Archive for February, 2009

Many people fail to understand that network marketing is a business that is about sharing and training. If you want to make big money in it, the key is in this line the greatest leader is the greatest server.

No one climbs to the top without the support of their downlines. Therefore, if you want to climb up, it is through people lifting you up, not by stepping on top of them like in the corporate ladder. That’s why it is very important for you to start by sharing your opportunity with the right heart.

Many people ‘run away’ from network marketers who are prospecting them because they are afraid of the recruiting process. The part about sitting people down, showing them to plan and the unending follow up calls designed to hunt down the prospect relentlessly… those old school sales and recruiting tactics are inefficient because of one thing – the prospect perceives you to be a sleazy sales person only out to get your hands into their pocket or their wallets.

This has to stop because if you do not share with the right intention to help your prospect, they will run away faster than you can say the word ‘sign up’.

So how do you connect with your prospect? How can you find the right ‘hot button’?

Firstly, you must learn to be a good listener. Being a good listener is not just about saying a lot of “yes” and “Um hmm…” to all the things they are saying about their lives. It is all about empathy. In essence, you really got to be a friend rather than a sales person. Business opportunities are just business transactions but the core of the business is about the heart. Do not place your business deals before your prospects’ or downlines’ welfare.

Next, if you want to share properly, do not try and go for the quick kill in order to make the sale. Network marketing is not about a hit and run, it is about building a long term business and it is not uncommon to find people getting their best downlines one or two years after prospecting them and following up with them.

Lastly, if you want to help people, you must not build your network marketing business as though it is your only source of income. The root of greed begins with desperation so take your time with your business. If you rely on it as your sole source of income, all your prospects will look like dollar signs to you.

In network marketing, one of the biggest challenges is your posture.  When I talk about posture, I don’t mean the way you sit but rather your overall confidence, charisma and composure when it comes to pitching your network marketing business to your prospects and training your downlines.

When someone is new to network marketing, they tend to approach those who are very close to them personally or people who are of a lower social status compared to them. They tend to seek out those who are.

Younger than them in terms of age and experience.

People who are earning less money than them.

People who are less confident than they are.

People who seem to be going through a lot of struggles in life outwardly.

People who are generally not doing as well as they are.

Now, there is nothing wrong in sponsoring ‘down’ per se, but think for a moment… if you build a team that is worse off than you, what do you think your organization will be like What about your people, would they be doing the same thing.

How much lower can you go before the sponsoring chain hits rock bottom?

Of course, I’m not implying that a person of a humble and lowly stature cannot achieve success in network marketing but I’m referring to the duplication process.

If you want to achieve tremendous results in your downline building efforts, you have to be able to sponsor ‘up’ which means approaching people that are generally doing better than you. You must look for people who are older than you, have more experience than you, people that you respect, etc…

“But they probably won’t listen to what I have to say…”

Yes, you might think like this… but here are a few tips when it comes to sponsoring up and why you must do it no matter what.

Sponsoring up builds your confidence.

Better to have 1 quality downline than 10 people who will do nothing.

You will surpass mental barriers you have never thought possible because you are able to get a breakthrough.

Sponsoring up will give you a chance to tap into networks that are far beyond your reach. If you have a CEO in your organization, he will open doors in ways that you cannot imagine.

Don’t worry if they won’t listen to you. You must always refer the prospect to a stronger upline in your organization. Let the stronger upline ‘close’ him and train him initially and as he or she gets more into the business, they will in turn respect your leadership as well.

Remember, always aim for the moon… even if you fail, at least you will clear the fence.

MLM or Business blogs are one of the most important marketing tools you can use to promote your network marketing business or your opportunity.

Some of the advantages of blogging include picking up traffic from the search engines, blog traffic exchanges, people keying in your name with a dot com at the end and even from RSS subscriptions.

But one of the biggest keys towards picking up and maximizing your traffic is to optimize your blog titles and post titles for your MLM r Business blogs. The title serves many different functions. It gets your blog post appearing on Google, Yahoo! and MSN for the right kind of keywords … keywords that prospects are looking for.

