Feng Shui Means Less Hazards For Seniors

Posted by admin on April 12, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Steven and Caroline had just moved in to their 900 square foot senior apartment having left their 2,000 square foot home they had lived in for 40 years. Their daughter telephoned me for help. Her parents had taken practically everything they owned with them and were now living among boxes and piles of clutter. She was worried for their safety and extremely frustrated that they refused her help. “Can you help them Feng Shui?” she asked.

I always have to sigh when I get these phone calls. It reminds me of a cartoon I saw once of a giant toy being stuffed in to a small cardboard box. I can stack it, shrink it, squish it, pile it and box it but I can’t make 2,000 square feet of stuff fit in to a 900 square foot space! Nobody can – but I see people trying to do it all the time. That’s why I like to teach my downsized senior clients the fine art of Feng Shui.

Feng Shui is an ancient philosophy that considers all objects to contain energy, called Chi. When Chi is in balance (Harmony: Ying/Yang) it contribute to health and happiness. The opposite can be true when the Chi is too cluttered either being agitated and flowing too quickly or is so packed and stifled that it is dead altogether. This could be compared to either living in the middle of a hurricane or in a buried in a dung heap. Clients living in bad Chi feel stressed, agitated, unhappy and often physically unwell and they don’t realize why. Out of balance Chi is a very harmful thing.

The practice of Feng Shui has finally made its way into the mainstream and I am so glad! Large corporations and business superstars have employed Feng Shui principles to increase their profits. Architects are learning Feng Shui principles. Even prisons are finding that Feng Shui decreases violent behavior. How amazing is that?

Feng Shui means “wind” and water”. Thus, energy should flow gently and easily as if it were water and air. Gentle breezes and soft flowing streams, not through rocky canyons causing rapids or dust storms and stagnant swamps. Look at the space and decide where air and water would get stuck and stifled. If you can’t walk there, the air and water can’t flow there either!

So how can Feng Shui help Seniors? First and foremost, too much stuff is a traffic hazard. Seniors can easily trip and fall. Too much stuff means too many things to dust – causing respiratory issues. My senior service colleagues have told me many sad stories about seniors being injured in their cluttered homes- the end result being permanent skilled nursing!

Feng Shui is all about flow. Take a look at your beloved senior’s traffic patterns in their home. Do they have to squeeze by a coffee table with their walkers? Get rid of the coffee table. Is it time to pack up some collections that are gathering a lot of dust? Seniors often keep heaters blasting and their windows closed, causing stifled air.

Are there dark corners in their home? Add light to those spaces, not only for beauty but for safety.

Broken things are very bad Feng Shui. What needs fixing in the home? Are all the appliances working? Get rid of what cannot be fixed. This will most definitely improve the energy flow as well as correct fire hazards.

There are many easy and inexpensive solutions to improve the Feng Shui in a home. Do it now and then take time to enjoy the new positive flowing energy and safety in your beloved senior’s space.

Filed under Elder Care, Organizing · Tagged with

What they don’t tell you in Network Marketing

Posted by admin on April 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Each and every day thousands of people join network marketing companies, aka multi level marketing groups. For the most part they are individuals with daytime jobs that are looking to supplement their incomes, college students, stay at home moms and retired persons looking to add to their savings and social security. What do they all have in common? They have very little or no experience running or owning a business. Their mindset is that of an employee.

Don’t get me wrong. I dabbled in Network Marketing some years ago and loved it. I was proud of the product, I received some great training, met a lot of really great people, and recouped my initial investment plus a great deal more. But what I also learned in the process was that I was working way too hard building someone else’s business and in particular, someone else’s list! In addition, I quickly learned that network marketing, however great their product is, it is really about building a downline – meaning getting people on board after you have joined. You get a commission from them and their sales and also their respective downline as they recruit others. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And it is – for the people who joined the company at the very beginning. They are earning big bucks from an ever growing downline. The newbies, however, continue to come and go, being replaced by new associates who in turn often leave and are replaced- and the beat goes on. What is left goes to the existing upline – all the way to the top. All the while, anyone purchasing the company’s products are being added to the corporate data base. When the associates leave – they leave their client list behind too! All that work, all those contacts, now gone forever. While the associates believed that the company had actually provided them with their own website, it was really just a page on the corporate website. No client looking for that associate will ever find them on a Google search of their name.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s the solution.

1.  Every network marketing associate has to start thinking like an entrepreneur, not a corporate employee.
2.  Get your own website with your name on it. e.g. www.johnsmith.com.
3.  Brand yourself first and then the products you sell
4. Have an opt-in page (landing page) in front of your first web page and offer a “free report on how to…” when they “opt in” with their name and email address. Your auto responder send them the report – which you have written. Now YOU have them on YOUR list.
5.  Then you can send them by auto responder to your affiliate site to purchase the product so you can receive the commission. That way, everybody wins.

The reasoning behind this is twofold.

1.  First product is YOU!
2. You are creating a list so you can contact them when you have a special offer
3.  Because you captured them on your own site, the list is yours and you can market and create other products and services.
4.  If and when, you decide to leave the NM business and create your own business (like I did) you already have an established client data base!
5.  Because you branded yourself first, they already know you and trust you!

Network marketing aka multi level marketing is a great business and you will learn a lot of sales, marketing and advertising from the experience. Just make sure that you are thinking like an entrepreneur and not a corporate employee. Have fun, make money and work smart, not hard. Here’s to your success!

Filed under Sales & Marketing, Selling Skills · Tagged with