Listening

Keep tabs on your target audience and listen to what they’re saying. Set up Google alerts, it’s free and easy and can give you the information you need. If you know what your audience wants, you will naturally be in a much better position to provide them with that.

 Communities

Provide every visitor to your website with the option of a large ‘Join’ and ‘Share’ button. You have to build a community centered on your business; it ensures that you have the chance to interact with audience directly. Every time you tweet, ensure you use #hashtags, when you search your #key phrase hash tags you will get to see your target audience-the section that is talking about key words/phrases. Approach them and continue to build your community. This is a super effective way to gain new customers.

A foolproof and super effective to build a community is via a blog. Everyone is doing it and there’s a strong reason why. Set up a blog relating to your business; ensure that you provide good, interesting content. Don’t be an aggressive salesperson here. If your content is powerful, people will automatically flock to it and they will share, tweet, retweet, and tell everyone within their contact list to check your blog out. Make sure you write a niche blog, one that pertains to your business and interests your audience. Share your blog posts on twitter, face book, linkedin, Myspace and anywhere else you have an online presence.

Convert

Free stuff always attracts and interests people. Use this to your advantage. Maybe you could offer a free catalog on your website, or a free product/service (of your business) to the 1000th or 10,000th (or any number you choose) visitor to your site. You can use Google analytics to monitor the traffic that your site then generates.

Follow these basic principles and be consistent in your approach. Social media is highly volatile world. There are new exciting things coming up online every passing second and you have got to abreast of it. You can’t expect to ride on the success of one spectacular tweet or blog post. If you are out of sight, you’ll be out of mind. It doesn’t take too much effort or even time to effectively carry out marketing ideas on the Internet. Plan ahead, be consistent (I cannot stress on this enough) and keep innovating. Besides, in my experience, once you get the hang of, this seemingly daunting task actually becomes fun.

No prizes for guessing this one. Social media has the power to drag businesses off the click or cause buzz straight towards profitability; a single idea if well presented can go viral overnight. Get onto to every social media platform and most importantly, be consistent with updating. It doesn’t take too much time, it can be fun and results are instantaneous.

Free Classified Ads

You can promote your business by using free classified. Do a bit of Internet research to find some online classified ads (such as Craiglist) that are specific to your domain or location and place your free ads with them.

Cross Promotion

Find people who have businesses that are related to yours. For instance if you sell photography equipment, find someone who does camera repairs and see if they would interested to do cross promotion with you.

Barter system

Its old school but it’s effective. See if you can provide someone with your product or service in exchange for them to advertise you on their site etc. It works to be far more economical than paying advertisers for the same.

These are some easy, cheap and tried and tested methods to promote your business online. These are great for you, if you are a new entrepreneur, you can expand your options as you grow bigger. A general rule of practice should be to always, always provide the highest standards of customer satisfaction. If they are happy they will tell people about you and word of mouth publicity is one of the most effective publicity methods.

2) Blogging/Vlogging : While there are hundereds and thousands on blogs and vlogs or every possible topic floating around on the internet, the percentage of Indian bloggers is not so high.This gives you a great opportunity to make your voice heard and your opinion count.Simply by virtue of being among the first few,several Indian bloggers like Arushi Khosla of Bohemian Like you etc. are almost celebrities in their own right.Pick any topic,one that interests you and that that you have command over and blog or vlog regularly,consistently and don’t compromise on the quality of your content.You never know who might be reading it and what oppurtunities might come your way.

3) Intermediary services: Sometimes just being in the right place at the right time can fetch you money.Provide intermediary sources,connect people and products or businesses together.A lot of businesses and individuals would rather outsource the job of hunting for new products etc. to someone else.If you’re someone who’s got a flair for combing through virtual world to find good deals,you stand to make good money this way.
These are just three of the easiest and most effortless ideas that can help convert the time spent randomly surfing the net into money,but for the options are endless.Also,you can maximise your efforts by taking advantage of social media.Be active on the Internet and make your presence felt.Just being seen and heard and bring some exciting oppurtunities your way.

