I’ve got flu.  It’s very dull.  I was hoping to be enjoying my 12 days for £25 membership of David Lloyd right now, instead of which I only have the strength to prop myself up on my pillows to type occasionally.  I’d forgotten what this is like - haven’t felt ill like this since I was about 21.  I find the hot/cold thing particularly trying, and I keep nodding off for goodness sake!  Thank god for Christmas books - of which I have about 6 brilliant new ones, and for laptops I say.

So in between naps, I’m reviewing the viralurl.com/moneygym/RichSchefrenBusiness">rich schefren business coaching materials and I’m up to Module 7 which is very sexy indeed;  covering metrics and measuring success - past present and future.

He’s asked us to identify the Top Five Goals / Priorities for the next 90 days and then what Five Big Things am I going to do, over the next 90 Days, to bring us closer to my vision for the company.

Well, my vision is for The Money Gym to become the No #1 Wealth Creation Education company in Europe, and to turn over £1 million per annum, from a combination of

100 x Gold/Gold Express clients
100 x Women Talk Money Group Coaching Members
1000 x Money Gym Club Silver clients
4 x "Let’s Talk Money" workshops per year
14 x Money Gym Presents….." workshops per year
ebook sales
Money Gym book series sales
affiliate/referral income

(The even longer term vision is to have a Money Gym in every major country in the world, via a network of licensed partners - all ex- clients and coaches)

So my Top Five Goals / Priorities for the next 90 days are

1.  Attract a further 7-10 Gold / Gold Express clients
2.  Attract a further 8 attendees at the next Let’s Talk Money workshop in February
3.  Attract 20 attendees to the "Money Gym Presents……." second Debt Busting workshop in January
4   Attract 20 attendees to the Property Investing workshop in January
5.  Increase traffic, the sales of the ebook, and improve the subscriber conversions

and then what Five Big Things am I going to do to make that happen?

1.  write the ezine religiously weekly with great content
2.  take delivery of the new sales page from Alan for Gold/Gold Express
3.  strike a deal with Lance about SEO
4.  submit an article to the directories every other week at least
5.  take a look at the squeeze/welcome page - add a video?

In my next post I’m going to be covering some great material from Marlon Sanders as mentioned in the book I’ve just read "Cubicle Slave To The Next Internet Millionaire" by Jaime Luchuck.

Happy Chickens To You!

I thought it might be fun to share what drives some of our Money Gym clients - because it’s really not about the money, for most of them.

This discussion came from the "Challenges and Reflections for Christmas" discussion on the private Money Gym google group, but quickly mutated into a "Gratitude & Giving Back" discussion, about our favourite charities.

If you love the "Give A Loo For Christmas" advertisements, you will love this email!

(As usual, I’ve edited hard to take out the really personal stuff - but it was also a wonderful example of how, even when people are facing tough stuff themselves, they don’t forget to feel grateful and paying it forward by give to others).

Totally Attraction In Action!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/GoldForChristmas

Diane Lance said: It’s so timely that Nicola chose to write to everyone yesterday about Challenges and Reflections for Christmas because that’s exactly what I was thinking of writing to everyone about! I haven’t been having a great time lately - just one of those times of life when a lot of "challenges" seem to come at once!

Well, a week ago I got my wake up call - I managed to burn my right hand quite badly on my hot oven……….At points like this you begin to realise that it’s time to stop and take stock…..

I’m not telling you any of this from an "ah, poor me" point of view. God knows, many money gym members have overcome HUGE, ongoing challenges and still soldiered on regardless! But it’s so easy to lose focus when the other "stuff" in life takes > over isn’t it?

That’s when I realised that the power of "the Leverage of Habits"

(see > Robert Kiyosaki) really comes into play. If you already have your financial > plans and systems in place, and you are quietly (or noisily!) pursuing > the same good financial habits, month after month, year after year, > then these habits see you through the bad times, because they are > ticking away in the background, doing their good work, while you deal with the other "stuff". > >

And I have also realised that there’s SO much to be grateful for…… Let’s start with the basics: > a good home, food on your plate each night, a healthy family - so many > people don’t have these things! > >

So, it’s Christmas, time to be grateful and to give a little or a lot back. > Here’s my favourite charities for this time of year, what’s yours? >

Salvation Army (great work with homeless people) > - Action

Aid (sponsor a child) > - Oxfam gifts or all those

charities where you can buy goats, cows > etc. for Africa or India. We just bought 3 chickens! > >

Peace and Prosperity and looking forward to a new start in 2008 with > everyone! > >

Many Happy Chickens to you all! >

Love Diane

http://www.cottageholidayincornwall.co.uk/

(Nicola says: Check out the Christmas deccies and falling snow on Diane’s website - marvellous!)