It also gets picked up by blog syndications and networks giving you another source of traffic and blog readers.

It attracts readers to look at your blog post. With millions of new blog posts coming up each day and a new blog being created every few seconds, you have to be savvy when it comes to creating a post title that will not only attract the attention of your readers, but will also give them a compelling reason to read the post all the way to the end.

So how should you optimize your blog titles? Here are a few pointers:

How to… Everybody wants to know how to get more money, get something done, court the right girl, find the right solutions, etc. If you can provide solutions, the ‘how to’ line will always strike a chord.

Swing Golf Like Tiger Woods… actually, not just Tiger Woods, it could be bend it like Beckham, or get rich like Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Bill Gates or even the Sultan of Brunei! Either way, if you can do something like the superstar, it will be a very good blog title because everyone wants to do something word class.

If you start your blog post with “what you ought to know” about something, you are leveraging on someone’s curiosity and it is really effective because nobody likes the feeling of not knowing something important or feeling left out.

Use this… here is a quick way to get something done. This is a very good line too because people like to get things done really fast.

Another useful strategy… using part 1, part 2, part etc… when you break your blog posts into separate parts, it gives people a compelling reason to come back more and more. As long as you ‘exercise’ your readers, you are making them more responsive to your offers and your opportunities.

Do you remember that first spark of hope you felt when you watched The Secret? I clearly remember the desire that filled my heart, knowing that – Yes, I can make my dreams come true – FINALLY!

But how many of you soon saw that hope dwindle into frustration? How many of you (and be honest now) started muttering things like:

- “It seems to work for other people, but I just can’t get it right.”

- “I’m frustrated that sometimes I can get it to work, but sometimes I can’t. What’s the trick?”

- “Why am I having so much trouble?”

- “I think the universe is against me.”

- “I’m trying very, VERY hard but still nothing is happening!”

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. About 97% of people also couldn’t make the Law of Attraction work for them the first time round. Think about it, just like anything else, you have to practice many times before you see success. A child doesn’t learn to walk without falling over a couple of times, right?

But in practice, everything is easier said and done. When you’re frustrated, it’s hard to stay positive. And it’s especially harder to stay positive when the evidence all around you is screams negativity like the unstable economy or senseless acts of violence such as those recently seen in Mumbai.

And do you know what happens when you fail to stay positive? That’s right – you start attracting negative things in to your life.

So how can you make the Law of Attraction work for you – without getting frustrated? How do those who successfully implement the Law of Attraction do it with such confidence and finesse?

Well, here’s three quick tips so you will never feel frustrated or tired of begging from the universe, because you know how to start manifesting like a pro.

1. Allow Yourself To Receive

Just like a lost child who approaches a police officer and asks, “Excuse me Sir, can you tell me how to go to the post office? Can you? Can you? Can you? Can you? Can you?” Well, if the child goes on and on asking, the police officer can’t even give an answer, right?

Well, it’s the same thing with your mind. If the only thing your mind is doing is transmit, transmit, transmit, the universe — which is trying to respond — can’t give you a single thing because you’re not allowing yourself to receive!

So, have the confidence in yourself and stop exhausting yourself by running around person to person begging for riches, and then wondering why nobody is dropping a penny in your cup (Hint: It’s because you’re running away too fast for them before they can even reach for their wallets).

Just think of your desires and leave it out there, go away, and trust that your cup will be filled with gold coins (or whatever it is you asked for) when the time is right.

2. Be Patient With Yourself

Receiving takes time.

Sadly, many people give up just a couple of steps before the finish line because they’ve decided that if it’s not working by now, it’s never going to work at all. Worse still are those who throw in more and more energy because they think that with more resources, the results will come faster.

This is like expecting 9 mothers to conceive and deliver a baby in 1 month. You also can’t bake cookies in half the time by doubling the temperature. You’ll incinerate those cookies to ashes!

