PLR articles are basically article drafts that are sold to bloggers and online business owners. You can purchase these articles very inexpensively and then use them on your website, in your customer newsletters, or even in team training. (We’ll get into that in a bit.)

My favorite thing about using PLR articles is that you can change the articles and customize them (since you get the articles in Word format as a .doc) and in many cases even put your own name as the author.

Here’s what Nicole had to say about PLR for direct sellers.

Hi Linda! Thanks so much for asking me for an interview. I’m glad to help.

Does EasyPLR offer content specifically for direct sales?

Yes. My site, EasyPLR does offer articles regularly just for direct sales. We create those packs for team leaders to use in recruiting members and training their teams.

Article titles that we’ve had in the past are:

• Direct Sales Beginner’s Dictionary
• Avoiding Last Minute Cancellations
• Do You Have What It Takes To Succeed In Direct Sales?
• Things to Look for In a Direct Sales Recruiter

As you can see, the potential is truly limitless with this type of content. Not only can you use the articles to recruit new members and to train your existing team, you could create an ebook or even a printed book and sell it on amazon.com and lulu.com – becoming an instant expert in your field.

All for the price of a pizza.

It’s pretty powerful stuff.

Can PLR content about other topics be easily adapted to direct sales or to a specific product line (like jewelry or gourmet food for example)?

Absolutely. My sister site, YummyPLR.com offers all kinds of cooking articles that a Tupperware rep or another gourmet food rep could easily incorporate into their business.

And, at EasyPLR.com we have plenty of content that can be adapted to a direct sales business – fitness and diet, parenting, holidays, debt, pets, and home interior. Plus, if you need content and we don’t have it on hand, just ask. We oftentimes can create an article pack if you provide us with the titles that you need.

Can the PLR content be used for printed material like recruiting brochures or training for team members?

Absolutely. In fact, I highly recommend that you repurpose the content in several ways to get the most bang for your buck. (Repurpose simply means to use the content in multiple ways.)

For instance, post the training on your own training blog, then send it in an email, and use it in printed materials, as well. You can also read the articles after you’ve tweaked them a bit, and offer audio or video training, too.

Does EasyPLR offer any training or help on how to use the PLR content?

Definitely. First you can sign up for my notification list at EasyPLR.com where you’ll receive more information and a free report – as well as notices for free and discounted PLR. Also, every article pack includes additional bonuses that will help your online business.

Just swing by EasyPLR.com and YummyPLR.com to see what we currently have available.

Again, thanks, Linda, for having me on your blog! If anyone has any questions, just ask them below and I’ll be sure to answer, if Linda would be so kind as to let me know so that I don’t miss any.

If you’d like to learn more from me, check out my Internet Marketing Success Podcast & Blog.

Please note: Links to EasyPLR and YummyPLR in this post are affiliate links (Why tell?)

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Easy PLR for Direct Sales Consultants

The full article, “Avon calling: More workers try direct sales” can be found at
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BF55A20091216

Does that mean people shouldn’t start a direct sales business or should drop the one they already have? I don’t think so. What I think it means is that direct sellers should adjust their marketing and their approach. Market what your customers are want to buy and focus on providing extra customer service and amenities. When you can’t compete on price, compete on a more personal level.

People would still rather buy from someone they know and trust. When you go the extra mile to provide personal attention they can’t get elsewhere you often gain a customer for life.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

More Consultants, but Not More Sales

To get the most from your marketing efforts, it’s important to make sure you deliver your message to your target market – to the people who are your ideal customers and team members. Even the most well written advertisement is completely wasted if it’s not delivered to an interested audience.

For example, if you sell high-end baby clothes, you’re not likely to gain a lot of customers on a website for frugal moms. Even though many of the moms there have babies, they are looking for ways to save money and aren’t likely to indulge in designer or expensive baby clothes. You’ll get much better results with an article or ad placed on a site for professional moms on maternity leave or a nanny referral service.

Take some time to figure out who is most likely to buy your product or service. Are they male or female? How old are they? How will your product or service help them? Take a look at companies who sell products that are similar to yours to determine if their market is your market. How and where to they advertise?

By making sure your message gets in front of your target market you’ll start to see a much better result for the time and money you put into marketing.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Is Your Message Reaching the Right Market?

(Be advised that I normally advise against thinking of paid surveys as a real business, but teens may be able to make a little pin money by completing surveys. As cautioned in the article, don’t pay for information about surveys; you can join all the survey sites for free. As you begin to research survey sites, you will probably also come across “paid to read emails” or “paid to surf the web” offers. Those types of opportunities typically pay pennies and in my opinion are not worth the time and effort.)

