http://www.eventbrite.com/event/388403726?ref=elink

RSVP for NYC DIVA Luncheon on Tuesday, September 22nd

http://divaswhodineseptember2009.eventbrite.com/

 1. Focus on Helping, Instead of Selling You shouldn’t be trying to force people into purchasing your product or service. You should find people who want your product or service and then focus on offering any helpful information to them so that they can make an informed decision. 

2. Target If you’re trying to target everybody, then chances are, you’re not targeting anybody. For example, if you’re selling something that homeowners would want, as opposed to renters, then target homeowners. State your target clearly in all of your marketing materials. 

3. Stop Spending Money on Ineffective Marketing One great way to save money is to stop wasting it on marketing and advertising that isn’t producing for you. Don’t forget to track the number of responses you are getting from whatever method you use. If you’re not reaching your goals, then your strategy needs to be revised. 

4. Network 

Networking is a great way to get your message out to a large number of people, for free. Since each person knows about 250 other people, you can spread the word about your business pretty quickly. Go to your DIVA Dinners. Shake hands at business functions. Exchange business cards with associates you see in stores, churches and community events. 

5. Set Goals and Deadlines Collect your thoughts for a moment or two, and set goals and deadlines. These are vital to your business success. State your goals as specific numbers. (e.g. 10 new accounts, 11% increase in sales, etc.) 

6. Focus on Benefits Not on Features Spend your time focusing on how your prospects will benefit if they purchase your product or service. For example, if you’re selling central air conditioning units, don’t sell the power of the unit. Sell the benefit of comfort. Selling insurance? Don’t sell the coverage amount. Sell the benefit of security. 

7. Write Tips Articles Newspapers and other publications are always looking for helpful tips articles that would be of benefit to their readers. Submit simple, problem/solution type articles related to your product or service. State the problem, and then share some insightful tips that can help to solve the problem. Always include information at the end of your articles so that people will know how to contact you to receive more information about your services. 

8. Be Persistent Persistence is power when it comes to increasing your sales and profit. Far too many firms fail because they don’t follow-up long enough to produce results. Most sales are made after the seventh or eighth contact–the sale is rarely made after just one contact. 

9. Submit Press Releases Press releases are a very cost-effective way to get your message out to many people . . . for free. Submit your press releases to a wide variety of publications for immediate release. Keep in mind that the newspapers will usually only print releases that are of interest to their readers, rather than of a selling nature. 

10. Offer to be a Speaker 
, Inc.Business and civic organizations are always looking for speakers for their meetings and get-togethers. Make yourself available by contacting these groups and offering to talk about your area of expertise. 

Joe Gracia, President of Get To Get Marketing Inc. began his marketing career nearly 30 years ago. He is an expert in both traditional offline marketing as well as marketing on the Web. Over the past 13 years, he has made his clients literally millions of dollars in increased sales and profits with his unique small business marketing strategies and techniques.
Growing your business can be easy when you follow  his step-by-step, proven-effective system. For more information, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/joegracia

<Stephanie Frank has amazing insight that I wanted to share with my entire audience and so here is an insightful article!>

She sat on the floor amongst a pile of papers and cried.

Everywhere she looked, something needed to be done. Bills were stacked, envelopes strewn about, unopened cards and grocery receipts cluttered the room. All she needed was a good filing system – how hard could that be?

Every day, smart people get caught in the “it should be so easy why can’t I do it” trap. Spending hours on a task or project that is not in your core strengths can make you feel frustrated, which in turn makes you feel dumb, which in turn blows your self-confidence. It’s a viscous, never ending, self-defeating cycle that can literally be changed in a moment.

Imagine for a moment that you are now out into the future, in a place where you are using all of your strengths. You feel happy, joyful and competent. You are only working on the projects and tasks that suit your skills and strengths. Self-confidence soars.

Yet many are stuck in jobs and tasks that not only are not right for them, but actually cause lack of self-confidence. According to Gang & Gang, a research firm in Salem, Massachusetts, as many as 55% of all people are in the wrong career or job. For entrepreneurs trying to wear multiple hats, this number can be even higher as they attempt to fill multiple roles in their small company, causing not only lack of self-confidence, but lost profits, and lost productivity.

To begin the process of discovering how to become more self confident:

1. Take inventory. Take a written inventory of all of the tasks you do in a week. Everything. From household chores to email to whatever you do for work, write them all down.

