Today in the United States we have a holiday called “Labor Day”.

The idea of Labor Day was that the American worker should be rewarded for the hard work. It was started by the labor unions as a way to provide a holiday/reward for the American workers.

Ok great. We have a holiday. But do you let things like “holidays” stop you from working your business?

I’m hosting a special training webinar tonight for my team and a few people replied back that this was a holiday and wasn’t I aware that it was a holiday? Someone even dared to call it a “major holiday”. Really? Major Holiday? Like Christmas? or Thanksgiving? or Easter?

Come on. Are you serious about building a business or not?

I’m not only hosting a webinar today but I’m putting in at least a full 8 hour work day today to make sure this webinar is successful.

It is very simple. You have to take action to make your business a success. You can make excuses but making excuses won’t make you any money.

I make my business a priority. That means that at times I have to make sacrifices. I might have to actually host a webinar on a minor holiday like Labor Day. Sometimes I host a webinar from a friend’s house or even hop on a teleseminar from the front doorstep of a restaurant.

Do you make your business a priority? Do you make a commitment to your business or do you allow little things to come up and hold you back?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Today is “Labor Day” are you taking break or working your business?

I have a to brag a little.  I’m stoked to use a phrase from my teenage days in California.  (Stoked means really excited)

I just made the Send Out Cards top 25 money earners list!  This is my first time on the list since the very early days of the company. I’m so excited to be back in the top 25!

Sorry to brag but I’m just so excited I had to share!

- Ben Fitts

PS. On another note I just added a Google Call me widget to my site! You click the widget then put in your name and phone number and Google will try to connect you to me.

PPS. Some of you might be wondering… I just made the top 25 where was I before? Last time the list was updated: July 15, I was ranked #35. In about 2 months I’ve moved up 10 positions on the list.

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

I have to brag a little

A couple people complained that I called it PPC.  Sorry about that. Let’s call it PPK.  It’s a new business model so not sure what to call it. You aren’t paying per click but like PPC you are buying keywords. If you don’t want me to call it PPC or PPK you tell me what to call it and I’ll start calling it that.

I stand by my judgment that Kooday is at least a rip off if not a downright scam.  They are at least selling a product that doesn’t exist. They are at least exhibiting some suspicious behavior that you should be wary of.

No one has refuted my statement that Kooday doesn’t HAVE a search engine yet.  Yes they are selling keywords but they don’t have a search engine yet.

All you have to do to have a search engine is license an existing search engine. There are companies out there that specialize in this.  I saw an advertisement earlier for a company that licenses search engine software starting at $350 a month.  What I don’t understand is how can they be selling ads for a product that doesn’t exist yet? Shouldn’t it be easy for them to have a search engine? Don’t they have the money to license some software? Sure the $350 software might not work for them, but the point is that there are options available!

A few people told me that Kooday allows refunds. This led me to do further investigation.  Kooday’s terms of service say :

Kooday has the right to amend or add to our terms and conditions as it deems necessary and can enforce changes that affect its business plans at any time.

Due to the type of services that Kooday offers no refunds will be given. If your account has been terminated because of infractions of our terms or conditions then no refund will be given.

There are  a couple of concerning elements there.  You can mantain the rights to change the agreement but you have to state how users will be notified of the change.  You also should include contact information.  If you look at some of the web site approval services these are things they require that are suspiciously absent from Kooday’s terms and conditions.

Second of all Kooday says in their terms and conditions that they do not allow refunds.  That seems to go against what everyone else is saying about Kooday allowing refunds.  At the very least it shows that Kooday could change their policy at any time since you’ve agreed to the terms and conditions that say you are not able to get refunds.

Where is the privacy policy?  No record of a privacy policy at all.  So what are they going to do with my information when I sign up?  Are they going to sell my information?  Why isn’t there a privacy policy? Why is there only a terms and conditions/terms of service?

Another concerning thing about Kooday is they lack contact information on their web site. If this was a legitimate business they’d have customer support information, contact information, a link to their helpdesk, and even a toll-free number.  Heck I’m a one man show and I even put my phone number, skype, email, etc on my web site.

Why when I click the about Kooday button does it only take me to a sales page pitching me on buying keywords? Why doesn’t it have any information on the company, the founders, etc?

Am I the only one that finds these things disturbing about Kooday?

Maybe Kooday is totally legitimate.  Maybe they just are new business people.  Maybe these are issues they aren’t aware of.

Are you really sure you want to promote them? Are you sure you want to associate your name and reputation with a company that has this many risk factors?

Not me.  I agree with Janet Legere.  I’d rather wait 6 months to see how this pans out. If it is a legitimate business I can still hop on board 6 months from now.  I can still buy some long tail keywords.

- Ben Fitts

Disagree? I’d love to hear your opinion.

PS. there are no affiliate links in this post.

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

More Bad News about Kooday

I have a warning for you today about a new online business opportunity called Kooday.

I don’t want to call Kooday a scam because I don’t know enough about it. But I certainly do want to warn you about it.

You see when people are new to the internet and home business they fall prey to a lot of these so called “opportunities”.  These scams, rip offs, con artists, or whatever you want to call them make these opportunities that sound great but are really full of false promises.  They make a big splash because everyone wants in on the latest greatest opportunity, but one day people wise up.

Kooday is a new pay per click search engine.  They are being marketed heavily in some internet circles right now and there is a lot of buzz.

They are selling themselves saying that you can buy keywords.  You can then rent those keywords to other people who want to use the same keyword, thereby earning yourself commissions. You can also recommend others to Kooday.

The issue isn’t whether or not that could work.  It could work.  You certainly could make some money now if you get started early and sell a lot of keywords.  However…. Long term buying keywords will only work if people actually search on Kooday.  What good is it to own a keyword if no one ever uses  the web site to search?

The real difficulty with search engines is how do you get a percentage of the market? How do you get people to search your web site instead of searching using Google or Bing?

Here is a warning right from the Kooday home page August 30, 2010:

Our Webcrawlers have not yet been turned on and once activated relevant results will be displayed. Our algorithm will impress the world. Currently our directory content is being used in beta and search relevancy is not accurate.

Kooday is admitting they don’t even have “relevant search results” yet.   At this point Kooday is selling false promises.  They are selling keywords in a search engine but they don’t even have a search engine yet!  Shouldn’t they have launched the search engine first?

This has happened at least 2x that I know of in the past.   Search Big Daddy and Search Estate both tried to take over the search engine market.  They allowed you to buy keywords just like Kooday is.  SBD even had some programs to pay surfers for searching their web site.  Yet they never took off.  They didn’t have enough people searching to make it worthwhile.

If there are only a small number of searchers using a search engine only the most popular keywords will receive enough clicks to make buying them worthwhile. Keywords that are not popular may go days or weeks without someone searching for them.  Advertisers give up because they’re paying for keywords that are never clicked.

The other thing to think about here is… if there wasn’t a business opportunity attached to it, who would use Kooday? Sure people would want to buy some keywords just in case it works out… but there wouldn’t be nearly as many people doing it… especially since the Kooday search engine doesn’t even work yet!

Is Kooday a scam? Maybe. Is it going to fail in 1 year? Most likely.

Could you buy some keywords and hold on to them in case it works? Certainly… but just be careful.  Don’t invest too much time or money into something like Kooday.  Don’t let it take time and energy away from building your real business.

- Ben Fitts

PS. No affiliate links were used.  This was not some trick to try and get you to buy Kooday ads through me. I genuinely don’t like the service and would not spend a dime there.  I’m not even comfortable giving them my credit card.  At least when Search Big Daddy and Search Estate launched they HAD a search engine in place.   Kooday doesn’t even have that yet! Smells like a rip off to me.

PPS. This is my opinion based on 17 years of being on the internet and 13 years of doing internet marketing. I’ve seen a lot of these come and go.

PPS. Some people are mad that I call it PPC.  I dunno what to call it? PPK?  Pay Per Keyword?

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

WARNING About Kooday the PPC Search Engine

Usually when I disappear for awhile it is because I’m busy working.

The past couple of weeks have been a blur for me because I have 3 new products coming out!

I think you may find all 3 products interesting but this one in particular is notable. I’ve set up webinars for my business associates and friends.  These weekly webinars are on the topic of 40 ways to grow your business using greeting cards, postcards, and gifts.

This is going to be a beneficial webinar for any business owner.  We’re going to cover in detail 40 different ways to grow your business using greeting cards, postcards, and gifts.  We will be talking about a greeting card system you can use for follow up but you can even apply some of these same ideas to email, text messaging, or other forums of communication.

• We’ll talk about building relationships with clients and customers.
• We’ll talk about getting more referrals.
• We’ll talk about training team members, business associates, and employees.
• We’ll talk about rewarding people for their hard work.
• We’ll talk about prospecting.
• 40 different methods to Grow Your Business!

Another aspect you may find beneficial is you may want to create your own system like this for your team.  When I have written in the past about having your own MLM marketing system this is what I meant.  I am talking about a generic system your team can use to promote your business AND build themselves up in the eyes of the prospect.

You can join my webinars to see how I’ve setup the system.  Here is a quick overview of how this system works:

1. Lead Capture Pages personalized for each member of my team
2. Prospect enters in their email to register for the webinar
3. Prospect is asked to confirm their email
4. Once confirmed they will receive autoresponder emails and reminders about each webinar
5. An email is also fired off the the team member to let them know they have a new prospect
6. Each email in the autoresponder is personalized to my team member NOT me
7. Email reminders will go out day of webinar to remind people
8. All emails and autoresponders drive traffic to the webinar schedule which also contains the contact information for my team members
9. The webinars are setup using InstantTeleseminar.

The key here is that it is super simple for my team members.  Every team member has one link to promote. That’s it. They promote their link to get people to register for the webinars and the rest of the system does the work for them.

We use the autoresponder to keep in touch with the prospect and continually remind them of the benefits of the webinars and the upcoming webinar schedule. The webinar is generic  and at the end of the webinar we tell people to get back in touch with the person who invited them to the webinar.

New people who join our team can instantly get a web site like this and use the same tool to promote their business.

The whole team gains momentum and focuses on one simple marketing system.

Want to join us to see what the webinar is about?  Register for our 40 ways to grow your business webinar. You may learn some tips for growing your business.

- Ben Fitts

PS. Some links in this post are affiliate links.

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

40 Ways to Grow Your Business

Building a successful network marketing business is NOT about You making money!!!

It is about helping others make money!!!

Does that make sense?

When you help others make money you will all make money. If you get to be really good at helping others make money then I assure you, you’ll be wealthy. You’ll never have a hard time finding people to join your business. EVERYONE will want too.

Here is what made me write about this.

This guy I met online was promoting  this new social network (SWOM).  This social network targets people like you and I. It targets other network marketers.

I have seen many of these come and go.  The problem is they are sold to networkers like you and I. Being networkers we all buy into the hype. Mostly because we’re entrepreneurs and looking for additional revenue streams.  Here is where the problem comes in: We are all already in business opportunities. We’re not looking for new opportunities. They pitch us on the idea that we can market our business to a bunch of other networkers but it never seems to work out that way.

