Welcome to The Value Pages Group - Summary Blog

This blog is dedicated to the summary of our blog content. The Value Pages Group's members create content from all over the web, which is compiled here for your reading pleasure. If a topic catches your eye, please check out the full post at the original source and let us know what you think.


Friday, January 30, 2009

Video Recommendation From Peter Hackett



Hello, I’m Peter Hackett, founder of Johnell Properties LLC, www.JPRescue.com, and Global Property Group LLC. As you can tell, I offer many services, which is one of the primary reasons I’ve become a member of The Value Pages Group. My businesses keep me very busy, and I just don’t have the time to meet face to face every week in order to network my businesses.

Evolution has come to marketing. The Value Pages Group provides me the opportunity to successfully network throughout a range of business communities at any time, day or night. The Value Pages Group is my choice for lucrative networking.

Peter Hackett: Real Estate Investing Professional

The Value Pages Group Events

At The Value Pages Group, we don't believe in meetings, but we LOVE Events! Weekly meetings have a tendency to get repetitive and boring, which is why there's so much membership turnover in traditional business networking groups. Business owners eventually just lose interest and time for the same humdrum 15 second commercials every week. That's why we facilitate quick and easy communication between our members. If you've ever been a part of a more traditional networking group, you're going to love our more dynamic and effective brand of networking and referral building, and you're going to love having those two hours a week back! We think that if you're going to take time out of your busy work week that it should be time well spent. That's why members of The Value Pages Group work hard to develop Events with great atmosphere and truly helpful content. Any member can host an Event, and we would be glad to help you get started! Is hosting Events your thing? Find out more about our Envoy Program.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Video Recommendation From Jason Sanders



Hi, my name is Jason Sanders and I’m a Mortgage Specialist. I operate nationally in all 50 states. I do residential and commercial financing on purchases and refinances. I deal with borrowers of all types and on property sizes of all types, from small row homes in Philadelphia, $50k range, all the way up into the millions of dollars. And over the past several months in this economy, I’ve had to evaluate what my priorities are, what’s most important to me, and what’s going to help me grow my business because, in the mortgage business, it’s important that I generate more interest with less time. I have to secure a larger piece of a shrinking pie in order to keep things on an even keel, and that highlights that time is my most important asset. That’s why I’m involved with The Value Pages Group. It allows me to network with up to hundreds of other business owners, all with just minutes out of my week. It’s important and it’s really working for me! I’ve gotten 5 referrals so far in just a 2 month membership span. So, we’re just getting started. I hope that you’ll look at all the material out there and compare everything because The Value Pages Group is the best value. Price and results say that there’s nothing better than The Value Pages Group!

Give it a shot at www.TheValuePagesGroup.com

Jason Sanders: Mortgage Specialist

Business Writing Contest

In The Value Pages Group, like any other business networking group or referral group, you get out what you put in. With The Value Pages Group, it's a little bit different though, because you can't measure your activity by the number of hands you shake, or the amount of business cards you pass out. Here, activity is measured by the amount of information you put out about yourself and your business.

There are several advantages to this business model. The first is that there's tremendous flexibility. We don't have to be at a certain place at a certain time to put out information about ourselves and our businesses. We can do this whenever our individual schedules permit us to do it. That's why we're all here, for the flexibility.

Another big advantage is that the information that we compile on ourselves and our business is able to be put on the internet and live on forever as advertisements of our expertise and abilities. This information becomes searchable and available to anyone who may be interested in what we have to offer. In short, the time we spend composing this information is invaluable because the information itself continues to work for us indefinitely.

The final big advantage of this business model is the act of writing itself. We all carry around a business plan in our heads. Every day we have an agenda and we execute it. That agenda may be based on a very detailed business plan, or a loose direction for our business that we are carrying in our minds. As anyone who has taken the time to transition an idea from their head to a piece of paper can attest, the writing process purifies ideas. When we write things out, inevitably weaknesses will appear and questions will be raised. Addressing those weaknesses and answering those questions galvanizes our ideas, sharpens our focus, and energizes our direction.

With these things in mind, I'm announcing a Writing Contest! The goal is to educate your readers. These articles should be educational. They should not be blatant commercials for your business. There are two categories.