2. Categorize the tasks. For each task, write an “H” for household/personal, “A” for administrative, “P” for productive and “SM” for sales/marketing or tasks that make you or your company money.

3. Offload what you’re doing that is wasting time (or that you’re not good at). If you are not good at paying the bills on time and you miss a payment, your self confidence will take a hit. Hiring a good bill paying service is inexpensive and saves your self confidence. If you don’t like doing the yard work, pay the kid next door to take care of it. You’ll help the economy and free up your time to do more of what you love. Play more. Visit with relatives. Start a side business. Go to your kids soccer games. Whatever you want. With confidence.

Now that you know 3 simple steps to improving your self confidence, all you need to do is put them in action. There’s nothing wrong with you. When you find yourself doing the things you love, you’ll find that your self confidence automatically improves.

Stephanie Frank works with people who want to improve performance and pump up their power to profit. She is the author of the best-selling book, The Accidental Millionaire and founder of The Success IQ University, specializing in peak performance, productivity and leadership coaching and education. For a FREE audio program “The 13 Vital Traits of Super Effective People,” go here: http://www.FreeSuccessTrainingAudio.com

Do you realize that it’s actually easier to earn more money than it is to earn less? It’s true, and Kendall SummerHawk, the million dollar marketing coach is proof of that. The trick is to know which triggers will allow you to skip years of time, frustration and achingly slow growth so you can leap ahead and transform your business so it practically runs itself and generates secure, steady, reliable streams of income month after month…all while making an important impact in the lives of others and without ever sacrificing an ounce of your authenticity.

Kendall shared all of this information on Saturday July 18, 2009 when she hosted a free call where she focus on the top 5 triggers she PERSONALLY used to go from frustrating 5-figures to gracefully creating a million dollar home-based business in just 3 short years — the same triggers she normally only reveals to her private coaching clients.

If you know anything about Kendall you can rest assured that this call will be content rich. And, while it is a preview of her brand new Money, Marketing and Soul Intensive: Your Blueprint for a Joyful and Authentic Million Dollar Business LIVE event happening this October 15-18, 2009, she promises you’ll get at least 3 BREAKTHROUGH money-making ideas from this FREE call and her special FREE bonus video series!

You can find out all about it and register at  http://tinyurl.com/kendalldwd.  The live call already took place but you can replay the broadcast.

In addition to the food and the great connections, our guest PR dynamo Matt Meyerson ( the man responsible for acquiring licensing deals for The Hills’ stars Heidi and Spencer Pratt as well as DIVA Perez Hilton) will be talking all about how to establish yourself as a superstar in your field.

Some may ask, “Now why would I want to do that?” The answer is simple. When you have a brand name, you can command (and get) more money for your products and services. We see it all the time at the market. You pay more for Dannon yogurt than you do for the “generic” yogurt. Sometimes, the generic is made at the same plant as the brand name. But people are willing to pay to have the brand. When you are a brand and not just an employee, you can parlay your office job into other opportunities like media opps, speaking engagements, etc. When you are a brand, you can ask for a raise and get it because when you’re a brand, you are not just an “employee” you are a joint venture partner. We’ll talk much more about this at the DIVA Dinner on Thursday. Click here to RSVP.

PS: Don’t forget about our DIVA Rewards. We offer a generous $10 referral fee for every fashionable, fabulous woman you invite to the DIVA Dinner. It’s just our way of saying thanks and reminding you that your contacts are valuable so don’t take them for granted.

Have a successful day!

The Obama Girls looking lovely and taking it all in.

Thousands gathered to watch.

I kept waiting for Beyonce to bust out of her coat and sing “Single Ladies” but she didn’t.

Bono worked it pretty hard for an old guy. I thought he was going to pull a hamstring.

It wouldn’t be official unless The Boss was there with his choir.

Recently, I was having a conversation with some random girl and when I mentioned that I was into nutrition, she asked me to give her my five rules of nutrition, the five things she needed to know to eat right. I managed to come up with three off the top of my head and told her that basically covered it, then later realized that one rule is all that’s needed. You must follow this one simple rule to put yourself on the road to top-notch health.

Ready for an epiphany? It’s…

Eat real food.

