This will be my last blog post of 2008, the year has come to an end so shockingly quickly.

I spent a while this morning just going back through my calendar, notes and posts and I am pretty surprised at how much can change in a single year. 2008 started in a difficult and sad way with my dear wife losing her father and an uncle within a few days. Mick, my father in law, was a military man, an extremely proud husband, father, grandfather and leader who will always be sorely missed. His legacy is the way in which he lived his life, he set a fine example in taking responsibility, doing what’s right, speaking his mind, being brave and chasing down his dreams. An inspirational act to follow!

With all of this, and not wanting to dwell on the sadness, it put us in a position where we needed to evaluate our lives and set some goals for the future. So, that’s what we did!

My wife’s, Larina’s, side of the family are very small and it soon occurred to me that I would have to step up to the plate and be the man of the family, I promised Mick with my last words to him that I would take care of his girls and I continue to strive to do that today.

So, goals were set and decisions were made. We’d sell both of our houses and move into something a little bigger meaning that Coral, my mother in law, could come live with us annexed or otherwise… My idea of a shed at the bottom of the garden didn’t go down too well so maybe something a little more elaborate was in order

What transpired in the housing market here in the UK, and indeed around the world had a big impact on those plans! We did manage to find several suitable places that ticked all the right boxes but with the market going the way it was we knew it just wasn’t going to be plain sailing. To this day we have not moved or sold the houses and are still contemplating the markets.

This situation has irritated me somewhat! I mean market conditions have been able to limit our freedom and choices… Those of you that know me will know that I don’t take this kind of stuff laying down, I knew that if I wanted to change some stuff in our lives I would have to change some stuff in our lives…

Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful for what we have, a lovely family, our own home, my own business, a property in North Cyprus, vehicles and so forth, but what I really crave for my family is the freedom to choice and security.

As you may have read in one or two of my ezine articles, I was into mlm up until 1999. This was ‘old school’ mlm, product based, home meetings, driving thousands of miles, books, tapes, the whole shabang.. come ‘99 I quit after 5 years. To this day I am not exactly sure why I did so.. but I did. The thing is that mlm or network marketing gets engrained. The rewards are exactly what I still craved, freedom. To be honest I had been keeping tabs on the leaders from that organisation and in May 2008 I found out that some pretty drastic stuff had happened. I don’t want to harp on about it but people like the Scrivens, Gregory’s and Butlers had some very serious issues to deal with. I watched with much interest what was happening to those people and that organisation.

In August 2008 we took 3 weeks out and went off to our place in Kyrenia, North Cyprus. I love the island, the people, the way of life and of course the climate is good too. The food is magnificent and the coffee is to die for My eldest son and I managed to get our Advanced Open Water PADI Scuba Diving tickets and we had what was simply a fantastic time. Now we have been over to Cyprus many many times, but this time something happened. I realised I wanted to be there a lot more of the time and I found out that my family did too. Larina was born there (Mick and Coral having been stationed there for many years) it is kind of like going home for her.

So, we get home and miss the place like crazy, and in true ‘be the man’ style, I sat down with Larina and set the goal, we would be there in time for the London Olympics. I wanted to watch the opening ceremony on the giant screen in Kyrenia Square. The thing is I realised that we were going to need the income to support ourselves and being a Scuba Instructor probably wouldn’t cut the mustard. My business, much as it is subscription based probably would end up shrinking and eventually dying. I needed something else.

It was September 2008 when I wrote to Jerry Scriven and inquired as to business opportunities. I was looking for a business that I could build online, that would provide residual income, that I could take with me wherever we went. Jerry very kindly passed my inquiry on to Dave Butler… the rest, as they say, is history.

So here we are, at the end of 2008 with a bunch of online mlm or network marketing businesses all of them growing… it’s so exciting!

I have learned so much over the past few months it’s astonishing and we haven’t even started yet! Things are a lot different 10 years on (that is in the way we build our businesses) what a huge learning curve that has been. The difference is that it is FUN FUN FUN! (kind of important!)

