Grace Sims has always had a passion for fashion and design. “It was either fashion design or a career in doing chemistry work,” Grace says, regarding choosing which career path to take. “But I couldn’t see myself working as a lab rat until I’m 70 years old. I would rather retire young, and have my name well known everywhere internationally.”

That decision is what motivated her to start g82 designs, a company that provides custom designed clothing and helps host a series of fashion and beauty events throughout the U.S. She launched the company January of this year, and recently took part in a fashion event in San Francisco called “Fashion Fights Aids.”

“Monica Foronda/Photo Credit Javier Padilla”

“The purpose of these events is for me to get my name and company out there, to meet people and network. A few of my future events, like Fashion Saves the Booty in March of 2011, are for supporting causes like colon cancer.”

What has caused Grace’s company to already be taking part in several fashion projects? She says that it was from the use of social media sites like Facebook, word of mouth, and networking face to face is what has allowed her to obtain more clients, business resources, and partners who are willing to work with her. Grace believes that through building relationships with people in your industry you’ll discover new opportunities that will help grow your business.

“Social media has really helped me out a lot. I use it not as a friend network, but I do put a personal touch to the content that I post. That alone gets more people to like me and learn more about me and my company.”

How Grace obtains new clients is through one on one consultations, which allows her to learn more about the people she meets. “Meeting people in person inspires me,” she said. She knows that there’s nothing like face-to-face interaction. It allows her to provide the right colors, style and size of the clothes she designs based on the type of person they are.

Grace’s biggest projects she has going on currently are a VJ spokes model event with business partner Jasmine Lee of JL Image, World Web Talent with parent company Kim Yoobi Com, and Fashion Saves the Booty with event coordinator Misha Andreasen.

For more information about Grace, her company and future events, visit www.g82designs.com or contact her at 916-509-2949.

When you look at the big corporations like Sony, Microsoft, Warner Bros., or Apple, one can only wonder how they have become globally successful today. They all have their own innovative line of products or services that consumers can’t wait to get their hands on. They may have the big budgets to create massive marketing campaigns, but they still do what they’ve done before they got big, they form alliances with other businesses.

Sony, for example, partnered up with IBM and Toshiba to research and develop the cell processor, which is the powerhouse of their Playstation 3 consoles. Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating systems are installed and run in PC’s made by several manufacturers like Compaq, Sony, and Dell. In a recent Volvo commercial, they used the movie Twilight Eclipse in the front end to promote their car, knowing the Twilight was a huge success in the box office.

The reason big corporations are able to create innovative products and saturate the market with their marketing campaigns is because they know the power of partnering up with other companies. Small businesses need to also take full grasp of this method of business building. It’s never a good idea to be a lone wolf in business.

Finding the right companies to ally with will involve you taking part in networking events, networking groups, or through researching the Internet or through newspapers and magazines.

Partnerships doesn’t mean you have to merge your business with another, but it means you can ally with companies to develop and implement marketing campaigns, or offer bundle packages and split the money between camps. Partnerships can save you a lot of money, time and can lead to your business reaching growth at a faster rate than it would if you were on your own.

Can you imagine how many small businesses would be successful if they formed alliances with other companies? The possibilities are pretty endless. Be creative and have fun with it. Share ideas and always be open to feedback and suggestions from other businesses you ally with. You’ll be surprised of what you can learn from other people of other companies.

For the week of April 19^th through the 23^rd there will be several conference calls and a webinar discussing more about Qivana and how this is one of the greatest opportunities where you can make supplemental income fast.  We’re achieving great success and several people have reached in rank and profit fast. For people looking for business opportunities, don’t hesitate to check it out. Below are the following calls and webinars:

MONDAY … TODAY! New Millionaires Team Special Recruiting Call

3pm Hawaii / 6pm PST / 9pm EST, 712-432-7500 Pincode: 12834#

Special Guest Presenters : Angel Lee / Jerry Campisi / James Smith  Kevin Reynolds / Jeff Johnson/David Freier / Chikako Takahashi

Tuesday & Thursday Qivana Recruiting Call- Qivana business overview.

3pm Hawaii / 6pm PST / 9pm EST, 712-432-7500 Pincode: 12834#

Qivana Wednesday Webinar

3pm Hawaii / 6pm PST / 9pm EST, www.QteamTV.com

Or you can listen to this presentation on the phone as well … 712-432-7500 Pincode: 12834#

For anyone who is taking part in one of these calls or the webinar you can message me at sheldon.marketing@yahoo.com to let me know that you’re taking part in the call. I would like to talk to anyone who takes part in a conference call after the call, so sending me your name and phone number would also be great. I hope to hear from anyone involved in the call.

There’s going to come times where you’ll have so much information about a prospect or client that you need to find a way to keep track of them. You can use a address book, but it can only hold so much information about a person’s lifestyle. A notepad could work, but sometimes you have a hard time managing the notes you’ve written about someone.

