Carl Eric Johnson

“What business are we all in?”

I asked this question at the beginning of a presentation I gave recently at one of the networking groups I attend. To my delight, the answer I was looking for came back right away: “Sales.” I asked a follow-up question, “What product are we all selling?” The reply: “Ourselves.”

We are all in the business of selling ourselves. We had just finished going around the circle introducing ourselves and our businesses. There was a Realtor®, a mortgage professional, a solar panel installer, a woman who transfers 8mm movies and VHS cassettes to longer-lasting DVD’s—in short, there was a wonderful variety of professions and services present. In fact, some of us were wearing multiple hats, myself included, as I led with my network marketing business and was now promoting my website design business.

And yet, the one product we all had in common was ourselves. We were all promoting ourselves. After all, why would I go with one real estate professional over another? Simple. I would go with the real estate professional that I had the strongest connection with, the one I had gotten to know best and to trust.

Know, Like, and Trust

Face-to-face networking is a great way to build these trusting relationships. But what if one is building a business nationwide or even worldwide? And even if one’s business is purely local, how does one get found by those who are in need of those services?

The simple answer is to be sure you have a website. In my own website design business, I often explain to people that a good referral for me is someone who has paid for a large ad in the Yellow Pages. Seriously, who reads the Yellow Pages any more? Sure, there’s yellowpages.com, but I think it is much more common simply to use a search engine to find whatever you’re looking for. I know that’s what I do, and I continue to be dismayed by how often I don’t find a website for whatever establishment I happen to be looking for.

Clearly, the world needs my services!

Not All Websites Are Equal

So will any old website do? Can I have my son or daughter slap something up for me? Can I pay a local college student to build my website as part of a class project? The short answer is yes. Of course, you’ll get what you pay for, often either a templated site that looks amateurish or a flashy site with little substance.

What I specialize in is websites that get results. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, yet certain principles have remained the same since the beginning. It is these principles that I adhere to, as well as my favorite principle, KISS.

It really is quite simple. People type keywords into their search engines, and the search engines serve up websites they think have relevant content. So all you really have to do is determine what keywords people are searching on when they are looking for you or for your type of business, and then be sure that your website uses those keywords throughout. Translation: Have a keyword-rich website filled with relevant text.

Still, it is ultimately a human being that will see the website once it is served up, so making it visually appealing is also key. Personally, I have some graphic design skills, but I prefer to partner with graphic designers for whom that is their passion. Together we make for a winning team. They can design a website to be visually appealing, then I can program it to be found by search engines and make it effective.

Does Everyone Need a Website?

As we went around the circle introducing ourselves, there were a few people who were employees of larger corporations. Certainly their employers have corporate websites, and they may (or may not) have their own personal page on that website. Perhaps this sort of professional does not need a personal website. And yet, if you think about it, they are still in the business of selling themselves. It certainly couldn’t hurt to have their own individual Web presence.

I think we can all agree, however, that a Web presence is absolutely crucial to the success of small business owners or people operating a business out of their homes.

Free or Low-Cost Options

A custom-designed website can cost many thousands of dollars initially, as well as ongoing updates to keep it fresh and current—that is, relevant. Not all small businesses or home-based businesses have that sort of a budget. The good news is that there are companion strategies that cost little or no money, and even those with full-fledged websites should consider the following:

