From The Contest Queen

If you regularly read my blog, you know I recently won a trip to London.

Right after I realized I had won, two thoughts went through my head: 1) WOW! This stuff really works and 2) Oh My Gosh, all the other goals I set for myself are on their way!

(Right after I interviewed Helene Hadsell on my Blog Talk Radio Show on August 4th I set the following goals for myself: to own a very profitable business, to be a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, to win a new car, to win a week long romantic trip for two to London UK, to win a week long family trip for four to Walt Disney World, to win a home makeover, to win a backyard makeover, to win an big screen LCD HDTV, to win a Wii, and to win a BlackBerry.)

Hold on!  Didn’t I ask for a week-long trip to London?  The trip I won was only 4 nights/5 days.  I thought, “Close enough!”, and merrily made travel plans.  Well, while making all the travel arrangements with the contest sponsors, Universal Music and Transat Holidays, I was informed we would be flying out December 4th and returning on December 11th.  Wait, wasn’t that 6 nights/7 days?  Yes.  They chose to extend the trip by 2 days.  So I got my week after all.  I was amazed how well Helene’s SPEC method (Select it, Project it, Expect it and Collect it) actually worked!  (BTW, did you notice? I asked the Universe for what I wanted and it arrived via Universal. COOL!)

But wait, there’s more!

As the information for the trip went back and forth, I realized we were not flying into Heathrow airport, but into Gatwick.  (If you have never been to London, Heathrow is close to the city connected by the Underground.  Gatwick is fairly far and one must take the train into the city, then changing to the Underground.)  I thought OH NO!  Not that I minded flying to an airport further out of the city, or even having to take the train, but our luggage is old (I bought it in 1990) and it wouldn’t be very easy to haul on and off trains.  I said to my husband Craig, we need new luggage.  He started to shop around.  In the meantime, I got the final travel documents.  I realized Transat Holidays had included transfers to and from the airport by car.  I said to Craig, “Since we are being chauffeured and with Christmas just around the corner, I think we can manage another trip with our old luggage and purchase a new set in the new year.”  He agreed.

Then on November 30th I got a call from Zellers.  I had entered a contest way back in May and I had won.  Could I come down to the store and pick-up my brand new set of luggage? They apologized for taking so long to call me, but they had to wait for the two smaller pieces of luggage to arrive from the other contest sponsor.  Incredible!  That goal wasn’t even on the original list.  The wish for new luggage was an afterthought and it manifested, almost, immediately.

Now, I wonder when my new car will arrive?

“There is no failure. Just a delay in results.”
Helene Hadsell

As I cleaned out my inbox today I came across an article that my friend Lori sent me called: The Secret is out - and it works! After viewing the movie The Secret the author, Sharon set, what some would think would be an impossible goal.  She decided that the next time she ate pizza it would be in Venice, Italy on a specific date at a specific time.  Sharon didn’t worry about the how; as the how is is domain of the Universe.  Instead she took action.  She told all her family, friends (and probably anyone else that would listen) about her goal.  You can guess how her story turned out.

It reminded me about how I won my trip to London England.  I picked a specific goal - going to London, I focused on it everyday - written out on a 3×5, I took action - entered every contest to London I could find, and told all my friends - because you never know who can help you (eg. send you a new contest link, take you with them on their win, etc.) and believed I would win.  I just didn’t know when.

Get a jump on your New Year’s goals.  What do you want to win by December 31st 2009? 

Here is one of my goals: I am so glad the first car I am winning will be parked in my driveway soon.

Notice I said first, implying I will win more than one car in my lifetime!  Also, I first typed “I look forward to winning my first car.” but that only puts the goal into the future and since I don’t live in the future, I live here NOW, I needed to make the goal present, now.  So watch your wording when you write out your goals too.

Back to Helene’s quote at the top of this post.  She says just because we want it now doesn’t mean we will get it immediately or that we should have it now.  The Universe has perfect timing.  Helene’s goal is to be a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman.  She has focused on that goal for 2 1/2 years now.  You would think she would have given up after so much time, but she hasn’t.  She still focuses on it everyday knowing when the time is right, she will be on the show.  So if I only focused on my goal of a romantic trip to London for a few weeks and won it within three months, I wonder what else I can win, do, be, or have?!!

What can you win, do be or have?

Being the Contest Queen, I am a member of every contest and sweepstaking site that is featured on my website (under Resources) as I have been in contact with all the site owners at some point.  Some have daily or weekly sweepstakes e-newsletters as part of what they offer to their members to help them stay on top of new promotions.  For some reason yesterday I opened the one from Look Contests.

