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You can build a good downline for your MLM business using many different types of leads. One type of lead that you may be less familiar with is aged leads. These are considerably older than many of the leads you might otherwise use, but of course they are far lower in cost than are other leads.

Real time leads, for example can cost over $20 apiece. Aged leads however can go for just a few cents each. Especially for newcomers too the MLM business, this difference in price can really matter. Beginning marketers usually have a tight budget; aged leads can give your MLM business the leads you need to grow while staying within the limits of your budget.

There is also the advantage that you won’t have much competition for these leads. However, since these leads are older, there is the chance that one of your competitors may already have got to them and given them what they were looking for.

Aged leads have their ups and down just as do any other type of leads – but if you are willing to put in some hard work, then you can get some real results even from these older leads. If you know how to maximize these leads’ earning potential, you can make an appreciable profit this way.

It’s all about your approach – treat these MLM leads like people, not like numbers. They have probably had some negative experiences with marketers and recruiters. A gentle approach is called for – tell them about how your business opportunity can improve their lives but don’t push too hard.

You should also treat aged leads as if they are brand new leads. Assume that they are interested -this will help you to do a better job of marketing your MLM opportunity. You should treat all leads as if they were the best leads in the world; this will get you a higher conversion rate.

While approaching these leads like an interested prospect, you can’t make the mistake of being pushy if you want to get conversions from these leads. These people have talked to a lot of marketers by now, so a relaxed and friendly approach is much more likely to work for you than a hard sales pitch.

Finally, you need to be sure that your aged leads are truly high quality leads should you decide to use this type of lead. Even an aged MLM lead is likely to convert if you get leads from a good source. Only buy aged leads (or any other MLM leads) if they come from a company with a good reputation for providing top quality leads. While you won’t get as high of a conversion rat as you would from real time leads, aged leads can perform well for you if you are willing to work hard and maximize these leads.

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Credit cards can be good or bad, it all depends on how they are used. Whether they are a good or a bad thing is totally dependent on the person who holds them.

It can be used for the sake of convenience, for online shopping and the dozen other uses for which it was designed. Or, it can become a means of increasing your debt to absurd levels and cause you to pay painful amounts of unnecessary interest every month.

Debt consolidation is often a option considered by people facing serious credit card debt. And usually there is a stream of offers by companies ready to help them consolidate their debt onto a single credit card.

Normally these offers promise lower interest rates. However, the reality is that low interest rates are usually only a reality for people with excellent credit. The average person who is fighting to get out from under a mountain of debt does not have excellent credit and will likely not qualify.

At times these cards are offered to struggling debtors and it could be a way out. But before accepting a credit card with the goal of consolidating debt there are some things to consider.

Consolidating onto one credit card almost never lowers your overall debt. So you haven’t really improved your situation in any way. And interest compounding on such a large balance over a long period of time means higher overall interest paid back in the long run.

The interest rate is one thing to consider. But the length of time you will be paying on the debt is also a factor. A $10,000 debt at 8% will accrue more interest over 5 years than a debt with the same balance at 10% for 2 years so the overall amount you pay back on the debt with lower interest will be a great deal higher.

The culprit is compounding interest. With 8% interest over 5 years compounding interest means in reality your net interest rate paid on the balance above the principle is 21.656%. It would be 10.748% with 10% interest over 10 years.

Remember the 8% vs 10% are the APR in each scenario the annual percentage rate, this is the rate for a one year period – not the total percentage of interest.

The benefit of the loan with a lower interest rate and longer term is that your payments are significantly lower, less than half. It may be that your circumstances make a lower payment easier to handle and that may be worth the extra money in the long run. It is easy to find on line calculators to help you amortize loans with different terms to see which is the right fit for your situation.

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It may be that you’ve never considered using the Internet to run a background check. Neither did I until I tried it. But it’s really not difficult
if you know how, and it’s free.

There’s no doubt that there are many situations in life where it’s very helpful or reassuring to be able to quickly find out something about an associate’s or neighbor’s background.

A few of many possible scenarios to consider:

* You plan to invest your hard-earned money in a company and you want to know more about the current owner.

