What is Greece, but to explore and enjoy!

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Destinations, culture, sea, nature, architecture, religion, history; activities, leisure, touring, food delights – each adding to the fascination and allure of this legendary country.

The month of May will always find Greece, being enveloped in the arms of spring, with floral delights as communities embrace May Day – which surprises many American travelers.  May Day for the Greeks is a continuation of the Soviet inspired International Workers Day, and is celebrated in a myriad of floral arrangements, tying it together somewhat with the pagan holiday,  Festival of the Flowers, which once was associated with the mythological characters, Demeter and Persephone.  Unfortunately for our Greece Tour in May, 2011, we will arrive some days after the event, but we can expect to see many remaining vestiges of the celebration.

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Exploring the island of Santorini was a must on our agenda!  Known to be the most mythical spot in the Cycladic Islands, Santorini, which was once nothing much more than a round, ordinary island, found its claim to fame when an ancient volcanic explosion left nothing but a crescent-shaped rim around the underwater caldera. Talk to some of the islanders and you may hear that Santorini just might be the real Atlantis!  Not to be discounted as veritable, however, is the fact that Santorini was a major Minoan outpost… until it suddenly slipped beneath the sea in a single night, leaving naught but a floating pumice cover above the water,  and poignant memories of a once beautiful city.

Santorini still offers many activities and sites to enjoy, starting with the view of the island as you approach it from the cruise ship, wondering if the volcano dragon with remain asleep during your visit!  Buried under a layer of volcanic ash, leaving walls and artifacts intact, is the story of Akrotini, where travelers wander the excavated streets of a town of ghosts.  Watch closely and you might see hanging baskets of the best plants reserved for wine-making, and in their popularity, have set the pace for wine museums, tasting and winery tours.  The month of May was chosen for the tour, under advisement that the temperature is best and the crowds, normally experienced in August or September, are diminished.

At the end of the stay in Santorini, I will be confident you will share that Greece truly is to explore and enjoy… in its destinations, culture, sea, nature, architecture, religion, history; activities, leisure, touring, food delights – each adding to the fascination and allure of this legendary country.

Jan Vitale… ensuring you experience your travels and come away enriched!

Vital Enterprises, LLC.

Greece Tours, May 2011

Today is the 13^th of October, 2010 – the International Day for Disaster Reduction stemming from a campaign having the theme, “Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready!” coordinated by the United Nations National Strategy for Disaster Reduction.  And we thought it was a big deal to having September as National Disaster Preparedness Month!    The International Day serves to highlight success and stimulate creativity in achieving higher levels of disaster preparedness.  According to the PIA Daily News Press  the Philippines joins many other countries in this day of recognition.  If the world at large is taking this matter seriously, does it not make sense that we ask ourselves what part we need to play in preparing our families for disasters?

My intent is always to educate and inform you – bringing resources before you is a significant part of that.  Since the UN spear-headed this event, it also provides a number of links to everything it does to support disaster preparedness that should prove valuable to you as you participate more in disaster preparedness, such as Emergency Relief – Tools and Services, UNESCO’s Natural Disaster Reduction, and the World Food Programme’s Disaster to Development, and many more. 

In the news today you will see that Armenia is participating in the celebration; that China, Nigeria and Afghanistan are assessing their own programs, and finding them lacking – making a firm commitment to make serious modifications in their response to the seriousness of disaster preparedness within their countries.  The underlying focus:  save lives, reduce risks, and preserve health.  ReliefWeb provides coverage, on this day set aside to recognize disaster preparedness, to the many losses experienced in the Caribbean.  According to this article, “Each new disaster leaves in its path overpowering evidence of how poor planning and investment decisions contribute to vulnerability and increase the risk of future disasters.”  What  a powerful statement that we as a family, a community, a nation and a world, must be assertive and unrelenting in early response to potential disasters – not wiping up the aftermath that comes at a much greater cost in resources and lives.

Yes… in Africa and Iowa – in New Zealand and the Dominica… news headlines shout “International Day for Disaster Reduction!” Reuters AlertNet  reports with a focus on flood prevention in Pakistan, Myanmar and India, reflecting that “Every Euro we spend on disaster risk reduction does not only save lives but also helps us save five Euros which we would have to spend for emergency relief later on.”

How exactly is this day being celebrated?  I am sure there are a large number of lunches and conventions, but you will also find that trees are being planted in Lebanon , drawing contests are “drawing” attention to the children who need to understand the value of disaster preparedness, and the press, of course is supporting in a myriad of ways with compelling headlines!

