Network marketing and affiliate marketing online

Archive for category Network Marketing

I Fired the Internet Network Marketing Gurus

Dec 12

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

Until a week or two ago I was on the email lists for a lot of the internet network marketing gurus. Then I fired most of them.

MLM Gurus Who Don’t Practice What They Preach

There are several things that bother about the so-called internet marketing gurus out there. One of my biggest issues with them is that many of them don’t practice what they preach. I don’t want to mention specific names, but one particular person comes to mind here. I remember when I first came across her material she taught to build your list and offer then real content once or twice a week and only send affiliate offers about once a month. Sounds like good advice except that what she actually did was send affiliate offers every week and real content about once a month.

Network Marketing Gurus Who Aren’t In Network Marketing

Another problem with many of them that claim that they will teach you how to do network marketing online is that they aren’t involved in network marketing themselves. One of my network marketing friends has gotten a bit wrapped up in the programs offered by these guys. What they teach are the tricks to sell affiliate programs, which is a very different model than network marketing.

They teach you how to get your content to the top of the search engines very quickly, but not how to stay there. That is what they need to do for affiliate marketing where the programs they are selling are available for no more than a week. They need to get found quickly for a few days then they don’t care that they drop to page 20 on the Google search results because the program isn’t available anymore anyway. That doesn’t work for network marketing where you want to be consistently at the top of the search engines for the long term.

Network Marketing Training Email Overload

Some of these network marketing gurus like to fill your email box with their affiliate offers. How many times in one day do you need to read the same offer? Or how many days in a row? Then many of them will pull the same tired marketing tricks. On the second day that their offer is open they send you all of these emails apologizing about how all of the amazing traffic they received crashed their servers. You would think after doing this every six months for 3 years that they would learn to get enough resources to support the traffic. I don’t think there are crashes in most cases. They are trying to create an artificial sense of social proof.

Then after their launch has run its course they take it off the market for a day or two before bringing it back for another day. They claim that they have received so many emails whining about people missing it the first time around, like their customers missed the slew of emails they received in the past week. They are trying to create more of the illusion of social proof and scarcity.

These are very effective marketing tactics when the social proof and scarcity are real. In these cases though, it is more like they think we are all idiots and don’t see it.

How to Be Really Effective in Internet Network Marketing

Fire the gurus and do the things that will get the job done. They haven’t changed over the years and don’t require any tricks. Create a blog site and blog regularly about the things that matter to you and your business. Provide real content that you would want to read if someone else was writing it. Work to create real relationships with people by replying to comments on your blog and leaving relevant comments on other people’s blogs.

These are the things that I have done to get my main site to rank well for my company’s product so that I can make retail sales. That is also how I have had several people talk to me about joining my team lately. When people do contact you, make sure that you follow up with them, answer their questions, and offer suggestions.

The same friend I mentioned above is all worried about his Alexa ranking, Google Page Rank, and how much traffic he gets. The amount of traffic is important but not as important as having quality traffic. I can do more with 100 hits to my site than many others can with 1000 hits because I work to attract only the traffic that will be interested in what I have to offer. My Alexa rank has taken a nose dive in the past few months but my number of new distributors, new product orders, and income have all gone up.

So, if you want to be successful in online network marketing, fire the gurus and start getting some work done.

Find out more about me and what I’m doing in internet network marketing.

Wayne Woodworth

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What is Your Motivation, Fear of the Past or Visions of the Future?

Oct 14

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | 2 Comments

Are you holding yourself back from your success? I have noticed that people hold on tight to the past, especially all of the bad things that have happened. If you spend all of your time focusing on the bad things, bad things are all that you think about, then bad things are what you are going to get. The past holds you back.

Maybe you are someone who uses the past to drive yourself forward. This is a little better than focusing on the past because you are at least hoping for a better future, but you can still do better. The problem with using the past to drive you forward is that it is still the bad things that drive you and you are coming from a place of fear. That makes it harder to reach the success you are hoping for because you are still focusing on fear. The good part is that you aren’t letting it hold you back. You are doing something, moving forward, which is always better than sitting on your butt saying “woe is me”.

The best place to be is to have a bright vision of the future that pulls your forward. You are looking toward the future and to positive things. You are operating from hopefulness and promise instead of fear. Acknowledge the past, thank it for getting you to where you are, then let it go. Build your vision of the future, make it big and bright so that it will stick with you and motivate you to look past the obstacles, and go for it.

For me, that is building a network marketing business online, helping some people with the products that my MLM offers, and helping others with the business opportunity to build their positive expectations of a rich financial future.

Which position are you operating from and what are you going to do to better ensure your success? Leave me a comment below? I also appreciate you sharing this post with your friends and followers on the social networks.

Wayne Woodworth

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How to Pick the Best Network Marketing Company for You

Oct 5

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

I have seen a lot of stuff lately about how to pick the best network marketing company, and some of them make some very good points. So I want to summarize some of the important things to look for in a company when you decide to start your network marketing business.