In simple terms: Everything in this world has a natural development time, and this fact will not change no matter what resources you throw at it.

So relax and be patient. Remember that you too, as part of the universe, are also governed by the laws of the universe, and you cannot change the natural development time.

If you remember this, you will less likely work yourself up into frustration, or worse, push yourself into a downward spiral of negativity.

3. Support and Educate Yourself

Like the child who is learning how to walk, you need support. You also need to guidance on how to do it, and also the role models to look up to.

Many people give up because they think that “The Secret” is the “be all and end all” solution. Well, it’s NOT. “The Secret” is just a small portion. It was never intended, and has never been, the whole answer.

Coming to the conclusion that the Law of Attraction doesn’t work when all you ever did to educate yourself was watch “The Secret” 19 times (without looking at changing the habits of other areas of your life) is like coming to the conclusion that exercising is not an effective way to lose weight because all you did is run on the treadmill for 2 hours a day (but you’re still stuffing yourself with fried foods and cheesecakes).

So seek and be hungry for new knowledge. Also, make an effort to be amongst people or communities where you can support each other, learn from each other and also share new knowledge that you have found.

While the Law of Attraction is not an overnight delivery service, it will indeed deliver, if you do your part too!

Check out the site here – go to http://freeleadschasingyou.com/laws.php

Network marketing is not a hobby, it is a business. A hobby is an activity that you do during your own free time. Your network marketing business must not be something that you do when it is convenient… you must think like a businessman, an entrepreneur and a visionary!

According to Robert Kiyosaki, he believes that network marketing is the perfect training ground that will mold you into becoming an entrepreneur or a business person. Here’s why…

An entrepreneur is a person who is willing to stop expecting their paycheck to arrive at a certain date. This is one of the biggest flaws of not thinking like an entrepreneur and thinking like an employee. The weakness of an employee mindset is that they will only do ‘enough’ to please their bosses because their bosses will only pay them ‘enough’ to keep them from leaving the company.

This is a vicious cycle as the employee expects money to come in within a certain time frame – sometimes, they even do nothing in the office or at the work place and they still get their paycheck.

Network marketing is inherently a business that pays only when you get results. Unlike an employee, you don’t just ‘do your job’; you make sure you produce the results for yourself. Shuffling your product brochures, arranging your name list, memorizing your product catalog and attending rah-rah meetings will NOT bring you results, you must go out there in the trenches and train your downlines, meet people, share products and collect money – these are the things an entrepreneur must do in order to succeed in network marketing.

An entrepreneur must also be willing to do all the thinking. As an employee, things are much easier when the employer does all the thinking for you. All you need to do is to ‘do your job’. Everything changes when you become the ones making the decisions. When to wake up, when to have lunch, when to go out and talk to this prospect, when to spend time with your downlines or which of your team members… Ironically, employees prefer to do the work compared to thinking about the solutions – it’s as though they prefer to get their hands dirty rather than think for themselves.

At the end of the day, network marketers who think like an employee and fail to recognize the inherent differences between the different quadrants in Kiyosaki’s chart is bound to fail unless they have a paradigm shift and change their approach.

In this time and age, never has 3 of the biggest markets in the world converged into one of the greatest synergies of its time.

Three of the biggest markets in the world are:

- Internet marketing (marketing products and services over the Internet)
- Multilevel or Network Marketing (getting compensation up to many levels deep)
- Personal development or self-improvement

If you are selling or marketing a product on personal development, you are not only tapping into one of the biggest markets in the world, you are also tapping into one of the wealthiest target markets in the world because leaders in every field get there thanks to personal development.
Basically, these 3 markets are considered an ‘iron rice bowl’ (a Chinese term referring to a secure and unstoppable career path).

Here’s how you can synergize these 3 markets:

- Network marketing companies will always encourage their people to invest into personal development programs. There are just too many books and courses out there, from Donald Trump to Robert Kiyosaki, you will find these famous names virtually everywhere. So instead of network marketers buying books from other people, they can buy from YOU as a wholesaler! After all, why must you give this market away to other people?