What will you do to celebrate this International day?  What are the disaster plans you have for your family?  If you want more information how you may start – at home, please visit my website.  There you will find the PortaVault, a portable storage unit for all your vital documents, checklists and a plethora of resources, to which I add frequently.  You don’t have to do this alone – Vital Enterprises can be the one place you can count on to provide you the latest news and best resources for disaster preparedness… you see – I celebrate this need all year long!

If you look at the power of using network marketing as a business model, it comes essentially from the basis of leverage.   It doesn’t matter if you are amazingly talented or get paid a huge per hour salary – there are still just so many hours in the day and you will only reach maximum productivity and profitablity if you learn to leverage your time, and benefit from other people’s efforts.

How do you effect that leverage?  In a number of ways that might surprise you – especially with the technology to which you most likely have access.   The fact that I can be on the beach at my favorite resort, and you can be reading my blog somewhere else in the world is a good example of how I can leverage my time and not be sharing your physical presence in order to bring value to you or teach you important lessons about building a business using a network marketing business model.

It is no longer necessary to build a business where the employees work hard to benefit the owners and stockholders; everyone has the same opportunity to succeed and invest only a fraction of the time and money of a frachise or bricks and mortar store.  Leverage happens naturally because you have a vested interest in mentoring and training others to succeed… leverage happens when you choose to receive 5 percent of the work effort of 100 people over 100 percent of the effort of one person.

• Leverage happens because your income is never dependent upon one person; your income is never significantly impacted because one person takes a long vacation, becomes ill or decides to retire. 
• Leverage happens as many frustrated professionals, overwhelmed by the lack of balance in their lives, decide to leave corporate responsibilities to pursue and live a different lifestyle – with you as their mentor! 
• Leverage happens… with a small network marketing organization created over time, through which you can ultimately produce the equivalant of working 24/7 putting in only a fraction of individual effort.

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• Leverage happens… from geometric growth and the power of one.   My grandfather amazed me at age four with the math concept of doubling your money every day for 30 days.  He sat me down after breakfast and, having started with a penny – he added the second penny the next day… then four… then eight… quitting at the end of the week, having laid $128 out on the table and having some discussion with me that by the end of the month, if I was able to continue that doubling, I would have saved over $5 million.  Seemed unfathomable to me then… and I still have to do an Excel spreadsheet to validate the concept; a concept that is at the heart of network marketing. 

Does that seem strange?  Let’s look at it this way… if I teach you – I have doubled; if we each mentor another person, we have doubled again.  And the process continues naturally, and easily – producing results beyond your belief.

Leverage happens only when you use the process of building people, bringing them to their highest potential; it does not happen when the process is manipulated by working with people who look for the easy money and are not willing to build a successful business themselves.

Leverage.. is it worth the risk?

Are you intrigued by the potential of leveraging your time, talent, money and skills?  Check out my Income Opportunity Marketplace where you will find a plethora of information that will help you decide if this is a business model for you, a directory of the many opportunities possible in network marketing, and resources to help you with managing your business – using best business practices.

• The Eight Second Ride…

The Eight Second Ride…

I was raised in Wyoming where they have a lot of… yes, you guessed it – Rodeos!  Every summer they have the fair and all the associated events, including the rodeo – about which my friends have recently been making a lot of Facebook posts. 

Walking the Shiatsu this morning, wondering why it took her so long to get through her daily, I started thinking about time management and how important each second is…

Then my mind drifted to the eight seconds that are allowed for those brave cowboys to make one of the toughest rides in the world; a qualified professional bull ride.  Can you imagine how strong, focused and compelling they must be in order to make that ride successful? 

Thoughts then flowed to some of the reading I’ve been doing lately about the brain, finding that eight seconds is also the maximum amount of time the “average” person can fully focus on something and not lose his concentration… 

More mind drifting – to what it must take, when we are communicating with someone else, to deliver a message that is strong, focused and compelling enough that we are heard?

Ok… by now, you know that my mind sometimes rambles in this creative flow of thought.  However, I do tend to “bring it all home” to something cohesive… and today it was the fact that I plan to go to a networking event tonight and I may actually have only 8 seconds to get a 30-second “commercial” communicated!  Well, actually, that 8 seconds is probably the time I need to make my “hook” happen and I have to hold on as a mean, tough animal (prospect) tries to throw me off.  How tight must my message be to hang on and be strong, focused and compelling?

