What About Your Friends?

The first album I ever played out til the tape was no good was TLC CrazySexyCool.  The album is home to such classics as "Waterfalls", "Red Light Special" and of course "What about your friends"

Network marketing is not for the faint of heart.  It requires you to step outside of your comfort zone, learn how to talk to strangers, and sell yourself on a singular idea or concept to the point of it being your consuming occupation. Malcolm Gladwell says that to become great at anything requires 10,000 hours of dedicated work.  Is there anything in your life right now that you could say you have practiced and perfected for at least 10,000 hours of your life?  If you do, then most likely, your friends and family know you as the go-to person for that skill.  If they don't then you probably 1) aren't as good as you think you are or 2)  are terrible at marketing.

In the networking marketing business, self promotion is the name of the game.  Because the business model relies upon word of mouth as the primary source of marketing and promotion, most firms will tell you point blank that you need to start with your warm market and run a viral ad campaign for yourself through your personal networks.

I was never what you would call a social dynamo.  I never had thousands and thousands of friends on Facebook, and I only jumped on Twitter about a year ago.  Even growing up in school, I wouldn't say I was popular or "that girl". But, one thing that I have always been proud of is my close circle of true and reliable friends.

When I joined this business I reached out to my warm market (consisting mostly of friends of friends and family and loose associations, acquaintances.  I made those initial calls and asked for help.  I introduced people to the concept, I asked for referrals.  I did have some successes.  The most success to date stems from referrals from my sister, who is by far my #1 fan and closest friend (next to my husband).  But what I soon realized is that anyone who can't tell you to your face that they think you are wrong, is not your friend at all.

I've had people sit and listen to me (humor me really) and then refuse to return my phone calls, or write me off as naive.  But, I know that even though I may be working on hundreds of hours of experience right now, by the time I get to 10,000 all those naysayers will be long gone and me and all my real friends are gonna be living the dream.  It's not their fault.  They just don't get it. TLC says:

What about your friends. Will they stand their ground. Will they let you down again . What about your friends, are they gonna be low down. Will they ever be around or turn their backs on you.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca said it another way:

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. 

Day 5's reason my business is awesome: You find the people that "get" you

Goal Setting and Goal Hitting

I listen to a lot of nonfiction audio these days, especially when it comes to business advice. Now, I can't recall where I heard this little tidbit, but it warrants sharing:

Write something about the impact of your business everyday. And if you don't have anything interesting to write about, get into another business. 

 It's a new year and I have (like most of us) great aspirations for 2015, so this blog is now officially taking a turn to capture the experience of me going from working for the man to working for this woman.

 Day 4: Today is Thursday, day 4 of work after a long 2 week Winter Break spent eating, sleeping and enjoying time with my family. One of the things that my husband and I have committed to is keeping a sleeping schedule (Up by 6:30am and bed by 11pm). The bed by 11 pm is the most important because the sleep is what gets you through all the other goals we have set for the day ahead.

Typical of a post vacation work week, Monday was great. Tuesday was good. Wednesday was rough and today I got up at 7:20. --We are starting to lose some steam here people. Now, the great thing about my business is that I am surrounded by people that want me to be successful. I work in the financial services business through a network marketing firm and so all of my mentors and coaches are personally financially invested in my success in order to fuel their own. This is great.  The other thing is my job is centered around building relationships working your network - a great way to test the strengths of current bonds

 Awesome thing #1: Weekly trainings and motivational sessions. Every Wednesday night I go to a training where local representatives get together and work on getting better. Yesterday we focused on building rapport with clients, doing what's right 100% of the time, and some principles that could best be descried as good ol' karma: Do for others and the rest takes care of itself. That is a great thing to have as a staple in your career and business life - steadfast morals and a foundation of integrity that is upheld throughout the organization.

