Bluebird is soaring!

Almost finished with my "24 Hours to Zero Down Marketing" strategy guide. Imagine I finished the last of it with kids in the house during spring break! I have sent it by a few people and the love it! I really hope it helps small businesses and entrepreneurs quickly put together a viable strategy that allows them the focus on marketing that every business needs. I threw in a little about getting TV and Radio for their website of course from Planetary Streams. KPower Strategies is my company, Planetary Streams is my best "friendeses" company – my best girlfriend and her husband and my best husband own it and well it provides as awesome resource for website communication!-Happy Day for me! Love checking major items off of my "To Do" list. This has been on that list quite a while. People have been asking for it for years. Well here you go . . . look for it to be up on ready on the May 1!

Bluebird sings on Technorati!

How cool am I? I now have a blog on Technorati! See Wendy Piersall you'll make believers of us yet! <a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&amp;add=http://kpowerstrategies.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a>

Bluebird wants out of the mud!

It was the day after we had to close the business and blatant reality was dark. Winter was turning slowly to spring and by that I mean the 8 foot wall of grey ice next to our driveway was finally melting. I had read every power of positive thinking book out there and some twice while trying to convince myself that there was a silver lining. I kept asking myself why I had failed. All comparisons to Edison's 8,000 light bulb tries failed to cheer me up. I was supposed to be successful. I had watched others succeed and had confidentially joked with them that I would invite them to my castle in Ireland someday. Now, someday seemed to be never ever day. What had I missed? The answer would not come and the reality of failure was painful. I decided to go for a walk. After all I had no business to claim my time and nothing else to do. I was walking along taking in the beauty of the mountains trying to feel something, and looking at the positive side that I at least had time to take a walk finally, when as if pushed hard from behind I fell into the post-snow thaw mud. I just laid there wondering why I should get up. I laid there face down stuck in the mud and cried and cried. When I was finished feeling sorry for myself and grieving my lost business I suddenly knew, I knew why I had failed. I knew the one strategy of success we had neglected which had caused the failure and it was embarrassing. We had a good product/service but it all had come down not doing this one thing. I had gotten so busy that I had forgotten, put off, not placed the importance into "marketing" my product/service. How many years had I wasted in doing the efforts of business only to find at the end that my product/service was worthless when not sold into the hands of consumers? If consumers did not know about my product then I wasn't selling and if my product wasn't selling than I did not have a business. Like, I thought, as I started extricating myself from the tear and snow laden mud, me, no business.

What an idiot I am, I thought as I sat up. I have years of award-winning marketing experience and I, the self-professed marketing guru even failed. What about my colleagues who had less knowledge and experience? I thought of my many entrepreneur friends and the advice I had given them. Had I followed that same advice myself? And, why hadn't I? No money and no time for marketing popped into my head before I could stop it. I knew better! Aside from being mud-caked I was embarrassed and mad. And right there in the mud it hit me. I knew exactly what we could have done right. I knew exactly how I could have been a million billionaire. And I knew exactly what I should have shared and shown by example to my entrepreneur friends. Really it was like that, startling and immediate, like sun rays filling my mud soaked soul. I got up, hobbled home, threw my clothes in the rubbish (I could because I knew now that I would be a success and could buy new clothes) and sat down and wrote an outline. Why not? I had the answer to make any company rich and successful. I wrote it, I applied it and within one week I was bringing in money again and selling my new business product/service. I was making money because my product/service was in the hands of customers. When it worked and worked fast and well, I decided I needed to make up for the bad example I had been and share this plan with my entrepreneur friends. I followed this very same plan below, written from my muddy notes. Here it is unbelievably simple and powerfully effective and something any entrepreneur with a product/service can do.

Now here is where you probably are thinking, "I don't have the money for marketing!" and I am going to shout back, "Yes, you do!" and even more painfully "Yes, I did!" I did have enough money for marketing, we all do, in my case I just did not take the time.

Time is one resource we all get FREE and we get to control. I can hear you all shouting now. "Time! I don't have any time! With being the accountant, the president, the client relations, the production manager and the financier in my business, how would I have any time?" Some of you are shouting and you have a staff! Staffs take a lot of time, I know, I know. And, it gets crazy loud here from female entrepreneurs, "Aside from my business, I have a family to love, organize, focus on, feed!"

To all of you, I know, I know, believe me I know. Remember I was the failure in the mud. I was right there with you as oddly trite as this may read I am going to keep you from falling in the mud!