A lot of people join thinking this is going to be the next Facebook.  They usually go strong for 6 months and then begin to die out slowly.  Once all the rush of networkers joins there is no one else to join except new people just getting started in network marketing.  They don’t attract the public because the public wants to go to Facebook where 500 million people are.  They don’t want to go to a social network for network marketers pitch them on deals every day. be

Anyway, I was letting this guy know that promoting a program like that isn’t worth it.  That these programs usually die out.  Here was his response.

I have made over $700 with Swom, if the site closed down tomorrow I would still be in profit. So I do not understand what your point is. Please if you are going to make inflammatory comments about other peoples biz-op’s, make sure you know what you are taking about first .

I bolded and underlined a couple of points in his message. He basically said “F-You I made my $700″.  He doesn’t care if the program dies.  He has made his money!

That is the problem with a lot of network marketers. I feel that is one of the reasons why MLM and network marketing get’s a bad reputation.  You have people out there that are greedy and only care about themselves. They don’t care about helping others.

When you promote programs like this you hurt your reputation.  I’m not going to call SWOM a scam.  I doubt it is a scam.  However I do know SWOM is doomed.  Everyone going there is going to sell people on their opportunity but everyone there  already has an opportunity.  That is a recipe for failure.  When the average person discovers they aren’t going to get any sign ups they will quit SWOM.

I am sure you could join SWOM and make money at it.  However making a quick $700 isn’t worth hurting or risking my reputation on a business that won’t be around long.  Come back to me this time next year and tell me SWOM is alive and doing great. Then I’ll take a look at it.  My reputation isn’t worth that risk.

That is why focusing on helping others is important. Your reputation is in tact.

If you only focus on helping yourself make money you will hurt others in the process. You will hurt your reputation in the process.  Sure a sucker is born every minute and you can continue to market programs and make money, but not very many people will stick with you.

I have people who stick with me. If I promote stuff I have people I know will buy anything I recommend. Why? Because they have benefited from working with me in the past. They’ve made money. I’ve taught them stuff. They know, like, and trust me.  That is worth a lot more than $700 to me!

Making money in networking marketing is about helping others.

Agree? Disagree? Want to spam me with your SWOM links? Want to tell me I’m wrong?  I’d love to hear from you!

- Ben Fitts

PS. This week one of those people that trusts me asked me about paying for a SWEEVA membership. (see the graphic for sweeva in the sidebar.) I told her no.  I told her no because I don’t think her product would market well on Sweeva.  I didn’t want her to buy something from me that wasn’t right for her.  I didn’t think loosing that trust from her was worth the money I’d make from selling her Sweeva when it wasn’t going to benefit her.

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

It is NOT About You Making Money!

There is a cure to the MLM blues.

Just the other day I received an email from a team member that had been out of touch for awhile.  She had some personal stuff come up and so she took a little time off.  In her email she was telling me about how most of her team had quit but she had 3 team members left. She was wondering how to get them working again.

Do you guys see the problem in her statements?  She’s focused on her past. She’s focused on the 3 distributors she has left.  They aren’t even doing anything in the business.  She wants to try and save them. She wants to try and inspire them to work again.

You can’t force anyone to do anything… But there is a cure to the MLM blues.

You can actually inspire them.

How do you do it? You simply need to go out and start building again. You start sponsoring new people.  By sponsoring more people you’ll have a chance to meet someone who gets it. Hopefully someone who is ready to start building right away.  You’ll also have a chance to inspire your old distributors.

I’ve been amazed that when I get back into building mode my team feels it.  I’m not sure how they feel it but they do.  I start getting phone calls out of the blue from distributors I haven’t heard from in months (or years!)  They’re ready to work.  I didn’t do anything to them. All I did was get back to work myself.  Through the law of attraction somehow they feel it too.

Let’s put it this way.  Is sponsoring new distributors ever a bad decision?  No.  Sponsoring a new distributor is never a bad decision.  If you’re at a loss for what to do in your business… If you’re at a loss for how to take your business to the next level, try sponsoring some new distributors!

Simple isn’t it?

Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

The cure to the MLM Blues

A mentor of mine suggested to me that when he hadn’t sponsored anyone in his business he made a chart on a wall signifying the 20 people he wanted to sponsor.  He had never sponsored anyone yet.  His mentor told him that on average every 20-30 distributors you will meet one leader.  This one leader can lead to a full time income for you.  He set a goal. The chart on the wall was a symbol of that goal for him.

I recently went through a divorce. During that time I went for 6 months without sponsoring any new distributors into my business.  All I did was focus on my existing team and helping them. I didn’t want to call back prospects or speak to people. I was in a rut.

How did I get out the rut?

I took my mentor’s advice but I took it up a notch.  My goal? Sponsor 50 new distributors. Here’s my dream board. This is on my wall across from my bed.  When I wake up in the morning this is the first thing I see. When I go to bed at night this is the last thing I see.

You can click the image to get a full size picture.

You’ll notice that the numbers 1-50 are on the board.  Counting down from 50 to 1.  The first 6 numbers 50-45 are in green and have the names of distributors I’ve already sponsored since I set this goal. I’m counting down to 1.  The halfway mark and the finish are marked off.

I’ve gone a couple steps further. I have some “I am” statements written above the board. These are positive present tense goals written as if they already exist.  To the side of the board are my rewards for accomplishing this.  On the left hand side (off picture) are a couple of watches.  My next promotion in my Send Out Cards business I will get, as a reward from the company, a gorgeous custom watch.  I have two photos of different styles of these watches on the left hand side of the board.  I know that by sponsoring 50 new distributors the odds are I will hit at least two new leaders and this will promote me.

On the right hand side of the board I have a couple of pictures of hot rod cards.  These are classic 1930′s era hot rods. I am going to reward myself when I sponsor all 50 with a new hot rod.

By doing this I’m making this a reality.  I’m envisioning it in my head every day and every night.  As I mark off another number on the board I’m building momentum.  When I only had 1 or 2 marked off the goal seemed further away but in the past 16 days I’ve marked off 3 more names on the board.  I’m building momentum and I can feel it.  Imagine what the momentum is going to be like when I’ve sponsored 20 or 30 or 40 of the people?  I’m going to be unstoppable!

I’m going to have to reset this goal to sponsoring 100 or 150 distributors

Do you have any goals for your business?

Do you have them in writing?

Have you shared them with others?

I’d love to hear your stories.
Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Tip for Setting Goals for your MLM Business

Perhaps you’ve discovered 400 million people are on Facebook and want to grow your business there.

Here is an MLM Warning for you trying to build your business on Facebook…

We’re running into some issues with people targeting our friends on Facebook.  We’re finding people who are targeting people they don’t realize are already distributors with us and the ONLY place they could have found this person was Facebook.  If they’re targeting people who are already distributors they are probably targeting lots of other people too.

We’re also running into people who want to sell supplementary systems and are using Facebook friends as a sort of genealogy list. They can lookup my friends and see many of them are involved in the same business.  They’re using this information to try and sell them additional products which I do not endorse and which our company in fact does not approve of.  Our company is sending cease and desist orders to this vendor yet they are targeting unsuspecting friends/team members who are my Facebook friends.

What can you do to prevent this.

One option is to hide your friends. Only show your mutual friends.  To do this go to your Facebook page and then find your list of all your friends.  There is a little pencil icon there. Click on that and then click on “change visibility settings”. This will allow you to set your friends to only be visible by friends, or only visible by YOU. This will prevent people who aren’t your friends from harvesting your friends list.

The other thing I personally am doing is I’m removing most of my “friends”.  I’m going to try and get it down to where it’s just close friends and family. Then I’m setting up a “Fan Page“.  People who want to follow me on Facebook can “like” my fan page. This will allow them to get updates from me and following my activities on Facebook.

You can see I have added my Facebook fan page to my sidebar of my blog.  You can see who my friends are and become a fan yourself.

You might be saying, but Ben people can still harvest your friends from your fan page. That is true and I’m trying to see if there is another alternative.

A few advantages of the fan page is that I am lowering my total number of friends. This will allow me to keepup with my close friends and family better.  Another advantage is that if someone tries to friend one of my fans they do NOT see me as a mutual friend.  Facebook Fan’s are not mutual friends.  That will help some of my friends to not friend someone.

Previously if I saw a mutual friend whom I trusted I’d friend someone without even thinking about it.  By cutting back on my friends I’ll truly be able to trust those “mutual connections”.

Does that make sense? Do you have some tips how I can better manage a lot of Facebook connections?  Do you have suggestions? I’d love to hear form you.  Leave a comment and let me know!

- Ben Fitts
(that is also a link to my Facebook fan page!)

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Facebook for Business

Are you looking to learn how to build your network marketing business on the internet?

Guess what? Don’t forget old school marketing!  That stuff still works!

Don’t forget these old school marketing methods.

Flyers – One of my favorite old school marketing methods. I invented a better way to do flyers and I wrote a book on it.  I even give away my flyer ebook for free. The basics are to not go out and distribute the handbill type flyers or litter parking lots with your trash.  Instead pick key locations and put up tabbed flyers where people tear off a tab to call your number or visit your web site.

Flyers can be used at places like grocery stores or convenience stores… You can hit the local university… You can even do riskier stuff … I won’t tell you what those are yet. I don’t want to get you into trouble!

The point is this kind of flyer takes less time to distribute and has a very high response rate per flyer.

I used this method along with classifieds when I was getting started. I learned internet marketing by night and did the flyer marketing by day. You can also incorporate it into your life.  As you go to the store break out a couple of tabbed flyers from the back of your car.  One for a product and one for the opportunity.  Post those up in the front of the grocery store where they have a bulletin board for flyers.

How many places do you go to (or drive by) each week where they would accept your flyer?  Grocery stores? Convenience stores? Gas Stations? Universities? Laundry? Small mom and pop businesses?Public Library?

Don’t forget the old school!

Remember, You can download my ebook on flyers for free.

-  Ben Fitts

PS. Some of you may call them “fliers”.  I guess that is technically the right spelling when you pluralize a word that ends in y.  For some reason I just prefer to call them “flyers”.

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Using Flyers – Old School Marketing is Still Effective

I am constantly amazed by this one simple thing.  I am frequently asked by my team members to change their email address on file.  It can sometimes be confusing for me to keep up with.  Imagine how confusing it is for prospects!

If you’re constantly changing your email address you’re not providing a professional image for your business. In fact I’d say you’re treating your business like a hobby instead of a business.

If you must change your email address, try to keep your old address active.  I use Google’s Gmail and they allow me to check other email addresses.  I only have to check one email account and I can retrieve all my email.

One of my team members thought my email had changed because I used a different email when I hosted a training. I laughed to myself because I probably have more than a dozen different email addresses!  I never let them expire.  I have a couple of email addresses that are over 10 years old.  One is probably 14 years old.

Why? Well what if an old friend wants to get in touch with me?  What if someone I met in another job or another business wants to get in touch with me?  It’s such a simple thing, why miss out on an opportunity.

This is also the reason why you shouldn’t be using email from your cable company, telephone company, etc.  If you change your  service someday you’ll loose your email address.  If you’re going to use a free service use something like Yahoo or Gmail so you can be sure your email address will be around for a long time.

I’d actually recommend you purchase your own domain name so you can have your own email address that you own permanently. It doesn’t cost much and gives you a much more professional image for your business.