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/GoldForChristmas

Shona Lockhart says:  It is really inspiring hearing everyone’s amazing success stories. I became involved with the Money Gym after attending the wonderful Women Talk Money workshop in October — a very impressive event where I learned how women were pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone to achieve incredible things.

I have been so busy focusing on my own goal since the summer that I haven’t had time to participate in the Google group which was set up after the event but I have been watching from the sidelines and have been blown away by what you are all achieving.

Since June I have bought 5 buy-to-let properties and am in the process of setting up a new e-business with Nicola’s help which I hope to launch in the New Year - watch this space!

The purpose of all my frantic activity is to raise £1 million for Oxfam - I am hoping that all the hard work I have put in over the last six months will eventually bear fruit but at the moment it is a case of keeping my head down and getting on with achieving my goal.

In November I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Malawi for a week and visit the Oxfam project which my company

www.thelanguagefactory.co.uk

is helping to fund there.

This trip has made me even more convinced that raising money is the right thing for me to do at the moment. I hope to write a blog about my trip soon ….

My hopes for next year are to hopefully not work quite as hard and to participate in more Money Gym events and get to know everyone in the group better. You are all so inspiring - I’m sure hearing your stories will spur me on to achieve more…

Wishing everyone a hugely successful 2008, With best wishes, Shona Lockhart

www.thelanguagefactory.co.uk

Marion Ryan, Money Gym coach wrote: Hi Diane > > Wonderful email. We all love hearing about others’ successes and > these often spur us on to greater things ourselves - at the very > least, they increase our belief that actually, we can do it too (if we > just take some action of course…)

It’s important we feel we can also share our challenges, as you’ve > done, and > look for the vein of gold, the insight and learning they give us. > Thanks for this. > >

I totally agree about gratitude. Whatever we aspire to be, do and > have in 2008, take time every day to give thanks for what we already have. ……I never stop relishing what I have already.

I wasn’t always such a paragon of grateful virtue but having returned to EFT this year with Judith and Ann Ross, the tapping, the gratitude journal and daily scripting have all sky-rocketed my noticing the abundance in my life.

Favourite charities? I don’t really mind. Anything that targets children, > old people, the homeless, elderly donkeys etc. > >

All the best now and for 2008.

Marion x

Marion Ryan, Money Gym Coach

And Claire Westwood (HappyNurses) said:  I sponsor 2 children and even though I have been pretty skint over the years…..I still have far more than Amanda in Peru and Estery in Malawi. Health, education, clean water, music, electricity, heating, and a safe place in the universe to live.

They still find the time to write me letters and send cards. I was shocked this year to get a photo of Amanda as a lovely young woman, When I started sponsoring her she was a little girl!

I intend to use my happynurses fortune to help children’s health projects - thus going back to my professional roots, as a paediatric nurse, but making a massive difference to nurses and then to sick children…….makes me teary thinking about it.

Can’t think of a better life purpose, meself……..Must go and get new members…..

Claire

http://www.HappyNurses.co.uk

And Yvonne Halling says:  I also sponsor a little girl in Senegal. She’s only 4 and I have a picture of her and her beautiful mother on my wall in my office. I too want to use my

www.WellHeeledDivas.com

fortune to inspire and empower young girls globally.

You can’t help anyone until you’ve helped yourself. And I am helping myself. This year, I’m proud to say that in the space of 6 months I bought two properties, doubled my net worth, brought in £100,000 in extra income (through property deals) and started the Well Heeled Divas business.

I’ve only been with the Money Gym since September (on Gold Express because I’m FAST!) and don’t really know anyone very well. I did come to the Women Talk Money workshop in October and that was great.

I love getting all the emails on the google groups and hearing about what everyone’s doing. It’s a fantastic network of support, knowledge and experience freely shared among us.

We’ve had a very up and down year - now correcting so many mistakes of the past!!!!!!! However, I’m forever optimistic. 2008 is going to be my year, I’ve decided. There are so many things I want to learn. I took a lot of action in 2007 but the best is yet to come.

Thank you to all of you who write about yourselves (note to self… must get better at that) it’s really inspirational, and I look forward to getting more involved with The Money Gym next year.

Have a good one!!
Lots of love Yvonne

www.wellheeleddivas.com

Nicola says: Heartwarming stuff isn’t it? 

