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MLM Math. The numbers behind the eFusjon comp plan.

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When you are looking to join a MLM you may find that some are VERY VERY complex while others are very simple.  Well I love math, and I always lean towards the very simple ones.  Complex MLM’s tend to not do as well as others, and also you never really know if it is all correct.  Some MLM’s are so complex that you are never quite sure what you are going to be getting paid.  I love math and I like to take a company comp plan and test it by pushing it to the max.  With most comp plans it is easier to do that by flipping it over, seeing how much the company has committed to pay out for any one sale.  Next I look at the MLM from a break even point.

So on to the math.  The MLM is called eFusjon.  My first thought was that they could not spell, I even had to Google how to spell it just to write this blog.  First off this business model is unique to anything that I have seen, it is very interesting and it is PURE math.  And I love math.  The way it works is very simple, you get paid $5.27 for each active person that is in your downline.  It is a 3 wide system, you have a left, center and right person.  But this is where it gets interesting, you share your left and right spot with other people who are to the left and right of your sponsor, the first one who fills the spot gets it.  If they put someone in under you then you are paid $1.20 per month on those people.  To be able to earn money you need to have three active people who you personally sponsored, and if they go inactive for 60 days their spot is erased.  The payment goes for 15 levels deep.  So when the whole system is full that means that 15 people are making $5.27 on your order, and as long as you are not in the center that other people get paid $1.20 off of your orders.  From my count this can be a VERY huge number, well if the company had millions of people in it and no one dropped out meaning that you had 15 levels full of people above you there would be (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15) 120 people who get the $1.20 override.  People.

So this means that on a $120 order that the company must pay out as much as $199.05 in commissions.  This is probably why they stopped paying $10 (Personal) and $5 (Sides) like when the company first started, because at that rate they would actually loose money on each order even with only 30,000 people in the company.  Of course a full system is over 100,000 people and only then would they start to pay out such huge numbers, but it will still be only half that get generate that much commissions for their upline.  I figure they need about 500,000 or so members for the system to stop working, and thus for them to be forced to change the system, I predict they will choose to change it once there is about 200k or so people in the company.  That may be some time from now, as there is only 30k at this time.  Also if people drop out that will also make holes in the chart which will also save the company money.  Of course they also need to produce the product for the $120 amount, and pay all of their bills.  One other thing that may save them is the fact that someone must recruit 3 before they get paid, and many never will do that.

The product is an energy drink, and it is healthy, and if I would buy it in the stores I would probably be willing to pay up to $1.50 or even $2.00 for a can, but I am really cheap.  Others would pay $3 with ease for a quality product that does what this does.  So lets say that it is worth $2 a can.  Well their price, with shipping and other fees is $166, for 48 cans.  So in my book you are getting $96 in product and paying $70 to participate in the MLM.  Now with a payback of about $5 for each person on your team you need 14 people to break even.  But it is much easier, because your upline can only put three people under each person so they must put people under you, and you get the full $5 for people in your direct upline, and $1.20 for people from the sides.  So if you find an active team you can quickly be in positive range.  If you find a superstar who can bring in 100 people in a short time then you would be making $500 a month.

So after looking at all of this, and crunching the numbers it all comes down to the team you are joining, and how many people you think you can bring in yourself.  So I looked at that.  The team that was showing me this has been in the company for less than 45 days, and they already have over 850 people.  They 2.8% of the entire company, and they are a group of builders that should have no problem putting in a 100’s per month.  Next the my good friend Fred was going to be directly above me, and he put in over 80 people in his last MLM in only 3 months, and that MLM was much harder to put people into.  Next I looked at the people I know, and how it would be easy to put at least a dozen of them in, and then they will put people in also, building a large group.  I know I need 14 people to make it even in my mind.  And with all of this I figured that 14 would be easy to get, I can probably even do it this month.  I need 32 to make this business totally free, and I think I can do that in the second month.  So I made the leap and I joined.  Most MLMs are built on math but most people who join them never look at the math.  I have looked at over 20 MLMs in the last 2 years and I have only joined 3 of them, simply because the math did not work on the others.  On those other ones there was no component of your upline building your team so on those I did not make money.   If you want to join in on my team will also receive the benefit of all of this, CLICK HERE to sign up, we will help you build into profitability ASAP.

