Todd Woodward recently joined Amway as Vice President, Global Amway Brand and Public Relations and has some pretty high credentials from past employers.  University of Notre Dame, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Harley Davidson and the National Milk Processor Board.  I’m glad to see someone like Todd take over this position as I’m sure he will take Amway’s reputation and only increase it as it already is. 

Just doing some searching on Amway or even World Wide Dreambuilders has changed since I first started.  There are many companies that help repair reputations and remove old or negative publicity and it seems like Amway is making strides there.  I don’t blame them as people that hide behind anonymous or alias’s really don’t lend much credibility to be honest.  Why hide?  If you believe 100% in what you talk about then you should be able to use a real name, at least that’s my opinion.

Today’s blog post on the Amway Insider was a good one that talked about online reputation management and some thoughts from Todd about Direct Selling Companies and Amway.  This comment really resonated with me because I really do believe this to be true at least with our business. “Direct selling is the most human of businesses. . . we believe that helping humans – not companies – to be successful is a world-changing approach. Translating that online is critical to improving our reputation”. While some may think it’s crazy to think a business like ours helps “humans”, it’s the people who are crazy enough to think that that actually make it happen.  We help others become successful before we become successful and that’s very fulfilling.  If you can serve others before you serve yourself you will become successful. Don’t believe me? Ask people like Warren Buffet, John Maxwell, or anyone that is very successful, they got there because they served others first and that’s exactly what we do.

Just today I had two different counsel sessions with different members of our team.  They had various questions, some business related some non-business related and I didn’t get paid for those two hours.  I could have used that time to do something else however  I served on them because they needed me, they needed to talk to me about whatever was on their mind or heart.  That’s just one way of how you serve others and do exactly what Todd was talking about, “helping humans”.  I love that quote.

Click the link above to read the blog entry to see some other quotes from Todd on what is going to be hugely impactful for Amway in the coming future.

Is doubling your Dream Night numbers year to year and outgrowing venue’s

No it’s not, it’s called growth and I have a confession to make, I attended or will be attending two Dream Nights this week.  Yup, it’s true.  Out of our own free will without any cohesion, guilt, pressure, etc… we attended last night and will be attending tonight.  Both nights, different venue’s and different speakers, in fact because of growth they’ve had to move one of the nights to the Shaw Conference Centre.  If there wasn’t growth in this area that would seem like overkill or a waste of money to put it up there don’t you think?  To be honest I don’t know how many people are attending each event as I’m not function hosting and who’s going to more than one, quite frankly I don’t care.  I care about my wife and our business only.

(Just incase you didn’t understand the first paragraph that was some sarcasm for some of my most devoted loyal readers )

Tonight will be quite the night as Ron and Georgia Lee Puryear will be one of the speakers and as far as I know this is their first visit to Edmonton.  I have no doubt they want to see the growth and excitement going on in the Edmonton area and the hard work the leaders in this organization have done over the last few years.  We are excited as we have a few guests coming out to check out what Dream Night is all about but more importantly my wife’s parents are coming out.  They want to see a bit more of what it is that we do, the excitement, the association and everything that World Wide Dreambuilders is about. 

I’ll leave you with this as you start your new year; don’t gauge your future potential based on your past disappointments.

There are a lot of things out there and really where do you start?  I figured I’d start with people and names I know and then fan out from there and see what is available locally as well as on a larger scale.  So I started with John Maxwell, I’ve mentioned him before and read a lot of his books.  If you do a quick search for leadership guru’s you’ll notice he’s at the top and rightfully so.  World Wide Dreambuilders is very fortunate to have a great partnership with him as he speaks at the Spring Leadership conferences every year as well as Taste of Diamond weekend and always has a huge impact.  I wanted to see what resources he had for the general public and potentially any conference or seminar style of teachings.

John offers what he calls the Maximum Impact Club which can be found here (http://www.johnmaxwell.com/development-training/maximum-impact-club/) and entitles you to his monthly CD along with notes.  Total cost per year is $179 for the online only version and $259 a year for Online + CD in US/Canada.  I’m also going to assume his company is making a profit off of that, which would make sense and is normal.

