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MLM Home Based Business Work From Home Opportunity

There are various work at home business options; one of which is the mlm model or network marketing. In spite of the industry being a $31 billion dollar industry, mlm is dogged by an image problem. Let’s look at a mlm home based business work from home opportunity to see it is a viable option for you to make money from home, which I’m guessing is the main reason you are reading this article.

About MLM

Direct selling or MLM or network marketing (you pick the name you prefer) is a business model that offers entrepreneurial opportunities to individuals as independent contractors to market and/or sell products and services, typically outside of a fixed retail establishment, through one-to-one selling, in-home product demonstrations or online. Compensation is ultimately based on sales and may be earned based on personal sales and/or the sales of others in their sales organizations.

Direct sellers may be called distributors, representatives, consultants or various other titles. They may participate in various ways, including selling the products themselves or through their sales organizations, providing training and leadership to their sales organizations, referring customers to the company, and purchasing products and services for personal use.

MLM Companies

There a thousands of companies operating under this model. Some are country specific (eg Malaysia only) whereas others undertake global expansion and stretch into many countries (eg Herbalife is in 80+ countries).

In choosing a MLM home based business work from home opportunity, size might be one criteria that you would want to look at. The DSA (Direct Selling Association) recently release the Top 20 Companies in the US (alphabetic order)

AdvoCare International, LP
Ambit Energy
Amway
Arbonne International, LLC
Avon Products, Inc.
CUTCO/Vector Marketing Corp.
Herbalife
Isagenix
LifeVantage Corporation
Mary Kay Inc.
Melaleuca, Inc.
Nu Skin Enterprises
The Pampered Chef
Scentsy, Inc.
Stampin’ Up!
Stream Energy
Take Shape for Life – Medifast
Team Beachbody
Thirty-One Gifts
USANA Health Sciences, Inc.

As well as size these companies have longevity especially Amway starting back in 1959.

MLM Products

MLM companies offer an array of products from health, technology, beauty, legal services, energy and much more. There is a product here for everybody to market. While I believe it’s preferable to market a product that is consumable, there are success stories in every company. You choose what product you prefer to market.

MLM Compensation Plans

There are numerous ways a distributor is compensated in a network marketing company. These plans include unilever, breakaway, matrix, binary and a hybrid of some of these plans. To get a better understanding of these plans, have a look at this post http://mlminsider.com/main.php?/compensation_plans

Can You Make Money?

Most people will not. That’s not the fault of the company or the products because with inside every company there are thousands of success stories; both income and product testimonials. To improve your chances of mlm home based business work from home success, here’s 3 simple rules to improve your chances:

Pick A Company And Stay. Choose a company based on your own preferences of product, size, locality etc and decide to stay with that company until you become a success. Too many people are lured by a new option and leave only to find that their new business isn’t firing and perhaps they are the reason for their failure and not the company or it’s products. If you look at the top industry earners you’ll find a majority have been with their company for a long time. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. MLM success is the same.

Talk To People. While there are many ways to connect with people ( email, social media, advertising etc) those who are the most successful in the industry speak to their prospects. There’s no getting away from it. The rest is just avoidance behaviour.

Be A Company Advocate; Use The Products. You need to believe 110% in your company and the industry. You will be bombarded with words like ‘scam’, ‘pyramid scheme’ and ‘is this Amway’. If you don’t have 100% conviction, you’ll falter and you won’t be a success. A personal way to get conviction or belief is to use your company’s products and get a result. Nobody can take that success away from you. If your belief in the network marketing industry needs boosting watch the Evolution of Network Marketing on YouTube.

A MLM home based business work from home opportunity can be a viable option to have you quit your job and to make money from home. The success of which relies 100% on you.

Tips to Design a Polo Shirt for Work Wear

Polo shirts have become a top choice for companies to create a comfortable uniform for employees that promotes a professional image. But there are some things that you need to know when you design a polo shirt to achieve the best end result.

The first thing is the colour. Now while this may sound obvious and you’re already thinking that’s easy my company colours, you may want to think again. Remember you are going to want to showcase your company logo somewhere on the shirt, which means that you need to focus on the colour combination very carefully. If your company colours is dark blue and your logo is dark blue, it’s obvious that this is not going to work, you need a contrasting colour that will make your logo stand out and be noticed as your team move around throughout the day.

In addition to this, it is also advisable to steer clear of light colours, such as whites and very light or pastel blues, pinks and yellows. There is nothing worse than a team member arriving at work with a giant stain on their uniform, it doesn’t look professional. If you have ladies working for you, white may be a bit too see-through for them to work in and shows everything underneath, also not quite the image that you want to portray. The best advice is stick to darker colours and those that won’t show up every strain so that your team can showcase your company in the best possible light.

It is important that your company name stands out. When it comes to designing a polo shirt for work wear, you want to look at your logo colouration and then work with that to ensure it stands out to make a statement. Remember that these shirts can also be a fabulous marketing tool and they can ensure that your company name is seen throughout the day when an employee takes their lunch break or when they are on the bus on the way to and from work. They increase brand visibility on a daily basis, which can help in increasing interest and boosting your brand moving forward.