I try to keep my personal brand to be that of Emerald Computers, the company that feeds me and pays my bills.  Most of the time that is all that I mention to people.   When I was looking at the math for efusjon I also took Emerald Computers into consideration, and that I may be able to sell computers, services, or websites to many of these people because of the fact that this company is very heavy into online marketing.  This made it a very easy decision, just from the few people there I already made two new clients who I should see this week.

One more final thought, another interesting part of this companies comp plan is the fact that you can sign up again and again under yourself.  So you can go a few levels, then you see a superstar, so you join again, and now you are double dipping, getting paid twice on their team.  It costs you $150 each month for each position so if you can create locations that pay more than that per month it is to your benefit to do so.  Plus you get more product to use.

I hope this helps, and I welcome any and all comments.

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1 Year Blogging

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Well this year is now exactly 1 year old.  My first entry was on the date back in 2008.  It has been an interesting year.  I expected to blog much more than I actually did.  I have so many ideas but many of them are already written by someone else much better than I could do it.  Then other times I have a great idea for something that I want to share with the world, but I either don’t completly form the idea and I figure that I would rather wait, or else I forget about it by the time I get to a computer.  I have tried to bring up interesting topics, such as my series on MLM‘s and my series on computers.

I have found some interesting stats while I have been doing this.  First off my article on How to select a laptop, is by far the most popular one I have ever wrote.   It has been the most popular article EVERY week after I wrote it.  Other entiries also have stayed popular for months, such as my article about Gold Prices, and one about a new Nigerian Scam that they tried on me.

If you do not subscribe to this blog I hope that you would.  I have a lot of ideas and I am also working on blogging about my new business I am working on.  I would love for people to follow along tell me what they think.

Thank you to all of my readers, I hope nothing but success for you in the next year.

I am torn between all that is possible

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Right now I feel that I am at a cross roads. I know so much, I know so much that I could never hold down a job, I know what it out there, and working for someone else is not an option. I am a true entrepreneur. Now that being said there is so much out there that I can do but I have limited time and limited focus. I choose to spend a good deal of time with my family because that is a priority. Let me tell you, my readers, what I am thinking about right now.
My main company for over a decade has been Emerald Computers. It was a great business from 1997 until about 2003 but then the industry changed, and got much more cutthroat and less fun. Also the profits dropped out. I lost my passion for it. Passion is a subject I have been thinking about a lot recently. If you do not live your life doing what you have have passion for you are living a wasted life. 80% of people can not stand their job, they can not stand what they now do for a living. 20% of the people their work is their passion, and they love to do it. For years I loved computers, not because of the technology but mostly because I could open peoples eyes up to what is possible and I loved that. But my business did less and less of that and more and more of the grinding out work that was not fun. When the passion left so did the profits. I went from averaging 70 hours a week working my company in 2002 to about 30 in 2005 to almost less than 5 in 2007.

I always was thinking about Real Estate, how it is a business where you make real things that stand there for many years. I know people that drive around a city and point out buildings they had a hand in making a decade before. Also I LOVE the art of the deal, where you negotiate price and terms and come up with a deal. It is like a huge game, trying to get the best for your side in every deal, nothing in business is more fun for me. Real Estate is the land of the largest deals, and the fastest way to make real big money. You can be creative and make transactions by bringing parties and ideas together in unique ways.

Now the problem with real estate is that you need knowledge or you need money. I don’t have this type of money because my computer company took it all, and my knowledge is all theory. I think I know at least 90% of what I know, but every time I think I have it all figured out I find out more I don’t know. Because of this a fear has set in so I do nothing, which is the worst thing of all to do. When you do real estate with no money to invest you will find the deal every now and then but it is far from steady, so I wanted to have something that was more steady.

Because of this I started looking for a MLM, because before Emerald Computers, and even during it I made some good money in the world of MLM business. With all the tools I have for online marketing and communications I figured I would have a huge advantage at any MLM that I would join. So I spent a good deal of time looking into everything that I could do. After looking for months almost all of the major MLM businesses that I saw were promoting a health product that they produced for $5 and sold for $50. I figured out that I really don’t have a passion for doing a MLM that is based on a health product, I think deep down that many of these don’t work, and that even if they do I don’t want to spend my life selling them, I have more important things to do.

