Tony and I recently attended the Business Swap National Convention in beautiful Coff’s Harbour. Amongst other things at the start of the Convention we were presented with a Convention Survival Kit! which consisted of the following items:

A Battery: so you can keep going & going

A Mint: so you will always have a fresh outlook

A Rubber Band: to remind yourself to stretch beyond your limits

A Paperclip: to help you hold everything together

Chalk: to chalk up another goal

Starburst: for a burst of energy

A Lemon Drop: to remind you that “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade”

Nuts: to remind you to get a little nutty

Glitter: to sparkle all night long

Berocca: to give you back your Bounce

Ribbon: to remind you that friendship ties our hearts together

A Mars Bar: to remind you to work, rest & play!

Stars: to remind you that you are among stars

A Crayon: to remind you to let the child in you be seen

Trina Panormo
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

We thought you should know - An important New Chakra has been discovered!

Scientists have found that all our problems can be placed under one heading: ‘Seriousness.’

Seriousness is the leading cause of everything from Cancer to Reincarnation.

Scientists have already discovered a new source of healing this condition.

It is a psychic energy point located between the heart chakra and the throat chakra.

It is called the Clown Chakra.

If people are feeling miserable, if they have financial problems, if their relationship situation is the pits, if they’re in ill health, if they have a need to sue people, if they find fault with their brother, then obviously their Clown Chakra is closed.

When this happens, the scientists have observed under a high-powered microscope that the cells of every organ display a sad face, and when the Clown Chakra is open and functioning normally, the cells display a happy face.

The scientists realised that if a person is ill, it is because his mind has projected guilt onto the cells of his body and has forced out the love that is normally found within each cell of the body. The cells are therefore saying, “I Lack Love,” or “ILL” for short.

The scientists also discovered that all disease is due to the fact that the cells are out of ease or dis-eased.

When the Clown Chakra is opened and working (or rather, playing) properly, the psychic mechanism sucks up misery, pain, anger, resentment, grievances, unhappiness, etc., and converts the energy into tiny red heart-shaped balloons.

The red heart-shaped balloons contain Love and Joy. These balloons are directed to the dis-eased cell or situation, and a happy face appears instantly. When the light enters the darkness, the darkness is gone. Sometimes these red heart-shaped balloons are called endorphins, due to the fact that when anyone experiences them, the feeling of separation ends.

They experience being back home with All That Is.

Hence they are no longer an orphan. This is the well-known end-orphan effect.

So, if you think someone is attacking you, Clown Scientists recommend that you visualise sending that person red heart-shaped balloons filled with Love ad Joy.

Remember to always keep your Clown Chakra open… and remember to keep laughing.

Beware! Seriousness causes reincarnation.

Author unknown.

Have Fun

Trina Panormo
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

We have just returned from an incredible business networking conference and feel pumped to explore what we can achieve with our new found enthusiasm. Sometimes it helps to get a refresher and hang around 150 of your closest friends…Well highly motivated and ecouraging people anyway!

The venue was fantastic and the resort staff were second to none! They looked after our every need and even joined in the fun. The Opal Cove resort in Coffs Harbour is a must if you are ever considering a conference. We would finish one of our many seminar sessions to be greeted with views like the picture above. Seeing the whales playing off the coast just made the whole experience just a little more special.

One of the sayings that resonated with me was “If you’re not living on the edge, You’re taking up too much space”

I have always been a huge fan of business networking clubs and getting the chance to mix with people from all over the country in such a supportive and motivating environment is all the reason for going to conferences for me. I’m already signed up for next years!

Become part of something and join a group of people heading in the right direction!

Tony Longbottom
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

What has four legs but can’t walk?
A table!

Why did the turtle cross the road?
To get to the Shell station!

What did the ground say to the earthquake?
You crack me up!

What do you get when you cross a cow and a duck?
Milk and quackers!

Why did the elephant eat the candle?
He wanted a light snack!

Tony Longbottom
www.journeytowealthclub.com

Buy a NEW Car now!!

Now may be a good time to purchase that new car! With the fall in the Aussie dollar, Very Soon, it may cost you as much as 60% more for the same model a month ago.

When speaking to an importer friend today, If he spent US$10,000 on goods it cost him approx $300 extra based on the AUS conversion, The same purchase today would cost over $16000. That’s a huge difference for exactly the same items.

Choosing the time of spend on anything is critical, but none more so than now. The good news is, all exports now appear very attractive.

Tony Longbottom
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

In business, managing our cashflow is key, so check out these great tips for doing just that, provided by business and financial expert Ben Fewtrell:
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Cash Flow Woes…

By Ben Fewtrell

Recently I was presenting to a group of business owners about understanding business financials, after I had stated that you can go broke making a profit, an audience member challenged me and asked how it is possible. So I thought it would be a good idea to cover the topic in this issue.

Firstly, we need to understand the basic fundamentals of business. You need to sell a product or service, and make a profit. A business is a ‘commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you’. You have probably heard the saying ‘Profit is king’ and also that ‘Cash flow is king’, so which one is true?

Well both are, here is a simple formula for business failure – No Profit x No Cash flow = No Business. To succeed in business you need to make sure you are making a profit and you also maintain a healthy, positive cash flow.