In the first I'm asking members to write on the topic of growing maintaining or improving your business. What important lessons has your business taught you that can be cross-applied by business owners in other professions? Please see the rules at the bottom of this message.

In the second I'm asking members to educate their readers about their profession. Choose a topic, pull back the curtain. What do your customers not understand about what you do? What do your business partners not understand about what you do? How can you describe your job or a portion of it so that your reader has a greater understanding and appreciation for your products or services? Please see the rules at the bottom of this message.

By now I'm sure you're wondering what the prizes are. The winner for each category will be featured on the home page of the website for 1 month and the overall winner will have their blog featured on our organizational pages on both Facebook and LinkedIn for a month, which are available to view by millions of readers. Remember all participants will win because all articles will be included in our soon to be rolled out "Articles" page on http://www.TheValuePagesGroup.com.

Rules:
You must join The Value Pages Group as a Basic Member in order to participate. Basic Membership is FREE.

Helpful: The idea here is that all articles will be rated on a helpfulness scale. It will have to pass a basic test of helpfulness before it is approved for publication. You should be able to read the article and think, "yeah, that would be helpful to me as an independent business owner."

Not overly self-promotional: There is a fine line here - you will write on topics you know, which will raise your profile, and make you more likely to be hired or consulted. That's fine and encouraged. But you can't use an article to sell your service directly - that's what member promotions are for. We don't allow direct links back to the author's website within the article. Blatant self-promotion is frowned on; indirect self-promotion is encouraged!

Articles must be between 500-1,500 words in length. Longer articles can be broken into multiple parts, but that is strongly discouraged (rating such articles is difficult). We recommend re-writing longer articles to fit within the length limit, or creating two stand-alone articles from one longer piece.

The deadline for entries is Feb 15, 2009.

Jason Sanders
President

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Video Recommendation From Michael Sanders



Hello, I’m Michael Sanders. I’m a public speaker and a member of The Value Pages Group. As a public speaker, I deal with the subjects of life, whether we deal with them at home, in the work place, or at school. So if you’re ever looking for anyone who wants to address the subject of life head on, I’m the person. I have a unique view of life and how to deal with it.

What I want to talk to you about today though, is The Value Pages Group and what it means to you and me. Imagine the opportunity of being able to network with different people of different abilities, without leaving the comfort of your home. After all, it is casual Monday here in my part of the world. You do have this ability with The Value Pages Group. There are low membership charges, the wonderful ability to associate and to mingle with others without having to get dressed up and go somewhere just to pass out cards. So then think about what it can do for you, what it can do for me, and what we can do to help build this group up. Tell others! Work with others, and before you know it, your business is going to grow, and you’re going to prosper financially from it! It’s a good thing!

ML Sanders: Motivational Speaker

Why Choose The Value Pages Group?

We recognize that there are lots of options for business owners looking to expand their businesses. If you've been researching what is available to you, you may be confused as to what the best way to proceed is, and what will generate the most results for your time and money. Let's break down some common options available to you and weigh them against The Value Pages Group.

•1. Traditional Business Networking and Referral Groups (think BNI or LeTip). These groups usually have 15 to 50 members and meet weekly at a restaurant for breakfast or lunch. Members' networking opportunities usually consist of standing up to give a 15 second commercial about their businesses, while their fellow members enjoy their meal. What is the cost of membership in such a group? Membership dues average $300.00 annually. Then there is the cost of purchasing your meal each week. If you take a meal cost of $15.00 X 52 weeks in the year, you get an additional annual fee of $780.00 per year, making your total investment $1,080.00 per year! That is quite a bit of money to spend, but it still doesn't take into account the time you spend traveling back and forth to the designated restaurant and enjoying your networking lunch (usually 2 hours, one day a week). If you usually take an hour for lunch everyday, you're only losing one hour per week. But how much is your time worth? If you figure it out, that hour per week lost probably costs you more than the annual membership over the course of a year. The Value Pages Group improves upon the concepts of traditional business networking and referral groups. It gives you more members, and more members = more referrals. The Value Pages Group supports up to 150 members per chapter offering immense potential for business networking and building referrals. It also allows for instantaneous conversation in just seconds from anywhere with a computer and an internet connection. That's right, you don't have to travel or purchase a meal and it only takes minutes per week to get your message out and educate your fellow members about your business. The Value Pages Group offers all of this superior networking and referral building capacity at a truly incredible price point. You can get a taste of what The Value Pages Group has to offer with our Basic Membership for FREE! For more information about the levels of membership that are available and their benefits, check out the website

