Good Evening!
Here's a good question: What tools can a home-based business entrepreneur use to grow their business? What tools and skills should you be focusing on to achieve the growth in the business that you're looking for?
If you wanted to become a doctor, you would be required to go to school for a minimum of 8 years (up to 12, depending upon your specialty) before you would be allowed to collect income for your expertise.
If you wanted to become a lawyer, you would need to complete an undergraduate degree, as well as law school, before you would be compensated for your expertise.
If you wanted to be a software engineer, it would take a standard 4 year degree plus a masters degree before you are paid for it.
The point is this: In order to be compensated, you have to have a skill-set. The concept of "money for nothing" is a fallacy. A doctor has to have the skills to diagnose diseases. A lawyer must have the skills and knowledge of the law to help their clients. A software engineer must have the skills to benefit their employer.
I'm not going to get up on my soap-box or anything, but I will say that the world has a funny way of "balancing the scales". Today's marketplace does not reward incompetency.
So what kind of skill-set does a home-business or network marketer need to have to build a strong, consistent, long-term business?
To market a product, service, or opportunity, you must learn how to become a good communicator. You have to learn how to communicate with your target market. You have to communicate the benefits and value of what you have to offer.
Without doubt, there are people out there that need whatever it is that you're marketing. But if your market doesn't know how your products and services can benefit them, then how can you expect them to seek you out? If your target market doesn't know that you can help them, then you don't have a business. Period.
There are 3 fundamental tools that a network marketer or home-business operator can use to communicate with their market. Now, I want to be clear: if you have pockets deep enough, you can use really expensive techniques like using the radio, using infomercials, or using commercials to market your products or services.
The downside of those tools are that they are very, very expensive. In fact, if someone had that type of money, then they probably wouldn't have started a home-based business. Most of us don't have a half-million dollars in the bank to promote their products and services.
So here are the 3 tools of the MLM trade, the 3 skills that you can hone and perfect to communicate with your market:
Power-Tool # 1 - The Telephone.
Are you disappointed? It seems so simple, so basic. It might even seem like a downer, using the telephone to grow your business. But the telephone is one of the most powerful...most time-saving...most effective business growth tools anyone can use.
It has been said that more business is done on the golf-course than anywhere else. I disagree. I believe that more business is done over the telephone than anywhere else on earth. The telephone offers 2 distinct advantages:
A. - It's dirt cheap. It costs around $20 a month for unlimited telephone long-distance. Now, not everyone has access to the Internet, but nearly everyone has access to the telephone, so if you're building an organization, you want to be able to teach those that choose to join you in your business to use tools that they can absolutely master, and start mastering immediately.
B. - Efficiency. You can reach more people, in less time, than you could ever imagine doing in a "belly to belly" environment. You can run all around town, and talk to prospects in person, and if you drive really really fast, you might be able to talk to 10 or 15 people in one day. However, sitting at home, I can use the telephone to talk to 200 - 300 prospects in a single day. From a numbers standpoint, it makes a lot of sense.
Power-Tool # 2 - The Internet.
Why is it that everyone is obsessed with the Internet? Why do marketers believe that the Internet can make them rich? The answer is simple: Because it can.
The Internet is an extremely potent, extremely effective tool to grow your business. It is a bit more advanced than the telephone from a skill standpoint, and it takes a bit longer to truly master. However the rewards for mastering that tool far outweigh the effort it requires.
The Internet has been responsible to creating more millionaires (and even billionaires) in less time, than at any other point in the history of the world. Again, it is simply a tool to communicate with your market.
One of the added benefits of the Internet is time leverage. Your business builders may or may not choose to work one evening, and your downline might choose to be lazy. But if you have a campaign on the Internet, you know without doubt that the Internet will work extremely hard for you, even while you are sleeping.
Power- Tool # 3 - The Written Word.
The written word is the most powerful tool you can ever use to grow your business, hand down. Can you imagine have someone calling you on the phone, credit-card in hand, asking you to take their order? Can you picture what it's like to have someone fax you an order for your products and services?