 Awesome thing #2: I get to influence people I never would have met if not for this business. One of my goals for the year is to make 16 appointments for myself every week. Any person who has ever worked in sales knows that you don't set appointments without making calls. And every salesperson also knows that no one likes making calls. Hence, the need for concrete and specific goals. I set my goal for making 60 calls between Monday and Wednesday (20 calls/day). Now because I only have 2 hours a day scheduled to make my calls, I do have to make the most of that time. I use a homegrown lead management system to track my numbers and keep up with prospects as I go, and in December on average I could do 20 calls/hour and set 20% of those people for appointments. Yesterday, I started 30 minutes late and ended an hour early (for those of you not picking up on the math, I only made 30 minutes worth of calls).

The great news is Parkinson's law holds true:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for completion 

I was able to make 17 calls in those 30 minutes!! The truly significant thing was call  number 17. I was not expecting call number 17 to answer but he did. The gentleman is a member of my church and we spoke for an hour about the changes at the church, what it means to be a Christian and how we could support each other (I'm going to help him edit a book of inspirational writings).  As the conversation ended, he told me to go home and give my husband a big hug and kiss, because having someone in your corner is invaluable and you want to make sure they know that "while their eyes are open".  I heeded this very sound advice.

So Day 4's reason my business is awesome: You get more than one corner man. Even Eagles need a push.

Nothing more to say (All Screamed Out)

I hate being little and young looking. I am literally the same size I was when I got my driver’s license and that is not a good thing unless you want to make looking young your career, and I don't see anyone coming to sign me a contract for The Hills, Brooklyn edition. I wish I was bigger and scarier but I am not. I am vulnerable all the time. You may not understand that or see that but it is true. I fight hard to get things done, not because I like to but because I have no other choice if I want to get ahead. Because my whole life I can count on one hand the number of people that has ever taken me seriously.

Very few people know with certainty that I mean what I say and that I do what I say I am gong to do. I am a serious person. When I have ideas I move on them and that is how things get done. I am seriously not a 14 year old girl. But the only time in my life I can remember a really good compliment is when someone told me that I was “a force”. No one refers to me as a force. If anything people say I “have good ideas” or I “do a lot”, "read a lot" but a force is a thing of nature that cannot be denied. That is a compelling irresistible call to action. Most of the time, people take me for a 14 year old girl who still has “so much to learn” and is easy to scam and the horrible part is that I always get scammed, because I do not realize I am not being taken seriously until it is too late. Call it a heroic flaw if you will. Somehow I have not learned how to take command of a situation even after all this time. I blame it on my unfettered trust in the goodness of mankind.

People take advantage of me to know end, because when I fight back, I get ignored. I tell a deadbeat tenant to get out of my house and I am ignored until I actually file the paperwork and the sheriff locks the doors. I tell my boss she is being inequitable in the distribution of the workload and my she schedules a planning meeting for how I can travel 100 more miles per week to further benefit the company. I get tired of fighting because everyone I interact with refuses to take me seriously.

I am tired of this. I want to scream and would . . . all the time if I thought someone would hear me. (It is the tree in the forest after all). But apparently my voice doesn’t count. It’s hard to feel big when everyone makes you feel so small. That’s what I mean when I say life is hard enough, because all of this getting walked on starts to wear on a person and makes it real hard to see the point in fighting at all. Would it not be easier to give up and not complain and just take the lumps that life dishes out? It will end eventually right? Right? It’s not like I have control of any of it anyway. I am tired of being walked on. So when I say I’m done, don’t think I am bluffing, because you might just get your feelings hurt and then there really will be no more to say.

Hyothetically of course

What is the point of hypothetical situations? Do people just like torturing themselves? Like feeling as though life could get worse? Why pretend? I see no point in pretending when life is truly hard enough as it is without so called friends destroying your weekend high by talking about all the shit that could happen in your life.

I have had a rough year. Maybe the roughest I have encountered in a while. I will say that while I am in a position of more responsibility in my life in nearly every avenue, that definitely equates to nothing more than a substantial amount of things to worry about, people to stay on top of and situations that I do my best to avoid. Once such situation is the hypothetical. The situation that only exists in the imagination but somehow persist to arise in conversation as though a drinking game that is meant to end with everyone getting drunk but only succeeds in angering me to know end.

