Heading Home

Here we are on I-10 heading home to Arizona after a great trip to visit family and friends in California.

It is sad to be leaving, because we want to stay and live in California, but until our house in Arizona sells, we cannot do so.

We started our week with our younger son, staying at his apartment the entire week.  We had dinner at my brother's restaurant the first night. We had a great meal with wonderful company.

The following evening, we met one of my team members and her husband for dinner.  It was our first in-person meeting, and we had such fun with them!  What a great couple.

On Saturday, we had a nice visit with an elderly cousin, the last of her generation still alive.  At 91 years of age, she is still sharp and living alone.  From her home, we drove to the coast, Pacific Coast Highway, driving south stopping to enjoy the ocean view, smell and sounds. Living in Arizona, we don't have much opportunity to see the ocean.

On Sunday, we met with my husband's daughter and friends for a really nice visit.  The following day, my brother joined us as we drove to a few cities in Southern California trying to decide exactly where in Southern California we want to live when our house does sell.

The next day we drove to another beach town to see our niece and grand niece.  We hadn't seen them for a couple years, so we had lots to catch up on.  That evening, we saw our older son and our 4-year-old granddaughter.  She is an adorable little girl who we barely know, because we live so far away.

Our last full day was mostly relaxing and visiting with our younger son.  That evening, because it was the 4^th of the July, Independence Day in the USA, my brother and darling sister-in-law joined us, along with our son, and we went to The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, for a phenomenal fireworks display.  We saw some unique fireworks that none of us had ever seen before.  The Rose Bowl show was reported to be the largest display in Southern California.  We picnicked in a park area surrounding the Rose Bowl in what was a real party atmosphere, with about 200,000 other people.  Our final night in California was special mostly because we spent it with family.

As anticipated, driving in California was terrible, and we drove a great deal during our visit – 1845 miles to be exact.  However, as we also expected, we had a wonderful time seeing everyone.  We are now in the first of what will be about a 10-hour drive home... although Arizona is feeling less like home each time we leave our family. 

Having a home business is such a pleasure.  I can work anywhere, and I can take vacations whenever I please.  During the week I was in California, two people joined my team, and I spoke with three other really good prospects that I’ll be contacting again.

I am also so fortunate to have a dear friend and co-worker on my team who covered my training calls and even helped a few of my team members during my absence.

My team, The Winner’s Circle, is one of the top teams in Xpress Healthcare.  If you’re looking for a home business with phenomenal people, please check out my website

California Here I Come

My husband and I are going to California for a visit at the end of this week.  We’ll be staying for about a week.  Both our families and friends live in Southern California, so we have quite a few people we want to see.

I’m pretty good about preparing a work schedule, but planning who we are going to see on what day and time and where we will see them has turned into quite a challenge.  We will be there for only one weekend, and some of the people we want to see work during the week and are only available on weekends. 

While we are in California, we’ll be celebrating Independence Day – with whom and where, we do not yet know.

We will be staying with one of our sons in Pasadena.  If you know Southern California at all, you know that it is really spread out, and the traffic is horrible.  Of course, it is worse during “rush hour,” but there is rarely a time when the freeways do not have a great deal of traffic.  Whoever coined the term “rush hour” anyway?  No one is rushing anywhere.  The freeways in Los Angeles become a parking lot, not a racetrack.

We have family and friends in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, both of which are over thirty miles from where we are staying in Pasadena.  Driving 30 miles where I live in Southeast Arizona would be a quick trip, but in Southern California, depending upon the time of day, it will likely take 45 to 90 minutes.

People in California love their cars.  There is decent public transportation – trains and busses - but the vast majority of people choose to drive their own cars to and from work.  When we are sitting still on an L.A. freeway, I always, wonder “What is wrong with these people?  How can they do this day after day?”  At least car pool for goodness sake!

It is very fortunate that my husband is retired and I have my Xpress Healthcare home business and can work it anywhere I go.  Have laptop, will travel.  So, if this coordination of visits becomes too crazy, there is nothing stopping us from extending our trip to be sure we see everyone.  We can stay an extra day or two – or more.

Those of you who read my blogs regularly may notice that I will not be posting any while I am gone.  We will be leaving either Thursday or Friday, so I’ll get one or two more written this week.  After the trip, I imagine I’ll have a lot to write about. 

Wish us luck in the insanity of Southern California.

http://julie.joinxpress.com/overview-2.html?=blogger

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Successfully marketing a home business can be challenging.  I would like to share a few of my own marketing tips, and I invite comments with your own suggestions.