- Marketing your home business over the Internet is one of the most cost effective ways to dominate the industry. By sitting at home, you can access and build a mailing list of thousands of subscribers! Instead of driving out to hotel opportunity meetings, you can get in touch with all those people and promote your products to them with the click of a single button!

- You can also create blogs, participate in forums or groups and help other people to feel a sense of belonging through Social Networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. In this ‘Web 2.0’ generation, there are so many ways to connect with people. You can build a global business with relative ease!

- You can also host your personal development courses over the Internet. Remember, digital products do not take up physical space like normal books do. Uploading them into digital format will enable people to download them easily and access them right away.

- Another important component for success is by branding yourself through info product creation. These E-books are a good branding tool that you can distribute over the Internet as well.
There is no better time than now, to take advantage of these 3 markets and achieve financial freedom!

In order to succeed in network marketing you must be prepared to dream big. Most people are taught to dream like a little child with high hopes of conquering the world… but they fail the moment they are faced with negativity.

One of the biggest dream killers in network marketing you must avoid are negative people. You must understand that negative people do NOT see what you see. They do not share your goals and insipiently; there are people who will go all out to undermine what you are doing because they perceive your success as a threat to their self-esteem. In other words, your success will make them feel like a loser and they will do anything to make sure you fail.

Here are a few ways to shield your mind from negative people:

- Change your environment. You must learn to feel something different because your environment will play a huge part on your success. Nobody is Superman or Supergirl (even they feel sad, weak or depressed sometimes…) Superman gets weak from exposing himself to the negative energy of Kryptonite but he gets his energy back from the Sun. If you want to be able to stay positive, pull yourself away from your negative wife, in-laws, parents, beer drinking buddies and head off to the next motivational rally to keep your spirits up. Let the ‘sun’ recharge your power and you will have the strength to take on the world again.

- Do not underestimate the importance of positive motivation. Most people say that they have heard this motivational ‘crap’ and that motivational ‘yadda yadda…’ If you feel that you can’t benefit from motivation, you must examine your heart or your feelings. Are you starting to buy into other people’s negative whining or are YOU turning into a negative parasite as well? You must not give up on yourself – get back in the game by moving your butt and read more positive books!

- Action precedes action! If you are feeling negative due to people’s negativity because you are not achieving results, then here’s one thing you can do. Get back in the groove by acting the part. A writer doesn’t gain inspiration by just sitting there – they get their inspiration by writing, moving, thinking and training their minds. The same applies to your positive energy as well. If you don’t feel like doing anything, just ignore your feelings and be like Nike… JUST DO IT! You will find yourself getting up and you will MOVE IT just like the cartoon characters in ‘Madagascar’!

In network marketing, you MUST think big. If you do not think big, you can’t achieve good results. It’s either you think big or you do not think at all because you either go all the way in network marketing or you fail to achieve ANY results. There is no middle ground in this matter.

According to real estate mogul – Donald Trump, he believes very firmly in the doctrine of thinking big in anything that you do. He says that if you are going to think, you might as well think big. It makes sense because you are going to be thinking anyway. It takes the same effort to dream up a big plan and a small plan so if you are going to exercise your brain juice, make sure it is worthwhile.

The ‘Apprentice’ superstar also elaborates that thinking big will help you to break barriers and propel your business ventures to new heights. His co-author – Bill Zanker who happens to be the founder of the learning annex was one very good example of thinking big. He secured a deal with The Donald by inviting him to speak at his seminar for a MILLION dollars! This figure was virtually unheard of when it comes to inviting celebrities to speak and even though a million was way over his budget, his ‘big’ thinking and willingness to push his limits has paid off well.

Now, in your network marketing business, you can apply this big thinking principle by ‘sponsoring up’. But what does it mean by sponsoring up? It means that instead of sponsoring people who are of a lower level or status compared to you, you go for the big fish – people who are doing financially better than you or people who have a large network or a circle of influence!

