More Quality People on Board: Mr. Cornelis M. Keur

In our previous post we discussed the importance of the Advisory board for implementing corporate strategy of the company. We are working hard getting ready for the launch, and as such, our top Management interacts with distinguished public and businesspersons. Our focus now is to roll out effective operations in India, and we are very pleased that we have a new member of our Advisory Board -  Mr. Cornelis M. Keur.

It has been just some days that Mr. Keur has retired from the post of the Consul General of USA, Hyderabad. He is well known in the political world – Mr. Keur’s US Foreign Service career spans for 32 years (presently holds the Foreign Service Officer rank of Minister-Counselor). Prior to Hyderabad, he served most recently as the Senior State Department Adviser and Deputy Commandant for International Affairs of the Air Force campus of the National Defense University.  Most of his years with the Department of State were spent on various assignments in Asia, having served in India, China (3 tours), Japan, Thailand, Burma as well as Suriname and Yemen.  Hyderabad was Mr. Keur's second posting as a Consul General; he previously served four years as Consul General for Southwest China posted in Chengdu.  Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, served in Peace Corps Thailand and worked for an NGO in Laos. He has attended Trombly Trade School, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and National Defense University. Mr. Keur was born in the Netherlands and raised in Detroit.  Mr. Keur speaks Chinese,Thai, Lao, and Dutch.

As you see, Mr. Keur’s  experience is of an enormous value to Lifeis, especially as it comes to getting advice on international operations; however, we all know that he  has a deep understanding of India and Indian people. While being based in Hyderabad, Mr. Keur showed a keen interest in everyday life and to a great extent facilitated business of multi-national companies in this Indian state. His open manner was high appreciated – just like this photo:

Helping around Consul General of U.S. Consulate Cornelis M. Keur chats up Ali and his family at the Paradise Hotel

We at Lifeis warmly welcome Mr. Keur and are looking forward to our joint communication and collaboration.

Lifeis salutes James With

In everyday business of any company we are often faced with new tasks and ideas that sometimes are outside everyday mission and routine business. Consequently, international practice has accepted a special vehicle for this – Advisory Board. Usually this is a group of individuals who bring unique knowledge and skills which complement the know-how and skills of the formal Board of Directors members. In fact,  Advisory Board, does not have formal authority to govern the organization, that is, the advisory cannot issue directives which must be followed. Instead, it makes recommendations and provides key information and materials that help to make decisions and conduct business in a better way.

We, at Lifeis, are well aware of major issues and challenges that are facing our business, so we have established an informal Advisory Board. The role of the Advisory Board is to be available to assist our management with general business and strategic planning advice upon request from time-to time. We are getting support on a wide range of issues that are relevant to Lifeis: sales, marketing, corporate partnerships, financing, technology, administration, industry trends, politics, international matters and more. The list of Board members is presented on our Web-site - most of them are well-known personalities and leaders in respective industries.

 This week we have a new member – the one who is well known to many movie-lovers all over the world:

James With – an Australian actor and businessman. Since graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in Perth, Australia, and having undertaken further studies at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, James has acted in many diverse parts, as he has worked his way up to stardom. He was in "The Phantom" with Billy Zane and Catherine Zeta Jones, seen playing a British Fighter Pilot trying to save mankind in "Independence Day" with Will Smith, Sylvester Stallone has blown his preacher character to bits in the latest "Rambo", and Nicholas Cage scopes him out in "Bangkok Dangerous". James has lived for various lengths of time in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.

 

Mr. With continues to put his diverse wealth of life’s experience into his work as a producer and entertainment specialist. James has worked in the fields of investment banking and finance for international banks and investment firms, having also worked as a licensed securities dealer and financial investment advisor. James has cultivated a strong interest in structuring financial products for entertainment and the arts and continues to strive to build long term structured financing opportunities for international

investors in Asian and international productions and co-productions.

