Network Marketing Tricks

Have you ever tried promoting Clickbank products? Have you ever tried promoting any affiliate products using PPC? Would you like to have a system that allows you to produce a solid income online, with reliable results?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of those questions, you need to head over to Online Business Logic and read my review of the Commission Blueprint system. It’s by two fairly unknown marketers who have made an absolute fortune online and are now sharing their secrets to using Clickbank.

You can also see a squidoo lens on The Commission Blueprint

In an attempt to keep this blog purely about Network Marketing, I have started a new Online Business Blog which will cover Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, creating information products, Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, Outsourcing and much more… In fact, anything related to building and running and successful business over the Internet as opposed to just running a Network Marketing business.

Over time, the site will also include tutorials and articles covering everything from setting up your own blog to getting the most from a PPC campaign and I’m also porting some video tutorials from 1daywebmaster.com (a site that teaches web design) and including some of those on the site. There will also be reviews of Internet Marketing products and services and a tools section.

Be sure to check it out the new site and leave some feedback via the comments… It’s a resource for YOU so let me know what you want to see on the site!

Today is the first national Work from home day.  Up to five million people shunned their daily commute today in order to work from home.  In fact, working from home has become more and more popular in recent years with an increase of 600,000 full time home workers in the past decade.

It is estimated that around 3.5 million Brits currently work from home (around 12.5% of the working population), and many more are choosing to tele-work every week.   The Southwest is leading the country in this with over 15% working from home.

“The benefits of working from home, even occasionally, are now widely accepted,” said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK.

“Not only does it reduce the amount of commuting people have to do, enhancing their work-life balance, but many are actually more productive.

“Although many organisations practise the age-old philosophy of ‘presenteeism’ they should open their eyes to the new work ethic spreading across the UK and try out home working. They may well be surprised.”

Of course, as a Kleeneze distributor I’m very used to working from home.  On the odd days when I do need to drive into town during rush hour it only serves to remind me of what’s so great about running a home based business - freedom!

For the first time in UK franchising history, the industry’s annual turnover has broken the £10 billion barrier, making franchising one of the most successful routes to own your own business. More importantly, according to a survey conducted between Natwest and the British Franchise Association, 92% of franchisees claim to be trading profitably – an increase from 88% in 2004.

Buying a franchise allows you to set up your own business without starting from scratch. You use a tried and tested formula, and benefit from the experience and support of the franchisor (the company offering the franchise). It also means you can enjoy all the benefits of self-employment with considerably less risk than if you started a business on your own.

Why Kleeneze?

The average investment for a franchise in the UK is £45,400, though this varies dependent on the sector. Around half of franchisees borrow money to set up – the average amount being £50,500. Kleeneze, on the other hand, costs between £75-£165 to set up and rather than wait six months to two years before you yield a profit, you can reap the cash rewards straight away with no overheads or employment or staff costs. In fact, you can be in profit with your new Kleeneze business within a couple of weeks! And of course, there are no restrictions on earnings – whether you’re looking to earn £50 a week or £400k a year, it’s entirely up to you.

FRANCHISOR INITIAL INVESTMENT TYPE OF BUSINESS

Kleeneze From £75
McDonald’s From £40,000
The Wheelie Bin Cleaning Co. From £9,975
Ovenclean £14,000
The Tanning Shop £25,000
Tumble Tots Ltd £6,000
Molly Maid UK £16,975

Considering most people wish to start their own business in order to have both financial and personal freedom, Kleeneze ticks all the boxes. As part of the Kleeneze network, one of the most important benefits of being a Distributor is the level of support you receive. Your team will help you to build and run your business successfully – the perfect fusion of being part of a growing Network while having the freedom to run a business that’s entirely your own.

Unless you pay off your credit card balance in full every month, chances are you’re sliding further into debt.  Of course, with a Network Marketing business it’s easy to earn a few hundred pounds a month extra to more than pay for the repayments, but here are some tips on saving money and avoiding the debt in the first place.

1) The ‘most expensive debt first’ trap

Your credit card bill probably includes several different types of debt. Money and interest you owe for products you buy, cash withdrawals and for any balances you have transferred from another card. You probably think that as you are using the same card for each you will be paying one rate of interest. Not always the case!  To make matters worse, the card company will not use your repayments to reduce the most expensive type of debt on your card!

In fact, your monthly repayments are probably being used to may off your ‘interest free’ or reduced rate debt, while you rack up interest on newer purchases and more expensive credit.

To avoid this situation, try and keep balance transfers on a different card to the one you use for purchases.  Also try to avoid using your credit card for cash withdrawals unless it’s a real emergency as this will cost you the most, and you’ll have to pay a handling fee too!

2) The ‘direct debit’ trap

Setting up a direct debit for monthly credit card repayments is a great idea. While  late payment fees are now capped at £12, these can be easily avoided by setting up a direct debit payment that will clear in plenty of time. There is a down side to direct debit though. Most card issuers will set up your debit by default to only pay the minimum amount.  This increases the life of the debt, and the total repayable, often meaning a debt takes 20 - 30 years or more to clear!