It is important to target your market.  If you try to target everyone, it actually will undermine your marketing efforts and will produce fewer responses.  For those of us who are IBOToolbox members, our emphasis should be on recruiting, because most people who read our posts and blogs either are business owners themselves or they are seeking a home business.

Be sure that your marketing message is clear, not too complex, too clever or too long.  If no one “gets” your ad, you are wasting time and effort.  I have found that when placing ads on Craigslist.org or Backpage, brief ads produce the best results. Be sure to include your website.  Other contact information is optional, because they should be able to find it on your website.

Do not rely on only one form of marketing.  Social networking is definitely among our most effective marketing tools, but it should not be your only method.  Online ads, distributing flyers locally, handing out business cards, word-of-mouth, mini ads for your email signature are all still good methods. 

One shot marketing to reach out to your prospects does not work.  You must expose yourself repeatedly in various mediums. Some psychologists suggest that it takes 15 or more exposures of an idea or concept before we really accept and understand it.  If you want people to remember you and your business, keep yourself and business in front of them as often as possible and in as many places as possible.

I have people get tired of a certain ad or message they are using, thinking they must change it because it is getting. If you are getting responses from certain ads or wording on a network marketing site, continue using them.  You can add new and different ones, but don’t eliminate an effective one.

It seems obvious, but I occasionally see ads with no easy way to contact the person placing the ad.  I have seen a few posts on IBOToolbox saying, “Contact me for more information,” with no link to do so.

Your marketing message will be competing with many others, so seek ways to make

your stand out.  Be creative and try to pique your prospects’ curiosity.  You can do 

this with a powerful, attention-grabbing headline to attract your reader’s attention.  It can be a question to challenge the reader or provoke a response. 

Be sure to track & measure the results of your marketing efforts.  Nearly all network marketing companies have a “back office” where they can check site stats to see which of your ads or forum posts are working best for you

When placing recruiting ads or posts, let your prospects know how joining your team will benefit them. Besides just earning money, you may want to remind them that they will have home business tax deductions, spend more time with their children and avoid fighting traffic.

Your ads and marketing should always include a call to action.  “Join now!” “Visit our website for additional information.”

Ads should include an attention-grabbing headline, short sentences of two to three lines per paragraph, and on certain sites (where appropriate) bullet points indicating the benefits of your offer, bold, italicized or colored text.  Always remember your call to action telling the reader what you want them to do.  You may even want to add a P.S. (postscript) to reiterate the main benefit for taking your call to action.

These are things I have learned over my years in network marketing.  I would love to see what marketing tips others recommend.

Oh yes, if you’d like more information about the business opportunity I am offering, please visit my website.  http://julie.joinxpress.com/overview-2.html.

Let's See... Food or My Prescription?

This article is not intended to give either a negative or positive opinion about the new health care laws in the United States nor is it meant to begin a debate as to whether the laws will help or hurt Americans.   

 *******************************

Many people in the United States are struggling to pay for health care and prescription drugs according to a study released earlier this year. 

The number of doctor visits and medications prescribed declined slightly in 2010, and in 2011, there was a 7% increase in emergency room visits, which is attributed to loss of health insurance and long-term unemployment.

Senior Citizens, in particular, used fewer medicines.  Patients 65 and older appear to be rationing their drugs, filling fewer physician-prescribed medications as they struggle to pay their bills.  For older Americans, the biggest decline in prescriptions was for those used to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol and osteoporosis.  These are drugs where the patient won’t necessarily develop symptoms when they stop taking them.  So, some patients see these drugs as expendable.

The prices for brand-name drugs increased in recent years, so people with medical conditions that require them to take drugs with no generic equivalent have higher prescription costs.  For those who take only generic drugs, the cost may have gone down for some since more generic drugs have become available.

"The percentage of the population taking at least one prescription drug during the previous month increased from 38 percent in 1988-1994 to 47 percent in 2003-2006, and the percentage taking three or more prescription drugs increased from 11 percent to 21 percent."  CDC/National Center for Health Statistics, February 17, 2010.

"In 2005, nearly one in 10 people between the ages of 18 and 64 said they were unable to get necessary prescription drugs during the past 12 months due to cost."  CDC/National Center for Health Statistics, June 11, 2005

Since I will be on Medicare myself soon, I am hoping that my healthcare and prescription costs do not increase over the costs I currently pay with private health insurance.

Even with health insurance, over the past year or so, I have found that the co-payment for prescriptions using my insurance was actually higher than when I use a discount healthcare card.