Judith is waiting to hear your story and to hear who you would love to help!

Only three or four slots left in her diary before Christmas and the bonuses disappear for ever…..

Just email judith@themoneygym.com with three days and times you can talk

Happy Chickens to you!

Nicola

Ricky’s pitching the Dragon’s for money for his Christmas Special - this is very funny!

For some odd reason, the embedding function is disabled so click here to watch this great clip >>>>

Ann Harrison posted this video on her blog Contemporary Retirement and I just had to show you guys!

(Sent to the private Money Gym google group)

Dear All, Debbie here………I just wanted to let you know that it’s now official, and further to my email a few weeks ago, Lorraine Armstrong (who you’ll have come across in this group) is the proud owner of Share the Dream - www.sharethedream.net

(This is just one of the online companies that I created after attending the Money Gym Internet workshop)

Claire (my business partner) and I are going to be working with Lorraine initially to help her get to grips with owning and running an internet business but from the time we’ve had together so far, I just know that Lorraine is going to take the site to where we always wanted it to be, but just didn’t have the time to do!

If any of you want to conatct Lorraine in connection with ideas, opportunities, her email address is lorraine@sharethedream.net and also reciprocal links as well as the site has it’s own advertising directory now.

A huge thank you to all of you who expressed an interest in the site and and if I can be of any help in the future in other ways, you know I’m always there.

Also, what a fab example for the Money Gym Google forum - not only can it pass on and share so much knowledge, it also connects us in other ways!

Best wishes
Debs x

www.debbiebissett.com
www.invigoraterecruitment.co.uk

*****************************************************

Hi Everyone,

Following on from Debbie’s announcement about Share the Dream.

6 months ago it would have been inconceivable that I would buy an internet business.  No way, I would have been too scared.  Everything that I didn’t know would have been the only excuse I needed, not to pick up the phone or send an email.

This group, The Money Gym gang, the kindness, the sharing, the love.  Inspires people like me to take action.  To begin to think "I might be able to do that"  I think that’s because everyone who posts on this forum or shares their stories on The Money Gym just tells their story, warts and all.

I really want to thank you all for having such huge hearts, for caring enough.

My mostest special thanks to Judith Morgan and Marion Ryan, your hearts are so big how do you fit them in your bodies??

I’m off to get to grips with a ‘Back Office’ and would you believe I can actually upload a photograph into someone’s account.  AWESOME!

much love

Lorraine

*************************************************************

Dear Lorraine

Now I know why I’ve gone up two sizes this year - to fit my big heart in my body!

I’m excited and thrilled for you and Debbie, looks like you’ve both got what you wanted.

What is most inspiring about the stories from you, Claire C and other MG members is that you are demonstrating the biggest magic of all.  If you just GET INTO ACTION amazing things happen.  And everyone can do that!

Love, hugs and blessings to all of you, especially you, Lorraine

Marion x

Marion Ryan
Money Gym Coach
http://www.themoneygymclub.com/articles/20070317_13

It’s been a busy week and I must confess that I’m feeling a little stressed about the whole Christmas thing (although Steve quite rightly can’t understand why, as he’s organising most of it!!)

I have a huge resistance to shopping generally – except on holiday funny enough - and I find that the very thought of Christmas shopping, and going shopping with my kids for their shopping now, makes me feel physically ill. 

I’m fine once I get out of the house and get going, but I’m sitting here now and I know I have to go later and I’m hating the thought! So why don’t’ I shop online?  Because the resistance stops me even thinking about Christmas till the last week and that’s too late for online deliveries although there has been a steady stream of postie deliveries to Steve’s office.

Once I go downstairs and make a list, I’m sure I will feel better and this year I have even less people to buy for, as most of my friends kids are teenagers who prefer money to some dodgy present, which makes things simpler.

What’s going on with that?

This is the busiest time of the year for new Money Gym clients signing up for a January start and you can’t have missed the fact that I’m sending out daily emails with inspirational stories of what clients have achieved in 2007. 

I’m mixing that up with a new positive take on the “12 Deadly Reasons” report I wrote in the summer – our copywriter Alan Forrest-Smith had a heart attack when he saw that.  Not good apparently, to tell people why they will never get rich!  So I’m coming at it fresh, and re-framing the reasons as challenges on the Hero’s Journey to Wealth, updating them with the things I have learned in the last few months and I’m enjoying it enormously.  Talking of whom, Alan has just 8 places left for his DYNAMITE copywriting course in February - highly recommended!

