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We’ve all heard of the corporate glass ceiling. Women and minorities hit it when they vie for the top executive spots in corporations. It’s transparent because many people think it doesn’t exist. It’s glass because many think it’s there but it’s hard to see. When people do break through it into the Vice President or CEO level it’s called “shattering” the glass ceiling.

There is a glass ceiling for entrepreneurs as well. Most experience it, few recognize it and even fewer break through and shatter it. Most entrepreneurs think it doesn’t exist but it does. It is probably the most challenging obstacle in advancement for the single business owner. The Entrepreneurial Glass Ceiling is the point at which the individual can do no more than they have. There is no more time in a day or tasks to take on. Every entrepreneur hits this ceiling.

Why? Every entrepreneur starts, builds and maintains their business by themselves. There are no days off. There are no vacations. When not in the office, work doesn’t get done and productivity suffers. They have a job, not a business. Entrepreneurs may own the business but it owns them.

The glass ceiling differs from person to person. For some it may be 50,000 dollars a year, for others 400,000 dollars a year and others, 2 million dollars. The bottom line is, all reach a point where they cannot physically or mentally do any more. This is the Entrepreneurial Glass Ceiling where profits max out.

In order to shatter the ceiling and expand a business, entrepreneurs have to take radical action. “Radical” action steps are action items outside the normal level of comfort, things that are against our true nature as an entrepreneur. These are things related to the nasty “h” word, “help.”

Entrepreneurs start their business by the shear will of force. They built it themselves and topped it out with their energy, focus and drive. They can’t go any higher. As a matter of fact, they are going to crash and burn, if they haven’t already, from sheer exhaustion.

The real skill in shattering the ceiling is in being willing to take on new, unfamiliar things. They will need help, hands and competent individuals to do the work. Yes, assistance.

The first step in assistance is understanding you need them. This is foreign for most entrepreneurs and unless you come to this conclusion, you will never shatter the ceiling. Second, getting help does not mean adding employees. In fact, that can contribute to the problem. Today the use of virtual assistants, VA’s can be very profitable and successful for the entrepreneur.

Third, VA’s can be carefully chosen, directed to specific tasks and produce results if approached in the right way, with correct planning and with the right firms that provide talent. Think about it, what will it take for you to break through the Entrepreneurial Glass Ceiling? Will you crash and burn or get the assistance you need?

Joyce Jackson is a successful entrepreneur, busiess consultant and coach. For more information, tips, resources and free ebooks see her website at Your Synergy Pro and her blog at Your Synergy Pro Speaks

When you are dealing with multifamily properties, it is very important to understand the different classes of properties. The class that a property is assigned can tell you a lot about the property and if it is worth your time and money to invest in. There are four different property classes: A, B, C, and D.

Property Classes are really set by the conditions of the property and where it is located. They are not set by the appraisers. The classes are not something that is formally defined but more of something that is set in the vernacular.

Class A properties, naturally, are the cream of the crop. These apartments are newer and have a higher rent than apartment buildings that are in the other classes. You can actually have a new Class A property in a Class B area. They are classified as Class A because they are new but they have lower rents than other Class A properties because of their location.

Class B properties are multifamily properties that are 10 – 15 years old, well-kept and are in the “middle class” part of town.

Class C properties are in low to moderate income or blue collar neighborhoods. They range in age from 30-40 years so they have usually been through at least one rehab. The average rent for a one bedroom is $400 – $425.

Class D properties are in very bad neighborhoods. These are in high crime neighborhoods; neighborhoods where you do not want to get out of your car. You generally do not want to work with Class D properties.

If you are going to do Class D properties, you need to be in that niche. You are not going to turn around a Class D property without turning around the neighborhood that it is in. Class D properties are suffering from a neighborhood problem and not a property problem.

Class D properties are bought only because they are cash flow machines. You will not get any appreciation on them. They require intense management and heavy security.

Class C and lower Class B multifamily properties are your bread and butter and they do not offer many amenities to tenants. The further you go down from Class A to Class D, the better your cash flow. The premium deal is finding a Class C property in a Class B area that you can reposition.

If you could find a property that is considered a Class D because of its condition but it is in a Class C neighborhood, you would have a great deal. In this case, you can come in and clean up the property by either making a physical change or a security change to it. You can buy it low, make the changes that are needed and then sell it for a great profit.