The article below by S McIntyre includes suggestions for several other ways teens can earn online.

7 Job Ideas For Teens To Earn Money Online
by S McIntyre
More teens are turning toward the Internet searching for online jobs to earn extra money from home. Despite the age requirements, teenagers can find real money making opportunities. If your teen is looking for ways to work at home online discuss with them their interests, commitment and goals.

All of these work at home job ideas will require some help or involvement from either parent. Here are seven online job ideas for teens looking to expand their wings and or to explore their entrepreneurial side.

1. Surveys and focus groups are simple, fun and one of the easiest things to do. It doesn’t require any experience, just a teenager’s opinion. The types of surveys vary from topics about video games, movies, fashion, music, and other teen interests. Your teen may be compensated with money, Amazon or retail gift certificates, or points redeemable for cash or products. Signing up is always free; don’t ever pay! Monetary payments are usually paid out to a PayPal account or by cheque.

2. Many teens have their own blogs and they can use it as a way to promote their affiliate programs or get referrals from survey companies they have joined. They can sign up with Clickbank, a marketplace with merchants who offer digital products for people to sell. These commissions are set anywhere from 1% to 75%. LinkShare and Commission Junction are other affiliate marketplaces.

3. If one or both parents have their own home business, you can hire your teenager and delegate some of the monotonous and time consuming tasks. These simple tasks could be typing and printing out address labels, submitting articles to article directories, link checking and so forth. Parents can also help their teenager get the word out to others who may have limited budgets, but need to outsource some work.

4. Some kids like to follow in their parents’ footsteps, so if your teenager is interested in owning their own home business, you as a parent will have to be a co-signer.

5. Teens are very computer literate and savvy. Many are also artistic and creative. Becoming a web designer is a lucrative and rewarding career. Your teenager could be designing websites, creating blog templates, designing Twitter and MySpace backgrounds, buttons, logos etc. for anyone who can’t or don’t know how to do it themselves.

6. Open a lemonade stand; not a traditional one anyway. At Lemonade.com your teen can create an e-commerce online lemonade stand by recommending products that they love like music, sports, clothing, food, movies, video/electronic games and more.

7. If your teenager enjoy making crafts or he builds model airplanes, with the help of a parent they can open up their own online store at Etsy.com.

These are all worthwhile job ideas for teens who are interested in working at home and earning an income online. With a little help and support from you, your teenager can start earning their own spending money and maybe even put some away for college.

Find jobs for teens at WorkAtHomeSpace.com, a free work at home resource focusing on work at home companies, daily telecommute job leads, articles, business resources and other work at home related topics.

Sophia co-owns WorkAtHomeBusinessOptions.com, a comprehensive work at home business resource focusing on helping others who are looking for opportunities and ideas to work from home. You will also find tips and articles on how to balance work, family and play in your daily life.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Ways Teens Can Make Money Online

In Direct Sales – 5 Secrets to Fill Your Calendar Without Overcoming Objections
By Lisa Young

With the grim economic outlook, some direct sales consultants are pulling out their hair trying to secure bookings and keep their calendar full. Some of the most experienced consultants are scrambling, buckling down, and “getting back to basics” in an effort to fortify their fading calendar.

But the savvy direct sales and home party consultants are still holding a consistent book of shows, with calendars that are full and steady. As a business coach, I work with consultants with many different companies, and the successful consultants are revealing their dirty little secrets to massive success – even during the economic slump we’re facing today. At first blush, these “secrets” are common sense ideas that will make you roll your eyes into the back of your head. Before you get dizzy, however, ask yourself how well you are implementing these secrets.

