Network Marketing

Keyword Search Tool – Micro-Niche Finder

2008-10-20T18:46:48Z

I have a new best friend, but I've never met him. He doesn't even know who I am, but he's about my favorite person right now. His name is James Jones, and he's the developer of the Micro-Niche Finder. Micro-Niche Finder is the keyword search tool that I went with when I decided to buy a keyword search tool instead of continuing to rely on the free keyword search tools.

I don't agree with spending a bunch of money to build your online business, and I really don't think that you need to. But there are a couple of things that I think are crucial to your success, and one of those is a good keyword search tool. You can use the Google Adwords Search Tool in combination with actually searching Google, but this involves bouncing around from one screen to another. When you're doing keyword research, you definitely want to have all the tools in one place.

Micro-Niche Finder is just that. You put in a keyword you want ideas for, and it returns the top 200 words and phrases that it feels are relevant, with the approximate number of searches per month listed next to them.

As a side note, it gives you all kinds of terms that don't even have the word you searched for in it. How it does this, I don't know, but it's awesome. Say you search on network marketing. Not only does it come up with terms like "top network marketing companies" and "successful network marketing", it will also show you terms like "residual income" and "work at home". It's really great at providing lots of long-tail keywords that you never think of.

That was my problem when I got started in this internet marketing business. Keywords are one of the three most important parts of the process and if you don't focus on ones that people are searching on, it doesn't matter how good your website is. People aren't going to find it. That's why Micro-Niche Finder is so important. It shows you those keyword phrases.

Once you've got a list of 200 words, you can go through and check the ones you think are interesting, then click a button and it will give you the exact phrase matches for all those words. This is an important step to determining which phrases you should target. Once you've determined which of those you want to target, one more click will give you the "SOC" or "Strength Of Competition" factor. This is a proprietary calculation that will do a search of the web on your terms and let you know just how easy or hard it will be to get ranked by Google for a certain phrase. It's critical to your success!

Micro-Niche Finder is currently on version 3, but is going to be upgraded to version 4 this week. As in most products, when a new version comes out you have to pay more. I'm not sure how much more this new version is going to be, but I know this: the price right now is $67 and it's the best money I've ever spent! James has a policy of free upgrades for life, so if you're at all considering a keyword search tool, please take a look at this one today! You can click here for more information - you'll have to give your email address, but he doesn't bug you much. Once you give him that, you'll be able to view 5 videos showing the power of this keyword search tool.

Believe me, when you watch those videos you'll be reaching for your credit card as fast as you can. This is in my opinion the best money I've spent on my internet marketing business to date - I use it at least 10 times every single day. Decide for yourself - watch the Micro-Niche Finder videos today! If you've got any questions, feel free to contact me and I'll get back to you right away.

7 Ways to Enhance Your Twitter Experience

2008-09-09T20:33:27Z

Twitter is all the rage on the internet right now, in the social networking, web 2.0 world. Twitter is a website where you can post little messages, or micro-blogs, and they will be sent out to anyone that is following you. This allows you to tell your friends or acquaintances exactly what you’re doing at a particular time, or all the time, depending on how carried away you get! This can be business or personal related, and should be a combination of the two.

Since you’re reading this blog, you’re probably on the web to earn money, so naturally some of your “tweets” should be business oriented. For instance, if you post a new entry to your blog, let people know on twitter. If you’re watching a webinar that might be helpful to others, let them know. There are many, many things you can share.

At the same time, if you just post business-related activities, people are going to think that’s all you care about, and as I’ve stated many times before, there’s a reason that web 2.0 is called social networking. It’s because you need to be “social”, talk about nothing or everything, and let people know who you are. I know, many of you are totally wrapped up in your business, to the exclusion of pretty much anything else, but you need to find something!

There must be something you like to do!

Maybe you like Seinfeld reruns. Maybe you’re a fan of the Yankees. Or maybe you hate the Yankees because you’re a fan of the Red Sox. Maybe you’ve got kids, go to church, like to garden, whatever. I think you get the idea. Well, let people know about those things. Let them see the real you, and they’ll probably like what they see.

There are a few ways to make your twittering more effective and efficient. I’m going to give you ideas about what I do.