• Social media—The four sites I recommend starting with are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
  • Facebook is great for reconnecting with family and friends, but you can also set up a fan page for your business. You can then market to the people who sign up as your fans. (How best to market to them without being obnoxious will be the subject of another post.)
  • LinkedIn is great for job seekers, but it is also an excellent place to “hang out your shingle” and promote your services.
  • Twitter is useful for sending out blasts (called tweets) to promote your business.
  • YouTube is often overlooked, but savvy marketers recognize the importance of video, and YouTube as a search engine is really second only to Google.
  • MySpace is a fifth option to consider. It used to be the most popular but has since been eclipsed by the others. Nonetheless, it remains an important medium for performing artists.
• Blogs—Short for “Web logs,” blogs (like this one) are online diaries where you can express yourself for your readers’ and subscribers’ enjoyment. If you think about it, what better way could there be for one to brand oneself? Blogs can be either free or low-cost:
  • Free sites, such as wordpress.com and blogger.com, allow you to set up your own page on their site. For instance, I have a free blog at carleric.wordpress.com. I never use it, as I set it up merely to teach myself how to set up a free blog site. Also, some free sites may be filled with ads, and ultimately you are promoting them as much as you are promoting yourself. But you can’t beat the price.
  • A better option is to host a WordPress blog on your own website. This is fully explained at wordpress.org. Most Web hosts (myself included) provide WordPress as an option. If your hosting provider uses cPanel (most do), look for Fantastico; WordPress can be found in there. The cost of this option is simply the cost of Web hosting. If you already have a website, there may be no additional cost, if you install it yourself.

With or without a website, you will definitely want to enhance your Web presence. The Web is clearly the vehicle for 21^st century business.

The Services I Offer

Contact me with your questions about any of the following services. I am glad to help in whatever way I can.

• Custom-designed websites—Prices start at $995, call for a free estimate. If you shop around, you’ll see that most website designers charge at least a couple grand. I wanted an entry-level price point below a thousand dollars, because I want you to have a website and I don’t want cost to be a limiting factor.
• WordPress-powered websites—In addition to being a blogging platform, WordPress can be used as a content management system. New design “themes” are being produced daily, many for free. You’ll have less control over the look and feel of your website while maintaining complete control over its content. Two price points are available:
  • Two-page WordPress site (typically Blog and Home), set up and initialized for $99. I’ll show you how to use the administration pages to maintain your website yourself.
  • Six-page WordPress site, set up and initialized for $495. I have some small-business clients that prefer this option to a $995 custom site.
• Website design services—I charge $80 an hour for à la carte pricing. This may be your most cost-effective option if you already have a website fully designed, along with all of its graphics. The more of your own or someone else’s time you use, the less of my time you’ll have to pay for.

There really is no reason why you can’t have a website of your own. Get started today and watch your business take off.

I have become an active social networker, participating in group discussions on LinkedIn and Facebook. Just now I replied to a post in one of my network marketing (MLM) threads, and I felt it would make for a good blog post. Here is the original discussion post:

Is representing more than one MLM company (at the same time) hurtful or helpful to your home-based business?

I’ve been involved in MLM for a bit over three years now and have already experienced the fact that I have found myself representing more than one company at the same time. Much of this is due to the shifting around of my immediate upline and their upline leadership. I have gotten to know many other network marketers, who say, with pride, how many other companies they’ve been involved with. I met one guy who say’s he is currently with 12 different companies—all at the same time! How is this possible? Or, more importantly, how is this profitable?

I am perplexed how I could even commit my time and energy to promoting only two “opportunities” with success.

Am I alone here? Does anyone else out there have suggestions on how to best succeed with presenting more than one opportunity?

Thanks,
Guy

Hi Guy:

Here’s my experience, and I look forward to hearing others’ experiences, as well.

I joined my first network marketing company in 2002 and immediately started seeing other opportunities all over the place. I joined a few, and most fell by the wayside, but over time I found myself juggling multiple opportunities at once, and none of them profitably.

By January of 2008 I was actively trying to promote four opportunities. Then I got the great idea of writing a book about network marketing, figuring I must be an expert by now. I outlined my book and started writing the chapter on how to evaluate a network marketing opportunity.

It occurred to me that I should plug my four opportunities in to my own criteria and see how they measured up against one another. Guy, it wasn’t even close: my first opportunity, the one I joined way back in 2002, was head and shoulders better than all the others combined.