Your understanding of the property classes enables you to effectively assess the potential value a multifamily property has as an investment for you. You can then more easily decide if it is deal that you would like to pursue or not.

Lance Edwards is living proof of his mantra that you don’t have to “graduate” from single family to multifamily – you can start with multifamily; using none of your own money and not dealing with tenants and toilets. For FREE information, visit http://www.ApartmentWealthMachine.com.

People are ALWAYS looking for bargains. Retailers at Flea Markets are always looking for products that are hard to find and unusual. Flea markets are booming across the country.

Is there a common denominator? How can you as a flea market retailer take advantage of this growth? Or for that matter how can you get a flea market business going?

Flea markets are one of the few segments of retail that is booming. WHY you ask? Folks are always looking for a bargain and the unusual. A great way to spike your flea market sales and ramp up your profits or even start a flea market business is to sell self defense products like stun guns, pepper sprays, personal alarms,TASERs and hidden cameras.

These personal protection devices are very hard to find in retail stores yet very much in demand. They are all packaged for retail sales and can be drop shipped to you.

Crime unfortunately is not going away any time soon. You can take advantage of that and get a sense of personal and financial satisfaction by becoming a self defense products distributor.

There are many other ways to market and sell these self defense tools like mail order, retail route sales, home parties, expo’s and other trade shows to name a few.

If you are good at marketing and sales and love helping people especially to defend themselves this could be the opportunity you have been looking for.

These products have great name recognition but not many have actually seen them up close and personal. They are exceptionally easy to talk about and easy to sell. Just ask if anyone you know has been involved in an assault or had their home burglarized to get a conversation going.

There is no minimum investment other than $3.00 for a 32 page color catalog that you can use to take orders.

Once you get your catalog you can start ordering right away. Establish a wholesale account today and be the first to market and sell Self Defense Products at flea markets in your town. Start spiking your flea market business today.

The longest journey starts with the first step. Nothing is going to happen unless you take action. What are you waiting for?

Oh almost forgot: How many stores in your town sell stun guns? See what I mean?

Please note: stun guns and pepper sprays have restrictions in some cities and states.

Jack owns Security Solutions and is the author of over 400 articles.

Get a Self Defense Products catalog. Put ‘wholesale’ in the comments box for a wholesale price sheet/order form.

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Getting a bank loan in the name of your business that reports to the business credit agencies is invaluable for building business credit and finding larger and less expensive financing in the future. It may seem like an impossible task since banks have very tight lending criteria compared to other funding sources, but there is a little trick to getting a loan from a bank.

Your best bet is to try an SBA backed bank. Banks that are working with the SBA have a certain percentage of their loans guaranteed by the government. Their lending criterion is a bit looser since they have that security in the case of a loan default.

You can go on the SBA website to find a local SBA backed bank in your area. Once you find a few, you will want to locate one that will give you a loan in the name of your business, secured by a certificate of deposit (CD) of the same amount, that reports to at least one of the 3 business credit agencies; D&B, Equifax, and Experian. Banks are more than likely going to report to Equifax.

The CD loan may look something like this:

1. Business owner borrows money to get a CD to secure the bank loan.
2. The bank makes a loan dollar for dollar based on the CD amount.
3. The day the loan funds the owner can repay the loan 100%, or they can separately deposit the money from the loan/line of credit and use that exclusively to pay back the loan.

The recommended amount to use is at least $5,000. This money can come from anywhere including friends, family, business associates, and personal accounts. The money will never be at risk since the full amount will be sitting in the CD earning interest.

It is possible to use the funds received from the loan to repay itself. When all is said and done, you will get back the $5,000 CD amount with interest. The interest rate from the CD should be somewhat similar to the interest rate paid on the loan. That means you will now have a $5,000 bank on your business credit report and it didn’t cost you, or your business, virtually anything.

This technique gives a large push towards building business credit and is just one of many easy techniques to increase business credit scores. Having good business credit scores will open up a greater variety of funding sources for your business and make it much easier to get approved for financing.