This week, I found a man to fix the roof on my house (bane of my existence for 2 years plus) for no less than $2k, found out my boss wants me to service an area about 100 miles from where I live, realized no one cares that I work harder than anyone I know and walked in to my favorite falafel place only to find the price had gone up enough so that it was no longer prudent for me to buy lunch there.

Saturday is my supposed day of rest. I worked half the day on a rainy September morning with my only happiness being the bar at which I drank just enough to feel happy but not enough to make a fool of myself, ate lots of curly fries and then ended the evening debating, what else, but a hypothetical situation. Trust me, I tried to avoid it entirely. I even said, several times “I don’t want to talk about this” and “This is not even real, why are we still discussing this?” I even tried closing my eyes and ignoring the discourse entirely. And when those attempts failed I stated, “I am about to walk away from this conversation.” At which point my company told me “go ahead”. And then, when I did, that same company had the nerve to ask why I was so upset. Sorry folks, I only have enough energy for real life, so fake life can suck my dick. (Hypothetically of course.)

Can a black girl get some play? Yes she can!

With a black man in the White House, Black is back and better than ever. Everyone is jumping on the hope bandwagon to the point of bottling hope and selling it at Starbucks. (I know you have seen the commercials). And while I must say the adoration cast towards this man is bordering on completely unhealthy, I too am drinking the kool-aid and loving the flavor. Not only does Obama bring much needed recognition to the strength of the black man, but he empowers everyone far beyond any conceivable scope.

Now, I have to admit I did not think much of it when the Beanie Baby people announced they were making Sasha and Malia dolls. People get their own dolls made all the time. However, when CNN had a special about the outright commodification of the girls I had to listen up. I read Moby Dick. Commodification is selling something that was not meant to be sold. What’s that you say Anderson?

Turns out that these beautiful, charming, first daughters are the newest thing in marketing. All of a sudden modeling agencies cannot get enough cute black girls to sell anything from magazines to overpriced dresses at Saks. That's right, Black women are in. They are popular and it’s not because there are more of them in college than their male counterparts or because they have high paying jobs or because everyone wants to give them money to start a business and stimulate the economy. Black women are in because Black is beautiful and America cannot get enough. Black people are living high off the hog right about now. There is a beautiful, healthy first family in the White House and black people did that. I love it. Forget learning how to play the game, we are rewriting the playbook.

Now the question is if this is going to be a four year (eight year) fad or is different and diverse in to stay? In other words is this the change we should put stock in? The cover of Atlantic magazine has a headshot of the pres with the words "The end of White America?" emblazoned across his clean shaven face. Is this really the end, or like everything else in this country are we going to use this momentary distraction to feel good about ourselves and then return to business as usual? Can you name five friends who know who Chiwetel Ejiofor is? Can you even name a black model other than Iman? (By the way, Tyra does not count and she’s retired). America has a way of mustering great amounts of enthusiasm for the "it" thing and that has been consistent. Whether its frozen yogurt or antioxidents or pet rocks, America will get on board as long as it holds their interest and then as quickly as interest blossoms, it withers and the object of said affection is forgotten.

The difference here is that this commodity does more for a larger community of people than the pet rock or frozen dessert. In his first weeks in office Barack Obama has proposed an economic stimulus, made it easier for women to sue for pay discrimination, lobbied with republicans, chastised the financial industry for their gluttonies and made it cool for women to come in different shades and shapes. Not to mention, the new White House website is the best thing since turning whale blubber into cosmetics. This doesn't resemble a fad so much as a new era. This is the Neo Enlightenment people, a shift in thinking, and I for one, am proud to bear witness.

For once, there is an American President out there not afraid to talk to the people like people and make the decisions that need to be made and even if he didn’t do anything but show up, the world is better for it. Everyone is so afraid that Black people are going to “take over” now that a man of color is in office, but after 400 years of struggle and second class citizenry, I think we have learned a bit about the virtue of subtly. We are a people quite familiar with using the back door to get the job done. We may not be able to hold on to Harlem, but remember The Revolution will not be televised. So, I am going to dig in and get ready and be seriously watching how this plays out. American politics just got interesting. Another shot of kool-aid over here please.