Follow a bunch of people. You can follow up to 2000 to start with, and more if you fulfill some criteria set out by twitter (what that criteria is, I’m not exactly sure, but I think it involves how many people are following you). The way I followed a lot of people was to find someone on twitter that was interested in the same thing I am, attraction network marketing, and that was following a bunch of people themselves. Then, I clicked on the “following” link on their page and just started following the ones they follow. Eventually, I got to 2000 and I couldn’t follow any more. What you’ll find out is that if you follow those people, a lot of them are going to follow you back. When they do, send them a short message, with a link to your blog or another page of your content.
Follow people who follow you. Eventually, people will follow you that you didn’t follow first. If they do, follow them and send a similar message to them as above. If you’re at 2000 people you’re following, go in and delete a few that don’t follow you. I delete ones that don’t have a picture, as I don’t think they’re too serious about twitter. Which leads to my 3rd point.
Set up your profile. Add a picture. Tell about yourself. Put your blog link out there. Remember, we’re trying to be social – even us computer geeks!
Tie your twitter account in with your Facebook account. You do have a Facebook account, right? If not, shame on you! Go do it now! Why do this? Because it kills 2 birds with one stone: when you post something to twitter, it automatically updates what you are doing on Facebook. It saves time, and helps you to remember to do both so that many, many people will see what you’re doing. You can learn how to do this at Renegade University Professional. If you don’t belong to that excellent, let me know and I’ll tell you how to tie twitter to Facebook.
Use twhirl. This is a desktop application that displays tweets from others without having to be on the twitter site. You can also post your own tweets there, and more. What I like about this program is that it has a url shortener built into it. What’s that for? If you want to post a long link in one of your tweets, you might run out of space because you can only have posts of 140 characters or less. Some url’s are this long! With twhirl, you can enter the url into a box and click “shorten” and it will give you a short little link that you can put in your post. Download twhirl at twhirl.org.
If you have a blog, or multiple blogs, use twitterfeed. Twitterfeed automatically posts any new entries to twitter, and consequently Facebook. It works off your RSS feed and checks every hour (you can adjust this) for new blog posts, and if it sees any it sends out a tweet! It’s also customizable so you can put a prefix, only send the title, and more. This is just one more way to save yourself time and not have to remember so much. For me (52 years old) that’s important. Get this one at twitterfeed.com.
Tie it in with ezinearticles.com. There is a place in your ezinearticles profile that allows you to put your twitter information in there so that when one of your articles gets approved it will automatically send out a tweet. Same idea as above.

There you go! 7 ideas to make twitter better. Get out there and start tweeting soon. It will help to develop your web of content and get people to notice what you’re doing!

Website Promotion Organizer

2008-08-29T04:08:14Z

If you’re a member of Renegade University, you’re probably in the midst of building your massive web of content, which is exactly what I’m doing. One thing I’ve noticed is that it can get really confusing to keep track of how I’m promoting my blog, hub, or lens. That is until I found this great new tool to help me do it!

If you’re following the Renegade course, you know that you need to bookmark, backlink, and support every piece of content you create. Say you post a new blog entry. First you’re going to want to Digg it. Then you might post a Hubpage or Squidoo lens that links to it. Next, you might write an article and post it to ezinearticles.com. After that, you’re going to want to bookmark it from other sites like del.icio.us.com, furl.net, and stumbleupon.

But don’t forget, you’re also going to want to Digg the hub. And the lens. And of course, you’re going to want to bookmark those pages with del.icio.us, furl, and stumbleupon. And you better remember to twitter them too!

Did I forget any? Probably. That’s why I need to use www.bubbl.us. This is a great site that you can use for free to track all of your promotion. What it allows you to do is create little modules, or bubbles, for each one of the actions you take, and to connect them easily with lines. So you can create a bubble for your original post. Then attach a bubble for the hub, another for the lens, and a third for the Ezine article.

Next you create a new bubble for Digg, one for del.icio.us, and so forth. When you Digg the hub, you draw a line from the Digg bubble to the hub bubble. Every time you do something you create a new bubble or draw a new line. You can then save it, and come back to it later if you want to promote some more.

It’s really cool, and super easy to use. It’s a simple concept, but has been an immense amount of help to me to stay organized, which is one of my weak spots.

