My Signature Themes from Taking the Strengths Finder Profile created by The Gallup Institute.

For those of you that have been wanting to know me better…  I can’t think of a better opportunity to find out how I really tick.  I’ve been enrolled in college now for a year.  My plans of Internet Marketing are taking on new ideas fast than I can keep up. At least that’s how it seems.

So I’m going for a Major in International Marketing through Capella University.  Yeah me!  I know, but I really wasn’t prepared for some of the stuff this course was going to cover.

Right now I’m taking a course on Leadership and Management.  The 2 Books they assigned to us have been phenomenal and extremely thought provoking!

These books fly in the face of conventional wisdom and ask you to really define what it is you truly believe about  yourself and how you fit in the world.  They conducted surveys of the last, I dunno, centuries maybe…  But they found some very interesting patterns on how the brain develops through childhood and how some things about you can not be changed no matter how hard you may try.

I know, sounds kind of rough doesn’t it? I’m still not sure exactly what I believe about changing yourself and how much of “you” you can really change.   First, Break all the rules defined how excellent managers in top companies around the world operated.  Then they found the patterns of behavior that gave the most consistent results.  Then refined it further to discover some of the myths of conventional wisdom in management.

Now, Discover Your Strengths is focusing on finding the 5 main strengths we all have based on our own recurring thoughts and behaviors.  To do this they have you take a 35 minute questionaire.  All the questions are descriptions of you and they judge you how quickly you select each answer.

You can take the questionaire here:  www.StrengthsFinder.com

The only catch is you have to buy a new copy of the book…. to get the code….  And sign up!  It’s all pretty simple, besides you’ll need the book to get ideas on how you can incorporate this information and what it all really means!  This way you can apply it to your own lives more effectively.

I’ve copied and pasted straight from my results page what the StrengthsFinder discovered for me.  Some of it was all new but all of it made a lot of sense.  Now I believe I have a better foundation to build from and a better chance at developing myself.

First, we all must understand ourselves before we can ever understand others!

Take care and let me know what you think!

Your Signature Themes

Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.

A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.

Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your “top five.”

Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.

Strategic

The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

Woo

Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don’t. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet—lots of them.

Intellection

You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person’s feelings. The exact focus will depend on your other strengths. On the other hand, this mental activity may very well lack focus. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

Connectedness

Things happen for a reason. You are sure of it. You are sure of it because in your soul you know that we are all connected. Yes, we are individuals, responsible for our own judgments and in possession of our own free will, but nonetheless we are part of something larger. Some may call it the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force. But whatever your word of choice, you gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it. This feeling of Connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves. Your awareness of these responsibilities creates your value system. You are considerate, caring, and accepting. Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The exact articles of your faith will depend on your upbringing and your culture, but your faith is strong. It sustains you and your close friends in the face of life’s mysteries.

Input

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

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The more I talk with people online the more I notice how so many people are failing and the more it PISSES ME OFF!

I mean seriously. I thought we were in a business that depended on me and you marketing our products or services to people that are looking for what we have… And it seems this is not true for all companies.

Find out what basic essentials should be included in any Network Marketing Business in this day and age!

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Ever wonder what $100 million coming out of a $3.5 trillion deficit looked like?

Just Brilliant!

WARNING!!!

This is not a Warm and Cuddly version!

But definitely an eye opener!

Recently Obama announced that over the next 90-days he is going to work to
cut 100-Million dollars of spending out of the Federal Budget. 

A college student explains Obamanomics.

This is worth spending one minute and thirty eight seconds to watch!

Vizualizing Obama\'s Budget Cuts

http://www.wimp.com/budgetcuts/

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“Every job needs the right tool to accomplish the desired goal.”

- EmpoweredCreators.com

Today, entrepreneurialism is alive and thriving.  You have people all over the place jumping for the latest opportunity.  While most of the opportunities look REALLY inviting, you just can’t bring yourself to jump onto the latest bandwagon.  I don’t blame you.  I’m sure most of the people spouting about how great their opportunity is or how their comp. plan is bigger than yours, never actually meant to come across that way when they got started.   I’m sure you look yourself in the mirror everyday saying, “I will not be like them.  I will not be like them.”

I know this because I did the same thing.  I started off wanting a better life, so when I was presented with my first opportunity, I jumped … all in!  I wanted so badly to have a better future for my family.  I got all excited and never stopped to think about what it might take.  I was recruited into a business, but I knew nothing of business.  I was supposed to market my business, but I knew nothing of marketing.

I started with a flurry of activity.

