People Who NetworkThe #1 problem with network marketing is building your down line and coaching it. If you have the basics of network marketing - a self-starter who loves people and helping them be successful - you are well on your way. But there remain fundamental misconceptions that snatch failure from the jaws of success! Here are the three biggest:
Jim Lynn a former minister talks you through these issues and reshapes the way you see your relationship to your downline. Well worth a look Go to
Network Marketing is dominated by finding 'warm leads' that turn into product sales and over time into viral selling.The way to do that is to follow the classic rules:
Sounds too easy. Well, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't take work and time. But given the high 90%''s failure rate amongst network marketers a slow steady and highly probable success doesn't sound so bad!! The mechanics of this are embedded in the SiteBuildIt product line. SiteBuildIt is THE most effect way of building traffic-rich content sites. It could be the way to your network marketing dream. For moreinformation go to SiteBuildIt and navigate to the network mrketing page
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The Networker Personality in Home-based BusinessAn Affinity for PeopleBackground Success for Networkers is based on two factors: selecting the right opportunity to work with and possessing the key human skills to win. Selecting the The Networkers live in the world of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). This is a style of marketing that has received bad press, not because it’s inherently bad but because it can be abused to create pyramid schemes that collapse on everyone but those at the top of the pyramid. This is how legitimate MLM works. Step One: The firm (usually a hard goods producer or reseller – like a nutritional products company such as Herbalife) brings in an “independent distributor”. This distributor is a stand-alone business person who pushes the company products. By and large the distributor carries all the promotional costs and receives a significant commission for doing so. So far, so usual. Everyone benefits. The distributor gets a business with potential and the producer lays off the bulk of the cost and risk of marketing and selling the product. Step Two: the distributor takes on another sub-distributor. For simplicity let’s say the sub-distributor gets the same terms from the company as the first distributor. BUT, for every sale the sub-distributor makes the distributor gets as over-ride commission that recognizes his/her role in bringing in the sub-distributor. The original distributor can go on bringing people into the business. But so can the sub-distributor. Say the sub-distributor brings in a person under them. He/she will receive the over-ride just like the original distributor, AND SO WILL THE ORIGINAL DISTRIBUTOR. The implications are obvious. The more people you bring in underneath you (your down line) and the more people these people bring in under them the more you benefit. This is called the “matrix”: matrix because you can bring in people directly below you (the horizontal) and they bring in people below them (the vertical). Most companies allow you to push out indefinitely along the horizontal but often put restrictions on the vertical, e.g. you may only benefit to 3 layers down. The implications of this approach for the home-business person are profound. As the organization below you grows the bulk of them will lose interest, be dull or slow but others will be active and aggressive; some extremely. And you benefit from their aggression without being really dragged down by the slow ones. Over time your organization gets to such a size that the inherent dynamism of all those people focused on the same goals keeps it either stable or growing – EVEN IF YOU DO NOTHING MORE! This is the world of residual income. The royalty overrides form the residual. It’s powerful and it works. But….there is always a “but”. It is subject to abuse. The reputable and stable companies put limits on the size of the matrix and they try to keep the system as a whole stable. They are also genuine companies with real products for which there is a true market demand. The most reputable don’t force the new recruit to invest heavily to buy their franchise. The less reputable are a kind of scam. There may be an insufficient supply of the product or even insufficient demand. This is often accompanied by the distributors having to pay something to join. Eventually the whole pyramid collapses as word gets out and people stop joining and everyone except the first in loses their shirts. The least reputable are set up with collapse in mind as an objective. The ones who are suckered in last are set up to lose. These disreputable realities have given rise to a whole body of thinking around whether it’s better to join a ‘mature’ business or a ‘start-up’. There are those who move from opportunity to opportunity seeking to be ‘first-in’ and implicitly assuming a later collapse. The reality is that a mature business provides real opportunities – in product sales mainly, but will only create recruitment and residual income opportunities if it’s growing. Growth is, of course, a function of the traditional fundamentals – market demand for the underlying product and company strength and reputation. Given the above, you need to be careful with MLM schemes that said there are many such schemes out there that are perfectly fine. The Skills Issue Within the reputable there are two kinds. Those that are totally web-driven and those that mix offline telephone contacting with online advertising, email campaigns and lead generation. The web-driven ones are pretty much like any affiliate program. The role of the ‘sponsor’ is to generate sales of a package. There may be other income opportunities but the principle is the same. The online/offline mixes are