I went on to find that John offers a 2 1/2 day event called “Exchange” found here (http://www.exchangegathering.com/) and the cost of that event is $8,000 per person and does not include your accommodations.  That’s quite an event however if you wanted to attend a smaller workshop you can do that as well located here (http://www.johnmaxwell.com/speaking-events/public-workshops/) for $299 per person.  So that’s a quick and dirty of what I found for John Maxwell.  Glad we may nowhere near those prices to see John at our Spring Leadership event or for his CD’s.

I thought to take a different approach on someone I’ve heard of for many years and I’m sure all of you have as well.  Tony Robbins.  He’s more of a life coach, mentorship, power within you type of person and he has lots of books and CD’s and what I found was his “Power Within You” event which has MANY different ranges in prices. (http://www.tonyrobbins.com/holiday/power-within.html) Starting with the basic package of $995 going right up to $2,595 for a 4 day event. He’s also got CD’s like John Maxwell however I won’t bother posting that as it’s pretty much the same.

So with those two people you could be looking at some pretty hefty investments if you’re looking into personal growth and leadership material.  All well respected people who’ve helped a lot of people gain success.

I started looking at some local support structures and seeing what Edmonton had to offer it’s Entrepreneur community and found a MeetUp group called The Edmonton Entrepreneur Meetup.  My wife and I have been to these a few times now and there are people from all different walks of life and business’s.  It’s a great networking event getting around like minded individuals looking to do something more and work for themselves instead of working for someone else.  I’ve talked many times about association and who you get around, it’s important.  Why else would Entrepreneur’s gather together, so they could bounce ideas off each other or get around other successful people and ask them what they did to get where they are at.  Sounds familiar to me.  Cost for these events are typically free or the cost of your favorite coffee beverage.

Corporately, I know a lot of business’s subscribe to this Harvard ManageMentor program (http://corporatelearning.hbsp.org/corporate/products-and-services/reference.html) that has teachings on everything from time management, leadership, finances, to goal setting and everything inbetween.  The cost for something like this in a corporate environment is not cheap.  I was able to find for 51+ users it works out to $99 per license.  Each employee needs to have a license so for a company of just 500, that’s $49,500 a year.  A rather large investment for something that’s typically not mandatory but strongly suggested by your employer.  I’m guessing Harvard is getting some kind of kickback from those prices.

Books books and more books, holy crap there are a ton of books you can find in the Health and Well-Being section at your local bookstore.  You can literally find a book on any part of your life that you’re looking for help in. Marriage, Finances, Leadership, the list goes on.  The well known saying goes “Leaders are readers”.  Ask any successful person to see their library and they will show you a ton of books they’ve read.  Ask them for their favorite most impactful book and read it!

I could go on but the fact is Support Systems are out there for a reason, its to support those involved in whatever it is they are doing.  Be it the World Wide Dreambuilders support system, the Harvard’s ManageMentor program, or John Maxwell’s Workshops, you’ll only get out of it what you put in.  The best thing about all of these types of systems, they are all optional, nobody says you have to take them or follow them.  However without partaking in these systems you won’t get the benefits of what’s offered through them.

I encourage you to do your research on whatever support system you’re looking at getting involved in.  If that’s World Wide Dreambuilders make sure whoever is taking you through the process explains everything in detail.  Make sure you actually read through everything in the information system that was given to you as it contains a lot of answers to your questions.  If there are questions, ASK them.  I can only speak of what we do and that’s full disclosure of those we are looking at going into business with and are going through a qualification process.  Nothing bothers me more than people who hide and twist the truth, its not a great way to start out a partnership that’s for sure.

Again Happy New Year and Much Success!

I do not believe in sugar coating anything and we make sure to educate a potential business partner with all the levels of business, all costs, and what the time commitments are for each level.  I can only speak to what we do however I’ve heard others don’t give this much information and that’s a shame.  So if your a potential person wanting to get involved, make sure you ask questions.  Don’t let the excitement cloud your judgement (I guess that’s why we extend it to 6 weeks if required)  and make sure you get all the information required to make an educated decision.

