How would you feel being able to see the person on the other end of the call?

As some of you may or may not already know my father moved to Pattaya Thailand about three years ago. He is living out an incredible retirement over there for about a quarter of what it would cost for him to live the same way in the United States.

Typically he will come home over the holidays for about a month to spend time with his friends, children, grandchildren, etc. Unfortunately with extremely high fuel prices this year it was going to cost him nearly double the typical airfare to come visit and he decided that it would be smarter to wait and to come visit another time.

I decided to try to find a good way to be able to communicate with him. I needed something that would allow my brother and sister who do not have computers to be able to talk to my dad and I wanted to be able to do video as well. I came across a great video phone product that appeared to cover all of the requirements.

The Good:

o Free international calls to other video phones

o Crystal clear video

o Inexpensive (less than $200 shipped and only $30 a month)

o Replaces my home phone line

o Was extremely simple to configure

o 4 way video conference calling

The Bad:

o Intermittent Lock-ups

o Long boot time

I was extremely excited when I found this and immediately purchased one for myself and another as a gift for my dad. I promptly sent it overnight via FedEx to Thailand and waited for my dad to call. The next day I received my first video voicemail from him letting me know that he had successfully hooked it all up and was hoping I would receive the message. It was so awesome to get to see him and the quality between Tucson and Pattaya was amazing.

I am in the process of learning how to wire the video phone into my house so that all of my cordless phones work through the VOIP as well. I’ll write instructions up once I’m finished and post them here…

If you’d like to get a video phone of your own you can order them here…

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Recruiting 101

I believe that no matter what your business, it is crucial to be able to recruit the right talent. It doesn't matter whether you're involved with a fortune 500 company or a direct marketing company. If you cannot do this effectively you will not succeed. For this article I'm going to focus primarily on how this applies to running your own home-based business, but the concepts can be applied for any business.

Set Goals

Like any project you'll need to set S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) goals before you begin. Since we're talking about recruiting I'll use the following goal as an example:

Goal: I would like to recruit a minimum of four new distributors during the month of January.

Now, what do we need to do to be able to meet this goal? Lots of leads! With most network marketing businesses you should typically follow the 3% rule. This means that for every 100 people you attempt to recruit into your business approximately three will eventually become distributors. Just remember that most people will say no and you need to make sure that you do not become emotionally attached to the outcome of their decisions. Since our goal is to recruit four new distributors we will need at least 125 leads to contact. We might get lucky, but we should not plan for this.

Your Perfect Distributor

One terrible mistake that many new distributors make is to show desperation rather than leadership. Because of this they end up contacting potential distributors and trying to sell them on the business or product. This is exactly the opposite of what you should actually be doing. You should always remember that this is your business. Do you want to be spending all of your time following up with a distributor that is not motivated? Would you partner with someone that has a weak work ethic? Of course not! So why would you recruit a distributor that does not have the right strengths?

You will need to effectively identify whether the potential distributor is driven, goal oriented, motivated and has a strong work ethic. I recommend conducting an initial phone interview with the prospect to determine whether they fit these criteria. Think of it like a normal job interview for a large company and the candidate needs to convince you that they are a good fit for your team.

The Interview

Your goal of the interview process is to determine why this person wants to be involved with your business and whether they will be a good fit for your team. Understanding the reason they are looking for a business opportunity should assist in determining whether they will be a strong fit in your organization.

Here are a few sample questions:

• What motivates you to get your job done?
• How do you define doing a good job?
• Where do you see yourself five years from now?
• What proactive steps did you have to take to increase the output of your position?
• What is causing you to look for a business opportunity at this time of your life?
• What kind of income are you looking to generate in a business of your own? 
• What are you looking for aside from money?

During the interview process you need to be sure that you maintain focus and control. Because this is extremely contrary to how most people are used to being introduced to a direct marketing opportunity it will enable them to sell themselves on the business and ensure that you are only recruiting the brightest candidates for your team. Remember that the person asking the questions is the person in control of the conversation. Keeping this in mind will help you remain focused on finding the right people to sponsor so you can grow your business much more efficiently.  

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