Sell things

You’d be amazed to see what people are willing to pay for what you think is trash. Anything from old CDs, DVDs, books and even old clothes and accessories can be sold online. You just need to find the right outlet.MusicMagpie is a great place to sell old CDs and DVDs of music you’ll listen to again, or films you’ll never watch. Amazon is the place to go to if you want to sell old books and any Vintage garment site will be happy to swap your old clothes and accessories for money.
It goes without saying of course, that your things have to be in good condition.

Sell skills

Freelancing is super convenient. Your office is your home and timings are your own. Are you an amateur photographer (who’s several notches above a camera phone photographer?), or perhaps you an excellent part planner? Anyway, it doesn’t matter what the skill is, as long as you have it, use the internet to sell it! You can put up ads on GumTree or even facebook and as long as you are consistent about making your presence felt, the money’ll come rolling in.

Affiliate Marketing

It takes some getting used to, but once you’ve managed that affiliate marketing is easy. All you need to do is literally affiliate yourself with a certain business and promote their product, service etc.You need to put up a link to their website on your blog or website and every time a visitor clicks on that link, you earn a commission!

Paid reviews

In an overcrowded world, companies have to work very hard to be visible to manage to boost their sales. To achieve this, naturally companies fork out a small fortune to make their presence felt and to establish a strong reputation.

It doesn’t matter what type of a business it is, they all need good testimonials, reviews written by real users to attract more customers. For this companies often pay people to write reviews of products or services that they have tried. With a bit of online surfing, you can find such companies who will pay you to write about their product or service, if you’ve tried it. So if you’ve just purchased a new hairbrush that you absolutely love, write about it and tell the whole world and make some money in the process.

It’s a major disappointing news for me since I was counting on the Creative Cloud to give me access to Adobe’s Suite of tools. I wanted to learn web design, graphic design, etc., and probably make that as another stream of income but unfortunately, for me and many of you who might want to do the same, you’ll have to wait until Adobe releases Creative Cloud to the Indian sub-continent.

I tried signing up as usual on Adobe’s U.S site but the site detects your location through IP tracking and automatically informs you that their services are not available here, in India.

The Creative Cloud is a great tool for web designers, graphic designers, and Illustrators both in India and abroad as we get access to all Adobe tools for one single monthly subscription of $49.95. Apart from that, the newly released Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6) has new, exciting features, all new digital publishing suite, and cloud storage. CS6 also features new TouchApps that lets you design or illustrate on the move using your smart phone or tablets.

So for me and you ( if you are living in India), it’s another stretch of a long wait until it releases here in India. What do you think about Creative Cloud? Do you think you can benefit from it?

Too many people search the Internet everyday to make money online in India and abroad. It’s a pity that as far as “making money online” niche is concerned, it’s riddled with scams, non-opportunities, and false starts.

I don’t condone you for having tried to do something to earn money online since I’ve been there and I’ve burnt my hands before. I persisted and now I did find things I could do online. I also know that there’s a lot more that I can do. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what can be done, to tell you frankly.

Here are some things that I do know that you should not be wasting time with. Either the opportunities are scams or are just not worth the effort you put in. Please avoid these:

Typing Ads, Surveys, Get paid to read emails, and other nonsensical opportunities

All that education, years of experience (if any), and the innate potential that you have, some opportunities on the Internet are downright insulting. Why would you ever want to read one email mail or view an ad for 60 seconds to get a measly $0.01? Don’t you think you deserve more?
In a typical “get paid to read email” or a “type ads to make money” opportunity you find online, you’d spend hours on this without seeing much to write home about.  If it takes you an hour to read 30 emails, you get paid $0.30 per hour? That’s less than what beggars on the street make per hour. Your mom isn’t going to be proud of you while you slave away for nothing. Think about it.