If you’re not familiar with Customer Relationship Management software you definitely should.  It’s software that companies use to customer information regarding anything from the last time they called, what the call was about, the last order they made, what hobbies they have, etc. Most companies use it to track customer info. But if you want to think outside the box, you should also use it to track industry information and articles you find.

Though you want to know about your MLM company, it’s compensation plan, its products and the support, you also want to be able to know what’s going on in the MLM industry.  If you can, research once every two weeks on what’s going on in the MLM industry. You maybe able to find important articles regarding other’s prospect’s MLM companies they are a part that they aren’t aware about. Or you can find a good article on how MLM is a great industry to be a part of to make money for funding towards businesses or schooling. You can show those items to prospects you meet locally or online. Think of the value you can bring.

CRM software can be used as a research hub to gather your information you have. Besides researching industry information, you can also research important people you like to connect to sell your products to or bring into your company in the future. The data you should gather of people include the person’s name, address, phone number, e-mail, website information (if they have one), work experience (including information based on the companies and industries they’ve worked in), hobbies, political and religious affiliations, birthdays, anniversaries, donations, favorite sports teams, and more.

The more information you have on prospects, the more comfortable you’ll be in talking to them, and the more they’ll be comfortable in talking to you and hearing more of what you have to offer. To find out information on prospects, just ask. Or if you’re online prospecting, read their profile information. If there are particular things about them you see of interest, ask that in a message to them. You want to keep track at all times of people you meet and connect to. You’ll remember who they are, what they do, and how much closer they are in being sold on your primary opportunity.

I just came upon this site recently when researching some good MLM articles. This site is called the Distributor Rights Association, an organization that’s devoted to help distributors and independent contractors succeed in MLM and when doing business with other companies.

In October of last year the organization held a Distributor Rights Convention in Las Vegas that offered training on various topics, including the domination of social media and how to best exploit that method of marketing to optimize financial results. By checking out their webpage, you’ll find out the positive testimonials from the people who attended that convention. DRA knows the powerful methods of marketing that network marketers should use today, and is willing to teach those that are a part of their organization to best implement them for maximum results.

In general, the DRA wants to teach network marketers and contractors their rights and how to stay protected in business. Although there is a lot of income potential in network marketing, it doesn’t come without its downsides. Depending on what network marketing company you’re a part of, you can fall victim to a lot of different things, including the company’s option to terminate you at anytime or the company’s option to take your pay at anytime. To find out more on any network marketing company beyond just its line of products and compensation plan, ask for the company’s policies and procedures from any MLM recruiter or your upline and read it thoroughly.

From looking at the DRA benefits, you will know the laws in MLM, which they update regularly.  Learning the legal aspect of business is very important and often overlooked. You’ll also get updates on training and the chance to form true relationships with other distributors. What you will also get, most importantly, is a chance for you to be hear. DRA encourages people to be the voice of the future of MLM, and to be a leader of the MLM industry.

For more information on the Distributor Rights Association, visit www.mlm-dra.org.

For about a couple years now I have been subscribed to several different newsletters and blogs dealing with email marketing, social media, advertising strategies, Internet marketing strategies, target marketing, and more. The reason being is that you cannot learn everything on your own. You need to educate yourself from listening to and reading from the people who are experienced and have seen results.

One particular marketing company I follow is Marketing Sherpa. They have solid content every time. They send out newsletters with topics regarding viral marketing, email marketing strategies, marketing automation, advertising strategies, lead generation, and more. One area of marketing tips I read from them the most is on Social Media. I use Facebook, Twitter and sometimes LinkedIn. And normally their social media strategies revolve around using Twitter and Facebook mainly. The reason being is because both of these social media websites are very popular and very effective to use for any business, whether it’s a small business, network marketing business, or even a large business.

Another great thing about Marketing Sherpa’s content is that they provide step by step instructions on how other people and companies have managed to achieve a certain goal. An example of that is: “How Sony used Twitter to Increase Traffic to Their Site by 300%: 5 Steps.” That one was just an sample headline. Here’s a real one I found: “InTuit’s Online Ad Boosts Twitter Followers by 69%: 4 Steps.” It’s kind of like statements from other companies saying “I managed to get these results this way. Here’s how you can do it too.”

Lastly, the content they provide can apply to any business whether they have the funds or are just starting off. You don’t need a whole lot of money to market yourself, your products or your services. You mainly need creativity and knowledge on how to convey your message to your target market. Once you do that and use the marketing methods you want to use, whether it’s social media like Facebook and Twitter, email marketing or advertising, it’s very easy to generate a massive amount of traffic, generate several leads, and convert them into loyal customers or clients.

This is the type of content you’ll find from being a part of Marketing Sherpa’s email newsletter. And from reading the articles they have, you’ll be able to use those same low cost tactics to achieve the main goal, generate profits. If you like to find out more on what they offer, and to sign up for their email newsletter, click here to visit their website.