Don’t miss out on an opportunity by changing your email or using an email address you might loose someday.

Talk to you soon,

Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

MLM Trick – KEEP Your Old Email Addresses

A couple of times recently I’ve spoken to team members in my business that were trying to sponsor someone for less than the full package.  They are dealing with prospects that don’t want to commit $457. Instead the prospect wants to buy in at a much lower $59 package.

This is really disturbing to me and I try to discourage it.  In my opinion the prospect is PLANNING to FAIL.  The reason they are picking the $59 distributor package instead of the full $457 entrepreneur package is because they are afraid they won’t make their money back.  You see they’re already sabotaging themselves before they even start in their business!

In these cases I try to encourage the prospect to keep their money! Don’t waste the $59.  Keep it.  Become a customer. Try the product out and if you like it and other people ask you about it we can talk about you upgrading… or getting some sort of referral bonus or something.

I’d rather have my prospect keep his $59 and be happy than sabotage himself and cause himself to loose his money.

In our company buying in at $59 doesn’t give you the tools you need to grow your business. It also doesn’t give you the retail profits.  You miss out on 36% profit on retail customers!  Even if this person did build a business they’d be loosing a lot of money.

I’d rather have them keep their money. If I can show them that they could be successful… If I can show them that the $457 is an investment and we plan to make them A LOT more than $457 back… Then they’ll see the value in buying the full entrepreneur package.

The problem is if they are considering the $59 package instead of the $457 they’re doing it because they think they are going to fail. The risk of loosing $59 is much lower than loosing $457 so that’s why they choose that option. However these people aren’t committed and are already planning to fail!

If someone doesn’t have the $457 but they do what it takes to get the money… Whether or not they are borrowing the money from someone, spending money they should be putting towards another bill, pawning something, holding a yard sale, or whatever… That person is going to be committed to doing what it takes to make the money back.  The person who wants to take the easy route and invest only $59 isn’t as determined. In fact if they take the easy route out now, what are they going to do when it comes time to work? Are they always going to pick the easy route?

Is your prospect giving you these warning signs?

If so, tell your prospect to keep their money. It’s not worth it to your business to take someone’s money who is already planning to fail! I don’t know about you but I want people who are determined to succeed. I want the guy that invests his last dime into the business because he is the one that is going to be determined to make it work. He’s going to working harder and longer than anyone else.  I don’t want the guy that wants to take the easy way out.

Do your prospects have plans to fail?

- Ben Fitts

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Are Your Prospects Planning to Fail?

“I’ve never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is a temporary situation.”

- Mike Todd

I think it is a really great quote and applies to being an entrepreneur.

Donald Trump is one of the most well known entrepreneurs in the USA.  Partially this is due to his ability to brand himself but largely it is due to the immense fortune he has created.

Yet Donald Trump has suffered from financial woes. He was on the brink of personal bankruptcy in 1991.  He has had to suffer several of his businesses entering bankruptcy over the years including several of his hotels, resorts, and casinos.

However I think just about every reader of this blog would probably be willing to buy into Trump’s business if they were allowed too. We all know that a good man like Donald Trump won’t be held back.  He will bounce back just as he did in the late 90s to middle 2000′s.

Being an entrepreneur means you’re willing to take risks and you might even go broke once in awhile.  You know those losses are only temporary. You know you have the skills and knowledge it takes to succeed and you will bounce back from adversity.

The quote from Mike Todd is a good one because there is a difference between being broke and being poor.  Poverty is a state of mind.  You feel poor and hence you are poor.  You overlook risks and opportunity because of your fear.  You aren’t willing to make the sacrifice.  Maybe the sacrifice is to take a job that you hate to pay down the bills to get back to where you want to be.  The poor person will make excuses instead of taking that job.  The broke person knows that perhaps that job will allow them to get into a position to try again.  They know the reward of trying again in business is better than the pain of having to eat their pride and take a job.

Does that make sense to you?

Do you understand the difference between being poor and bring broke?

What do you think?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Entrepreneurs Don’t Fear Being Broke or Going Bankrupt

There are some little things you can do to grow your team and make your team stronger.  These little things can really have an impact as your team experiences trials and tribulations in their business.  Some of these little things you can do to grow your team camaraderie might be the difference between a team member giving up or sticking with it.

Let’s face it. There will be some times when people struggle. They might have a problem with a customer or distributor.  Maybe they have a problem with a check.  Maybe they have a team leader drop out.  Maybe they just hit a wall and don’t know what to do next.  These little things you do to build your team camaraderie now can have a lasting impact and give someone the confidence to keep on going.

On our team we’ve been focusing on little things to  make our existing group stronger.  We’ve been focusing on having little team events where people can get to know one another.  New team members can have a little one on one time to interact with the top distributors.  Team members discover that their leaders are available to work with them and help them.  They build confidence and when problems happen they’re more likely to go to their upline for help instead of giving up.

Some of these little things you can do are simple get togethers after your company events. When our company hosts an event we always plan a get together with our team.  At our company convention we host a team party where we rent a room, have catering, a dj, team awards etc.  At smaller events we do smaller events like a BBQ or a getting together a group of people to go out to dinner after the event.  We can also host these kind of events on our own even if our company isn’t doing events in our area.  These events build team spirit.

We’ve also done bigger events like bus trips and recently we did a cruise. Don’t try these kind of events until your team grows and you begin to make some money from your business.  Some of these things can cost you significantly.  Your bus company or cruise ship may want you to guarantee them a certain amount of money and if you don’t get enough passengers you’re on the hook.

Don’t get discouraged when you first host an event and your turn out is less than expected.  What happens is the momentum builds.  People hear about how great your event was.  The next time you  have an event more people will want to join in the fun.

On the cruise we just did we only have 20 team members go on the cruise with us.  That’s ok though.  We had a great time and got to know some team members better.  I got to spend a little quality time with some new leaders and share some tips with them.  We got a lot of great photos and as our other team members see the photos and hear our stories they will want to come with us next time.  Maybe next time we have 60 or 80 people on the cruise.  The next year we will have 200+.

Not only will your existing team members want to be involved next time, but you may attract some new team members as well.  People who might be interested in your company may choose you simply because your group has more of a team atmosphere and has a lot more fun than everyone else.

Momentum is important.  Your persistence is a key factor.  Growing a team is like growing a plant. You have to water the seeds and take care of them plant.  Once it sprouts you still need to spend time nurturing, watering, and pruning your plant.  Don’t forget to nurture your team once you’ve sponsored them.  Keep growing and strengthening your team.

What kind of events do you do with your team?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Little things you can do that grow team camaraderie

I have a really simple question for you.

When was the last time you sponsored someone into your business?

Was it a week ago? A month ago? Several months ago?

Sometimes we wonder why our team members aren’t doing more in their business.  We wonder why they are all going so slow.  We are wondering when we’re going to find that next leader. We’re wondering why we’re not duplicating more…

I find that often when I have thoughts like this I take a look at my own business.  I find that often times I’ve been spending time doing activities that aren’t necessarily business building activities.  They are “managing” my business activities. Even experts like me get into this trap sometimes.

It is even easier when you’re a new person. You watched a video that said you only had to sponsor 3 people. So you go out and sponsor one or two or even three. You’re expecting some miracle to happen. You’re expecting these people to go out and light the world on fire, but the reality is it usually takes more than a few people.  It takes 10 or 20 or even 30 on average to find a leader.

I was looking at my business recently wondering why it wasn’t growing faster.  Volume was up but total number of distributors was sort of stagnant.  I was looking at the people in the legs that could help me promote. These are people who were working their business a few months ago.  Then I realized they’re just doing what I’m doing.  It was easy for me to sit back and relax and collect paychecks. It was easy for me to get distracted in “managing” my business, especially since I already had built a big business. I made excuses about my divorce, my move, etc.

You can make excuses or you can make money but you can’t make both.

So I went out and got to work.  Sponsored a couple new distributors already, and several more customers.

Guess what? It is like metaphysics or something…  those distributors who had been working their business a few months back?  Suddenly they call me out of the blue. They’re working their business again too.

Weird!

If you look at your business and your growth is slowing down, go out and work hard again. Market your business heavily again.  Sponsor some new distributors again. You will be pleasantly surprised to find the effect that has on your existing organization!

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

When was the last time you sponsored someone into your business?

Are you a secret agent in your business?

Jay first developed this tag line in his real estate business but it translates extremely well to what we do in network marketing.  Are you a secret agent or does everyone know what you do?

Most people are too afraid to talk to people. They are afraid that if someone asks them a question they won’t know the answer or heaven forbid they might actually say the wrong thing!  This fear holds them back so they don’t talk to anyone.

Jay is a successful real estate agent in Boston and he has one of the fastest growing groups in my SOC business.  One of the reasons he is so successful is everyone knows who he is and what he does for a living.  He LOVES telling people.  He loves giving out business cards. He loves sending cute photos of his daughter (on greeting cards, we are in the card business after all.)  He even loves to wear tshirts and things that have funny sayings on them that relate back to his business.

Everyone around Jay knows what he does and he isn’t afraid to talk to them.  If he doesn’t know the answer he calls one of his upline leaders.  He doesn’t let that fear hold him back.

So are you a secret agent in your business?

If I asked your neighbor what you did for a living would they know?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Are You a Secret Agent for Your Business?

You do this because you don’t want to be dishonest with your team. You don’t want to have any “leaks” where someone can see that you’re the creator of the system so they want to skip and join you directly.  You don’t want to hurt your team or undermine their influence with the prospect.

I have been working on a marketing system myself for my business. That’s where a lot of these ideas for articles have been coming from.  I’ve realized there are a lot of little places where you could slip up.

• What email address do the autoresponder messages come from?
• What is the name in the “from” field of the autoresponder?
• What do the graphics say? Do they have a copyright or other information that can be linked back to you?
• What does your web site say?
• What does the footer say? Does your name or your company name appear there?

When I’m making my marketing system I put the copyright as something generic like “© My Marketing System”. That way no one can track it back to me.  If I put in my LLC name then someone might be able to point it back to me and bypass my team members.

Originally when my designer created my special report graphics they put in my name as “By: Benjamin Fitts”.  I contacted the designer and asked them to take that line out of the graphics.

When creating a system for your team to use you have to operate with integrity.  That means removing instances of your name and contact information.  It means making sure your team members are the ones who are being built up in the prospect’s eyes.

You’ll win their respect and your business will grow as a result.

Regards,
Ben Fitts

PS. Taking off for a few days for a well deserved cruise! See you when I get back.

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

MLM Marketing System – the last step

Click here to take survey

I need your help in figuring out the right pricing model for version 2 of Nichework Marketing. If you could take a quick minute to fill out the survey above it would help me out a lot.

Thanks in advance,

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Can I get your help with Nichework Marketing Version 2?

The last several posts I have been talking about building your own MLM Marketing System.  If you missed them you can read the previous posts here: post one, post two, post three, post four, and post five.

Sorry I took a few weeks off   My company is about to make a major announcement and I’ve been busy… not to mention having fun and traveling

Where we left off last time was I had just talked about making your own downloadable product.  I had talked about the importance of branding your team members and helping build them up in the eyes of the prospect.  In a PDF document you can do this using several PDF rebranders.