This is very crucial in network marketing because if you do not sponsor up, you will have an entire organization who is not willing to step out of their comfort zone and think big and they will all ‘sponsor DOWN’ as well!

You must prove to your people that you are willing to go all out to sponsor that CEO or that recruiting superstar. People will follow you example later on.

At the end of the day, you must be willing to think like the Donald by believing that you can do it. You must believe that you can push beyond your limits and it will be well worth it to move on to the next level.

Are you prepared to learn a very important tip in network marketing? The follow up is where the money is!

Most people will not sign up the moment you show them the plan, whether it is online or offline. This is a fact that will not change and you will need to follow up a prospect a couple of times before you can sign them up or sponsor them.

Just take this really short quiz:

Among all the tasks? Which of the following gives you money…

- Lead Generation
- Calling Your Prospect For The First Time
- Showing The Plan
- Follow Up

Obviously the follow up and compared to all the other tasks, the least amount of time spent on follow up will still generate MORE MONEY compared to the other 3 (the 80/20 rule applies where 20% of the actual work generates 80% of the results and it is scientifically proven in everything that people do).

Now, there are many ways you can execute the follow up. You can drive out and meet people. You can ask them what they feel about your network marketing opportunity, or you can use emails to try and connect with your prospect.

An autoresponder is one of the best tools you can use to automate the follow-up process.
On the Internet, here’s what you can do:

- Generate leads from blogs, organic search, pay per click, banner advertising, forums or Facebook.

- Drive those traffic to a lead capture page and capture those leads by offering them a free E-book or newsletter. The key is to legally ‘bribe’ them into joining your newsletter and your mailing list.

- Use a series of follow up emails. Here’s what you should focus on… You must give them valuable information in your newsletter. Do not try and sell them things on the first contact. Offer them tips on how your product can help them or how your network marketing business can help them to solve certain problems in their lives. Soft sell them regarding your opportunity using a period of 7-10 days because you want them to get to know who you are. You can use follow up emails to help you to build rapport.

- Finally, pitch your network marketing business once you feel that they are ready. You can also send them personal messages to ensure them that they are not receiving mail from a robot.

A landing page or a squeeze page is basically a one page code of HTML that is designed to capture leads for any business online. This is very useful for network marketing and it will help you to find the best solutions when it comes to lead generation.

There are basically two kinds of landing pages – the first one is a horizontal page and the other one is a vertical page.

A vertical page contains a headline but it has a lot of key points listed out over a very long page. Normally, a vertical page requires you to scroll all the way down to the bottom in order for the prospect to opt-in. Sometimes, they might place two opt-in boxes, one on the first page and another after the explanation.

The advantages of using a vertical page is that you can elaborate in detail and put lots of information down, but the drawback is that it might minimize your opt-in or conversion rates because the reader is required to scroll all the way down to the bottom. In a split second, people decide if they want the free report or if they want to scroll down and our job is to make sure we get as many leads as we can for our network marketing business.

A horizontal landing page might be more favorable if you want to capture as many leads as you can. Here’s why…

(1) Horizontal pages do not require you to scroll down at all. In actual fact, the opt-in box is located on the same page along with all the information you will need – including benefits, the attention grabbing headline and many other key components designed to maximize your conversions.

(2) You must also strategically place your free report or E-book right next to the place where you list down your benefits.

Here are different techniques that will help you to get more leads for your mailing list:

- Sometimes, you might consider leaving out the first name in the opt-in box. Giving too many options for your prospects might reduce the conversion rates as they ponder about all the hoops they need to jump through before they get your book.

- Always use a big flashing arrow in order to tell people where to opt-in. Similar to the word click here which is a common tool in copywriting, it increases the chances of people finding the opt-in box.

- Always give your prospects an awareness that this report is scarce and it will be taken away any moment. After all, people are always buying into last minute deals and offers.