you are trying to achieve and how to achieve it.
• Evaluate - Now that you have more information, evaluate your initial decision (goal/desire) and the level of effort required to get there. Then evaluate yourself and be honest. Are you really ready to continue down this path based on everything you now know?  
• Proceed - The conclusion of yourself evaluation will lead you to proceed in one of three ways:  1) Move forward with your original goal 2) Change it based on the new information or 3) Scrap it because you are not ready to take on the challenge. 

The DEEP process can take days, months or years depending on the complexity of your goal, your stage of life or business, and a variety of other factors.  If you use the DEEP method as a guide, it will help you evaluate big decisions. 

Pastors of Mega Churches Understand Viral Marketing And So Should You

Viral marketing has been around forever. Before social media, word of mouth from friends, family, and coworkers created a enough buzz to fill up movie theatres, make a restaurant impossible to reserve, and keep a hairdresser booked for weeks. No computers or websites were necessary--just the blab factor.

The digital era has introduced delicious new mediums like Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Google than can make content go viral in seconds. Unlike word of mouth, which requires some human interaction, you can touch your keyboard or smartphone to share content with thousands for people instantaneously.

Pastors of mega churches are definitely leaders in leveraging viral marketing and here are three key reasons why they have been so successful:

• Followers - Pastors have a congregation filled with followers who support them and attend their churches regularly.  
• Content - What's more engaging and relevant than someone telling you how to better your life, live right or get through a rough patch?  Of course, people want to hear that message, so it spreads.
• Evangelism - Most faiths have some evangelism component or a mandate to spread the word. If the word is now on Youtube.com, it is easier to share.

Just browse a few stats on some of the leading pastors:

• Joel Osteen - About 900,000 Facebook likes  and close to 290,000 Twitter follower
• T.D. Jakes -  Over 400,000 Facebook likes and 1.3 million views on Youtube
• Joyce Meyer - Youtube sermon with over 600,000 views and her Facebook page has 1.5 million likes

Take a lesson from these pastors.  Create relevant and engaging content, leverage your followers, and evangelize to build momentum.

WARNING: Globalization is a Factor in Your Business So Play Big

Look at how much the world has changed in 10 years. From a business perspective, we are moving at light speed and I often wonder if U.S.-based small and medium businesses really get it. Globalization has impacted every continent on the planet and it is impacting your business too:

• Most large companies with big customer service operations have call centers in India, Mexico or the Caribbean. Just call your service provider after hours and listen to the accent of the person answering the phone.
• I get regular solicitation emails from web designers, app developers and other IT professionals--all of whom are from India and China. The U.S. is a delicious market for them because they have a desirable value proposition: do the same work just as well as a U.S. firm for less.
• Need T-shirts or giveaways? Go to www something and order personalized gifts from the guy who has a store 10 miles away or the factory that is an ocean away.
• And why is it that a tsunami in another country slows production in the U.S.? It is because we need the parts they make for so many things, ranging from automobiles to electronics.

The world is getting smaller, more competitive, more connected and more agile, which presents a great opportunity and challenge for entrepreneurs, marketers, and employees alike.  We are now global players and world citizens. Open markets, advances in technology, growing economies and the pursuit of profits have pushed the doors of the world open.

Your challenge is to see your opportunities beyond this country and understand how to plan, compete, and win. Because of logistics, language barriers, tariffs, marketing, nationalism and a bunch of other factors, figuring out your place in the world’s business ecosystem may not be easy but when you do the potential is unimaginable. If you decide to play beyond city, state, and country borders, you could be the next Mark Zuckerberg ( Facebook ), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Carlos Slim Helu (Telmex), Lisa Price (Carol’s Daughter) or Oprah (OWN television and O Magazine).

Play big because the world is at your finger tips.

Success Starts With....

Vision.  The ability to see where you want to go combined with the belief that you can actually achieve your goal is the key to being successful in any aspect of life.

One of the biggest challenges we face is balancing our immediate needs and daily tasks with our future plans.  If you can keep your mind and heart focused on your aspirations, then you will stay on pace to achieve your goals.

It may sound trite, but success is a journey.  There will be hills, valleys, twists and turns, but concentrating on your vision will help you to achieve it (despite the obstacles). 

Tips to help you stay on your vision track:

• Add a weekly vision calender reminder to your BlackBerry or smartphone.   In a concise phrase, write what you desire to achieve. When the reminder pops up, read it, say it aloud, and then think about what your vision means to you. 
• Get a vision partner. This person is someone you trust and someone who believes in you. The vision you have for your life is not for everyone's ears.  You should only trust it with people who will offer constructive feedback and real support.  
• Keep a diary that tracks your progress.  Write down your journey to success, so that you can see how far you've come. Make weekly entries--even if you have done nothing.
• Remind yourself that life is not perfect and that you may not achieve everything you set out to do, but that you are much better for trying.

Remember whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, you are right.  Choose to believe you can.  Here's to your success!