Your logo placement is another big decision that you will want to focus on when you design a polo shirt. Your logo should be placed in a prominent position so that it can be seen. Work with your sportswear manufacturer to ensure your logo doesn’t appear too big or too small. Remember your sportswear manufacturer is making your polo shirt from scratch based on your unique colour choices and style. Whether you have chosen a blue shirt with light blue collar or a one colour shirt, the choice is down to you. They will be focusing on the quality of the fabric and the finishes to provide you with the product you ordered and to exceed your expectations when your teams go out into the field.

You want to ensure when you design your polo shirt that it will portray the professional image that you want to portray. Think about what your team is going to look like when they are working whether in-store or off-site. What about what clothing of their own they will wear, such as trousers or skirts and how will the shirt work with that? These are all important factors to consider before making your final decision.

The last few things you want to focus on is comfort and durability. Your sportswear manufacturer will be able to advise what fabric they will use, so that you can ensure your team will be comfortable throughout the day and able to wash the shirts regularly without fading or wearing.

Squidoo Secrets – Get Non-Stop Traffic to Your Work at Home Business

You can easily learn how to use Squidoo to generate non-stop traffic to your work at home business. Squidoo is a social networking site, yet from an internet marketing perspective, is quite different from other social bookmarking sites. So why are so many internet home business entrepreneurs so obsessed by this unique leading web 2.0 property?

One main difference is that with Squidoo you can sell blatantly without worrying about someone shutting you down. Another feature of Squidoo lies in that it is a social networking site for adults so you won’t find flashing graphics like those in MySpace. It’s quite a good place for grown up work at home business owners to interact among themselves.

Squidoo lets you create what’s called a lens, which is basically an information portal about any topic you wish to write about. You just sign up and create as many lenses and categories as you like. You can use these lenses to generate very targeted traffic to your internet home business sites.

After you have created your lenses and targeted it to your work at home business niche, you then start the socializing with other marketers on this social networking site.

The secret to create a good Squidoo lens is to provide good and useful information to people in your niche who look for this information. By using a good landing page, you can effectively drive a lot of targeted traffic to your online home business opportunity. If you are already a well known internet marketer, more people will buy an affiliate product based on your recommendation.

How To Generate Traffic Using Your Squidoo Lens

1. It is extremely important to put the keywords being targeted in your lens title.

This is because lenses are pages too therefore they can rank in the search engines just like your internet home business home page.

2. Select a URL for a lens with your primary keywords. Just remember that this will help your search engine rankings too, because that URL is what you’ll link to from other web pages.

3. “Tag” your lens with your other long tail keywords. Do look for the Squidoo lens creation wizard to let you do this when you are first setting up your lens.

4. One of the most important things you ought to remember is to add an RSS feed so as to make your lens popular with search engines. There’s a Squidoo module for RSS feeds. Many search engines just love that kind of unique and frequently changing content.

5. Update your lens a few times a week at least. There is no necessity to make major changes but simple ones and thereafter click “publish”. Although an RSS feed will help this, it is equally important that you also add new contents in your lens.

6 Linking your related lenses to each other is another good technique known to be a good traffic building tip. In this way you also build more links which means more visitors and ultimately giving your Squidoo lenses higher ranking

7. Create more specialized lenses based on long tail keywords in your niche. Start to dominate your keywords for your niche. If you have a lens on work at home business, for example, you should now create a more specialized one like “Work At Home Business For Retirees”.

8. Use your lens as though it’s your blog and link to your internet home business sites. This is such an easy but powerful technique to use. Search engines just love Squidoo and therefore links from high-ranking lenses to your work at home business site can really help boost traffic.

9. Remember that Squidoo is also a social networking site so get sociable by visiting other internet marketer’s lenses to give comments on their guest book. At the same time you will also get some backlinks generating traffic for yourself too.

10. It is really important not only having proper keywords in your lens, but also to add many keywords to your lens. If your lens sells a product, more traffic means more sales. It is important to check out what keywords other people are using in search engines to arrive at your lens and just add those keywords to your list

11. Make your lens useful. One good way to make your lens useful is to present your thoughts and information as a “how-to” lesson within your topic. This makes it neat and helps you build a good lens that people can find what they are looking for easily.

You may take some time to get familiar with creating your squidoo lenses, but many people find it easy to learn. There are others who get addicted in creating interesting lenses to promote their home business opportunities after seeing the increased traffic. It’s no wonder many people have grown to love Squidoo and can’t stop creating lenses for their work at home business.

The End Of Business As Usual: Rewire The Way You Work To Succeed – A Brief Summary

In The End of Business as Usual, author Brian Sola explains the sea change in business caused by the advent of social media, Sola poses quite a challenge to those of us who have not yet joined the Facebook, Twitter and Linked-in revolution. He got my attention with the statement that 65% of the Millennial generation born between the mid-seventies and late 90’s are disconnected while awake less than one hour per day! Less than that “creates an unnerving sense of disconnectedness”.

