Monthly Archives: February 2010

When you are a business owner, you know that you have to talk to several people throughout the day and find out which ones are worth your time and who will buy. No matter how good you are doing in getting profits, customers, and people to join your team, there are obstacles that you face. One of those situations you may face, but many don’t realize it, includes constantly being overworked.

You can be working countless hours on building your MLM home based business, but find yourself hitting your head on the wall. The reason why is because this is a business where you are working hard on getting the right people to purchase your products and also join your team, while also going through the fear and objections you face in order to get the results you want. If you think the people who are making millions right now in network marketing have had it easy and never had any challenges, you’re sadly mistaking.

You can be making more money than what you can do with from network marketing, but still feel miserable on the inside. Why is that? Sometimes the people you try to conduct business with are the circumstance. Most of people in this world don’t take action, are insecure, and don’t have huge goals. So when you talk to people who would rather settle with mediocrity than excellence, it can frustrate you cause of the time you’re trying to spend telling people of a financial opportunity you know that’s excellent but they don’t care about. People will frustrate you; upset you, waste your time, hurt your feelings, and won’t come through for you when you need them to. Tough world isn’t it.

Network marketing is a people business. Even if you build a giant organization, don’t expect to be exempt from people. You’ll still be working hard to build your business depending on your goals, and you’ll always build it the same way, through talking to people and training your downline to duplicate results. And when your organization gets bigger, new challenges will arise that you’ll need to be ready for.

The purpose of this post is to influence you to not focus on people all the time. In network marketing you’ll come across thousands of people, and most of them won’t join your primary opportunity. When you focus on the many “No’s” you receive from people, it’ll cause your stomach to turn, and possibly throw in the towel. Instead, you should focus on where you’re headed in the future. You are a part of MLM because you want to do things that you can enjoy that you couldn’t do when working at a job constantly. The ultimate reward you get for working hard is freedom. Wherever you see yourself in the future, capture that in your mind, and you’ll feel peaceful in the process. It’ll overcome the many “No’s” that you get, cause you know you’ll be in a better place in your life than now.

There’s going to come times where you’ll have so much information about a prospect or client that you need to find a way to keep track of them. You can use a address book, but it can only hold so much information about a person’s lifestyle. A notepad could work, but sometimes you have a hard time managing the notes you’ve written about someone.

If you’re not familiar with Customer Relationship Management software you definitely should.  It’s software that companies use to customer information regarding anything from the last time they called, what the call was about, the last order they made, what hobbies they have, etc. Most companies use it to track customer info. But if you want to think outside the box, you should also use it to track industry information and articles you find.

Though you want to know about your MLM company, it’s compensation plan, its products and the support, you also want to be able to know what’s going on in the MLM industry.  If you can, research once every two weeks on what’s going on in the MLM industry. You maybe able to find important articles regarding other’s prospect’s MLM companies they are a part that they aren’t aware about. Or you can find a good article on how MLM is a great industry to be a part of to make money for funding towards businesses or schooling. You can show those items to prospects you meet locally or online. Think of the value you can bring.

CRM software can be used as a research hub to gather your information you have. Besides researching industry information, you can also research important people you like to connect to sell your products to or bring into your company in the future. The data you should gather of people include the person’s name, address, phone number, e-mail, website information (if they have one), work experience (including information based on the companies and industries they’ve worked in), hobbies, political and religious affiliations, birthdays, anniversaries, donations, favorite sports teams, and more.

The more information you have on prospects, the more comfortable you’ll be in talking to them, and the more they’ll be comfortable in talking to you and hearing more of what you have to offer. To find out information on prospects, just ask. Or if you’re online prospecting, read their profile information. If there are particular things about them you see of interest, ask that in a message to them. You want to keep track at all times of people you meet and connect to. You’ll remember who they are, what they do, and how much closer they are in being sold on your primary opportunity.