Today I wanted to take it to the next step.  I want to talk to you about autoresponders.  Several of the big gurus marketing system talks about the guru in their emails.  It doesn’t talk about your team members.  Since they are barely mentioned and 80% of the email is about the guru, it is kind of counter productive.  You want your team member’s prospects to feel like they are the best person to help them. You want their prospects to want to join them and no one else so you have to build them up.

In my emails for my team members I don’t even want my name to appear. I want it to appear as if the email is coming from my prospect even though they are using my MLM system.  In order to do this I use an autoresponder but I pass in the extra information for the person’s sponsor.  In my email form I setup some hidden fields to pass in their sponsor’s distributor id, their name, their email, and their phone number.  If you use an autoresponder like Aweber you can create custom fields to store the sponsor information.  I setup a field like {custom_sponsor_name}.  I pass in the sponsor name using a hidden form field.  Then in my Aweber email templates instead of using my name I just put in {custom_sponsor_name} where I want their sponsor’s name to appear.  I do the same thing with their sponsor’s phone, email, etc.

Now I write my autoresponder series like normal except I put in these custom fields anywhere I might normally put in my name or contact information.  This allows my email series to be used by any of my team members.

That’s just one option of course. There are many email services you can use.  I use Aweber and I am also an affiliate.  I’ve used them for years and love them.  However you can host your own mailing list using something like PHPList. Any good email autoresponder software should allow you to have custom fields.

You also might be saying well doesn’t “Guru X” do that?  Usually the answer is no.  Usually the top portion of the email, the content, is all about the guru.  Only at the very bottom of the message does my sposnor’s name appear and usually if I’m reading an email like that I don’t even get to the bottom of the email.

What I do instead in my emails is something like…

Hi name,

This is {custom_sponsor_name}.

So right at the top of the message I’m inserting in my team member’s name.  Remember I’m not making a marketing system for myself. I’m making something to help build up my team members and help them close more prospects. I have to take the “me” out of the equation.

Whew… Does that make sense?

Do you want more clarification on how to do it? Just leave a comment and let me know…

- Ben

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Writing an email autoresponder for your MLM Marketing System

I hope you’ve been following along in my series on how to create your own MLM Marketing System.  I’d love to hear some feedback from you if you are reading a long!  Please leave a comment and let me know.

If you missed it you can read the previous posts here: post one, post two, post three, and post four.

If you are following a long in the last couple of posts I’ve talked about developing some content to give away to generate leads for your business.  If you have followed those articles then you know how to generate some content, get some testimonials from your team members, customers, upline, etc.  You will have a little special report to give away to generate interest for your business.

Now what you want to do is to make sure that each of your team members can brand this special report with their information.  You want them to personalize it so that the prospect feels attracted to your team member not to you directly.  You want them to be able to put in their name, phone number, email, photo, and anything else you think can help personalize the special report and build up your team member in the eyes of the prospect.

To do this you can use a few different tools.  I generally make the content in a Microsoft Word document and then convert that into a Adobe PDF document.  There are some tools you can use to make “rebrandable PDF’ documents.  The one I’ve used is called “Viral PDF“. This is not an affiliate link, just a genuine endorsement. With this product you put in a little code into your word document where you want your team member’s information to go.  So for example you put in {–SponsorName–} where you want your team member’s name to go.  {–SponsorPhone–} where you want their phone to go. You can even make HTML links using these special codes so your team members could link directly to their company web site.  You then save your PDF and using the Viral PDF tool you make a little executable file. This is a program your team members run on their computer. It asks them “SponsorName” and they put in their name. It goes through and asks them to enter in their personal information. Then they click a button and like magic a new PDF is created with your special report but all the branding is for your team member!

Now you might be saying… that sounds complicated. You might not want to have to give an executable program to your team members. You might be concerned about people that don’t have computers, aren’t tech savvy, or perhaps run a Mac instead of a PC. Another option is to use a program to create a PDF on the fly.

What I use for my web sites is a program called HTML2PDF.  This is a free PHP library that can take any HTML page and turn that page into a PDF.  I already had created web pages that were lead capture pages for my team members.  They would use a link like http://www.remembergreetingcards.com/ben where “ben” is their username or affiliate code. These pages pull their name, email, phone, and other pertinent information out of a database.

To create an MLM Marketing system with rebrandable PDFs I just have a lead capture page setup. The prospect fills out a form on the page.  This form includes the sponsor’s id.  Once they enter that information I can generate a web page on the fly which is my special report.  I then have HTML2PDF convert that into web page into a PDF.  Simple! ok maybe a little bit more complex but it isn’t too hard for a programmer to do.  HTML2PDF has done most of the hard work for us. You just have to find a programmer who can write PHP and can implement HTML2PDF for you. I don’t program any more but I do have a programmer who can help you if you want me to give you a referral.

It might seem complex to you if you’re not a programmer but really this is easy to do.  You can hire a freelancer to do it for you.  Just ask for freelancers who have experience creating affiliate web sites and ask for someone who has experience with HTML 2 PDF.

Next week I’ll talk more about how to build your MLM Marketing System. We’ll talk about how to pass in your team member’s information into an email autoresponder.

Got questions or comments? I’d love to know what you think of these posts so far.  Leave me a comment and let me know!

- Ben Fitts

PS. None of the links in this post were affiliate links

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Your own MLM Marketing System – How to brand it for your TEAM members

I’ve been writing a series on MLM Marketing systems.  If you missed them you can go back and read: post one, post two, post three.

Today I’m going to being to talk about how to create your own marketing system to build up your team and make them look like experts in the eyes of the prospect. Your MLM Marketing System starts with content. You need to develop some unique content as a lead generation tool.

Again this is really for leaders.  If you aren’t a leader yet and don’t have income coming in from your network marketing business this probably isn’t for you.  If you don’t have a team already then this probably isn’t for you.

Back to creating content… Your content could be focused on the opportunity. It could talk about achieving dreams, setting goals, owning a home business, tax benefits of a home business, etc.  It could talk about marketing and be targeted to other networkers (much like Magnetic Sponsoring is).  It could talk about your product and the unique benefits of your product.

Your content SHOULD have testimonials.  If  you have a team it should be pretty easy to go to them and get testimonials from happy customers. It should be possible to get testimonials from people who are earning an income from the business opportunity.  Since we want to keep everthing generic make sure you don’t put in too much information.  We don’t want to say “Ben Fitts, Oxford Mississippi” for the testimonial.  If we did then it would make it easy for someone to look me up and seek me out directly.  Instead you say “Ben F., Mississippi”.  That gives plenty of information to go beside the testimonial without giving out too much information. You want the testimonials to appear unique but not too much info.

You could and should consider paying a copywriter to write some content for you.  Copywriters can be expensive but you could get a short 1000 word special report drawn up without costing too much. That would make for a 4 or 5 page pdf document.  If you added a page of profile information on your team members and a cover page with some fancy graphics you could have a 7 page special report. This is what you’re going to market. You’re going to market your 7 page special report on “weight loss while eating cookies” or “tax benefits of owning a home business” or whatever.  The report I’m working on right now is “21 ways to grow your business using greeting cards” and I’m working on reports for specific industries: Real estate, financial services, insurance, construction, even church ministry.

You can pay someone to write content for you.  I know a couple of highly paid professional copywriters if you’d like to hire an expert. I’d be happy to recommend them. Just contact me. I use them even when I write my own content to clean up my grammar and make my content sing. You also can be sure the content these professionals are writing for you is actually unique and not reused.

Otherwise you can try hiring a freelancer to write content for you.  Sometimes you can find freelancers on sites like Craigslist but the quality of the work is spotty at best.  I know some people who have had luck on Craigslist and others who bought worthless content you wouldn’t be able to use. You are probably better off going to a freelance web site like elance and writing a formal proposal.  Then freelancers will come bid on your proposal, provide writing samples, references, etc.  That way you can pick the best freelancer for your job.

They should deliver this to you in Microsoft Word format. You can later turn the Word document into a PDF or into an HTML web page(s).

You don’t have to give away everything in your special report. This is just a PDF they can download and get’s their appetite whet for your product/opportunity. It is just a teaser to get them to request more information.  It is just a teaser so when your team member calls to follow up with them they’ll remember the information.  It also helps make your team member look more like an expert because the content will have their name on it and their biography information so it appears as if it was written by them.

For more on how to make it appear to come from your team members come back tomorrow

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Developing Content for your own MLM Marketing System

For the past week I’ve been writing about MLM Marketing Systems. (read the first post,  read the second post)  One of the key points I talked about was a marketing system that promotes your TEAM members not you, not the “expert”.  The purpose of the marketing system should be to build up your team member so they appear to be more of an expert.  This way your team members can attract prospects to them.  The flaw of most of these systems is they build up the expertise of the “expert” and not the individual.  The system should build up the individual so the prospect wants to join them, not skip over them and go to the expert!

So how do you do that?

First let me say that this is a topic for leaders. If you are brand new to network marketing skip this It is advanced stuff and I don’t expect someone new to network marketing to know how to do it!

• Step 1 develop some unique content for your business opportunity or product.
• Step 2 design the content so that your team members can put their personal information on the content and make it look like their own.
• Step 3 design an email autoresponder that includes your team member’s personal information as if the email came from them.
• Step 4 go through the entire system and make sure your name never appears anywhere.

I’ll go into more detail about each step this week.

The main thing is step 4 and it is the flaw of the big MLM Marketing Systems. When you get their ebook the big expert’s name is on the ebook. The big expert’s name is in the copyright, the graphics, the footer, on the autoresponder message’s etc.  That’s the big thing we want to avoid.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about developing some content to use for your own MLM Marketing System.

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Making Your Own MLM Marketing System

In my first article on MLM Marketing Systems I wrote about how most marketing systems only promote the expert. They don’t really help you build up YOUR expertise in the eyes of the prospect.

Before I get technical and talk about how to make your own MLM Marketing System that builds up your TEAM I want to talk about another flaw. Another flaw in these MLM Marketing Systems is you still need to know how to promote and market them.

Sometimes when I talk to someone on my team they start telling me about how they are going to use a system to generate leads for their business. They tell me about how great this system is and how it only costs $50 a month… SURE the system itself may work well at converting prospects but for $50 it isn’t going to include marketing. YOU still have to market it.  YOU have to promote it.  You have to learn some basic marketing and you have to learn that marketing regardless of what system you use. This is one reason why people fail in network marketing is they don’t ever learn the “marketing” side of things.

Often times I tell these people on my team that instead of marketing some system, why don’t they market our opportunity directly!  Why don’t they use the tools we already have in place for our business. If you’re going to have to pay to market something why not market our web sites and tools instead of marketing something else.  Usually they’re marketing some system to generate leads for some system, THEN marketing their business.  It seems to me like that defeats the purpose. They’re basically promoting two things at once.

I understand why they do it.  I understand some companies don’t have good marketing web sites. I understand marketing some MLM marketing system might be easier because it converts prospects better… But I just wanted to throw out a warning.  If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

If someone tries to pitch you on a MLM Marketing System and tells you it will automatically generate leads for you, you should expect to pay a lot more than $50 a month. If you’re spending $50 a month there won’t be any money in it for them to advertise your web site for you. You have to expect to go out and market that web site on your own.