very different requiring a different set of skills in human contact. As the fully web-based ones are essentially the same as affiliate businesses we will concentrate on the offline/online mixes in the rest of this section. What it Takes to be SuccessfulProcess The bulk of these businesses have two parts. The first involves the retailing of a product and the second the creation and nurturing of your downline (called ‘recruiting’.) The sales of product are typically scripted sales calls using web-generated warm leads. The creation of the down line is rather more complex largely because of the need to grow the skills of the people who join. Retail Sales Different companies have different levels of sophistication. A sophisticated company like Herbalife would have a process somewhat like this: The generation of leads is typically done through lead-generation companies. Your role is to buy the leads and contact them using the scripts The sale: the more sophisticated companies will provide you with scripted sales pitches. These need to be learned and adapted to your own form of delivery Administration: Once a sale is made, payment has to be taken and you need to input it into the company system and check on its delivery. This is not so onerous as it provides you with an opportunity to talk to the customer Post-delivery: the top companies build in opportunities for you to have lots of follow-on contact with the customer. For example, in the Herbalife diet business the distributor acts as a coach for the dieter talking to them every few days. This allows lots of up-selling and cross-selling as well as providing after sales reassurance and emotional support Measures: Serious companies will provide you with gauges of performance and measures of success so that you know how your business is going. Some of these seem burdensome but part of the unspoken purpose is to keep contact with you so that you don’t wither from loneliness at home (remember these are the most “people-oriented” people on the web.) Self-focus: Almost all companies have training and promotional activities to keep you focused and moving Creating your DownlineBringing new distributors into the business is a little more complex than the retail sales though it shows some similarities. You need to find the potential distributors. This is typically done in the online/offline mix companies by generating warm leads through lead companies. Your role is to buy the lead then exploit it. That said you can generate your own through the traditional means – friends, local advertising, flyers etc Sorting: Once you have contacted the lead the top companies will have a sophisticated process of scripts and DVDs that you tap into. You are not encouraged to sell – in fact; you are actively discouraged from selling. You are encouraged to guide the prospect to the selling tools that do the actual selling for you. The objective is to sort out those people that are likely to be successful. Induction: Assuming the person decides to join, you need to take them through a set up processes where they are inducted into the company systems and get their business set up Training: Once past the administration the new distributor needs to be trained in the retail and recruiting processes. This can involve you in significant time but this duplication is the whole basis of the company’s success. Over the long haul the successful recruiters spend a lot of time coaching and encouraging their downline – a management and leadership function Measures: Finally, measures of performance are critical for driving the business forward and adjusting your behavior. Critical Success FactorsOffline/online network businesses are one of the more sophisticated home businesses and the critical success factors are rather different from the others in this document. Lead Generation: this is truly critical. Leads are expensive in dollars, time and effort. You can be seriously out of pocket if you hit a company with a poor lead generation process. It has been said that building an MLM downline is a ‘numbers game’. You have to approach a lot of people to winnow out the few who are suited to this business. Retail Sales: this may be your aim. But if you are really looking for the residual income from a downline the retail sales become a way of funding the development of your organization. For retail sales to happen the product must work. Company Quality: there are few if any businesses in this industry that don’t have taints on their reputations if you dig far enough back. You need to focus on who they are today – do they pay, does their product work, is sales of a real product really their reason for being in business or is it a pyramid set to collapse Company System: look for a company that is reputable and has a tight system to bring you along. They will have everything you need and you only have to duplicate it. Sticking with a system is difficult for some people. But they have it because it works!!! Your telephone skills: you’ll have to talk to thousands of people. Being willing to pick up the phone and do that is central (always have a flat-rate telephone deal.) In practice, you rapidly become hardened and you move from hardened to seeing prospects for what they are – individuals who are looking for something and your role is to sort out the ones who will benefit from what you offer. Coaching: an effective downline is a direct function of the ‘sorting’ you do up front and the ‘coaching’ you do after they join. Coaching skills can be learned but they are a MUST. Speed of development: success in MLMs is often associated with intensity of effort. Picking at it rarely works. To get to the residual income you are trying to drive through several stages of organizational growth. The first is where you are supporting the cost of leads etc out of your own pocket. The second is where the income from your organization is enough to fund its growth, but you are not