Why had I opened it today after receiving it for eons?  (It is not possible for me to check every website and read every newsletter every day as I get so many of them and I would get nothing else done.)  It showed I had entered nothing.  So while I drank my morning tea I headed over to Look Contests to submit a few entries.

I really liked how the site was set up.  It listed contests on the left, the browser upper right and at the bottom it showed the details of the particular promotion I was at.  Then I could click different option on each promotion listing to track if I entered, delete it, set-up a timer to re-enter, etc.  Why did I not remember how wonderfully easy this site was to use when I first looked at it?

Look Contests is a by Invitation Only website, so I contacted Mike (the site owner) to see how I could invite all my contesting buddies to check it out too.  He said the first 500 people to sign-up and use the promo code ContestQueen would be automatically approved.

If you used Sweep or TurboSweeps in the past, you may like this site as I felt it had the same look and feel but you didn’t have to load the promotions in yourself.

Try it today and let me know what you think.

GOOD LUCK & ENJOY!

It never ceases to amaze me with over 6 billion people on this plant, how small this world really is.

Several years ago I got an email from Kate asking for a bit of help getting a tardy prize for her daughter.  After I helped her, I realized she signed off with her city; Gibsons, BC.  I wrote her back and told her I was coming out west to visit my in-laws and they only lived 30 minutes up the coast.  Could we get together for coffee?  Well, Kate then arranged a full-out luncheon with seven other fellow contestors from up and down the entire BC coast. What fun we had!  I met some amazing women, one of them being Barb.

Now, a few weeks ago I get and email from my friend Harmony in Vancouver, BC.  (She is a fellow contestor and runs the Vancouver Contest Club.)  She is working for a company that is running a promotion and would like my help.  Of course, I said yes.

A week or so ago, I get contacted by Jordon.  He works for a company in BC that has created a program companies can use to run their own promotions.  He wanted to know if I would consider testing it out.  In his initial email he also mentioned his mother was an avid contestor.  SMALL WORLD CONNECTION #1: He did include his last name, but I did not make the connection to his mother.  Only upon having a phone conversation with him, and he told me his mother was Barb, did make the connection.  Silly me for not catching on right away!

In the second email he sent me, he included the link to a promotion his company was working on that he thought I would be interested in. SMALL WORLD CONNECTION #2 Well, wouldn’t you know it was the same promotion Harmony was working on!

COINCIDENCE?  The same day I got the link to the Give a Better Life promotion, we received news a friend of the family was diagnosed with a form of MS.  It is one of the charities that can be selected to win a $5000 donation.  Of course we entered and selected that option.

Enter today and choose your charity.   It is open to Canada and the US until February 1st.  (BTW, you can also win a very nice prize pack including a coffee maker, coffee grinder and heaps of organic coffee beans!)

What an interesting, fun, “contesty” small world!

Last night I was reading a bedtime story to Nicole. She really likes My Fun With Words children’s dictionary.  She decided that instead of randomly reading pages, we were going to read the lot from beginning to end.

The fifth word was accept.  As I was reading I was struck by the profoundness of the definition:

If someone says, “Would you like this?” and you say , “Yes, thank you,” you accept what he is giving you.  It is always polite to say “Thank you” when you accept something.

I thought to myself, “How many times do I say Thank You when the Universe gives me something, anything, especially when I asked for it?”  “Not enough,” was the answer I came up with.

Would you keep giving gifts to an ungrateful friend?  Be grateful and more gifts will come.  And remember, you have to be Present to receive your present.

THANK YOU for everything!!

Recently I was interviewed on two online business radio shows; Wayne Hurlbert’s Blog Business Success and PR Radio 101.  I talk about the hobby from a sponsor’s and marketer’s perspective and how businesses can use sweepstakes and contests to increase profits.

Listen to me with Wayne here. Read Wayne’s book review here.

Listen to me with Erica Taylor.  Segment 1 Segment 2

ENJOY!

I was only back from Texas one day and I went on a road trip with my contesting buddy Rick.  So on Wednesday Rick and I drove down to Rochester NY to meet Donna DeClemente of DDC Marketing and then attend a Lucky Lilacs club meeting.

We meet Donna at Northfield and had a very interesting conversation about sweeping from both sides of the hobby.  (I’ll be doing a guest blog posting for Donna shortly.  I’ll keep you posted.)  The time passed too quickly and we had to be off to our next meeting.  The conversation had been so interesting that we wished we could have continued and had dinner with her.  Maybe next time.