I learned about bubble.us from Mark Thompson, an internet marketer who created this fantastic program called Wordpress Goldmine. It teaches you in a step-by-step manner how to set up Wordpress micro-niche blogs to generate massive affiliate income. Even if you’re not interested in doing this, it’s still worth it to buy this program for the traffic building information he gives.

Wordpress Goldmine isn't just some fluffy blah-blah-blah – it’s all nuts and bolts instruction. It also stays up to date – Mark is constantly creating new videos as things change, and he sends out emails to alert you them once you purchase the product and you’re on his list. Plus, he tries to keep the videos to under 5 minutes, and packs them full of super-useful information.

If you’re looking for a new way to monetize, you don't want to miss Wordpress Goldmine. If not, at least get on over to bubbl.com and get organized!

How Can I Keep My People From Dropping Out Of My Network Marketing Downline?

2008-08-18T23:17:38Z

I got a comment on one of my blog posts today relating to retention in your network marketing company and it started me thinking. And since I was thinking, I may as well be writing, so here goes.

This is the comment I received:

I have been in several network marketing deals throughout the years. This is no easy proposition. Perhaps you can garner a few people for your down line, sell some products etc...However the attrition rate is so great and hard to keep up with. Most people getting into it have a shelf life of a year. The big thing is that the people you recruit do not feel as passionately about it as you do… and eventually fall by the wayside. Remember that most people are not that aggressive and constantly working. Enthusiasm gets lost. So the solution is that you have to add people to your down line and constantly sell the product.

Carol

Well Carol, I feel your pain!

I recently read an article by Mike Dillard addressing a slightly different subject, but it had some interesting facts in it. Mike broke down the typical downline into three types of people:

1. Retail customers who love the products and don’t want to have anything to do with the business. This makes up between 20 – 50% of a typical downline.

2. Leaders who pursue their business as a professional in a full time career. This makes up .5 to 1% of any downline, or approximately 1 in every 100 to 200 distributors.

3. The downline members who are struggling to develop themselves and achieve success. This group is the largest part of any downline and makes up about 50 – 80%.

Your goal as a leader is to get group 3 to stick around as long as possible because they make up a large portion of your business, and consequently your check. The tricky part is how to do that. Here are a few ideas:

1. Choose a good company. This is the very important. You want to align yourself with a company you can be proud of and that has exceptional products, so that they will want to stay involved even if they aren’t making much money. The best type of company for this is a nutritional-based one because people will get sold on the fact that they need to keep taking the products to protect their health. That’s a very powerful motivator if you can get people to buy into it. Many nutritional companies have powerful testimonials that lead people into this type of belief system.

2. Sign them up with the most expensive option your company offers. My company has a startup package that costs about $1200. This package has basically all of the products my company offers, plus several sales tools and vouchers for events included. That way my new recruit can try everything that applies to him, and turn around and sell the stuff that doesn’t. The other reason I have them make this large of an investment is that they have more to lose if they walk away. Plus, I know that they’ve got some money to invest. You don’t want to find someone who’s been out of work for 6 months, and has to scrape together $100 just to buy the minimum startup pack. If it’s that hard to come up with $100, they’re not going to last because they’re going to have to try to scrape that money up every month to meet autoship requirements and to purchase sales tools. It always takes longer to get making money than people think, so you need to find people that have some financial resources.

3. Show them how to monetize. If you can help them earn some money right away, it will help them to sustain longer. There are various ways to do this, but the one I like is affiliate marketing. This is the process of promoting other people’s products and earning a commission on anything that is sold by that person to someone you send to their website. Read my articles What does it Mean to Monetize Your Website? and Why Monetize Your Internet Network Marketing Business? for more information on this. Also take a look at The Renegade University for a free step-by-step system that get’s you going on attraction marketing and monetization.

4. Get to know them. In order to develop loyalty and accountability, you need to have a personal relationship with the people you sign up. If you just enroll people automatically on the internet or some other way, you may be able to sign them up in bunches, but you’ll also lose them in bunches too because no one will know or care if they walk away. Network marketing requires personal contact, if you’re not comfortable with that, this isn’t the business for you.