getting personal income. The third is where the organization starts to spontaneously grow, because you have crossed some magic threshold in size – you still need to nurture and add to it but at this stage you will be throwing off a reasonable income. Finally, the organization has reached self-sustaining growth and you can relax. Concluding RemarksOffline/online network sales are not for everyone. But if you can build the skills you’ll acquire ‘life skills’ in working with strangers (a key to a sales personality) to coaching (a deep managerial skill.) There is real money to be made, e.g. in our Herbalife example it REALLY is possible to generate an income well in excess of $300,000 after two to three years; a significant portion of which will be residual income. One peculiarity of network businesses lies in their self-promotion. Partly because of the bad press that has showered the MLM world they rarely tell you who they are until well into the process. This is just how many do it – if you want this kind of opportunity stick with it. Recommended Resources: NetworkersTotally Online MLM SystemsThere are hundreds of programs of this type on the web. You can either join then directly or as part of a pre-packed promotional program like Plug In Profits. To give you an idea of the most sophisticated we suggest you visit SFI and Empowerism. Both are well established, sophisticated programs with underlying product flows and walking through their offering will give you a good feel for the field. Offline/Online ProgramsIf you meet the criteria covered in the text, there are all kinds of MLM-based systems you can join. Most, we believe, are in the nutritional supplements industry. Selecting a good one is difficult as you cannot be sure if they are real or pyramids in the negative sense. Before you go too far, we suggest that you experience the process of "being sold" of which one of the most sophisticated is Herbalife. Herbalife is a 26 year old company with reputable management today that is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange - so you would be with one of the larger organizations, if you decided to join. ToolsMost MLM systems have built in tool sets. However, there is one area that they don't talk about - the problem of finding suitable people economically. Mike Dillard is a veteran of the network marketing scene and he propounds the thesis that if you want to find network marketers economically you have to look in the ranks of those who are ALREADY IN THE GAME. If you are interested in this area, you should sign up for his "Boot Camp" where he rants about this problem. Mike has a product - Magnetic Sponsoring - that he proposes as a solution to the issue.
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Top Clickbank Sellers on Traffic Type the word NETWORK BUSINESS and MLM, into the search box below and find the best selling books and tools on traffic sold through Clickbank:
For those of you who are not aware, Clickbank is the web's leading supplier of digital products and is an enormously powerful affiliate engine. If you join nothing else, seriously consider becoming an affiliate of Clickbank. To find out more If you have a digital product, CLICKBANK is the place to sell it with over 100,000 affiliates and a strong administrative system to deal with returns. Learning More About Success in Network MarketingNetwork marketing with its potential for residual income is a powerful way of making money on the web, and there are literally thousands of opportunities out there. At HBB Research, we are interested in helping you drive your education in business success, so we have selected three opportunities - all now well established - that will do three things for you:
The three we recommend you look at are SFI, Success University, and Empowerism. SFI (aka Six-Figure Income) & VeriuniSFI is one of the oldest and by far the most comprehensive and network marketing opportunities on the web. It is believed to be the largest affiliate network in the world. SFI was founded by Gery Carson and is a division of Carson Services, Inc., headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska USA. Founded in 1985, Carson Services has a long and successful track record in the publishing and network-marketing industries. Gery was selected to the 1992 Outstanding Young Men of America list and 1997's Who's Who in the Media and Communications. Against our three criteria:
If you want to get started in network marketing you cannot lose with SFI, particularly as there is no sign-up fee for the first level. Yet you still get access to all the information. To find out more go to Success UniversityThis was an absolutely brilliant idea. There is a never ending demand for self-improvement, but, up until now the gurus acted independently. SU consolidated these independent people into a single source and turned it into a network marketing opportunity. On our three criteria:
Combine the personal development potential of SU with any other opportunity and you can supercharge your attitudes to success. To find out more go to EmpowerismEmpowerism is a leads-generation company for email marketing that has wrapped a number of income generating opportunities around itself On our criteria: Leads will always be in fashion! As an Empowerism member you get 50 fresh leads a month Income opportunities include the classic residual income on a solid matrix, but Empowerism also has two high yielding investment opportunities inside it that can double your money in a relatively short time If we have any reservation about Empowerism it is their apparent problems with spam complaints. There is nothing to indicate that these are mortal, but they are a niggling issue. For more about Empowerism go to
Sell some of the top-selling internet offerings. IMC is a $60m dramatic success story that is growing quickly. Become an Affiliate now! |
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