Find out more at http://www.OrangeBeetle.com/nextlevel

The private Google group is getting livelier and livelier, with Silver, Gold and ex-Platinum members sharing their challenges and achievements for 2007, which is giving me so much testimonial and case study fodder, it’s amazing.

I would like to get to the stage where we have a steady trickle of new clients, instead of going on these twice yearly recruitment drives which I think is adding to my Christmas stress levels!  I think our regular programme of events next year, with four Let’s Talk Money days (www.TheMoneyGym.com/LetsTalkMoney ) and the ten plus Money Gym Presents……” days (www.TheMoneyGym.com/MGPresents ) and the four Women Talk Money workshops (www.TheMoneyGym.com/WomenTalkMoney ) - that will definitely add a stream of new Gold / Gold Express clients.

I’m so pleased with the way that Judith and I are working as a team, with Steve now.  We did have a concern that two such similar people (I’m a Star/Creator and Judith is a Creator/Star, in Wealth Dynamics terms) would be trying to do the same things in the business, but I’m funnelling my creativity into writing and product creation, while Judith is channelling hers into the live events side – which she loves.  Get your wealth dynamics profile done from the link on our blog to the right there >>>>>

I haven’t really told her this yet but I’m thrilled to be working with someone who is driving the Money Gym forward with such passion and enthusiasm for the future.  And none of this could happen without Steve our Lord/Accumulator, who organises us, keeps our feet on the ground, takes care of all the techie stuff and troubleshoots everything.

This last year has been all about passion, mission and focus for me and for the Money Gym and as a many times failed entrepreneur who has mostly been about being self employed rather than building a business, I now feel that the Money Gym is well on it’s way to becoming a “grown up business”.  It feels weird but good to know just what I’m going to be doing for the next couple of years.

The New Year is going to be about growing the traffic to the sites, filling the funnel with potential future customers, tracking results and tweaking and refining.  I have finally found a search engine optimisation genius called Lance via Tamkin Riaz, the lovely man!  He’s been testing to show me what he can do, and he’s tripled our traffic.

I know I keep banging on about him but rich schefren’s coaching programme has been incredibly instrumental in the changes in my business strategic thinking and if you are in business, you really must get on his mailing list to get in on an even more affordable version of the same programme I’m on.  Download his latest excellent business report for fr*ee here  >>>>
viralurl.com/moneygym/Rich-Schefren-AttentionAge">http://viralurl.com/moneygym/Rich-Schefren-AttentionAge

One of the Christmas presents I’m most looking forward to is the new DVD box set that came out of the first internet marketing orientated reality TV show, about taking 12 internet newbies and putting them in a secret classroom and wheeling in the big dogs, like Rich Shefren, and Jeff Walker, and Armand Morin, and teaching them how to make money online in 12 weeks.  Like the Apprentice but for internet marketing.  I’ve got the book coming "Cubicle Slave To Internet Millionaire", the one written by Jaime Luchuk, the winner too, so I’ll be banging on about that after Christmas I’m sure.

We are off out on Wednesday evening with Sarah, my sister, and Greg and Andy from Passive Investments (http://www.AskNicolaCairncross.com/Recommends/Passive )  We haven’t seen them for AGES even though they are just up the road, but they are SO BUSY at the moment. 

My other sister Heather has just had her second property offered to her by Passive so she’s thrilled and excited.  Her property portfolio is growing like mad and she’s just trying to decide what to do with her flat in Hove.  Rent it out again, move back into it now she’s nearly finished doing up her fisherman’s cottage in Shoreham and rent that out, or refinance and do it up a bit, then rent it out or sell it and buy lots of smaller flats.  Choices, choices!

Talking of Heather, I went to the Hare & Hounds Live Jazz Night with H last Tuesday, and I think I will go again this week.  I actually left home originally to go and activate my David Lloyd “12 days for £25 Trial” but I particularly want to be able to go in between Christmas and the New Year so it can’t start till the 22nd.  I started out with good intentions but ended up in the pub – typical!  A rum bunch you get for the jazz but it’s full and very lively.

This was after inspecting H’s new Worm Farm.  Ingenius.

No, it’s no good, I am wittering now, as Steve calls it.  I have to finish now and GO SHOPPING!

Have fun, I’m sure I will once I get going.

Nicola

I’m guessing that, because you are reading this, you are interested in improving your finances.

Drastically!

I’m also guessing that you are pretty interested in finding out why you are not getting there as quickly as you perhaps would like…..am I right?

Why is that? 

