Network Marketing Online

With the proliferation of email, websites and video’s online, “old school” network marketers are facing a fundamental challenge. Should you continue with your offline marketing and recruiting or place more resources to the online world?

The smug answer is to do both, but there are more questions to ask in order for you to arrive at the right answer.

Since every opportunity and person is unique, no single answer is going to fit every scenario. Ask yourself the following questions and you’ll create a balance that is uniquely suited not just to you and your business, but your clients and downline as well.

1.  Is your product a tangible good that is easy to demonstrate?

2.  Are you naturally a people person? Do you enjoy making new friends?

3.  Is this your first MLM opportunity? Do you have an existing downline?

4.  Does your opportunity embrace the internet? Do they have online tutorials?

5.  Can you clients and downline easily order and ship online?

6.  Does your opportunity have recruiting tools, videos and documents online?

7.  Do you enjoy teaching, motivating and speaking to a live audience?

From a recruiting standpoint, it is much easier recruiting and developing a team locally than it is all over the world. Even with the best online recruiting and retention tools, physically connecting with someone and looking them in hte eye will give you instant rapport, feedback and a bonding that isn’t available in the online world.

For retention and building strong bonds, the internet is a poor servant. Relationships are truly built when we interact as human beings. Chatting, texting and social networking is all the rage but no technology can replace a firm handshake and looking someone in the eye. Leadership can start online, but reinforcement and true relationships are always solidified face to face.

From a marketing and recruiting standpoint, especially if the company has embraced the ease and agility of the online world, the internet has tremendous benefits for any MLM independent distributor.

Even if you have a tangible product that has real punch when being demonstrated, using an online tool to show colors, features, benefits and styles can allow the distributor to “travel light” and not carry a huge supply of product in the trunk of his car.

If you are a gregarious, people-person, you already have an advantage when it comes to recruiting, training and motivating your downline. A major drawback to your personality is that you believe and love everyone! Look back on your efforts and success…I am sure that over 80% of the people you invested your precious time with over the years have produces less than 20% of the results for your organization (This is called Pareto’s Principle and the 80/20 rule applies just as easily to teaching, sales organizations and sports teams. 20% of the people are normally responsible for 80% of the results.)

The proper application of technology can help you filter out the customers and prospects that have a tendency to fall into the 80% pile. You will never have 100% success rate with your recruiting or sponsoring, of course. But with a proper mix of online filtering and offline reinforcement, you should be able to get a bigger bang for your buck when finding, sponsoring and training your team.

The first order of business is to register for MLM Lead Spot’s FREE newsletter! Register on the left and you can begin to receive daily leads that are pre-qualified based on what you have to offer and the MLM you are passionate about.

People do a ton of research online nowadays. The amount of time and money saved is mind-boggling. Just be sure to create a bond with your team through personal interaction whenever possible. People rarely quit if they feel important enough to stay.

Should you even be considering an MLM business? Do you have what it takes to succeed? Honestly…do you realize how many regular businesses fail every year? Over 95% of small businesses fail within 5 years. What makes you think YOU qualify to be in the top 5%? Do you have more skills, more desire, more patience, more perseverance than 95% of the entrepreneurial population? Do you realize that many of these business owners have risked their life savings and home equity to start their business? They had WAY more at risk than you did. Their motivation was certainly higher than yours. Hell, you even have the audacity to call yours an “opportunity.” What arrogance! Let’s be brutally honest, you aren’t that serious.

You are going to try this thing out to see if it works and if it does not all come together, you haven’t lost that much-right? You haven’t risked any serious capital and your up line has reminded you that it is only a part-time gig. You see, you have a lifeboat of a regular job or business “just in case.” Even if you are extremely enthusiastic, you still aren’t encouraged to leave your job. That safety net is there for a reason, chump. While over 95% of traditional small business start ups fail within 5 years, the same number of MLM start ups fail within the first 90 days-yuk. Best to just forget about it and work out a better 401K or pick up a foreclosure, because the odds are stacked WAY against you. OK?