5. Give them a plan. Train them. Let them know what to expect. Don’t oversell, don’t tell them they’ll be making $1000/month in 6 months, or that they can retire in 2 years. It’s probably not going to happen, and if you tell them that in order to get them into your business, you’ll be damaging them, which is not cool. Tim Sales talks a lot about responsibility and not damaging people in his Professional Inviter program. He’s brilliant and down-to-earth, and whatever you can learn from him is worth it.

6. Don’t pigeon-hole them. Just because you like to work on the internet, doesn’t mean they will. Maybe they like to make cold calls, or send out postcards. Maybe they just like to talk to everyone they come in contact with. Be open-minded, and don’t try to make the new recruit do what you do. There are many ways to skin this network marketing cat, so whatever you do, don’t make someone do what they don’t want to do.

These are a few tips on how to keep new recruits in your business. Remember, every month they stay involved is another month of income for you and another month closer to success for them. For more information on monetizing and attraction marketing, go to www.matthellstrom.com. It might make the difference between success and failure for you and your team!

Mike Dillard - Mike Dillard's Black Belt Recruiting

2008-07-17T21:49:55Z

Mike Dillard's Black Belt Recruiting is the latest offering by the attraction network marketing guru. Mike established himself as an attraction marketing expert with the book Magnetic Sponsoring and followed that ground-breaking effort up with the extremely timely Building On A Budget.

Now Dillard releases Black Belt Recruiting - his latest tool. Instead of focusing on the process of attraction marketing, he moves over to the sponsosring side of the equation: now that you've gotten them to call you, how do you go about giving them the information they need to want to sign up into your network marketing business.

To do this, he recruited the talents of Mark Weiser, an established and extremely successful network marketing leader. At one time, Mark sponsored 254 people into his business in one month!

Click here to listen to Mike Dillard's free 60 minute interview with Mark Weiser, and learn some powerful secrets from an expert. Just a sample of what you'll find in this insightful interview are the following:

1. What are the top 3 mistakes a new distributor makes, and how can you avoid them.

2. What questions should you ask a prospect to find out if they're right for your business?

3. What do you do if you don't know how to sponsor?

4. How do you answer the question "How much do you make?".

5. How do you sponsor 15 - 20 people per month?

This is just a sample of the information you'll find in this jam-packed interview. Don't hesitate - watch Mike Dillard's free Black Belt Recruiting interview today!

More information on what's included in the massive 14 hour interview

I just received an exclusive, inside look at the secrets of Black Belt Recruiting, and it looks great! Here's a partial list of what you'll learn from this incredible package:

