Kim Lavine's Blog

Get Your Product into Big Retail Stores

Kim Lavine — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:47:31 +0000

Got a MILLION DOLLAR idea? Then what's holding you back from turning it into A MILLION DOLLARS?

We're going to KICK IT TO THE CURB in this 8 Week Course personally led and mentored by me: BREAK DOWN THE DOORS OF BIG RETAIL!

Top 10 Resolutions Worth Making - #10

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:47:01 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

Everybody today wants to be famous, because they think it's going to make them rich. They're wrong.

The richest people I know are people you've never heard of, doing simple things you never thought of, getting richer than you thought possible by executing a well-thought out Business Plan.

#9 Forget 'Lose Weight.' Make Money!

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:42:15 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

I get so many messages to lose weight everyday everywhere I turn, I can’t take it anymore. Just say “no” to them in your head, and “no” to them with your wallet.

I have a diet and exercise program for you; it’s called work your butt off to get rich.

#8 - Kick Butt, Knock Down Doors, and Stand Up for Yourself

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:34:26 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

Women own 48% of all businesses, but only receive 4% of all private equity to start and grow those businesses each year. So what’s stopping us?

Is it just going to take more women to have faith? Do we just need a dream? A hero? A vision? Or is it a simple matter of confidence?

#7 - Accept the Fact You're Beautiful

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:29:32 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

You’re beautiful. I want you to tell yourself that every minute of every day.

I want it to be the first thing you feel in the morning and the last thing you remember at night before you fall asleep.

#6 - Never Give Up

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:23:02 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

Never give up, no matter how much opposition you face.

Stand up for yourself and fight, but always maintain your integrity and always treat others with courtesy and respect, whether they deserve it or not.

#5 - No Quitters, Criers, Complainers, or Cowards--Especially No Quitters!

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:15:19 +0000

An Excerpt from MOMMY MILLIONAIRE

Failure was inevitable. I was done beating myself up for failing.

Not facing failure--my own shortcomings, my arrogance, my ignorance, or my self-defeating attitude--then coming back to try to fix what I had failed at? Now that was something to be ashamed of.

#4 - Screw Guilt

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:08:53 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

I can tell you from firsthand experience that saying “no” to guilt begins and ends with saying “no” to perfection.

#3 - Love Thyself

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:01:47 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

Surely the first lesson for women is to love ourselves. We can’t take our place as thought leaders in the new world order until we eliminate all the self-doubts that are holding us back.

#2 - You're Fabulous - Now OWN IT!

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:55:12 +0000

An excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

I know as women we’re always putting the needs of others before our own, but when it comes to business, I want you to be greedy.
I Want You to Want Success.

#1 - Go Big or Go Home

Kim Lavine — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:46:28 +0000

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

Throughout my business journey I’ve had to regularly teach myself to see the big picture on a yearly basis. It wasn’t until I successfully raised private equity from angel investors to grow my company, at the same time recruiting world-class individuals who had a hand in either starting or growing some of the biggest businesses of the last 20 years, that I truly learned how to think big.

For People With Dreams

Kim Lavine — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:20:12 +0000

Critically-Acclaimed Bestselling Author Kim Lavine

Money is just the machinery that makes ideas work. The passion of the people with dreams is the commodity that is precious.

With the realization of my dreams, I had found much more than I had even been looking for—way more than money. I had found my purpose, my daily gratitude, and my affirmation of my love for my children on a hourly basis. I had learned to rely on the inner resources of strength, hope, hard work and faith to bring me the things I really needed in my life, instead of a reliance on material possessions to fill up all the holes where these qualities were missing. I had started out an imperfect person, and I had come out whole. I finally, only at the very end, saw what these investors were after in me.

An Excerpt from MOMMY MILLIONAIRE - Click to Read MoreThe person and their passion, I learned—their conviction, their ideas, their belief in themselves, hard work, and insistence on doing what is right and not what is easy—is the commodity worth millions. With that everything is possible.

This Gift is for every person who ever had a dream

A dream of taking control of your own destiny. A dream of finding financial independence. A dream of finding work that leaves you satisfied and fulfilled at the end of the day. A dream of a workplace that doesn’t penalize you for being a parent.

This Gift is for every person who came up with an idea

An idea for making the world a better, or prettier, or kinder, or easier place, and didn’t know what to do to turn her idea into a reality. Simple ideas, big ideas, ideas that can change the world, discovered at their kitchen table, in-between making peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and helping kids with homework after school.

