Stand Out From The Crowd

Many people have negative preconceived notions on what network marketing, mlm, direct selling, or whatever you want to call it, is all about. There are many people who automatically think, “pyramid scam”, when they here those dreaded 3 letters, MLM. I’m sure you already know this, but in case you don’t, MLM stands for multi level marketing. It gets this name because as a distributor for a company, you get paid on multiple levels within the organization that you create.

Most of the people that associate MLMs with “pyramid scams” are people that are uninformed on how the business model actually works. They are closed minded people and no matter what you tell them, they just won’t get it. These are the type of people you don’t want to work with and definitely don’t want to join you in your MLM business. There is enough information out there, and anyone with half a brain can do some research and find out the legitimacy of the the MLM business model.

There are many people who join a MLM with false hopes and dreams. They expect it to be “easy money”, and when they find out that real work is actually involved, they give up and quit. Then they blame their upline, they blame the company, they blame the entire industry as to why the failed. They go around talking badly about network marketing, when the reality is that it was their own fault that they failed.

Network marketing gives someone to the potential to earn a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean it is going to be easy. It is just like any other job or career. It takes effort and hard work to succeed. It takes time to learn and acquire the skills necessary to be a top earner in this industry. No one just walks right in and is immediately earning 6 figure a year. So if you decide to join a network marketing company, be prepared to put in the effort required, it is definitely worth it.

Now that I talked about some of the reasons people see MLMs as bad or negative, I’m going to tell you a simple way to get past that. It can be hard to hear friends and family tell you that you are dumb for joining, those are the people the closest to you and it is only natural to seek their support and approval. Often time a spouse doesn’t “get it” either and might think you are wasting your time, which can be a difficult thing to go through. If it is a spouse, try to educate him/her on how the business model works. There a ton of third party tools available that explain how the network marketing business works and the benefits of it. As for everyone else in your life that doesn’t agree with your decision, use that as fuel to succeed. Work your hardest to prove them wrong. You will get the last laugh and that can be a very motivating thing to shoot for. In the end, when they see your checks, they will be asking, “hey, how can I get involved with this?”

Photo credit: Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Click Here To Learn How To Get 50 Free Leads A Day

Never Pay For Someone to Join Your Business

I’m going to get right to the point. You should never, under any circumstances, pay for someone’s start up into your networking marketing business. The is a newbie mistake and I’ve often seen newbies in the industry offering to “pay your way in”.

There is really no reason to ever pay someone’s start up fee into your network marketing business, if you do this you might as well just flush your money down the toilet. At least that way you could turn it into a cool youtube video or something. If someone doesn’t have the money to get started, which is normally a very small amount, the chances are almost 100% that they will not be of any value to you and your business. With no money invested, they have absolutely nothing to lose and will not take the business seriously.

There will be people who ask to have their start up fee paid for, and then promise to go out and sponsor 50 people into the business, and sell 100 orders of whatever product it is that you are selling. As a newbie you will be eager to get someone enrolled in your business, and this will all sound good, but don’t make the mistake and fall for this person’s promises, you will just be disappointed.

There is a low start up fee to get enrolled in any business, this is just how it works and is the cost of doing business. If someone doesn’t want to pay the start up fee, forget about them and move on to the next person. The fact of the matter is if someone is genuinely interested and serious in joining you and your business opportunity, they will find a way to pay for the start up costs.

In general, I already think the start up costs are already too low for most businesses. The low sign up fees attract the wrong kind of people, which are people looking for quick cash or some kind of get rich quick scheme. These people sign up, and expect money to fall from the sky into their lap. When they realize that real work and effort is involved, they end up quitting and it is a waste of their own time and their sponsors time.  I also think that with little money invested, people don’t treat the business as seriously as if they had invested $10,000 to $100,000 to get started. When someone has something to lose they will usually do anything and everything they can make make their business work. Because the risk is so low in the network  marketing industry, people typically give minimal effort and don’t succeed. Then these same people blame their upline, blame the company, blame the entire industry in general, and blame everything except for the real cause, which is themselves.

The bottom line is…don’t ever pay someone’s way into you business, you’ll end up regretting it.

Image: anankkml / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When Will Google Notice My Site?

Everyday new people are coming into the internet marketing world. Maybe the are involved in a network marketing business or maybe they just want to be an affiliate marketer, either way the concepts are the same. Basically, it all comes down to traffic. Getting visitors to your website is the main component when trying make money online.