If you do learn some basic marketing techniques it can benefit you 10 fold. No matter what business, marketing system, or whatever you want to promote you will always have these skills.

Don’t buy into the hype that these systems will do everything for you. If they did there wouldn’t be people quitting network marketing. They’d all be wealthy.  If you could just pay $50 a month for a web site and be a millionaire, wouldn’t everyone be millionaires?

- Ben Fitts

PS. I have to admit that I do teach internet marketing so if that changes your opinion of my article so be it.  However I think anyone with common sense can see the truth in what I wrote

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

MLM Marketing Systems Part 2

Do you use a MLM Marketing System?

It’s something talked about a lot.  A lot of people are looking for a system to help them build their business faster.  There are a lot of high profile systems out there.  There’s a lot of publicity and it is hard to tell which system is best.  You might have heard of Mike Dillard’s Magnetic Sponsoring, Ann Seig’s Renegade Networker,  or many many many others.  Too many to name.

The concepts these systems teach are great. For example Magnetic Sponsoring teaches you to use funded proposals where you sell a low end product to qualify prospects for your MLM.  You sell an ebook (Magnetic Sponsoring) and since you’re promoting a network marketing training all your prospects should be people who are already interested in MLM/Network Marketing. The idea is they’ve already proven a willingness to buy and an interest in MLM so they should be good prospects. Meanwhile since you’re selling an ebook you are bringing in some quick cash which you can use to promote the ebook and get more prospects into your system faster.  Even if you just break even on the expenses of marketing the ebook you’re generating quality leads, right?

Here is the problem with mose of these MLM marketing systems.  They don’t build you up.  They build up the expert.

Lets use a different example.  Are you familiar with 3 way calling?  You have a hot prospect and you do a 3 way call with your upline.  Your upline should tell your prospect about how awesome you are, how you are an up and coming leader on their team, and how they would be privileged to work with them.  Your upline shouldn’t talk about themselves too much. They should talk about you and how build you up in the eyes of your prospect.

Now let’s look at these marketing systems.  MOST of them build up the expert.  They don’t build YOU up.  They aren’t designed to make you look like an up and coming leader. They might have your name on them, but that’s about it.  Most of the promotion is about the expert not about you.

Imagine if on that 3 way call your upline was talking about how great they are.  Imagine if your upline was talking about themselves and not building you up in the eyes of your prospect.  What would your prospect do?  I would be willing to bet that a majority of the time the prospect would become less interested in you and more interested in your upline.  The prospect might even try and join the upline directly.

Imagine if you’re using this MLM marketing system and your prospect starts hearing about these “experts”.   They want to go right to the source.  They seek out the expert to find out what they’re doing and join them instead of you.

So how do we avoid this?

I’ll talk more about how to avoid this fatal mistake next week

- Ben Fitts

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MLM Marketing Systems

Go here to vote:

http://www.refresheverything.com/tylerfield

They need your votes!  You can vote every day between now and April 31st.

If you can you can also tweet this or post to your Facebook page as well. People with a Facebook account can friend our page – Build Tyler Field.  Facebook friends will get reminders, updates (like progress pictures) and links.

Thanks in advance!

- Ben Fitts
Vote for Lebanon little league here

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Do a Good Deed! Vote for this Little League!

I’ve been writing about Niche Marketing recently and why it pays to target a niche with your business opportunity.

Some of the reasons are:

• You learn the language
• You build testimonials
• You build marketing materials
• You build momentum
• You are competing against fewer people
• People love an expert

When you’re not using a niche you’re sort of using a scatter gun approach.  You aren’t targeting anything. You’re really just hoping to throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks. However your prospects can see right through that.

When you target a niche you’re building experience within a specialty.  You are learning things that are going to help you.  Learning the language is one of these things.  Let’s say for example that you are targeting realtors. You can learn the language they use.  You learn how realtor offices work.  Usually there is a broker who owns the business. An office manager runs the staff and controls who works on the phones and get’s walk in customers. The manager also controls the sales meetings which usually happen on Tuesdays. This person can potentially get you into the office to do a sales training.  You learn that “Top Producer” is a software program a lot of realtors use to track their contacts and prospects.  You are better able to speak to other realtors because you know the language!  They’re attracted to you because you speak the same lingo.

You also build testimonials when you have a niche.  Imagine for a second that you have 3 or 4 agents within an office using your product or working with you in your opportunity.  Imagine how much easier it will be to talk to the other agents in the office because you have all this credibility from your referrals.  Imagine a realtor talking about how great your product is with his peers and how great those referrals will be for you.  On the other hand imagine that instead of 3 or 4 realtors in one office you have 1 realtor, 1 teacher, 1 fire fighter, and 1 massage therapist.  They’re in different businesses and although it gets you more exposure you have less credibility with the people you are exposed too.

Another think about building your niche marketing is that you begin to develop specialized marketing materials. You know the events and tradeshows the realtors will be at.  You develop brochures that talk about how realtors have been successful in your business.  You develop written testimonials you can use to provide credibility for your marketing.

All of these niche marketing strategies begin to build momentum. You now have 3 or 4 agents in an office working with you.  They bring their friends to your next business presentation.  Now you’ve got 3 or 4 agents in several offices working with you.  All the real estate agents are beginning to work with you. Word is getting out in your town and word starts to spread to another town.  Imagine how much longer it would take to build this momentum if instead of focusing on one niche you were using a shot gun approach.

What also makes niche marketing great is you aren’t competing against everyone else.  The other distributors from your area are probably using shotgun approaches.  Those that are focusing on a niche probably aren’t targeting your niche so you have a captive market.  Not to mention the momentum you’re building and the fact that now you have dozens of realtors in your area all working with you to blanket that market.  THEN you can begin to branch out and your business will begin to naturally branch out as your network grows.

And finally and perhaps most importantly… People love an expert.  Think about going to a doctor.  If you have cancer you don’t go to your general practitioner.  If you have cancer you don’t go to your foot doctor.  You want to go to see a cancer specialist.  People feel the same way.  If you’re a specialist in a niche you’re going to attract people to you. They’re going to see you as a specialist and they’re going to feel like you can help them reach their goals and dreams better than someone who is using a shot gun approach and has no real stategy whatsoever.

And I haven’t even talked about Google!

For more about niche marketing and Google stay tuned next week

- Ben Fitts
Author of Nichework Marketing: The Step by Step Guide to Finding and Dominating your Network Marketing Niche Online

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Why You Should Target a Niche

Last week I wrote about how to find your network marketing niche. Most of these examples were product based. What would you do if you wanted to find a niche for the business opportunity?

Let’s use the same set of examples.

If I wanted to find a niche for the business opportunity and I was a college student I would stick with what I know. I’d target other college students who want extra money. I’d target college students who want to earn money to travel Europe or go to Spring Break. I’d target disenfranchised college students who are learning about things like Rich Dad Poor Dad and the stuff that they aren’t taught in school.

If I wanted to find a niche for the business opportunity and I was a new mom I’d target other expectant mothers, new moms, etc. I’d talk about the unique aspects of trying to juggle the requirements of being a mom and having a job. Maybe I’d talk specifically to those moms that want to have more time to be with their family and eventually not have a job at all. Maybe I would talk to moms who home school their kids and want to make a little extra money. Maybe I’d talk about moms who have a fear of getting laid off from work. Maybe I’d talk about moms who don’t get enough maternity leave.

That’s just young moms. What about the moms that are getting older? What about the moms putting kids through college? What about moms who are afraid that retirement is getting closer but they don’t have enough money in their retirement accounts? What about the moms who are divorced and now have to live off one income?

I think you’re beginning to get the picture! There are a lot of niches where you can target the business opportunity. Many of these niches also go hand in hand with the products you sell.

Next time I’ll share some ideas on how to find your own niche.

In the meantime if you want more information you can get my 44 page ebook, Nichework Marketing.

Good Luck in your business this week!
Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

How to Find a Niche for Your Business Opportunity

In my book Nichework Marketing one of the questions I ask is “What is your network marketing niche?”

You’re probably asking yourself right now, why do I need a niche?

If you’re in a company with 100,000 or 1,000,000 distributors you need to make yourself stand out from the rest. How do you do that? You find yourself a niche to focus on. By focusing on a niche you make yourself unique. You make yourself stand out from the crowd.

A niche is a very focused segment of a larger market. Let’s say for example that you are involved in health and nutrition. You are a young adult recently out of college. Perhaps your niche would be focusing on college age students, and athletes. Talk about the unique nutrition requirements. Talk about having more energy for the long nights and weekends. Talk about how it can improve your studying while allowing you to have time to enjoy your college years…

Perhaps you are a young mother. Your niche could be on mothers. It could be focusing on prenatal nutrition. Or it could be focusing on the unique nutrition and health requirements of a new mom. Long nights without a lot of sleep. Staying healthy. Staying mentally strong and avoiding postpartum depression.

Perhaps you are an older man. You could focus on the specific requirements for cardiac health. Focus on the specific nutrition for lowering cholesterol. Focus on the differences between good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.

Most people would join a health and nutrition company and want to target everyone and everything. They wouldn’t want to eliminate anyone. They think that they’d cost themselves money by targeting a niche.

In reality when you focus on a niche you will make a lot more money. You’ll stand out. You won’t be competing against 100,000 other distributors, you’ll be competing against only a few distributors. People will be attracted to you because they will see you as an expert instead of a generalist. You’ll build testimonials and referral partners within your niche and things will grow much faster for you.

When you focus on a network marketing niche you stand to make a lot more money. This is especially true when it comes to marketing on the internet. I’ll talk more about that next week.

- Ben Fitts
Author of Nichework Marketing
Learn how to find and dominate your network marketing niche online

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

What is your network marketing niche?

How are things? How has the winter treated you?

Admittedly this winter was a tough one for me. My divorce took a lot of wind out of my sails. I have however moved on and am focused on my future again… and that means focusing on helping YOU.

One of my personal goal statements (in fact it is part of my email signature) is:
I am a catalyst for positive change in other people’s lives.

Some of you may be new to my blog and might not know I have an ebook on internet network marketing. Basically the book is on how to build your MLM on the internet.

For a little while now I’ve been meaning to turn this into more of a full fledged training program, not just an ebook. I think there is a lot more I can do to not only talk about why you should build your business this way, but HOW to build your business this way. I have already setup a discussion board and I want to build a community around that. I also want to start a series of webinar trainings where you can watch me build web sites and ask questions and even get reviews of your web sites. The goal is to show you how to be able to generate your own network marketing prospects from the internet.

In the new few weeks you’ll find out a lot more about this new training. I’m working on version 2 of the book now which is currently 44 pages. If you want to pick up a copy of the ebook it’s only $19.95 and you’ll get the next version free and a discount to the training program. You can get my book, Nichework Marketing, here.

If you want to wait, that’s ok too. I’m considering giving away the book free, the idea being, giving it away, I can help more people. We can build a bigger community and all of us work together. Then maybe a few will be interested in my training program and webinars. It is ok if you want to wait and get the book free. You just may have to wait a month or two until it’s ready.

I hope I can help you grow your business online… and I’ll try and share some free tips here too.