•2. Online Business Networking (think LinkedIn). LinkedIn is an incredible website, but most members will tell you that they are confused about how to effectively use it to build their business. Unfortunately LinkedIn restricts communication between members, so many users end up viewing it as a Job Search engine. In online business networking, just because you have a list of names in a column labeled "Business Network," doesn't mean those people are actually working for you.

At The Value Pages Group, we can help you turn your LinkedIn contacts into a dynamic referral generating engine. The key is technology that allows for open and instantaneous communication between members and doesn't limit frequency or quality of communication so that members are able to build deep and meaningful business relationships that lead to increased referrals and strong business growth.

•3. Social Networking (think Facebook or MySpace). Business owners considering using a social networking site to build their business should not forget that it's Social Networking. The Social aspect comes first. If your thinking of using one of these sites as an advertising medium, be prepared to alienate your friends and irritate people, in short - failure. Business can be generated from these sites, but it is a long term strategy and can not be the focus of your activity on these sites.

The Value Pages Group is a business first site. You don't have to be shy about putting yourself out there! Members are encouraged to educate one another about their businesses. If you choose to become a member of The Value Pages Group, you're accepting a promotional role, not just for your own business, but also for the businesses of your fellow members. With this kind of mindset, each chapter of The Value Pages Group will thrive and provide tremendous value to its members.

When it comes to building your business, you're the only one who can choose the right path for you. We're not discounting any of the above methods, because they've all proven to be effective. They are also not mutually exclusive, you may use one or all to benefit your business. Hopefully this discussion has shown you that The Value Pages Group is a solid investment of your time and energy and would be a great addition to your overall strategy to build and grow your business. If you you're not yet convinced, or would like more information, feel free to check out the rest of the website. We're looking forward to working with you to create a sustainable referral generating engine for your business.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Video Recommendation from Charley Hopson




Hi, my name is Charley Hopson. I’m a retired financial executive, having spent 35 years in the insurance industry. I retired and started a company called Creative Cash Flow Solutions with the idea of purchasing mortgage notes secured by real estate, and that led me into the real estate business. I have been buying and selling home for the last few years. My strategy is to market to free and clear homes, people with a lot of equity, which gives us a lot of options. I have a website. It’s www.ez4uhomesales.com.



I’m a good friend of Jason’s and decided to join The Value Pages because I think it gives me a great opportunity to network with other individuals and save time in running around. Thank you.



Charley Hopson: Real Estate Investor

Company Overview:

p>Our approach is simple. Instead of traveling to a specific location once a week to meet with other members and exchange referrals, The Value Pages allows members to network without leaving their offices and at any time of the day or night that is convenient to their schedule. Members are able to prepare written commercials, announcements of new or discounted products or services and other advertisements and requests through a single post to our online forum. With the click of a button your single message is received by all the members of your chapter of The Value Pages Group, who can then respond with any follow up questions and referrals to match the content of your post. It's incredibly easy. If you can send an email, you will have no problem operating The Value Pages. Imagine the dynamic ways that you can grow your business with this kind of structure! You can post information and advertisements any time day or night, instead of waiting for a weekly meeting. This Is Networking At The Speed Of Business. This is The Value Pages.

Mission: To provide online business networking and referrals to local businesses nationwide through a unique system that maximizes member's time and resources.


Products: Business Growth, Business Networking, More Referrals, More Sales, More Money and More Time.