If you’re an Internet marketer in the process of building your MLM home based business or small business, definitely read on. There’s many ways to market online, more than you know. And there are many sites where you can use one method, like social networking, to market online. I always usually recommend people to use social networking since it’s a free method of marketing that pays dividends if used right, but if you like to make your presence know even further, definitely check up on using banner advertising as well as a marketing method.

The first reason banner ads are very powerful are because they have 15% click through rates on average, which is more than text ads. They’re more effective than text ads since they have graphics, color, and limited text. People buy into the quality of the graphics and if the text is specifically giving them a benefit for clicking on your ad, then it’ll do well. Sites look at placements of the banner ads, and the quality of banner ads. Since some people don’t like to scroll down on websites unless they’re intriguing, it’s best to have ads on the top right hand corner of a site. That way your ads are more likely to get clicks.

Get this, and it’ll probably have you convinced to use banner ads after I tell you this. With banner ads, you can get 10 times the traffic for a fifth of the cost than pay-per-click advertising. Pay-per-click ads can be very expensive since you’re targeting several keywords that people search for offerings similar to yours, and you pay for every single click. However, you’re more likely to get tire kickers with pay-per-click ads, and if not used right, can lead to several hundred dollars for every single click!

To maximize results when doing banner advertising, make sure you split test your banner ads. Have at least two versions of your banner ads that display on the same websites. You’re still going to get tire kickers when using banner ads, but if you’ll know for sure which ad is getting people who aren’t serious and which ad is making you money. Be sure to have an opt in form on your website people can sign up for free information, especially if you have a information product. Google in particular likes lead generation.

My last tip for you is to make sure that you aren’t making flashy or bright ads that don’t go well with the websites you are putting them on. First off, you want your banner ads to not look like banner ads. If they do look like banner ads, then they’re most likely not going to be clicked on. Secondly, you want your banner ads to look like the website. If they look like they’re part of a website, they’ll do really well.

I just came upon this site recently when researching some good MLM articles. This site is called the Distributor Rights Association, an organization that’s devoted to help distributors and independent contractors succeed in MLM and when doing business with other companies.

In October of last year the organization held a Distributor Rights Convention in Las Vegas that offered training on various topics, including the domination of social media and how to best exploit that method of marketing to optimize financial results. By checking out their webpage, you’ll find out the positive testimonials from the people who attended that convention. DRA knows the powerful methods of marketing that network marketers should use today, and is willing to teach those that are a part of their organization to best implement them for maximum results.

In general, the DRA wants to teach network marketers and contractors their rights and how to stay protected in business. Although there is a lot of income potential in network marketing, it doesn’t come without its downsides. Depending on what network marketing company you’re a part of, you can fall victim to a lot of different things, including the company’s option to terminate you at anytime or the company’s option to take your pay at anytime. To find out more on any network marketing company beyond just its line of products and compensation plan, ask for the company’s policies and procedures from any MLM recruiter or your upline and read it thoroughly.

From looking at the DRA benefits, you will know the laws in MLM, which they update regularly.  Learning the legal aspect of business is very important and often overlooked. You’ll also get updates on training and the chance to form true relationships with other distributors. What you will also get, most importantly, is a chance for you to be hear. DRA encourages people to be the voice of the future of MLM, and to be a leader of the MLM industry.

For more information on the Distributor Rights Association, visit www.mlm-dra.org.

A couple of weeks ago I was a part of this telephone seminar, and the speaker of the call was Perry Marshall. Perry is an expert when it comes to using Google Adwords to market your business. He knows the ins and outs of how Google punishes those who aren’t familiar with Adwords, and rewards those who are smart. He’s also an author of a few books regarding Google Adwords. You can find out more about him by clicking on this link.

The seminar I was a part of was about Google and how they go on a Adword ban rampage for anyone that doesn’t follow Google’s rules. It’s a good idea to use Google’s services to market and communicate with others, especially with the new Google Wave around the corner. However, Google is hard on people who don’t follow the rules. What you may also don’t know, however, is that Google resents affiliate marketing in general.