 Indian Affiliate Marketing Programs: Ruled out

I am a big fan of affiliate marketing. In fact, some of my serious businesses ventures such as SFI are based completely on online marketing and affiliate marketing. I will, however, not consider any affiliate marketing programs in India for a ton of reasons. First, there aren’t as many affiliate programs or Indian affiliate networks to choose from. Most Indian companies don’t have any affiliate program to speak of, Even if some of the companies do, one look at the commissions and you’d be better off “not” doing anything at all.

This is not to say that there’s no potential in the Indian affiliate marketing Industry. There is. E-commerce is just seeing the light of the day, there are new affiliate programs popping up, and there’s certainly scope for it in the near future.

For now, however, they aren’t tempting at all. I don’t want to work hard to make 15 INR to 65 INR per sale.

Keep it simple for yourself. Spread your options. Start multiple web projects. Each website you create for affiliate marketing should have a specific target market – so start one for a global audience, one for the Indian readers, one for American readers, etc.

Google Adsense and other monetizing options: there’s a time and place for that 

Google Adsense, WordPress Ad Network, Bidvertisor, and Clicksor – these are just a few ways to monetize your website. The key rule to remember is that you should NOT be using any of the above mentioned monetizing options on a website that has potential for affiliate marketing.

For instance, let’s say you’d like to start a magazine based on Bollywood movies or regional movies. I don’t see any potential for affiliate marketing here.  This is an ideal niche for you to use Google Adsense or any of the other options available to you. If you start a website based on the travel niche, however, there are thousands of affiliate marketing programs all over the world to choose from. You’d not want to use Google Adsense on a site like that.

I am sure you already know that you shouldn’t bother checking out the newspaper for “work from home” or “Easy money” or “get rich quick” ads. Further, avoid any of those sites that come up when you search for “make money online”.  Read this blog to know what works. Download my free report to get a glimpse of what the best ways to make money from India are.

Don’t get ripped. You have a choice.

I mean that statement, and I’d say that over and over again until you begin to think and do something about it. I find it amusing when some people prepare to get into business, make plans about launching new products and services, and some even prepare to set aside some money to start their businesses.  They would do everything but they openly declare that they “Don’t like to sell”.

If you can’t sell, you can’t live

If you can’t sell, then you should go back to doing something else. But then, I got bad news for you: it’ll be difficult for you “everywhere”. You won’t get that job. You won’t get a promotion if you DO manage to get a job. At home, you won’t be able to persuade your children or to convince them on anything. You’ll have a tough time to deal with friends, relatives, acquaintances, or even strangers.

If your thinking goes like “Damn it! I don’t have to prove to others who I am”, you’d be doing absolutely nothing remarkable in life. You’ll remain a “nobody”.

Why?

Humans are social animals (you can’t mess up with the ultimate truth of evolution, no matter how smart you and I think we are). We need other people to do absolutely anything we want to do in life.

You need to be able to persuade (which is selling), if you:

• Had to ask a friend for help.
• Ask a girl out for a date.
• Request your parents to allow you to live with them ( to save on rent, maybe?)
• Convince your interviewers that you are the best person for the job.
• Convince your boss that you are the best choice for promotion.
• Impress your banker to give you a loan – to start a business, buy a home, or to buy a car.
• Had to lead and manage a team.
• Had to teach your children manners.
• Convince your wife/husband about your new investment plans.

You see where I am going with this? C’mon. All you do in sales is to help strangers “buy” something they would want to buy anyway.

Highly Skilled People: Sales is not a job; it’s an act of persuasion 

The first thing you should remember is that sales is the name we have for a job that involves high levels of persuasion. When you sell, you bring out the best in you to persuade your customers to buy. The old fashioned way of calling up your customers or meeting them a million times to show your convoluted, pitiful face to “sell something” is out of fashion. The right way to sell is ensconced in good old persuasive skills.

How can you be persuasive?

You can be highly charming, persuasive, and you can make irresistible offers when you “know” what you are talking about. Knowledge is the key. Kicking in with the knowledge is the whole set of skills you’d need to convince strangers such as the right body language, judicious use of words, understanding your customers, adapting to your customers’ language and body language patterns (so that you can relate better).