* Your daughter or son has a new boyfriend/girlfriend and you want to check the person out.

* You’re thinking of dating a person you met on the Internet and want to know more about that person.

* Some new neighbors have moved in next door and they’ve been acting a little bizarre (or so you think). You have kids and would really like to find out
more about these people.

* You’re starting college and thinking of taking on a roommate, but before you accept anybody into your apartment you want to check them out.

* A used-car dealer has a terrific price on a car you want. But you want to check out the owner of the lot and see if he’s been sued or has a criminal record before buying a car from him (i.e., run a quick background check).

Today’s Web makes these kinds of background checks possible – for free – and it’s perfectly legal as long as you stick to a few simple guidelines, as described below.

In what follows I’ll discuss how you can access online public records pertaining to just about any adult U.S. citizen. As I indicated, it’s easy, but you do need to know something about public records and where to access them.

Q & A

The quickest and easiest way to overview the subject of background checks online is with questions and answers.

Q: Are online background checks legal?

A: Yes, as long as you only access public records for your own use. That means records like bankruptcies, real estate records, tax liens, and criminal records. There are three things you should be aware of, however: First, you can’t legally do a background check on someone you’re thinking of hiring without his/her written permission (a signed release); second, you can’t use “pretexting” in your background check (for example, calling a bank and pretending to be the account holder in order to find out how much money he/she has in the account – this is
strictly illegal); third, you can’t legally access someone’s “non-public” information, especially medical records and credit reports, without a signed release from the subject.

Also – please never hire someone else to do any of those things. You could be held responsible. There are plenty of private investigators and others with Web sites that will gladly use pretexting to determine someone’s place of employment or financial assets, for example. You should avoid these people like the Black Plague.

(If your interest is primarily in employment- or credit-related background
checks, you should familiarize yourself with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.)

Q: Where do I get the information for the background check?

A: There are two ways to do it. You can do the work yourself for free, using government web sites that allow you to access public records (e.g., County/State real estate sites, etc), or you can hire a background-check company to do it for you. Needless to say, the latter method is easier and faster but you need to be confident that the company you hire is legitimate and will do a good job. If you want to do it all yourself, try BackgroundCheckGateway.com/statelist.html. It offers free access to public records in every State. If you want to hire an
online background check company, two of the biggest are Intelius and USSearch.

Q: What information can I find out about someone?

A: First some bad news: You can not “Find out anything about anybody,” even though a few Internet snake oil salesmen may tell you otherwise. But with that said, there is still a lot you can find out about someone through public records. For example you can —

– Verify name and address

– Determine past addresses

– Determine marital status (married/divorced/single)

– Find assets (most easily, real estate)

– Check for bankruptcies and tax liens

– Verify occupation or profession

– Check for honorable military discharge

– Check on political contributions/affiliations

– Find out if subject has been written about in the news

– “Listen in” to subject in online discussion groups

– Determine if subject has sued anybody or been sued

– Determine if subject has sued anybody or been sued

– Check for criminal records (in most States)

– Determine if subject has served time in a Federal prison

– Find out if subject is a pilot and/or owns a plane .

– And much more, as you’ll learn as you get into the subject of public records more deeply .

Q: What about things like “How much is he worth?”, “Is he a drug addict or alcoholic?”, “What do people think of him?”, “Does he have AIDS or other sexually-transmittable disease?”, “Does he have children?”

A: Remember, you can’t legally access somebody’s credit report or medical records. And if you’re thinking of employing your subject, you have to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which among other things requires a signed release before doing a background check. You need to be clear on all that. But there’s no law against guesstimating. For example, you can get a pretty good idea of someone’s financial worth by where he/she lives. Home values are public information. So is stock ownership when the stockholder owns more than 5% of a public company.
You can not however, access his bank or brokerage account information without a signed release or court subpoena.

One pretty good way to find out personal information legally is to check civil lawsuits. If he’s been sued or has sued somebody, the lawsuit case file (which is public information) will often reveal you a lot, especially if it’s a divorce filing.