1. Create a schedule and stick to it. Top direct sales consultants will tell you that they work when they want to, and fill their work calendar around their life calendar. This is a critical component for any successful consultant. You need to know WHEN you want to (and are able) to work. Mark it down and do your work when you’re working. By scheduling and utilizing time that is set aside to work, you’ll be a million miles ahead of the consultant that prays for bookings to fill the empty white space on her calendar. When you know your next two or three available work dates at a moment’s notice, people take you and your business more seriously. And if you don’t have a show planned on a day you have scheduled to work? Work anyway! Practice your demo, download a teleclass, read up on product knowledge or network. Do SOMETHING to grow your business.
2. Desperation stinks. Customers and clients can smell desperation a mile away. When you need shows, and start doing “Crazy Eddie” antics to get them, people stop taking you seriously. You don’t see Bill Gates jumping up and down on begging people to buy Windows. Neither should you. This is where most consultants develop their fear of “being too pushy”. You should ALWAYS present the opportunity to join, host, or buy, but once a client says no, and you’ve answered her questions, leave it alone. I can’t count the number of recruits I’ve signed at a later date because I was patient and didn’t sit on their doorstep waiting for them to join my opportunity. Attraction marketing (aka gravitational marketing) helps you create an identity, establish yourself as an expert in your field and draws interested, like-minded people into your circle of influence. They naturally gravitate to you and, ultimately, choose to do business with you – no desperation required.
3. Touch your business daily. While you can bet that Donald Trump isn’t sitting in the office every day making deals, he is touching his business in SOME way every day. Be it a public appearance, speaking engagement, television episode, or contract closing, he’s busy being an entrepreneur and making sure that his delegates are tending to business in his absence. Likewise, you as a consultant need to be making contact with your business on a daily basis. Your store is essentially “closed” any day you’re not working. Working doesn’t mean doing parties. It means preparing hostess packets, making coaching calls, holding recruiting interviews, doing customer care and follow up. You don’t have to work all day everyday, but you should make a point of doing SOMETHING connected to your business that propels you and your company forward. By the way, YOU are the CEO of your own company as an independent Direct Sales consultant. Legitimate networking, travel and mastermind groups all count as toughing your business. Organizing your desk, socializing on the phone, cleaning your stapler and vacuuming the floor do NOT count.
4. Keep in touch. Regardless of the method, hostesses, customers and recruits want (and need) to hear from us. A Hostesses number one complaint is that their consultant didn’t make enough contact with them. Most coaching programs recommend ten different times to contact a hostess before, during and after a party. Customers should be contacted at least once every two months – and preferred customers at least monthly. Attraction marketing pros use ezines, conference calls, and newsletters to keep in touch, automatically and en masse, with a personal feel. These lead generating, rapport building tools are only part of the arsenal that propel the big money earners to the top of their company rankings.
5. Be “REAL” and talk to everyone. This is not exactly the same as the old-school 3-foot rule, where you would talk to anyone that would listen about your “amazing, ground floor opportunity.” Rather, this is an invitation to release inhibitions and strike up conversations with anyone and everyone about anything and everything. Be friendly. People like and gravitate toward friendly. Opening channels of communication help you to discover common interests, and open doors to natural conversations about booking, sales, and recruiting. When you are likable, and easy to talk with, people enjoy your presentations more. Enjoyable presentations lead to more bookings, more sales and more recruits – without having to beg for “just one more host” at any party.

As direct sales consultants around the globe are waking up to the power of the Internet, and the potential of automating contact with their prospects, more leaders are growing into powerful, marketing savvy machines. These attraction marketing whiz-bangs are raking in recruits, selling up a storm, and breaking booking records – without ever having to overcome a single objection, because people are seeking THEM out for their expertise and professionalism. They have become the hunted, instead of the hunter. Begin implementing these five secrets today and watch your business soar. Who knows? Maybe YOU’LL be the next top achiever at your company’s National Conference.

Tired of trading hours for money, Lisa Young gave up her 8 to 5 for a direct sales career that now spans over 10 years. Lisa’s blog, Real Life Marketing, reveals the realities of what it takes to be successful in the eyes of your customer, using real-life examples you can learn from today. You can visit Real Life Marketing at http://lisamrobbin.blogspot.com

Unlike other industry writers, who left direct sales to pursue speaking careers, Lisa is still in the trenches, running her direct sales business and leading her teams to success. Her book, Home Party Solution is a step-by-step method to harness the Internet to boost bookings, sales and recruits. Read the first chapter free and subscribe to the monthly business boosting e-zine, “PartyOn!” at http://www.homepartysolution.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Young
http://EzineArticles.com/?In-Direct-Sales—5-Secrets-to-Fill-Your-Calendar-Without-Overcoming-Objections&id=1268425

—————-
For more home party tips, visit Direct Sales Assistant.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Secrets to Direct Sales Bookings