Quit now. Save your time. Stop reading anymore and consider and easier path.

What? You’re still reading this? How come? I told you to stop.

Really. I mean it. You are not part of the 5%. You aren’t Michael Jordan and you don’t have the sales, marketing or business background to make this a really big business. Quit before you embarrass yourself. Click away…now.

What are you doing????

MLM or Network Marketing Success & You?

Oh….I get it. You still believe you are in the top 5%. Well, chump, let’s make a deal. Bookmark this page and 90 days from now come back and see if what I said above isn’t true. You seem determined to get into this business, but you cannot say I didn’t warn you about the 95% attrition rate. Be prepared to become really good at acquiring and filtering leads. Be sure to register for MLM Lead Spot’s FREE newsletter by registering on the right.

So, you think you are going to really prevail and make millions in MLM. Good. Here are the qualities you MUST have. If you don’t have them, rest assured you CAN acquire them. Each and every one of these attributes is a skill and skills can be acquired and improve with practice, training and experience. Remember, Tiger Woods may have had the passion for golf, but his skills were developed because he practiced relentlessly since the age of 5. You may not be able to catch up to that, but luckily, you don’t need to.

What you do need are the following qualities and out of these qualities you will develop specific habits. Once your habits are practiced DAILY, you will start to see the results you are after. Don’t rest on your laurels quite yet, because you have chosen a business of leadership and true leaders develop leaders and mastering your craft will require you to duplicate the acquisition, refinement and teaching of the following skills:

Patience: MLM opportunities are purposely designed to attract the “fast money” crowd. Even when all the literature and up line profess the year(s) it takes to build it, we often see other IBO’s who have earned substantial fortunes seemingly overnight. These make great testimonials, but are so out of the norm, they should probably be ignored or studied even more. Developing patience and exuding patience not only make you feel better about your mission, but you’ll make your customers and downline feel better too. Aggressive sales tactics have smeared our industry. Show the world you are different.

Leadership:

A review of Mike Dillard’s book, “Attraction Marketing” eloquently shared how important true leadership is to your business. No word has been studied and showcased as much as leadership. The qualities of leadership are based in charisma, confidence and attraction. Harnessing these qualities and learning to teach them to others is vital.

Salesmanship:

Sales is not a dirty word. It isn’t 1955, either, however, so aggressive, intimidating sales tactics simply don’t work. In fact, selling as a word is literally being transformed by professionals. It boils down to people hate to be “sold” but they enjoy “buying.” The sooner you can embrace that belief, style and process the easier your life will become. You still need to ask questions, provide solutions and even pass on potential “duds” in your screening process. The sooner you pick and choose the perfect distributors for your downline instead of chasing any warm body, the sooner you become the leader you think you are. Coincidentally, when you attain this attitude, your sales will increase!

Read good books on these topics. Become a student of human nature and a person people want to be around. The faster you learn this, practice this, live it and are able to teach it, the sooner your life will blossom to the independent lifestyle you desire.

Be Accountable in your MLM

When you make the decision to start your own business you may be filled with excitement, anticipation and visions of freedom and prosperity. You should! Starting your own business, especially an MLM business with the exponential qualities of duplication can and should expand your expectations for wealth and prosperity. None of these visions will come to fruition, of course, unless you are accountable.

Accountability is more complicated than you may think. For the beginning entrepreneur, accountability may simply start with being accountable to his dream or goal. Is that enough? For many of us, it is not. What if you are also accountable to your spouse? How about your kids? Yourself? Is that enough?

For most entrepreneurs it is not.

When we say we are accountable that should mean that failure is not an option. If this were REALLY true, than 85% of all businesses wouldn’t fail in the first year. “But Doug, it was the economy,” you say. So what? Are you accountable to your vision? Did you not promise your spouse increased fortune and freedom? An excuse is our safety valve to relieve us of being accountable. I remember very clearly making the promise to become a millionaire by the time I was 30. Was I accountable? Not really.