Secondly, we need to understand what going ‘broke’ means. In business being ‘broke’ is known as being ‘insolvent’. There are several definitions for this, here are some definitions I found after I Googled the term; ‘Not having sufficient financial resources to meet financial obligations’, ‘When liabilities are greater than assets’, ‘When a company cannot pay its debts when they are due’. Basically, when you can no longer pay your debts, you are insolvent!

Finally, you need to understand that some things you pay for end up on your ‘profit and loss’ statement and others end up on your ‘balance sheet’. An expense like rent will be entered as an expense on your profit and loss statement, but when you buy equipment that will last you several years, it gets entered as an ‘asset’ on your balance sheet, then each year you will claim depreciation as an expense, and if you took a loan out to buy the equipment, the loan will be entered as a ‘liability’ on your balance sheet. I’ll kick off with a simple example to make sure understand the concept.

Let’s say you own a coffee shop, and your fixed costs (rent, wages, electricity etc.) are $2000 per week, and you have a 50% gross profit margin (this is calculated by deducting your cost of sales from the sales amount). In this example you need $4000 in sales to ‘break even’, that is, pay your fixed costs of $2000 and the $2000 cost of getting the sales, your profit is zero. What if you were also repaying a loan for buying the business, the only part of this that will show on your profit and loss is the interest on the loan, the rest of the payment is reducing your liability on the balance sheet. All of a sudden, you are in a negative cash flow situation.

So how do you make sure you do not follow the many that have already mistakenly gone broke, whilst making a profit? The simplest way is to make sure you manage your money well, it is one of the resources you must have control of, or you may end up in trouble.

Here are some ways to make sure you manage to keep your cash flow positive…

* You need to have a cash flow forecast for at least 3 months in advance, this way you can identify problems before they occur.

* If you have customers that have ‘accounts’ with you, make sure you collect your money by the due date, don’t let customers drag out their payments to 60, 90 or even 120 days. You can even make special offers to customers that pay quickly. Sometimes it may be worthwhile considering ‘factoring’ your debts if your clients have a valid reason for taking a long time to pay.

* If possible, get your clients to pay a deposit upfront.

* Reduce your stock turn, this way you can make sure you are selling your stock before you have to pay your suppliers for it.

* Negotiate longer payment terms with your suppliers.

* Keep your costs to a minimum; avoid wasting money on things that are not necessary.

* Set a budget, and stick to it!

* Never borrow money just to ‘get out of trouble’, in most cases I have seen, this just makes the situation worse!

I would suggest that if numbers is not your strong point; get your bookkeeper or accountant to help you. Finally, if you do end up in situation where you cannot pay your bill(s), talk to your creditor(s) and make an arrangement, most people will understand and will let you pay it off, and if this fails you might need to get some professional help.
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I hope you found these tips useful for you and your business
Wishing you fantastic financial success!

Until next time…

Trina Panormo
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

Some more fantastic quotes to share with you - Enjoy!

Happiness Quotes

‘When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us’
- Helen Keller

‘Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities’
- Aristotle

‘Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul’
- Democritus

In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.
Albert Schweitzer

‘Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities’
- Aldous Huxley

‘There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you’
- David Burns, Intimate Connections

‘The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitessimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling’
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I hope you enjoyed these quotes

Trina Panormo
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

Motivate Yourself Now!

We all need a little inspiring every now and then. There are many ways of achieving this. One method that has worked for many people is using visual and auditory stimulation. With this in mind, I have found a little video to help in this task.

Watch it before you go to bed and maybe before you start the day. Give it a go and see how it works for you.

Tony Longbottom
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

Employee Mindset

In the last 12 months I have been involved in a business that has seen the recruitment of many people coming from the traditional 9 to 5 employee life that now throws them into deep end of being a business owner.

There are the obvious normal challenges of setting up a company, learning accounting principles, book keeping and many other everyday business practices, but the one thing that is more important than all of that is the thought process or mindset that is needed to be a business owner compared to that of an employee.

As an employee, there is comfort in the fact that you will start and finish your day at the same time, get a regular income that is paid every week/fortnight, will have someone else that you can refer difficult decisions to and then at the end of the day go home and think very little about the success or failure of the business. Ok, so this may be an overly simplistic view but it makes a point.

As a business owner, the success or failure is largely in your hands. You have to make the difficult decisions, it is rarely a 9 to 5 only occupation and when you first start out, you are probably wearing many hats from sales to admin and even the cleaner.

The most obvious thing that I have noticed is the mindset of the new business owner. In a lot of cases they don’t understand that there isn’t someone else to hand the responsibility to. If the new business owner doesn’t take action then it’s not going to happen!

If you are thinking of going into business ownership, then consider if you have the mindset of an employee or the owner. Are you the sort of person who says, “No matter what, it’s my responsibility” or do you like not having to make the difficult decisions and hand it over to someone else?

If you have the desire to succeed, then owning your own business can be very lucrative, just be prepared for the effort required.

Learn more about BUSINESS PLANNING for profit

Tony Longbottom
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com

Another Inspirational Video - this one focussed on Leadership. I simply love these short videos that give me a boost of motivation and energy, and I know that this will have a positive impact on you too.

I highly recommend taking a short time out of your day to view this one. Be inspired to step up and become the Leader that you truly are:

Have fun achieving your dreams…

Trina Panormo
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com