I could have kicked myself. If only I had stuck to my guns with the first one instead of letting myself get sidetracked by “greener pastures” elsewhere, I would have found myself in a much better financial position. I stopped promoting the other three opportunities and focused on my first love. It was definitely the right thing to do.

I strongly encourage you to focus on one opportunity at a time. I have developed great relationships with my colleagues in other companies, and when I speak with a prospect who I think would do better in one of their opportunities, I am more than happy to refer him or her on to my counterpart. Over time, I’m sure my counterparts will start passing me their prospects whom they think would be a better fit in my company. In my opinion, this is a better way to juggle multiple opportunities—with multiple people!

I’m still plugging away at my book. I invite you to sign up for email alerts at demystifyingprosperity.com and I’ll keep you posted as to my progress.

Best wishes to you for massive success in 2010! The more of us who make network marketing work for us, the better off we’ll all be.

I just came across an eye-opening 4-minute 22-second YouTube video titled “Social Media Revolution” and thought you’d enjoy watching it, too.

We’re halfway through my network marketing company’s annual International Convention, and a lot of the presentations so far have mentioned (if not stressed) social media and how to use them for promoting yourself and building your business. Even more extraordinary is how much the Generation Y population of my fellow associates has grown in recent years. It seems as if a quarter of the people in attendance are in their twenties.

If you’re not using social media, you’re missing out on perhaps the largest paradigm shift (yes, I’ll use that term) since the establishment of the Internet, itself. This is what I teach the people I bring into this business, and it will be featured widely in my book on network marketing.

If you haven’t already connected with me, here are some links to follow, as appropriate:

• Facebook—http://www.facebook.com/carl.eric.johnson or http://profile.to/carleric—I use Facebook primarily to (re)connect with friends and family and to keep everyone apprised of what’s going on in my life.
• LinkedIn—http://www.linkedin.com/in/carleric—On LinkedIn I focus primarily on my DB2 experience and that I am in the market for full-time DB2 work (either contract or salaried).
• Twitter—http://twitter.com/carleric—I tweet maybe once a day (and have it set to update my Facebook profile), but I use Twitter primarily to subscribe to others’ tweets, especially if they have anything to do with network marketing, home-based businesses, training, and the like.

You may find me on other sites as well, but these three are the ones I use daily.

This discussion fits with a great acronym I learned a few years back:

TEAM—Together Everyone Achieves More

Social networking is a great way to expand your teams. So start building your own teams with social media.

I have been having a lot of fun lately with three social-networking sites in particular: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I’ve also been speaking about them (and more) in “Blogging and Social Networking for Professionals.” Of the three, Twitter is the one that elicits the most confusion. Why would I want to post 140-character microblog “tweets” about the minutiae of my life?

Well, if Twitter isn’t confusing enough, take a look at this video about a new service called Flutter:

Now, before you have a coronary, understand that this is a joke. I’ll admit, though, that I was over halfway through the video before I realized it was a satirical piece. Well done.

So back to Twitter. My biggest advice is this: If you can’t imagine a use for Twitter, then don’t feel you have to use it. Who knows what will come down the pike next month? Life is too short to spend it being intimidated by technology. In my own case, I post periodic tweets about the progress of my book, or whenever I make a new blog entry, or whenever it occurs to me to do so. Those who follow my tweets appreciate them. Those who don’t never know what they’re missing, and that’s fine, too.

Anyway, I saw this fun video and wanted to share it with all of you. Happy tweeting … or fluttering … or shttrng (shddrng).

In my inbox this morning was a fascinating e-mail from my friend _____ (I’ll keep him anonymous) whom I met at a personal development seminar several years ago. The addressees were blind-copied so he evidently sent it out to his entire network. Here’s the gist of his request:

This last year as everyone knows there has been a lot of change, from stock market to real estate market. Our new president Obama and change has happened. I have made money and lost lots of money over the last few years and am reaching out to my network to find out what they are doing to make money in these changing times. I am interested in finding out the items you have been investing in that you think I will be interested in. Please contact me. Thank you in advance for your knowledge.