You get no salaries without someone selling something, somewhere

You might not like to hear this (and I am not here to make you “like” me), but the designers, teachers, programmers, pilots, engineers, doctors, and many people from various professions wouldn’t earn a penny without someone taking the trouble to sell.
Sales people drive the economy; they are at the core of all capitalism. Without sales, there are no businesses. Without businesses, there are no jobs created for you. All those dreams of “getting a job” are being fuelled by hard working sales people (CEOs & small business owners are included) who work hard to sell products and services.

If you are a business owner who had to start by selling all by yourself or if you are a sales person reading this, please note: You have the most difficult, well rewarded, most satisfying, and the most important job in the world. Everyone one else in the world is “living” on the “Salary, revenue, or profits” that “happened” because a sales person just sold a great product to a customer.

You are a coward if you can’t sell

Yes, you are. You’ll hate me but you can’t avoid that nagging voice in your head. Actually, you are “Selling” in many ways, everyday. You just don’t call it a “Sales Transaction”. If you can’t convince someone to do something, you aren’t trying. It could be that “anti-sales” thing again.

To sell, convince, persuade, or to get people to do something ( for your benefit or for their own), you need to be brave. You should be able to withstand rejections. You should let it pass. You should have the gumption to handle the crap that gets thrown your way. Perhaps you’ll have to handle the complexity of human transactions such as miserable excuses, over-zealous expectations, and other cranky human ways.

Don’t belittle sales jobs. Avoid making the sweeping stereotyping that any sales job or any business where you’d be forced to meet customers to sell your products and services is the worst thing you had to do.

Flash news: it’s the best thing you ever had to do. Without you knowing it, you just made a beginning to change your life for good. Even the miserable, douchebag, unproductive employee just made a sale by convincing the world that he’s an idiot.

Gandhi Sold India on Non-Violence. 

Hitler Sold The Idea That All Jews Must be killed. He Sold us World War 2. 

You Sell; all the god damned time. 

Steve jobs, Mr. Ford,Sir Richard Branson, Felix Dennis, Nelson Mandela, Your Pop & mom, My pop & mom — everyone sold something. Ideas to products. Culture to services.

Get real. Think about it.

Further, the rise of MLM opportunities that are trash, scams, and pyramid schemes on the Internet have left an indelible, bad impression about MLM businesses in general. There are companies such as Amway, Tupperware, SFI and Oriflame that have a rock-solid history of success. They do even better than some of the normal non-MLM companies such as P & G and HLL within the same industry. So, why do people fail in MLM? Here’s why:

Lack of faith – in MLM, in business, and in everything else

When entrepreneurs start businesses, they have faith. They start with a great amount of confidence and trust. Even when you get yourself a job or apply for one, you tend to have faith in the company you are applying for. For some reason, however, most people who join MLM are ‘reluctant entrepreneurs’. They join because they need the money or because they didn’t find anything else to begin with. That’s a sad way to enter. No wonder not many people get too far. You can’t just “Stumble across an opportunity”

Stumble into a coffee shop, into an old friend, into a movie theatre, or stumble anywhere. Just don’t stumble into “Starting a business” and then wonder where the heck you are.

Starting with the wrong mindset

 “I joined. Now where’s the residual income that they promised?”

It’s funny if you think about it, but this is how the mindset is for most people who join MLM businesses. Even if you keep MLM business aside for a while, this is also an issue with people who’ve invested thousands of dollars to start their businesses.

I just don’t get it. If you got yourself a job, would you expect to be paid if you just sat at your cubicle staring at your computer monitor? If you started a business, what’s the best thing you can expect by sitting in the shop or your own office and wondering why the clients don’t come? How can anyone expect to be paid without putting in any work at all?

Until people get out of this crippling mindset, they can never make any money. Forget MLM, you won’t get your salary and you are likely to be fired. Hell, even your mother and/or wife would kick you out of the door for being such a loser.