- Ben Fitts
Author of Nichework Marketing

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Home Business Training

Whether or not you are a Christian there is something to be learned from this phrase. Basically what this phrase means is that Christian’s will use this idea to reflect upon their own lives and whether or not they are living the kind of life they should. They will say to themselves “What would Jesus do?” Then reflect upon whether or not their actions are the kind of actions they think Jesus would be doing. Perhaps they might react to a negative situation and say to themselves WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)

Now I know some of you aren’t Christian’s and you’re wondering why on earth I would bring this up when talking about MLM and network marketing. Here is why. This is a powerful idea and a powerful way to reflect upon your own life.

Instead of saying what would Jesus do… Say to yourself “What would my upline do?” Perhaps you don’t have a strong upline. Instead you might say “What would the distributor of the year do” or “What would the top distributors do?” Think of the top people in your company, the people recognized at your convention, on the conference calls, or in your marketing materials. What would those individuals do?

Hopefully you have a mentor or idol within your company that you can model your actions after.

Each day as you’re going through the day ask yourself WWDYD? (What would the distributor of the year do?) If you find you’re doing actions that the top distributors wouldn’t do, then perhaps you’re doing the wrong activities.

Another way people refer to this is… If your downline did what you’re doing today, would your business be growing? Would it be growing as fast as you want it too?

This is a great way to keep on track. Make sure you’re spending your time working on the right activities. Make sure your being the right kind of leader for your team.

So remember, “What would Jesus Do?”

- Ben Fitts

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What would Jesus do? How does this apply to MLM?

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a fellow named Robert Pagliarini. He said that he was the author of a new book called The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create Wealth & Purpose. He wanted to send me a free copy of the book to review it, no strings attached.

I agreed to read the book and less than a week later the book arrived from the publisher.

I had a plane flight and brought the book with me.

It turned out to be a great book and I highly recommend all of you get over to the Other 8 Hours and check it out. When you get there you’re going to find a ton of free resources, a newsletter, and yes, you can also buy the book. I don’t get a commission or anything other than a free copy of the book to read

The book talks about how we have only 24 hours a day. In the book Robert explains how MOST of who we are in our lives is made up of what we do in that other 8 hours. Meaning the 8 hours we aren’t at work or aren’t at sleep. In fact most of us really don’t have 8 hours. Our day probably goes something like:

6 AM wakeup & get ready for work
7:15 AM leave for work
8 AM arrive at work
8 AM – Noon work
Noon-1 PM lunch
1 PM – 5 PM work
5 PM to 6 PM drive home (why is afternoon traffic always worse than morning traffic?)
6 PM – 11 PM (5 hours of personal time)
11 PM to 6 AM (7 hours of sleep, not even a full 8 hours)

Most of our lives probably looks very similar to this. Between getting ready for work, going to work, working, driving home, etc. we actually end up with less than 8 hours of personal time a day.

However this extra 8 hours are in fact the most important hours of our lives. Let me state that again. These other 8 hours are the most important hours of our lives.

Think about it… You probably met your spouse and dated your spouse during these other 8 hours. If you have kids you probably made them during the other 8 hours. You raise them during the other 8 hours. You go to church and do your social activities during these other 8 hours. Some of the most important things we do in life make up the other 8 hours.

What this book is about is about making the most of the other 8 hours. The web site the other 8 hours also resources on how to make the most out of your other 8 hours. Robert even mentions starting a business as a way to eventually have more time and do the stuff you want to do instead of going to work a job for some corporate boss. He even mentions network marketing as one possible business. Although he doesn’t speak real highly of network marketing.

One of the other tools he has is similar to my schedule for part-time networkers. It helps you plan out your schedule and make the most of your time.

The book was a really good read. I read the entire book and underlined several parapgraphs. I think you’ll like the book too.

- Ben Fitts

PS. Dear FTC (see my post from a month or so ago about FTC guidelines.) I did receive a free review copy of the book but was not paid to endorse it and these links are not affiliate links.

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Book recommendation: The Other 8 Hours

Tonight I received a phone call offering to sell me MLM Genealogy leads. Let’s call this woman Ms. B.

Ms. B. told me she had a list of YTB people to sell. She said she had heard some bad things about YTB and that the company might be shutting down. She said she had about 8400 names, phone number, email, and address for YTB people to sell and she was calling me because she thought someone in my company might be interested in them. She thought these people might be looking for a new opportunity.

Being an ethical guy, little warning bells started going off in my head…

After she gave me her pitch I asked a few questions.

Question 1.
Why aren’t you using the leads yourself? Why are you trying to sell them?

Ms. B answered.
She has a lot of MLM experience but she prefers to be a leads broker and she has a lot of experience brokering these kind of leads. Her family were MLMers but she never really got into that side of the business.

More warning bells are going off for me. Why doesn’t she do MLM? Did she sell these to family members or friends already? If they are so great why isn’t she working them?

Question 2.
How many times are you going to sell these leads?

Ms. B answered.
Anyone selling you leads would be lying if they said they didn’t sell them multiple times. However she said since it was a small list she would only sell these 3-6 times and would give me 3 months exclusivity before selling them to anyone else in my company.

This was pretty honest. She is right leads companies sell leads more than once.

Question 3.
How fresh are these leads?

Ms. B answered.
18-24 months old.

More warning bells are going off now. If they are 18-24 months old, why are they just now going up for sale? Has she been selling them for the last 18 months? Did the person generating the leads already milk the leads as much as they could before selling them off to someone else?

Question 4.
How were these leads generated? Were they from an existing YTB members genealogy list?

Ms. B answered.
These names were generated from web sites of YTB members on the internet. Someone wrote a program to capture the names, emails, phone, and address of YTB members from the internet.

At this point I’m livid with anger. You see I run web marketing web sites for my company. I HATE people like this. This person is what we call a “scrapper”. They scrape the content of web sites. They find someone who has YTB marketing web sites and they scrape the content to find the name, email, address, phone, etc.

If you’re someone like me that runs marketing web sites for team members of my company, what happens is this person points a computer program we call a “bot” which is short for robot. They point the bot at your web site. Then the bot tries a bunch of different combinations of usernames until it find someone that exists. It then scrapes the content off the site for the name, email, phone, etc. and puts that info a database. It then continues trying more variations of usernames.

Besides this being unethical it is also a computer attack. They generate tens of thousands of requests or even hundreds of thousands of requests on the web site in order to find a few thousand names. It can even temporarily break a web site, cause a web site to perform poorly, etc.

In addition I feel this is unethical behavior. I feel that people who try and steal genealogy lists are bad apples. I would hate for someone to attack my downline and try and steal them all away for some new opportunity and I would never want to do that to someone else.

Ms. B. couldn’t believe that I was upset. She couldn’t believe that I didn’t understand that this is they way business is done. She claimed that because this information was freely available on the internet that I was upset.

Needless to say the phone call ended shortly thereafter and I won’t be recommending anyone to her.

I hate people like this. She isn’t a networker so she has no idea how dirty her behavior is. She can never truly understand because she doesn’t have a downline. Or maybe this is one reason why she doesn’t do MLM herself and only brokers MLM genealogy leads.

What do you think? Have you ever bought a genealogy list? Have you ever bought lists that were generated from spamming/scraping web sites? Have you ever had someone attack your downline to try and steal them away to another company?

- Ben

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Buy MLM Genealogy Lists

What is your plan to grow your MLM business?

I heard a great tip from a friend of mine who is the top money earner in my company. He said he starts with a plan of action every year to pretend like he is starting over in his business. He acts like January 1 is the first day he is starting and puts together a plan of action based on that philosophy.

I know for me personally when I start a new project I’m excited. When I start in a new network marketing business in the past I’m very aggressive. I build my lead list. I call all my friends and family. I get aggressive with my advertising and marketing.

The problem I personally experienced is that I built a large business quickly. I then got into a mode of managing and working with my team. I have 6200+ people on my team. I let myself get too busy managing my business, training others, etc. It’s a different mindset than when I was first starting out.

Plus over my many years of being involved in my business I’ve met new people and my friends list probably needs to be updated.

Starting now I’m refocusing and pretending I am starting out from scratch again. I’m setting my goals. I’m building my list of friends and family. I’m contacting my warm market. I’m going back to basics. I’m going to work hard again just like I was starting out from scratch. I’m not ignoring the people already in my business I’m just refocusing on building again. Leading by example.

I think it’s a great idea.

If you were to pretend to start over in your business, what would you do?

Leave us a comment and let us know!

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Start 2010 Right with a New MLM Plan

Yet, how do they do it?

How do they manage their job, their family, their personal lives and their new home business?

One of the biggest things I’ve found in my network marketing career is the importance of consistency. Consistency of working even a little bit every week is far better than working hard, then stopping for a while, then working hard again. If you can find a way to consistently build your business each and every week you’ll look back a year later and see a successful business growing. However if you stop and start a lot you’ll probably find that your business is struggling.

I came up with this schedule to help out part-time network marketers.

The schedule allows you to create a time schedule of your week. You can put in times for working your job, spending time with your family, even time to have a personal life. As you create the schedule you’ll begin to find that you have little pockets of time where you can build your business. It might be your lunch hour at work. It might be Tuesday nights…. It might be on the weekend. You’ll still be able to have time to do all the things you enjoy doing, but with a little sacrifice you can find some time to consistently build your business.

Download a copy of the schedule for part-time MLMers here.

This is my first draft at this schedule. Leave a comment and let me know if you find the schedule useful or if you have any suggestions. I appreciate you!

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

How to setup a schedule for Part-Time MLM Networkers

Did you know the FTC has updated their requirements for bloggers to disclose paid endorsements?

That means you and I as network marketers that are paid to promote a particular product or opportunity now need to disclose that information.  It also means if you refer some affiliate program for a autoresponder or internet provider or whatever you now need to disclose that information as well.

Here are 6 quick videos from the FTC explaining the new requirements. You can also view the text of the endorsement guidelines here. (PDF)

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FTC Guidelines for Endorsing Products on Blogs

Many of you reading this already have a home business but perhaps some of you are still looking.  Perhaps you haven’t found the right business yet. Perhaps you’re looking for something better. Perhaps your just looking for something different.  A different product.  A different compensation plan.  A different mentor and team leader.

If you’re looking for an opportunity I have a couple of webinars I’m doing this week that might interest you.  I’ll show you a bit about what we do and why we’re different than literally every other network marketing and direct sales company out there. (We have no direct competition. No one sells the same product or type of product we do.)

Just use the contact form to send me an email and I will respond back to you later today by phone or email. Let me know which one you prefer. I will also give you a link to join one of our webinars or a link to try out the service totally free.

If you already have an opportunity, GREAT. I don’t want to steal you away from what you’re doing.  Focusing on your opportunity is really important.  I think you should stay where you are and build build build.

But if you’re looking for something new or different contact me.

- Ben Fitts

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Are you looking for a home business?

I wanted to share some good news with you.

We’ve been rated a top 50 MLM blog and a top 10 MLM Blog. I’m pretty proud to be included with some of these other famous MLM trainers.

In August we were rated a top 10 MLM Blog by Roosevelt Cooper.

Just this week we were rated one of the top 50 (his isn’t in numercial, but alphabetical order) by That MLM Beat and George Fourie.

Thanks Roosevelt and George! I appreciate the recognition!

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Top 10 MLM Blog!