It’s not every day that an idea for my blog appears first thing in the morning. Many days go by without me writing in my blog at all. Now, this is my third blog entry in four days.

Here is the answer I sent to _____. It is fitting that I re-post it here for my readership, as many of you wonder just what it is that I spend my days doing. Now you’ll know wherein my passions lie.

—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—

Great to hear from you, _____. Excellent topic for discussion. I’ll be interested in hearing the range of replies you get back. Perhaps you and I can compile them into “Recommendations for Surviving and Thriving in the Current Economic Downturn” … or some such thing.

As for what I’m doing to make money, you’re asking at an opportune time, as income is beginning to pick up in all three areas of pursuit:

1. Web work. I still register domain names and host Web sites, and I’m beginning to do a bit of low-end website design—what I call electronic brochures with a blog. I’m also creating a seminar titled “Blogging and Social Networking for Professionals,” and speaking gigs are beginning to flow in.
2. Network marketing. I joined USANA Health Sciences in October of 2002. Since then I made a series of mistakes, most having to do with diverting my focus to other opportunities that have since come and gone. Then in the middle of last year I came to my senses and realized that USANA was the best network marketing opportunity around, and I am focused entirely on that now. It is also the main reason I am writing my book on network marketing (more below).
3. Direct sales. I joined Global Resorts Network in March of 2008. I did this primarily because of the promise of joining a team that focuses almost entirely on the Internet and so-called “attraction marketing” techniques—techniques that I knew I could also use in my USANA business. Also, I’ll confess that the generous commission structure helped. GRN helps me pay my bills today, while USANA will help me pay my bills on into the future. I consider USANA my pension and retirement plan, such is the power of residual income.

In addition to these three sources of income, there are two more that will come into play in the near future:

1. My book. Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing has already opened doors for me, even before it is finished. I’m sure this will add to my credibility with USANA as well as being its own income stream.
2. My prior career history in IT. Years ago I specialized in IBM’s database DB2, and now I find my expertise being sought after once more. What form this will take remains to be seen, though I am open to all possibilities: full-time employment, contract work, or putting on my own seminars with my own course materials.

These are exciting times we live in, _____. Let me know what you are doing these days to pay the bills.

—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—

And now I’ll open this up to the rest of you. What are you doing these days to pay the bills? Is it enough? More importantly, is it fulfilling work? Post your replies and let the discussion begin.

When I was a child, my mother chastised me after she got fed up with my constant bemoaning “What’s so great about _____?” one too many times. She said it was obnoxious and condescending. Now, whenever I use the phrase intentionally, I chuckle to myself. Thanks, Mom, for all your great lessons growing up.

But really, what is so great about Twitter? What’s all the buzz about? If you had asked me a month ago, I would definitely have been on the side of those who still just don’t get it. Why would I want to send inconsequential “tweets” (yep, that’s what they’re called) throughout the day?

• I just had breakfast
• I just rebooted my @%$&!  computer
• I just picked my nose

After all, WHO CARES?!

In recent weeks, though, I have come to realize that Twitter is a growing phenomenon that is here to stay. And, like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, it has two types of users: personal and professional.

Personal users of Twitter enjoy following conversations on topics of interest to them, as well as simply keeping in touch with their friends. It’s like instant messaging on steroids. This is a perfectly legitimate use of Twitter, although it is perhaps of limited interest to us professional users.

My focus is on professional users. Twitter is a great way to keep your “followers” apprised of your latest and greatest offerings. It is also perhaps the quickest way to build your list of prospective customers. The trick with Twitter as with other social networking sites is never losing sight of the “social” aspect of networking.

