Are You Taking Advantage of Training?

Your networking business undoubtedly came with some sort of training guidelines. Maybe it's weekly meetings or conference calls. Maybe it's a newsletter or website. It could be a forum or even tapes/CDs.

Take advantage of whatever training your opportunity has to offer. I know in some instances conference calls and meetings may be at inconvenient times, especially with most businesses being global. But if it's at all possible, listen in on at least some of them.

Does your opportunity have its own forum? This is an excellent place to trade information and get ideas. Best of all, it can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Does your company record at least some of the conference calls that you can listen to on their website? If so, take advantage of them.

Most companies have either a newsletter or members-only website where there is loads of information. Yes, it may be a bit on the overwhelming side at first, but there are lots of nuggets of information that are tried and true.

Remember, while some experimentation is good, don't overlook what has worked in the past -- there is no point in reinventing the wheel! Get whatever training your company has to offer, especially if it's free!

The Great Dilemma: Products or Recruiting?

At any given moment, we concentrate on one or the other -- recruiting new distributors or selling products. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. And while you can certainly do both at one time, to be successful you must concentrate on one.

That isn't to say that this week you can't work mainly on one and next week on the other; just that you shouldn't divide your attention too much at any one time.

Selling Products - Strengths and Weaknesses

When you are primarily selling products, the biggest advantage is instant cash. You buy your product for $20 and turn around and sell it for $27. Maybe $7 isn't a whole lot, but what if you sold 50 in one day? I'll take $350 profit anytime!

The weakness is that you have to buy lots of products in order to sell them, which can be costly up front. Not to mention finding a place to put them all! And what if your product doesn't sell well - will you be able to use it yourself? If not, what is the company's buy-back policy?

Selling can be a strength if you have a replicated website that you can use, and your company drop-ships for you. That way you don't have to buy product ahead of time. Plus you don't have to worry about taking credit cards or other payments yourself. But (and you knew there was a "but") if you use a replicated website, you may not get access to those commission dollars right away.

If your have a consumable product that does what it claims and is fairly priced, you may find most of your customers this month are also customers next month, which is another benefit.

Recruiting - the Good and the Bad

Recruiting for many companies pays a commission up front and royalties behind. For example, you may be in an organization that pays you $100 for each Manager you sign. Then you earn a percentage of your distributor's sales, as well as a percentage on their sign-ups and sales, etc.

The advantage -- if you have a good team, those dollars can grow quite large. And in many cases once they reach a certain "critical mass", you can ease back some and the system will continue to work for you. Take that nice long vacation! In general, building a good team will ultimately make you more per month with less work than selling products.

The disadvantage -- you may sign up some new distributors, but what if they do nothing? You've got your initial commission, but you're not earning anything on an ongoing basis. And you are very likely to have that happen -- many people sign up for the business with great intentions but then bail at the first bump in the road. The real strength in network marketing is in the distributor structure.

Remember...

You can sell and recruit at the same time, no doubt about it. Just devote the majority of your time and energy to one or the other...or you will wind up with neither sales nor distributors!

Want to Sponsor More People?

In the network marketing business, sponsoring new members is a big part of the business. Sure, you certainly make money selling the products, but when you are talking residual income, that only comes from sponsoring.

To grow your organization, you need new members. Actually what you need are a few leaders -- people who are also committed to building a business. But to find just one leader, you may have to go through 5, 10 or 20 "regular" members.

Obviously, you need to search for more ways to sponsor people, without breaking the piggy back. My opportunity offers a fantastic lead program, but it's expensive enough that I can only order it once a month. What can I do in the time between those lead packages?

I found an online "boot camp" that gave me quite a few good ideas about how to create well-targeted leads. The "boot camp" is free, and lasts 10 days. Naturally there is also an option to purchase more materials (which are quite good), but the free material is well worth the time.

(Oh, and by the way, the "boot camp" is an excellent example of how an autoresponder can work.)

If you'd like to, take a look at the free "boot camp". While it may or may not fit your needs, creating targeted leads can make your membership soar.

Products: Consumables Versus One-Time Purchase

There are some opportunities that sell consumable products; others sell one-time purchases. Which one is best for you?

Consumables are products that a person uses up every month or so. If they like the product, they have to come back to you for more. Examples include nutritional supplements, telecommunications services and skin-care products.

One-time purchases are items that a customer normally only needs one of. Examples are software programs and hard goods like appliances (yes, I have seen appliances).