Today I want to continue my conversation on how to be a successful part-time networker with 5 Tips for Part Time MLM Networkers.

1. Get your own domain name
2. Get a permanent email address
3. Get a dedicated phone number & voicemail
4. Get professional business cards
5. Setup your own web site (not the company site)

Some of these might seem obvious to you but I can’t tell you how many people on my team don’t do these basic things.  They treat their business as a hobby not a business!  If you want to attract GREAT leaders to your team then you need to follow these 5 simple steps.

Get Your Own Domain Name

Most people don’t understand just how simple this is.  You can register your domain name for about $10 a year (a little less or a little more depending on where you register.)  You can then “forward” your domain name to the web site your company gives you.  This is super easy to do and usually only takes a few minutes of your time. It makes you look A LOT more professional this way.

For example, my company provides me a web site like:

http://www.sendoutcards.com/1899

I bought a domain name to forward to my site like:

http://www.TryBensCards.com

Not only does it give you a more professional image but it has a practical reason too.  It is a lot harder for people to type the wrong name or to go directly to the company web site without my affiliate id.  I’ve seen people do things like type “www.sendoutcards.com/1899″ into Google.  Guess what? Google does a web search and doesn’t neccessarily show my site!  It might show an advertisement for another Send Out Cards rep!  Now if someone enters in “trybenscards.com” into Google they will only get results back that point to me, not another Send Out Cards rep!

Get a Permanent Email Address

Take this example.  You’re at a networking event for the local chamber of commerce and you receive two business cards for people with the same greeting card company.

One of their business cards has an email address:

redsoxfan72@yahoo.com (not a real email)

The other has an email address:

ben@TryBensCards.com (not a real email)

Which one looks more professional?

Again this both has a more professional appearance but it also has a practical use. If you have your own domain and email address associated with it you can forward your email anywhere. You can forward your email to gmail or yahoo or comcast or whomever you want.  When you change your internet service you just change where your personalized email address is forwarded!

Imagine you’ve been building your business for 5 years like I have.  Imagine someone who met you a couple of years ago is now at the right place and is ready to start a business. They contact you at your email address but it bounces back to them as undeliverable.  You just lost a new distributor because you changed your email address!

Forwarding your email address is usually as simple as forwarding your domain name.  Many domain name registrars will offer you email for your domain or email forwarding.  Usually there is no cost or very little cost (under $10) to do this. So why not do it?  Why risk someone not being able to get in touch with you because you changed your email address?

Get a Dedicated Phone Number & Voicemail

This one should be obvious but how many people get started in their business and put in their cell phone number or home phone number as their main contact method.  Imagine a business owner who just had a business failure and is interested in getting back into business.  He hears about your opportunity and contacts you but when he calls he gets your personal voicemail with the music background, the kids playing, the dogs barking, etc.  Is he going to take you seriously?  Worse, what about those of you pursuing multiple opportunities at once.  How do you setup a professional voicemail for 2 or 3 or 4 opportunities?  You need to get a dedicated number for your business!

There are a couple of good options for this.

#1 You can setup a toll-free number.  The service I use starts at only $2 per month.  You can give your business a professional image, get your own voicemail, fax service, etc. all for $2 a month. Then you just pay 6.9 cents per minute.  You can even search for your own numbers.  I figured out my name “BEN FITTS” spelled out on a telephone is “236-34888″ so I did a search for any toll-free numbers that contain 236-3488 and found 877-236-3488 was available.  I bought this for only $10 a month!  BOY what a professional  image that makes me have!  MANY times people have commented on how cool it is that I have my own name as a phone number. PLUS it’s easy for people to remember.

#2 You can get a cheap VOIP phone line.  VOIP phones run off your internet service. They offer unlimited calling, long distance, and voicemail for one low flat rate.  I have a VOIP line which comes in really handy for long distance calls to host conference calls, call back prospects, etc. Plus I have my own voicemail which I can record which is specific to my business.

You can get a VOIP phone for $199 a year flat rate.
You can also get a VOIP phone for $25 a month if you prefer to pay monthly.

Get Professional Business Cards

Your company probably provides some basic business cards for you to use.  However these are usually fairly generic. For example our “Send Out Cards” business cards have the company logo and such on them but they don’t really talk about what we do! They don’t talk about our products or our business opportunity.  It’s not a very effective business card.

Another practical reason to get your own business cards, as well as your own phone number, email, and web site is that you MIGHT change companies in the future.  My business cards say “The Custom Greeting Card Guy” on them.  They don’t say “Send Out Cards”. Heaven forbid if something happened to SOC I’d still be able to use my business cards.  They’re building my brand not my company’s brand.

You can even get free business cards at some place like Vista Print. You only pay shipping. (Or you can customize the cards and make really nice cards for only a few bucks extra.)

Setup Your Own Web Site (not the company site they give you)

This one is a little bit more advanced… But setting up your own web site is a great way to give yourself a more professional image.  It helps you build your brand, not your company.  People buy into you, not your company, your product, or your compensation plan. They buy into the belief that you can actually help them achieve their goals and dreams.

There is also a very good practical reason to use your own web site. That reason is Google loves unique content. Google hates all the company web sites because Google knows most of these web sites are the same.  I’ve actually written a 44 page ebook about this topic.  You see Google knows that when you have an affiliate site for your company 99% of the content is the same as everyone else in your company.  They know that you’re name and photo on your site might be different but the content is the same.  Google doesn’t want their listings to show 10 web sites that all look identical. Instead they want the 10 listings that show up to be unique.  Owning your own web site will give you an advantage in Google.

I don’t care if you start out with a Web Site Builder that basically allows you to answer a few questions and setup a web site, or if you pay a professional to do it for you.  The fact that you setup your own web site will be a huge advantage to you vs. all the other distributors in your company that don’t have one.

In Closing

Building your network marketing business part-time doesn’t mean you have to look like a hobbyist.  A few simple tricks like registering a domain name, setting up a permanent email address, buying a dedicated toll-free or voip phone, getting professional business cards, and creating a unique web site will give you a professional image. These tricks also often have practical uses that can help you be more effective in sponsoring and recruiting others.  Your total cost for these services is minimal and the rewards are truly great.

What other tips do you have for making your part-time MLM business have a professional image?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

5 Tips for Part Time MLM Networkers

My friend Shay Wheat just emailed me and asked for our help.

She is a member of Successful Thinkers along with some other really cool people like Rudy Ruettiger from the television movie “Rudy”.  This is a new group of entrepreneurs, coaches, and business professionals and they’re holding a big event on November 6th for success minded people like YOU.

If you can be in the Sacramento, CA Area on November 6th from 6:30 PM to 10 PM you can attend for FREE.  If not you can watch the web cast live (also free!)  I know I’ll be watching the webcast myself.

Use this link to register so my friend Shay can benefit. She’s competing TODAY to see who can get the most referrals. If she is one of the top people she will get international exposure for her business!

Topics from the Hope Dream Succeed event include:

• Building your local community
• How to approach others about your business
• Taking advantage of technology
• Relationship building
• Branding yourself online
• Business to business
• Referrals are your best source of business
• Women’s leadership
• Facebook
• Twitter
• …. and more!

Register for FREE Today and help my friend Shay while empowering yourself by listening to these other powerful successful thinkers and business experts.

Remember if you can get to Sacramento on the 6th you can attend the event live and in person for free!

- Ben Fitts

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(Free Registration) Join Rudy Ruettiger and other successful business minds

I’ve written a couple of times recently about how I’ve had to go back to work part-time. (read them here and here)

One of the key things you want to do when you build your business part-time is to always be prepared. You might be at your job or at your kid’s soccer game. No matter where you are you always need to be prepared to do business.

One thing I do to stay prepared is I keep a plastic storage container in my car.  Inside this container I keep all my marketing materials. It has rungs to hold file folders. In these folders I store things like flyers, brochures, magazines, DVDs, business cards, etc.  That way when I’m out and about and an opportunity arises I’m always prepared.

For example in my ebook on how to effectively market with flyers I talk about how I use tabbed flyers like you might see in a convenience store or grocery store.  The other day I was at my new part time job and I went to a local shopping area to get some lunch.  As I got out of my car I noticed this shopping area had some little community bulletin boards setup where I could post a flyer.  I got a flyer out of my car and tacked it up on the board.

If I wasn’t prepared I would have missed that opportunity!  Sure I could come back another day and put up a flyer but I’d have missed my first opportunity.  Maybe the next big money earner came in that day and I would have missed them.

The difference between success and mediocrity is very small.  In baseball 3 extra hits per 100 at bats is the difference between being an all-star or a average joe.

The same goes for your network marketing business.  By being prepared 100% of the time you’ll find a few situations where you can capitalize on that opportunity.  It only takes a few of these opportunities for you to distinguish yourself from everyone else!

Do you have any examples of missed opportunities or examples of how you always stay prepared?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Building an MLM business part-time. Always be prepared…

I was torn up over whether or not to talk to you guys about my situation.  When my wife and I decided I needed to go back to take a job I didn’t want anyone to know. I’ve been a full time network marketer for a little while now and I felt like it might be confusing to others to see that I was going back to work.  I thought they might loose their faith.

Most people’s dream with network marketing is to do what I did. They dream of quitting their job and going full time as a network marketer.  They dream of buying their dream home. They dream of staying at home with their families.  That is the position I was in.

I was afraid that people who read about my situation would give up their dream.

Then I realized it was  more important to be honest with everyone.  Life has ups and downs. Your business will have ups and downs.

For example when prospecting or holding opportunity meetings I like to be honest with people that you can make a lot of money in this business but it is going to require work.  It will require some skills. It will also probably require some time.  It won’t happen over night.

Similarly it’s important to let people know that they could have ups and downs in their business.

I make more in my network marketing business than many people’s full time jobs.  Yet for me living in an expensive area of the country and spending too much of our money meant we got into some debt and I needed to make some more money.  My wife wasn’t really as into the business thing as I am. She wasn’t into the idea of living on a budget. For me my dream was to not have a JOB.  For her she was satisfied working for a living and being comfortable. She liked a guaranteed paycheck every month, not a paycheck that fluxuated greatly depending on my business.

Now that we’re separating (or divorcing – I’m not sure yet) we’re going to be taking on extra expenses.  I don’t have healthcare so I have to pay my healthcare out of pocket. I have to have a place to stay, heat, electricty, etc. I will have some lawyer bills and other expenses.  I may even have to pay some alimony or give my wife a percentage of my business. So for at least a little while I’m going to have to go back to work.

What worried me most was that my  team members might not understand. Some of them may live in parts of the country where they pay 1/3 rd what you pay for living expenses.  Others may have a spouse that makes a lot of money.  Some people might be able to build their business full time on $20,000.  Others might need $100,000.

For me I had to bite the bullet and go back to take a job for awhile. It sucks. It hurts me a lot to admit I wasn’t very good with my finances. It hurts to say I didn’t grow my business as much this year as I wanted/expected.  BUT I know it’s temporary.  I know this just drives me more and makes me want to work harder at my business.  I also know I’m in a great position.  I have an awesome business already and if I focus on my business for a little while it grow faster and I’ll be able to work my way out of this situation.  Having that business gives me a lot of freedom and luxuries that other people wouldn’t have.  For that I’m thankful.