That's the power of the written word. It works when you don't. It closes business while you vacation. It speaks to prospects, answers their questions, and creates the urgency to buy. It is phenomenally powerful.
Consider: My wife and I visited Hannibal, Missouri, this last weekend. Hannibal is where Mark Twain was raised. Mark Twain (aka Sam Clemens) has been dead for a very long time. And yet, the books that he wrote still create income for people. In other words, Mark Twain created a residual income with the written word that is so powerful...it continues to work even after he has physically passed on. That's the power of effective communication. That's the power of the written word.
Those are the 3 most important tools you can use to grow your business. Notice, I didn't put in 3-way calls, DVD presentations, flyers, business cards, product samples, etc.
Why?
Because all those items take away from your ability to correctly use Positioning to your advantage. Positioning is the art and science of developing a relationship with a consumer based on their needs, and your ability to satisfy that need.
Positioning allows you to develop expertise in the eyes of your prospect, to become a "problem solver". If you use a 3-way call, or a DVD or a product sample to close business for you, then you are deflecting your expertise to another source. When you do that, you diminish your ability to solve the problem for your client.
In effect, you are saying "I can't actually solve your problem, so why don't to talk to this person, or watch this video, and they will solve your problem". At that point, you become a gopher, not an expert. You lose your position.
Master the tools to grow your business, and get paid. These tools are powerful. I can tell you that these are the same 3 tools I use every day to grow my businesses, and they work. There's no magic here, no secret formula. It's amazing what one person, with the right skills, can accomplish.
I hope you've enjoyed this information. Until next time...
How To Make The Post Office Grow Your Business
Greetings! This is going to be fun, get ready to take some notes.
Warning: Using mail to grow your business is an advanced technique, and it's not cheap. Like any other marketing tool, there's a learning curve here, so be ready to pay before seeing a return.
Alright, now that we got that out of the way, let's get down to business. Using the mail to grow your business, whether you are doing an MLM or networking program, a retail business, or whatever, the process is exactly the same. First, here are the pro's and con's of using mail:
PRO's - You'll have ZERO competition. Ask your upline, downline, or crossline if they know how to use mail, and they'll look at you like you have two heads. Nobody uses mail, and that's what makes it such a sweet market. On top of that, the mail market is so deep, you'll never get to the bottom of it. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people that simply won't respond to a phone call or an email who will respond to a mail piece.
CON's - Like I said earlier, it isn't cheap. Also, when you are starting out, it's slow, because you have to wait to take out your ads, then wait for response, then wait for the mail to hit the street, etc etc.
How To Use Mail - If you live in a semi-urban area that has a decent sized library, you will find a very special book there called the SRDS (Standard Rates And Data Services). This book contains every consumer list on the planet, anything you can think up, it will be here. The bulk of lists you find here will be list rentals. Your first step is to get a hot list.
What do you look for in a list? Here are the keys you should be looking for when evaluating a list:
1. Similarity Of Product Purchase - Look, people are creatures of habit. Yes, we all like to think that we are totally original "one of a kinds", but the fact is that 90% of all people find a rut and stay there. For example, go look inside your fridge. Go on. Now, go back two weeks later, and you will probably see the same types of food. We are creatures of habit, and we are consumers of habit.
For example, if you were marketing a health beverage, the best type of list you can be looking for is someone who has used some sort of health supplement. Because if you are marketing a health beverage, it would be a pretty easy sell if you are targeting people that have already demonstrated the propensity to purchase your types of products. We are creatures of habit, so instead of trying to beg someone to try your supplement, why not make it easy on yourself and target people that are already demonstrating (by their buying habits) that they recognize the importance of supplementation.
2. Recency Of Purchase - This is really important. As in the explanation above, we want to make this as easy as possible, so if we are targeting people that used a supplement 10 years ago, we're in trouble. We want to target a prospect that sees the value of what we are marketing right now. Example: If I were marketing a legal services package (you all know what company I'm talking about) I would want to target people that had their identity stolen recently, and had to pay for their identity restoration costs recently, not 25 years ago. I want to talk with someone that currently sees the need, so look for a recent purchase.