How six and seven figure network marketers close prospects on the phone without doing any "selling." (In fact, with Mark's methods, the LESS you sell, the MORE people you sponsor!)
My "wrong number" secret that lets you sponsor FAR more prospects than you are now... and with a LOT less effort.
How to instantly "de-fang" loud and obnoxious prospects — and actually have them apologizing and pleading with you to show them the plan. (This secret works even if they were dead set against networking before!)
Startling facts you MUST know about sales people before you talk to them about your business. (Sales pros can be your best reps — but there's a "trick" to talking to them if you want to sponsor them into your business.)
Why the best time to talk to a lead is AFTER they've talked to other network marketers! (If you do things "Mark's way", you will never again worry if other networker talk to your leads — in fact, you'll actually prefer they do.)
A little talked about fear every human being has... and how to use it to sponsor even the most skeptical prospects. (This tactic is often used by car salesmen, jewelers and other people who sell high ticket items. And it works even better for networkers.)
How to get people at parties and other social gatherings to approach you and ask about your business... Without you having to say a single word!
In Black Belt Recruiting we'll show you how to give yourself this "success aura" that instantly attracts new prospects to you and your business — even if you're shy, introverted or have the personality of a toad now.
Why you should almost never sponsor people who say they are "interested" in your opportunity. (I admit it — this was W-E-I-R-D when I first heard it, too. But believe it or not, when you stop sponsoring interested people, you will automatically see your sponsoring rates skyrocket.)
How to use an ordinary sheet of paper and a ball point pen to sponsor successful people, professionals and other business "authorities." (This has nothing to do with drawing circles or using the infamous "Benjamin Franklin close." It's much easier than that, requires no effort whatsoever, and you will be astonished by how well it works on people used to being "in control" of conversations.)
How to talk to people you are sitting next to on a plane about your business without scaring them away. (And one simple "counter intuitive" thing you can do to get them almost begging you to show them the plan!)
How to "recruit" your mailman to help you sponsor new prospects. (One guy recently built a huge downline in 30 days with this one secret alone. Here's how he did it, and why you can, too.)
A secret way to almost guarantee your prospects don't blow off your meetings and appointments. (This will virtually eliminate no-shows and late comers forever.)
The single most important thing you must do (and say) if you are talking to a highly analytical prospect.
The single most important thing you must do (and say) if you are talking to a highly skeptical prospect.
How to sponsor people who have already decided NOT to join your business!
Four words that will destroy your chances of sponsoring new reps — even the ones who already want to sign up! (When I stopped saying these four words — that 99% of networkers say during calls — my sponsoring rate shot through the roof.)
The secret of getting your prospects so "fired up" about your business you can literally sponsor them without even saying what company you're in or what product you sell! (You may even have people call you a couple days later asking, "Ummm, what am I selling again?")
How to "position" yourself as a network marketing expert before you even sponsor your first distributor!
A weird (but effective) way to make money when distributors quit your team.
A brand new breakthrough (recently discovered by social scientists) that makes even total "newbies" irresistibly attractive to almost any prospect. (This incredible little secret is how some new distributors are able to sponsor dozens of people right off the bat. Here's how they do it.)
How to get your prospects to ask YOU to make their decision to join your team FOR them. (This advanced recruiting technique makes sponsoring as easy as taking candy from a baby. And you will probably never hear about this anywhere else.) How to sponsor people in your local community... even if nobody likes you and everyone hates your guts.
Nine words that let you instantly control ANY prospecting call. (These nine words are like magic. Your prospects will feel "lucky" you even took the time to call them.)
How hanging up on a prospect can dramatically increase your chances of sponsoring him! (This technique works so well it's almost spooky. Just be careful: You need to know how and when to hang up, and you can only do this with certain prospects.)
The one deadly mistake even experienced networkers make during three way calls that will destroy your sponsoring efforts.
How to get even your busiest up-line leaders to 3-way call your prospects at ANY time of the day or night. (Even if it's 2 a.m. in the morning!)
When you should NOT send your prospects to a website presentation. (Even if they ask to see one!)
How to mentally "turn the tables" on your prospects so they sell themselves on YOU... instead of you selling to them! (This amazing secret is used by every 7-figure networker on the planet. Here's how to use it in YOUR business — no matter how experienced you are now.)
How to get the best and brightest prospects seeking YOU out — without spending any money on advertising. (Just use this technique Mark teaches and you'll have people coming out of the woodwork asking about your business.)
An "almost magic" way to sponsor hundreds of international reps before your company officially opens in their countries.
A sneaky way to get your competition to help you sponsor people into your business... without them even knowing it.

And that's not all.

Believe it or not, there's even more packed into this incredible course! Details are going to be released soon.

Click here to watch the entire video now!

10 Reasons Why Network Marketing is the Perfect Home Business

2008-06-18T17:13:52Z

Network Marketing has been around for many years, and it’s always had its detractors and its champions. For reasons outlined in a “previous article”, network marketing has had a bad name in the past. However, that bad name has usually been caused by some of the people in network marketing, not the industry itself. Actually, it’s the perfect home business, for the following reasons.