There are many different ways to get traffic, for the purpose of this post I’m going to focus solely on search engine traffic, which is the best kind because it is completely free. I take that back, it is not completely free, search engine is free in regards to money, but you will pay for it with your time.

Getting search engine traffic is not easy and is not something that is going to happen overnight. I often see “newbies” that set up a site, and the first thing they do is focus on the cosmetic appearance of the site. They spend hours creating a fancy looking header and creating nice looking images so their site looks nice. This is the wrong way to go about it. The cosmetic look of your website does not really matter at first because you are not getting any traffic. You can always change the look little by little as time goes by.

When launching a new site, the focus should be on traffic generating tasks such as adding new content on a regular basis. When I launch a new site, I focus on adding new blog posts for the first few months. After I see I’m getting some traffic, I then start to customize the look of the site, and add my offers and opt in boxes. Most people go about it the wrong way, the worry about the look of the site before they are even getting any traffic.

In my opinion and from my experience, my best recommendation is to set yourself a schedule to add new blog posts, and stick to it. If you plan on adding 5 new blog posts a weeks, stick to it. Also, don’t add 10 new blog posts in one day, then take the month off. The search engines like to see new content added on a regular basis.

Be patient. Getting traffic takes time, don’t expect people to flock to your site the first week, month,or even six months you have it up. Expect to not see many visitor for awhile. This is just part of the process. Stay focused on adding new and valuable content, and over the course of time your content will grow and grow, and so will you traffic. I think many people give up way to soon. A few months go by and they aren’t seeing any traffic, so they get discouraged and give up. They key is to stay on course while the others are giving up.

The things I’ve talked in this post are the very basics, there is much more to getting traffic that can not be talked about in just one post. There is keyword research, keyword competition, keyword density, backlinking, and many other variables that will play apart in how much traffic you get. But if you’re a newbie, following the advice I listed above will put you on the right track.

Reading Is A Key To Success

Building a network marketing business is both easy and hard. I know that is a contradictory statement, but let me explain. Now when I say “building a network marketing business”, I’m referring to being a distributor for an existing company, not starting a brand new network marketing company from scratch, because that is extremely hard to do. I wanted to clarify that so there is no confusion.

Anyhow, building your business with a network marketing company is easy because it is something that anyone can learn to do. The skills it takes to be successful are all learnable skills. Some may argue this point, but I genuinely believe that with effort, anyone can be successful in the network marketing industry. As “newbies” we all suck and are clueless as to where to begin, but with consistent work, the skills needed to be successful will grow. The key words in the previous 2 sentences are “effort” and “consistent”. Anyone can give effort, which is really just another word for “try”. And being consistent takes discipine, which can be tough, but there are certain steps you can take in your daily life to insure you stay consistent in your efforts.

Do not sign up as a distributor for a network marketing company under the impression that is going to be “easy money”, because it won’t be. If you’re new to the industry, you will for sure struggle for your first year. This industry is just like anything else, it takes time to learn how to effectively do things. You will have to learn marketing, and how to talk to people. You don’t walk into any profession or job and are instantly an expert, why would network marketing be any different. Expect to struggle at first and expect to put in the time and effort needed to learn and acquire the skills necessary to be successful.

The formula for success is actually pretty simple. It comes down to taking the necessary steps and actions that will make you successful on a consistent daily basis, year after year. Every successful person, in any industry will tell you that it takes time to get to that point. People just don’t wake up one day at 45 years old and are successful. These people have taken the consistent daily actions needed to be successful. If you are spending 5 nights a week at the bar, or playing video games for 5 hours every night, you are not on a course to success. Those are the actions of unsuccessful people. You need to evaluate your everyday daily activities and if what you are doing is not helping you reach your goals in some way, give up that activity and trade it in for something else more productive.

So what are the activities of successful people?

If you are lost and have no idea of what types of things to do to put you on the path to success, I would first recommend reading a self help, or motivational book of some kind for a minimum of 30 minutes a day. This alone can have a great impact on your success and outlook on life. By reading reading just 30 minutes a day, 7 days a week, you will for sure finish 1 book a month. Over the course of a year you will have read 12 motivational books which will for sure have some impact on the way you decide to live your life. A good book to start with is The Slight Edge By Jeff Olson.

It really doesn’t matter what industry or business you are in, surround yourself with successful people, and do what they do, and overtime, you’ll see the results they see.

The key is to stay consistent and realize you won’t see results overnight. Things take time to develop. It takes time to learn new things and how to best apply the things you have learned. Many people give up way too soon. There will come a point where you want to give up, but if you stick with, when the majority of others would give up, you will be happy that you did.