Taking Seth Godin’s concept of Permission Marketing even further, Sola claims that it’s not about companies connecting with customers, it’s about customers deciding whether they want to connect with the company now and over time. The internet explosion required that successful email marketers must earn the permission of their reader via the recipient’s optin- agreement to receive the ad; a far cry from the intrusive and aggressive Madison Ave type advertising classically seen on television. Over the last ten years, we learned how to integrate permission marketing into our offers and our over-all marketing campaigns. And we found that we were adaptable and willing to change.

Guess what? It’s time for more change if we want to compete in the 21st century. Here is why.

The Millennial purchaser is not just interested in giving permission to the companies they want to hear from: they expect to partner with them, claims Sola, More than simply a business relationship, these younger purchasers expect to like the company they do business with so that they can share and post their purchasing experiences with their friends and networks, estimated at an average of 130 for each Facebook user. When they have a problem, they are not interested in dealing with your customer service departments, they expect to hear from someone at the top.. Aged from 17-32 as of 2012, this group comprises 25% of the on-line purchasing population.

Both In 2010 and 2011, Facebook outranked Google as the primary search term-people are increasingly more interested in other people and relationships. The results?

Americans are looking to different sources for our information. Television viewers are declining, subscriptions to traditional newspapers dropped by 9% in 2010, even more in the last couple of years. The combined subscribers of the New York Times, Wall St. Journal and USA Today have less than 5 million subscribers while Facebook houses more than 750 million residents and over 200 million people are using Twitter as a primary mode of communication. Interestingly the isolation predicted by the increased use of internet during the nineties does not seem to hold in the twenty-first century: surveyors find that over 50 percent of respondents feel more connected now than they did prior to the emergence of the social networks. The increased sense of “connectedness” is apparently more than a virtual phenomenon.

In 2008, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, introduced a formula later known as “Zuckerberg’s Law” when he explained that social networking is simply about connecting with people we know and predicted that with each passing year, people will share twice as much information.Think about that for just a moment; a doubling of shared information each and every year. According to Nielson, Americans in 2011 spent a quarter of their waking hours on line networking and Facebook measures more than 700 billion minutes per month spent “Facebooking.”

These numbers are staggering and the implications for marketing profound for those whose products are shared, liked and posted.

How Does VoIP Phone Service Work?

For years, businesses have been replacing their analog phone lines with VoIP phone service. In its early years, VoIP picked up its own reputation among users and skeptics who touted it as unreliable; however, throughout its history, this new communication technology has grown in popularity and left its mark as a reliable and practical communication solution for businesses of all sizes.

Today, businesses use VoIP features to stay in touch with customers and colleagues, expand their businesses seamlessly, monitor employee performance, and build customer loyalty. By harnessing the power of the cloud, VoIP also offers a degree of flexibility and simplicity that analog users just can’t experience.

While analog phone service keeps communications fixed in one location, VoIP allows you to make and receive your business calls from any device (office, mobile, or soft phone app) or forward them to external sites and extensions.

The flexibility and convenience of this technology is what most users love about business VoIP providers.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs are also able to use VoIP phone service to create the image of a larger company with features like auto attendant and custom prompt menus.

What can you expect from a VoIP phone service?

VoIP takes analog audio signals and converts them into digital data which can be transmitted over the internet. With less bandwidth required to transmit the data, there is less occurrence of jitter which causes that choppy audio and lackluster call quality that drives everyone crazy.

Call quality, cost savings, and easy setup are the main drivers of VoIP’s success but there are several features and capabilities that set this communication technology apart.

These are few of the standard features you can expect when using a VoIP phone service:

Call forwarding
Voicemail to email
Auto attendant, also known as a digital receptionist or cloud receptionist
Call continuity
Programmable keypads
App integration
Caller ID display
Call blocking
Call conferencing
Mobile capabilities

VoIP phone service can seem like a drastic change to your communications strategy but if you’re willing to speak with consultants, you will see that it’s actually a simple transition.

A Better Business Communication Solution

Convenient set up

Even with more recent, premise-based business phone systems, set up is cumbersome and expensive compared to a cloud-based phone system. It requires users to connect wires and figure out which line pairs with which extension; most busy business owners usually end up either having to hire someone to install it for them or spend hours on the phone with their phone company.

With VoIP, the time it takes to get up and running is minimal and most VoIP service providers offer support to help you every step of the way. Usually, however, it’s as easy as plugging in your IP phone and letting it initialize to your existing network.

There are no wires or lines to worry about since your service provider takes care of most of the set up before you receive your new equipment. When you use VoIP phone service, your settings come pre-configured to your phone so all you have to do is connect your phone to the correct ports and you’re on your way.

The best part?

Since VoIP is cloud-based, your provider is able to take the maintenance of equipment and servers that help power your communications off your hands by managing their own servers and IT staff for your convenience.

This means any business can enjoy using this technology regardless of the size of their location.

Minimize costs

Businesses see significant savings when they switch from traditional phone service. With older PBX systems, you had to hire an IT staff to maintain the equipment housed in your office, pay for long distance charges, and if you wanted to add a line to your office you had to pay the phone company more for the phone number and installation.

