Enter the... Monkey!

KUNG HEI FAT CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year of the Fire Monkey!  Wow we've been waiting for this year for a while, it'll bring about many many changes I'm sure.  I'm born in the year of the Dragon, so is my mother as well as my son... can you hear the thunder!?! Heh Heh however the Dragon is great friends with the mischievous monkey so I shall be looking forward to this year.

Well I thought I'd keep this blog short and sweet, as we're all on holiday mode here, again, so after mindlessly watching movie after movie,   of which 'Creed' was included ( and if you ask me, that was a total waste of time I'll never get back, yuck, I could go on but this is not a movie critique blog.) where was I..?? ah yes So whilst everyone has gone away some us continued on with our work, that's the beauty of working from home, you choose your own hours.

The great thing about network marketing is that it doesn't matter what day it is as long as everyone invited can turn up and benefit for the gathering.  What I found most interesting is the cross pollination or cross marketing you can do when you go to your networking get together.  For example when we called on some ladies to come to our  world ventures get together, they brought along their products .  I'd say they range from jewellery to food!

Apart from home made beauty products, which included hand made containers for the jars used, there is also Gelato! My girlfriend Joanna has her own Gelato business, and though she couldn't make our networking meeting, she was prepared to send her products to try, now that's what I call great marketing, about a product that she says and I quote " Best Artisanal Gelato in M'sia guaranteed!"

If you'd like to know more about Jersey Jack here's her link : JERSEY JACK GELATO

Another product shown to me was home made jewellery by Lisa, her brand name is Oxoloco. These beautiful pieces  of jewellery were designed and hand crafted individually and most of them snapped up without any marketing on social platforms at all.  This talented lady also makes beautiful cards , paints fab pictures and stay tuned for an exhibition of her up cycled lamps!

If you'd like to know more about Oxoloc go to OXOLOCO

Which brings me to these glorious hand woven bags, they're absolutely beautiful with eye catching colours, which is why another friend decided to look into importing them after she saw them at a South American event here.

they are called Wayuu bags 

The women of the Wayuu tribe have been hand weaving these bags for generations. Every single bag is different and unique, with intricate tribal designs and colours

How clever of these ladies to have thought of these products.

It's getting clearer still that more people are gravitating towards artisan products, people are becoming more aware of what and where their products come from and how it impacts on the local economy, environment and it's a great way in moving forward by supporting cottage industries. It helps keep the micro economics alive.

Lets pay it forward folks, now is the time to support each other, and grow our business organically.                                                                    Have a great week!

On the Air

I've been spending most of my weekends catching up with sleep lately as I've been "pulled" back to radio and been lassoed into the prime time slot in the morning from 6am to 10am for the #Capitalbreakfast show on #Capitalfm_my.  This means a 4.30 am wake up call from Mondays to Fridays, so I kissed the remnants of my social life away and knuckled down to a new job, in the new year.  I am also lucky enough to have a  tremendous co host on the show, the universe is certainly showering her blessings down upon me for 2015

So far it's been a great year, yes there were some major disappointments, some setbacks , some frustration regarding The Art of Living Show, but I've got to look at the positive side of it and that is, I've done what I set out to do,which was to convert my web site into an ITV portal, tested it and tested it until we got the streaming right for all systems, and then I let go of the reigns and delegated the task of Sales and Marketing to outside parties.  How they will fare with bringing in our developers ?? I don't know but I'm hoping with all the material they've been given (as we've got so much footage and the many many links to our shows) and a history of being a successful lifestyle program, it will be a doddle for them to sign on property developers and lifestyle merchants alike.

What's the property market going to be like this year?  Well it's been slowing down to almost a grinding halt, we have a lot of high end properties that need to be pushed out, The Art of Living Show's ITV portal is the perfect platform for developers to show case their product as it gets to be seen worldwide, need I say more?

As for me and my little ventures, I've got something else up my sleeve.. oh yes, when have I ever sat still?   I had a big pow wow with the shareholders yesterday,  they believe I'm ahead of my time as most people have not grasped the context of ITV portal here  and the reception has been "lukewarm" so to speak, but overseas in the UK and US,  it's the way to go, what I've created here is a concept that has taken the market by storm, so with that information in hand, I
shall begin making my way into the second concept I'd like to launch.

Keep your eye on this blog, you never know when I'm going to post something juicy!!  Till then have a successful, joyful, happy and loving 2015!

Dx

Half way there

Penang is always a pleasure to work in, we had a great time filming there for ep 5, apart from the wonderful developments they have, the food is always something to look forward to! As for entertainment, there is plenty, we went to both Bagan Restaurant and GSpot to see our fav artists perform, bumped into a few KL friends (can't get away from em!) and managed to find ourselves an excellent make up artist to take over the make up duties in Penang that our very talented one in KL couldn't be present for. Penang's got talent!