So after a while I decided to work with a company called Nouveau Riche. What they do is have a college right down the street from my house. For 1 week every two months they teach a full week of really high quality classes about Real Estate. I bought the CD version of these classes, they were good. Next they provide a community of investors. It all sounded really great, just what I wanted to do. Then I really pushed it hard, trying to find people to invest with, trying to find people to pay to go to the college. They had an event where you could invite people to and they would have a 6 hour sample of classes that were taught by the school. I had been to them in the past, and they were great. At the end they would have a short 30 minute sales pitch for the college. This time there was new leadership and they promised it would be even bigger and better than before. I was really excited. I invited over 100 people. I got 40 people to say they would be there. It was all going well. Then on the day it was backwards, it started out with over two hours of hard sales, worse than if you went to a timeshare. That was followed by even more sales, and then an hour of decent education, followed by 2 more hours of hard sales. The people I had there all felt screwed, and lied to. They wanted education and what they got was this junk. After that day I have not gone to any meetings and have not talked to any leaders in the company, it was a bust for me.

So then I started looking a MLM that was for something that I could stand behind. I set down some rules. First it had to be something that was a good value, it had to save people money or make them money. Next it had to be something that was product driven, I wanted to product to sell the company. (One of my best friends Fred Coit is a big leader in Monavie and they have a great product driven company.) But next I wanted to do something that I would have a passion for. Last I wanted something with no marketing restrictions. You many not know that most MLM companies have many restrictions on how and where you can market, and I wanted something I could hit heavy online, and be creative with my marketing.

After about 2 months of looking I finally decided on SendOutCards, they offered a product that was only 1/3rd the cost of the competition with better service, it was product driven meaning that most people in it only really promote the product. I think that they are the BEST MLM for my style.

Now I am torn. What do I do with my days, I have a computer company, I have a ton of time, energy and passion devoted to getting into the real estate business, which is my true passion. And now I have this new business that is really fun and has a great product. For the last two month I have been floating. I have been like my 10 month old son, I focus on whatever seems the best at the time, but I may change on a whim. Last week a typical day was for me to wake up and talk to a few computer customers, then talk to a real estate agent about some houses then call a few people and tell them about SendOutCards. For the last few months when people ask me what I do for a living I really don’t have a good answer for them. I was at a meeting last Wednesday where I stood up and talked about Emerald Computers and SendOutCards, handed out flyers for SendOutCards and business cards for Capital Active (The Real Estate Company). I must have seemed very confused to some of these people.

So this is where I sit now. Emerald is the business that is putting food on my table, it is what I live on but every time I want to make money I have to trade large amounts of time for it. Sometimes it is easy and I get a call and make $500 in 2 hours, other times I make calls all day and make nothing. SendOutCards could be a huge business and with two months of good effort I could have a team large enough that I could pay all my bills from the money it makes. And Real Estate could make millions with ease and joy if I could get all the pieces to the puzzle together.

So my question for my readers, is this multitasking normal for someone who is a serial entrepreneur, and what would you do? This is interactive so please leave a comment, I will reply to them.

The best MLM for me, and why

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I finally did it, after about 3 months of research, investigating, going to meetings and trying to figure out what I wanted I finally selected the BEST MLM that I could find.

I have been in many MLM / network marketing companies, I have been to hundreds of meetings over the last 15 years, I have built teams, I have sold products, I have marketed many things but this is the first time that I stood back, and researched the pros and cons of different MLM concepts. You may remember back in April I wrote a series of blogs about the idea of a MLM. You can read them HERE, HERE, and HERE. I never wrote the last two in the series because I was still doing my research. In the process I actually joined 4 other MLM companies even before I was sold on them and all of them did not pan out. But now I finally found the best MLM company I have ever seen, more on that later.

So what makes this company better than anything else I have ever seen. There are so many reasons why. Read these reasons and compair them to any MLM that you are looking at.

Well first it is a product that EVERYONE can use, it is easy to understand, and everyone has a need for it. It also is something that you can easily prove, too many MLM promote a product that you just have to have faith that it works. (Most nutritional companies.) But for me the MOST important reason I think that this is the best MLM is because it is a great value, cheaper than normal way of doing things, and the reward of using this product is measurable and instant. You can sign up and start making money the same day, and with only three sales you are already in the black, in MOST MLM companies it is very hard to become profitable, in this it is easy. There is no other company doing anything even close to what they are doing. They are old enough to have their act together but not too young to be saturated. They are in a multi-billion dollar industry and with a radical new way of doing things will take huge market share from the two companies that have over 80% of the market share. Another thing I really love, is that everyone who hears about this product says something like “Of course that is a better way to do it, sign me up.”