Today’s VoIP technology only requires one-time hardware costs and a monthly subscription based on service plan rates. Long distance calling rates vary among providers but many offer unlimited calling along with competitive international rates.

Easy setup, lower costs, and robust features make VoIP a great solution for business communication. It’s no surprise that VoIP is seeing rapid growth with no signs of slowing down in the coming years.

Does Satellite Radio Advertising Work?

You are a business owner or person in charge of getting the word out about a product or service. The landscape on which you can paint your message is vast with many hills, bridges and pitfalls. It is the pitfalls you are looking out for.

Chances are you want to know if the medium of satellite radio advertising is an effective choice for your business. Lets take a look at what the medium offers and see if what you are advertising would be a good fit for it.

Satellite radio is a unique medium. It reaches millions of people each and every week, has hundreds of stations divided amongst countless topics, and is a “subscription” based service, which makes many of its subscribers financially pre-qualified to buy what you are selling.

If your product or service can go out to any place in the country, then this can be a great medium for you. If your business is trying to bring people into a single store front location, this may not be a great means to promote your message, as the radio commercials on satellite radio reach the entire nation. There is no way to “segment” where your commercial airs. Its all or nothing.

That being said, it is one of the most affordable ways to advertise on a national level, with commercials on some of the stations starting at around $50 each time they air. While satellite radio advertising will not reach the amount of viewers of say a prime time show on a major TV network. It still reaches millions of people each week, which is nothing to put your note up at.

Another way that satellite radio advertising can be effective, is placing your commercial on its highly targeted programming.

Have a product for pets? There are shows for that.

Want to reach cigar lovers? There are shows for that.

Looking to reach new moms? There are shows for that.

Want to communicate with CEOs? There are shows for that too.

Selling a new “toy” for kids or adults? There are shows for both of those too.

The list goes on and on. Chances are there is a show that is targeted at the specific audience you want to reach. This makes it one of the most affordable and targeted national advertising options around.

Is satellite radio advertising for everyone? No. But for a majority of people that I talk with on a daily basis, there is usually an option on the medium to strongly consider when planning an advertising campaign.

SaleHoo Wholesale Drop Shipping – What is Drop Shipping and How Does it Work?

You may think that drop shipping is a new innovation, but the fact is that it has been around for years. The big difference is that before, people used to order products by mail. Now this is done on the internet. Online drop shipping is more convenient and faster than doing it by mail.

Drop shipping is actually a stockless way of selling. You are selling products that you do not have. The products remain with the wholesaler, and you simply list the products on your selling site. When a customer places an order, you forward the order to the wholesale drop shipper and pay the wholesale price. The drop shipper delivers the item directly to your customer, using your business name and return address. Your customer will never know that the product actually came from the wholesaler.

Drop shipping is a very practical and cost effective way of doing business. Even with very little money to invest, you can engage in this lucrative online business. Most wholesale drop shippers require a one-time subscription fee. Be wary of drop shippers who ask for other fees such as monthly fees. Extra fees will just eat up your profits.

When people shop online, they usually do so for the purpose of looking for bargains. You can usually find products sold at very competitive prices online. You may be wondering how drop shipped items can be sold at low prices. First of all, the wholesalers are able to obtain the products at very low, discounted prices from manufacturers or other bulk wholesalers. Also, dropshipping can minimize the cost of transportation. The wholesaler does not have to ship the items to you, but directly to the end user. The savings on transportation cost translates to a lower selling price and bigger profit margin.

Where can you find a good wholesale drop shipper? There are thousands that you can find on the internet. But first, you must decide on a product to sell. Clothes, fashion accessories, shoes and electronic gadgets are good choices because they are very easy to drop ship.

Once you have decided on what you would like to sell, you can start looking for a wholesale drop shipper. You can find reliable and legitimate wholesale drop shippers in SaleHoo’s wholesale directory. All the products you could possibly think of to sell online can be found in SaleHoo’s directory along with the best wholesale suppliers who can provide these products at low prices.

Time to Save Ourselves – Personal Business Stimulus Has Arrived – Unless You Work at AIG!

As we complete the first quarter, how are we all doing? Many of you are getting there and making it happen and others are still trying the old ways with some success. My hat is off to the hard working business owners and ultimate survivors.

We decided to ask our customers what has been working for them and here is what we found….

More Hours – Many of you are working harder and longer hours. This works for a while, however you must watch your health in this! Our personal machines are designed to work at a certain pace and distance. Make sure your other balance factors are considered no matter what!

Less Pay – Yes we all know that business owners are taking less pay, however many employees are willing to take less pay as long as the company can survive and make the distance. Extra hours for less pay, personal work time and straight time instead of overtime are just a few. It’s good to see the world pulling together to make it work!