Sometimes, that “hook’ is all you need – it is not necessary, at a networking event to close the deal!  You can use those eight seconds to “hold on” to the relationship you just started and take the meat of the conversation to a more personal level over breakfast or lunch.  I had a friend recently tell me that her “social” questions include: “Are you an early morning person or an afternoon person?” Once she has determined that – she discovers what they prefer to eat, which allows her to either offer to drop bagels and coffee by, or meet them somewhere for lunch.  No selling – just the perfect amount of interest in “who” the other person is to get her foot through the door – emotionally and literally!

I have never been a proponent of the “30-second commercial” or the “elevator pitch”… they are both outdated ideas from when that elevator ride really was three to five minutes long and you actually could engage in some meaningful conversation.  Technology has made everything move faster, including elevators and the need to make our marketing pitches more immediately relevant.   Like it or not, however, these succinct marketing messages (hooks) are necessary, and must sell more than your product or service and why you are unique or stand above your competition.  They are essential to building your brand, conveying who you are, what you offer and what promise you will be able to deliver on!   All that in SUCH a short span of time.

There is a ton of buzz about branding, but the short eight second take on that is that your brand is… the promises you make and keep to your customers.  If as a business you fail to focus on and meet those promises, your chance of staying on for the long ride is zero!  You are conveying to anyone who listens what he/she will get from your business and you must be able to deliver.

Eight-second short ride… simple message:  Clearly and concisely convey what you offer – knowing you can stand behind that offer. I know how difficult this process is… it pains even me!  So, research person that I am, I found a few goodies I could throw your way.

“I was riding up the Gherkin elevator with Will Harris, the marketing director at Nokia. I asked, ‘What if you could get dozens of user-generated videos for less than $1,000 each with www.mofilm.com?” He signed up before we reached the top floor and then Nokia went on to win the Cannes UGC competition with one of those videos.” – Jeffrey Merrihue, CEO, Accenture Marketing Sciences (London)

“The worst elevator pitch is one I hear frequently. It goes like this:  Prospect: ‘What is it that you do?’ Salesperson: ‘I represent XYZ Company.’ Stop! What does that do to help build the relationship we all need in sales? Describe not whom you represent but what you do to help people solve the problems they have. Why not answer with, ‘I help people solve the problems of living too long, becoming disabled, or dying too soon.’” – Robert D. Lowrey, Managing Partner, Northwestern Mutual

“The Best: We make print clickable. The Worst: We do anything and everything a company needs us to do as cheaply as possible.” – Andy and Julie Plata, Co-CEOs, OutputLinks, Inc., Graphic Communications World

Ok… I am going to go get ready for my eight second ride(s) tonight.  How about you?   I would love to have you share your “hook.”  Go ahead; hit me with your best shot and let’s see some comments here!

Contributing author:

Anna Weber

4-Dimensional Success

Always… encouraging to you take positive, life-altering actions that will provide you with long-term, sustainable benefit.

I encourage you to sign up for the RSS feed for my blog so you don’t miss a one of these informational articles and to find more rich content on my website, Vital Enterprises, LLC.

Jan Vitale

Vital Enterprises, LLC

Providing the tools to accelerate your growth in Network Marketing…

I have long been passionate about bringing the issue of Identity Theft to a higher level of recognition within my community, and I was just shocked to hear that Arizona is actually considered the identity-theft Mecca of the U.S!  I thought what attracted people to our state was golf and sun. 

According to an article on MoneyCentral.msn.com, for the second year in a row Arizona held the top seat in the FTC’s complaints, followed – not so closely – by Nevada and California.  These numbers are probably higher than noted in the statistics because many people don’t know they have been victims or they have not known how or where to report their situation.  You can review this list at MoneyCentral.Com 

Logic lends reason to why the same towns hit the top of the list year after year – the population plays a huge part in the problem.  Just think about it.  You just couldn’t get away with it in a smaller town somewhere in Idaho or Wyoming where everyone in town knows you.  Identity-theft can thrive in places where thieves can immerse themselves in a crowd!

Many people worry about computerized identity theft because the thieves can target consumers in any location, but the reality remains that the criminals still tend to favor the easier methods of dumpster diving and mail theft – again, making highly populated areas more attractive for identity-theft opportunities.  Another combination is the pickpocket and the identity-thief who frequently work in tandem… the pickpocket taking the tangible items, and selling personal identification information to those trading in identity-theft.

Be aware, and check out my next blog when I will discuss how BIG this problem is when you combine it with travel…

P.S. If you, or someone you know has been the victim of identity theft, and are having problems finding resolution, I would appreciate your “comments” so that others might truly embrace how VITAL protecting your identity really is.