Mr. With is currently developing a number of feature film projects through his flagship company TRI-US ENTERTAINMENT. Production facilities and locations are predominantly in Thailand and India. Through EXPLORE MEDIA GROUP the focus is on adding content to his extensive media library of his own specialized documentary programming, delivered in HD and 3D. TRI-US ENTERTAINMENT's new representative offices in Bangalore, India is currently focused on developing new HD and 3D content for the Indian market.

We do hope that our collaboration with Mr. James With will help us to work more productively and efficiently, considering his vast practice in business and finance.

Lifeis CSR - A Start at Indira Gandhi International Academy

An important part of business life of every respectable company is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program. “As a worldwide industry existing in more than 150 countries with retail sales of $109 billion in 2006 and 58 million independent direct sellers, the direct selling industry takes its responsibility for good global citizenship very seriously. Our commitment to good citizenship is expressed in our giving back to people around the world and to the communities where we live and work. Four in five direct selling companies (82 percent) sponsor or support corporate social responsibility activities (CSR).” These are the words from “The Global Citizenship of the Direct Selling Industry” by World Federation of Direct Selling Associations. We do participate in direct selling industry, thus we consider CSR as integral part of our business strategy.

Helping less fortunate is an integral part of Earthstone Holdings, - the business endeavor that is managed by Lifeis Founder and Chairman, Mr. Pankaj N. Shah. Thus, CSR is integrated into our business strategy; Lifeis has worked out a number of CSR programs. Despite the pre-launch phase of our corporate development, we have already started some of them – and this Sunday we initiated a long-standing relationship with Indira Gandhi International Academy in Bangalore. We took opportunity to visit the Academy when they have celebrated 6-year old girl’s Birthday.

The Indira Gandhi International Academy was established in 1990 with the goal of provision of education to the children of Sri Lanka. Basically they stay for 10 months in a year; while many of them simply have no one to return to. Currently there are 350+ kids of various age (5 to 21), many of them are orphans or their families are misplaced with no chance to contact them.

First that surprised us was that all children are very nicely dressed in clean clothes, and the territory of Academy is well taken care of. Indeed, when I was told that we are going to visit a ‘refugee camp’ I was anticipating seeing some sort of slums – but this is not the case. This is a great achievement of the management of Academy. Of course, kids are kids, but I was ready to see dejected and depressed – but, once again, they seem to be happy.

We went over the dormitories and classrooms, participated in a birthday party, had lunch with the children, but what was the most stirring part – informal interaction.
One of us was revealing the secrets of cricket to boys,
while the others were singing and dancing…
We also chatted with one of the best graduates – A. Muralidhasan – a boy whose family location is unknown – and now he is facing all the cruelty of adult world. Lifeis decided to look into the future and try to arrange some opportunities for this talented boy.
Some of us donated cash, and the Management decided to help improve infrastructure of the classes – as soon as we can do this.


You may look at all photos from our visit at our Flickr Page – click HERE

Jump from Empty Nest to Lifeis Friends' Circle

July is in its full swing and the usual time for young people to look for new life. Today I noticed in the Sunday “Times of India” a brief article that tackles the popular issue of family-life Empty Nest – how do the parents feel and what they should do when their offsprings leave home for better – “It’s empty nest times as children fly out”.  There is also a box with a short number of suggestions how to make patents’ life more vivid and brighter. Googling this theme shows that this problem is very acute for Indian families. So, we think that we may add a new item to these suggestions: Join Lifeis Family. Indeed, you would feel that you have found the whole bunch of friends and colleagues; and more: a respectable opportunity to make money. To make this happen, we are conducting Business Opportunity Presentations (BOPs) right near the places where you live.

On July 8 in the beautiful historic city of Pune one of the planned BOPs took place – and we may note – that was a success. In view of pre-launch activities, we received a great response from people of Pune; these were also joined by Leaders from Sangli, Kolhapur, Nashik and Mumbai. We had some quality leaders attending this session who have groups of 10,000 to 1,00,000 people in their existing network and the good news is that they all are part of us now.