Low startup costs. It usually costs less than $1000 to start your own business. Compare that to $75,000 - $223,000 to open up a Subway.
Low monthly overhead. Overhead usually runs under $500/month, including sales materials and monthly product purchases. I used to own I small shipping and packaging store, where my overhead, including 2 employees, was about $10,000/month. And that’s for about the smallest conventional business you can own.
No employees. You don’t need to be babysitting grownups, let alone worry about taxes, health insurance, etc.
No experience or schooling required. This is a business anyone can do. This doesn’t mean that it’s a business that everyone should do. If you’re not serious about putting in some time and effort, this is not the business for you. It’s not a get-rich-quick deal.
You can work from home. Or from the lake. Or Hawaii. No office necessary, in fact it’s discouraged.
You can pick who you work with. Wouldn’t it be great to work with your friends or family? (for some people, anyway!) In this industry, you can! Cool.
You can build it in your spare time. If you can put in 10 hours a week, you can create a good income within 6 months to a year. If you have more time, you can do it faster. Get started while you’re still working at your current job, then do it full time once your income from your MLM is sufficient.
Unlimited income potential. In no other industry is there the ability to make unlimited income with such a minimal initial investment and monthly outlay. There are networkers making in excess of $100,000 and more! Anything is possible.
Residual Income. One of the two best reasons. I’ve been doing this business for 10 years, and went through a period of about 7 years where I didn’t do anything. When I started up again, I still had people in my downline creating volume, and was able to immediately start earning checks again. That convinced me of the residual income part of this business.
Leveraged Income. The other best reason, and I think my favorite. Once you build up your organization, it continues to work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Even when you don’t. The most important way to achieve financial success is to not have to rely totally on your own efforts for your income. No matter how much you make an hour, there are only 24 hours in the day and your income is limited. In Network Marketing, you make a commission from everyone in your downline, so you are truly not limited to your own hours. This is crucial to becoming financially independent.

There you have it - 10 reasons to join a Network Marketing company today. Don’t hesitate, if not today, then when?

Is Network Marketing a Scam?

2008-06-18T00:40:20Z

Network Marketing is possibly one of the most controversial subjects on the planet – at least in the home-based business world. It generates more positive and negative feelings from people than just about anything – other than religion and politics. Some see it as their savior – others see it as the purest form of evil. Why is there such a huge amount of emotions – both for and against – for this seemingly innocent industry?

Let’s look at the negative side first. In another article we’ll review the positive aspects of network marketing.

Where do the bad feelings come from?

Is it the pyramid structure of the industry? I don’t really think so. Almost any sales organization in the world uses a structure similar to this. Salespeople get commissions; sales managers get bonuses on top of that, sales directors more, vice presidents more. Same type of deal.

Maybe it’s the idea that MLM’s are illegal pyramid schemes. This is where all the money is being made by signing up other people, with little or no product being moved. This is just a perception, however; the fact is that Amway, Melaleuca, Mannatech, PrePaid Legal, Usana, and many other companies have sold billions of dollars of products to happy customers, and not just to distributors. So this perception is just not reality.

Could it be that it costs money to get started? No, that’s common in starting a business. And compared to buying into a franchise, the cost is miniscule.

Then what is the reason that Network Marketers get people running for the hills faster than a swarm of killer bees?

It’s not the industry, it’s some of the people it attracts.

Two of the main positive things about network marketing are also two of the things that lead to the biggest problems. These two aspects are the low cost of entry, and the potential for huge income. This formula attracts people who are not suited to having their own business, for the following reasons:

They don’t have any money saved up to invest in a business, so they probably don’t have the right makeup for success.
They have no previous experience in owning or running a business. Therefore, they have an “employee” attitude, not one of “I’ll do what it takes to succeed”.
They have no experience in sales.
They want something for nothing – they’re basically lazy.

As a result of this, many network marketers approach their business in the wrong way:

They lie about the opportunity.
They promote their business to the wrong people and in the wrong situations.
They hype it up.
They come across as desperate.

This doesn’t describe all network marketers, but it does describe enough to tarnish the reputation of them all. It gets really bad when one of these types becomes a leader, and teaches these methods to the new recruit. It perpetuates itself, and becomes more the norm than the exception.

For these reasons, network marketing has had a bad reputation over the years. But this may be changing. In today’s society, people are much more skeptical than in the past, so the old methods aren’t working any more. Networkers have to find new ways to prospect, and it looks like the new ways are much more value oriented and less pushy. In fact, the best method is the attraction-based model outlined in the books Magnetic Sponsoring by Mike Dillard and The Renegade Network Marketer by Ann Sieg. Either one of these books, or both, will show you the new, better way to do network marketing. If you’re thinking about joining this wonderful industry, or already are a part of it, I strongly suggest you purchase one of these excellent books.

Renegade University - Review

2008-06-17T22:55:00Z

I’ve been a distributor for a Network Marketing company for 10 years, and have enjoyed a moderate amount of success, probably more than most network marketers, but not near what I’d like or what I believe is possible.