Lack of willingness to learn something new

When you leave your job to start your own business, it’s also time to learn new skills. When I had to start out, I had to learn how to sell. I had to learn to stay humble, be more amicable, learn to relate to my customers, smile and be confident all the time, develop the ability to read people, and get comfortable with rejection. I didn’t have to worry about this when I was in college, you see?

Later – for my consulting business, I had to learn how to write. How to send out proposals, how to get projects online, how to become more productive, how to determine good opportunities when you see one.

Now, still as a part of running my consulting business, I am looking to learn new skills everyday. I wasn’t born with HTML code in my head. I had to learn everything.

As you can see, my learning never ends. It shouldn’t for you too. I know many people who go to college, get a job, and the learning ends. You get the drift, don’t you?

Not working hard enough while looking for miracles to happen

Everyday, work has to be done. If you work on an online business opportunity such as SFI, you’d need to first join and then take the training that’s made available for free. You’d then have to go to the “training” area of the SFI membership portal and read the “Internet Income” course that’s available for all SFI affiliates. After reading, understanding, and internalizing all that there’s to learn (not that the learning is over, but it’s enough to make a start), you’d then have to apply what you learnt, without giving up when you meet roadblocks.

This holds good for any business you do. Business is hard work. If you didn’t want to work that hard, you should sit home and watch TV. Why bother with business?

Not treating it like a business

As I mentioned in my previous post about how entrepreneurs have to invest in assets, marketing, operations, and human resources – that’s the way businesses are run. Take a good look at any business around you and it’s clear that those entrepreneurs have put in substantial investments into their business. They hope to earn profits at a later stage.

As an entrepreneur, be clear that investments are mandatory to make any money at all. That’s the way it is.

What were you thinking? Could you invest in stocks without putting up any money upfront? Could you buy, rent, or lease an office space without spending? How did you think you’d market your business? Does free work all the time?

You can find smart ways to invest and you can look for better bang for your buck. The truth still remains that you got to invest. Stay within your budget, go smart, go online, and don’t invest in marketing that doesn’t work for you.

But Invest, you must. Unless you live 300 years and hence you just wanted to “check” things out.

SFI = Strong Future International. It’s an online business I am associated with. 

Affiliate = People join in first as affiliates. They grow up from there. 

Executive Affiliate = The next rank in SFI. A bit of magic begins to happen when you maintain this status each month. A total of 1500 VP ( versa Points) — earned in various ways depending on your activity — is needed to maintain this status. 

EA 2 = When you are an executive affiliate for more than 2 consecutive months. 

TL = When you accumulate more than 3000 VP, in a month. You become a TL. Residual Income kicks in here as long as you maintain the status. 

ECA = E-commerce Associate is a merchant/small business/Service provider an affiliate refers to SFI’s flagship e-commerce site called Triple Clicks ( which is like eBay, except that SFI affiliates promote the heck out of it for sales) 

CSA = Co-Sponsored affiliates. These guys get into your downline ( 2 per month if you maintain EA status) automatically. SFI grants them to you. 

T-Credits = Credits that you can use to bid on Pricebender Auctions ( Penny bid auctions). 

I remember the first time I got into business after leaving my job. I invested close to $10,000 just for starting up my small business (It was a training company). That was just for the advance rental, furniture, and equipment such as computers, projector, the paint job, flooring, woodwork, and the usual knick-knacks that come with starting your own business. Where I come from, it’s a lot of money. Monthly, there’s a payout for the rent, utilities, and for the salaries (trainers and other staff). Advertising, marketing material, and listing in the local directories – these were other ongoing costs. On top of it all, I had two mortgages to pay, a car loan, a couple of credit cards, and my lifestyle expenses.

It could have run well if it weren’t for all these expenses and the fact that collecting payments from my customers (who were mainly students and others) was a pain.

Guess what? In 6 months (after incurring all this expenditure), I had to give up and all of $30,000 went down the drain; a loan that I still try to pay off each month.

Compared to what I spent (and lost), SFI almost seems like a breeze to me. I don’t know about others but if there’s anybody reading this who’s spent money on education and is now working on a job or if there’s anyone who’s started a business would know how expensive it is just to show up, ready to work or start a business.