The advantage of consumables is that if your products do what they say and are reasonably priced, you will build a client base that reorders regularly. As the weeks and months go by, you find your customer commissions mounting up. And if you are doing most of your selling on a replicated website, where the company processes the payment and dropships for you, that amounts to earning money while you sleep.

The disadvantage of consumables is that you might not earn very much per sale. Here's an example - an average order is $40, and you get 25% of that order as a commission. That's $10. You need quite a few people buying products to really make any money (or you need to find a way to increase the average order).

The advantage of one-time sales is that while the products typically are fairly expensive (over $500), many times you get a 50% commission. If your average order was $600, your commission is $300, and you don't need to sell all that many in a month to start making some good money.

The disadvantage of one-time sales is that you have to go looking for new customers every month. And also your customer base is more limited, as not everyone can affort to spend $600 for a one-time purchase.

So when it comes time to decide whether you want to go with consumables or one-time sales, evaluate your own skills and abilities first. Then make sure you find a company that offers a good product that is reasonably priced and has a commission plan you can live with.

Blogging and Your Business

To blog or not to blog, that seems to be the question these days. Do you, don't you; will you, wont' you? Before you decide that blogging isn't for you, let's take a look at some of the benefits.

First, think of a blog as a mini-website....your mini-website. Sure, you may have gotten a replicated website or two when you joined your opportunity, but they don't tell the world anything about you. In other words, it's not really personal. With a blog, you can let the world know about yourself and your opportunity.

Next, blogs require less "care and feeding" than does a full-blown website. Instead of writing pages and pages of material, you merely need post a few paragraphs on a fairly regular basis. Every day is best, once a week is minimum.

You can get free blogs (in fact, you're reading one) so it need not cost anything to get started. Just check around in the search engines -- there are plenty of free blogging services available. And most can get you online and blogging within 5 minutes.

Your blog can get picked up in the search engines, and once it does, you can get free traffic to your blog...and to your business.

Blogs do make sense, and you need not even write specifically about your opportunity. What you do want to be sure of is to have a link to your business always present on the blog -- like in a "links" section.

So, if you're not already doing it, think about blogging.

Advice on Getting Started

I really can't give specific advice to anyone without knowing more about them, but here are some things that may be useful when you are just starting out in the wonderful business of network marketing:

1. This is not GRQ, but it is a way to make substantial amounts of money. It is a business and you must work it to be successful.
2. Following along with #1, get all the training you can. From company training to generic outside training, you need to get educated in the business.
3. Realize there will be setbacks and frustration from time to time. Evaluate yourself and if you could have done something better, adjust the way you do business. Then go forward with determination.
4. If there is something about the business that you don't understand - ask your upline! It's what we are here for.
5. Concentrate on one business. If one is good, two or more at a time are not better - they only divide your attention. (Exceptions are affiliate programs.)

Seminars and Conventions - Useful or Not?

Depending on your network marketing opportunity, you may or may not have access to a lot seminars. Some companies have annual or bi-annual conventions. So, are they worth attending?

If you can afford it (and maybe even if you can't), I urge you to attend one of your company's conventions. For one, you get a chance to meet the company's movers and shakers. You'll get training. motivation and the chance to make new friends. I've heard the phrase "Not everyone there is a leader, but all the leaders are there" and it really is true.

What about seminars? These can be company-specific or generic. Like anything else, not all training is created equal. I've been to some that were more accurately called motivational. I've been to some that revealed specific business-building training. And there are others that are a little of both.

Now, are they right for you? Possibly, but you need to review your needs before you choose to go. Since prices for seminars range from under $100 to over $1,000 you want to make sure you know what you are getting. And that it's appropriate for your needs.

Motivational seminars can be useful in general, but many are not aimed at the home-based or network marketing business. If the seminar is local and relatively inexpensive, they can be sources of inspiration. If not...a CD or DVD might be a better investment.

A seminar that is home-based and/or network marketing oriented is something to seriously consider. If you can, talk with someone who has been. If not, do a little investigating on the web.

Everyone has their own "price points" -- amounts up to where the money needed for a seminar or convention aren't a concern. For some people it's $25; for others it's $2,500.

In my opinion, you cannot get too much training. Most of us can't afford to jet around to each one that strikes our fancy, though.

Choose carefully, but when you find something good -- go. Remember, you are investing in the future of your business!

If One is Good...

This kind of goes along with the "revolving door" syndrome in network marketing. It is the idea that if "one is good, two or more are better".