I read an article a while back about targeting Generation Y people for your business and was intrigued by something that the article said. It talked about how that generation is very “Internet savvy” and how the best way to reach them is through the social websites like Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace. Being 51 years old (ancient), I didn’t know a heck of a lot about these sites, I’m embarrassed to admit.

Well, that was about to change…

I got on Google (I do know about that!) and did a search on “promote mlm on facebook” and turned up some interesting links. One of them was a YouTube video by a 20-something gal that was showing a tip on using a feature of Facebook to promote your mlm. It was really interesting, and I could tell she knew what she was talking about, so I looked further for more information about her. What I eventually found was that she was promoting a website called The Renegade University.

As I read about this free (to get started) website, I started to learn not only about promoting my business on the internet, but about a whole new paradigm called Attraction Marketing.

The lowdown on this form of marketing was that you attract people to you, instead of chasing after them. This got me excited right away, as I was tired of bugging my family and friends, and making cold calls to people that really didn’t want to hear what I had to say. If there was a way I could put myself out there so people called or emailed me about my business, I just had to find out more.

So I signed up for the free training!

Upon signing up, I was given a link to a training website. I was immediately impressed by how organized in was, and how simple it was to get around. The creator of Renegade University, Mike Klingler, likes to do online videos, or webinars. Therefore, most of the training is done this way, which is really pretty cool.

It’s not videos of him talking; it’s videos of his computer screen, showing you how to set up your system. That’s the real beauty of this training – it steps you through setting up various methods of social networking on the internet.

One of the first things he suggests-

Getting the “textbook” for his university, which is Ann Sieg’s The Renegade Network Marketer. Once I realized I was going to move forward, I spent the money to buy the book. It’s not very expensive, and well worth the money. Rather than give nuts and bolts ways to set up your social network, the book give you an overview of the attraction marketing concept of network marketing. You need to read the book; it gets you thinking in a whole new way. For a review of The Renegade Network Marketer, click here.

Once you’ve read the book, you’re ready to get started setting up your own attraction based marketing system. Renegade University has several tools to get you started on that. Once again, Mike goes through the step-by-step process to get you going. It’s really very simple.

Renegade University by Mike Klingler is good, but it’s just a starting point. If you’re impressed with what you see and want to take it much farther, they offer what’s called Renegade Professional. This is a website that you pay for access to by the month, at a very reasonable rate, as long as you want to use it. You can get a 7 day trial for $1, which gives you plenty of time to see if you want to continue. Believe me, once you see what it’s all about, you’ll sign up right away. I’ll be writing a review of Renegade Professional soon.

Does Network Marketing Really Work?

2008-06-17T20:28:25Z

I'm a big believer in the industry of Network Marketing. Big Believer. However, I've never been very successful at it. I've been moderately successful, but I've never experienced the kind of growth and vitality that I believe are possible. Not even close. But I continue to believe in the industry, because I know it works. I know it works because there are a lot of people making a lot of money in MLM. I know it works because there are hundreds of companies that use network marketing as their means of moving products. I know it works because it just makes sense to me. So why doesn't it work for me?

MLM is a unique industry. Anyone can have their own network marketing company, with very little initial outlay, no formal education, and minimal monthly overhead. Therefore, many different types of people join. However, as an industry, we are taught that how we build our business is by duplicating the people that sign us up. We're supposed to do exactly like they do, and because they are successful, we will be successful. In theory this makes sense, however in the real world it doesn't.

Everyone is different, so everyone is going to build their business in a different way.

Now, the basics are the same. It's very simple, really. It only involves four steps:

Find people who are interested in your business.
Show them about your company.
Sign them up in the business.
Train them to do the same thing.

The last 3 steps are pretty easy to duplicate. It's the first one where I believe we fail as an industry. You see, there are many different places and ways to find people to join us in the business. But when our sponsor or upline trains us on how to do this, he or she trains us to do it the way they do it. That's fine if we have the same skills and experience they do, however this is rarely the case. Some of the top Network Marketers in the industry totally built their business by only talking to their warm market. Some have done it by buying leads and calling hundreds of people to sign up 5. Others have done it by being dynamic speakers and leading large opportunity meetings. Many have used a combination of all of these, or other methods entirely. And they have been very successful.

As for me, none of those methods have really worked very well. I've had some success with my warm market, and some success cold calling. But I've never been able to get it to "take off".