When setting up your direct debit, enter in the fixed amount you can afford every month. If your card issuer won’t accept this, continue to pay the minimum by direct debit, and pay an additional amount off each month by cash or cheque.

3) The ‘minimum repayment’ trap

Many people only repay the minimum on your credit card bill each month. This might seem to cost you less in the short term, but you could still be paying it off in 40 years as the tiny payments barely reduce the interest you owe, creating a debt cycle.

In most cases, just paying a few pounds more a month can dramatically cut the overall time it will take to clear your debt and save money. For example, on an average balance of £2,950.82 a consumer would pay £2,200 less in interest if they repaid 3% rather than 2% each month, and they would repay the full debt almost 15 years earlier!

If you have debts on credit cards, try to pay off what you can afford each month.  Start with the card that has the highest interest rates first and take advantage of interest free balance transfers when available.

4) Earn more to reduce the debt

A few hours a week running a Kleeneze home business could easily earn you £200 - £500 or more each month.  Just using half of that extra income to pay off your credit cards will get you out of debt many years faster, while putting extra cash in your pocket at the same time.  To find out more request one of our free home business information packs.

The ‘Credit Crunch’ continues as a study has shown that retired borrowers in the UK owe four times what they did 10 years ago.

The survey, by Help the Aged and Barclays, found that a quarter of people approaching retirement age have outstanding consumer credit commitments.

It said there had been “considerable growth” in sums of money borrowed by credit users, including older people.

UK consumers owe more than £1 trillion in secured and unsecured borrowing.

The reason for this debt is a combination of factors but one thing is sure, if more people realised that a simple home based business could not only bring in a few hundred extra pounds each month, but even lead to substantial residual earnings even in retirement, these figures would be very different.

While Help the Aged head of policy, David Sinclair, warns of a “ticking timebomb”, our industry is seeing massive growth and a bright future.  We are in one of the very few truly recession proof industries, and have the answer to so many people’s problems - we just need to spread the word and educate the public about this fantastic opportunity.

Budapest, Cannes, Marrakech… ???? The ‘European’ Conference destination keeps getting more and more exciting each year. Last year’s all expenses paid 5 star trip was to sunny Marrakech in Morroco but you can be sure they will top that this year.

The destination of course will be announced at the summer conference, Birmingham NIA on 14^th June but qualification has already begun. YOU can qualify for this amazing trip, no matter what level in the business you are currently at. Even if foreign travel doesn’t excite you, qualifying for a conference can only help your business – building belief and interest from warm market and prospects… and of course, if you aim for a conference and don’t quite make it, you can be sure to at least move your business forward and increase your income along the way.

Qualification Criteria is Period 4 to 9, INCLUSIVE.

The Internet really has changed the face of Network Marketing forever.  While come companies have been a little slow on the take-up, there can be no doubt that the Internet has made many aspects of this business, not least lead generation, much quicker and easier.  We really now all part of a global community and i’s just as easy to prospect and recruit people in another country as in your own town.  Technologies such as email, IM, VoIP, and of course the web mean that communication, even crossing language barriers, is quick, cheap and simple.  Almost every aspect of MLM has become easier due to Internet technologies but it’s lead generation that I want to focus on here.

The first point I want to make is that the Internet is not a replacement for traditional lead generation techniques, it’s not a ‘magic bullet’.  Restricting your activities to the online realm is only to place limitations on the growth of your business.  Think of online lead generation as just another ‘rod in the pond’, albeit one capable of catching a lot of fish.   Use the Internet in tandem with all of the other forms on MLM lead generation so ensure your success and massive growth.

The first thing you’ll need is a website.  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a simple ‘lead capture’ page with a form your visitors can fill out to receive information will suffice, although you do want it hosted on your own domain.  Since the cost of domain registration has dropped so low over the past 5 years there really is no reason not to have one.  Something short and simple is the order of the day although a bit of brainstorming will be required to find something suitable.  With billions of dot coms already registered you’ll need a bit of lateral thinking to come up with a catchy name.  There are loads of online utilities to help with the process, and you can also check expired domains which can often offer some great domain ideas.

Once you have your domain and have a lead capture page hosted you’re ready to start driving traffic.   There ar a multitude of methods to do this but here are just a few of the easiest and cheapest to get you started:

Forums

Forums are online meeting places for people interested in a specific niche.  You’ll find thousands with a quick search on Google but we can narrow that number down to something a little more manageable by selecting ones which meet certain criteria.  Since forums tend to frown upon blatant advertising we’ll be using a signature line to promote our site.  Not all forums allow links in signatures so a quick browse of the site is in order.  If most of the posts have one or two lines at the bottom with external links to other sites then you’ll be able to add the same to your posts (although you may have to post a minimum number of times, or be a member for a number of weeks before you’re allowed to in order to prevent spam).  You’re also looking for a high volume of traffic.  See how many active members are posting on a daily basis.  There’s no point in spending your time posting messages if only half a dozen people will read them.