Back to the Future

So the MTA is telling on itself. There is a sign in the subway that actually says that in 1986 the fare was a dollar. Wait let me not paraphrase, "Believe it or not. in 1986 the subway and bus fare was $1. That's $1.89 in 2008 dollars. Today 30 -day unlimited Ride Metrocard brings the fare down to $1.17. Believe it."

Now, excuse me for going to college but did you not just tell me that public transportation fare is rising faster than the rate of inflation or that the MTA is ripping everyone off for 11 cents? Sounds like both to me. And what's worse, you are trying to sell me a more expensive product at the sake of "hidden savings". Have you no shame? Add to that the fact the ad appears on the train, so the MTA is just advertising on itself (for free) and it's enough to make you want to vomit or at least throw a shoe. And the fare is going up in April? And they are cutting down service as well? What would our friends from 1986 say about that? I imagine something like, "Now where did I park that blasted DeLorean?". Believe it.

From the middle of Nowhere

Utopia this is not.

Sir Thomas More created a word to describe the perfect place and did such a good job of developing the ideal society that even to this day it is a mainstay in modern language. Utopia- Outopia derived from the Greek 'ou' for "no" and '-topos' for "place," a fictional, this means unrealistic or directly translated "Nothing, no matter what" This is the other half from Eutopia, and the two together combine to Utopia..

But after seeing what an international airport looks like on the eve of New Year's Eve (December 30), I am amazed and appalled by how capitalism, greed and the the love of self always prevails in any place where two or more are gathered, especially when there is something to be gained.

I am sure all reading are familiar with holiday airfare spikes and the torment of traveling at any time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Add to that the idiocracy known as Homeland Security, the sludge known as airport food and the rape known as airport goods and services and it just makes you mad.


I have been at the airport for 3 hours waiting for a plane to show up. During that time I went through three security checkpoints, immigration, an overpriced salad (from Pizza Hut of all places), and have contemplated purchasing the most niche market product ever-- a neck pillow. This is a product that is meant to deceive you into thinking that sleeping while upright is not only common enough to warrant accessories but also something you would be a fool to not have prepared for. "Oh no, I forgot my neck pillow! Now, how will I facilitate a completely uncomfortable sleeping posture that will leave me physically and mentally with a crick in my person?"



The sad part is that everyone around me paid top dollar to have this experience. Holiday airfare averages a $20-$80 increase each year and yet, with everyone and their mama losing their shirt by way of Bushenomics, there will be no food, drink, pillow, blanket, socks, warm towelette, or any other such accommodation on this trip. Everyone here is tied, hungry, and cold (airports are notorious for the excessive AC). No air traveler has planned to be in the airport longer than two hours and therefore has nowhere to turn, but to overpriced mutations of high fructose corn syrup and stuffed neck braces, neither of which they would willingly purchase in any other scenario.



Now the part that irks me to the core is that if the roles were reversed and I owned the airline and I kept losing money year after year and for some reason I could not stop the bleeding no matter how hard I tried, I cannot be certain that I would not skimp on the peanuts even for my most deserving customers. I mean, yeah, that would be the humanitarian thing to do- offer food and warmth or a voucher to people for whom I have obviously failed to deliver paid services but if that means I hemorrhage to death, was it worth the sacrifice? Or better still, if I really have tried my best and still fail to meet my customers' needs, do I not deserve to bleed out?

Whether you are a holiday traveler, American automaker, Wall Street banker or a world leader with the worst popularity rankings in history, one thing is constant: in every scenario there are winners and losers, the exploitive and the exploited. That is why in 2009, I have decided to file for citizenship and move to Utopia, where everyone helps their neighbor, no one has to cheat to survive and band aids are never solutions because no one would let their fellow man be cut so deep.


Goodbye 2008 and your selfish cutthroat ways. Hello 2009 and may it look like nothing and nowhere any of us have seen before.