However, I think that is about to change dramatically. I've been in this industry on and off for 10 years, and I've always thought the internet was the key to reaching people for my business, just based on the shear number of people that are accessing the web every minute of every day. About 8 years ago I made a sustained effort to find those people, by building a business opportunity website, and using different methods to draw people to it. And I had some success. However, it was a lot of work, and almost impossible for my recruits to duplicate. So eventually I let that method go by the wayside.

But now, there is a new phenomenon called "Social Marketing" or "Web 2.0" that is taking the internet by storm. Social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, and many more have changed the internet landscape more than anything in its history up to this point. It's much easier to create a presence on the web than it's been in the past, and to have interactive exchanges with people that have similar interests with you. I've just started to do this kind of marketing, and I firmly believe that this is the future of network marketing.

I first found out about this paradigm shift from a free report called The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing by Ann Sieg. You can download it for free, it's very informative.

There is a huge difference between this and all the other types of marketing: in all the other ways of finding prospects, you are calling them. In this method, they are calling you. This is such a profound difference, that I know it will transform my Network Marketing business, and I'm sure it will transform yours too.

What is Network Marketing?

2008-06-17T20:22:09Z

Network Marketing is a business distribution model that allows a company to market their products directly to consumers by means of direct selling and referral, or word-of-mouth advertising. It differs from most other types of businesses in that there are no advertising, wholesale, or retail costs involved (no middle men!).

How Is 'No Middle Men' a Business Benefit?

One of the benefits of this is that more money can be spent on research, development and manufacturing, which usually results in much higher quality, unique products.

The other main benefit of the Network Marketing business model is the fact that some of the money spent on advertising and the distribution channel (wholesalers, retailers, etc.) can now go to the people who actually promote the products by their word-of-mouth advertising.

These people are referred to as associates, distributors, independent agents, and other terms. They are unsalaried salespeople that basically have their own business, and develop their organization by either building a customer base that buys their company’s products directly from the parent company and/or by recruiting a downline of independent distributors who also build their own customer base, thereby increasing the size of the overall organization.

Distributors earn commissions based on the sales efforts of their organization, which includes their efforts as well as the efforts of their downline. Commissions are paid to distributors according to their company’s compensation plan. There can be multiple levels of people receiving commission from one person’s sales. In addition, distributors can earn profit by retailing products which they purchase from their parent company at wholesale price.

What’s the Difference Between Network Marketing and Multi-level Marketing, or MLM?

In a word, nothing! The terms Network Marketing and Multi-level Marketing refer to two aspects of the same type of business.

Network Marketing describes how the products are marketed, through a network of people in communication with one another.

Multi-level Marketing is how the people in the network are compensated for their efforts. It simply means that commissions are paid on multiple levels of the organization, thereby creating leverage.

And Leverage is....

Leverage in this instance refers to being able to earn income on someone else’s efforts.

Obviously, this concept is used by most businesses with employees. An employee earns money for a company, and in turn is compensated with a salary, which is hopefully less that he’s bringing in. The owner of the company gets to keep the difference. So he is leveraging his income by making money off his employees.

This is similar to the concept of network marketing compensation plans, with the distinct difference being that those that the distributor is leveraging off of are independent distributors themselves. This means that there are no employee costs involved, and that these people are going to be much more motivated to succeed. Leverage will be discussed further in future articles.

Is This What’s Called a “Pyramid Scheme”?

If distributors are paid primarily from money received from new recruits, or if they’re required to buy more product than they are likely to sell, then the company may be a pyramid. Pyramids are illegal in all states and most countries. Legitimate Network Marketing companies are not only legal, but thrive in every state and in most countries.

Network marketing companies are not pyramids, though some pyramid schemes try to pass themselves off as legitimate MLM businesses. In most legitimate MLM companies, commissions are earned only on sales of the company’s products or services. No money can be earned from recruiting alone, as in sign-up fees.

Two Good Resources For Learning More About the Industry of Network Marketing.

These resources, from a third-party perspective and not created by any specific company, are Brilliant Compensation by Tim Sales and The 45 Second Presentation That Will Change Your Life by Don Faila. I recommend both of these as not only informational, but as good resources to use in your prospecting efforts with skeptical people.