This Gift is for every person who faced challenges

Challenges to keep her family healthy, her house clean, to pay the bills, to advocate for your kids, to stand up for yourself. This gift is for the women who pushed through challenge, faced down prejudice, and stood up to those who would underestimate us, cutting a swath wide enough for the rest of us to follow.

This Gift is for every person who ever loved

Who was passionate about their ideas. Who had a desire to make her life better for herself and her family. Who boasted unapologetically about her kids, and her husband. Who fought to keep her family her number one priority. Who wasn’t afraid to be enthusiastic when the whole world was telling her she was crazy. And for the women who found the courage to follow their dreams.

This Gift is for every person who found the courage to follow their dreams

Everything begins with a search for something better, A DREAM, an idea, the courage to face challenge, and the passion to get it done. You can do it. Believe in yourself. Change the rules. Join the revolution.

from MOMMY MILLIONAIRE by critically-acclaimed bestselling author Kim Lavine

How To Be Disruptive

Kim Lavine — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:08:45 +0000

Critically-Acclaimed Bestselling Author Kim Lavine

Business as usual produces results as usual. If you want extraordinary results, act in extraordinary ways.

The road to success is choked up with people standing in line for permission. So get out of line and go GET IT!

Most of everything I’ve accomplished in my life results from my ability to not take “no” for an answer. I’ve broken just about every rule there is, and regularly push boundaries to the point that make people uncomfortable, no matter how high up they are. Because in my experience, that’s the only way you get things done. Especially if they’re new things.

“You can always tell a leader by the arrows in her back.”

A lot has been said lately about “disruptive” technologies. It’s usually the first word out of my investor friend’s mouths when I ask them what they’re putting their money in. These are the revolutionary ideas that are going to shake up the marketplace in a big way, making a lot of people that make up the status quo very uncomfortable while making a visionary few very rich. Just one example is Groupon. It was one of the hottest, fastest growing, most disruptive business ideas to hit the marketplace in the last few years. Unlike other early technology startups like Twitter which still struggle to fully commercialize, Groupon investors were making tons of money right from the very start, while radically changing the way local and national businesses connected with consumers. It’s hard to believe that a business concept so wildly imitated and mainstreamed in so short a time was considered disruptive in the not too distant past.

You can’t change the world with disruptive technology without being a little disruptive yourself.

Having a revolutionary idea is one thing.

Getting others to believe in it is another. Being ahead of your time is both a blessing and a curse. You have to shake people out of the status quo way of doing business and get them to believe in what most don’t have the vision yet to see. Even if they’re presidents of major corporations. You have to get out of line, break down doors, push aside fear, face down doubt, and make things happen on nerve alone. You have to stand up for yourself and fight.

You’re gonna fail if you do nothing. You might as well fail fighting for yourself!

There’s nothing more dangerous than someone with nothing else to lose.

An excerpt from MOMMY MILLIONAIRE - Click to read moreWhen I’ve personally faced these dramatic moments in my business life, I’ve always chosen to go “all in” on nerve, and it’s always come up all aces. One of the most daring things I ever did, as detailed in my book MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, was fight for my product in a way that would send shivers down the spine of 99% of the people I have met on my business journey. My decision was vindicated months later when I met a Senior V.P. from Macys in New York, when he showed up at my booth at a tradeshow there. I was amazed that he remembered me and felt compelled to search me out of the hundreds of exhibitors at the huge Javits Center.

“Keep pushing!” he told me, while I shook his hand. “I want you to call every buyer in the Macy’s chain till you find someone committed to this product’s success. Tell them that I personally told you to push it through the stores! Don’t give up until you do!”

I was shaking hands with one of the top V.P.s at Federated Department Stores, who was rallying me on with an inspired pep talk, and all this came out of one daring act. I couldn’t believe it. I walked out into the aisle and blabbered like a baby to my fellow exhibitors, “There goes a Senior VP with Macy’s!” while they all oohed and ahhed and looked longingly at the back of his perfectly tailored suit disappearing into the hordes.

Attention Women: Be Disruptive

If you come up against an insurmountable wall and take a stand for yourself, making people nervous with your “disruptive” idea, maybe even angry, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t apologize for your passion. I hope you push yourself to your limit, learn things you never imagined, confront fear with courage, stand up to those who underestimate or dismiss you, go places and do things you never thought you could.