The Lucky Lilacs meet on a Wednesday evening once per month.  I thought they always met at their local Wegmans, but apparently, the past two meeting were held at local bars.  Each of those meetings moved location because each time a member had won a fantastic prize and they celebrated.

Nine members attended the meeting that evening.  Similar to the DFWinners, they began their meeting with a Roll Call announcing all their winnings since the previous meeting.  What they did differently was, they also pass around a lucky green candle.  When it was their turn, if a member had a win bigger then $500, they blew out the candle and absorbed the winning energy while all the other club members clapped and cheered.  What fun!

We then had draws for: decorated envelopes, regular stamps, postcard stamps, lottery tickets, blank 3×5s and at the end, all the losing tickets were put in to a bin and a name was draw for a Better-Than-Nothing gift bag.  I won the decorated envelopes, WOO HOO!, and since we don’t mail-in much in Canada anymore, I gave them to the member who had the least amount of wins for the past month.  I guess good karma came back around because I then won the Better-Than-Nothing prize.

What a fun night we had!

Rick and I then drove home in the first big snow fall of the year.  I finally crawled into bed at 3am.  The next time I go back, it will definitely be in warmer weather!

If you currently not a member of a sweeping or contesting club, I highly recommend it.  There is no words to describe the energy one receives from being around other winners.  The friends I have made in this hobby far outweigh any wins I have ever had.

Last Sunday I was lucky enough to attend the monthly club meeting of the DFWinners with Helene in tow.  (See if you can spot her in any of the pictures.)  It is held at the Spring Creek BBQ restaurant in Irving TX.  I found their club to be so different from the one I belong to.

My club, The Winner’s Circle, only has 12 members.  We meet once per month at a local restaurant.  We have lunch, chat generally about the hobby and have a scratch lottery ticket trade.

Their club had 29 people in attendance.  I am not sure how many members they have.  They have a formal meeting format.  Before the meeting starts, people line up to participate in the draws: stamped postcards, decorated envelopes, scratch tickets, 50/50 and Better Then Nothing.  The meeting began with a Roll Call.  Each person introduced  themselves and what they had won since the last meeting.  Lots of cheering for each other.  Even if someone’s win were low the past month there were many words of encouragement. They even have a wins board to track how many big wins they have had as a club.

Then I got up and spoke a bit about the hobby and answered questions about how the hobby is so different between Canada and the US. The short list of the differenaces are: the lingo (contestor vs sweeper), the taxes (in Canada we do not pay income tax on winnings of any kind), there are virtually no mail-in contests left in Canada and the number of local contests where participation is required is far greater.

I discovered later that the part of the meeting I spoke was their Educational Session, where they learn something new to increase their odds of winning.  The previous month they had made shaving cream envelopes.

Then they had their draws.  I won the 50/50. WOO HOO!  (I bought my daughter pink cowgirl boots with my winnings.)

After all the winning was done, they discussed club business.  (The business section was very similar to the business section of my Toastmasters club meetings.)  Since it was November they talked about the Christmas party/meeting and the new executive for the following year.  I then realized the four women sitting at the front were the President, Webmaster, Secretary and Treasurer.

At the very end, Helene stood up and offered to host a few members as guests in her home one Sunday in the new year and teach them first hand about attracting in the wins they really want.  They will have a draw for the 5 winners in January.  Everyone was very excited at the prospect of being lucky enough to win an afternoon with Helene!

The two hours went by so fast.  Helene and I had so much fun!!

Helene had told me she stopped entering sweepstakes years ago because she won everything she every wanted.  My winning energy is so contagious that by the time I left we were in the process of winning her a new computer. (I seem to have that effect on people!)  So we agreed once she won, we would all (Craig, Nicole & I) would come down for a visit and Craig would get her all setup.  I plan to ensure our trip coincides with another DFWinners meeting!

So if you are travelling, see which clubs are in the area and attend a meeting if you can.  It’s a great way to be around fellow sweepers in between conventions.

WOO HOO! I am in Texas feeling very lucky. I am here for four days learning heaps from Helene Hadsell!!

(Helene is a bit shy <GRIN>)

If you are not familiar with Helene, she is the author of The Name It & Claim It Game and she won every contest she entered.  She is currently working on a very exciting project with a company in Malaysia.  She requires a few new testimonials.  If you have read her book and have won something using her techniques, please email me your story.  Helene would be most appreciative.

Thank you.

Gratitude is very important.  It’s not only about thanking sponsors for prizes, but the Universe as a whole.  For all the sacrifices others have made.  For all that we are.  For all that we have.  Now.

THANK YOU!