The audience (and there was more than 200 people) asked a lot of questions and we were pleased to inform them in details on Lifeis’  background; day to day products with quality and pricing being the main focus; ISO certification; application to IDSA; and the volume and scope of ground work done before actual launch. It is our pleasure to note that 110 of the attendees joined our Family.  In this BOP we had demonstrated actual product (two packs of shirts, T-Shirts, bed sheets and suit piece). People were invited on the stage after the event to see the products displayed. Overall, it was a great event and enough for the Puneites to know that WE HAVE ARRIVED.
The next planned BOPs are:

1. Bhadravathi
   Date: 11 July 2010
   Venue: Hotel Padma Nilaya, BH Road, Bhadravathi
   Time: 5 pm
   RSVP: Mr. Danny (+919886783415)
2. Hubli
   Date: 12 July 2010
   Venue: Krishna Bhavan, Opp Corporation Office, Hubli
   Time: 6 pm
   RSVP: Dr Dhayasheel (+919449577730)

Welcome to join us!!!

First Customer Contacts -- Business Opportunity Presentation

All companies that are involved in our business understand very well the importance of establishing a long and fertile relationship with their customers. And the decisive encounter in this is Business Opportunity Presentation (BOP). Going to the roots – what is this – here we have a definition of Business Opportunity from Businessdictionary.com : “Ongoing opportunity to generate income as an independent representative of a network marketing company”. So, we have to mobilize all the art of taking business knowledge, combining it with our faith in the Lifeis success, rolling it up, packaging it and presenting it to a room full of strangers as the must have business opportunity they have searched for unsuccessfully until today.  And this is your right and privilege to determine whether we are successful in our effort.

Being in the pre-launch phase, it is exactly the right time for Lifeis to start BOPs. And we did. The first practical endeavor was June 31 BPO in Bangalore.

Of course, we had a meticulous preparation activity that involved attraction of such heavyweight Indian professionals as Mr. Phani Bhushnan – whose personality development abilities are well known in the country; and Mr. Sahill Zaheer

More than 100 people assembled in the hall and they were briefed by Lifeis to management on all most important aspects of our business. And quite naturally, a number of listeners approached our managers for the Application forms – to become members of Lifeis family.

In our Blog and on our Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/lifeisindia) we will regularly inform the readers on scheduled BOPs and, of course report on their results.
So, our next events are:

Date :    08 Jul 2010,
Time :    5 pm  to 8 pm
Venue :  Ambedkar Bhavan in Pune

Date:     10th July 2010
Time :   3pm-6pm
Venue : Tilak Patrakar Bhavan Sitabuldi in Nagpur

Come, get acquainted with us!!!

Lifeis Style - Targeted for International Success

Did you ever meet with the people who are committed to their job to the extent that they ‘burn’ themselves at the office? I did – these are the ones that work in the Lifeis team… Having a dedicated team work is an essential pre-requisite for success. In my Blog posts I would introduce the Lifeis team associates – I feel that will make understanding our business better.

This time I am starting with the core input to Lifeis – Lifeis Style. One of the major idea generators at our team is Mr. Ravi Rajgopal, Head, Product Procurement and Sourcing. As you can see from his short CV, he is one of the top experts in the apparel and textile industry in the world. His proven business characteristics include imagination and creative talent; excellent time management skills and a capacity for hard work and long hours; perseverance and the ability to sell ideas to others; deep knowledge of  new materials, trims and manufacturers' practices. And yes, you can get this feeling of interaction with qualified professional the moment you step into his office. I met him the other day, just in time to see the first arrival of the batch of men’s shirts:

Mr. Ravi started explaining his life philosophy, which is actually one of the most fascinating business ideas that I have heard. “Lifeis Organic” concept relates to the notion that everyone is thinking about – how make the life healthier. “You are entitled to organic life” – says Mr. Ravi, -  that means that the present consumer world should and need to change, stop using all chemicals, dyes, additives that in reality affect your health, and in the end your life length. Ironically, the spiral development of society goes back to nature, trying to get rid of all substitutes that were developed in the last years. Initially, “Lifeis Organic” focuses on three areas: Apparel and Textiles; Food Products and Cosmetics. The pre-launch phase envisions now the first ones, i.e. Apparels and Textiles.