Oh sure, I wrote down my goals, assigned milestones to them, and even shared them with my wife. When I missed that goal 3 years in a row, what were the consequences? Did I lose my vision, my dream, or my energy? Nope…that was all still there. When I failed to accomplish my goal in the timeline I committed to, were there any real negative consequences? No.

This is where the problem of accountability really comes to light. If there are no negative consequences, our energy, creativity and fortitude are never maximized. In the movie Apollo 13, there is a famous scene where the mission control specialists were thinking and feeling that the mission and the crew were lost. The spacecraft had suffered substantial damage and was on a trajectory away from the earth. In this famous scene, the character played by Ed Harris states, “Failure is not an option.” Once this option is removed from your thought process, massive amounts of creativity and resources are at your disposal. Certainly when there is a life or death situation, you have MUCH more to lose than your image, humility or a few dollars.

We are certainly taught to place the positive consequences of attaining our goal. Freedom, wealth, happiness are all great things to achieve once our MLM business is up and running. If you don’t attain your goal, however, what negative consequences will occur? Should we outline those, too? Is it “negative thinking” to remind ourselves of what will happen if we quit or delay our success?

Unless you want to hire a hit man to break your legs if you don’t attain your goal, you better focus on different outcomes to insure your goal doesn’t have an escape clause AND doesn’t affect your health.

Try humiliation.

MLM Training

Recently, I began a project that had several timetables and these milestones were going to be difficult to meet. Not impossible, but difficult. By aligning MY timetables with others I was able to create a synergy of accountability that made me responsible not only for my family’s welfare but the families of my vendors, associates, and downline. Imagine the humiliation and financial consequence of telling someone, “I can’t meet the deadline that I set for myself. Sorry…tell your Christmas won’t be that good this year.”

Being accountable isn’t just a word. It is the manifestation of your character, values and commitment. Placing positive consequences to insure your habits are congruent with your thoughts is vital. Just be sure to not give yourself and out if you don’t make it. Failure is an option for most of us and an unpleasant one at that.

One important way to insure your success and lock down a business that lasts a lifetime is to keep your lead funnel filled at all times. Enter your contact information on the right and get our FREE MLM Lead Spot newsletter.

Uncle Sam - Network Marketing

This is due to the fact that your company is MORE than a product that benefits a customer; it is also an opportunity for residual income. In essence there are two businesses involved. Which one are you projecting? Which one are you focused with. What is your meme?

Many of you would answer, “I represent both the products AND the recruit for the opportunity.”

Big mistake.

The word ‘focus’ represents a single mission or directed purpose. The very word eliminates the possibility that you can accomplish both strong product representation and opportunity representation. It is impossible for the human brain to hold onto two thoughts at the same time. Sorry. It is a law of physics. Sure, you’ve seen presenters able to wax on prophetically about the incredible value of the products, getting you emotionally involved with the company. In the next paragraph, he is sharing with you how you can not only benefit from the use of these products, but how you can inure yourself with the financial rewards of sharing the opportunity with others. You can share both ideas in a single setting.

Is that wise?

This may be contrary to many upline organizations and company mantras. While I have decades of experience in a few MLM’s, I have MORE experience and knowledge of human psychology and marketing. In my opinion, when you as a distributor focus on the product or service first and the opportunity second, you’ll create more permanent wealth. Here’s why:

• When YOU are your best customer, everything you say has more credibility. Any person who doesn’t do what they expect their downline to do is lazy, ignorant and won’t be around for long. If you expect your downline to buy their own products, sell product retail and recruit more distributors, you better be willing to do the same or more. It is akin to a drill instructor barking at his new recruits to do 100 pushups. If the drill instructor can’t do them, he’s lost credibility. In your case, it may cost you a reliable distributor, for the new private in the army; it could cost him his life.
• When you focus on your sales before your recruiting you will earn more. It doesn’t matter if you have 100 or 1000 distributors in your organization the math is the same. If your downline SEES that you retail product, they will duplicate what you do, not what you say. If you consistently retail an extra $200 of product per month, imagine the difference that will make in YOUR bank account if your organization adds an extra $200 ON TOP of what they are already doing! I don’t care if you are moving a tube of lipstick or a $2,000 hard goods item, your income increases exponentially. Sell more than you are expected to. In the beginning the incremental revenue will help fund your lifestyle. When your efforts are duplicated, that $10,000 monthly residual can easily be $100,000 per month when your downline is also selling in addition to their recruiting.

MLM Leads

Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to create a singular message revolving around your product. If you truly believe in the benefits of your products, you’ll have no problem sharing it. As many of you know, it is only when the product AND opportunity is presented at the same time, that many MLM prospects give the cold shoulder. We are taught that it’s a numbers game and that the opportunity “isn’t for everyone”…fine. I am sure that your PRODUCT has much more appeal to the masses than the income opportunity-right? Therefore, by FOCUSING on the product, you will not only;

1. Make more sales and therefore MORE money upfront.
2. Meet MORE people in less time, creating more cheerleaders for your business.
3. Recruit in the future from your LOYAL customer base!

Re-read my article on Southern Living and how that magazine rolled out their home party business. You’d think that selling candles and curtains based on Southern Living might take a while to catch on.

Wrong.

Because this company had a HUGE loyal following of subscribers, recruiting distributors and creating a brand new business that rakes in over $100 million per year in less than 10 years was not especially difficult. Their database was all they needed to launch their direct sale organization instantly with thousands of people on the first day.

In the end, your message will be taken more seriously, your income will increase exponentially and your success beyond money will be unmistakable. If your company has a vivid vision that is beyond financial (As most of them do) you will become one of their shining examples of prosperity and character.

In the early stages, you may not have enough customers to meet your recruiting goals. If that is the case, enter your contact information on the right and begin our FREE course on generating consistent and qualified leads for your MLM opportunity. Without the leads, you’ll be out of business.

It is interesting to note that there are striking similarities between many MLM opportunities. Likewise, you can find many unique and differentiating factors. When you are investigating which company is best suited for you, be sure to look not only at what makes the company strong, the opportunity solid, and the executive team experienced; also look for the message and core value BEHIND the company.

Some companies are blatant about their core message or “meme” as Jay Conrad Levinson states in his best-selling book, “Guerilla Marketing.” A meme is an image or logo that instantly translates the company’s core value, strength or message. It is not having a cool logo like the Nike swoosh, mind you. In order for that meme to resonate with consumers, the company invested billions in advertising and decades of repetition. A meme for your MLM opportunity is sometimes more difficult to establish.

The most successful companies focus on a single theme or meme. They may have hundreds or even thousands of benefits. But companies that have been around and become ingrained in our culture stand for a single idea. Take a look at the images below, think about the meme and ask yourself what they represent.

IronMan Movie Poster

Sometimes even the words can represent a concept that people understand. The words “Iron Man” look like they are made out of iron. Certainly you consider Iron Man to be strong, solid and tough as Iron. If it sounds too simplistic-GOOD!

Chicken Soup for the Soul and MLM

Cambell's Soup Can

Take a look at Chicken Soup for the Soul. This incredible brand took the font from Campbell’s, the healing-powers of chicken soup and juxtaposed it with our very soul! POWERFUL!

McDonalds Company Logo

Even McDonalds golden arches have a feeling and representation that goes beyond “really good French fries.” The icon, of course, resembles French fries, but the billions spent on advertising and image building create a meme with two golden arches. You may think, “clean bathrooms” or “heart attack” but in the end, you have a clear vision of what those golden arches mean to you.