3. Resources - Of course, you want to be putting your message in front of an audience that has the financial ability to take advantage of what you are marketing. So when you are going through the SRDS, look for the average cost of unit purchased, so that you can see how much these people are spending. If you are marketing a product that costs $3,612.00, then don't target a list that has paid an average unit cost of $4.23. You want to target a list that has a similar price structure, so that you know they're able to afford it. It would also make a lot of sense to specify a certain minimum credit rating with your list, so that you don't end up putting a lot of mail in front of people that can't afford it.
Alright, so you have a list, now what? Go get a lead-capture system. There are a lot of places out there, but you want you to be able to do the following:
1. Record a 24/7 message about your products and services.
2. Have multiple extensions to test on.
3. The ability to take messages left by prospects.
4. The ability to monitor how long your prospects are staying on the line.
5. The ability to capture your leads mailing information.
Like I said, there are a lot of places out there where you can do this. I personally use the ART system, it stands for Automatic Response Technology. I think it's $100.00 to set up, and like $49.00 a month for the service. Now, I'm not affiliated with these folks, I just use their service and it works well for this application, so again, I encourage you to do some research, because they're definitely not the only game in town.
So you have a list, you have a lead-capture system, now you need to test your list. You want to call about 30 - 50 numbers on this list, to make sure that this list is the real deal. The last thing you want to do is spend a few hundred bucks on a test, when you could have saved that money by taking half an hour to verify the data first.
Now you need to design your system. One of the most simple ways to do it is to do a postcard drop on your list to generate your leads, and drive them to your Free Recorded Message on your lead-capture system. Then, take the leads that responded to your postcard, and you can call them up and put them on a presentation, or you can mail them a sales letter. If you mail them a sales letter, you have to have some decent copy skills. If you don't have those skills, no big deal, just don't drop a sales letter, give 'em a call and put them on your teleconference presentation.
There are 2 key factors you should focus on when you are designing your system:
1. Mathematics - You need to go through and do some math. If you have a decent postcard drop, you will generate 3% - 5% response rate. Then if you call them, you will only physically speak with 60% of them, and if you put them on your presentation call, if you have a decent skill set, you will close 25% - 33% of them into your business.
If you mail your prospects a sales letter (and it's a good sales letter, you can't mail them trash), you will have between 1% - 3% that call you, credit card in hand, wanting to do business with you.
So at this point, you should work some math. How much does your list cost, and the cost to put your system together? Given these response rates, how much is your cost per acquisition, meaning how much do you have to spend to bring in a new associate using a good sales letter, or using a teleconference presentation? Then, look at your commission structure from your company. How much will you be paid for each new associate? How long does each new associate have to stay on the books using your product before you starting turning profit? To do this math, just use the response rates listed above. For example:
I am paid $150 instant commission for each new associate, and $40 per month in residual income. Therefore, if I pay $500 for my list, then $100 for a lead-capture service, and then $800 to drop 2000 post cards, that adds up to $1,400.00. So let's say I get a 3% response, so out of that 2000, I will have 60 that call my 24/7 recorded message. Then, I will only get a hold of 60%, so that's 36 people I actually get to my presentation. Then, lets assume that I have a decent skill set, and I close 25% into your business, which equals 9 new associates. 9 associates X $150 quick commission is $1,350.00, which is $50 less than what I paid.
But now, I have 9 new associates, and if I am getting $40 per month residual off each of those, then that turns out to be $360 per month in residual income, so by the end of my first month, I'm in profit and making money.
There is a caveat...this whole thing rests on the 2nd key factor you should look at when designing your system:
2. Your Skill Set - The example we just looked at made sense because of the numbers of a marketer with a decent skill set.
Looking at that example again, if the marketer only has a skill set that can close 1 in 10, then that is a 10% closing rate, which means the marketer will only enroll 3.6 associates into their business, which if you round up to 4, you only get $600.