In the next couple of weeks I want to talk more about what to do when you’re a part-time networker.  How do you focus on your business while you’re working a job, having a family, etc.  How do you make the time for your business.

For more info, come back next week

See you soon and always keep your dream alive.

Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Don’t be ashamed to do what’s best for your family

I’ve been writing about network marketing and MLM for several years on this blog.  Usually I post once or more a week even on a bad week. On good weeks I might post 5 times.

Lately you might have noticed I was writing a lot  a couple months ago, and then suddenly not writing so much… What happened you ask?

I’m going to be honest. Probably more honest than any other network marketer you’ve ever seen.

#1. Our debt was kicking my butt so I went back to take a part-time job.

#2. My wife decided she was ready to quit on our marriage. Didn’t want to work on it.  She just wanted to move on. I won’t get into the gorry details but part of the reason why I’m back at a job part-time is my marriage.

SOOOOO…. It’s been tough around here lately.  I’m trying to get things squared away. Meanwhile I may have more time to write and pursue my business than ever before.  I think I’m due for a whole series on how to build a business while you have a job…

I’ll keep you guys posted.

Your thoughts and prayers are welcome as always…

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

What the heck is wrong with Ben….

The gatekeeper is the secretary, receptionist, personal assistant type person that is the one answering the phones for the decision maker. Successful business to business sales people have to learn to get past the gatekeeper so they can get to the decision maker.

I thought this was a pretty interesting article and wanted to share it with you. This is not the only way to get to the decision maker. As the greeting card guy I can attest that brownies with a card are another powerful way but this is one idea for cold calling businesses…

Click to read the full article.

I hope you liked the article!

- Ben

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

How to Get Past the Gatekeeper and to the Decision Maker

However one thing I’ve discovered is that it is a little like “Yin and Yang”.  The reverse is just as important.  It’s equally important to know what the negative traits are.  Especially when you have big teams you want to focus on working with the right people.

A few “experts” out there might not approve of my calling it like it is, but when you have a team of hundreds or even thousands or tens of thousands of team members you have to focus on the right people.  You cannot allow the bad people to drag you down.

I for example have some people who I come into contact with that are maybe overly selfish. They’re only worried about making money for themselves not helping their team make money.  Maybe they’re only focused on new people and not people who they’ve already sponsored.   Other people might talk bad about team members or cause negativity in the ranks.

A lot of times you’ll find team members that ONLY focus on the negative.  They only call with complaints.  They never do things for themselves but always call you to ask you how to do it.  You want to figure out who these people are so that you can make their contacts a low priority.  You might not want to answer their phone call but instead let it go to voicemail.  You might not want to return their phone call right away or perhaps respond via email only. Often times by forcing the negative distributor to wait they will get over their issue which was so urgent to them.  They might actually go and figure out how to do it themselves or perhaps their anger or frustration over their issue dies down and they’re able to think and react more clearly.

You have to keep your distance from the negative people so you can have more time to focus on the positive.  This is how truly successful leaders get to whether they are.

What do you think?  Am I off my rocker?  Have you had any experiences like this? Do you have any tips?

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Personality traits we don’t want in our team members!

I have a question for you today… As a network marketer what are some of the charactertistics you look for in a leader?

Dedication?
Persistence?
Honesty?
Self Motivation?

What kinds of things do you look for in a leader?  Both someone you’d want to join and in someone on your team who stands out as a leader.  What are some of the qualities these people embody?

Leave me a comment by clicking the link on the right and let me know.

- Ben

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

What are some characteristics you look for in a leader?

1. Would I join this even if it didn’t have a business opportunity associated with it?
2. Will this product be around 1 year, 5 years, or even 10 years from now?
3. Does the product risk of bring priced to zero (or close enough to not matter) like long distance has become as a result of VOIP?
4. Is your product at risk of being superseded by technology / competition?

These are some important factors I know many people are not considering when they join MLM opportunities.  I have been approached in the last 7 days with 5 different opportunities which 4 of the 5 wouldn’t even pass these 4 questions above.

Question 1: Would I join even if it didn’t have a business opportunity associated with it?

To me this is very important.  If the product is good enough people will join without an opportunity to make money.  If you’re product is this good then you’ll find it much easier to attract customers AND keep your team members involved long term.  If they are only there to make money then a lot of your team members will give up and quit, jump to the latest greatest fad, etc.

Question 2: Will this product be around 1 year, 5 years, or even 10 years from now?

Again another important item.  For example a lot of people are pitching opportunities that probably won’t even last a year, and if they are lucky might last 3 years.  However they will almost certainly not be around 10 years from now.  How can you develop true long term residual income from a business that won’t be around for 3 years?  Look at the Beatles. The Beatles catalog of music still generates millions of dollars in royalties annually but the Beatles broke up as a band in 1970.  That is true residual income.

Question 3: Does the product risk of bring priced to zero (or close enough to not matter) like long distance has become as a result of VOIP?

There is a big name company right now that has made their Billions selling technology related products like this but they are products that are becoming so cheap they are becoming commodities. This means that the quality of the product from any vendor is the same and the price gets driven lower and lower.  Take long distance as an example.  We now have VOIP based phone services that can give you an unlimited amount of calling for $20 a month.  In fact some services such as Skype for your computer or Magic Jack promise to give you an unlimited amount of calling for $20 a YEAR.  Now this company is selling video phones which require a service commitment of $20 a month for 2 years.  Meanwhile the same video phone type services can be had by software programs like Skype. Certainly within the 2 year time frame of a customer’s contract even more services are going to come up offering services for little to no cost.  Why would someone commit to $480 for video phone services when they could get similar services at little or no cost!  Now the company needs to develop another new technology or advantage to keep them ahead of the market.

Question 4: Is your product at risk of being superseded by technology / competition?

Another new fad are these web site based MLMs.  They basically buy off the shelf software and slap together an MLM.  The most recent are the ones that promise to be the next Facebook but pay you money.  Guess what?  Even Facebook probably won’t be around in 5 years.  Think about it.  5 years ago Myspace was hot.  Everyone was talking about it.  Now it’s Facebook.  In 5 years it will be something else.

First of all you’re assuming these guys have a clue at how to put together a social network.  Again most don’t. Most are buying off the shelf software to make a social network.  They are simply targetting opportunity seekers so you get a network full of MLMers.  This always fails because the MLMers just target one another.  It becomes a big spam fest.  Only a few people have ever managed to do this successfully and they haven’t done it with an opportunity. They did it around training for networkers.  The amount of content outweighed the amount of spam.

Someone just talked to me about a new social network… guess what it looks like a clone of?  Wowzza.  Wowzza is a social networking MLM I talked about in April 2008.  In the spring of 2008 it was really popular but by the end of 2008 my prediction was coming true.  The fad was over and only a few dozen people were joining a day.  In the heyday of Wowzza dozens of people were joining every minute and thousands were joining every day.  BUT the product sucked and it mostly attracted opportunity seekers.  Once they found out the product sucked and the promised spillover wasn’t what they expected they quickly dropped out.

The point of all this isn’t that every opportunity is bad. There are some good ones out there.  However if you want to build TRUE RESIDUAL INCOME then you want to make sure you are getting involved in an opportunity that is going to be around for awhile.  Take a close look at the products too, not just the opportunity.  Make sure this is something that can generate income for you 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years down the road.

If you have any questions about a specific opportunity I’d be happy to take a look at it for you.

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Things to consider before joinging a business opportunity

Are you interested in taking your business to the next level… Are you interested in doubling your income?

Guess what? It’s actually simple to give yourself a raise.  It’s NOT easy but it is simple.

You see each level of income requires a new you.  You have to constantly get better. You have to develop new skills and new attitudes in order to make more money.  Here is an example that might make more sense.

1. You start out learning the basics and recruit a few people.  Call this skill level #1.
2. You become a team builder and master the aspects of recruiting and marketing. You have recruited dozens of people to your  team. Call this skill level #2.
3. You become a team leader and start looking for other leaders on your team to work closely with. You find those 5% who are showing leadership and put them in a position to succeed. Call this skill level #3.
4. You are a world class business leader. You not only recruit leaders but you help those 20% er’s on your team that have a lot of potential learn to develop into leaders.  Call this skill level #4.

For me it’s pretty obvious because I can look back at my business and see where I was at a lower level.  I thought I was doing well but to take my business to that next level I had to develop some new skills and develop as a person.

It’s kind of like I’ve built a big team.  I’ve hosted the big events.  Now I’m moving on to the next phase in my own organization.  I now have big leaders who have their own teams and their own events and now my role is to not host my own events but be a guest speaker at my team member’s events.

If you look at my 4 skillsets above, where do you fit on the scale?  Are you at #1 still?  Are you at #2?  Compare where you are now to the next skillset then think about what you need to do to advance to that next level of your business.

If you have questions or if I didn’t do a good job of explaining it, let me know!

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Want to give yourself a raise?

It’s a project I have wanted to do for about 4 years but just haven’t had time to dedicate to it.  Are you interested?

The site is HomeBusinessInterviews.com I’m selling the domain name as well as the software I used to setup the web site and the content I have created so far.  The software is setup for a complete membership web site.  The membership software is integrated with a WordPress blog so you can host interviews like a Podcast and make them available on iTunes.  Then you can charge subscriptions.  I even had the hopes of making them available as a cd of the month club where people could purchase a monthly audio cd of interviews from the web site.

You can take advantage of this… You can get a complete web site in a box, with 5 hours of consulting included where I will help transfer the site and software over to you.

I’m holding an auction at Flippa for the web site, software, content, and domain names.  Pop on over and check it out!

I had even started to promote the site in the search engines.  It had picked up a couple of rankings for keywords like “home business interviews” and “mlm interviews”.

You’d simply have to pick up where I left off… setup some interviews and start promoting the site…

Got questions? Feel free to email me or leave a comment.

Thanks!

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Complete business web site for sale… Are you interested?

Do you know what Twitter is?

Do you know how to setup a Twitter account?

Do you know how to use Twitter to market your business or product?

Do you want to know what all the cool software, tricks, and tips for getting the most of Twitter?

Here is a free ebook for you called A Beginners Guide to Using and Marketing with Twitter!

Download it free

- Ben

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

Would you like to know how to use Twitter?

1. Gather customers
2. Teach other people how to gather customers

One of the problems in many MLM organizations is the focus isn’t on gathering customers. The focus is on doing the bare minimum of customer gathering and mostly sponsoring new distributors.

When I’m focused strictly on sponsoring new people I sponsor people that don’t do anything. I sponsor customers that don’t use my product and I don’t make much money! This is one of the habits many MLM’ers fall into. They just focus on the short term money made from sponsoring people. The people they do sponsor tend to drop out quickly because they haven’t gotten any customers and haven’t made their money back.

When your focus is on gathering customers and sponsoring customer gatherers then you build long term income. The people who join your organization will be more likely to stay longer as they will be getting quick income from their customers. The volume in your organization will grow and so will your residual income.

Don’t fall for the hype of short term income by focusing too much on the opportunity. Remember to always keep your focus on people who will use your product and teach other people to use your product. That is how you will build true residual income.

- Ben Fitts

Post from: Network Marketing & MLM Training from Home Business Blogs

There’s only two ways to make money in MLM