Members are encouraged to do a weekly commercial highlighting a feature of their business and outlining what a good referral is. Members can post to the forum as often as they would like, as long as their posts are informative and business oriented. Members are encouraged to post referrals from their client base in order to grow confidence and increase referrals from other members. The Value Pages Group is, bar none, the best value you’re going to find to expand and grow your business through networking and referrals. Don’t believe us? Just see what some of our current members are saying about The Value Pages Group. You can get a taste of what The Value Pages Group has to offer through our FREE Basic Membership. For those who just can’t wait to take their business to the next level, the Silver and Gold Memberships offer unparalleled features and dynamic ways to grow a low maintenance referral stream for your business. For more information about the different levels of membership and their benefits, please check out the website: www.TheValuePagesGroup.com. If you are interested in increasing your sales and growing your business, Join Us.

Recommendation from Larry Bailey

"Jason's background is what caught my eye a few years ago. He was one of the very few Originators that I worked around, who could see a true "Opportunity." Years later, he is still not disappointing me. The Value Pages Group
is a format that uses Technology to an advantage to keep the Business Leaders connected to find "Opportunities" in any environment. The critical issue is the follow-though and the transparency to make sure that your client-base is well served and not taken advantage of, while being able to speak to the other Members' client-bases to look for more ways to grow your business. He has followed the philosphy of "Givers Gain" and it shows and MOST IMPORTANTLY IT WORKS. Contact Jason for a better understanding of what he can do, and I promise you will not be disappointed." January 20, 2009



Larry Bailey, Vice President of Marketing, TruClose Financial Services, LLC

History of The Value Pages Group

Hi, my name is Jason Sanders and I'm the founder and president of The Value Pages Group. I'm a six year veteran of the mortgage industry. As a mortgage professional, I have always been pro-active about continuing education, particularly sales education. Over the years I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on seminars, boot camps, coaching and mentoring. All that money was definitely money well spent, as it gave me a clear and concise understanding of what it takes to build a business and propelled my personal mortgage business from average to exceptional.



Over the years, I have picked up countless skills and tips on how to generate sales. However, the most powerful thing I learned was the concept of giving to get. In sales, there are hundreds of people standing in line to teach you how to ask for a referral. But all the asking in the world doesn't make people want to help you. It takes a specific skill set to get people to want to help you.



I was taught a very powerful system, where the business owner keeps in contact with his/her client base consistently on a rolling 45 day schedule. The key to this system is to never ask for anything, but to give something to your client base every time you speak to them. The things that you would give will probably vary based on your business, but I chose to partner with other local businesses that provided products and services to homeowners. I was able to convince fellow business owners to offer a discount on their products or services to my client base in return for the favor of being introduced to 200 or so potential new clients (my clients).



It was a win win win situation. Businesses that cooperated with me in this endeavor got the benefit of being exposed to new potential clients at no cost. My clients received discounted products and services for their homes from local providers. Ultimately, I won the most! I was able to introduce myself to, and raise my profile with, other business owners in my community. I was also able to offer items of value to my customer base at absolutely no cost to me. That meant that my clients began to look forward to my calls. I wasn't talking to them about their mortgage anymore. Instead I was talking to them about special offers that I had which could potentially save them money. Potentially is the key word. My whole goal was to provide the perception of value to my client base. It didn't matter if my clients had the need for the discounted services and products that I was exposing them to, because the most important thing is that they remember that I tried to give them something of value. That fact, created in my clients the subconscious desire to return the favor, thus fulfilling the universal law of reciprocity. I wasn't necessarily pursuing mortgages for my clients, but rather I was elevating my profile in their minds so that they thought of me when anyone else had a need that I could fill. Their subconscious minds recognized that I was a giver, and generated an agenda to give back to me.



This program was incredibly successful, and after some initial leg work to set up the infrastructure, only required me to contact 3 of my clients each day by phone (in order to contact all my clients in a 45 day period). What surprised me, though, was the amount of referrals and new business that I generated from the business owners that I partnered with. I got more from my partner businesses than from my own client base! The universal law of reciprocity applies to business owners the same as everyone else! The fact that I received more referrals from the business owners than from my own clients underscores the fact that the more you give the more you get. I had actually provided more value to my partners than my clients by volunteering to introduce my partners to my client base compared to offering my client base a 10%-15% discount on my partners services. Ultimately I was a victim of my own success. I generated more than twice as many referrals as I had expected. Since I wasn't prepared to handle that sort of volume, it soon became harder and harder to allot the time each day to make the 30 phone calls required to reach 3 of my clients. Another challenge with this type of system was that it was hard for me, as a single individual, to generate enough referrals from my client base to match all the referrals that my partner businesses were able to generate for me, which ultimately led to an erosion of their enthusiasm for the program. So I began to think about ways to use the concepts that I had learned in order to generate the same or better results in less time and be able duplicate my results for all my partner businesses.