At $40 per month residual, with 4 associates, that's $160 a month residual, which means that at a cost of $1,400, the marketer has to wait 5 months before they see a bit of profit (1400 - 600 = 800, then 800 / 150 = 5 months). So obviously, someone with a weaker skill set doesn't want to start off with the mail, they should start using much cheaper leads, so that they can use the right cost strategy in the growth of their business.
Hopefully this information has been helpful. I put a tremendous amount of time, effort, and energy sharing my knowledge to help others to grow their businesses.
The best advice I can give you is to STOP LISTENING to leaders and START LOOKING at what the leaders are actually doing to grow their businesses. The system I just outlined is one of the exact same systems I use to grow my business. Again, it is not a beginner technique, but it is an extremely powerful way to dramatically increase the growth of your business. If you want some additional guidance, send an email to fusonenterprises@gmail.com, I'd be happy to chat about your situation.
Have a happy Easter everyone, be safe out there.
Warning: Using mail to grow your business is an advanced technique, and it's not cheap. Like any other marketing tool, there's a learning curve here, so be ready to pay before seeing a return.
Alright, now that we got that out of the way, let's get down to business. Using the mail to grow your business, whether you are doing an MLM or networking program, a retail business, or whatever, the process is exactly the same. First, here are the pro's and con's of using mail:
PRO's - You'll have ZERO competition. Ask your upline, downline, or crossline if they know how to use mail, and they'll look at you like you have two heads. Nobody uses mail, and that's what makes it such a sweet market. On top of that, the mail market is so deep, you'll never get to the bottom of it. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people that simply won't respond to a phone call or an email who will respond to a mail piece.
CON's - Like I said earlier, it isn't cheap. Also, when you are starting out, it's slow, because you have to wait to take out your ads, then wait for response, then wait for the mail to hit the street, etc etc.
How To Use Mail - If you live in a semi-urban area that has a decent sized library, you will find a very special book there called the SRDS (Standard Rates And Data Services). This book contains every consumer list on the planet, anything you can think up, it will be here. The bulk of lists you find here will be list rentals. Your first step is to get a hot list.
What do you look for in a list? Here are the keys you should be looking for when evaluating a list:
1. Similarity Of Product Purchase - Look, people are creatures of habit. Yes, we all like to think that we are totally original "one of a kinds", but the fact is that 90% of all people find a rut and stay there. For example, go look inside your fridge. Go on. Now, go back two weeks later, and you will probably see the same types of food. We are creatures of habit, and we are consumers of habit.
For example, if you were marketing a health beverage, the best type of list you can be looking for is someone who has used some sort of health supplement. Because if you are marketing a health beverage, it would be a pretty easy sell if you are targeting people that have already demonstrated the propensity to purchase your types of products. We are creatures of habit, so instead of trying to beg someone to try your supplement, why not make it easy on yourself and target people that are already demonstrating (by their buying habits) that they recognize the importance of supplementation.
2. Recency Of Purchase - This is really important. As in the explanation above, we want to make this as easy as possible, so if we are targeting people that used a supplement 10 years ago, we're in trouble. We want to target a prospect that sees the value of what we are marketing right now. Example: If I were marketing a legal services package (you all know what company I'm talking about) I would want to target people that had their identity stolen recently, and had to pay for their identity restoration costs recently, not 25 years ago. I want to talk with someone that currently sees the need, so look for a recent purchase.
3. Resources - Of course, you want to be putting your message in front of an audience that has the financial ability to take advantage of what you are marketing. So when you are going through the SRDS, look for the average cost of unit purchased, so that you can see how much these people are spending. If you are marketing a product that costs $3,612.00, then don't target a list that has paid an average unit cost of $4.23. You want to target a list that has a similar price structure, so that you know they're able to afford it. It would also make a lot of sense to specify a certain minimum credit rating with your list, so that you don't end up putting a lot of mail in front of people that can't afford it.