Cut Extra Costs – Many businesses have to forgo the extras. Outings, food supplied meetings, extra supplies and high end extras are just a few examples. Companies are also shopping smarter for regular items. This seems to be making our purchasing decisions count. It’s good to be conscious, just don’t be foolish. Newspaper should only be read in the bathroom! (Sorry could not resist! – LOL)

Lower Cost Per Sale – We still have most of our businesses marketing to some degree, they are just being smarter about it. Sometimes this forced exercise is a good one. They are more conscious about lowering the cost per lead or cost per sale. Many of you are joining forces on generating business with Online Social Networks. This is one way. The next is to work customers for referral programs. This has always worked, and we are starting to see a lot more of this effort. Also, more structured programs and intentional efforts are becoming more popular to reward customers for brining in those referrals. Referral Agent and Affiliate Programs are also on the rise. We had half dozen inquiries last week alone on helping to structure these! Also, we are seeing an increase in Joint Venture programs where vendors and partners are joining forces to share resources to accelerate business. If you venture down any of these paths, make sure you have agreements in place. This helps keeps everyone real!

Government Bailout Monies – I am sure most of us have not received ours, although I did hear about some good news for small business in the “Big Package”. However, let’s wait and see what really gets signed and passes through the channel. Now, if you work at AIG – congratulations on the bonuses! Maybe you could spend some of that hiring our small business customers, or shopping and hitting the retail sector. It sure would help out the economy and get us back on track.

In any event, we should not wait for the trickle down effect of this bailout plan, instead, just remember the heart and soul we used when we started our businesses and wake up every day and motivate the troops to focus on what will bring in the most business for the lowest amount.

You know what to do – stop waiting for things to change and make it happen!

Small Business Marketing – Rip and Read Marketing Techniques That Work

Keeping in touch with your existing customers and clients is a critically important part of your small business marketing system.

The cost of securing a new customer is much greater than the cost of getting an existing customer to use your services and products again. Some studies indicate it takes seven times more money to acquire a new customer than it does to sell an existing customer the same product or service.

It’s no wonder the lifetime value of a customer or client is calculated to be worth at least ten times the money you made the first time you did business with them.

What you need to do is find ways to make your business, your product, and/or your services applicable to your customers and clients again and again. Some businesses have “one-time-use” products. These are products that once purchased are not purchased again.

Finding ways to sell the same product or service again, requires some strategic thinking. I’m not suggesting planned obsolescence. Find ways to up-sell or cross-sell the same customer with variations of our main product or service. For example; if you sell an information product in the form of an audio tape series, then offer a video version of the same program.

It is matter of maintaining the customer relationship and then offering them more choices.

Here is a technique for maintaining clients and customers that I teach in our small business marketing bootcamp. We’ve used it for years in our business, and frankly didn’t think to share it in this article until one of our “Plutonium Level” subscription members told me his story.

It is called the “rip and read” technique. I read about 15 trade journals, magazines and newspapers each week. As I read, I look for articles and stories that may be of interest to my customers and prospects. When I see it I “rip” it out and send it to my client with a comment on a post-it note: “Saw this and thought it would be of interest to you. Best, Brian” That’s all there is to it. I probably send 20 or so a month. It keeps me in the front of my clients’ minds.

My business associates think I look like fool constantly “ripping” on planes, in airport lounges, and on trains, but once you see the benefits of doing so, you will start ripping too.

One of our “Plutonium Level Inner Circle Member” is a financial planner. I gave him this suggestion in one of our monthly one-on-one marketing coaching sessions and in less than one month he got results.

Here’s what he wrote me: “I cut an article out of the Star Ledger (our daily New jersey newspaper) and sent it to one of my clients. He called back and sent me a check for $40,000.00 (Deposited in his annuity).” One proven and tested system led to a big commission for him. All he did was use the tip.

How often do you contact your existing customers? Clients need contact at least 4 times per year. Try to keep in touch 8-12 times per year, depending upon the type of services you provide to a particular client.

Commit yourself to using this technique for three months and see what happens. Track your contacts and track the results. You will be sold on its value and I know you will continue to use it.

If you’re a small business owner that wants more profitable customers and fewer aggravating small-paying sales, then you need to maintain your VIP customer base. Pick your favorite VIP clients and court them like they were a king or a queen. “Rip and Read” for all your VIP clients.

The Teacher As Disciplinarian: Ten Ideas That Really Work!

Ten Ideas You Can Try Right Away

“Discipline is not the Enemy of Enthusiasm!”

– Morgan Freeman as Joe Clark

When it comes to Discipline in the schools, there are many well-publicized and well-marketed “systems”. People sometimes get carried away with systems, or programs, structures, textbooks, etc., arguing passionately, for example, that block scheduling is better than traditional scheduling, or integrated math is better than traditional math, or whole language is better than phonics, or this discipline system is better than that discipline system. Similarly, real estate agents will include the name of various school districts in their advertisement for a particular home based on how beautiful the district’s buildings are.

The focus, wrongly, is almost always placed on things, and not people. The truth of the matter is, and I’ll wait while you etch it in stone, my system will do better than your system if my people believe in our system and are passionately committed to its success. So when you hear the arguments, ad nauseum, for this system over that system in the schools, know that it is not the “thing” that caused the success, but the caring and passionate people working within the system.

The rules of golf, my friends, state that you are permitted to have 14 clubs in your bag. In the “golf course” of life in the schools, do you remember the teacher who only had a “driver” in his or her bag?