That’s why, once you stop seeing SFI as a “Oh, there’s this landing page and it’s free to sign-up” or when you think “I’ll see if it works, what the heck?”, you’d not get far with it. Anyone who’s spent some time on SFI would tell you to “treat it as a serious business”. I’d venture forth and tell you exactly what you could do if you HAD to treat it like a real business:

Become an EA first, and stay put for the rest of your life

I had enough of working for the days and months. Even though I still do it now  (because I have to), I know that my body won’t support me forever. It won’t let me go through 16-hour workdays as I put in now. Forget working, I’d barely be able to sit for an hour straight. Hence, I need residual income. To get anywhere close to that on SFI, I have to be an EA, every single month. So, it’s a no-brainer – get your EA status and keep it for life.  I’ll bum on the streets if I have to, but I’ll maintain my status. You should do it too.

You think $30 a month is too much? I paid $500 just for rent when I started my business. I was bleeding through my soul to pay that. What the heck is $30? That’s the cost of 15 cigarette packs, where I live. It’s the cost of one night out on a drinking binge in a lousy bar people puking around you. Without knowing it, you are spending these $30 somewhere you shouldn’t be spending.

Buy S-Builder Co-op Units

The cost of one share of an S Builder co-op unit is less what it’d cost me to advertise on my local daily for 3 days in total – a scrawny, little, seemingly insignificant ad lost in heaps of other ads.  I wouldn’t find it, let alone customers finding it and taking action. It’s less than the cost to make crappy flyers that would be crushed and thrown into waste paper baskets. Buying S-builder Co-op units wont’ guarantee you affiliates. Further, there’s no guarantee that the affiliates you do get would work at all. Heck, what is the guarantee that my customers pay for my services I render today? What is the guarantee that I’d live?

I think it’s time to stop being such wussies and buy S-builder Co-ops because it automatically gets me affiliates and saves me time. Even If I earn $10 an hour (which is a rate I’d never work at), I’d profit from my investment in 3 hours.

In turn, I have a huge, piling list of affiliates. Some of them will work, some won’t. As I keep doing my part of motivating them, some will. If you go by sheer numbers, I’d easily have plenty of EAs, EA2s, and TLs stacking up in my genealogy. Note this thread. Talk to me in 3 years. I’ll provide a snapshot of what I did. I am that confident.

Bid on 50 CSA auctions, T Credit packs, and others

I was in Vietnam recently and someone stole my Macbook Pro along with my Amazon Kindle and a bunch of cards. The other day, a Kindle Fire was sold for less than a dollar on one of those Pricebender Auctions. I wished I could bid then (damned my credit cards were stolen). I lost stuff worth $3000 and I know the value of a bargain especially in times like these. So, bid on Pricebender Auctions. As a customer, you’d love it.

Further, you have auctions for 50 CSA auctions, T Credit packs, etc., and you’d win bids for lowest prices you can think of. Go and invest in that. As you win 50 CSA packs and S-builder Co-op packs, can you imagine the size of your affiliate chain growing?

Have you ever heard of The 80/20 principle? Don’t crib about most affiliates not working. They won’t.

Sell Like crazy (learn sales if you don’t know how to)

I don’t understand what this hatred for selling is and where it comes from. If you think sales is a tough job or a dirty job, what do you have to say about some people who have to make a living cleaning toilets, selling little trinkets on the streets, and workers who sweat in the sun to get those skyscrapers up? What about those who work in the plants? What about police, the military, and others who risk their lives all the time?

Darn it! All I had to do was to persuade someone (and all of us persuade at onetime or the other – asking a girl out for a date, asking dad for a new bike, requesting friends to do something for you, and even showing up for the Interview is “selling”).

To sweeten the deal, it’s Internet marketing, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like some competing network marketing companies where you’d have to attend crazy meetings, jump like monkeys on a stage, go door-to-door to sell, or force our families and friends into it.