Bring disruptive ideas to market in disruptive ways—and create tomorrow’s wealth and employment opportunities today.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

An Excerpt from THE MOMMY MANIFESTO - click to read more

That doesn’t mean you’re a pushover. It doesn’t mean you’re not tough and savvy and smart and confident when you treat yourself and others with courtesy and respect. Demand the respect you deserve. Fight for what’s yours.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never, never, never give up. Go to the end not giving up.

Fight them in the boardrooms and the streets. Fight in the schools and fight in the churches. Fight with growing confidence and growing strength. Use your backbone to stand up for yourself and fight. Never surrender, even if you’re subjugated and starving; carry on the struggle until, in God’s good time, the new world we’re creating with all its power and might, steps forth to rescue and liberate us from the old.

Can't Buy This

Kim Lavine — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:41:32 +0000

Critically-Acclaimed, Bestselling Author Kim Lavine

I know a lot of very rich people and I can tell you from experience:

Money ain't all it's cracked up to be. It's the journey making it that is the reward.

The day after Thanksgiving is the kick-off to the biggest retailing season of the year. It's time to think about the people we love and go on the hunt for those very special things that we think will make them feel very special. I love it.

But Thanksgiving Day is for pausing with family and friends and reflecting with gratitude on the things that really make us happy in life--which money can't buy.

Just because someone has more money than you, doesn't mean they're any happier--was one of my mother's favorite sayings. In remembrance of my mother, and gratitude for raising me right, I give you my TOP TEN THINGS MONEY CAN'T BUY. (Excerpted from my books MOMMY MILLIONAIRE and THE MOMMY MANIFESTO.)

INTEGRITY

The first rule of success is that integrity is the most precious thing you possess and you must protect it at all costs. It’s the road map by which you guide yourself through the minefield of personal and professional relationships that make up business and life.

Compromise your integrity just once, and you’ve lost it forever. That’s how precious integrity is.

Business, like life, is all about relationships, and once people have lost faith that you will act honestly and fairly in a business transaction, you can rarely earn that faith and trust back. Call it karma, or the Golden Rule, it’s never been truer that you get back what you put out, and that treating people as you would want to be treated yourself yields bountiful, almost magical returns.

DREAMS

All great journeys are begun on the strength of just one individual and their dream.

Everything begins with a search for something better, a dream, an idea, the courage to face challenge, and the passion to get it done. You can do it. Believe in yourself. Change the rules. Join the revolution.

PASSION

When passion walks in the room, everyone stands up. Passion is the spark that lights the gasoline that is life.

Passion is what everyone wants and if you have it, people will either want to be like you or be with you.

In a meeting or a party or in any group, the people with passion in their eyes are the people whom everyone else is listening to and watching. They’re the leaders. Everyone looks to passionate people for what’s next, because their passion leads us to horizons few have the vision or the courage to explore. People are not born passionate. Passion is the process by which you manifest your dreams, and far too many people in this world have given up on their dreams or sacrificed them for a comfortable way of life or a secure job. That’s why passionate people rule; they’re making their dreams happen. That’s why some people in this world are jealous of passionate people. We’re taught early to go to school, get good grades, get a good degree, then a good job with a good title in a good career track. Becoming an entrepreneur means learning to value ideas and passion over degrees and job titles. People running on passion are 100 percent alive, using every single capacity God has given them to live life to the limit on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual spectrum every day. No wonder some people are jealous of passionate people. You don’t need those people.

CHUTZPAH

Can you believe the secret of my success boils down to one simple factor? It’s nerve, or as my friends from New York like to call it, chutzpah. Chutzpah, or nerve, is a mixture of boldness and confidence you use to get what you want in this world.

Chutzpah is an ability to create the life the life of your dreams by acting with courage, conviction, and a refusal to take “no” for an answer.

That doesn’t mean you act recklessly. It doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. It never means acting rudely. It doesn’t mean you don’t have fear and doubts. It just means you look fear and doubt squarely in the face every morning and consciously push them aside and tell them to get out of your way. Pretty soon you’re simply not content to stand still anymore, to be quiet, to accept the status quo. It doesn’t take long before you discover the power that acting with nerve and confidence brings to making your fondest dreams and wishes come true, and achieving successes you never thought possible.