From here, despite your shouting, what you are going to read will help you and your business succeed. It will help you in 24 hours and it will take 24 hours. Already I have applied what I have known learned and experienced in two months since my business closed. In my new business venture I am already as successful as I was after a few years and now am ready to be one of those million billionaire success stories and so will you. Believe me there is enough money in the pie for all of us to be very, very, very successful and all we need is everything we were doing and this additional 24 hours.

The key I recognized while in the mud is based on time and effort not money. You just need 24 hours this week or whenever you are ready to start. (Do it sooner than later please, mud is so uncomfortable!) Can you spare 24 hours to make your business a success? All of you are nodding your heads skeptically. Could 24 hours really make a difference? YES it can it will and it doesn't matter how you divide it up but you need to commit to take 24 hours out of your schedule this week to FOCUS on marketing, focus on 24 hours to Zero Down Marketing. You can break it up for your convenience though stopping life for 24 hours to do this seems incredibly dramatic, I think the sooner the better. That castle in Ireland is waiting!. You can do two days of 12 hours. You can do 4 days of six hours. But you will need 24 and not a minute less to start your "24 hours to Zero Down Marketing" process for your company.

Bluebird face down in mud

I had a choice, build a company or die.

I was laid off during what has come to be known as the dot com era. My husband was a police officer and basically only worked to keep us well insured. My income was primary. I was lucky to have 15 years experience and a skill which was convertible into a business. Some of you reading this had to get more creative to come up with a product or service to sell. My livelihood was inborn and in demand and now I had to turn it into an independent livelihood. What did I do? What did we all do? We started a business.

What makes the difference between a successful business and one that you pour years, money, your soul and your family's soul into only to have to give up in 2-7 years? Why do some people work like you do, out of your garage, basement or dining room, and end up million billionaires, while you end up losing your house?

Why? As much as I hate to ask why and less like to face the answers, I discovered the secret, the key, the answer while face down in the mud after losing a business I had worked heart and soul for 6 almost 7 years.

BLUEBIRD SISTER LOOSES MANS BEST FRIEND

Already 2008 has been tough and they say bad news comes in threes, not sure who says this but we have all heard that. This year I lost my job, my company and now most devastating my best friend, my dog Lucky. Lucky was a tall noble Irish Wolfhound, Brindle Grey and eyes only for me. Rain, shine, sleet, snow this dog loved me. He came to when I had been very ill, after we had lost two beloved family members. I had sold my wedding ring to pay for him, I hadn't had a dog since my sweet Florence of 14 years had died. My husband was working the night shift and I knew I needed a dog. He slept next to my bed, laid at my feet while I worked and each time I put my hand down he put his head under it! He was fine and full of life and when I brought him in the other night I could see something was wrong, he went to his favorite spot on our couch (yes though my husband was opposed to it he did have a spot on the couch in our family room) he would not eat or drink and I could tell by his eyes something was troubling him. I bothered my husband and I often do about these things, "Chad something is wrong with lucky!" As he often does he put me off – "he's fine!" and yet I knew he wasn't. I asked him again and being the sweet heart hero type he is my husband went to look him over and found that his stomach was distended. Worried about the bloat, we got out the Irish Wolfhound book and found we needed to do something quick. I called Judy and she said to get him to a vet. My husband called around while I tried to help Lucky get more comfortable. I talked to him rubbed his ears and then helped him into the car where he get trying to get into the front seat with my husband. (Which at 80 mph on the freeway was not smart.) We pulled over twice to get him back in the back seat with me. Finally lucky laid on his back on the floor of the back seat while I held his head and sang Irish lullaby's to him, rubbed his favorite spot and spoke soothing words to him. I knew somehow that things were not good. We got to the pet hospital and took xrays and they showed us the twisted stomach, the bloat and the fact that his stomach was in his chest and his spleen moved to the other side. He was in paid. I laid with him in his kennel there while we waited for the blood work to bear results that would determine his eligibility for surgery. The vet was female and thought she could perform the surgery and somehow that he had a good chance. The surgery was expensive and his chances 70% . I felt he wouldn't make it and yet my husband was a hero again and said we must do all we could and so we agreed. They shaved him, gave him a sedative and I held his head in my hands and he gave me a final look, his eyes for a second focused on me and then he licked me and then he was out. It took 4 vet assistants and my husband to get him on the table as he groaned. He went into surgery and 1 and a half hour later they said he was doing well and that he had only a 50% chance. I prayed then and felt that he would go and that I was to accept it. Thirty minutes later the vet came to tell us he had died just as they had stitched him up. His great big heart giving out in the end. I say him lifeless on the operating table, my massive best friend looked small somehow and not at all the lively noble friend he had always been. I save his shaved stomach, the stitches and the trauma of the situation put me into a kind of shock. It has been three days and I look under my desk to my cold feet from to find him, I step over his usual spot when I get out of bed and I put my hand down and am disappointed not to find his head. Where has he gone and why? Why? Then I know I must not ask, I think back to my friend Rachelle's mother from Africa who says that when you loose a beloved dog know that they made the sacrifice in lieu of the death of someone else you loved. The day Lucky died we found my husband's cholesterol was thorugh the roof and I thought perhaps Lucky with is love for me gave his life so that I might keep my husband's. I truly don't know, I just don't have those answers. If he did make that sacrifice I am very grateful. I do know he loved me. I miss him so much, I cry every few minutes and it has been 3 days, I wonder at the possibility of bearing this life without him and then my friend Judy said, "he went through the doggie door in Heaven and you will see him again!" And I thought to my self, now I will look forward to the day I die, if I do get to see him again. He was my best friend in a way that no living human could be . . . he was there rain or shine . . . happy said, brushed or un brushed . . . he loved me . . . I could tell by his eyes. And now I am alone in that. I thankfully have family and friend, my husband and my kids, so thank you Lucky for all you did, I don't know why your stomach twisted, I did everything to save you, I wish you were here, I am thankful for the time I am. I am sad so very sad and left behind are our other dogs, my daughter's poodle who has come to sit with me more the last three days than in the last 4 years. Lucky's smate Daisy, runs through the house looking looking looking for Lucky. I have told her what happened but does she understand? The other dog, Lucky and Daisy's son was scheduled to go to a home this weekend. He was the last of 8 puppies . . . . Sam, Sam has Lucky's eyes and his head and Daisy's from there on. I had my husband call the people and tell them not to come and get the puppy they had so looked forward. I was going to keep the last of Lucky, Lucky's son. He is not Lucky, he never will be, but he came in licked my face, sat at my feet and kept my feet warm at my desk and somehow I knew Lucky made his sacrifice and could because he had left someone behind to help me. Sam his son. So I am broken, bloody but unbowed as in William Earnest Henley's Invictus, but am not alone. My heart is filled with Lucky and my feet are warmed by his son and this Bluebird now can keep breathing.