Jarrett Pflieger holds a BA in Entrepreneurship and is a featured writer for BusinessFinance.com. Build business credit and search for business capital for free today at www.businessfinance.com/business-loans

Whenever someone hears the words “Network Marketing” people either run for their life or listen very carefully cause it may be something that they have been looking for. I remember the first time I went to an “opportunity meeting” and the concept behind network marketing was pretty neat. I find nine or ten to work the business seriously and they each find nine or ten and their people find nine or ten and it goes on and on and I make a commission on their efforts. To be honest I was very intrigued and I signed up as soon as I could. I was only nineteen at that time and had no sense of even how to do it. So I got frustrated and I quit, I didn’t even get one person to sign up under me. I let a few years go by and had a close friend offer the same opportunity and decided to do it and not quit. I new that this time I was going to make it happen no matter what.

So I got in, went to some trainings and really became a student in this industry. I started studying what the successful people were doing and decided to master them one by one. In studying them and reading a number of books about this subject, I realized that they all were starting to repeat themselves.

The number one reason why people fail at network marketing is they do not treat it like a business. I was shocked at this but realized that I had done the same thing I didn’t put any effort in making it work and it didn’t. A lot of people generally work it for a few months then give up cause they didn’t make any money. One thing that everyone seems to forget is network marketing is not a “get rich quick scheme”, this is an actual business. The average business takes two to five years before they even make a profit. Now in network marketing it can take six months to two years, and some as short as 1 month to make a profit, because of the concept of leverage.

Generally with any network marketing business or any type of business you need to be trained and everyone goes through a learning curve. Everyone seems to think that they don’t need education and even a one year old can do it. Well why aren’t they doing it then? Do you think Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump or Robert Allen don’t have an education in what they do? Come on, lets be real here. If you want to succeed you have got to invest in an education. This is also a huge reason why people do not succeed in network marketing is lack of education. If you don’t know how to work this business your first couple weeks or month may just be getting an education.

So what I want to do is just to lay down some rules to the game of network marketing. Of course if you are married get permission and support from your spouse. That is extremely important and goes a long way.

Rule 1. Set a schedule. Typically 8 to 10 hours a week when you are starting.

Rule 2. Set Goals. I can’t stress this enough. Know where you are going with this, paint a picture literally. I use what I call a “life cycle plan” its my 1, 3 and 5 year goals. Write a Business plan.

Rule 3. Go to company trainings or buy a training/coaching program that will ensure your success. Typically company trainings are required for certain bonuses.

Rule 4. Work with a mentor for at least your first six months, someone that knows the business and can hold you accountable.

Rule 5. Take action. This is the most important rule of them all.

Whenever someone enters my organization or coaching, these are the first things we go through. If you want to succeed at network marketing, you must follow these steps and you will succeed.

E.J. Saunders coaches people on how to build a network marketing business. To be successful please visit: http://www.mymlmstrategies.com

Have you ever heard the saying “the only thing in the way of your growth is yourself?” As entrepreneurs, we often become the core lifeblood of our business. It is our passion, our vision, our strengths and our motivation that gets us – and keeps us – successful. So then, what the heck do you do when you get really big? I mean when your business finally takes off, you start making consistent six and seven figures – and you realize – there is no way you can continue to be the only lifeblood of the business?

Imagine this – the editor of Entrepreneur Magazine calls you because they want to feature you on their next cover. They are featuring you not because of what your business IS but because you have created the kind of business that allows you to have the lifestyle, freedom and money you want. Lots of people have success being an entrepreneur but very few end up serving as models for the masses. The ones that do have embodied a quality, developed a unique method, or flew in the face of everything that came before to create something memorable. In this imaginary scenario this person is YOU.

So, what is the headline of this issue featuring you and what is the name of the article about you?

What would it mean for you to make this a reality? Do not get me wrong, I am not saying you have to be on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine to be considered a real success. I just want you to wrap your head around what it would really take to be more than just a business owner. What would it look and feel like to be considered a leader? To create a legacy around who you are and what you do? To have the ability and reach to impact far more than you are doing now?

Being a CEO is about far more than just putting a stellar team together, creating more freedom in your day to day life or putting more money in the bank. It is about claiming your role as a leader in your business, your field and the world. It is about serving as a model, pushing through real or imagined boundaries and creating a profound impact on your clients.

You do not have to be making high 6 and 7 figures to start being a CEO, but unless you up-level your mindset, you may never get there.

Melanie Benson Strick is the Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach. If you’d like to learn more about how to get out of your own way and stop hijacking your success, you can download her new report, The CEO Factor Manifesto at http://www.TheCEOFactorManifesto.com.

Early in my coaching career I worked with a lot of entrepreneurs who just wanted to break 6 figures. Now my clients have much bigger goals. They have been making 6 figures for a long time but the million dollar mark has escaped them.