Another way is to hire a private investigator. But you need a reputable P.I., and frankly a lot aren’t all that reputable. Some P.I.’s are macho former military types who are not overly concerned with niceties like the Fair Credit Reporting Act, State privacy laws, etc. These guys (and, yes, ladies) can get you in serious trouble. Some are down-on-their-luck former cops or refugees from other occupations who you really don’t want to get involved with either.

It’s interesting that the basic investigative technique in the P.I. profession is simply to follow people around. They term this “surveillance” and, frankly, it works. A good private investigator can indeed learn a lot about your subject you’d never find out from public records. Just be sure you know who you’re dealing with – check the State licensing board and the BBB for starters to see if he/she is in good standing.

Main Points to Remember About Background Checks

Background checks use public records, which are maintained at County courthouses and various State/Federal agencies. You can access most but not all of these records on the Internet. Some agencies haven’t gotten their records online yet, but more and more are getting their records on the Internet as time goes by.

As a U.S. citizen, you have a right to free unrestricted access to U.S. public records.

Your use of such records is generally confidential. Except in rare cases like accessing driving records in some States, the subject isn’t informed and there’s no paper trail.

All you really need to do public-records background checks is the Internet and a list of links to the various County/State/Federal public-records repositories. For the latter, I suggest a free site called BackgroundCheckGateway.com/statelist.html

If you’re doing a background check for employment purposes or to evaluate someone’s credit, you need a signed release from the person. For more information, read the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Remember, you’re only entitled to access public records, not private records like medical or credit records, unless you have a signed release from the subject. However you can find a certain amount of “personal” information in some types of public records, like civil lawsuit case files.

Don’t get involved in “pretexting” — e.g., calling the phone company and impersonating your subject in order to get your hands on his/her phone records, or calling any other type of business and doing this. Pretexting is illegal. (Don’t hire a private investigator to do it, either. That’s also illegal.)

You can do your background check yourself, for free, using public records Web sites, or you can pay someone to do it for you. The former is free and a bit time-consuming; the latter costs money (usually about $50 or so) and is faster. As I said, two of the better-known online background check companies are Intelius.com and USSearch.com, but there are hundreds more out there.

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One of the most popular implementations in companies all of the World is the implementation of Lean Manufacturing, and most of the corporate industry has implemented lean manufacturing methods. Lean processes include kaissen and Kanban methods. Even small organizations are implementing these new methods.

All large corporations have some sort of lean system in place but now even small businesses want to implement lean manufacturing into their business. The problem lies in that small business don’t have the funds to bring in a specialist to implement lean manufacturing, so what they have to do is attend a few seminars and then implement lean manufacturing into their business. And along with lean manufacturing, other methods including Kanban and Kaissen can also be included. But all methods rely on each other and cannot function without lean manufacturing as a whole being implemented.

Lean manufacturing is implemented by forming teams within each department and these team members are taught how the lean manufacturing system works and communication is developed between teams. The one person that is best trained in the lean manufacturing method is then in charge of training everyone else within the group.

What areas you decide to integrate the lean process into your business depends on the overall analisys you have made. This corporate analysis will determine which areas need to be worked on, including departments like production, maintenance, sales engineering, shipping and administrative. The whole company should be analyzed. But the important thing is to start. You will need to make changes along the way and the process will continually grow with the company.

A method used within the lean process is KanBan which in Japanese means a visible thing, and this visible thing helps streamline the production of a product and changes many products into one product. This visible thing can take on the form of an electronic signal. It can even be a bin, a pallet, etc. In an ideal lean system you would produce a product in a quantity of one and follow it all the way to delivery to the client. But a company cannot just produce one product so the kanban takes the place of “one” by being one sequence, one bin of a certain quantity, one pallet of a certain quantity.

The kanban method helps you manage inventory or processes; they allow you to know what is in stock and what has been shipped very easily, because each kanban has a certain number of products within. Even when you use an electronic signal you know how many of a product is shipping and how many are produced. As an example, lets assume the kanban is an electronic signal and you are producing refrigerators. If you implement a signal for 20 refrigerators going through the installation of thermal insulation, then you know that the next production area receives 20 refrigerators, etc.