COURAGE

In order to turn dreams into reality you’re going to confront doubts and fears on a daily basis, but I know you’re going to conquer them just as I did and as everyone who’s ever beaten a path to success has with nothing more than the ability to tell yourself, “You can do it.” Don’t try and find success anywhere that doesn’t involve confronting life head on with courage, taking risks, and being vulnerable, because it’s not there, even though a lot of people are trying to say it is so that they can make money. Acting with courage is hard but it’s the only way to live, even if it makes you cry at the end of the day.

Nothing of real value has ever been accomplished without courage. Everything beautiful, strong, and worthwhile comes from hard work, patience, sometimes even suffering. You need only to look at your children to know that that’s true.

DIGNITY

Reality TV has made an industry out of women behaving badly, but I’m here to tell you there’s enough success for women to go around; we don’t have to fight like bitches for it. It’s not easy to get. You’re still going to have to work your butt off for it. You’re going to be taking a lot of people to the mat in your daily negotiations on the path to success, because it’s uphill all the way. People are going to be dropping around you like flies when the going gets tough. It’s going to require stamina to stay the course. It’s going to require you to fight all kinds of battles, calling on every mental and physical resource you have. Most of those battles will be fought in your mind. Don’t give anybody any ammunition to use against you. Don’t sabotage yourself by stumbling upon outmoded and irrelevant definitions of what kind of behaviors are expected of you.

Act with courage, self-conviction, integrity, and always maintain your dignity. Hold yourself in the highest regard and demand that others do, too.

CONFIDENCE

Women are having a crisis of confidence in epidemic proportions. All I got to say is: “You’re beautiful.” I want you to tell yourself that in every mirror you look into, in every man’s eyes you see yourself reflected, in answer to every magazine cover that stares at you with air brushed faces photographed under perfect lights and touched up by expensive professionals in Photoshop, as you wait in line at the checkout with your kids, dressed in sweats and wearing no makeup. I want it to be the first thing you feel in the morning and the last thing you remember at night before you fall asleep. I want those words to come rising up out of your subconscious in loud and clear answer to every doubt that ever crosses your mind that tells you that you aren’t. When you’re the most tired and anxious, when you haven’t taken a shower for days because you’ve been taking care of kids, when you’re working on an impossible deadline, when you’re alone, when you’re crying, when you’re homeless, I want you to hear these words in answer to your tears.

I don’t care what size you are, how old you are, what color you are, how tall you are, how poor you are, or how successful you are. I want you to own your beauty when you walk into a room and command your beauty when you talk to people and celebrate your beauty when things turned out exactly as you wanted them to, or when things come crashing down around your feet.

Unlike any other affirmation you can utter, this one really works, because this one magically produces confidence and confidence is beauty.

HARD WORK

When it comes to the economy, the party is over and now it’s a time for honesty and all the tough realities that go along with it, time to take the hangover medicine and get back to work. I wish I could tell you that this success thing was more about affirmations and forming conscious intentions than it was about working my butt off. It would make me more popular and probably sell a lot more books and make me more money, because everyone knows success sells, and there’s no kind of success more in demand than overnight success. But then I would be promoting the same illusions that not only almost resulted in my failure, but were responsible for the failure of 90 percent of the people I’ve encountered along the way who had million-dollar ideas but gave up on their battle for success without so much as a fight upon their first confrontation with crisis and fear.

In my experience, the reason 80 percent of all businesses fail in the first four years, and another 80 percent of those that remain fail in the next four years, is that people gave up when their expectations of overnight success confronted the hard work demanded by reality.

Stop the insanity! If I had known that toughness, courage, and action were the key ingredients required to navigate the path to success, I probably wouldn’t have been so hard on myself for having to first summon them, then use them without apology as a woman.

FAITH

If you’re going to walk through the valley of the shadow of business, you’d better take God along with you. I’m not going to get into a discussion of what God is. I’ll let you figure that out on your own. My faith is very personal and very important to me, and I try to keep it that way. All I know is if you don’t have religion when you start your business, you’re going to get religion while you run it, because there are no atheists in foxholes, and if you’re running a business, you’re spending a lot of time in a foxhole.

Everything happens for a reason. Have faith in this, even if the reward isn’t immediately, or even distantly apparent, it will become so. It took me a year to see that the worst thing that ever happened to me, was the best thing that ever happened to me.

