2011 has been an exciting year for us at HBSA!

The big lesson has been GRATITUDE.

All of us here at HBSA have so much to be grateful for.  We are all so blessed, and in 2011, we’ve had the opportunity to fully realize the extent of that blessing.

Let’s recap a bit of this year.

Q1 2011 – “Irrational Optimism”

We started 2011 with a project that was bigger than any we had undertaken before.  We had made plans to develop a technology that was to compete with the largest e-commerce solutions available today.  We had a great idea – a great concept, and we were confident that we could walk into that market and begin slaying dragons.

We soon learned better.

This project failed.  It failed for a few key reasons:

- Lack of proper budget.  We began making financial decisions before we really had all our costs solidified and locked down.  We were making decisions with insufficient data, and we underestimated how expensive a project of this size could really get.

- Lack of focused vision.  Our vision grew as the project progressed, and we wanted this campaign to go like crazy out of the gate.  It’s much better to start smallish, with a “good enough” product, and then refine it over time versus having it “perfect” out of the gate.

- Lack of a detailed monetization model.  We knew “generally” how we were going to make money.  “Generally” doesn’t cut it.  One of the most important things to any business is the monetization model – how you are going to make the monies?

- Know your audience.  We didn’t know all that much about the e-commerce market, and decided it would just be a “good” market to jump into.  Knowing your audience is one of the most critical factors for campaign success.  Assumptions are dangerous.

So with that all said, we invested a huge amount of time and money, and it flopped.  Bad way to start the year.

Q2 2011 – “Rational Recovery”

After the first quarter, we knew we had to make some changes.  And we did.  We had to restructure our business in a way that reflected the lessons we had learned, and would set us up for success for the remainder of the year.

We were all very frustrated with the results of the e-commerce debacle, and the first thing we needed was a plan to move forward in an intelligent, healthy way.  We spent most of our time in Q2 getting that plan together.

Q3 2011 – “Execution”

After we had a plan, we started executing on it.  We launched new products out to market, which increased our revenues.  WE got re-focused and re-centered on our CORE business.  We were hungry again, which was a nice feeling; we’d had it easy for a very long time, and when things are easy, it can lead to complacency.  We had a fire in our gut again, and we were unsure of how it would all turn out.

Q4 2011 – “Redemption”

In this last quarter of the year, we decided to do something we had never done before – join a network marketing program AND invite our students to participate with us in that venture. The first reason we wanted to do it was because it had been a while since we had grown a networking business, and we had the “itch” again

We had also been getting some flack from people questioning whether our system really worked, whether we were the “real deal”, and if someone could really grow a networking opportunity online.  We had ignored these types of comments in the past, but we heard it enough that we decided that we would love the opportunity to answer the critics.

We were first uncertain if our clients even wanted us to do something of that nature, but after we got a response from this post, we decided that overall, it was a must-do.

We then walked our subscribers through the process of how to choose a network marketing company.

We finally decided to join a company (this company).  We were surprised about how well it has gone since launch.  We broke company records, qualified for a new BMW from the company (within 90 minutes of joining), and have helped 4 people qualify for their own BMW as well.

We became the 2nd top enroller in the company on our first month.

We helped 24 other people hit Rising Star distinction in the company.

And just so you know – we are not saying this to brag at all.  We’re overwhelmingly grateful for the opportunity, and could absolutely not have pulled this off without the team of very talented entrepreneurs that decided to work with us in this venture.

Below is a list of our top leaders in our organization right now.  (NOTE: if you’re on our team, and not yet on this list, we are TRULY looking forward to seeing your name on here in 2012!)