 It takes a very hard job to find, evaluate and pick up the right stuff for the raw material. All consumers are well aware of the shirts, innerwear and linen that become useless after 2 or 3 washes. The colors are fading,  fabrics are peeling, and generally speaking they tend to disintegrate.

“I was stunned by the shoddy quality of the shirts now being sold as compared to two years ago. The fabric used in the shirt is very cheap, and the buttons feel loose and sloppy.” – this is the testimony of the customer at JC Penny. And this what Lifeis desires to avoid.

Thus, Mr. Ravi spends a lot of his time on the go, sourcing raw materials, finding appropriate vendors and testing selected fabrics.

Read more in our Corporate Web-site Blog Here

Lifeis In the Market

 Lifeis is currently at the pre-launch stage and at this time it is vital for our partners and customers to clearly understand the essence of our business and position it among other peers in Indian direct sales industry. It is developing at the fast pace, despite the crisis, and those interested may read this Direct Selling in India report that shows the annual industry growth of 17%. According to the data of Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA) the legitimate direct selling industry in India is clamoring for differentiation between them and (fraudulent) pyramid/money circulation schemes. Thus, we would like in our Blog to give some direction as to distinguish Lifeis as a rightful company. We have prepared a simple comparison table that makes this task easier:

Lifeis aims to become a world-known brand by creating waves with our superb and revolutionary line of products. This is augmented by a team of high quality and motivated experts. Thus one of the first crucial characteristics of Lifeis is the existence of several lines of legitimate products that have true end users.

This is our initial line that is going to expand and diversify as the time goes by. And, as opposed to  some of our peers, we are convinced that all our lines will have demand outside our network – in fact our initial presentations to the public corroborate this.

Another important feature of Lifeis – we do not plan, promote, encourage or persuade massive product sales, nor we oblige our network partners to make big inventories.....
Read more in our Web-site Bog here

Wind of Change - a Breeze from Lifeis

 The world is experiencing a mega growth of Direct Sales Industry. Although it is fairly old, with the roots  going to the Biblical Times, the modern society has brought to it new approaches. It has a lot of names: network marketing, multilevel marketing, party plan marketing, one-to-one marketing – but essentially involves one thing: establishing the relationship between the salesperson and the customer; this relationship culminating in purchase of the product or service. The Internet is overloaded with information: just try to Google these words, and you’ll get 44+ million references.

So why we are here? What fresh and different we may bring to proficient Internet audience?

Do you dare to change your life?

Are you thinking on these long sleepless nights of all hard work and drudgery that you are experiencing for the last years, waiting for vacations that would  take you away from accustomed realities? Yes, yes… and you envy your friends (neighbors or relatives) who took the challenge and went to some overseas places… “This is not for me” – that's what you think about. Age does not matter, we all have one thing in common – we cannot cut the ropes that strap us with reality – at least with one decisive move!

“Wind of changes! Yes, it is around, but somehow it avoids me!” – that is the reflection that strikes our mind way too often. So, why not to (at least) listen to this concept of MLM – the one that Lifeis is suggesting for you? And you will definitely find the option for change…

We start this Blog at the time when our Company is at the pre-launch stage and all our team is vigorously working on business development. Our initial public contacts show that our business model is favorably accepted, so our task is to execute it in the most effective and appealing way. As part of Lifeis business strategy we envision to maintain this Blog as the most effective (as we assume) means of communicating with our clients and audience. As we initially concentrate Lifeis activities on India, we plan to structure the content in the way that most of the people may comprehend what we say – thus we will have summaries in their native languages.  We shall look into MLM market in India, we shall explain what our plans and actions are in detail, we shall meet our customers and relay their stories… Thus the Blog will augment the main content of our Web-site, while serving the purpose of interactive communications with our audience.

Follow us, and you will Enlighten, Clarify and Comprehend your knowledge – and this will result in the change of your life through rigorous work with Lifeis…