Allow me to illustrate what I mean by “social.” I attend various business networking events here in the Seacoast region, and I have seen it all. At one “Business After Hours” event I met a woman who had just opened up her own therapeutic massage establishment. Naturally, she wanted to spread the word. This was her first time attending this particular networking event, and perhaps any similar social event, judging by what happened next. We were chatting a bit, and then she whipped out a trifold brochure with her business card stapled to it, shoved it into my hand, oozed further information about her business, and before I knew it she was off to bombard the next group of people with her brochures. I shook my head as I watched her alienate her way through the crowd the rest of the evening.

Sadly, this is how some professionals work the online social networking sites, too. They bombard their followers/connections/friends (whatever the term is at that site) with information about their business, which of course is the best business out there. This one-way communication is every bit as obnoxious as the massage therapist throwing her brochures at everyone … and every bit as effective.

Instead, the trick to effectively using social networking sites like Twitter is to start up conversations with people. Two-way communication is key. Show an interest in what others are doing, even if you know what you’re doing is better. Be prepared to be surprised, though. As in real-time networking events, it’s not so much what you know as whom you know.

If you’re looking for further guidance on social networking, perhaps the best site out there is BetterNetworker.com. It is intended for network marketers, but anyone can benefit from the fine training videos they have. You’ll learn how to contribute to the conversation first, long before pitching anything to anyone. After all, you’ll want your prospects to know, like, and trust you first. Social networking sites can help you build that trust.

I am putting together a seminar on “Blogging and Social Networking for Professionals,” and Twitter appears prominently in my recommended strategies. Stay tuned. I’ll post updates here from time to time.

Meanwhile, I am always looking for speaking venues, so if you have a group or organization you think might like to learn more about this hot topic, let me know. I’ll be more than happy to help if I can.

So keep an open mind and you’ll be surprised at how many legitimate business uses there are for Twitter and other social networking sites.

This past Wednesday morning I gave a presentation on “Blogging and Social Networking for Professionals” at SAILS, one of my networking groups. SAILS (Serving and Inspiring Leaders’ Success) meets every Wednesday morning from 7:30 to 9:00 at the Hampton United Methodist Church in Hampton, N.H.

The previous week, Pauline Maloney, one of the group’s facilitators, asked me how much time I thought I’d need for my presentation. Together we decided that a half hour would do, maybe a few more minutes for questions. Well, thirteen people showed up for my presentation (considerably more than have been in attendance in recent weeks), and I started speaking at 8:00. I invited questions and dialogue throughout. The next thing I knew, it was 9:00 and I had barely finished the blogging portion of the talk.

I was thrilled. The energy was great and the questions were even greater. A couple of times I had to back up, as I had made assumptions about certain topics. Years ago I registered the trademark Demystifying Technology® because, frankly, I’m very good at that. This experience humbled me, though, as I had to go back to the very beginning on more than one occasion. (“In the beginning the earth was formless and void . . .”)

As an example, it hadn’t occurred to me that people didn’t know that a blog was nothing more than a specific type of website. Everyone knows that they should be blogging, but the lack of introductory-level information is holding a lot of people back. So as I continued to answer questions and proceed with my presentation, I realized that I needed to turn this into a course of some sort: online, seminar, workshop, or maybe all of the above. Stay tuned. I’ll let everyone know when it’s ready.

Meanwhile, although it’s relatively easy to set up a blog (at least for someone with my technical background), it may not be the highest and best use of everyone’s time. So, another service I’ve started offering is to set up people’s blogs for them. I haven’t yet decided on a pricing structure, and my first clients are sure to get the best deals, so if you’re interested in learning more about this, drop me a line and let me know.

Part Two of my presentation—the part about social networking—has been scheduled for Wednesday March 18^th. If you’re local, do plan on attending. How great if even more than thirteen people show up!

Wednesday mornings I attend a great networking group called SAILS, which stands for Serving and Inspiring Leaders’ Success. It is led by a Realtor® who has taken lots of coaching from Buffini & Company. One of the techniques she has passed on to us is called 6-in-6.

