Help And Advice On Debt Related Problems

For many years I was involved in the finance world and saw first hand the problems many people face when they get into debt.

People in such a situation react in different ways, from completely ignoring what has happened to showing aggression towards their creditors. Neither of course does much good.

The fact is we all have to face up to our responsibilities. The best way to do this, when debt is knocking at your door, is to get some sound advice on what you should do. Debts won't suddenly go away.

One place with lots of advice, on debt related subjects, is myvesta uk. They describe themselves as The Financial Crisis Centre and that's what they are. There is a load of free information on their website.

myvesta uk are specialists in fighting for the rights of UK consumers. They can tell you, for example, all about IVA's, which are Individual Voluntary Arrangements.

I won't go into full details about IVA's, I'll leave that to the myvesta experts, but briefly they are a way of making a formal agreement between you and your creditors to make reduced payments on what you owe.

If you think that a Myvesta UK Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) could help you, or if you want more information about any sort of debt problem, have a look at their website.

They also have real people you can chat with anonymously about debt related issues, on a freephone number - the details are on their site.

I must also mention that myvesta uk are a not-for-profit UK social enterprise.

If you are at all worried about debt get some proper advice.

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The Anita Roddick & Body Shop Story - Part 2

continued from Part 1

Anita Roddick Died September 10, 2007
When the first Body Shop finally opened the only real guideline was that the business needed to take £300 ($600) a week to survive. The first day's trading on the 23rd of March, 1976 took £130 ($260).

Some of the following weeks' figures fell short of the required £300 so Sunday trading was introduced. Anita Roddick also went out in the evenings to talk to institutions, schools and so on with the idea of hopefully selling a few more products.

Shortly after opening, the Body Shop received a letter from a solicitor threatening to sue unless the name of the business was changed. There were apparently two funeral parlours in Kensington Gardens who seemed to think that their business would be affected if there was something called a 'Body Shop' nearby.

It occurred to Anita that there could be some publicity mileage in this so she anonymously phoned the local newspaper. She told them about a 'Mafia of undertakers who were ganging up on a defenceless woman who was trying to run a business while her husband was planning to go off and ride a horse across South America.' The newspaper took the bait and splashed the story over their two middle pages. There was another lesson here: there was no need to pay for advertising.

The first shop traded quite well and a Saturday helper was taken on called Aidre. As business seemed reasonable Anita got the urge to open a second shop but she couldn't get a second loan. She needed a further £4000 ($6000).

Aidre's boyfriend, Ian McGlinn, who was a garage proprietor had some spare cash and said he would lend the money. In return he wanted a half share in the business. The deal went ahead.

Amazingly Ian McGlinn still had a half share when the Body Shop became a public company. His stake was then worth £4 million ($8 million)! All from a £4000 loan. Today the half share could be worth hundreds of millions. Anita has written that she doesn't resent this fact, "We don't need the money, so why should we worry about it or begrudge Ian his good luck? Our pleasure and fulfilment are obtained from running the business, not from the money it makes."

In 1977 the Body Shop received a phone call from a young herbalist, Mark Constantine, who was trying to market his herbal shampoos without much success. His call was from a public phone box and he had to keep feeding in coins as he spoke.

Anita and Mark met and she has said that, "The Henna Cream Shampoo looked and smelled like horse s**t."

The products must still have impressed because an order was placed for £1000. At the time Mark was living on £30 per week and was making up the products in his kitchen. Fortunately for both of them the products sold well and within one month a larger order was placed. Mark's company has grown alongside the Body Shop and remains as one of their major suppliers.

At this time Anita's husband returned from his journey. He had travelled some 2000 miles until one of his horses slipped and fell down a precipice and was killed. He didn't then have the heart to carry on.

Gordon Roddick became involved in the business. They wanted to expand further but had no spare money and the banks were not interested in lending to them.

They were approached by Chris Green, Max Bygraves daughter, who said whe was interested in opening her own Body Shop in Hove. This was agreed on the understanding that it would still be called the Body Shop and Anita and Gordon would supply all of the products.

Though there was no formal contract or fees this was the first Body Shop franchise. At the time Gordon called it 'Self Financing' but could see this was the way to forward so they could expand.

From then on the first batch of franchises began operating and Anita and Gordon accumulated sufficient funds to open a further shop for themselves in Reading.


For the next couple of years the Body Shop spread with outlets all over the place including Sweden and Athens in 1979 and Canada a little later.

Once the Body Shop opened in London's Covent Garden the media started to take notice and Cosmopolitan magazine published a feature. From then on Anita described herself as becoming 'Ms. MegaMouth' and enjoyed promoting the business via chat shows on television, radio and the such like - all free advertising.

As the numbers of shops increased so did the demand for the products. Suppliers looked after them well as they made a principle to pay their bills on time - something that many large businesses tried to avoid.