The primary reason for this is they think the strategies that got them to 6 figures will get them to 7 figures and that just is not the case. As a result they are the bottleneck, the ones who are limiting their own growth.

Maybe you can relate to one of these entrepreneurs who became the bottleneck in their business.

High Quality in High Demand

You provide a much-needed service to your clients. They like you, trust you and rely on you. Now you want to grow and outsource many of the key tasks and roles to your team of subcontractors (or employees) but your clients push back. Nope, they want you! They continue to work directly with you or require you as the lead on the project and you are stuck. You are the bottleneck.

The Superstar

You have a passion and/or strength for the service you offer. You mistakenly believe that getting down in the trenches every day is essential to train your team and build the trust of your clients. You personally take every customer service call that comes in – who else can better serve your clients, right? Every sales opportunity you personally handle – who else can sell your services better than you? You do such an excellent job that you generate tons of leads. But you are so “in the trenches” you can not pull up long enough to handle them. Now you are at a growth impasse – you can not manage it all if you want to grow.

The Fast Paced Visionary

You see exactly where you need to go with your business. You see what needs to happen at every step of the way. When you meet with your team you rattle off ideas, opportunities and tasks faster than a speeding bullet. The problem is: your team can not keep up. Somehow your ideas get lost in translation. What is so obvious to you is not obvious to them. Your great ideas never quite get implemented fast enough, so you feel that you are missing the boat (or they are just slow they could not possibly be right for your team.) You spend countless hours frustrated with the pace at which they are getting things done and at some point you just give up and start doing things yourself.

Any of this sound familiar? These are all seemingly harmless ways in which we have the illusion we are doing the right thing to grow, but what is really happening is we are stifling good strategies because we do not know how to execute them properly.

So, where are YOU being the bottleneck in your business? I want to hear from you.

Melanie Benson Strick is the Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach. If you’d like to learn more about how to get out of your own way and stop hijacking your success, you can download her new report, The CEO Factor Manifesto at http://www.TheCEOFactorManifesto.com.

First of all, was defined what MLM is. MLM stands for Multi Level Marketing.

Some people also referred to it as Network Marketing. Basically this method of marketing is where a manufacturer/company decides to sell their products through a network of independent distributors. These independent distributors will sell their products through personal referrals and face to face contacts. A couple of good examples would be Amway and Tupperware.

MLM sales reps are considered to be independent contractors or independent business people. They are not salaried employees of the company. They earn their income through the sales of their products and recruits of other people.

The vast majority of these independent contractors build their market mostly through their own contacts of families and friends, as well as acquaintances. The majority of these independent distributors will also try to recruit their families and friends into their business. With this particular style of marketing, some independent distributors have become very wealthy and at the same time help build the company’s sales.

However, even some of the best MLM companies can still being painted as a scam or a pyramid scheme. Despite the fact these companies have been around for decades and have a proven track record, some people still look upon them as a “Ponzi” scheme. Ponzi schemes are illegal and are vastly different from the legitimate MLM companies.

So what is a Ponzi scheme to begin with? The term Ponzi Scheme was named Charles Ponzi. Charles Ponzi was a man who immigrated into the United States from Italy back in 1903. Although he was not the first man to use this pyramid scheme, he was the most “successful” at it. (if ripping people off be considered “successful”) Charles Ponzi became a multimillionaire by 1920 using this scheme.

A Ponzi Scheme is an investment plan that pays profits to the investors from the money they invested or monies paid by following investors, as opposed to from real profit. In a Ponzi Scheme, there is no real profit, it just relies on recruiting more and more investors, and using their funds to feed fraudulent profits back to investors who got in on the deal earlier on to keep them satisfied. Eventually, the number of potential investors dries up and the scheme collapses.

Practically all of the top MLM companies are not Ponzi schemes. They are legitimate businesses that offer a legitimate way of earning an income by selling real products at a profit. And yes, recruiting others into the organization are a part of the business.

Distributors who are involved with selling and recruiting often feel pride in their work because they know that they are selling something of value to the marketplace.

With the best MLM companies, the independent distributor makes commissions only on sales of the company’s products and or services. While there are no sign up fees, a percentage of a “recruit’s sales is typically part of the deal, which is fine and legal.