Patrick & Linda Logan
Sally & Lloyd Brogan
Hanh Ho
Kristine Huynh
Scott Fashimpaur
Jerry Pugh & Bridget
Linda Bertram
Scott Fashimpaur Jr
Trudy Arnett
Ron Ellis
Lynne Mongell
Aaron Sawyer
James Gomez
Gina Deere
Angela Thompson
Carol Saucier
Sean Brogan
Glenn Hunter
Yogi & Yoli Palenko
Ricardo Mendes
Daniel Musgrove
Travis Musgrove

We give these people ALL the credit for helping us build our organization.  These people are networking professionals, leaders, and very talented entrepreneurs.  We are SO BLESSED to have so many great people on our team.

The Take-Away’s

So if you’re reading this right now, there are just a few key lessons that I want you to take away from this:

1. You will make mistakes.  You will fail.  You will screw up. 

Get over yourself.

You’re not perfect.  You’ve got a lot to learn – we all do. We make mistakes, every entrepreneur that is worth their salt will make mistakes, and if you want to be successful, you will make them too.  It’s a reality, so instead of fearing failure, embrace it. You are not going to get to where you want to be without some failure.  And…the irony is that typically, the bigger the success you become in life, the bigger the failures you will be expected to overcome.

2. Move Forward With Courage

If you fail big enough, you’ll be tempted to quit.

Don’t.

Move forward.  And keep moving forward, with courage.  It’s scary to continue.  It may seem foolish to continue.  But the minute you give up on your dreams and goals, THAT’S the minute you start dying.  And chances are, right at your lowest moment, when you think you cannot possibly continue…that will be the moment it all turns around.

Don’t give up on yourself.  Move forward with courage.

3. Be Strategic

Many entrepreneurs are just throwing “you know what” against the wall, and seeing what sticks.

That business strategy works for some people.  But personally, I’d recommend you be strategic about your life.

That means you think through your decisions beforehand.  You weigh the positives and the negatives.  You do the hard homework ahead of time that yields a positive result from a well-considered and well-executed decision.

Be strategic about your health, your business, your relationships…everything.  I don’t believe you can be “too intentional” about any of those things.

4. Be Grateful

Whatever your current challenge may be…

However dark your present circumstances…

Consider that others have been in darker, more challenging circumstances…and have overcome.

That means you can overcome as well.

Be grateful for the many, many blessings and opportunities you have.  Chances are, if you stop to consider your life (honestly) you’ll find that you have a huge amount to be grateful for.

Don’t discount the power of gratitude.  It can transform your life.

And on that note, I want to let you know that we here at HBSA are grateful for YOU.  Thank you for being a part of what we do.

Here’s to your success in 2012!

- The HBSA Team

P.S. – Here’s a video we found that you may enjoy as well!  (Embedding has been disabled, so you’ll have to check it out on the youtubes

If you are an entrepreneur, you know that applied knowledge = results.

That little formula makes things easy for us.  If we want more results, all we need is more knowledge and application.  Simple.

Here is a list of the 100 Best Business Books Of All Time – these are must-reads if you want to succeed and develop more knowledge to apply.  It was Jim Rohn that said “Poor people have big TV’s.  Rich people have big libraries”.

I completely agree.

I also found a resource for you to get these (and many other books) for free.  Check it out:

http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php

We’re not affiliated with either of these sites, but we like ‘em both.  For getting free books, here’s how the program works:

- You ship out books to people who want your books.

- People ship out their books that you want.

It has a point system set up, so you basically get points by sending out books, and you use points to get books that you want from other peeps.  So if you have some books that you don’t like or will never read, why not trade ‘em in for quality books that you WILL read and apply?  (BTW, it works for more than just business books )

You may be saying “100 books?!  Where do I start?”

I’ve read most of ‘em on this list.  Here’s where I’d start for each category:

Self Improvement: “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Suess (seriously, I read this to my children…and myself…every week).

Leadership: “The Leadership Moment” by Michael Useem (9 great examinations of leaders in crisis moments.  Very insightful).

