Product Value

Product Value
Too often product value is interpreted to mean low price or competitive pricing. Value as it relates to products should almost certainly include the fact that the products do what they say they do and that they work for you. If you are selling soap on a rope, it might be a nice looking soap which you can hang conveniently in your shower stall, but if it doesn't do the job of cleaning you up, it's not much good. No matter how cheap this soap may be, it's still a waste of money. The most expensive shoes you will ever buy are the ones you never wear. On the other hand, shoes that could be considered expensive, say $125, if worn almost everyday, could be the cheapest shoes you've ever worn.
When it comes to health food, vitamins and minerals and such, true value is really important. It is common knowledge that some vitamins and mineral products are actually useless because there's nothing of value in them. So no matter how cheap they are, they are really expensive. Proactive consumers can usually sniff out the duds fairly quickly with a little research. For example, if you are evaluating an online health and wellness business and all they talk about is the money you make, it should make you wonder about lack of product information. Maybe there's nothing of real value in the product? It should certainly force you to question their priorities.
On the other hand, serious health and wellness opportunities often are focused on cutting edge science that may not be all that easy to understand especially for lay people. The important point here is the crediblity of the science and the people behind the product. It's important that these two elements are in place but not that you understand all the science. How many people know why aspirin works? How many people take cholesterol drugs who understand how they work? How many people know all about how their car actually works? Does this stop them from driving?
"Buyer beware" is an extremely important axiom that can sometimes get temporarily forgotten when there's a lot of hype. Smoke and mirrors can sometimes cloud your vision and clutter your thinking, but sooner or later, true product value matters. As the saying goes "you can fool some of the people all of the time, some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people, all of the time." Some business like to say that the management system or the business deveopment system is more important than the products. Products are the cornerstone of any business, especially health care products. Sure business systems can make or break the success of a company but a business system based on questionable products is doomed to failure. Sooner or later, product value (credibility) matters. Your body will tell you.
For more information http://www.healthwellnessopportunity.com

Triple Threat

In musical theatre, the term "Triple Threat" refers to the 3 basic stage/screen skills: acting, singing and dancing. If you become highly proficient in these 3 areas, the chances of landing a role and launching a career are increased by at least 3x and possibly more. If you apply this thinking to business, you simply don't place all your hopes on one product or service to do it all for you. You diversify in a coherent fashion where all parts of the business work together to achieve the common goal.

In the home business arena, many new entrepeneurs get stuck in a rut promoting only one opportunity. It's "an all your eggs in one basket" approach. This is fine if it works. You also don't want to be seen as promoting numerous opportunities so you start looking like a junkie. The emphasis should always be on a coherent plan working towards a common goal.

The "'Triple Threat" that I have developed revolves around 3 areas : an excellent heath and wellness opportunity to serve an ever growing market for the forseeable future; a low cost but effective lead generation system to feed this health opportunity; and a search optimization strategy (seo) that works towards getting the primary business website ranked highly on the search engines so there is a constant supply of new customers. All 3 areas are profit centres and all work towards the common goal. All accept the current reality of the internet and its role in helping home business achieve it's obvious potential in the market place. At the same time, this overcomes many of the hurdles that many people face in attempting to build a new lifestyle for themselves via a home based business opportunity.

The good thing about this "Triple Threat" is that you can pick and choose what's best for you. You can adopt the wellness opportunity program, use the leads program or the seo program all independant from each other. All of these programs come with a heavy investment in training and education. This is definitely not a get rich quick scheme but a thorough business like approach to creating an income stream on the web.

http://www.colm-maher.com
colm@colm-maher.com

Lots of Hype in the Wellness Business

One problem with the wellness industry is that there is a lot of hype. Many of the vitamin, minerals, "health foods" on the market have been designed by accountants not scientists. Marketing teams push the envelope on health claims that are not supported by science or anything else. The real problem here is to sort out what's real and what's hype. Hype can look and sound like the real thing because the people promoting it are good at what they do. The amazing part to me is that 1. they get away with it and 2. They don't seem to mind playing with people's health just to make a buck. It is no wonder that many consumers feel that vitamins just don't work. In order for vitamins and such to work, there has to be something of real value in the pill or the box.

As a result of these shady practises, the Canadian and US governments are getting more involved in natural product regulation. This will eventually get rid of the shady characters in the wellness business but it may also stifle the development of future wellness products.The drug industry is very much behind this regulation because they fear that this tiny wellness industry threatens their humongous empire. By the way, anytime you see a study in Google about certain vitamins, minerals or health foods that don't work, check around a bit and find out who funded the study and what were the ingredients of the formulation used. I have found that a lot of studies are funded by drug companies and the potency of the product tested is way under effective levels. But who reads the background material?

The bottom line is that you the consumer have to be proactive about the wellness products you consider. Do your own research. If the people/institutions/companies doing the research are credible, then the product is probably ok. Just remember, everyone is different and what works for one person may not work for all. Even drugs do not work for everyone--I've heard that some drugs only work for 50% of the people who take them. So when your doctor says "here, try this" That's what he/she means. He or she doesn't know for sure whether it's going to work for you either. And then there's the side effects. Drug companies have managed to portray themselves as the great health saviours of mankind. The problem is they are not focused on the cure but on treating the symptoms. If you cure someone, you have lost a customer. If you treat the symptoms, you have a customer for life. This improves the bottom line and makes accountants and investors happy.

The bottom line for consumers is pro activity. Don't make your health, someone else's responsibility. Whether its a drug or a wellness product, do your own due diligence, as best you can, until you are satisfied. Then monitor the results you are getting. It can seem like a fulltime job at times but your health is worth it. Where would you be without it?

All Whey Protein is not the same

Many milk derivatives and whey products exist on the market place for health conscious individuals. These products are extremely variable in their protein content, their concentration, the amount of denaturization (damage to the original protein structure), the actual types of proteins present, and other factors which play important roles in the effectiveness of the product. (i.e. concentration of protein, types of protein, fat content, lactose content, bioavailablity, biological activity)

Immunocal is a protein isolate. Whey protein "isolates" are the purist form, being 90 to 98% protein with negligible fat and lactose per serving. Whereas whey protein "concentrates" usually contain between 70 to 75% protein with signifant levels of fats, lactose and often many toxins that accompany these. Immunocal contains sub families of proteins with the highest levels of glutathione precursors (building blocks) available. The unique way that Immunotec extracts these proteins intact (undenatured) in their natural form accounts for our ability to deliver high levels of cystine and cysteine to the cell.

It was Dr G. Bounous who first described the importance of keeping these fragile proteins.These techniques are not employed by other manufacturers whose products have been seriously degraded by the time they reach your body. Notice that you will generally not find any warnings against heating other proteins, because they are most often already seriously broken down.