This was the main thing I learned from that telephone seminar with Perry. Google has banned several Adwords accounts, one reason being from being an affiliate marketer. No questions asked. If Adwords is the sole of where your income is coming from, and they close your account, you’re out of luck. Anyone that they have suspected of doing anything shady, they straight out ban their accounts.

So why does Google ban people’s accounts that are search affiliates? Google doesn’t see search affiliates of any value at all since they are who promote others company’s products. Google treats some promotions of affiliate products as duplicate products or spam. Google would rather have you promote your own products and services that are of value to consumers than referring prospects to other products to buy and get paid for every paid customer. Google wants to get rid of search affiliates, and if you’re one that’s also using Adwords, expect to be a victim of the Adword ban rampage.

So now you know Google doesn’t see affiliate marketing as valuable. You also know that Google is looking to eliminate affiliate marketing in general. So if you’re looking to use Google Adwords, but have been promoting affiliate programs, should you stop promoting those products? If you want to be safe you can.

One option you can do is have two Google Adwords accounts. One account will be your main account for pushing your product line.  The second account would be for testing affiliate programs. So that way, if Google shuts down your second account, you can still have your main Adwords account intact. When testing affiliate programs, be sure to do that on a blog, where you can write your own experiences with some of those affiliate products. This way you’re helping others, instead of merely just selling products you don’t own.

In a time where money is tight and people are looking to earn revenue through effective marketing, you have to play it smart at all times. Marketing is always the heart of what makes a business successful, for that’s what gets people finding out about you and what you have to offer. Without marketing, no business can stay long. With marketing, you have a chance to earn revenue from consumers having interest in you. Through tracking your marketing, you can boost your revenue dramatically.

What happens when you track your results? You find out what is working for you and what isn’t working for you. You find out what methods are making you the money, and what methods aren’t missing the mark. You find out how prospects are finding out about you. You also find out what marketing is misleading your prospects and giving them the wrong idea about you. It all depends on how you market.

So you know marketing works to build your business. But what makes marketing so great is because it’s like art. You paint a compelling picture using color, blending, saturation, and patterns to draw people in. Just like art, you can make compelling ads and messages that are truly unique and can have the prospect sold within minutes. So although you know that marketing is mandatory for your business to succeed, you need to know how to implement marketing.

When you track your results, you can save time and money in the long run. You’re never going to use only one method of marketing. You have to use several methods of marketing, and have them integrate with one another. For example, suppose you’re doing classified advertising and using brochures as your marketing methods. You can have a classified ad telling prospects how you helped someone make $50,000 through self-branding, and at the end of the ad you offer them a free brochure for more information on how they can get started as well. If the brochure tells the prospect what their pains are, what you do and how you can help relief their pain, offers a testimonial or two, and at the end asks for the sale, then you’re on your way to making a profit.

Now since I recommend that you track everything, you might be wondering what main things you need to track. Here’s a few things you need to track primarily in order to boost your marketing efforts and revenue:

• Your first ad exposure
• The total amount of prospects you’re targeting
• The source of your ad
• How many exposures before a click or call
• How many clicks or calls for a lead
• How many clicks or calls for a sale
• How many leads for a sale

With this type of data, you can then find out the costs, including cost per lead, cost per phone call, cost per sale, etc. You can use that data to calculate the value per customer with the costs. You want the value per customer to be more than the cost to acquire them. If you’re spending $200 for each customer that will pay you $150 for your products, then you’re paying $50 more just to acquire them. When you find out what methods are working and which ones aren’t, you know where to spend most of your marketing at, and you’ll know where you’ll profit at in the long run.

This is Part 3 of a training video on how you can monetize your blog by posting Google Adsense ads on your blog.

This is Part 2 of a training video on how you can monetize your blog by posting Google Adsense ads on your blog.

This is Part 1 of a training video on how you can monetize your blog by posting Google Adsense ads on your blog.