Faith Sloan Gray Matter: Making Cash, Advertising/Marketing, and Ramblings – faithsloan.com

First of all I would like to publicly thank Mr. Guy Kawasaki for sending me a free copy of his newest publication, “Reality Check”. I met ‘da man’ back in the late 90′s early 2000′s when I was living in the Bay Area. He was very much involved in the dot com ‘era’ (i use that term very lightly).

Guy Kawasaki is a long-time popular and respected author, blogger, entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

I even remembered when he started his early stage venture capital entity, Garage.com. I am currently plugging alltop.com for him because I believe it has tremendous value. Everything flashy doesn’t guarantee success and all that is with out the bells and whistles more times than not are where the gems of data as well as information are found.

Now, I do not agree with all of Guy’s tenets in terms of entrepreneurialship, Venture Capital funding approaches, business plan development, etc. But so what? I do agree with him on quite a bit and to top it off he has a great sense of humor.

With that said,  find me an individual who believes 100% of what another believes in and I’ll show you an unthinking clone without a spine.

Check out Guy’s video below. Guy, my man …  down with ‘schwag’! I am having flashbacks. Actually I wish I had kept all of my schwag. Schwag = branding and of course that is critical and effective. So oooook, schwag is da bomb!

I have yet to read the book as I am still taking my time reading and laughing through Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Fooled By Randomness – The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets”. Many find the book rather dry and scientifically intellectual. I love it! It keeps me laughing and also causes me to critically think about my own approaches and philosophy in life and in business. I studied multivariate analysis, randomness, and probability and received my B.S. in the same, but it was never as entertaining as this book.

Oh, did I digress? I had a few random thoughts emanating from my gray matter. Sorry about that. Here is the video.

Call me brilliant as I don’t believe in working hard. But if you want to reward me for hard work for my brilliant ideas, and off the chart deliverables, then come on with it, she says! And yes, Guy, I am an unpaid evangelist! You got me there.

God Bless
Faith

EXCERPT FROM WWW.UNKNOWNPROPHET.COM

Thisis an excerpt from Unknown Prophet written many years ago. For all who have served the Lord faithfully with their substance, the Lord said:

“But for those who have been found faithful to My Father in the monetary matters of the earth, to those who have not set their heart upon the possessions and the riches that I have blessed them with, but have laid up their treasures in Heaven and have given of My substance to feed the poor and those of lesser fortune than themselves- for those who have poured out My substance through the vehicles that I have raised up to preach the gospel in these end-times and have given of their generously and joyfully with a thankful heart – to these ones comes a multiplication, a multiplication not as in the past. For in the past it was a multiplication of five and of tens, but in this coming time, says the Lord, I shall multiply My substance supernaturally upon these ones that it shall be a hundred and a thousandfold.

“And I shall yet open up unseen riches that until now have been hidden in the secret places of the Earth. And to these ones I shall pour out upon the gold of Ophir and the treasures of Solomon. I shall pour upon them the gold hidden deep under the earth and the oil, even the oil shall come into their hands. These will not have to tremble when My Judgement falls for I shall keep their substance safe in the eye of the storm. For their substance is indeed My substance and their inheritance is My inheritance. For they are the proven ones, the ones whose treasure is fixed in Me.

“And so in these latter days you shall see them come forth as guiding lights rising from within the world system but rising from out of the world’s system. Yes they shall rise. Watch now and see if they will not come forth. And through them My ministers shall be blessed, and shall do their exploits, and through their faithfulness in the hidden places so My Gospel shall yet be financed and shall be preached through all the nations of the Earth. So be it. Amen.”

I was reading this NY Times blog article on peer-to-peer lending at

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/is-peer-to-peer-lending-working-for-you/#comment-59103

Yes, I know this article/discussion is referencing ‘peer-to-peer’ lending. But an excellent example of a successful and meaningful lending site is kiva.org.

There are hundreds of thousands of folks like you and I who provide loans to individuals, groups, and entrepreneurs in countries such as South Africa, India, Dominican Republic, etc to “lift them out of poverty”. What joy!

We are not rewarded financially with our loans. The cash goes to kiva who is a non-profit organization which sends the money to micro-financing institutions in various countries who in turn lend the money locally.

Months ago, there were always hundreds of people awaiting financing. Kiva held the payback until all funds were paid back. But since Kiva made the decision to pay the lenders back as the money came in, many of us simply ‘recycle, if you will, the cash right back in to finance others. The result of this has been a shortage of folks seeking cash, but they are working on remedying this ‘good problem’. In the past month, there were only 4-5 folks awaiting funding.

I just took another look at the site and there are 137 awaiting funding so it appears that they have found a solution.

http://www.kiva.org/lender/faithsloan

I do not receive any financial compensation for promoting kiva.org. What I do receive is music emanating from my heart and yes, it feels wonderful.

God Bless
Faith

http://faithsloan.com

Kiva.org is a well-established non-profit organization that provides funding for groups, individuals, and entrepreneurs in developing countries “for the sake of alleviating poverty”. Basically, you are lending money to that person, and Kiva makes sure that they return it. Kiva works with other non-profit organizations in that particular country that ensures the entrepreneur doesn’t default on monthly payment.

How it works:
Quote:
1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our micro-finance partners worldwide.
2) Kiva’s micro-finance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur’s chances of success.
3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.
4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.
END QUOTE

When I first joined and started lending, there were hundreds of folks seeking funding. The bad news is that since Kiva has changed its policies from holding our repayments to giving lenders their money back immediately when repaid by the entrepreneurs, there are only 4-5 folks seeking funding at any one time now. Why? Because everyone receive their repaid loans and immediately fund others! That is the good news!

They are working as I write to bringing in a whole gaggle of entrepreneurs who need cash to expand their small businesses.

Kiva is a finalist in the American Express Members’ Project, a competition for a $1.5 million prize. This money will help Kiva reach 60,000 more developing world entrepreneurs. It takes one minute and no money to vote for Kiva’s project “Loans that Change Lives.”

Just this week, 2,771 new lenders joined; $1,053,250.00 lent; 564 loans repaid; 12,687 lenders made a loan;709 gift certificates purchased. No wonder they have a hard time getting more entrepreneurs. But remember, if you are an American Express Card holder, then vote for Kiva so they can reach more of these developing countries entrepreneurs on board so you and I can loan them cash to build their dreams!

Check it out at http://www.kiva.org/lender/faithsloan

God Bless
Faith

Good Works: Monks build multimillion-dollar business and give the money away
Now this is what I call a REAL charitable class act.

SF Chronicle article highlights LaserMonks and the monks of Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey

By Rob Baedeker, Special to SF Gate
Monday, March 24, 2008

Article

Thursday, March 27, 2008