If you are in a MLM now, or are thinking of joining one read that list and objectively think about how the company you are with stands up to all of these things.

The name of the company is something you probably never heard before. It is Send Out Cards. What they do is print and mail physical greeting cards that you select, customize and order online. It is a great business tool, allowing you to follow up and keep in contact with all of your co-workers, customers and business contacts. It is also a great personal tool, helping you make the people around you feel good. If you would like to try it out right now I have set up a special offer for all of my blog readers, you can CLICK HERE and you will receive a free account where you can send out two cards to anyone you like, you can play with all the features and see how it works.

Even if you are already busy building your own business you need to look at Send Out Cards as a marketing tool for that business. What would happen if you were able to follow up with EVERY prospect 2-3 times? What would happen if you sent a thank you note to each of the top 20% of your customers, how much extra business would they bring in. Think about it, try out a demo now.

I hope this blog shows some light on your journey to success. If you are looking for the best network marketing company around this one may be for you, it may not.

How to pick a MLM company, and what to stay away from.

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There is a huge range of different MLM companies out there in the world. Some are small, some are huge. Some sell a product some have services. They all have a good sales pitch, and they all promise success. But how do you go through all of these and find the ones that you can be successful at? How are companies different from each other? What should you look for in a good MLM Company? How do you do all of this while not being taken?

Well there is a very wide variety of MLM companies out there. At this time there are about 5000 MLMs with a sales force of over 5000 people. There are 100 or so really successful ones out there. For this blog I will keep it all concept, in the next blog I will name names and rate companies that I know of.

To me one of the FIRST things that I look for is the ROI, this means how many sales do I need to make to get my money back and start making profit. I also look at the cost of maintaining the membership, the value of the product, the support of the team.

One of my main tests of any MLM that I look at is the source of the money. Most good MLMs out make all of their money off of selling a product or service. They have to have a good product because this is where the money is made. But at the same time there are MLMs that focus on recruiting, and almost all of the money being made is from a huge ($300+) fee that new recruits must pay. Almost all of this money is paid to the upline. In many of these companies almost all of the money is being made from the recruiting fees. If you think about this, it is not sustainable. And I feel that this is unethical, you are promising people a dream, and taking their money, and the only way they can get to their dream is to take more money from their friends and family. And most of that money goes upline. In these companies history, and the math, shows us that about 1% of the people win big, 5% of the people win, 5% more break even and the rest LOSE MONEY.

When I tell someone that they can make it, and they can have success I want to mean it. I am NOT going to put my name on it if the chips are stacked against my friends. The first MLM I was in was, and still is, the largest MLM in the world. They had great motivational meetings, but almost everyone there was loosing money. On top of that they were spending a ton of time, and hurting many relationships by trying to force people to consume their products. You became good friends with the other people in the company, and you would have pressure to use the products, even though they were vastly overpriced, you also would be pressured to buy “tools”, overpriced educational materials. With all of this going on they had weekly meetings, monthly all day meetings and a few times a year they had 3-4 day conventions. All of these meetings had various costs, and you were told to come early and stay late. Even people who recruited 10-20 people into this company did not make money, if you counted the amount they were overpaying on their products. Almost everyone there was loosing money, but they were sold a dream, and they would hear from people who made the dream. Some would try for years never reaching success. Other would get 50 or so friends and family to join in, who were all loosing money so that they could make a decent income.

Other companies that I have seen have a product where you make very little on, some as little as $1 a month for each customer, but these same companies have fees over $500 to join, and these fees are almost totally paid to the upline. I was presented a company last week where, as far as I could figure, over 80% of the money made in the program was ONLY from these recruiting fees. You can always tell these companies because they have a large fee to join and once you are in they tell you to focus on getting other people to join so that you can pay back your fee. Of course this all is great for the person on top, but for me, I can’t ethically build a company like that where for me to have success I have to hurt other people. Yes they have a chance to make it, but that chance is slim, and for them to have success they also must hurt others financially. Personally I like to stay away from ANY company that pays for recruits. I want it to be easy for people to sign up.

