Transformation

DIRECT SELLING IN THE AGE OF ONLINE RETAIL According to the  Direct Selling Association , only six percent of women in the United States make more than $100,000 per year and, of those six percent, 80 percent work in direct sales. Clearly,  a career in the direct selling industry  has the potential to be lucrative, but how sustainable is the direct selling model in an age where consumers are increasingly shopping online? While nearly all direct selling companies such as  Avon  or  Pampered Chef  have online stores, are consumers still attending and hosting parties and purchasing products from consultants? Or, is the home party business model that direct selling was built on becoming the equivalent of an in-car cassette player—near extinction? Here are three reasons why direct selling organizations will continue to thrive even in the face of online shopping: Relationships Can’t Be Formed with Websites While online shopping is becoming more and more popul...

Your need for constant entertainment is killing your potential My guess is that you’re going to hate reading this. At the very least, you’ll be polarized. You’ll think I am dead right, or totally off base. But, hey, here goes… I’ve been thinking lately, about how much entertainment is now the cornerstone of our modern culture. Most of us these days have a pretty similar routine we follow. We work most of the week simply to have the basics of life taken care of. But once we are fed, clothed, housed and loved, it seems we actually don’t know what to do. Luckily, this is where entertainment comes in. Ever since prehistoric times when we shared stories around a fire, we have leaned on entertainment to distract ourselves from reality, to enjoy some escape. Today, thanks to streaming TV, downloadable movies, video games and the internet, we no longer need a fire to sit around. Instead we have an endless portal of escape that can transport us virtually anywhere we want to be. My question is: ...

4 Reasons Why Learning English is so Important English is the language of science, of aviation, computers, diplomacy, and tourism. Knowing English increases your chances of getting a good job in a multinational company within your home country or for finding work abroad. It’s also the language of international communication, the media and the internet, so learning English is important for socialising and entertainment as well as work! Let’s look at the top 4 reasons why studying English is so important: 1. English is the Language of International Communication English may not be the most spoken language in the world, but it is the official language of 53 countries and spoken by around 400 million people across the globe. Being able to speak English is not just about being able to communicate with native English speakers, it is the most common second language in the world. If you want to speak to someone from another country then the chances are that you will both be speaking English to...

Want to Become a Millionaire? Create Multiple Streams of Income Creating multiple streams of income isn't just a survival technique, it's also a strategy for building wealth Getty Images At  my last job as a recruiter,  I would often interview people who lost their jobs from one week to the next. It was during this time that I realized I had to always make sure I had money coming from different places, so  I freelanced on the side of my day job  and  worked on a blog  in the hopes of making some money from it someday. While I didn't know it at the time, I'd figured out something most millionaires already know: you always need to have multiple sources of income. As it turns out, having your money coming from multiple sources isn't just a survival technique, it's also a way to build wealth. How many streams of income do millionaires have? Tom Corley, author of "Rich Habits", studied the habits of millionaires during a five-year study of the rich and poor...

ARE BOOKS A THING OF THE PAST? Sales of printed books are down 9 percent this year, supplanted in part by digital versions on Kindles, Nooks, and even iPhone apps. But the real threat to long-form, hard-copy reading -- that is, paper books -- is inside our heads, according to Johann Hari, a columnist for the  Independent  in London. "The mental space [books] occupied is being eroded by the thousand Weapons of Mass Distraction that surround us all," Hari told me last week. "It's hard to admit, but we all sense it: it is becoming almost physically harder to read books." Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, long-form reading. Hari quotes David Ulin, author of  The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time , who wrote that he "became aware, in an apartment full of books, that I could no longer find within myself the quiet necessary to read." Ulin wrote that he would sit down with a book, and find his mind wandering, enticing him to check his ema...

Shift Your Mindset and Actions to Accept Change There is only one thing that is constant in life -- and that is change. The reality is, we don’t like change. We especially don’t like change when things were going well, and we now don’t know what the future holds and / or when we have to take on risk and go out of our comfort zone. However, if you want to be successful, being willing and able to change is no longer an option. It’s not a “nice to have” skill -- it’s a “need to have” skill. Those who aren’t willing to embrace change, particularly entrepreneurs, will find themselves left behind. Being left behind is more of a reality than ever nowadays because of technology. While it took 75 years for 100 million people to use the telephone, the cellular phone took only 16 years to get that level of adoption. Facebook only needed just more than four years to hit that 100 million user mark, and the game Candy Crush did so in just over a year’s time. With technology acting...

Is Network Marketing a Good Career? Network marketing is a good career for a select few. It will be a waste for most others. As with any business, a successful multi-level marketing (MLM) venture will require a significant investment of time and effort. Done correctly, it’s a great way to build wealth. But there’s no room for people who think they can make a quick buck with it. What is network marketing? Network marketing is a referral-based sales business. A company will offer a product or a service and recruit others to sell it for them. Sales reps, who are independent contractors and not employees, are paid commissions for what they sell. If they recruit other reps, then they’ll also earn a portion of their sales, too. As a basic example, let’s imagine that a company uses an MLM model to sell laptops. You might join because for each one you sell, you’ll earn a 10% commission. If you recruit me into the business, you’d also earn a 2% commission on each laptop I sell. And if I recruit...