Five Types of People That All Successful Businesses Must Have

In the land of super hero entrepreneurs who spend 50+ hours a week growing every part of their business, I am here to tell you that it is impossible for you to be all things--and all people--to your business.  To ensure future success, an entrepreneur needs to quickly find key people to help build and sustain an enterprise.

Five People All Successful Businesses Need:

• Visionary - Someone in the business, preferably the owner, must have a wild imagination about where the business can go and what it can accomplish.  For an entrepreneur, living too much in the weeds can stifle growth.  The visionary is the person who sees a bright future and encourages everyone to stay on course and charge ahead. 
• Tactician - Tacticians are needed because they have very specific skills that will strengthen the business.  Plus, they do the assignments better and faster than the owner. To cut corners and save money, many entrepreneurs attempt to do tasks that should be handled by a consultant, expert or skilled worker. This is a big mistake. For the business to take flight, the entrepreneur must have an arsenal of tacticians who can handle everything from marketing to finance.  
• The Leveraged -  All strong businesses leverage people and resources to create a sustainable model. If you are a business owner and you make all the decisions and do most of the work, what happens when you get sick or if you get a huge contract?  Your business slows down or stops. You must have employees, partnerships and other people resources that you can use to make sure your business runs with or without you.
• Counsel - Every business should have at least three advisors.  As the scope and value of your business grows, you will definitely need more.  One advisor should be a person who can keep the owner encouraged.  Another should be someone who understands your industry and market.  And the last should be a guru who understand how to make and manage money.  You'll need other counsel as well, many of which can be found in the leveraged and tacticians. 
• Customer - Last but not least, you need customers. People have to buy from you to stay in business. However, many business owners make the mistake of rushing to get customers without thinking about their people support infrastructure first.  Before an entrepreneur asks a person to buy any service or product, he/she needs to have the visionary, tacticians, leveraged resources and counsel in place to help ensure that they maximize each sale and engagement.

Whether you have a start up, a non-profit or a growing small to medium business, find all these people and watch how your business blossom and gain momentum.

Case Studies: Social Media Driving Real Results - Part I (Jay-Z and Ashley)

The music soften, the audience quieted and the lights dimmed.  The keynote speakers were about to start and I could not wait.  One by one millionaire entrepreneurs, best selling authors, marketing innovators and thought leaders hit the stage giving us new perspectives, ah-ha moments, and delicious tidbits. 

Then Nick Parish, the North American editor of Contagious, spoke about social media. My hope was that he would NOT talk about how to get more followers, make money or anything remotely related to building awareness.  I wanted to hear about innovation--and something that businesses can really use to drive measurable (hard) results.

And Nick delivered:

• Bing/Jay-Z Decoded Campaign - When hip hop mogul Jay-Z launched his book Decoded, Bing and Droga5 came together on an amazing campaign that used Bing's search to help drive an international scavenger hunt for pages of Jay-Z's new book. For a month, there were pages from the book referencing Jay-Z's life around the world, covering hundreds of thousands of miles.  Clues were released through radio, Twitter, and Facebook.  On Bing.com/Jay-Z, people could put the pages of the book together digitally and win prizes. This campaign helped Bing to increase relevance to younger, more urban groups and drove awareness of Bing's search features. It helped Jay-Z build up tremendous anticipation for his book and drive sales. See more the about the campaign. 
• Theashes on Twitter - A Massachusetts woman who tweeted about knitting and Glee now has over 10,000 followers because cricket fans in Britain and Australia confused her handle with a cricket match and started to send her messages about game.  Annoyed by the barrage of tweets, Ashley responded "I am not a freaking cricket match" which caught on like a wild fire.  Vodafone, the official sponsor of The Ashes, saw an opportunity to leverage Ashley's popularity. They gave her tickets to the match.  Qantis flew her over and Ford gave her a car.  This was a juicy and cheap PR opportunity that created good will and engaged fans across continents.  As for Ashley, she got a free trip, new experiences, a lot of media exposure and now sells T-shirts with her famous tweet.  

The success of both of these campaigns were (apply these to your own business):

• Timeliness and relevance to current events - As the sponsor of The Ashes, Vodafone leveraged Ashley and her followers to help boost exposure for the tournament.  Jay-Z's book was about to launch and Bing used it to help them gain relevance with a younger audience.
• Social media was used to connect and engage - If it was not for the fans' passion about cricket, Ashley's story would have never happened because she would not have had 10,000 followers annoying her with their cricket-related comments.  In the case of Decoded, Bing and Droga5 were able to keep folks engaged by connecting online and offline experiences through Bing maps, bing.com/jay-z and clues through Twitter and Facebook. 
• Social media was only a component of a larger campaign - Traditional marketing media still matters. If The Ashes did not have PR and television as part of the advertising mix, Ashley's story would not have hit the masses.  If there were no out-of-home (OOH) and radio for the Jay-Z campaign, the scavenger hunt would not have been as successful.
• People actually cared - Jay-Z has a huge following because of his celebrity and cricket is a big deal in Europe and other parts of the world, so it was easy for them to gain momentum.  While many businesses and people may not have that same star power, there are opporunties to leverage the events, places, emotions, and causes that people care about to create the same kind of engagement. 