Use A Blog To Grow Your MLM Business

Having your own blog and creating your own brand is very important when building your primary network marketing business. Your blog is going to act as your central hub of all of your activity. By having your own blog, you will be able to get highly targeted search engine traffic, which is the best kind because it is completely free. This traffic will generate leads for your business, and these leads will turn into sign ups and sales for you, which ultimately means more money for you.

Having your own blog is also important because all of the emails you send out will direct the reader back to your blog. For example, if there is some kind of special offer or breaking news that is related to your business, you can make a blog post about it, then send out an email blast to your list letting them know about the news or special offer, and include a link back to your blog for more information. This is much better then just sending people to your company replicated website.

If setting up your own blog is new to you and you think it might be over your head, don’t worry, it is actually very simple. You will want to use a self hosted wordpress platform, which means you will have to pay a small monthly fee. Remember, this is a business and there are going to be some expenses involved. The small expense of running your own blog is one that is well worth it.

Don’t be scared to learn new things, set up a blog and start adding 1 new post a day. It will takes some time to start seeing traffic so be patient. The results you will see over time are worth the wait. A big mistake many people make is giving up to soon. Many people set up a new site, make a few posts, then give up after a week because they have not made any sales or signups. It is important to realize that you may not see any results for months, or even a year. But once your site gets noticed by google, and you start to get traffic, it will be definitely worth it.

Are You Sending People To Your Company's Replicated Website?

The network marketing, direct selling, MLM, or whatever you want to call it, industry is growing at an incredible rate. The internet has made getting in contact with one another and sharing information so much easier than it was 15 years ago. I think this has a lot to do with the growth in the network marketing industry. The internet had made the business a lot easier, but there still are a lot of things someone new to the business must learn.

One mistake I see a lot of “newbies” doing is advertising and promoting their company replicated site. Sometimes this is fine to do, but generally you don’t want to send your prospects to your company replicated site. There are a number of reasons for this. First, it is highly unlikely your website visitor is going to come to your site, and buy something or sign up for your business opportunity right then and there. Usually it will take a few times of talking with the person before they will actually join. So if they land on your site somehow, they may forget about you entirely then next time they are online and researching the business opportunity for whatever business you are in. So the best strategy is to send all of your visitors to a lead capture page instead of your company’s replicate site.

A lead capture page is a very simple and basic site, that usually has a video and just a few sentences on it, and asks the visitor to enter their email address and phone number to get more information and move on to the next page. Capturing your leads information is a very important step. Now you can follow up with them and provide more information.

Another thing I often see newbies doing is adverting their company replicated site url, which usually is long and ugly and looks like this: www.YourCompanyName.com/myusername. This is not a very good idea. If this url is being displayed somewhere it can’t be clicked by a mouse, you are wasting your time. Most people will just enter the primary domain, www.YourCompanyName.com, and leave out the “myusername” part of the url, which means they won’t be tracked and tied to you. One easy fix is to purchase a domain name and have it forwarded to your company’s replicated url. It is very cheap, about $10 for the year, and very easy to do. www.YourName.com looks a lot better on a business card than www.YourCompanyName.com/myusername.

In the video below, I go over what I have written above:

Have a question or a comment? Leave it below:

Everyday Is An Opportunity To Get Better At Something

This is the first post on my brand new blog. This blog is going to be about everything related to marketing online. The methods I will talk about will mostly apply to home based business owners, but brick and mortar businesses will also be able to use the same methods to generate more leads and customers as well.

Some of the topics I plan on writing about are network marketing, affiliate marketing, and social media marketing. I will basically be talking about anything related to internet marketing in general. Things are constantly changing in the digital world and I will discuss what is working and provide reviews on any new products that come out that I am able to try out.

A will also be talking about search engine optimization. There is always some kind of new buzz, or new secret method that is being talked about and I will discuss SEO methods, what works, what doesn’t. I’m not a SEO expert, but I have had some success getting my sites ranked on the first page of google, and I think I know the basics of what works and what doesn’t. The most common mistake people make with SEO is that they over think it. People want results too fast and are always looking for secret or magic methods that just don’t exist. The formula to SEO is actually pretty simple, it just takes constant work and patience, it’s impossible to get on the first page of google overnight for a competitive word or phrase.

So that basically the topic of this blog will be internet marketing, which involves driving traffic to your sites with the purpose of generating leads and customers. There will also be some selling and marketing techniques discussed, as these things can be kind of complicated and often overlooked.

I always love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.