There is a semi new evolution of this concept. This is where, instead of a large recruitment fee there is a smaller monthly fee. Some companies even go so far as to charge a monthly fee for you to have a website so that you can sign up other people. And they have yet another fee to be allowed to sell their products. They call it a technology fee. I am in the computer industry also and I know to make a dedicated server with a self replicating software on it costs about $50 a month to maintain, and such a server could host tens of thousands of associates. So if they are charging $40 a month PER USER that is a huge profit. $30 or so of this money was paid to the field and the rest was kept with the company. I talked to a lady there, who was making great money, she had recruited over 1100 people. I ask her if more than 100 people have broken even and her answer was “ I think it about 100” That means that over 1000 people paid $350 to sign up, and $40 a month for months on end and did not make any money. The even worse part was that they sold a product that was very bad. I was in a meeting with the leaders of this company, as they presented it to me and some other people looking at the company. At the end we asked them if they have ever even used the product they are selling, and to our surprise and horror not even ONE of these leaders had ever used the service that they sell. It was crazy. Their response to the objection that many of us had to the monthly fee was that “If you personally find 6 other people to pay the fee each month yours will be waived”. To me this was a horrible answer. I told all of my friends in this company to quit, and they did. (I tend to have that result, the last three people who were new in a company that was bad and presented the idea to me I showed them logically how it was bad, and the next day they were quitting and getting their money back.) A pyramid scheme is a company has NO product at all and all the money is made from the new people paying the people who have been in longer. This company has almost no product of value.

Believe it or not there are many even worse companies. One company charges 1000 to join, and you have to then pass up the first few people that you get, with the full 1000 going to your upline, then you start to find more people to sign up and you get the full 1000 from them and also from the first two people that they sign up. So what is the product, you will laugh at this. The product is a $20 a month website that allows you to sell the $1000 memberships. If you stop paying the $20 a month you then lose your chance to make money off of other people. The guy who thought up this whole plan has over 100,000 people now paying him $20 per month. All this running on servers that I bet cost him a few hundred per month at the most. What a smart, devious idea.

Now that you know what is bad, I don’t want to give the impression that all companies are bad, far from it, many companies have great products, and a great plan for paying people back. Later this week I will release the blog about that. That being said not every company is right for every person. Some companies focus more on selling products, and other focus on team building. Some sell services; some have just one product, while others sell 1000’s of products. Some are online while others are almost totally offline. Find a product, and a management style that fits you. Don’t just take any opportunity simply because it is presented to you. Find one you will love to represent.

Another key to finding a product is the size of the industry. If you are in an industry that almost everyone needs you will do better than in an industry that has very few people. You also need to look at the profits in that industry. Some industries have huge profit margins while others are very small. The phone industry is huge but the profits paid out to the mlm companies that sell phone service is VERY SMALL simply because competition has forced prices down. Most MLMs sell very low priced items, and these are items that people don’t need that many of. If your company sells something that only makes $10 a month there simply is not much money to work with, you will have to build a huge group to make life changing money.

About 60% of all MLM companies are Health and wellness related. One major reason for this is because health products can be marked up a lot. A $50 product may only cost $5 to make, this gives a lot of room for profit for the company and for the distributors. Another reason that the health products sell in MLM well is because most of them need to have a fairly large explanation for people to use them, and the normal retail channel just does not provide this. Most of these companies have a few core products, or maybe only one that they sell. In general these products do provide some help in our vastly malnourished society, and are fairly profitable to sell. For me personally I have no passion for this, and even if someone uses the product as they should the profit will still probably be under $30 per month for each person you sign up. I know many people who have made it big selling such a product, they have found many people who also found many people and they are making nice 6 figure incomes as a result.

Another major area are companies that sell many products, some they make themselves while others simply get a discount from products made by other companies. Everyone can find something that the company sales that you will like. The problem with most of these companies is that for them to be able to pay the kind of money that people want they have to mark up these products much more than you could find the same products for elsewhere.