April 1st is for funny Bluebirds!

Today, being from the witty Irish family that I am . . . I could not resist a prank or two. Perhaps it was because my own children awakened me with the old "whipped cream in the hand tickle your nose trick" Yes, very nice and especially wonderful as I had sworn off sugar and just washed my hair! (Speaking of which – I cut off 10 inches last week! Think it was depression over Grapevine, can't be sure!) Anyway, so I set up the old Saran Wrap and Vaseline on the handles and commode seats and set up Marshmallows to shower them as they walked into their rooms upon their return from school. They all fell on the floor laughing and then refused to eat dinner thinking I had put ExLax in . . . I have told them too many college stories to be sure! Ah well, as George Bernard Shaw once said . . . "Youth is wasted on the Young!" What's a good fools day without a few tricks? I think I will call my sister in California next and tell her that me and my family and four dogs will be moving in for the summer. Ha! That might kill her and remember pranks should never harm – just scare grey hairs in! Love and laugh laugh -- from Kim Power Stilson

Grapevine Dies Bluebird Lives

 

Thank you to my many, many, Bluebird Sisters – friends and family – who responded with love and affection over my sad news! The Bluebird Sisterhood is about women sticking together and surely some of you lovely birds showed your gorgeous colors!

Sometimes good things must come to an end! Yesterday, March 31^st, was the last day of the Grapevine Talk Radio Network, after three years and with it so stopped Healthy Wealthy Wow for Women Talk Radio Show after seven years. I have been very sad about this . . . sad because we worked so hard, accomplished so much and then when times got tough the original partners lost interest and there I was last one standing and without the attention it needed the vine just died! I lost a lot of sleep, earned some invaluable lessons . . . and garnered a wealth of experience. Thank you to all those who supported us in our efforts to share talk that helped in a hopeful way to bring balance to women's lives!

Great news is that I am still alive and kicking with a book "Women Buy Everything!" coming out this Spring with illustrations of my own (YES, shocker took up water color like Winston Churchill in a crisis – yet hope I am a bit better) and you will hear from me on wwww.kpowerstrategies.com site and also from around the world on the new projects I am consulting on! The Bluebird Sisterhood is just one of the fun things we are doing – an offering grown out of life experience! Life can be sad but as long as the future looks good there is grand hope! Love Love Love to all of you who have grand intentions as well. I wish for your success! It will come if you refuse to give up!