As we approach the topic of School Discipline, we must begin with the a priori acknowledgement that the American Juvenile Justice System is built on a rehabilitative model. This starts with the understanding that kids- you were a kid too, remember- are not perfect, that they will make mistakes, and that it is our duty as grownups to help them acquire the social skills needed to function as a productive individuals in society. If the Juvenile Justice system is set up this way, then how much more so must the school disciplinary approach be one that attempts to assist young people so that they improve their inappropriate behavior and become productive individuals? Naturally, this means that kids are supposed to get second and third chances, and some attempts at modifying behavior might take several years.

If the people who work in the schools were able to actually “fly the plane” in all respects, there would be no “Zero Tolerance” policies, either, and you would not read about kindergarten kids getting expelled for having a nail file, or because they gave a member of the opposite sex a hug. These coward politicians love to show how tough they are by passing legislation to expel kindergarten kids for hugging somebody or having a pocket knife. Media people, please listen: No real educator would ever come up with a policy like that- even criminals get three strikes- the one strike baseball game was concocted by politicians trying to get votes, not the educators you criticize when this tragedy occurs!

In the Broadway Show Bye Bye Birdie, Paul Lynde, bemoaning the behavior of teenagers “today” (circa 1960) sings in one of the songs this phrase- posed as a question… “Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way…what’s the matter with kids today, etc.?” A school I attended as a child had this quote on the wall by John D. Rockefeller… “What I am to be, I am now becoming.” So, everyone listen carefully… The kids you have right now or are going to have when you are out there teaching have not, unlike you, attained to perfection yet!!! However, perhaps through your caring efforts, patience, and rehabilitative strategies, they might get a few steps closer to the target- but they are not there just yet. So you will have discipline problems.

There are still teachers around who make kids stand in the corner and hold a dictionary in their outstretched arms or have someone write the dictionary, or “I must not talk in class” 500 times. We have all heard the horror stories of actions taken by teachers that do nothing but guarantee that the student will continue to do the wrong thing- often with greater enthusiasm. Don’t forget the line from Bye Bye Birdie…they are not perfect yet like you! Remember also that we are not selling a system in this book. You can buy books and take courses. Our purpose in this chapter is to give you a variety of tools- more like 14 clubs for your disciplinary “golf bag” if you will. These are strategies that have a high degree of success and can effect quick change.

PROACTIVE vs. REACTIVE

1. Start With a Positive…

Very few kids are discipline problems the first day of school or the first week of school. You probably already have an idea about the reputation of most of your students because the grapevine has informed you. The kids that have the potential to be problems have parents who usually are also aware that their child is a problem because that same child is a problem at home. So when these parents come to school angry at you the teacher, it’s really a case of misplaced aggression because it is their kid who is driving them over the edge. These same parents have literally cried on the telephone to me when they received good news about their child from the people at school- because it never happened before this. What’s the message for you? While it’s still early in the year- before the problems have manifested themselves, look for something positive that these potential problem individuals are doing and contact the parents to tell them the good thing that their child was doing.

Later, you will need the help of these parents to help change their child’s behavior and they will remember this phone call and view you as a nice person- a fair person- maybe the first person in the school district who has ever said something nice about their child. When you call later, you begin by saying… “Hi Mrs. Smith. This is Mr. Jones from the school. You probably remember that we talked when I called you about the nice thing your daughter was doing in my class.” Mom will say that yes, she remembers you. You then say, “I need your help with something.” Then you explain the discipline problem that her daughter is involved with and ask her if she could get involved at home and perhaps, working together as a team, you and Mom can help the child to improve this problem she is now having. Most of the time, the parents will go out of their way to help you. They will also remind the child that you actually said something nice about them and we want to keep this nice teacher on our side- he’s a friend. This potential problem child may start acting better anyway because he realizes that you also make good comments, not just negative ones like everyone else. This is an example of a teacher being PROACTIVE.

2. The Unknown Time-Out

Although this strategy works best with younger students, used sparingly, it will also be equally effective with high school students. Make a plan with one of the secretaries, the Athletic Director, the Principal in a smaller school, or some other person- perhaps the Librarian, the Nurse, Custodian, etc. You can arrange multiple destinations for the Unknown Time-Out maneuver. When you have one or more particularly difficult students or ones that start well but get mixed up in any of the commotion that occurs in class, you call one of the students up to you desk, hand him a colored envelope that has something in it with the name of the person the envelope is going to on it. You tell the student to take this envelope to the person and wait for a response and then bring the response back.

When the recipient of the envelope sees that particular student or that colored envelope, he or she knows what is going on and tells the student to sit in the waiting area while they get the answer ready. Now they take 10 minutes to prepare the response, give it to the student and tell the student to take it back to you. This student just got a “Time-Out” lasting perhaps 15 minutes without knowing it. This Proactive strategy kept the student from being yelled at again for what would have been his inevitable misbehavior, he has done something that seemed to be responsible, and so you the teacher comment on his reliability and thank him. The anticipated daily problem never occurred in the first place. In this process, the envelope, not the student, can be the indicator, so more than one teacher and additional students can be involved in this process. It is unlikely that the students- even high school students, will ever catch on to this strategy.