We develop a trust and friendship first before going into business with people and it’s that trust and friendship that helps us develop lifelong partnerships.  If you want a stable business without having to rebuilt it year after year, that’s the key.  If you want to rebuilt and struggle to have a stable business then disregard everything I said and just sign people up left and right, see how long you last.  We believe in building a stable and profitable business and we along with our sponsors can show you how.  This business is going to take work, if anyone tells you different they are lying.  The concept is simple yet it takes work and whatever you put in is what you’ll get out.  You cannot expect to sit at your computer and expect money to fly out of it, sorry doesn’t work that way.

Lastly we will never convince anyone to do what we do, and I’ve maintained that through this blog.  In the end, you really need to trust and get to know the person your getting involved with and more importantly you need to like them.  How can you expect to work with people you don’t like?

• New IBO Applications +12%
• PV per Engaged IBOs +8% (I’ll assume engaged = active)
• New IBO PV +7%
• $50 Fast Track +30% (Fast Track program is now a full time program and has expanded)
• First year renewal rates were +2%
• Highest qualification growth rate for the US since 2003

New Pin Qualifiers

• 1 65 FAA
• 1 Founders Crown Ambassador
• 1 Crown
• 1 Triple Diamond
• 3 Double Diamonds
• 3 Founders EDC / EDC
• 39 Founders Diamonds / Diamonds
• 124 Founds Emeralds / Emeralds
• 166 Founders Sapphire / Sapphire
• 155 Founders Ruby / Ruby
• 1,233 Founders Platinum / Platinum

Great growth news for Amway North America.  This also touches on a post done earlier in October by “The Truth About Amway” Blog titled 1222 New Founder Platinum’s and Above for Amway North America!

One last stat to share was World Wide Group / World Wide Dreambuilders (WWDB) had a total new IBO count of just over 19,000. 

We are on our way today to the Free Enterprise conference in Portland.  On our way we are able to visit with my parents in Southern BC on either side of the event which works out perfect.  W is going to spend the weekend there visiting with his grandparents and they are very excited since they don’t get to see him much.  That works out perfect so that we can focus on the conference and W gets to visit with his grandparents who are always asking for more time with him. Win Win!

I’m quite excited to attend this year, as I was the previous year, coming out of a retirement party we had last night for our personal sponsor.  Stepping away from a noble position as a Fire Fighter for the City of Edmonton is not an easy thing to do, however the ability to become a full time dad trumps that in a heartbeat.  A man that stands on principal, integrity, courage, transparency, marriages, family and living with cashflow are just some of the many qualities that bare the “fruit on the tree” that we seek and I’ll seek out mentorship and coaching from a man like that. 

I’m excited to see the growing Canadian leadership speak on a FED stage as we now have two founders emerald’s in Calgary and Edmonton both of which are twenty wide and on track to hit Diamond by next FED. That’s quite exciting as there have not been any new diamonds in awhile and this is just the start.  All indications are showing Amway is continuing to grow from the number of founders platinum’s, to the growth in North America, and lastly hitting double digits in the billions of dollars last fiscal year (still waiting for the official announcement). Exciting times for sure despite what some may say.

There are a lot of things I’m looking to get out of this weekend of which I won’t share now, but will once it’s done.  Have a great weekend!

So aside from that we’ve actually be re-focusing our energy on our family and our business and that’s about it right now.  We had a recent lull which was fine, we needed to find out our groove and there was no pressure from anyone telling us what we had to do or what we had to go to.  That’s what’s great about our business and what we stand for. Everyone has their own path, their own goals and their own business.  We needed to take some time to figure out how to build this business with a little one and we’ve done just that and things are moving a long great. 

I may post less frequently however the posts I do post will be more meaningful and more insightful.  I’m excited for the rest of the year and for what we are doing personally and in our business.  It’s Autumn, with season changes brings fresh beginnings.

The second thing that really made things better was when I got home from the follow up my wife made Pad Thai and that has to be my favourite dish she makes.  She knows how to make me happy and food is just the way.  I love the fact that my wife knows just what to do when I’ve had a crappy day.  I also know to check my crappy day at the door and not let it bring her down because she had a great day with our son.  I guess that’s also something else that makes me happy, seeing my son.  He just melts my heart and can do no wrong.

If you’re having a rough day make sure you leave it at the door, that’s the best advice I can give!

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