One of my great product type is the financial services type. Most everyone needs investment help, a mortgage, insurance, or education. These are items that traditional methods charge huge amounts, these are also items that a large percent of many budgets goes to. One MLM that I was in originated mortgages. The fees charged to the customers was typical of the industry, and yet were still 3000 and more per sale. As you can see, even with a small team it was easy to make money doing this. On your first sale you made more money than all of your first year expenses. In my mind this was a great MLM, the only problem is now there is a credit crunch and it is very hard to get mortgages approved. Most people in this company have quit, and it would not surprise me if the company is gone before the end of 2008.

RULES. People want to join a MLM for the freedom they have to run their own business, but many MLMs have so many rules that they place on their distributors it almost feels like a commission job. Before you join a company look to see what rules you will have to live by. One MLM I know of states in their policy that they “OWN” anyone who signs of for their company and if you mention another business idea to them and they leave the first company you will be punished for theft. Other MLMs, say that you can’t sell their products anyway other than person to person or at their website. This limitation will make it much harder to be successful. Many companies won’t let you discount the products. Most won’t let you be in multiple MLMs at the same time and use your contacts from one to build the other. Most will not let you have your own marketing, your own website for the company and even your own business cards. Before you join a MLM decide what rules you are willing to live by and make sure that the one you are joining allows you to operate in the way you want to.

One last thing to look at is the stability of the company.  Is this a company that had been around for a long time or something that just started.  Most new companies may not survive and they usually don’t have all of the bugs worked out, but you can get in on the ground floor and be at the top.  A company that pays out a ton of money may look good, but if the company can’t make profits you may find one day that they are gone and so is all your hard work.  I also find it VERY hard to deal with a company that is always changing the compensation plan.  I understand as they get bigger you need changes, but I have seen companies that made 8 changes in a year.

Also you need to have a company with an easy to understand compensation plan.  I have been to meetings where the compensation plan is so complex that none of the leaders fully understand it, they simply keep asking you to “Trust the Company” and that the money will all come out right.  If you can’t explain the whole compensation plan in 30 seconds it is just too complex.  This will make it harder to build, and harder to see the direct results of your actions.

So the bottom line, find a company where you can make money, has a product/service you like and a team and system you would like to work with. Do this, then build it big and you will have great success.

I hope this helps. This is the third blog in this series. Please click here for the first one.

I could write 10 more pages on this but I feel that I have hit the most important points already.

What you need to get set up for a successful MLM business

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This is the second article in my series on the MLM concept. Here is the first one with links to the rest.

I am going to define success as a business that is large enough to replace your entire normal income and also make a large positive change on your lifestyle. To be successful you first need to have a success mindset. You need to know how to make sales, how to make presentations and you need a team

For this blog I am going to assume that you have all of this in place and it is time to get started. Here is what else you need to get started quickly. These are the tools that I use.

Computer: You MLM is probably online, and you need to keep track of your customers and use your computer for marketing. (If you need a good deal on a computer go to Emerald Computers)
An office: You need a place where you go to work. This can be in your house or outside. It should be easy to bring potential customers there to talk with. I like to have a desktop as my main computer because you can use it longer with less fatigue. A laptop is also very useful.

Ok those are obvious, as should be having a good vehicle and an email account.

Now let me get a bit deeper, on what you need. I will assume that you are building an online business because most MLMs now are mostly online.

First you need your own domain name. You company has a web page and a domain name, but they control that. You need your own, something that is good for what you do, easy to spell, easy to remember. You then will get an email address on your domain. Never run a business using the email address from your ISP or one of those free sites like yahoo, msn or gmail, it really looks bad to many people. I use GoDaddy for my domains, it is cheap, had good support and works well.

Next you will want software to track your contacts. We use a program called ACT. With this program you enter in all the information about the people you are contacting. It them allows you to keep notes about them, update the info when you are on the phone, and most importantly it reminds you of the times you need to follow-up with these people. I also use a Palm Pilot to take all of this info and make it mobile, so that I can access and update it on the road.

Next you will want an auto-responder to manage your emails. What this does is track all of your contacts that wanted to be added to your various mailing lists. You also can preset automatic mailings, and send mass broadcasts to your prospects. There is much more you can do with it. I use a company called GetResponse and for the $150 a year I pay I get unlimited usage and it is well worth it.

Next you need your own website, you can make a simple site that you control. You should have a site for your prospects to visit. Another for your customers to visit and yet another for your team to visit. You need to learn about making a squeeze page, a way to extract data from your customer to feed to your auto-responder. I use a company called PrecisionWeb for my hosting. They offer much more than others for a great price. Check out the main Capital Active site for a great example of a basic page.