Once you have found a suitable forum the key to success is to join in, and become part of the community.  Answer questions, post questions, join in on discussions and opinion polls and generally become an asset to the site.  Over time visitors on the forums will begin to recognise and respect you as a knowledgeable and helpful member of the site and will therefore be more likely to click that link in your signature file.

A word of warning - it’s very easy to get led into an argument on a forum.  If the conversation starts leading in a direction you’re not comfortable with then stop posting.  Posts debating the pros and cons of Network Marketing, or specific MLM opportunities are very tempting to post on, but it’s very easy to be flamed and made to look like a fool or a desperado.  Nobody will click on your link if you sound unprofessional, aggressive or annoying and you will find that people with opposing opinions to your own will try and lure you into a heated discussion.  So be professional at all times and if someone annoys you don’t rise to the bait.

Tomorrow I’ll look at some other ways of driving traffic to your new website.

Traditionally advertising in the press has been a mainstay for generating MLM leads. While newspaper and magazine advertising is less popular now than it once was, due in no small part to the Internet, it is still a highly effective tool if used correctly. It almost goes without saying that press advertising is more costly on the wallet than on time so for newer distributors on a tight budget this might not be the best solution. For established distributors and team leaders however, newspapers can be a great way of increasing your leads.

Short and simple is the order of the day. One or two sentence lineage adverts tend to be more cost effective than larger boxed or column. Running several of these small adverts in several papers seems to generate more leads than a single large advert but experiment and see what works best in your area. Don’t limit yourself to the business opportunity or jobs section. While some papers will insist you advertise there, others are less restricting. Remember that many potential prospects will not be actively seeking employment or business opportunities and therefore will not even glance at those pages. They may well respond though if they see your advert in the motors or property section.

It’s difficult to give guidelines on price since this tends to vary considerably depending on the publication, area and circulation. One important point though is that discounts are normally available for longer bookings (such as 6 issues for the price of 5) and that prices can be negotiated with many papers. Find out when the last date is to place an advert for the next issue. The closer to that date you are, the more bargaining power you have. If all of the advertising spaces are not filled to capacity the paper will be forced to run their own adverts (such as “call to advertise here”) but would rather fill that space with a paying advert. Time it right and you may get a great deal.

The cost of advertising in the national press, bigger newspapers and magazines, can be prohibitively expensive especially for newer distributors. I highly suggest sticking to small local papers, and the ‘free ads’ style classifieds. Also don’t disregard school and local organisation papers which can be very inexpensive and a great source of extra leads. If the lure of the national press with millions of readers is too much for you then consider starting an advertising pool. Get together with some other leaders in your group and pay for an advert between you. You’ll need to advertise with a separate phone number, email or website so you can distinguish leads to be shared with the pool. This can be a great way to advertise in bigger publications without the financial risk. No matter where you advertise though remember the golden rule, test and measure. If you advert isn’t getting much response it’s either due to the copy (what the advert says) or the publication. Change one thing at a time and keep track of what works best. Continue to tweak until your conversion rate increases.

Network Marketers have been generating leads for decades. Long before the advent of the Internet, the tools of the trade in this industry were business cards, leaflets and posters. These days many people seem to have forgotten about these old staples but in fact they are just as useful now as they were 20 years ago. Like thousands of other people, I discovered Network Marketing form a business card and so I know the power of this type of lead generation activity. I never leave the house without cards in my pocket and I often feel like Hansel and Gretel leaving a paper trail everywhere I go. If you get into the habit of giving people your card, leaving cards on shop counters, in waiting rooms and phone boxes, even placing them on cars, you’ll soon notice a marked increase in the number of leads you’re generating. You might think this is ‘old hat’ and that such tactics are outdated in the information age. That type of thinking however, will mean you are missing out on a massive amount of exposure for your business.

Using leaflets, either to letterbox or hand out in the street, is another form of advertising which is in decline. Yes it takes time and effort, but the beauty is that anyone can do it regardless of skill or budget. That makes is highly duplicatable and therefore something that shouldn’t be overlooked. This type of advertising is also highly targeted to your local area. That means that appointments can be used rather than information packs and signups will be easier to coach due to your physical proximity. As Edward Ludbrook says you should “Think global, and act local”. Of course you want to build a team all over the country and even overseas but the easiest way to do that is to build a good foundation in your local area first.

Posters are another example which are often overlooked. You do need to be careful and check the laws in your area as posters on street furniture, and especially near main roads and junctions can attract the attention of the authorities who do fine in some areas, but they do work. People will pass and read your poster every day on the way to work, but never read the job section of the local paper. How many prospects are you missing if you limit yourself only to certain types of activity?