More case studies showing how to use social media to make a real impact coming soon in part 2 of this blog...

Increase Your Twitter Followers, Facebook Friends, and Linkedin Connections

Over the last year, I've grown my modest online community by over 100% to ~700 on Facebook, 600 on Linkedin, and 150 on Twitter--with very little overlap in connections.   Now that I am trying to break 1,000, I decided to do a little research on how to further increase my online audience.

A few tips (and I am trying all this stuff realtime):

• Bring social media into the physical world - In Tech Crunch, Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, says  "Every time I give a talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter account." More...
• Put your handle or profile everywhere - Kevin also recommends that you "Link it [Twitter] on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online."   
• Look to connect with people you know - It sounds simple, but most people don't exhaust their personal contacts online first. Dust off the business cards, pull out your BlackBerry or Android, and search for your connections.  See Wikihow and Linkedin Answers for other tips.
• Get involved in online communities - For bloggers and Linkedin.com, joining groups and being "social" online are big parts of building a base. Participate in discussions, find commonalities, follow them and ask them to follow you. See more social media karma tips.
• Have an event or contest -  People love to be a part of something--especially if they can win a prize or be recognized. You can organize events or run contests leveraging social media, which can really give a boost to your online base. 

I hope this helps you grow your social media connections.  And, in the spirit of everything I just wrote, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook and subscribe to my Youtube channel :-)

Direct Selling, MLM, Multilevel Marketing -- Important facts before you make a decision

Recently I had a conversation with a successful Latina woman about multilevel marketing (MLM). I’ll call her Maria. She is first generation corporate (meaning no one else in her family has worked a white collar job), has an MBA, worked her way up the ladder and now has a six figure salary. She is pretty proud of her accomplishments—and rightful so.


After she told me about her job, we begin to talk about how she could increase her income by leveraging her skills and network to create multiple income streams. I suggested exploring a multilevel marketing or direct selling business that she could work in her spare time.

Her response was that she does not have the time, does not believe that they work, and feels funny about asking others to help her build a business. When I asked what MLM opportunities she researched, she said none. Then I asked her how she formed her opinions, she told me that she heard some stuff from different people.

Maria is like a lot of people. When it comes to MLM (also known as direct sales), they have already made an opinion-based decision and it is very hard for them to see the value in getting the facts.

• According to the Direct Selling Association,  MLMs have $25.6 billion in sales just in the United States.
• Women are over 80% of direct sellers. This is completely opposite of corporate America where the sales force is dominated by men.
• Business ownership in most MLMs require far less money than starting a brick and mortar business.  If you browse the hundreds of direct sales opportunities, many are below $500.
• Like any other business it takes work, 92.5% of direct sellers work their business in their spare time or part time. However, just like any business, you get what you put into it (little time may equal little money).

If you are already in or are considering an MLM or direct selling business:

• Make sure you are ready to commit for at least a year.
• Get to know your up line and other leaders.
• Expose your business repeatedly to everyone you know.
• Understand how to maximize the compensation plan (VERY Important so that you make money).

If you are interested in creating multiple income streams, email getstarted@theturnerconsulting.com for an excellent MLM opportunity.


Source: www.dsa.org and http://www.directselling411.com/

Linear Income--A Straight Line To Staying Broke

Over the years, I have met some amazingly talented people who were unemployed, under employed and some with enviable salaries. All of them had multiple talents and skills that they, at some point in their lives, packaged up daily and delivered to a job for a biweekly pay check (minus taxes of course). 

For most people, a consistent pay check is good and fair trade for hours of work.  This form of payment is called linear income. The problem with linear or earned income is that your pay is always dependent on giving your time away. If you can't deliver the hours or if you are no longer needed then you no longer get paid.  

We are all worth more than trading hours of our lives for money. While linear income is a good baseline, there are other streams of income that are smarter and will give you more freedom.

Passive Income

Passive income has two components: it is regular and requires very little of your time to maintain.  Examples are rent from properties,  interest from investments or earnings from Google Ads and other website advertising. 

Leveraged Income

Leveraged income is what your employers get every day.  They use the efforts of all their employees to make them money.  You can do the same thing by leveraging joint ventures, affiliate marketing and partnerships. 

Residual Income

Residual income happens when you do something once and get paid over and over again.  The most common example is a syndicated television show where the actors get paid repeatedly for reruns. 

How would your life change if you used your talents and skills to add passive, leveraged or residual income to your current linear pay check? 

If you want to learn how you can create multiple income streams, join my upcoming conference call on 5/22 or 5/29.  Register today at http://moreincomestreams.eventbrite.com.