A Product or Service you are Passionate About

To be successful in a business you have to be passionate about it. In the case of network marketing, you have to be passionate about the product or service that the MLM company sells. When people buy the product from you it is going to be more about your passion for the product than the product itself. Likewise, when you approach someone to join you as a business partner, you want to pick people who you think will also be passionate about the product or service. For example, if you are a Mary Kay or Avon distributor then you probably won’t approach too many men about your business.

A Reputable Network Marketing Company

When you look at starting a network marketing business you want to build one that can be successful and generate you an income for a long time to come. A big part of that is the company that you partner with. I don’t pay much attention to new companies because, like any other business, a high percentage of them will fail during the first five years. I like old companies because they offer a level of security that new ones cannot offer. An established company has a proven product that provides a definite benefit that has been proven over and over, otherwise the company would have failed. They also have a proven compensation plan. If their distributors weren’t able to make money then again, the company would have failed.

Another part of that is to look at how long the distributors have been with the company. Is it a 10 year old company but none of the distributors have been there for more than a year? Why? Or is it a company that is 30 years old and there is a large number of distributors who have been with them for 15 or 20 years? If a company has distributors who have been around a long time then the company probably takes good care of the people in the field.

Cost of Doing Business

Finally, there is the cost of doing business. How much does it cost to sign up as a distributor with the network marketing company and what do you get for that money? Is there an autoship or other monthly costs? I don’t think these concerns are necessarily deal breakers as long as the company is reputable and provides a real product or service, but they will definitely affect you as you are getting your business going. If you are short on money, can you afford to keep your business going for the first six months until you develop an income from the business? These are important things that you need to keep in mind.

That’s what I look for when I’m looking at a company. I feel blessed that I found a network marketing company that has been around for 35 years and operating in the US for 21 years now. I also have access to distributors who have been with the company for 17 or 18 of those years, so they really  know how the business and the company works. You can find out more about this great company and working with me here.

If you found this helpful, I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below. Please share this with your friends on the social networks.

Wayne Woodworth

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Are You Following Up With Your Network Marketing Prospects?

Sep 29

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

You’ve probably heard before that it is important to follow-up with your prospects. The people who contact you or that you contact about your network marketing business, or the products, aren’t likely to take a lot of action after the first time that you talk. Therefore it is absolutely essential that you check back with them periodically to keep them moving forward.

I have read that studies have shown that 82% of sales are made on or after the third contact and other experts say that your customers need to see your offer seven time or more before they will act. That’s a big part of what makes direct mail so expensive.

Fortunately, there is a better and far less expensive way to follow up with your customers if your business is online. You can set up an email series with an autoresponder so that your prospect or customer receives a new message from you on a regular basis. This way your customers start to recognize your name and you can build a relationship with them by offering valuable content.

To use an autoresponder you will need to create an account with one, setup your email series, and create a form to put on your website for your customers to use to sign up. I know it sounds complicated, but other than actually writing the emails it is pretty much all done for you. There are several autoresponder services available on the internet and I use Aweber, which has worked very well for me.

I have two examples of how I’m using Aweber to keep in touch with my prospects and customers. First, the customers for my MLM company’s products can sign up for a free monthly newsletter in the right sidebar of my product page at www.getmywellness.com. The second example is for people interested in learning more about my network marketing business opportunity on my Work with Wayne page.

Are you using an autoresponder to follow up with your customers? What kind of content are your offering them through your autoresponder and how well is that working? Let me know in a comment below. I would also appreciate it if you would share this with your followers on the social networks too.

Wayne Woodworth

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Network Marketing vs. A “Real” Job

Sep 22

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

There are a lot of people who are unemployed and looking for a job right now, so how does network marketing compare to a “real” job?

Benefits of a “Real” Job

First, what is a job? In my opinion a job is where you give up your freedom in exchange for the illusion of security. When you have a job you show up when you are told, do what you are told, take lunch when you are told, return to work when your are told, do more of what you are told, then go home when you are told. The next day you get to do more of the same. Every day is pretty much the same and you usually have to drive through bad traffic full of everyone else looking forward to the same thing.

What do you get for doing all of that? You get a fixed paycheck. If you help the business make more money, you still get the same amount. If you don’t help the company make more money you probably get laid off. If the company makes less money for reasons out of your control you might get laid off too.

There are certain perks that go along with a job. You get the occasional day off as long as you don’t exceed your allotment and it doesn’t inconvenience the company too much. You might get health benefits, but in a lot of cases they are being reduced as the group plans get priced out of reach for  your employer. The nice thing about group plans for people who are sick a lot is that the healthy people help to cover some of your medical costs.

Your job may be a little more interesting than that sounds, but basically that’s what you get to look forward to with a job.

Benefits of a Network Marketing Business

When you build your own network marketing as a career you set your own hours. You start as early or late as you want to and you finish as early or late as you want. You have lunch when you want, and if you need time off for something then you can just take it. I know that sounds great, but you do have to make sure that you do the work necessary to make money. The difference here is that you are the boss, so you have to have the self-discipline to do what you need to do to make your business successful.