The Kanban system does not really work on its own without the implementation of a whole lean production system. The whole organization needs to be in place, regarding every department and equipment for the Kanban to work.

The Lean Manufacturing Production System works on the whole corporation and within this process lie other smaller processes like Kanban. You cannot have one system without the other system, just as you cannot implement a lean manufacturing production system without methods like the Kanban and Kaisen methods.

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In this article, I will expose some of the most common myths about credit and credit reports. I love watching the expression on my client’s faces when they realize the truth about some of these common myths.

You will be hearing some things that will most likely be the opposite of what you currently believe. Keep in mind that credit and credit reports are not widely understood, and even those in the financial and credit industry, often do not have a good understanding. With that in mind, let’s get started

Myth 1: Settling or paying off tax liens, collections, late payments or judgments will erase them from your credit reports.

This statement is not true. In fact, when you pay off an old collection account, in most cases, your creditors will update the trade line to show as a paid collection, but with a current date. This means that this trade line is now a current paid collection, instead of an old unpaid collection. They are both still negative, but a current negative item will cost you more points than an old one. I am not saying that you should not pay your delinquent accounts, but only that you need to understand the consequences.

Myth 2: If I pay my total credit card balance every month, I will raise my credit scores.

Keep in mind that the credit system is designed by the creditors, to help them determine if you are a good credit risk, and if you are an optimal credit user (one who uses the system in such a way that it will generate revenue for the creditors). By paying off your accounts every month, you are not establishing a history of optimal credit usage. What your creditors want to see, is someone who pays slightly more than their minimum monthly payment every month, on time, with only occasional balance pay-downs. This behavior will optimize your credit scores.

Myth 3: Credit repair is illegal.

This is far from the truth. In fact, credit repair is legal for you to do on your own, or hire anyone you choose to do it for you. Repairing your credit is a right protected under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Myth 4: Consumer Credit Counseling will improve my credit.

Credit counseling programs will only harm your credit. The first thing that will happen as a result of enrolling in a CCCS or credit counseling program, is that your creditors will add the line “Account in CCCS” or “Account paid through credit counseling” to each of their trade lines. This will not affect your score, but does look very negative to lenders. The next thing that seems to always happen is that the credit counseling program will make the payments to your creditors late. Sometimes this is not their fault since they just setup the payment to be on your original due date. However, the credit card companies often adjust your due date, and since nobody, like yourself, is monitoring this, they began making your payments late. This will result in late pays on your credit, in addition to late fees.

Myth 5: The law requires that negative items stay listed on my credit for 7 years.

Completely false! There is no such law.

Myth 6: Making a lot of money will give you good credit.

Making a lot of money really has very little to do with your credit directly. What determines your credit is your payment history, account balances, your open accounts, the type of accounts, etc.

Myth 7: I have never been late on my payments, I must have great credit.

It is important to your credit scores that you have never been late on your payments; however, this is only one piece of the credit score pie. It is possible to have never been late on a payment and have sub prime credit, or no credit at all. Your history of payments only makes up 35% of your credit scores.

Myth 8: Your credit reports from all 3 major credit bureaus will be the same.

Actually, this is quite the opposite. It is very rare to have all the same items on all your credit reports from each of the major credit bureaus. This is because not all companies report to all credit bureaus, and they don’t always report the same thing to each bureau.

Myth 9: If you are married, you will share the same credit reports as your spouse.

This is not true at all. Even if you are married, you will still have your own unique credit reports. It is possible to see some shared items if you have joint accounts, but your credit reports are yours.

Myth 10: Closing credit card accounts will increase your credit scores.

This one is a big surprise to most people. I am sure at some point you have been told by your mortgage professional to close some of your open account to better qualify for a loan. Once you closed those accounts, you watched in anguish while your scores dipped as much as 100 points or more. Why did this happen? The reason is that one of the largest factors that make up your credit scores is the age of your good-standing accounts. The longer an account has been in good standing, the better it is for your credit scores.

Armed with this new knowledge, you can now get started putting it into action to improve your credit, as well as share it with others.

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