1. Not having a marketing plan.
   A marketing plan is simply a blueprint for how you will go about promoting your products or services. In the same way that a business plan provides focus, goals, and tasks for your overall business, a marketing plan provides a road map for your promotions and advertising. It’s best not to approach marketing without one.
2. Putting all your eggs in one basket.
   This old saying seems to work in a lot of situations and marketing is no exception. Diversification is the key to success and growth. You may find one or two strategies that work particularly well for your business, but don’t base your entire marketing plan on just those methods. Explore other options to avoid being stalled at a certain point.
3. Ignoring the power of networking
   Business networking is invaluable. When entrepreneurs get together to brainstorm and exchange ideas, all sorts of beneficial relationships are formed. In your business networks you will form joint venture partnerships, referral networks, and find mentors and friends.
4. Working alone to “run the whole show.”
   Most small businesses start out with one person working alone. But as your business grows there will come a time when you’ll need help to keep things running smoothly. Your time can best be spent marketing the product in new and creative ways. Someone else can take care of designing your web site, answering emails, and handling the bookkeeping. Use your expertise where it will increase profit the most and hire others to take care of the everyday details.
5. Cutting the budget.
   When business is slow is natural to want to cut expenses. But it’s especially important to keep marketing and advertising during a downturn. A better choice is to beef up marketing to reach a new or wider customer base.

If you’ve already made some of these mistakes, don’t panic. Take a good look at what you’ve been doing, keep doing what works and drop what doesn’t, and begin again with more knowledge and a marketing plan for success.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Marketing Mistakes

As someone who offers free and paid advertising and marketing services for direct sellers, I have a lot of sympathy for WordPress.com’s position. Of course I don’t think all MLMs are pyramid schemes. There are many legitimate, worthwhile MLMs, but I also think there are more than a few bad apples in the industry. Personally, I don’t want to do anything to help any scams and schemes promote themselves, so I do what I can to avoid accepting advertisements from them on my sites. But how do I draw the line?

The frustration over trying to decide whether the relatively few questionable requests I get each week are legitimate MLMs or a schemes or scams led me to also set new rules. I now don’t accept listings for companies more commonly referred to as MLMs, and accept only what I call “party plan” companies. Yet at times I still struggle over classifying some companies that are more like hybrids than like one or the other.

At WordPress.com, more than 450,000 new blogs were created just last month. If they don’t just ban MLMs outright, how much time can they be expected to devote to making determinations of who should stay and who should go? Or should they not have rules at all?

Perhaps it is unfair to ban all MLMs, but I think it’s also unfair to call it discrimination as some did in Tweets. In a sense, they are simply setting an advertising policy the same way any other publication does. If everyone had played by the rules in the first place, and not created WordPress.com blogs “to direct readers to external domains for commercial purposes,” new rules wouldn’t be necessary. But like everything else, there are too many people willing to exploit, and they make it harder for the rest of us. More restrictive policies become necessary.

And by the way…. while they are lumped together in one category I don’t think WordPress.com called all MLMs pyramid schemes. The sentence reads, “This includes multi-level marketing (MLM) blogs and pyramid schemes.” (Emphasis on the “and” added by me.) However, I would say that some more clarity there is probably a good idea.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Are a Site’s User Rules Unfair?

1. Keep up with the times. No one wants to read last month’s news. A blogger has to know what is going on in the world yesterday, today and tomorrow. Some important issues stay in the headlines for months but your audience will want fresh updates on those topics. Knowing what is going on around you and what will interest others will make your blog content worth reading.

2. Change your content often. There is nothing worse than losing traffic you’ve worked hard to attract because you don’t update your posts. You might not post every day but you can be sure that your readership will drop off it you only post once a month. Readers like fresh content and they will go where they can get it. If you have trouble producing enough of your own material, consider hiring a writer, ask others to guest post on your blog, use PLR content, and even sprinkle in some free content.

3. Network with others. Get your content out there. Register with search engines and join social bookmarking sites like Technorati and Digg so people can see what you are doing. Share your blog address with friends on your profile page on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

4. Pay attention to your readership. When people comment they would like for you to answer them back. Some ask questions and some just want to let you know that they agree or disagree with what you’ve said. Take the time to talk to them. After all, they took the time to visit and post a comment. Their comments can drive the direction your blog takes in the future if you want to keep them as readers and increase your traffic.

5. Keep your ads to a minimum. Ads are a way for bloggers to make money with their sites. That’s all well and good and a few ads are great and will attract attention. If you post too many, however, visitors might be turned off. You want your content to be the main attraction.

Creating interesting content and keeping readers coming back takes time and effort. Use these five tips to enhance the value of your blog and your effort will pay off.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Five Ways to Become a Better Blogger

1 – Business card marketing. While business cards are an essential business tool, leaving a trail of them wherever you go cheapens them and minimizes their effectiveness. To use them to their best advantage, treat your business cards as if they are valuable. Only hand them out in person, to people with whom you are starting a business relationship, and always try your best to get their contact information as well.