There has been a bit of a reshuffle in the company. We have a new marketing director on board, who is sprinkling magic dust on all our developers, I am sure their heads must be spinning ! It has done miracles though with our production schedule. So used to working furiously for short bursts of time, we can now pace ourselves.. not quite what we are used to!

Episode 5 went to air last night after we were bumped off last week for the CNY specials on the FTA station that we purchased air time from, but that is fine as we believe this week's episode captured a load more of viewers, well I say so as I'm getting more tweets, sms's and fb alerts! Oh yeah every Wednesday night my phone is lava hot!

We are now in the midst of completing ep 6 & 7 which brings us to the half way mark of the show's season. I can see we have evolved somewhat from the first episode, (well I don't look like a wooden doll anymore!!!) the format has become more defined and now to ensure updates on next weeks show, kind of hard as we work on a current development basis, but we will try.

We will be incorporating a competition into the show as well, it all very exciting and I am sure with iproperty creating their own video page, using our videos which are linked, we expect more traffic to our website! Ep 6 we will be mentioning the competition.

Keep following us on our quest for the perfect lifestyle!
Dx

splash page

*We have the PO!* says Jo Jo*s text to me, and two minutes later she calls, in her sublime Polish accent * what do you want me to do with it? and who*s gonna pick up the original copy*
I smile, and say * Jo, it is the weekend now, just go and chill out* She says * I just wanna get this over and done with * and rings off. We are now officially with a major sponsor for our Air Time, which is ICI Dulux, and a huge weight lifts off all of our shoulders. My exec Producers have been working really hard to pull in all our Developers, they had just come back from Penang, which was a successful trip.

The phone goes off again * Why did*t you call me back* Jer Jer my Media Consultant and good friend says. * I was in the middle of texting you* I reply. *Tsk, Just call me* He says. * Ok we have an Agency should we need to use one* He informs me.
Great stuff, everything is coming together and shaping up really really well. Our show is confirmed to go on air on the 5th Ja 2011, we had just had a meeting that morning with the Broadcasting station.

Sometimes I have to take a deep breath and count all the good things that have happened in the last few months, my show is really taking off, and when my web designer sends out the link for our splash Page www.artoflivingshow.com, it just makes it all so REAL. I have the Film Director I want on board, and excellent Editor whom I have worked with before, Make up artist as well, now we are just waiting for the Clothes Sponsor and BMW to confirm.
I also received a wonderful e mail from the MM2H Agents Association, and they are happy to endorse the show with the MM2H logo! Truly truly good news, we had been negotiating with them for months now.

Now the real work begins, I have to start storyboarding all the developments we are going to showcase, and gear my self up as I will be hosting the show as well... Am I a control freak.. naahhhh

With all this going on, obviously my social life is down to zero! However, I prefer being the Hermit for now, staying focused on my goals is paramount at the moment. (My excuse for staying home and I am sticking to it!) Ok Ok so the occasional cuppa with an old friend from waaayyy back can still be arranged... I am only human!
Next week, we will be sending out the press release and we start the opening graphics for the show.. SO EXCITED!

Thank you Ana for our text logo. XXX
Dx

Pre Production

Hideyhooo! It has been a full-on last couple of months. With the TV show actually going into production, we have been splitting all the meetings between my two EP*s, Peggy, Joanna and myself. Sometimes there were just too many meetings squeezed in and we were left feeling like zombies at the end of the day!

Happily though it is paying of, we have several Real Estate Developers on board, including some lifestyle products as well, the show is shaping up quite nicely and we are all very excited about our shoot, as exhausted as we are !

Having to keep quiet about the show, which is called Art of Living, has been hard, but we believe the time is right now, to step it up a notch and start doing some teasers and viral info bytes to create a bit of awareness and hopefully piqued everyone*s interest. Facebook and Twitter have been the first we have used to do this, the answers from our friends have been really funny! I am just waiting to see what people think we should name this show!! heh heh!

Mariana has kindly designed the Art of Living font which we are using as the show*s logo, it is as usual, wonderfully illustrated, and we have asked another good friend who specialises in web design to begin work on our website www.artoflivingshow.com. I have been trying to be a smart a**s by fiddling around on i web to upload some pages I created for the www.cleidenproductions.com web site, yes try going there.. all you will see is, work in progress.. just like my attempts!!!

coming to a station near you!
Dx

UP their Bums

I'm now more than determined to get my TV show up and running again. We've almost completed the re jigging of the presentation, we have a photo shoot on Tuesday because the pictures of me are slightly dated, and I'm still number crunching the budget as the air time sales have jumped up slightly. I've got two great exec producers on board, and my CFO will be coming back to KL in the next couple of weeks, no doubt she'll be giving me a terrible ear bashing on my amateur cash flow projection attempts, heh heh. Next stage is to get our sponsors on board! I'm so pumped up! More time especially since I'm no longer with Vanity/Envie group.

However the icing on the cake is that I get to go on holiday for a few weeks to center myself, refresh and relaxxxx! yippie!

Zippy de doo dahhh!
Dx