3. Inviting the Principal to Provide the Positive

If you had the pleasure to attend a Catholic Elementary School in the mid 50’s, you may remember this- ruefully, I do. The report cards were distributed every 6 weeks, so every 6 weeks, the priest would come into class on a Friday to be involved in the process of handing out the report cards to 65 or so students in the class. As the Priest gave out the report cards, he always added a moment or two of editorializing. To this day, I have bad dreams about him saying… “Daniel. Hmmm. Let’s see…My goodness, I know your Mother…The Poor Woman will be broken-hearted when she sees this awful report card.” Of course, everyone is sitting all prim and proper with their hands folded, but your buddies are looking at you and silently making faces and laughing all the while. All of this had quite the dramatic effect.

What’s the message for you? DON’T INVITE ANYONE IN FOR A NEGATIVE!!! But, invite the principal in and when he is there, publicly acknowledge the student by saying something like… “By the way Dr. Stevens(The Principal) Billy here has been one of my most improved students this report period- he is doing some very nice work!” – Or, “Billy, why don’t you show Dr. Stevens your excellent Social Studies project?” Billy has been doing some excellent work lately Dr. Stevens! The principal knows that this is his cue to congratulate the child and talk more about how nice it is to see students behaving this way, etc. This is another very proactive way to reinforce any positive behavior being shown by a student who does not show it that often.

4. The Sandwich Technique

The Sandwich Technique comes to us from the world of sports psychology and has been an effective tool for modifying behavior and encouraging people for over 30 years. It has application to almost every area of human endeavor- in fact, you can even use it with your spouse. It begins by getting a person’s attention by saying something positive. We say this because, for the most part, whether you are a spouse, an athlete, or a misbehaving child, your ears tend to close when you sense that a negative comment is coming your way- we all tend to tune this stuff out. So we get people’s attention by saying something positive first- the ears perk up. The positive is followed by what we really wanted to say- the criticism or negative and any disciplinary action that might be occurring. It is followed by a final upbeat and positive comment. Thus the negative is the Peanut Butter and Jelly, and the positive in front and at the end are the two pieces of white bread.

We’ll leave it to you how best to apply it in other walks of life, but consider how it can be used in the school setting by looking at the following hypothetical:

Johnny misbehaved in you class again today. He’s actually an intelligent individual who simply is not working to the best of his ability. He has shown flashes of brilliance, but for the most part, is usually at the center of any commotion that goes on in class- he’s been turning in some sloppy work lately as well. Write a script of what you would say to Johnny making sure to apply the Sandwich Technique.

It might go like this: Johnny, you know that I like you- you and I have developed a pretty good friendship over the last couple of months haven’t we? That’s why I am surprised that it is you I have to talk to so much. I have looked at your test scores and I have seen some of your work and it is excellent- you have the ability to be one of my brightest students. Here’s the problem, though…this is the fourth time in a row that you have turned in such sloppy work. So I am going to just keep giving it back to you till you do it correctly, and I don’t care if it takes you a month to do it correctly. You will have to come in after school to redo the work, Also, if you do not change the quality of your work, then I am going to have Mom and Dad come in, and you know what your father said he would do if I call him about you, don’t you? What do you think would be a good way to fix this problem? (Avoiding the Yes-No question)All right. Let’s get back to work, but I want you to know, I think you are a sharp kid, and I was just talking about you in a good way to Dr, Stevens. So let’s start doing the work I know you are capable of. Etc.”

5. Divide and Conquer

In this situation, two students are a constant disruption in class. Take one of the students and treat him in a way that is a little less strident than the other. This can be done by rewarding one of the students for doing something right and making it seem as though he is not the real trouble maker in all of these class problems- it’s the other guy. The second person will not stay too friendly with the first person, and the first person will begin to distance himself from the second person. You say to the first student, “You know Billy, I look at you as one of my better students and I don’t think of you as a troublemaker like some students seem to be in this class. What do you think you could do to improve this problem? (Again, not a yes-no)Following the private discussion, you move Billy making sure to explain to him that you want to get him away from the problems so he can do good work and not be bothered all the time. The partners in crime will not be so friendly with each other after you take this action.

6. The Phone Call From Class

Signal for the misbehaving child to join you in the hallway. Tell the child that you have your cell phone “right here in your hand”, and if you ever see this kind of behavior again, you are going to call his or her Mom at her place of work right here from class and the child is going to have to explain to her Mom the reason why the call is being made. The teacher then asks the student how happy he thinks his Mom is going to be to receive such a phone call from school when she is working? When he replies, “Not very happy”, say, “Right, not very happy, so I expect to see some very quick improvement in your behavior- got that Billy? This is one time where a yes answer is all that is needed. The next day, or for the next few weeks or so, if Billy is acting out, the teacher merely holds the phone up and looks at it and then looks back to Billy. Billy will understand completely. Additionally, can you imagine the effect this will have on the other students, notably potential problem individuals when they find out that someone had to actually call his or her mother from class!