Get a list.  Dial for hours.  Talk endlessly about a business I didn’t understand.  Talk with everyone.  Get another list.  Dial for hours.  Talk endlessly about a business I didn’t understand.  Talk with some people.  Get another list.  Dial for an hour.  Talk quickly about a business I still didn’t understand.  Get rejected some more.  This was how my business started.

I knew what I wanted.  I just didn’t understand how to get it.  I understood the concept “Find someone who has what you want, and do what they did to get it,” but I wasn’t doing what my sponsor was doing.  (Notice how they call it a sponsor but nobody is really sponsoring you?)  He owned a lead company and understood how to market to get those leads.  He had little time to train me 1-on-1 to funnel all of his knowledge into me, and besides, his knowledge came from years of work and training.

He did what he knew how to do and he actually did sponsor me a bit.  I got all of the free leads I could handle.  And boy, did I handle them!  In one afternoon I would fly through 150 double opt-in leads that were looking for a business.  Granted, some were old, but I even managed to mess up the ones that were fresh!  I did get some success doing it that way, but I knew I was still getting the short end of the stick, and it was nobody’s fault but my own!

I had a whole game plan overview written in Greek!  I was given some of the right tools… just the wrong version.  I needed “business for retarded dummies” and “marketing for people who’ve never marketed.”  Honestly, I knew nothing!  Nada!  Zilch!  In the business world I was more than just a fish out of water, I was a tadpole on mars!  This is the case for so many people out there today trying to stake their claim in the Home Business Boom of the New Millennium!  Most of them are drowning due to the same scenario that I went through, and you went through.

I don’t want that happening for anyone any more.  With the internet information galore is at our finger tips!  (And the evil laughing commences!)  But few people are able to harness this information and actually put together their own business plan that fits their needs, their schedule, and their goals.  Most marketing plans pushed don’t have your integrity in mind when they were written.  They aren’t concerned with your schedule.  And they most certainly didn’t develop them around your bills or needs.  They were written with The Company’s Needs, Schedule, and Goals in mind.

So what is my answer to this fiasco we are all rushing towards?  Education my dear friend,   education.   So, let’s start this off with an overall idea of how to put YOUR marketing plan together so, you can achieve YOUR goals.

1. Budget – You have to know what you can afford to spend and for how long on your business alone.  Most businesses operate in the RED (this means below profit) for the first 2 – 3 years.  How long can you sustain your business venture?  This is the first question to answer.  Know your overhead and your investment because every day you don’t make money, is another day your overhead grows your continued investment.
2. Understand who your target market is.  This means the marketing guys at Target understand the pressures the everyday soccer mom has and what will help perk their spirits. – Bright Colors.  Open Spaces.  Convenient locations.  Friendly, laid back, quiet atmosphere.  Don’t believe me, walk into any Target and tell me that isn’t what you see!
3. Understand what tools you have or could have with the right budget.  E-mail, website, advertising campaign (Not really needed but to use once in awhile), autoresponder with people’s information wanting to know more about your company, social sites, and a support system (could be a mentor, a spouse, or a friend).  Everyone that owns a business has to market their business.  If they can’t figure it out for themselves then they have to hire someone that can.  And if they don’t, then they aren’t going to be in business long.
4. Persistence + Determination + Critical Thinking Skills + Self Discipline = Leadership Ability.  You cannot leave one part of this equation out.  Every entrepreneur needs to have leadership ability, without it is like sailing without a rudder.  It just doesn’t work.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing more and more hungry entrepreneurs soaring to new heights, leveling playing fields, and proving statistics wrong!  People are just being taught in an ineffective way and the people teaching it needs to refer to Benjamin Franklin’s definition of insanity.

“Insanity is doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results.” – Benjamin Franklin

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Watch the three videos below as I discuss what SEO is, what it means, and how you can capitalize on other people’s mistakes.

I’m not promising 1st page ranking in a matter of days but I am promising that after you watch these videos on Internet Marketing SEO, you will be in a better position to start setting up your online business for a more long term game plan!

SEO stand for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is simply another technique each marketer needs to learn so they can tap into a free source of traffic for their long term business plan. And it is based on relevancy. Take the time to learn it and it will pay off in the future!

Here are links to the online Tools I used in this Video.

Google External Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Traffic Ranking with Alexa.com
http://www.Alexa.com

Brad Callen’s PPC Spy Plugin for Firefox
http://bit.ly/b5osvs

Search Engine Spider Simulator
http://bit.ly/d9khrH

If you have any questions or comments leave them in the comment section and I will respond as quickly as possible!

Thanks for watching!

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