Day 25 - The Stigma of Network Marketing

Network Marketing, like Internet Marketing, has gotten a bad rap.

But it's their own fault - in both cases.

The problem is GRQ (Get Rich Quick) and this means Lack of Value.

Both have had their problems with this. And the real people making most of the money are those who do educating in this field. Because that is where the real value is. Lets face it - the majority of the people out there are wanting to be educated. Spammers are another form of education - when you come out of the other side, you've learned some lessons which will stay with you a long time.

Fortunately, there are easier (and less expensive) ways to learn life's lessons.

Network Marketing Basics

The point of this is to get people to sell for you. And the basis of Network marketing is to have a repeatable pattern, which can easily be taught and applied. So a person learns this pattern and gets someone else in who they teach this pattern to, getting a percentage of their sales as part of it. That taught person then gets others in and teaches the pattern to them, getting a percentage, and so on.

This is also why I recommend 2-tier (at least) affiliate sales products. So you get returns on the work you do, while you also get returns on others who are working for you. And if they are any good, you'll start getting returns from the people who are selling for them.

And this is also the point of offering valuable consumables - because they have to be replaced. So you have continuing sales.

Shaklee

This brings up Shaklee as an example. While I'm still learning how to crack into this via Internet sales, you can study their whole system with a low entry fee (around $30 - which gives you a lifetime discount on their products) and  see if it's a good match for you and the people you would bring in as a "downline". (I like and have had good results with their Cinch diet plan.)

Shaklee is so low key and not in-your-face, it's almost hard to see why they are expanding. They don't follow the "rules" you expect with various other network marketing offers and systems. Their underlying reason for success is the extreme quality of their products - and the fact that they only sell on word of mouth, not a lot of advertising. Instead, they hand out commissions to people who sell for them.

The marketing which most "classic" network marketing companies use is hard-sell and built on a ponzi scheme of getting more people in at the bottom to pay for those who were there first. Like Social Security. Eventually, these get top heavy and the people who get in later don't get paid anything. (Unless you have the government backing it, in which case they can force people to pay and also print all the "money" they want to pay for things.)

The key is to realize that this is an educational process. And learn from everything. Meanwhile, you simply keep looking for valuable products which can and will teach you the ropes of marketing, plus give a valuable return to everyone who comes into the system.

Magnetic Sponsoring

One fascinating educational process (my only criticism is that they email too much) is one called Magnetic Sponsoring. Ostensibly, you get leads for your own networking system by offering their program. Again, this is about a $30 entry fee for the basic course of the same name to start learning and working their system. You get a nice little ebook and some free video lessons which can start your education process. (That's the only way to become an affiliate - get some "skin in the game") And they are coming out with more materials regularly. Their main point is to teach people about how to network market - and share commissions on all sales, so you are getting a piece of the "action" from day one. Obviously, when people are satisfied, they tell others, and you are then getting another set of commissions from those sales. (Oh, and don't get their "Building on a Budget" - it's based on marketing through Squidoo, so you know how dated it is. I haven't gotten their higher end products, so couldn't give you a review of them.)

The main part with Magnetic Sponsoring is that they give you sample ads to run as classifieds and are constantly tweaking their sales pages for conversions, etc. Of course, you are getting numerous emails to buy this and that new release - which you can opt out of. These are great for simply studying how they are pitching their offers and the frequency (as well as what is annoying and what you should be avoiding.)

Continuing Income (on "autopilot")

The point with these two programs is that you have a low-entry point and are able to train yourself on the whole system of Network Marketing to create a continuing income.

There is no "autopilot" in actuality. The people who earn a lot of money in Network Marketing invest time in working and coaching their downlines to greater production. That's if you want continuing sales and income. I've got a lot of stuff out there (built as tests) which gives me surprise checks every now and then, but I don't work these and have simply put them up as a simple series of pages with affiliate links. And that is more like putting a plane in the air and hoping it doesn't hit something or run out of fuel.

If you want to get somewhere, you have to have a goal and actively work at getting there. Simple.

But there are some very interesting things you should know about setting up a "continuing income" system. I recently read T. Harv Eker's Speedwealth (a free download here) (webinar replay here)and re-learned some datums I'd earlier read while studying Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad).  The point is that you want to build a system so you can simply get out of the way at some point. Passive income (like our online income earning) is like that. Once you can get it up to the point where you can hire (or recruit) promotion outlets, and someone who will keep your content freshened, then you are able to then put your attention on other ways to earn income - or simply sell it off as a turn-key income source. That is why Kiyosaki was interested in real estate. Buy once and rent it out to other people indefinitely after that. Only so much real estate on this planet, so the supply is limited, while demand continues to grow.

More Network Marketing training routes

Another T. Harv Eker ebook, "Millionaire Minds for Network Marketers", takes what he already has been saying (and improving) in his Millionaire Mind Intensives, just for people who are studying Network Marketing. He also has an hour-long teleseminar (podcast) where you can listen to him describe how to network market from the inside out.

But wait, there's more...