In 1982 the Body Shop was expanding at the rate of two new shops a month including outlets in Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Holland and Eire. At this time they began to charge a premium of £3000 for a franchise and maintained much stricter controls so that they could ensure a distinctive corporate identity.

In April 1984 the Body Shop first became a public company with the shares floated at 95p each. The price soon went up to £1.56 and the company was all of a sudden worth £8 million. And, as I said at the beginning of part 1 of this article, the Body Shop was sold last year to L'Oreal in a deal worth £652 million (about $1300 million).

From Anita Roddick's need to survive and feed her kids the Roddicks became exceedingly rich.

© Mike Perry 2007

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The Anita Roddick & Body Shop Story - Part 1

I thought that today I'd write about Anita Roddick the British entrepreneur, of Body Shop fame, who died last night.

Though not about blogging it's interesting to look at the beginnings of successful businesses. Last year, for example, Body Shop was sold to L'Oreal for £652 million (about $1300 million) but when Anita started out things were very different.

Anita Roddick's Story
When Anita Roddick set up her first shop in Brighton in 1976 she didn't want to change the world and she didn't even envisage herself as the entrepreneur she was to become. She simply wanted sufficient money to survive and to be able to feed her children.

Her husband had decided to take a couple of years off to fulfill a childhood dream. He wanted to ride a horse from Buenos Aries to New York, a distance of 5,300 miles. Goodness knows what a lot of wives would have said, but Anita accepted this and went about deciding on how she was going to support her family.

She hit upon the idea of starting a shop selling a small range of cosmetics, made from natural ingredients, in five different sizes and sold in the cheapest possible containers. She chose this idea because it was an irritation to her personally that she was unable to purchase small sizes of everyday cosmetics.

Anita was also aware that much of the money she was paying for products was being spent for fancy packaging, that she didn't want or need. Her personal grievances led her to a multi million company.

She recognised that if these things annoyed her then they must also annoy other women, and perhaps men as well.

Anita Roddick found her 'need' which she decided to fill. She didn't intentionally set out to buck the trend, she just recognised something that she thought people would want.

The idea of using natural ingredients developed from things that she had observed when traveling quite extensively prior to her marriage. When, for example, in Tahiti she noticed how the skin of even the elderly women remained soft, smooth and elastic despite constant exposure to the sun.

She found that the women used cocoa butter to rub into their skin. This had been practised for generations. The butter was an excellent skin conditioner and even prevented stretch marks during pregnancy.

Anita's travels also took her to Israel, Paris, Greece, Switzerland (where she worked for the U.N), Australia (where she sold weather boarding) and on to Madagascar, Mauritius and South Africa. As she travelled she observed things, such as the Tahitian cocoa butter, with no idea that they would prove invaluable to her in later life as a business woman.

The first Body Shop was started with the help of a £4,000 ($8,000) bank loan, though her first application for the money was actually turned down. She went to see the bank manager dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and was accompanied by her two small children. Despite her obvious enthusiasm the loan was declined.

This taught her a lesson that sometimes you have to conform. She got a friend to draw up a business plan, bought a business suit and tried again. She saw the same bank manager but this time got the money she needed. With her second application she went about it properly. Perhaps if she hadn't of been willing to change, in this instance, there may never have been the Body Shop empire of today.

With the £4000 in her possession a shop was found in Kensington Gardens, Brighton. She painted the front and inside a dark green. This was no flash of inspiration but was chosen because it seemed the only colour that would cover the damp patches.

The inside walls were covered with larchwood fencing and so the Body Shop basic image was born - out of necessity rather than some great preconceived plan. She did, however, lash out on having a logo designed, which cost her £25 ($50).

Everything for the first shop was done on a shoestring. Initially the ingredients were made up by herself. This caused a few problems so a flit through Yellow Pages found a herbalist who agreed to make up small quantities of the 25 products. The first order was for £700 ($1400) and was paid for in advance, out of the bank loan.

The cheapest containers to be found were small plastic bottles used by hospitals to collect urine samples! Handwritten labels were stuck onto the bottles and these were placed next to postcards giving descriptions and ingredients of the products.

As Anita couldn't afford sufficient bottles she decided to offer to refill used bottles or fill customers own containers. Recycling and reusing materials was born out of economical necessity more than a concern for the environment.

Go to Part 2

© Mike Perry 2007

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Criminal Lawyers Discuss Celebrity Prosecutions

Here's a fascinating blog, especially if you are interested in reading about celebrity prosecutions and other legal matters.

The blog author, lawyer Dmitry Gorin, is a Professor at UCLA and Pepperdine Law School, and he provides frequent commentary on Court TV.