7. The Letter in the Drawer

Let’s say that a child uses foul language in you class. First you tell him that this kind of language is not appropriate for class and that you and he are going to have to talk about this after class. Quietly, without any overreaction and typically after class, although there might be occasion to use this technique within earshot of classmates, you tell the student the following: You are really surprised that a person like him would be speaking like that. You then tell him to write down what he said on a piece of paper. Make sure all of the words and details are included in the writing. Then, with a flourish, you place the writing in a business envelope and put a stamp on it and tell the student that normally, this would go directly into the mail with a phone call to let Mom know it is coming. Also, you dramatically write out a disciplinary referral.

Then you might tell the student that you are going to give him a detention for his behavior, but since you the teacher are such a nice person, you are going to keep this letter and the referral in your desk for mow. If this behavior ever occurs again though, both of these items are being sent along with a second mailing for the additional offense. Then you tell the student that this will stay in your desk till the end of the marking period at which time you will dispose of it if he, the child, continues to behave properly. Like the technique involving the cell phone, if the child is starting to misbehave a few days letter, you can point to the letter or the referral as a silent reminder. The child will get the point and probably appreciate your kindness.

8. Invite Mom to come in

This is a great technique for improving everyone’s behavior because one visit to your class by someone’s Mom who sits right next to her normally misbehaving child for one or more periods and everyone will behave because they will fear that they might be next. Kids would rather have root canal than have Mom come in to sit next to them for an entire period or several periods. The process works like this: You make an effort ahead of time to establish a good working relationship with the Moms of some of your most significant problem individuals. You call Mom and invite her in because Junior is misbehaving. Mom comes to class and sits right next to her child and can remain for one or more days. Nobody wants to endure this humiliation. Do it just once and many of your discipline troubles will be over. The next day after the visitor leaves, the teacher can say… “Well, you saw a parent in here to visit because there were some problems I wanted her to see…who’s next?” Don’t expect any hands!!!

9. Involve the Guidance Counselor

Without fail, you will find guidance counselors more than happy to assist you in dealing with a student experiencing problems because it gives them the opportunity to do what they went to school to learn how to do. This is important to guidance counselors because, in the present national testing zeitgeist, they have all too often become the de facto assessment coordinators for their school. They have less time to actually counsel kids because much of their time is being spent checking bubble sheets, counting booklets, and filling out forms for the state as well as sifting through mountains of paperwork related to special education, for example. As a teacher who sees the same students on a daily basis, you know which students have the most pressing issues related to discipline and which ones would profit most from a visit with the counselor as opposed to a visit with the Principal or Dean of Students. Not every matter needs to go to the principal.

On the other hand, you are out there amidst the masses and you hear various stories about kids regarding things that are happening in their lives. Sometimes you have established enough of a rapport with a student that he or she shares it with you himself. Once a student was talking to me about where she was going for the holidays and matter of factly told me that she and her two sisters are from 3 different fathers and they would be going to see all of the fathers as well as the related grandparents, and even though one of the fathers used to “beat my Mom up”, things are pretty good around the holidays as long as he doesn’t get too drunk, etc. The child acted as though this was completely normal, and although she was a discipline problem now and then, after hearing this story, I looked at her much differently. I realized quickly that this was something that should involve the guidance counselor.

Remember also that kids spend more time around the people in school than the people at home, so you will often know immediately when a kid just does not look right which might be an indicator of sexual abuse, drug use, eating disorders, pregnancy, self abuse, etc. Maybe the grapevine knows about a death, a loss of a job, marital unrest, etc. You are the first line of defense in this process. The counselor has all of the right contacts and phone numbers of professionals that she can bring into the process. When a kid who was never a discipline problem starts to become one, or his work starts to take a negative turn, pay attention and don’t just turn directly to the discipline code page in the student handbook. You and the counselor, working together, can be a great force for changing a kid’s life- and the matter never has to get to the discipline office. Don’t be upset, however, if after the counselor gets involved, he or she is unable to share all information about the child with you. There are some issues with Confidentiality involved, so maybe all you will hear is that “The matter is being taken care of.” That might be all you are able to find out.

10. Careful About Examples

Do you remember the movie Home Alone? In it, Mc Cauley Culkin, the child who was left behind is talking to the old man who used to scare him. They are sitting in a church and the kid tells the old man that a certain third grader got “nailed” when kids found out that he wore dinosaur pajamas. If you are not careful about certain examples you speak about to misbehaving kids, you might get somebody “nailed”. To clarify, if you had brothers or sisters, do you ever remember hearing this from either of your parents, “Why can’t you be more like your brother who always makes the honor roll- he always does all of his work so neatly!

If, as a teacher, you make an example like this by saying, “Why can’t you people in the back turn in neat work like Jimmy here- he is such a wonderful student?”… you may be insuring that poor Jimmy is going to get “Nailed”. The world of kids is difficult enough, don’t put someone in peril because he or she is a model student. You can still have pageantry involving awards, but never expressed in a comparative way as in, “Jimmy got this, but look at you Billy, you only got this!” Your parents did that. It did not necessarily endear you to your brother or sister when the comparison was made.