Internet marketing is all about maintaining websites, putting in your links, setting up social media accounts, write the living daylights out ( or hire someone to do that), and build links organically ( when you have good content, others will link).

Work on ECA
Since we spoke about sales, you should consider ECA as another stream of Income. Go out and meet 10 local merchants (or contact them online using chat) and put up the proposal for them. Out of ten, 3 will sign up. Merchants have nothing to lose and you have everything to gain. In a month, you’d have spoken to 100 merchants of which 30 will sign-up. With 10% income on all of the accumulated sales of their products (which 7+ million affiliates are trying to promote), do your math and let me know.

That’s how I’d run a business if I had to spend $30,000  in the first three months ( which I don’t have to) to have a business like SFI and if I were Gery Carson who signed up with an affiliate link into SFI in the year 2012.

The right business mindset

You thought running a business was easy? Of course, whatever it was that you thought, you’d realize by now that it isn’t. Now, you have two choices. Push all your savings into your own business to “experiment” and lose money if it came to that. Or, join an MLM business and learn how to run that business without any upfront cost.

While you join and try to run your MLM business, you train your mind to stand against all odds. You will train yourself to push through the expected difficulties. You will emerge stronger, or you will perish. If you emerge strong and successful, you win. If you lose, you don’t money at least and losing itself is another huge lesson (provided you were learning all the while).

Bootstrapping
With the right opportunity, you’d start with no money. There will be plenty of ways to make money, climb up the ranks, etc. The mind of every MLM business owner is naturally attuned to “bootstrap” – spend as little as possible and make the most of it. In normal businesses, it’s difficult to do that. But with the right online MLM business model (of which I know just one such business which is good, reliable, honest, and long standing), it’s easy.

What’s the catch you ask? You should be willing to work hard, learn, and apply.

Recruiting

Did you ever start a small business only to find out that you can barely find good people to work for you? Even if you do find some, attrition is a real pain, isn’t it?

But guess what? By the time you are ready to recruit, you’d have set up office space, get the business operations rolling, spent on advertising, and you’d have taken loans to run your business. You’ll recruit some. They’ll leave. You’ll do it all over again. It’s cumbersome. Isn’t it? It’s the same with recruiting people to your downline. In fact, it’s even more challenging because:

• You’ll try to find only those people who are hungry for success.
• You’ll not need whiners, complainers, and non-believers.
• You’ll have to find people who understand business, appreciate the “leverage” part in MLM, and those know that with enough work they could earn substantial sums of money but much later and not now (no instant gratification, you see?)

These kinds of people are hard to find. Most people need instant money. But by learning how to do this successfully, do you realize the importance of the recruiting skill you’ve developed by then?

Managing Teams

Now comes the management, motivation, “making people do what they should do” part.

Normally, you’ll take years to get to a managerial position in the corporate world. When you do, you’ll have a team of people to manage. How different is that from your MLM business? None whatsoever. When you climb up ranks, you will have your downline to manage.

The difference is that none of the members in your downline are answerable to you (they are answerable to themselves). You don’t have authority on them. You can’t fire them. You are hence forced to motivate, find ways to bring out the best in them, and make your team grow – against all odds. As a team leader in an MLM business, your work is even more challenging, which means that you learn better, and the hard way.

That’s way tougher than managing teams of people who are PAID to do what they ought to do but not everyone in the team does it. They get paid each month but not everyone does justice to their work, do they?

Marketing on a dime

To set your business off to a roll, you don’t have enough money. So you are forced to work with what you have. You have to work everyday. You manage to find ways to market your products, services, the opportunity itself through various means that don’t bite the wallet. You would bother by going easy when you are a marketing manager of a huge company with marketing budgets, would you?

Marketing is the core of every business. It is what finally fetches businesses money.  Thanks to your experience with MLM business, marketing on the dime is easy enough for you since you did it already.

Do you see where I am going with this? Robert T.Kiyosaki was right when he published the book Business of the 21st Century.

He had a point.

What do you think?