Take a look at the companies you are considering or have already chosen. Go to google and search under “images.” I encourage you to comment and send me the meme for your MLM opportunity. The clearer they are, the easier it will be for you to represent them.

If you are a Melaluca distributor, what do the colors, images and text from the website represent to you? If you are a independent business owner for Amway or Herbalife, what does their logo say to you the very first microsecond you see it? Does it give make you hungry for their product like the golden arches do? When you read the company name, does it make you feel healthy or athletic like the Nike swoosh does?

Of course, once you are crystal clear about what image you are representing, you can easily build and maintain your lead funnel. Go ahead, enter your contact information on the right and begin our FREE course on generating consistent and qualified leads for your MLM opportunity. Without the leads, you’ll be out of business.

Former President Clinton is not really in network marketing, but I found this great video where he strongly endorses it.  I think this video help newcomers to this industry see just how many people are involved in it.  The network marketing(MLM) industry does have the potential to change peoples lives if they work smart, not hard in this business.  Using many of the old school methods that are still taught by these companies is not the easiest path to success.  Now with the power of the internet people in direct marketing have the ability to earn money with their own funded proposals, and sales funnel.  I look forward to explaining these concepts in great detail in my future posts.

I have been in and out of this industry for over 10 years.  I swore that I would never get involved with it again because it just was not going to work for me.  Then a good friend of mine introduced me to a new company that had some products that I loved.  Once I got involved with this new company I remembered all of the reasons that kept me interested for so long.

Community

Some of the sharpest people that I have ever met have been in this industry.  Some of the most successful people that I have met through other traditional business have all been involved with network marketing at some point in their lives.  One  of the reasons that people stay involved with this industry even though they were not making any money(and if they did it was not much) is because of the community of like minded people.  Many old school companies in network marketing rely on weekly meeting to keep people excited about their opportunity, and build a community.  Once you get in the habit of attending the weekly Tuesday meeting, it’s unlikely that you are going to stop going.  Successful people love to keep on learning, and when you can learn even one new skill from someone who has more success than you it’s worth your time.  Now companies are having success building this type of community using online resources.

Leverage

Few other business opportunities allow you to leverage your time as much as the network marketing industry.  When an organization is built properly, you can have other leaders in your group building your shared downline.  The only other industry I know of where you can get more leverage is in the Internet Marketing business.  You can truly do something once online and have it pay you for a very long time.  I have been a full time Internet Marketeer for almost 3 years now.  Recently the Internet Marketing world has merged with network marketing to create some of the most successful people in the Network Marketing industry.  This is the biggest reason that I got involved with network marketing again.  People are doing this using the tool I highly recommend MLM Lead System Pro.  You will see this system when you signup for my free marketing training by joining my list.

Income Potential

The leaders in this industry can make as much as fortune 500 CEO’s.  Well not always, but there are many new people that have been around for less than 5 years who are making 500K plus with all income streams.  Years ago people only were able to capitalize on their income from one or two sources of income.  That would be the income from their primary business opportunity, and the training materials.  People only were able to participate in the learning side of the business if there were part of the inner circle of their business opportunity.  Now with the power of the internet and the sales funnels that are out there, you can have many sources of income.  These income sources use attraction marketing principles that allow you to make money even when someone does not join you in your opportunity.   In a short period of time using proven internet marketing techniques it is not unusual for someone to make 5 figures a month after 6 months or less.

Residual Income

You do not have to be involved with a company very long to start biting on the hook that has residual income on it.  You need to find a good solid company that is going to be around for a long time for this to happen.  Most companies will allow you to will your income to future generations.  This sounds sexy but is not the reality unless you built a huge organization.  With the internet it is much easier to build an organization capable of this.  You can also get a nice residual income stream by having a funded proposal system where you make money even if someone does not join you.  This can exceed your income from your primary business.  Even if you leave a company to market a different line of products your online residual income stays with you because you own it. Join my list today to learn how to market yourself online!