Strategy: “Only The Paranoid Survive” by Andrew Grove (Grove was the former CEO of Intel, shares his strategy in leading Intel through some of the most turbulent business times in history)

Sales/Marketing: “The Forbidden Keys To Persuasion” by Blair Warren.  It’s not actually on the list, because it’s not in print.  You may be able to find it in digital format, and if you can, spend whatever you have to get it.  Last I heard, Blair ws MIA.  Priceless work, IMHO.  For the list, grab Harry Beckwith’s Selling The Invisible.  Great stuff as well.

Rules And Scorekeeping: “The Balanced Scorecard” by Robert Kaplan & Peter Norton.  Great read on developing the metrics to measure the success of a strategy.

Management: “The Essential Drucker” by Peter Drucker. Phenomenal.  If you’ve never read Peter Drucker, go punch yourself now.

Biographies: “Titan” by Ron Chernow.  In case you’ve never read anything by Chernow, he has the uncanny ability to make history interesting.  This bio is on John Rockefeller Sr., founder of the Standard Oil company.  Fascinating portrait of the richest man in the history of the modern world.

Entrepreneurship: “Guerilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson.  Classic on developing a business with nothing but an idea and shoestrings.   Some of the tactics have changed, but the principles remain the same.

Narratives: “The Smartest Guys In The Room” by Bethany McLean & Peter Elkind.  Details the rise and fall of Enron.  Seriously interesting stuff, and good word to all you would-be stock investing trillionaires.  Shows you how a company can blatantly lie about earnings and revs while suckin’ in investing dollars by the hundreds of millions.

Innovation & Creativity: “A Whack On The Side Of The Head” by Roger von Oech & George Willet.  Been showing peeps how to be creative since before I was born.

Big Ideas: “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman.  Brilliant (great stuff in there for parents too).

Takeaways: “What The CEO Wants You To Know” by Ram Charan.  Thoroughly explains the building blocks of business.  Everyone thinks their business and situation is special – a one-of-a-kind snowflake phenomena that is complex and difficult to understand.  Not true.  Every business succeeds or fails based on a very short list of critical factors.  Charan does a very good job of spelling this out.

Extra Credit (These didn’t make the list for some reason – maybe the list will get updated at some point)

“Think And Grow” Rich by Napoleon Hill.  If you haven’t read it, just read it.

“The Richest Man In Babylon” by George Clasen.  Amazing fiction that spells out the principles of building true, long-lasting wealth (regardless of how much or little you make).

“How To Be Rich” and “As I See It”, both by J. Paul Getty.  Insightful, humorous, and very informative.  These are two of my personal favorites.

So here you go – a wealth of knowledge, plus a way to get ‘em for practically nothing.  If you have a great book you’d like to recommend, simply post it up in the comments below.  Enjoy!

Weebly is an up-and-coming website-building platform.  I’ve heard mixed reviews, and so I wanted to put out a list of the pro’s and con’s of this particular platform so that you have a good idea of what you’re getting.

Here’s a video showing a back-office tour of Weebly:

Weebly Overview

Back in the olden-days, you had to know html, css, and have a host of other technical skills in order to create a website.  However, that’s all changing.  The growing popularity of “drag and drop” solutions has touched multiple industries, and now Weebly is bringing it to the world of web development.

They are the first to create a drag and drop interface for building websites that is really simple, and easy to use.  For a newer company, they have integrated some really intelligent features that are important to note.

Drag And Drop Interface

Weebly does it up right with an interface that is truly simple to use.  In fact, it’s so simple even a child could put out something that looks professionally designed.  You just click on an element, drag it into your site, and start using it.  Easy.

Free Hosting (With No Advertising!)

Some hosting providers will give away hosting for free, but stuff tons of ads on your page.   Pretty lame, in our humble opinions.  But Weebly doesn’t do that – in fact, they allow YOU to put Adsense ads on YOUR site, so that you can monetize it and make money off the traffic that gets to your website.  This is a huge advantage when building a website, as they have eliminated one of the expenses of overhead for website creation.