Yes, I've already given you far too much. There's one last way to train on Network Marketing that I wanted to tell you about before I sign off for today.

This is the good old boys at Site Build It!. They have a very direct page which ties in having an Internet content publishing system to a successful network marketing downline. And it has a couple of free whitepapers and a video and other stuff you can check out. They are the past-masters of pre-sell and this page shows they use what they preach.

So if you are into Network Marketing, you can have all these links and free stuff to satisfy your thirst for knowledge on how to succeed.

- - - -

No, I don't have (more) freebies today - because I've already given you nearly a dozen above. And that is plenty to study in this area.

See you tomorrow.

Day 02 - Purpose and Success

Now, right off the bat, I'll tell you that the assignment today is to re-read Section I of An Online Sunshine Plan. I just did. And there's a good article (even though I wrote it, I keep telling people this same thing) "The 2 Reasons Affiliate and Bum Marketers Fail are Simple" (pg 30)

Business Logic

Let me tell you the logic of where we are heading with this:

- In order to have extra income, you have to run it like a successful business.
- In order to have a successful business, you have to offer a valuable service or product for which people can exchange something valuable.
- You are going to have to promote in order to have people find your service or product.
- And when those interested people contact you for more information ("leads"),  they will then need to be helped to purchase/invest in your product.

And those steps are simply the logical start to this.

You have to know this before we get anywhere near the Internet.

Why is the Internet so valuable? Because you can greatly leverage your time and money to result in a great deal of the latter without wasting a lot of the former.

All this is described in another article in section I, "How to get your start up small business (more) profitable." (pg 23) In this, it's described how a job is a 1 to 1 relation. You are paid by the hour for doing a single job. With the Internet, you can get other people to do your selling for you, which can wind up leveraging your time 2000X (or more) - which is described in that article.

So while I say to keep your day job, don't hold onto it forever. The idea is to build up what you can offer online and leverage that until the income replaces your salary and also the cost of any benefits you are earning by showing up every day to someone else's workplace.

If you haven't already, Robert Kiyosaki has some great comments and advice in his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" book, as well as the numerous co-authored books in that series.

In these days, you aren't going to really trust that the company you work for won't lay you off just before they have to start paying your retirement. If that company actually stays in business that long, or isn't bought out.

So you are right to be looking for a way to make extra income from working part time online - and why I'm sharing this with you. It isn't hard to make money online (although it may feel like hard work at first), but it is a long learning curve. This program is set to simply clue you in on everything you need to start up on your own - and cut your learning curve by half or more.

That said - don't take my word for it. Study and learn from as many people as possible, and constantly be on the look out for more sources of data. Things change constantly. A couple of years back, when I wrote An Online Sunshine Plan, I compiled everything I thought was valuable in terms of free online books and materials I'd received and put it into a DVD. That's almost 4 gigabytes of data. Now, I was looking through this and see that nearly a quarter of it now seems quaint. But by reading it, you'd think each one was the latest and greatest ebook about how to do things.

The reason I haven't removed any from that collection is that they still tell you something about the way things are done, or are an example of how to package and offer materials - or to get leads.

And I did discover over 30 books which are more inspirational than pitch, so you'll be getting access to one of these every day - just to help you along. (See the last link at the bottom.)

More logic - 

I realize this gets long winded, so if you feel like getting up and coming back with a beverage of choice, I can understand. (Mine is right here, BTW.)

But what we need to do is cover some basics.

• The Internet is and always has been based on shared information and speed.
• The articles and web-pages which wind up on the top of search engines are there because search engines can read them and think they are relevant.
• (How they come up with "relevant" we will go over later.)
• The top 5 spots get something like 85% of the clicks, which is why SEO is such in demand. (Search Engine Optimization means "making pages readable to search engines without spamming them.")
• If you use the Internet to offer actual value and service to others - and enable others to readily exchange with you for the services or products you offer - then your income will reflect that value you offer.

How exactly you do that is up to you.

We will be covering several ways to accomplish this. And you'll be getting access to many authors who have their own ideas of how to go about this.

In the end, it is you who need to decide on the best way you can be of service to others, what value you can add to this culture, what universal problems you can provide answers and solutions for.

- - - -

Today's freebie is an old classic, "Acres of Diamonds". Even if you've read it before, it is well worth reading again. If you can't get through it by tomorrow, please just glance through Chapters 5 and 6.

The point is, as Earl Nightingale was fond to repeat, "When Doctor Russell H. Conwell talked about each of us being right on our own “Acre of Diamonds”,
he meant it. This story does not get old...it will be true forever...Opportunity does not just ‘come along’. It is there all the time — we just have to see it."

Additional Assignment:

Review the "Goals and Purposes Questionaires" from Online Sunshine Plan - pages 14-15. See what you can come up with as far as answers to these questions.

If this gives you a purpose for what you are doing here - great.

If you already have your purpose settled, maybe these will give you some more ideas you can use to forward it.

If you don't come up with a purpose, fine - it will still give you some exercise for your imagination.

But above, all Have Fun with this.