In alphabetical order, some of the best legitimate MLM companies are:

Ameriplan, Amsoil, Amway, Arbonne, Creative Memories, Eniva, FreeLife,Herbalife, Isagenix, Longaberger, Mary Kay, Melaleuca, Mia Bella (Scent Sations), Nuskin, Pampered Chef, Party Lite, Passion Parties, Prepaid Legal, Quixtar, Shaklee, Southern Living at Home, Stampin Up, Tastefully Simple, USANA, and Xango.

This article is not an endorsement of or rating of any of these companies, but is meant to be informative only.

Building a MLM business can be tough. Learn how to build your MLM business completely online AND have it fund itself. For more tips and information on how to build your MLM completely online, head over to
Kerry Ng’s Blog

When you started your business you probably just wanted to have control over your own life and do something you were good at. Maybe you had grand visions of creating an empire but you certainly didn’t know what you were really getting into, did you? Once you crossed the six figure finish line you realized that most of what you envisioned has changed and you no longer have a clear picture of what lies next.

You may even realize that all of the priorities and accomplishments that motivated you up to now are not necessarily as exciting anymore. Also, you will eventually realize that you are now stuck in a routine that you will eventually get tired of. You want to enjoy more of your life. You want to experience more passion and joy. You want to just do all the things that you want to do but just do not have the time to do. And for some, it is not even about the money anymore. You want to have meaning. You want to be able to just sit back, relax, and just do what it is that you desire.

Do you think now is the time to give your vision a tune up? I would say it is!

I have found in my own life that my vision is significantly affected by the kinds of people I spend time with. For instance, a former mastermind partner and close friend has always been about 4 steps ahead of me. She hit 6 figures first by hiring a Virtual Assistant. Then she hit 7 figures by creating more “scalable” programs. Now she is approaching multi-7 figures by hiring an operations manager. Her goal was always to free herself up from anything that was not her core strength. The strategies she used always gave me clues to what I could look at in my business.

When you refocus your day to day actions on the things you do best, you unleash more energy and creativity again. You may need to re-evaluate your work habits to ensure you are showing up as the leader who is not sucked into the email time bandits. You probably need to learn how to lead a team vs. manage projects and deadlines. You may even need to re-discover your core strengths and passions because sometimes it is easy to forget.

All of these are possible if you just really set your mind to doing it and find all the courage to just let go and start trusting people who would love doing some of your daily, mundane tasks that they would love doing more than you do.

Melanie Benson Strick is the Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach. If you’d like to learn more about how to get out of your own way and stop hijacking your success, you can download her new report, The CEO Factor Manifesto at http://www.TheCEOFactorManifesto.com.

Do you want to have a multi-million dollar business but you are still making decisions based on your six-figure business? That is what I see with a lot of my clients. They make decisions based on where they are right now and what has happened in the past. But, the truth is that the strategies that got you to 6 figures are not the same as the ones that will get you to 7 and 8 figures.

So, you have to play up a few levels by making decisions and implementing strategies that are a few levels higher. You have to aim very high to be able to achieve very high – and bigger – results!

For instance, one of my clients was always in baby step mode. She took the step that logically came next but that never gave her a huge payoff. She was frustrated that her growth was taking sooooo long. When I challenged her to think a few levels bigger and to try out some strategies that were a bit scary for her, she had a huge a-ha that allowed her to go from 300 thousand dollars per year into the multi-millions. Most of the time, achieving your goals just simply means facing your fears and trying out new things.

Even if you are not there yet, playing the game with that bigger outcome in mind causes you to make much better decisions for your resources today. That is part of the CEO (Chief Entrepreneurial Officer) mindset.

What was the most “up leveling” moment in your business that allowed you to have a huge breakthrough? What have you been doing lately that you really liked and, in turn, you were able to be productive in and at the same time, you were able to enjoy all you want? What was the one thing or the things that you think were hindering you to do the things that you have always loved doing?

Again, let me reiterate the questions that I have asked you in the first strategy you would be needing, that is, Consistency.

What decision have you made about failing? What about building an empire? Or making a bunch of money? Have you decided these things are good – or bad? If you are unsure about the decisions you have made about those issues, give yourself some time to review.

Now is the time to give yourself a review. Hope I was able to help you do it.

Melanie Benson Strick is the Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach. If you’d like to learn more about how to get out of your own way and stop hijacking your success, you can download her new report, The CEO Factor Manifesto at http://www.TheCEOFactorManifesto.com.