Eight times a year (twice per quarter), to propel your business forward, you are encouraged to write down six goals that, once accomplished, are sure to increase your success. We’ve done this twice so far, so this is the third go-around for me.

From Robert Maurer’s great book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, I have learned that it’s the little, incremental steps that make the biggest difference. It’s our daily habits that ensure either our success or our failure—depending on the habits, of course.

So for this 6-in-6 I decided to develop six additional habits, beyond the three that I have already incorporated into my routine:

• Exercise at least three times per week
• Meditate 20 minutes every day (I use a practice called centering prayer)
• Read at least ten pages of a good book every day (I am currently rereading Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich)

The six new habits I intend to incorporate into my routine are:

1. Reconnect with everyone in my address book, at a rate of 10 per day or 70 per week until I’m all caught up
2. Write a blog entry three times per week, usually Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
3. Write something on my book Demystifying Prosperity™ three times per week, usually the days I’m not blogging
4. Enter all my accounting data into QuickBooks (yes, I’m horribly delinquent in this!)
5. Spend some time social networking on Facebook and Twitter every day
6. Spend 30 minutes reducing my clutter every day

All six of these will have a profound impact on furthering my ultimate success. Even decluttering. After all, I have to make room for abundance by getting rid of years of accumulation.

I invite you to embark on your own 6-in-6 discipline. Post your Comments and let me know how you are doing.

I have had the most amazing few days. Out of the blue I received an e-mail describing a job posting. As I read the specs, I got an eerie feeling of déjà vu. I was reading technical requirements that I haven’t seen in a job posting in years: IMS and COBOL, to be precise.

Now, in addition to being a Web 2.0 social networking guru <grin>, I’m really an old mainframe dinosaur at heart. Furthermore, it so happens that I have been pondering lately the benefits of regular employment. So I took a chance and applied for the position. The recruiter called me back almost immediately, and we had a lovely chat (the first lovely chat I’ve ever had with a recruiter, I might add). This guy asked me for a résumé, and I had to admit that I hadn’t updated my résumé in well over ten years—I haven’t had to, being self-employed.

So I spent all yesterday afternoon updating my résumé, and I had a blast doing so. I found myself daydreaming from time to time about past assignments that were the most enjoyable, from teaching a group of Saudi Arabians the fundamentals of COBOL and CICS, to working in a QA capacity where I was paid to try to break systems—cool. I’ve been blessed with an extraordinarily varied career history.

In network marketing circles it is not uncommon to hear people refer to jobs with contempt and disdain. “You’ll never get rich working for someone else.” “Don’t you know that JOB stands for Just Over Broke?” In fact, in my own case, I recall a conversation I had with a friend, we’ll call him Jeremy, where I was trying to convince him of the merits of joining my opportunity. Jeremy has a great job with a high-tech firm, and he was having as much difficulty explaining to me that he was content where he was and wasn’t looking for anything else. I remember being flabbergasted. Why would anyone willingly work for someone else?

I had forgotten my own history.

This is, perhaps, understandable. That last “real” job I had was a dream job that, over time, metamorphosed into THE JOB FROM HELL. I had the world’s most incompetent boss, who reminded me of the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert comics. To this day, I can’t watch The Office on TV because it hits far too close to home. In fact, it was this bad experience that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, leading me to form my own corporation and go independent. But I had let this bad experience (and a few others) negate all the positive experiences in my thirty-year career.

Applying for this job position reminded me of the good times. As it turns out, I am not the right person for this particular position, but I spent a few hours earlier today applying for several other jobs online. We shall see. I am open to re-entering the workforce. I am also open to remaining independent and working my network marketing businesses full-time. The beauty of network marketing is that, once you are established, your businesses can run on autopilot, freeing you up to pursue other activities, whether full-time employment, charity work, or being a stay-at-home mom or dad.