The dream is real, we are moving steadily towards our goal and we can see it happening.

I’ve a few people to thank:

Larina, my wife, Thank you my Love for your patience and belief
David and Tina, Thank you for helping me get started and being a great mentor
James Grandstaff, Thank you for developing a magnificent downline building system for us all to use
Gordon Bunker, For being a great crossline pal and Joint Venture partner
The Team, For being an inspirational bunch of entrepreneurs
Sean Supplee, For being a great online friend and running partner

Lastly, I’m really looking forwards to 2009, it’s going to be a great year. One of the last opportunities to come my way in 2008 is Web Prosperity. You can check it out here: http://ian.webprosperity.com

This opportunity is still in pre-launch and promises to be one of the great success stories of 2009. It actually launches Jan 6th.

If you are wondering what you can do to make 2009 even more successful for you and yours then I would strongly recommend you go take a look and grab yourself a free position before launch. Without too much of the detail this is a 2 x 15 matrix that will be filled not only by you but also your upline… Launches like this don’t come around too often, they are a truly special event that can make a MASSIVE difference.

I definately urge you to go look at the site, get a position and then wake up Jan 6th realising that you already have a downline… http://ian.webprosperity.com It costs nothing to find out!

That’s it for my last post this year.
Have a wonderful new year celebration and a super prosperous 2009 and beyond
Cheers!
Ian

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably not a big fan of the ‘Old School’ network marketing methods. I spent a good few years using these methods, you know the ones:

1. Get a dream (that’s easy )

2. Build a list of your ‘warm’ contacts… friends, family, colleagues etc etc

3. Grab the phone and go through the script… the one that says “Hey Joe, I just took a look at a very exciting business and I think you’ll like it too…”

4. Get yourself round to Joe’s house with your professional suit on, your briefcase packed full of literature, compensation plans, follow up materials etc

5. Get back to Joe’s house a few days later to follow up

and so on… I’m sure you know the story

Is there something wrong with these methods? Well, in truth, no, there’s nothing wrong with this at all, my issue is this: it is just not easily duplicateable, it’s no secret that in order to be successful using these methods, you are going to have to talk to one heck of a lot of people to find your leaders, and in order to find them you are going to face an awful lot of rejection, disappointment and pain in general, that’s fine if you are the sort of person that can deal with this and if your dream is strong enough, and, generally you will find that there is a ’self improvement’ system which will teach and mentor you, again not a bad thing, but, is it necessary in todays new age of network marketing?

Using these ‘old school’ methods you soon find that your friends, family and other warm contacts soon run out, and you have to start looking at other ways of generating leads, again this is not necessarily easy for most people, sure, theres people out there who just seem to be magnetic, they attract people to themselves and make striking up a conversation look like a walk in the park. In my opinion though, these people are few and far between… So what’s the answer?

Today, we have the internet, we have software systems and we have ways of developing leads without ever having to lift the phone or even leave the house! Sounds a bit more like it to me, and actually, it sounds like a lot more fun!

What we have is ‘The Funded Proposal’ A system which allows you to build your network marketing business online (and making some money while you do it!)

On this page you will find a link to a brilliant eBook which was crafted by ‘The Downline Duplication Specialist’ James Grandstaff, who is a very smart software developer who’s skills include viral traffic generation. The eBook includes transcripts from both James and Daegan Smith… they call him “The King of Never Calling a Single Lead”, Daegan is the head of Internet Marketing for one of the worlds largest network marketing companies, says it all really doesn’t it!

Now if you want to grab yourself a copy of this eBook (valued at nearly $100) and gain redistribution and sales rights in the process, just pop your name and email address into the form.

You’re not going to part with any money in doing this, on the contrary, you are actually going to get yourself surprise bonus access to an extremely powerful media presentation by James Grandstaff, this on it’s own is valued at nearly $300!

Why would I be letting you get access to this for free? All I can say is, all will become very clear!!

Go ahead and pop your details into the form and discover ‘The Perfect Funded Proposal’ and blow your Network Marketing business into orbit

Cheers!

Ian