I am fortunate to have Xpress Healthcare’s prescription discounts.  I have saved hundreds of dollars this year alone using my Xpress prescription card instead of my health insurance, which was very surprising to me when I first realized it.  I had always assumed insurance would be the better option.  I have learned that is not necessarily true.

Using Xpress Healthcare’s neighborhood pharmacy program, I save 10% to 85% on most prescriptions.  All the major national chains participate in the program, as do many independent pharmacies.  All I do is present my membership card to the pharmacist with the prescription. The pharmacist calculates the discount, and I pay the discounted price. No forms are required.

My Xpress membership also includes a mail order program where I can optimize my savings by purchasing maintenance prescriptions in 90 day supplies to treat ongoing ailments.

The statistics above demonstrate the dire need for relief to those who cannot afford their prescriptions.  We are fortunate to live in a time when medications are available to extend and improve the quality of our lives – but only if we can afford to buy them.

(Xpress Healthcare’s Pharmacy Discounts are NOT insurance and are not intended as a substitute for insurance.  The membership card can only be used at one of Xpress’ 60,000 providers nationwide.)

http://julie.joinxpress.com/product.html

The Disappearance of the Shopping Mall

As my husband and I were taking our regular walk through our local mall, we discovered that overnight, another store had closed.  We “walk the mall” five days a week.  You never need to worry about weather, the walking surface is level, and there is no traffic nearby about which we need to be concerned.

We live in a city of only about 40,000 people, so our mall is pretty small, but vacancies are high.  There are two anchor stores and about 25 other businesses.  Of those, six are now vacant.  This is not unique to our local mall, and malls nationwide are struggling to fill their spaces and increase the number of shoppers.

When thinking about why there are so many vacancies, of course, the poor economy and high unemployment are the first reasons that come to mind.  However, there are other reasons that likely will not change as the economy improves.  There are far more “big box” stores, with stores like Walmart and Target becoming one-stop-shopping stores.  Consumers can buy nearly everything they need from clothing to electronics to groceries without going from store to store.

Online shopping has increased dramatically, taking a big slice of business from shopping malls.  The majority of big chains have now opened their own online stores to regain some of the business they lost at their retail stores.

I’ve noticed a large increase in vacancies in strip malls as well.  Just yesterday, I was going to purchase something from a local flooring store, only to discover the store is no longer there.  That strip mall had one open store out of six that were available.  We noticed two other strip malls in town with only a couple stores occupied, with the remainder empty.

At the beginning of 2012, for the first time in four years, there was a slight decrease in the number of mall vacancies.  That small improvement may be due to the fact that new mall construction has decreased because of the economy.  In fact fewer new malls were built in 2011 than at any time in the past 30 years.  Each time a newer, nicer mall opened, it hurt the existing malls. 

A lot of the major department stores, like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, J.C. Penney's, did major renovations and held very attractive sales, which likely contributed to the slight improvement.  

As we became more observant about strip malls and our local mall vacancies, we realized that we had previously given no thought to this part of the economy and how it has suffered over the past several years.

I am not a “shopper” and won’t particularly miss shopping at malls.  However, Sears and J.C. Penney’s have always “been there,” and it is just a bit sad to think that sometime in the near future, they may exist only online - or not at all.

http://julie.joinxpress.com/overview-2.html

Amazing New Tool for Physicians, the Stethescope

I am constantly amazed at the new technologies that appear seemingly every day.  IPods, I pads, computers and smart phones.  I can’t keep up with all the new and remarkable tools and forms of entertainment that have been introduced.

Although fabulous inventions have arisen during our lifetime, before the late 20^th and 21^st centuries, there were incredible inventions that changed the world.  Inventions 50, 100, 200 years ago made life easier, helped us to live longer lives, nearly wiped out some diseases and more.

In the 1600’s, the first barometer was introduced.  Anton Van Leeuwenhoek was the first to see and describe bacteria with a microscope during this time period as well. These events eventually led to the ability to predict changes in the weather and gave physicians a better way to diagnose and treat diseases.  

C. Hopffer patented the first fire extinguisher in 1722, and two years later the first mercury thermometer was invented by Gabriel Fahrenheit.  I’m sure the people back then considered these to be pretty amazing.

We are practically addicted to our cell phones today, but when the first patent for an electric telegraph was filed in 1774, how important do you think that was in history?  I personally am grateful that Ben Franklin invented bi-focal eyeglasses in 1780.