So, for anyone in a traditional job whom I may have offended over the years with comments of derision, please accept my most humble apology. If you enjoy your work, if you believe in your company, if you share your president’s vision, then consider yourself truly blessed. Network marketing may not be right for you. Then again, it’s up to you what you do in your spare time, and I work with many happily employed people who nonetheless see the benefit of building an additional income stream. I may convince Jeremy yet.

Whatever you decide, my wish for you is that you can find work that is meaningful for you and rewarding on many levels.

You’ll notice that the subtitle of this blog is Demystifying Prosperity™ by Demystifying Technology®. Perhaps you’re wondering where these two trademarks come from. To explain I shall have to provide a brief history of my professional life.

Although I did not major in computer science in college—indeed, I went to college before such programs were widespread!—my first job out of college was with Boeing Computer Services, and I remained in IT for many years. I enjoyed working as a programmer and systems analyst, then as a consultant on various assignments. Recognizing that I enjoy teaching, I switched careers in 1987 and took a position as a technical trainer.

I ended up working for a company called Platinum Technology in Illinois. This started out as a dream job and ended up as The Job From Hell under a particularly incompetent manager. (I can’t watch The Office on TV, because it hits too close to home.) So in 1995 I quit and formed my own corporation with the incredibly clever name of Carl Eric Johnson & Company.

I did some contract training for Platinum and other companies but was dissatisfied with the quality of the courseware I was working with. So I spent the bulk of 1996 writing my own series of SQL courses. It was at this time that the catch phrase Demystifying Technology® caught on, so I registered it. My ability to demystify technology was proved time and again in the classroom, as I reduced complex topics around IBM’s database DB2 to concepts that my students could easily master.

I partnered with a company in New Jersey to market my courses, earning royalties every time they were taught. Sweet. Unfortunately, that partnership pretty much dissolved in 2001. They still sell my SQL courses, but not nearly as frequently as they once did.

I had enough money set aside to take the summer of 2001 off—my first summer off in decades. It was wonderful. But summer became fall became winter became spring, and before I knew it a whole year had passed. Now I needed to start looking around to see what I might do to make a living. Although I enjoy teaching, I was fairly burned out on DB2 and SQL. So I looked into passive ways to make money: stock investing, commodities futures, and real estate. I took various courses in all of the above and had some modest successes.

One of the courses I took was a CD series by Robert Allen, New York Times best-selling author of Nothing Down, Creating Wealth, and other books. The CD series was titled Multiple Streams of Income. It was a 6-CD set with a bonus 7^th CD dedicated to network marketing. I was skeptical, having had a bad experience in the late ’70’s with a multilevel marketing company. But I respected Robert Allen and listened to what he had to say. I was intrigued. He explained what network marketing was all about and how to evaluate a network marketing opportunity. At the end he invited his listeners to call an 800 number to learn about the one network marketing company he endorsed. I did so, found out it was USANA Health Sciences, got an information packet in the mail several days later, and joined at the highest level within the week.

Wanting to share what I had learned about network marketing with others, I soon transitioned into Demystifying Prosperity™. I have several blogs and e-mail autoresponder series on the topic, and I am currently writing a book titled Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing.

In recent years I have used more and more Internet technologies to promote my network marketing ventures, and so this is where the two (Demystifying Technology® and Demystifying Prosperity™) overlap. Rather than waste a lot of money on telephone leads any more, I am now learning how to use social networking (a k a Web 2.0) technologies to attract free leads to my businesses—so-called attraction marketing.

And just what are my businesses? Well, I am certainly still with USANA Health Sciences and will be for the rest of my life. I am also in Global Resorts Network, a direct sales company marketing memberships in luxury timeshare rentals. It is from my team at Global that I have learned all of my attraction marketing techniques. And I am sure that my book will open doors for me.

I am available for speaking gigs of anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours. If you have an audience who would like me to demystify prosperity for them, let me know. I love helping people realize that they do have options, especially in our current economy. Actually, there has never been a better time to get into network marketing.