Recent posts include comment on the Phil Spector murder case. The question discussed is to whether the prosecution can win. There are also posts about the cases of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Another non celebrity post that caught my eye has the main title of What rights do you have as a passenger in a vehicle after a traffic stop?. This covers questions as to whether the police have the right to search you or order you to provide identification when in such a situation.

Fascinating stuff!

The blog is from the criminal lawyers Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin and you'll find it on the following link: Los Angeles Criminal Lawyers Blog California Criminal Defense Law Forum.

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How To Disguise Your Blog URL

Do you want to disguise your blog address in adverts and the like? Or for any other reason? Well you can do this with the website My Dot TK.

You can pick out a new URL for use in adverts, or anywhere else, and this will re-direct traffic to your blog or website.

For example, as a test, I picked out http://www.moneymaking4free.tk/ for use with this blog. If you click on this it will take you to the normal mikesmoneymakingmission.blogspot.com - in other words back to this page.

With each URL selected you can also have up to five email adresses - which again are redirected to your own email address.

This is all for free - though there are payment options if any 'extras' are required. You can have as many URL's as you want.

Are there any snags?
A few but it is for free remember.

(1) When re-directed there will be a banner ad at the top of the page.
(2) To keep things current free domains expire after 90 days if less than twenty-five (25) users have been to the website.
(3) The 'tk' ending to the address might have people saying 'who?' or 'what?'

Where is tk/TK?
It's all set up in the Tokelau islands in the Pacific Ocean, about 300 miles north of Samoa. A group of Dutch and American entrepreneurs have set up Dot TK and the advertising will help the coral islands' income. They only have a combined population of around 1,500. Technically the islands are British and were claimed as such back in 1765.

Positives?
There could be some interesting names still available and the banner ad shouldn't detract from your blog or website when re-directed. This doesn't in any way effect using your normal URL.

If you let your mind free there could be several uses for such a service.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Head For An Exotic Beach Holiday

Here in the UK it has been a washout of a summer so many of us feel we have missed out on our beach holidays. It's tempting, therefore, to head for the sunshine.

I've been looking at the Dial A Flight website and especially some of the exotic beach holidays on offer. To me exotic means places like Zanzibar, Tahiti, Fiji, the Cook Islands and so on.

But whether you want Beach Holidays, Tropical Holidays or Beach Resort Holidays they are all on the Dial A Flight site plus, of course, there are Cheap Flights. There are lots of Holiday Offers.

Wherever you choose it's bound to be better weatherwise than Bognor, Brighton or Blackpool!

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Money Making Weekly Report - Week 48

I'm now at week 48 of my Money Making Mission. The aim being to try and make money using only free blogs and without any capital outlay.

Below are programs I am currently promoting - in alphabetical order, with a few comments.

AdSense $579.68
I received $253.09, paid direct to my bank account, from AdSense this week. It all works well but, as before, I'm not always happy with some of the ads that end up on my celeb blog.

Amazon UK £4.34 ($8.64)
As I wrote on Tuesday I am trying Amazon Context Links on one of my celeb blogs as a trial. It's early days and I'm getting more clicks but unfortunately not orders.

AuctionAds $29.73
I'm a bit confused by what I have earned. Hopefully will sort itself out for next week. Note: If you join AuctionAds now they will credit your account with $25!! See my post Free $25 From AuctionAds for more info.

Convergence Inc $156.60 (over 18's only)
Adult only products. They provide a free website - providing you can find a way to promote it. Not suitable, for example, on this blog.

DIY Dating £72.99 ($145.25)
DIY also offer a free dating website with choice of designs and content plus use of their massive database. Has possibilities.

FriendFinderGroup $703.84
Had a cheque form them this week. Earnings now through the $700 barrier. Over 20 websites to promote ranging from Christian and Jewish friendship to Adults and Bondage! Caters for most interests.

Helium $13.38
I keep saying I like this site but you have to be prepared to write quite a few articles to earn anything worthwhile.

myLot $59.68
Haven't been on their website. Out of interest: I have signed up 113 new members to MyLot and this brings me in ... roll of drums ... 15 cents on average per week!

PayPerPost $230.83
Slowed for me as I'm back to the old story of not being able to find any suitable opportunities to write about over the last week. Most that I qualify for are off niche and only worth $5. I won't write a sponsored post for such an amount. I looked quickly this morning and I think there are now a few higher payment posts on offer.

Sexy Ads $322.73 (over 18's only)
A well run, efficient affiliate program - if suitable for your blog!

You Gov £51.00 ($102.00)
Genuine survey company - want more panel members in UK, USA and the Middle East.

Miscellaneous $500.68
From such things as links, sponsored blogs, adverts etc.

Total $3350.21

I've also made money from Commission Junction, Cashlinkr, Daytipper, but no longer promote these.

That's another week ticked off. Thanks for reading this post.

Good luck,
Mike.



Blogging Good Blogs. Books on blogging, find out what makes others successful.

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