Professional Templates (Plus The Ability To Customize Your Own)

Not sure how to create a sharp looking website?  No worries – you can borrow one of their 70 professionally-designed templates to use, and still customize every word on the site to reflect exactly what you want to say.

Audio/Video/ Blog Integrated

You can upgrade to a pro account, and integrate audio or video clips on to your website.  Even the free accounts allow you to utilize the power of a blog on your site at no additional expense.  You have full moderation controls to keep comments in check, or allow open /closed commenting.  It’s totally up to you.

Use Your Own Domain

If you already have a domain, you can still host on Weebly for free.  You can also purchase domains through them for very reasonable rates, but the fact that they will let you use their platform, use their hosting…all for free…it’s pretty amazing.

Webmaster Tools

They have a suite of webmaster tools included to allow you to properly track and SEO the pages on your website.  Again, no real technical expertise is needed to leverage these tools – they’re all “point/click”.

Customization

Add pictures, create online yearbooks, customize favicons…you can do all this and more without website design knowledge.  Drag, drop, and done.

We have a lot that we like about Weebly, but there is one thing that we don’t like about it.  If you opt for the “freebie” version, they put a footer link on the very bottom of your page that says “create a free website with Weebly”.  Honestly, we can understand why – they are giving so much away for free, that we can forgive this one small blip.  They are a company that needs to make money to provide good service, so that one small bit of promotion is OK with us

Is Weebly A Scam?!?

Unfortunately, some skeptics have chosen to take the low road, and assert that Weebly couldn’t POSSIBLY give away all the great services that they do for free.  While they do have paid options and paid services, they certainly aren’t scammy about it.  They give away a superior product to what many web developers could produce, at a cost that is remarkable.

So while there is no free lunch, this is pretty darn close

You can check it out, and see that while others may charge thousands (or tens of thousands) for an inferior solution, Weebly is keepin’ it real and givin’ it away for free (that’s right, FREE son).

If you’d like to get more information, you can visit their website:  Weebly.com.

If you have experience with Weebly, please share below!

Microsoft Bing has a sense of humor.

Watch this, and tell me this type of situation hasn’t happened to you during a search:

But the question is – can they really challenge Google?

You can compare the two search engines here {link}.

Arbonne International, the anti-aging skincare behemoth, announced that they would be letting 95 workers go because of the economy.

Arbonne International experienced tremendous growth in (more…)

Vemma, the parent company of Verve energy drink, has now officially opened in Australia.

They are currently be promoted by a distributorship (more…)

Herbalife International just cemented an agreement with the Mianyang Municipal Education Bureau to participate in developing an emergency relief fund for victims affected by the Sichuan Earthquake that occurred earlier this year. (more…)

So what are the top 10 MLM companies to promote?

This is a totally loaded question.

Why?

Because an MLM company is just a vehicle, and when you are trying to get somewhere, the driver matters a lot more than the vehicle. (more…)

Amway, which is now Alticor (and will be Amway again at the end of 2009) was listed as the 44th largest privately held company in America.

Based in Ada, Michigan, Amway employees 13,000 people, has 3 million distributors, and sells over 450 products through the Amway and subsidiary brands including Quixtar, Alticor, and Access Business Group.

They ended 2007 with $7.1 Billion dollars in revenue.    They were sandwiched between Menards (#43) and Sinclair Oil (#45).

Herbalife Chariman and CEO Michael Johnson was one of several people honored by non-profit youth center A Place Called Home at it’s 15th annual “Gala For The Children.”

Founded in 1993 by Deborah Constance, A Place Called Home provides at-risk youth with aid and assistance with learning life-skills and a shelter from street influences (gangs, drugs, etc).

Herbalife leader Johnson received teh Deborah Constance Humanitarian award for his work with the development of the Casa Herbalife Program to help children worldwide with nutritional issues.  Our hats go off to Mr. Johnson; such work exemplifies the positive impact that entrepreneuralism can have on this world.