Now I'm a firm believer in multiple streams of income -- it's only smart to not have all one's eggs in a single basket. But being involved with more than one network marketing company at a time can spell trouble. Why?

For one, it's dollars; here's a way to look at it.

With most companies you will either have an autoship or a required volume per month. Let's call it $50.

Now you have to advertise your business. Buying leads, placing ads, setting up an AdWords campaign, setting up an autoresponder for the leads...let's call that $200 a month.

All together, that is $250 a month. If you plan on participating in more than one plan, one of two things happen. You either double or triple your monthly expenses OR you have to cut expenses somewhere. That somewhere is typically advertising.

When you first start a network marketing business, you should go all-out in advertising your first month or two. You are a new business, so people won't know about you unless you tell them. Whether that is calling people on the phone, advertising in newspapers or setting up an online campaign, you have to get the word out. The more you advertise, the faster your results. Plus you won't face the end of your first month saying "no one signed up and no one bought".

And I have to tell you -- good exposure isn't cheap. At least not at first.

If you have the dollars to double and triple your monthly expenses, that may be one thing. But most of us can't afford that at first. And even if you can, it's best to know one program inside and out before even thinking of adding another one to the list.

Don't hide your new networking business under a rock. And don't sacrifice advertising dollars by joining more than one program at a time.

A Newsletter? What Do I Write About?

My last post was on autoresponders, so this one is on newsletters, which are a perfect combination.

You've captured your opt-in leads using an autoresponder. You've sent the prospects your initial information on the product/service/business. You know you need to keep using the autoresponder, but that you can't just keep talking about your business. What do you write about?

How about a short newsletter? Something that would appeal to the prospect. If the reader initially came in by an ad for one of your products, you can talk about other benefits. For example, I market a vitamin B12 product. Maybe one newsletter would be on how to get more B12 in your diet. Another might be symptoms of a B12 deficiency. A third may be about recent research on B12 and the heart. There are many topics related to B12 that I could discuss.

Don't constantly mention your product or business. Sure, drop in information every so often, but work it in naturally. You do not want your prospect to feel like they are just reading an ad (where is that "unsubscribe" link...)

How often to send out the newsletter? That's really up to you. If it's short (takes less than a minute to read), you could send it out weekly. If it's more of an ezine-size, you might consider every other week or even monthly. Don't go any longer than a month, though, or people will forget about you and hit the "unsubscribe" link.

Always, always put a link to your product and/or opportunity in your signature! You never know when the "right time" will come over your prospect, and they won't want to wait!

Marketing? Consider an Autoresponder Service

While you are marketing your business and/or products, here's a useful service that you may want to consider -- an autoresponder. Why? Glad you asked!

An autoresponder is a service that:

• captures leads
• puts them into a database
• automatically sends them information on your product or business

This alone is pretty neat, but if you are only using an autoresponder to send out your initial automatic information, you are missing the beauty of the system....one that can market for you 24/7.

Consider this -- most people do not buy on the first pass. They see your product or business, but they want to check around. If all you send is the first message, you've probably lost that sale. I keep seeing a statistic quoted that people tend to buy after they've seen your offer/product about seven times. So doesn't it make sense to keep your name in front of your prospect?

With an autoresponder, you can set it up ahead of time to send out emails/newsletters every day, every few days, once a week...you get the picture. So set up a lot of follow-up messages, and they will be automatically delivered to your prospects on the schedule that you choose. Awesome, isn't it?

Now here's a hint -- don't just pound your prospect with just your business or product. Give them other, related information. For example -- you set up an autoresponder for your product line. Sure, the first email is definitely about your product. But maybe the next day it's about something you can do with it.

My favorite example is with the old Avon Skin-So-Soft oil -- do you remember the lists of things you could use this skin oil with? Mosquito repellant was one; grease remover was another. And my personal favorite -- removes "ring around the collar".

The point is, you are not just selling the product, but you are also providing useful information. Fun information. And on a regular basis. You are keeping your name in front of the prospects, so when they do decide to buy, where do you think they will go first?

Now what are some good autoresponder services? I hear that Aweber (www.aweber.com) is a good one -- I know plenty of people who use it and like it. I personally use GetResponse (www.getresponse.com), which is another fine service. There are undoubtedly more; it's all a matter of what options you would like, versus what you don't need.

Don't think about all the business you may have lost in the past by not using an autoresponder; instead, think of all the business that you will be capturing in the future!