Ann Sieg- WARNING!

No, not “everybody wants what we have”. If they did, they would do it.
No, products “never sell themselves” . If they did, no one would ever need to promote them, right?

If you are just entering the arena of Web 2.0 also called social marketing or social networking, it may just feel like you’ve stepped into chaos. One day of social marketing…and you have 1,000 new passwords and log in links. You probably generated some affiliate links along the way, too. If you’ve gone and joined 10 networks and 6 forums, is your desk and monitor plastered with post it notes of your log-ins?

Copyright 2007 by Karen Hurd Enterprises, Inc.

The Network Marketer’s Bill of Rights

I’ve been studying David Sandler’s selling system in “You Can’t Teach A Kid How to Ride A Bike in a Seminar”. As I’m reading his approach to sales and working with people, I realized that underlying all of his work is a basic respect for the sales professional, which includes network marketing professionals. After doing some Google searches for “Sales Person’s Bill of Rights” I was furious! It seems that everyone has rights except for those in the sales and network marketing professions. Now there is! I was inspired to create a “Network Marketer’s Bill of Rights”.

My little disclaimer. The vast majority of MLMers are good honest, hard working people creating a better way for their families. If you are using unethical methods, luing to your prospects, promising the moon and delivering rock dust, the rights don’t apply to you. (clean up your act).

The Network Marketer’s Bill of Rights

1) You have the right to be proud of your chosen profession. No apologizing, hiding, or masking what you do.

2) You have the right to be treated as a trusted advisor. This assumes that you act like one.

3) You have the right to a yes or a no, and refuse the “I’ll think it over” stall.

4) You have the right to protect your time from prospects and distributors who want your attention, but never order or activate their businesses.

5) You have the right to an honest answer about your prospects ability to buy, participate in your offering, and their decision making process. This allows you to protect your time and stay out of “chasing people”.

6) You have the right to expect your prospects and distributors to show up for appointments and training because you always show up.

7) You have the right to determine how you will run your network marketing business and with whom you will do it. You have the right to reject any selling situation, distributor, or prospect that is not in your best interests.
You have the right to be paid for your expertise. You do not have to offer your hard earned expertise pro bono in the hopes of an order or enrollment. You have the right to refuse to bargain about your price or service.

9) You have the right to fail in your network marketing business and the freedom to learn how to do it right, without your performance being the issue for new distributors. No human gets it right the first time. Network Marketing has proven its value as a distribution model. You are not on trial.

10) You have the right to earn outrageous amounts of money in your business because you learned how to use the leverage principal to your benefit.

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.coolbiz4u.net/
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We’ve all heard stories about the teenage kid who builds an online marketing empire. Overnight. In his bedroom. In between playing XBox 360 and doing his homework. Or the network marketer who builds a massive organization from zero in just 90 days using the internet. (Funny they never say HOW they did it….they just “showed the plan” more). Like other eager beavers, I entered online marketing with visions of massive opt-in lists in just 30 days….generated for free! It didn’t happen quite that way.

Your web presence builds if you keep at it. Online marketing is absolutely the best way to build your network marketing business for the long term. Not everybody wants to do the old “warm market” thing. Not everyone has a Rolodex of contacts. Marketing MLM online levels the playing field.

Here are a few things I learned in navigating the online marketing jungle.

When it comes to marketing online, remember that the ‘net is like a river. Go with the flow. Things change. HOW you get the word out will change. Bet on it, and don’t get locked into any one method. Some folks use off line advertising and use their website or system just for presenting and training. Others prospect online exclusively. Most do a combination of the two.
Outsourcing (paying someone else) may be very wise. Almost every type of online marketing can be outsourced. Buying leads is a form of outsourcing.

There are some things, like article marketing, blogging and forums that keep your link alive for years. You can pay to have others write your articles and blog entries – some go as cheap as $8/article. You still have full copyright privileges.

Things like social networking (thousands of sites for that) are basically the same kind of prospecting and meeting people online that you do offline. The only downside to some of these sites, is that it’s you and a zillion other network marketers fishing in the same spot. The communication often becomes trading opportunity pitches. Still there are hundreds of thousands of forums. Find one you enjoy. Share. Participate. Build relationships and trust. Your customer and distributor base will grow.

Most MLM companies offer replicating websites for their distributors. Most are poorly designed, difficult to navigate and don’t have capture forms. In short, I wouldn’t market my MLM replicating site. Instead I would build a capture or landing page for that replicating site.

What about SEO? Most network marketers rely on replicating sites athat aren’t indexed by the major search engines. Yes, page 1 of Google is the most important piece of real estate in the world for your keyword. Absolutely. So if you can build a good site and get a handle on SEO or pay big bucks to a webmaster, go for it. The key in MLM is duplication. I personally don’t think that teaching SEO to my team is duplicatable. I know several successful online marketers that don’t even rely on SEO as a primary means of driving traffic to their sites. They do some, but it’s not their main focus.

I don’t build my own websites. HTML code fries my little brain. I do build capture pages, blogs and my Squidoo page. Building websites is too time consuming for me. I’ve done it out of necessity, but would rather have a webmaster. I use replicated marketing systems that handle all of those website details for me. I give up control of content for ease of use and freeing up my time for prospecting. The key in MLM is duplication. I personally don’t think that teaching SEO to my team is duplicatable.

The name of the game, no matter what you do is this: Build the biggest opt-in list you can. PERIOD. Drive as many of those as you can, on your list to the website of your choice . It is the website’s job to convert that traffic into customers or distributors. That’s it in a nutshell.

The Good news is that there are lots and lots of ways to get traffic to your sites. The “bad news” is there is not a universal starting point for everyone. Here are some things you can do, in no specific order. For best results, do as many as you can manage.

1) Article marketing
2) Blogging
3) Social Networking
4) Newspaper ads and other offline advertsing
5) Business cards
6) Email marketing (this is the opt-in list)
7) Calling people on the phone
PPC (pay-per-click- VERY competitive and $$ if you use Google or Yahoo) but there are other search engines
9) Link exchange
10) Forums
11) Safelists – these come in a variety of forms
12) Traffic exchanges (better for capture pages and freebies like free reports)
13) Decals on your car
14) Buying targeted leads
15) Link submitters (some are good, some are bad).

Note: some directories like DMOZ won’t take ANY network marketing sites or anything related to MLM or any MLM distributor…probably a way around that. I submitted this blog , MLM MANIAC…we’ll see…..

16) Offering a free report in exchange for contact info (see http://www.cinchme2.com)
17) Even a T-shirt or baseball cap with your web addy on it!
18 ) Viral marketing- someone loves what you do and tells the world about it.

OK where do you start??? Pick just one technique and learn it. Offline advertising directed to your capture page is probably the easiest. Then join a couple of networking sites and forums. Learn to master one technique and then add another. Then another. Pretty soon you will have several avenues that are driving traffic to your sites, and yes, the search engines will probably pick up your site. Just start somewhere!!!!!

For More tips and ideas, subscibe to my Ezine:
“Online Guerilla Marketing Tips for MLMers”
at: http://lifestylcreatr.blogspot.com

About the Author:
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Karen Hurd is a mother of 5. She built her business during the kids’
naptime, and now she makes money while she sleeps. She has a passion
for helping people to succeed. Her favorite home based business can be
found here: http://www.coolbiz4u.net