Alright, so you have a list, now what? Go get a lead-capture system. There are a lot of places out there, but you want you to be able to do the following:
1. Record a 24/7 message about your products and services.
2. Have multiple extensions to test on.
3. The ability to take messages left by prospects.
4. The ability to monitor how long your prospects are staying on the line.
5. The ability to capture your leads mailing information.
Like I said, there are a lot of places out there where you can do this. I personally use the ART system, it stands for Automatic Response Technology. I think it's $100.00 to set up, and like $49.00 a month for the service. Now, I'm not affiliated with these folks, I just use their service and it works well for this application, so again, I encourage you to do some research, because they're definitely not the only game in town.
So you have a list, you have a lead-capture system, now you need to test your list. You want to call about 30 - 50 numbers on this list, to make sure that this list is the real deal. The last thing you want to do is spend a few hundred bucks on a test, when you could have saved that money by taking half an hour to verify the data first.
Now you need to design your system. One of the most simple ways to do it is to do a postcard drop on your list to generate your leads, and drive them to your Free Recorded Message on your lead-capture system. Then, take the leads that responded to your postcard, and you can call them up and put them on a presentation, or you can mail them a sales letter. If you mail them a sales letter, you have to have some decent copy skills. If you don't have those skills, no big deal, just don't drop a sales letter, give 'em a call and put them on your teleconference presentation.
There are 2 key factors you should focus on when you are designing your system:
1. Mathematics - You need to go through and do some math. If you have a decent postcard drop, you will generate 3% - 5% response rate. Then if you call them, you will only physically speak with 60% of them, and if you put them on your presentation call, if you have a decent skill set, you will close 25% - 33% of them into your business.
If you mail your prospects a sales letter (and it's a good sales letter, you can't mail them trash), you will have between 1% - 3% that call you, credit card in hand, wanting to do business with you.
So at this point, you should work some math. How much does your list cost, and the cost to put your system together? Given these response rates, how much is your cost per acquisition, meaning how much do you have to spend to bring in a new associate using a good sales letter, or using a teleconference presentation? Then, look at your commission structure from your company. How much will you be paid for each new associate? How long does each new associate have to stay on the books using your product before you starting turning profit? To do this math, just use the response rates listed above. For example:
I am paid $150 instant commission for each new associate, and $40 per month in residual income. Therefore, if I pay $500 for my list, then $100 for a lead-capture service, and then $800 to drop 2000 post cards, that adds up to $1,400.00. So let's say I get a 3% response, so out of that 2000, I will have 60 that call my 24/7 recorded message. Then, I will only get a hold of 60%, so that's 36 people I actually get to my presentation. Then, lets assume that I have a decent skill set, and I close 25% into your business, which equals 9 new associates. 9 associates X $150 quick commission is $1,350.00, which is $50 less than what I paid.
But now, I have 9 new associates, and if I am getting $40 per month residual off each of those, then that turns out to be $360 per month in residual income, so by the end of my first month, I'm in profit and making money.
There is a caveat...this whole thing rests on the 2nd key factor you should look at when designing your system:
2. Your Skill Set - The example we just looked at made sense because of the numbers of a marketer with a decent skill set.
Looking at that example again, if the marketer only has a skill set that can close 1 in 10, then that is a 10% closing rate, which means the marketer will only enroll 3.6 associates into their business, which if you round up to 4, you only get $600.
At $40 per month residual, with 4 associates, that's $160 a month residual, which means that at a cost of $1,400, the marketer has to wait 5 months before they see a bit of profit (1400 - 600 = 800, then 800 / 150 = 5 months). So obviously, someone with a weaker skill set doesn't want to start off with the mail, they should start using much cheaper leads, so that they can use the right cost strategy in the growth of their business.
Hopefully this information has been helpful. I put a tremendous amount of time, effort, and energy sharing my knowledge to help others to grow their businesses.
The best advice I can give you is to STOP LISTENING to leaders and START LOOKING at what the leaders are actually doing to grow their businesses. The system I just outlined is one of the exact same systems I use to grow my business. Again, it is not a beginner technique, but it is an extremely powerful way to dramatically increase the growth of your business. If you want some additional guidance, send an email to fusonenterprises@gmail.com, I'd be happy to chat about your situation.
Have a happy Easter everyone, be safe out there.
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