Smallpox was a huge problem worldwide before 1796 when Edward Jenner created a vaccine for it.  Many of today’s high-tech “toys” are available, because the battery was invented in the late 1700’s.

When we watch programs on our HD TV’s and send pictures with our phones, we should all be grateful to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce for being the first person to take a photograph (It took eight hours).

How did doctors even practice before the stethoscope was invented in 1819?  Between 1827 and 1830, the first typewriter was created and the sewing machine a short time later.

Can you imagine working in an office without the stapler that was invented in 1841?  And how “fun” it must have been to have a tooth pulled before Dr. William Morton began using anesthesia in the middle of the 19^th century.  Fortunately, that was closely followed by the creation of antiseptics.

Our cell phones may be amazing, but would they have even existed had Alexander Graham Bell not invented the phone to begin with?  The first moving pictures arrived on the scene in 1877, the same year Thomas Edison invented the phonograph.

I don’t even want to think what it was like before the first form of toilet paper was invented.  And how many other incredible inventions came to be because Heinrich Hertz invented radar in 1887?

Science, technology and inventions progressed at an accelerated rate during the 20th century, more so than any other century.  During the first decades of that century, airplanes, automobiles and the radio dazzled the population with wonder.

Of course, I’ve barely touched on the thousands of other inventions throughout history without which our lives might be very different today.  The next time you are in awe of all the electronics we use today, think what life would have been like without the many scientific discoveries and inventions that came about long before anyone coined the words “high-tech.”

http://julie.joinxpress.com/overview-2.html

My husband, retired for a few years now, has decided he wants to have a home business.  He only wants to work around 10 hours a week, and he is not a “high tech” type of guy.  He can do searches on the Internet and send and receive emails.  He does not know “computereze.”

Anyway, since he is asking me to review everything he finds, I have been thrown back into the search for a home business.  I am once again reminded how difficult it is to find a business that fits specific criteria.

There are hundreds, probably thousands of good businesses from which to choose online, but there is not a single one that is right for everyone.  There are a few important things I consider when searching for a business opportunity.

1)     Is the business a reputable, legitimate company?

2)     What costs are involved – upfront, monthly or at a later date?

3)     Is it a good fit?  Will I be able to be passionate about the product or service the company offers?

It can be very time consuming and challenging to find a business that is a good match, but I know it is necessary to spend that time and effort.   Just because I have heard of a company does not necessarily mean it is reputable. On the other hand, just because I have never heard of them, it doesn’t mean it is not a great company.

I always check on third party sites about any company I am considering, not only on the company site or those of their distributors.  What do those OUTSIDE the company say about them?

I do not rely too heavily on the Better Business Bureau.  Some businesses simply choose not to pay for BBB membership.  In addition, while many very good organizations are accredited and highly rated by the BBB, a while back, there were questions about the validity of the BBB grading. The situation may have been rectified.  Watch this video of a 20/20 Investigation into the BBB to learn more.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw

If a company or one of its distributors promises or guarantees a huge income, I will run the other way!  In the network marketing industry in particular, some people will never apply themselves.  Some don’t have the right skills for the business.  Therefore, there is no way EVERYONE can be successful, let alone earn a huge income, with any company. That old line, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” definitely applies when researching business opportunities. 

Many excellent companies have complaints filed against them for various reasons, so a few complaints against a company do not necessarily mean the company is disreputable.  However, if I find many complaints about a company, I will not consider them.

I carefully research the product or service being offered.  Would I buy it?  No matter how great the product, if it is too expensive, I not likely make many sales. 

I do my best to learn the TRUE cost of operating any business.  Most business opportunities have a fee involved at some point, whether it is an up-front cost or a monthly fee.  When a company claims it is totally free to start and operate the business, I am skeptical.  There are companies that tell you there is no start-up cost, but then they charge hundreds of dollars for training.  OR, after joining, you discover that there is a required upgrade to be able to earn money.

It is important to me to “feel a connection” with the company rep with whom I speak.  If I believe they are evading my questions or are not being totally honest, red flags go up!   

I like a simple-to-understand comp plan. I am not seeking “multiple streams of income.”  I must be able to explain it to prospects myself.  I know there are many who want a binary, matrix or other types of (to me) complicated comp plans.  I do not.

When it comes to a business for my husband, it must be simple, simple, simple.  He must be able to do it himself, without much help from me.  We have looked at several businesses already, none of which fit his criteria.

And so, we continue our search…

http://julie.joinxpress.com/xhc1.html