Next you should join networking websites like linkedin, Myspace, YouTube and make sites here for your business. You also can find many people who may be interested in your products.

Next it helps to have a blog, it is great way to establish yourself as an expert, as well as get a following of people finding out about you. It also really helps get you on top of the search engine results. I use wordpress because they are free, easy to use, fast and give you a ton links.

I found a lady who seems to have done everything PERFECT. I don’t know her, I just found her site from her blog today. She has her own great domain wealthcreatorsinc.com, and a nice blog. But you may not notice the two most important things she did, she made her page a squeeze page, where you must give her your information to go on. And second she DID NOT mention the name of her MLM this keeps you courious and willing to go on, and it lets her advertise without worrying about the rules of her company.

Next you need to create business cards with YOUR business name on it. I would suggest NOT to use business cards with the name of your MLM on it, they limit your advertising, and they are less flexible when you are marketing. Now carry many of these cards with you wherever you go. I hand out over 80 cards per week on average. More important than getting your card out is getting the cards of other people. I usually flip them over and write on the back details of what we talked about so I can remember.

I also often print up fliers with an upcoming event on it, as well as info about my website. Using this you can get a few more people a month to join your team.

You now need professional clothes. Depending on where you live you will have a different dress code. For Arizona pants and a nice button up shirt is good for most meetings. For the east coast you should wear a suit most of the time. No matter what, you need to have a suit for special events.

When I leave my house, I always have my Palm Pilot, my wallet with at least 20 business cards, my keys, my cell phone, an ink pen, a comb for my hair and usually I have my green laser pointer because it comes in handy all the time.

Well I hope this helps you be more successful.

The truth about the MLM business concept

Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, MLM, , , ,

This is a business blog, and to million of Americans the face of business is a MLM. Over 100 million Americans have been in a MLM during some part of their life, and no business blog would be complete if it did not address this issue. So I will write a series on this subject.

I am sort of an expert in this area. I have been in many MLMs myself, I have had great success with some and failure with most. I have researched the MLM concept from every angle because at one time I was thinking of starting my own MLM. I have known the owners of different MLMs and I have seem many different ideas.

So what is my take on all of this. In short, my take is that the MLM idea is a way for average people to get into business and have the chance for success fairly quickly, but there are many pitfalls to avoid. A good MLM will provide training, have a good system, have a good product and pay well. This sounds easy but in reality MOST MLM companies that I have seen do not meet these four simply requirements.

The reason that the MLM idea is so powerful is because of a few different things. First most MLMs have a system in place, so it is easy to get involved and easy to get started, and you can do this part time. You put as little or as much effort into it as you like. Next the system is usually designed that anyone can do it, with even a little education you can be successful. The next strength of the MLM concept is that you can start it with very few resources. Most businesses that you start cost thousands to start but a MLM can cost under $100 to buy in and usually under $1000 to get everything set up. Next you usually have a team of people supporting you, trying to make you successful. Next you can bring on other people and duplicate your self and your income. They can be helping you make money at the same time that you are making money.

Now the MLM idea also has some weaknesses. One weakness is tied to the power, and that it the idea of being able to do it part time from home. With a job you must work the hours that you are told to work, but with a MLM you can choose, and most people (Honestly) are lazy and when they are their own boss they choose to do very little. The most successful people I know in MLM companies treat it like a job, they work 40+ hours a week at it and MOST of them rent an office so it feels like a real job. The idea of success from home is mostly a myth, it is much easier having a separate place and time to work, or else the work often does not happen. Another weakness is that many MLMs take most of the money that you earn and give it away to pay the whole system, so if you are a super star sales person you may not do as well. Another major weakness is that you really don’t control your business, the MLM company sets rules on what you can and can not do, and they have the right to make changes to the system they can change the prices of the products or even the rates in the pay plan. They also usually will set rules limiting your marketing, your website, and even your business cards. Also in many MLM companies you can get caught up focusing your time on many things very loosely related to making money, you will attend countless meetings, where you usually hear the same things over and over, leaving you little time to actually grow your business. This is helpful at first but later this can be very bad.

There are a few good MLMs out there please read the next articles on how to find them. In future articles in this series I will address the following topics, once the articles are posted these will become links: