NEWS FLASH! THIS JUST IN! Who needs another myth about how to cut up onions when you can find modern solutions? The photo below says it all.

Eve's Onion Cutting Strategy

Eve is just going to love it when she finds out that I announced this on Facebook. Don’t you think?

This afternoon I decided to invent another new recipe. I have always enjoyed cooking. Vegan cooking now makes it more fun than ever. Here is what I call my Eggplant Creole recipe. Here is my cookbook entry, with pictures. Have fun with it!

Keeping It Simple

All I did was to peel and cut up one eggplant and put it into a frying pan with some coconut oil. This is the best cooking oil there is, in case you didn’t know. Olive oil is so twentieth century.

Then I took some leftover green beans, cut them up, and added them to the eggplant.

I chose an Organic Three Pepper Pasta Sauce for the base.

I stirred in some sea salt and my new favorite spice mix, Cajun Spices. (Thus, making it ‘creole’ – fabulous flavors and not too spicy.) Then I stir-fried the eggplant and green beans until they looked a little toasted.

This is when I decided that they needed some red color, so I cut up and threw in a couple of fresh tomatoes. Now they looked fine to my Artistic Iron Chef eye!

Finally, I added the sauce, then covered and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Here is the result … yummy!

Serve On A Bed Of What?

This took a little more vegan-brain creativity. I happened to have some quinoa grain and buckwheat in the cupboard. So I decided to nuke them up together … must be the first time this combination has appeared in human history! … for use where you might normally have pasta. (I’m down on pasta, which is another story.)

Both of these so-called grains are actually seeds. Calling them grains is one of those silly things the USDA does. They are seeds! They aren’t even in the same family as wheat, rye, barley, and rice, all of which produce true grains. Nope. Not even close.

One heads up if you use quinoa and buckwheat is to add about twice as much water as the directions call for. Buckwheat is like a sponge and will soak it up pretty fast, which might keep the slower-cooking quinoa from getting done. Here is what it looks like … brown!

And Now For The Drumroll Please…

The new dish here is accompanied by a few slices of avocado, just to round out the meal. Actually, I served it with salad, too.

This really nice thing about this recipe is that it is really simple. The final dish is delicious, too.

Attracting a New MLM Opportunity Lead

Okay gang, here is what you are after: another MLM opportunity lead. Right? WRONG! This is what your MLM company wants you to envision. Just keep those warm bodies flowing into your funnel, and by magic you will get money out the other end. This is really easy, although it isn’t effective. You can fill your funnel with leads by buying lists, by advertising in every venue known to humankind, by bugging everyone you come within shouting distance of, or any other standard weak-attraction strategy that you know. The underlying attitude for this strategy is just to get busy filling your funnel, not necessarily to spend your time effectively building a solid business.

This is What You Will Get

I swear there must be an army of people who fill out online forms and respond to ads about making money at home. They show up big time on lists for sale, and they will fill out your online forms in a heartbeat.  One of their main characteristics is that they will play dumb when you contact them. “Who are you? I don’t remember filling out any form for that?” Or, worse yet, they will complain about you spamming or harrassing them, even if you have a double opt-in list.

These people are often called opportunity seekers. I call them time vampires. Any amount of time or money that you spend on finding or contacting opportunity seekers might as well be tossed into a black hole.

This is What You Want

MLM business leads who are Real People. (Okay, I made up some names just to make my point.) People who are interested in what you have to say, who see value in associating with you, and who see you as a leader whom they can trust. The question that you have to ask, and to answer correctly, is: What do you have to offer that is truly attractive – i.e., why would someone want to work with you? The answer, by the way, does not lie your fabulous company with the top-notch leadership, products that sell themselves, best compensation plan in human history, or any other such nonsense. No, the answer is that what you have to offer is YOU. This is the standard for any kind of relationship, and MLM is all about building relationships.

MLM Business Leads are People Looking for Value.

Can you explain something – anything at all – to a potential enrollee into your MLM company that is truly beneficial? Can you teach them about marketing, and I mean REAL marketing? Can you show them how to make the most of their Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give them advice on how to get a business up and running without irreversibly going into the red every month? If you don’t have good answers to these questions, and many more like them, then you are probably going to fail at MLM. In fact, you may have already failed in the past, maybe more than once. If so, isn’t it about time that you used some common sense about doing business so that others can benefit from you and your leadership?

There are SOOOO many ways to do marketing and to have fun at it. It can be like playing a game or having a hobby, except that your finances get better when you have fun in marketing. I  guess I’ve asked more questions than I’ve answered in this post. And that, in my opinion, is a good thing. Maybe the bottom line is that you really must get into a trusting relationship with someone who is doing what you want to do. Then you can grow your own business by passing it along to others.

All the best,

Dr. D