I believe that it’s because, not only do we NOT know what works, but we also don’t know what we don’t know.  So it follows that if there is something out there that works, we might not believe it, because we don’t know about it.

And if we don’t know something, and we don’t even know that we don’t know it or that it exists, we are not going to go looking for it.

More importantly, if we don’t know what does work, we most probably don’t know what doesn’t work!  So most of us just keep doing what doesn’t work, rather than seeking out and then doing what does work. 

After all, you only know what works…… when it works;  discovering what doesn’t work is a long, slow painful process and it might put you in a frame of mind that is discouraged and cynical, and you will probably give up looking.

And if you got through all that, and understood what I was trying to say, well done!

I’m a very positive person normally.  Positivity is defined as …..

[Read more →]

One of my internet marketing mentoring clients is coming on leaps and bounds with her designer and hand-made jewellery website and blog.  We are aware that the americans spell it differently to us, so we must make sure and include both keywords.  She has found some AMAZING designers, one of which is Jane Adams.  I will let you know when the site goes live, but in the meantime, check these silver bangles out!

"Oooh, look Mummy! There’s one of those Mega-Buses!" says Nelson excitedly this morning. 

"What’s a mega-bus, darling?" I reply absent mindedly, trying to get out onto a very busy roundabout before said mega bus blocks my exit route…..mad rainy school run, you see!

"Don’t you know, Mummy?!!!!  You can travel anywhere in the country for just £1"

"Really darling?  How marvellous!"

"Yes, I think so.  I will use it when I next need to run away from home" he says, secure in the knowledge that he will always have £1 tucked away. 

Eeeeeekkkkk!

Here’s the info though, and what fun?!!

New Low-Cost Internet Bus Travel for £1

The UK’s first low-cost internet bus service was launched nationwide today (Wednesday), allowing passengers to use the state-of-the-art service to travel between major cities from just £1.

megabus.com, Stagecoach’s low-cost bus service, will roll out a new network of routes next month linking London with a dozen cities in England and Wales.

From today (Wednesday) passengers can use the online booking service at www.megabus.com. The first journeys, using high-capacity double decker buses, will run from Monday 1 March 2007.

Trials of the ground-breaking service, based on the same concept as the low-cost airlines, have shown an appeal to a wide audience, including students, commuters, families and “silver surfers” - the over 55s market who use the internet.

Tickets can be purchased for the following new megabus.com routes:

• Birmingham-London
• Plymouth-Exeter-London
• Swansea-Cardiff-London
• Bristol-London
• Bournemouth-London
• Southampton-London
• Portsmouth-London
• Brighton-London

The massive expansion across the UK is in response to megabus.com’s huge success since the first trials were launched in August 2003, with passenger numbers now approaching 200,000.

A pilot scheme was rolled out across Scotland and several English cities, including Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, with exceptional results.

Brian Souter, Chief Executive of Stagecoach Group, said: “www.megabus.com is one of the biggest changes to bus travel in decades. It is simple to use and will make inter-city bus travel affordable for everyone. We think it has the potential to transform the demand for medium-distance bus travel in the same way the low-cost operators have done in the airline industry.”

Stagecoach has developed megabus.com by adapting the low-cost, no-frills approach of the budget airlines. Seats on the web-based ticketless service are yield managed in the same way as the budget airlines, with slightly higher fares for last-minute bookings or popular journeys. All reservations are subject to a 50p booking fee.

Around 400,000 hits have been registered on www.megabus.com during the trial and there is an average of one booking for every three visits, an extremely high hit-rate for such services.

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Steve Stewart, Head of Media and Public Affairs, Stagecoach Group, tel 01738 442111 or 07764 774680.

I didn’t realise it but there is a big problem with people clicking on your affiliate links but then inserting their own affiliate code into YOUR referral.   

Some affliate links are more difficult to crack than others, but as someone who never has time to cloak my links, I have wondered why I have NEVER earned anything from Clickbank recommendations. 

Well all that has ended now, because I have found a BRILLIANT tool that not only cloaks my links, but builds a mailing list virally too!  (I’m mad about viralurl.com/moneygym/MVS3">viral list building at the moment as you may have noticed and it was viralurl.com/moneygym/MVS3">Tim Brocklehurst who alerted me to the this great new tool!)

Not only does it cloak your affiliate links, it organises them in one place, so you can access them from anywhere in the world, in one place.

You can try it out for free, but the Gold level allows you to email 3,000 of their members every single month, and your ads get shown at the top of the toolbar on a rotating basis.  Very cool indeed!