LOVE

If you’re lost and lonely, I want you to feel love. If you’re broken, bitter, and defeated, I want you to lift yourself up with love. If you’re homeless with children, I want you to know God’s love and take it with you on your journey to protect you and sustain you and renew you with a vision of faith in the future that your children can see written across your face. If you’re scared, I want you to surrender to love.

When you enter the valley of the shadow of death, follow the path of love and you will never take the wrong step nor will you ever be alone. Love will always lead you to the light.

Take care of the love, and everything will take care of itself. Have faith in love. The secret is in the power of love. Love is the doorway between body and spirit, so keep it open and don’t block up the way.

Now go rock the world. Tell them I sent you.

Excerpted from MOMMY MILIONAIRE and THE MOMMY MANIFESTO

Will This Idea Sell?

Kim Lavine — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:05:40 +0000

Critically-Acclaimed Bestselling Author Kim Lavine

I get asked almost weekly by people I consult with if they think their new idea for a product or service will really sell.
My answer is always the same:

YES!

Everything Begins With a Dream

Dreamers are by definition a little crazy. It takes a dreamer to come up with something new or better that will revolutionize the marketplace and make millions. It takes a relentless sales and marketing person to make the dream come true. This isn't rocket science. Anyone can do it--if they believe in themselves. For proof, all you have to do is look at PET ROCKS, or for that matter, CROCS.

"Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.
You can do it.
Believe in yourself.
Change the rules.
Join the revolution."
From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

Buy The Book

One of the Craziest Dreams Ever

One of the craziest dreams ever turned out to make its founding dreamers rich, turning it into a billion dollar IPO (Initial Public Offering) in record time--faster than most of those famous internet start-ups we hear about all the time. They did this despite the product being ugly, mocked, with limited demonstrated success--and after being told they would fail by some of the "smartest money" in the country.

Crocs journey began in 2002 in a Canadian plastics company, when a Crocs founder discovered a version of the funny-looking shoes being used in day spas. In 2003, the founders of Crocs, after seeing initial success selling their unique and admittedly ugly shoes at boat shows and after being rejected by venture capitalists in their attempts to raise start-up capital to take their idea big time, raised $5.2 million dollars from friends to fund their company!

Dream Huge

The first thing they did with that money was to buy up its suppliers and manufacturers of the unique resin that Croc shoes are made of, called Croslite. This same supplier also owned the design patent on the resin. Crocs began selling first to small shoe stores, then went into national distribution at Nordstrom and Dillards. To meet the need, Crocs founders employed contract manufacturers in China, Italy and Romania. In 2006, Crocs expanded overseas from Singapore to Austria.

Think Huge

The people who founded Crocs had serious business backgrounds, including a President at a national branding company, an exec at a national sandwich chain, a hardware sales executive and a President of an electronics manufacturer. With a motto of "Think Huge" and after selling only 1,000s of pairs in 2002, they pooled extraordinary management talents to write a business plan that raised them $5 million for launch from friends and business associates alone. In Feb of 2006, Crocs raised an additional $239 million in the largest footwear IPO (Initial Public Offering) ever, valuing their market share at $1.09 billion

Make Huge Money

Yes, there are competitors nipping on their heals now, no doubt with some slightly different resin formulation for their shoes on which their patent is based, but they are the innovators with all of the market share and they have the resources to keep their competitors at a permanent disadvantage

"The voices of the world will drown out the voices of God and your intuition if you let it. And most people are directed by voices outside themselves." Oprah

The Idea is only 5%

The other 95% is sales and marketing. Having a great idea is one thing, making it happen is another thing. You don't have to be Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to become a billionaire, but you do have to have a dream.

"Money is just the machine that makes ideas work. The person and their passion is the commodity worth millions." Kim Lavine from MOMMY MILLIONAIRE

The truth is, there a million consumer products--like Crocs--waiting to be brought to the marketplace; and nobody understands what that marketplace needs more, than the ultimate consumers: women. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Everyone is always looking for something “Hot & New.” To become a billionaire, sometimes it's just as simple as putting a new twist on something as simple as a pair of shoes--if you believe in your dream.

Will Your Idea Sell?

Do you have an idea you think could be the NEXT BIG THING you've been sitting on for years? Are you ready to "Think Huge" and turn it into millions? Then SIGN UP for my Academy-Level course BREAK DOWN THE DOORS OF BIG RETAIL

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