Read more in “Is it Marketing or Littering.”

(Flyers and brochures should be handled similarly.)

2 – Catalogs. Consultants are often advised to generously give out catalogs and to leave them in doctor’s offices and hair salons, on the train, or anywhere else someone might pick one up. While a single catalog may be inexpensive, this practice can become a significant expense for consultants over the course of a year or two. And in most cases, catalogs left anywhere are more likely to end up in the trash than result in a sale.

Save your new catalogs for existing customers, guests at sales parties, and people who you meet face-to-face and who express a real interest in ordering from you.

Your old catalogs can be left around town with a big sticker on the back indicating that it’s an outdated catalog and inviting people to contact you for a new one.

3 – Car bumper stickers or magnets. Unless you have an extremely catchy domain name, it’s not likely that you’ll reach many potential customers with this method. When cars are moving it’s difficult to read what’s on the bumper sticker and when they’re stopped or parked it still requires someone to get out a pencil and paper to write down information. And before you add your business information to your car, check with your insurance agent to see if that changes your classification to business use.

4 – Free online classifieds. The only thing I’d recommend advertising in free online classified is an offer of interest to others who place free classifieds. They are the only people that are likely to read the ads.

5 – Safelists. The only reason someone signs up for a safelist is to promote their own offers. Almost no one actually reads the ads. Treat them the same way as free classifieds.

One of the biggest drawbacks to these free and inexpensive marketing methods is that they put control in the hands of potential customers. You drop off cards or catalogs and wait for customers to contact you. If you collect contact information from potential customers you’re in control and can contact them with additional information and reminders.

Additionally, most of these methods have to long term benefit. Cards and catalogs have to be replenished and free online classifieds generally move very quickly and your ad ends up buried under hundreds of other ads.

I won’t say you should never use these methods, but I am advising against relying heavily on them. If you do use them, be sure to track your results so you know which are worth repeating and which aren’t worth the time and effort. Use them as a small part of your marketing plan and spend more time on free marketing methods that also have benefits and are longer lasting. Methods like article marketing, press releases, social media marketing, link directories, and online networking not only connect you with prospective customers and team members, but they promote your expertise, provide search engine benefit (backlinks), and help you develop a referral network.

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Do Free or Inexpensive Advertising Methods Actually Work?

Search engine optimization is a strategy to increase visitors to a website by placing high up in search results when someone uses a search engine to search for keywords related to your topic

Think about how you go about researching a topic online. You enter certain words into a search engine such as Google or Yahoo and are presented with results – usually pages and pages of results. As you review them to see what fits your needs, it’s likely that you’ll visit the first few sites, and if you find what you need there, you won’t return to the search results to view more sites.

The order in which sites are listed in those search results has a lot to do with search engine optimization. The words you enter into a search engine are called keywords. If you ever look at the top of your search results you will see the number of results returned plus the words that the search engine used to bring you those results. Now look at the results. The keywords you typed in are bolded either in the titles or in a line of content on that webpage.

By optimizing your web pages and content to match the most common phrases or keywords used for your subject, your content can be found. Ideally, content found on the first two pages of search results are the ones that people will click on. No one wants to sift through five million results. The top content or websites are the ones ranked first.

What makes them top-ranked? One factor is how often the keywords appear in the content For keyword-optimized content, keywords that show up three to seven percent of the time are ranked higher than content with less frequent keywords.

Search engines crawl your content and webpages for ranking. Keyword-dense content has a good chance of rising to the top of the rankings. But, search engine optimization is not just about single keywords, but also two and three word phrases. Longer phrases have become a great way to rank high, since most content tries to match single keywords.

Search engine optimization extends to your domain name as well. If your website has a specific niche, using keywords relative to that niche in your domain name drives traffic to your website. Don’t neglect your webpages either. Individual pages that use search engine optimized headers are also ranked.

For the website owner, using a keyword optimizer makes short work of calculating your keyword density. There are also programs that rank the popularity of certain keyword phrases when searching for information using search engines. Remember, if you can’t be found, it will be hard to sell your product or service to others.

As important as keywords are for SEO, they are not the only factor in determining where your site will be listed in the search engines. Learn more about SEO:

• Grab your free copy of SEO Fast Start by Dan Thies
• Claim your free WordTracker trial today.
• Free guide How to Get Backlinks (the basics)

If you’re looking for more traffic to your site, consider search engine optimization.

Affiliate link or our product link (Why tell?)

Post from: Linda Stacy's Business Opportunity Connection

Internet FAQ: What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?