Now, I’m not a genius that just broke the code of the universe. Jack Lalanne said, “If man made it, don’t eat it.” Michael Pollan broke it down to “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” It really is that simple. So many nutritionists want to make it difficult; confusion keeps them employed. Look at the Food Pyramid, which was at least an attempt to get people eating right. Too many rules, too many gray areas. We can argue that the Food Pyramid is a convoluted mess of ill health, but the pertinent fact is that it’s too difficult to figure out, even if it was any good. What exactly is a serving? And how do I decide if I need 6 or 11 servings of grains? Is that pork chop “lean”? And then there are all of the rules about saturated fat, cholesterol, calories, total fat, sodium, and sugar intake. How can you make heads or tails of anything this complex?

We can argue about low carb, low fat, The Zone, Ornish, Atkins, and Weight Watchers until we’re blue in the face. But civilizations have thrived on diets of varying macronutrient proportions throughout history. The Inuit ate a diet of almost no carbs and mostly fat with no ill effects. The Masai drank cow blood and milk and ate meat like it was going out of style. As the nutritionists gasp, I’ll mention that the Masai achieved prime health too. The diet on the island of Okinawa is heavily weighted towards vegetables and rice with some fish and little meat, high in carbs, low in fat. Again, very good health; Okinawans have excellent longevity.

So it’s not so much about the macronutrients, as long as you’re getting enough protein and fat to allow the body to function properly. It’s about the types of food being consumed. Dr. Weston Price noted that traditional civilizations thrived until they were introduced to processed grains and sugars, at which point, health declined markedly. We all know someone that follows a low-fat diet or low-carb diet by eating every processed product in the store that excludes their chosen macronutrient (”Angel Food Cake is a fat-free food!”). They rarely make the progress they’d like to. Why? Because before you can worry about macronutrients, you need to focus on food. You don’t eat nutrients. You eat food.

Let’s keep it simple: Eat real foods, preferably in their natural state. I think it’s pretty easy to figure out what is “food” and what isn’t. A few things to remember:

Food grows and dies. It isn’t created.

Food rots, wilts, and becomes generally unappetizing, typically rather quickly.

Food doesn’t need an ingredient label (and probably isn’t in a package either).

Food doesn’t have celebrity endorsements.

Food doesn’t make health claims.

Let’s give some foods this simple test and see if we should eat them:

Broccoli – Most certainly a real food

Steak – Deliciously real food, straight off the cow

Oreo cookies – Hold while I read the ingredients. Are you serious?

Eggs – Bingo

Walnuts – Check

Spaghetti – I don’t recall seeing a spaghetti tree on my last hike

Pop-Tarts – Just seeing if you’re paying attention

Pasteurized/Homogenized Milk – Nope, not in its natural state

Raw Milk – Yep, real food, naturally

Sure, there are still a few gray areas. That’s the life of an omnivore. For instance, what about oatmeal and other whole grains? Those are things you will have to decide for yourself. My guidance is to keep grains to a minimum, if included at all. Cheddar cheese from raw milk? Probably okay. Velveeta? Not so much. Lard? For sure. Olive oil? I say yes, though it could be argued both ways. Crisco and margarine? Not a chance.

What you notice is that few of these foods, with the exception of cooking oils, come from a factory. They just exist. There’s no secret formula to create them. Even olive, coconut, and palm oils, while requiring extraction, require no special knowledge. Just press really hard and you get oil. Nobody has a patent on the flavor of an apple. The ingredients in zucchini can’t be tweaked to ride the current nutrition wave.

Eating real foods virtually eliminates one of the hardest parts of maintaining your weight: counting calories (or carbs or fat). Real foods have a built-in feedback mechanism to keep you from overeating. Protein and fat stimulate appetite-suppressing hormones. Fruits and vegetables tend to be bulky for their caloric content. Some may want to argue about Glycemic Indexes and other fun things, but no one gets fat by eating carrots. People get fat by eating fake foods. Just eat real ones and I guarantee that you’ll shed fat and feel better.

That’s not to say that there’s no place for managing your carb, fat, and protein intake. But before embarking on any road that gives you a set number of carbs or fat to eat, you must decide to eat real food. Until you start with real food, you will struggle. Once you start down the path, you may need to tweak if you’re going to try to build muscle or compete in marathons, but for health, just eat real food! Your body, which is significantly smarter than your mind, knows what it needs and if you feed it real food and then pay attention, it will give you feedback.

What do you think? Is eating real food enough to achieve top health or is there more to it