In the mean time I had joined a traditional Business Networking and Referral Group (along the lines of BNI or LeTip). This group provided me with a lot of referrals, but I noticed a lot of turn over in the membership, and I also noticed that only certain types of businesses were consistently participating. Specifically businesses in the trades were rarely represented. I later learned that it was hard for business owners to manage job sites and retail locations and still be able to take time each week for a 2 hour networking lunch.



I began to envision technology that would allow businesses open and instantaneous communication between one another. As I conceptualized the networking and referral generating services that I wanted, I realized that businesses need a way to develop meaningful business relationships with one another in a way that will maximize their resources - their money, and more importantly their time. It was important to me that this group would allow any and every type of business to participate. It was obvious that face to face meetings are powerful, but I wanted my time to count for something. I imagined, instead of networking meetings, networking events that would meet real business needs and provide a fun and productive business environment. I'm proud to say that I think we got it right. We were able to develop a system that will harness the power of numbers to the business owner's favor, while still maintaining the intensity and benefit of a focus group or a mastermind group, and one that can be utilized and capitalized on with only minutes invested per week. After a lot of planning, consultation, and testing The Value Pages Group was launched on October 28, 2008.



Thank you so much for your interest in The Value Pages Group. Please check out the website, www.TheValuePagesGroup.com, for more information. We're looking forward to having you as a member!



Sincerely,


Jason Sanders
President

Save Time And Money And Get Better Results With Your Online Business Networking And Referral Group




Hi, I’m Jason Sanders, President of The Value Pages Group. Are you in business for yourself? Is business slower this year than it was last year or the year before? Are you looking to grow your business through referrals in an affordable and effective way? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to The Value Pages Group!



I created the value pages group to help your business in three distinct ways:



1. The first is Time. In today’s economic environment, every business owner’s most important asset is time! We all only have 24 hours in the day, so it’s really important that we make every minute count for something.



Having said that, why would you participate in a more traditional networking group that requires you to travel to a specific location and purchase a meal, just in order to stand up and give a 15 second commercial about your business. Instead, take those two hours a week that you’ve dedicated to that, and apply them to something that really matters – your bottom line and building your business.



At The Value Pages Group we give you the same networking opportunities and referral generating capacities of a more traditional group, but the great thing is that everything is online! So you don’t have to travel. You don’t have to purchase a meal, and all of your activity can be done around your schedule, any time, day or night, and from any location, well, any location that has a computer and an internet connection. It’s really convenient, and it’s really effective!



2. The second way that we benefit your business is Money. If you’ve been looking at some of these more traditional groups, you know that their annual membership is upwards of $300.00. At The Value Pages Group we have a free membership. It’s the Basic Membership. So, I encourage you to join as a Basic Member and check us out. See what we’re all about. I know you’re going to love it!



3. The third way we benefit your business is Results. You know, if you join a group, and you put time and money into it, even if it’s only minutes per week, you want that group to deliver referrals! And that’s what we do here at The Value Pages Group.



A more traditional group has a limited appeal in the amount of businesses that actually join as members because a lot of business owners are too busy to make time for a breakfast or a lunch meeting. With The Value Pages Group there is a much broader appeal, and we’re experiencing a lot of members from different types of businesses that you don’t find in a more traditional group (retailers, construction trades, all types of businesses). In fact The Value Pages Group supports up to 150 businesses per chapter. And we all know that the more members, the better the results for all of the members, as far as referrals go. And with these things, it’s not necessarily about doing business with all of the members themselves, but it’s all about each members circle of influence, and with that many people, there’s an immense opportunity for networking and building referrals with The Value Pages Group



So I hope you take the time to look through the website (www.TheValuePagesGroup.com). Check everything out. And I hope that you compare us against the competition, because I know that if you do that, you’ll be choosing The Value Pages Group!

Online Business Networking and Referral Group

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