And what do you get for that? Your income is directly tied to the money making activity that you do. If you help your network marketing team make more money, then you get a larger paycheck. Likewise, if your team brings in less money then you get a smaller paycheck. You are in control of your income. If you want to make more money then you know what you need to do.

Which is Right for You?

So, which is right for you? Do you need the structure of someone telling you what to do everyday? Some people need that structure and if that is you, then by all means get a job. If you are a motivated self-starter with the discipline to keep yourself on task, then network marketing might be right for you and I would like to talk to you about being business partners.

Which is right for you? Let me know why in a comment below. I also want to thank you for sharing this post with your followers on the social networks.

Wayne Woodworth

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Why Is There A Low Network Marketing Success Rate?

Sep 10

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

I think there are two reasons why network marketing has a low success rate. One is that people aren’t taught to treat it like a real business and the other is that they are taught a very difficult way to do it.

Network Marketing Business

It is important to treat your network marketing business as a real business if you want to be successful and make some real income. Most people treat it as a hobby and, I don’t know if this is true for you or not, but I’ve never made very much money from my hobbies. To build a successful network marketing business you will have to devote time to it on a consistent basis.

One thing that works for me is to create a to-do list. I have two actually, a daily to-do list of things that I do every day to keep my business on track, and a running to-do list of all the other things that need to get done. Your daily list needs to be small enough that you can get it done in a couple hours so that you have time for everything else.

My running to-do list grows faster than I complete things on it, so prioritizing the items is required so that the most important tasks get done first. The highest priority tasks should be the things that will give your business the biggest benefit for the amount of time that they take to accomplish.

I start my day off by knocking out the items on my daily to-do list as quick as I can, usually in an hour to two. Then if I have time left, I pick the most important task that I can complete before I have to break to take my kids to school. It may not be the most important task because I don’t want to start something that I cannot complete, or at least get to a good stopping point. Once I get back home I go after the most important thing on my to-do list.

How to Make Network Marketing Work

The second problem with network marketing is how people are taught to do it. I know you’ve heard it before. When you start out your are told to make a list of 100 people that you know who you would like to work with. You start with friends and family then add your doctor, your dentist, kid’s piano teacher, and your mailman until you get 100 people. That’s a challenging way to build a business. I’m really! Are you seriously going to ask your mailman to join your network marketing business and actually expect him (or her) to join?

Everybody is different. Some people will actually do very well with the “list method”. They are the people who have been in network marketing for 10 years and have a huge list full of business contacts with solid experience in network marketing. You can be sure that they have a lot more than 100 people on their list and you will have scored big if you can land one of these people on your team.

I have a friend in my network marketing company (wish he was on my team) who does very well with cold-calling. He says that he could sell ice to an eskimo and I’m sure he could. So cold calling is what he has been teaching his team so far but he knows it isn’t for everyone. He has been helping me prototype a training program to teach my way of building the business.

My method is to first sell product online to build retail profit first then build a team second. I use a blog and social media to generate traffic and product sales and it has been very successful. Once a new teammate has money coming in then they can shift to prospecting online for leads. My goal is to build a team that moves a lot of product volume because moving product is where the money is in network marketing.

The point here is that not everybody is the same and not everybody will do well with the same network marketing strategy. Build a team of people with different skills or create an alliance with other people in your network marketing company who can train your new people in the different strategies. This way you open up your business to a variety of people and everyone shares in the success.

I know this was a long post but I hope you received some value from it. What network marketing strategy works well for you? Let me know in a comment below then use the buttons at the top of this post or below to share it with your followers on the social networks.

Wayne Woodworth

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Internet Network Marketing Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Sep 2

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | 4 Comments

Today I want to offer you some internet network marketing tips that you can use to build your online network marketing business. I firmly believe in using a blog to build my business online. In addition to writing content that your readers want to read, you need to make it easy for readers to find you.

Where to Build Your Blog

Where you blog is hosted is important. The free services, like Blogger.com and WordPress.com are not the best places to establish your blog because those services have too much control over your blog. If they don’t like your content then they can shut your blog down. Your best best is to get a hosting account, register your own URL, and install WordPress. That is a whole lot easier than it sounds. I use HostMonster and they step you through the process. Installing WordPress there is just a matter of clicking the icon and filling in the blanks.

Search Engine Optimization

Most of my traffic comes from the search engines, so search engine optimization is important. People like to make SEO sound really hard, but it isn’t. There are a handful of easy-to-use plugins available for WordPress that help you take care of it. The All in One SEO Pack is probably the most important one that I use on my blog because it allows me to set the description and keywords for the search engines on each post.

The keywords you choose are important. Think about the keywords that your readers might use to find the information that you are writing about and make sure that you use those word in your posts, add them as tags, and include them in the keywords field in the All in One SEO Pack section. There are many research tools available to help you find more keywords for your post. One easy thing is to start typing your keyword into Google Search and see what other phrases get listed in the box as you type.

Social Networks

The social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are valuable for promoting your blog in two ways. They help your search engine optimization because you can add a link to your blog on your profile. The search engines look for links to your blog from other sites to help determine how to rank your blog. Because of that it is a good idea to register and set up a profile on the social networks even though you may not use it regularly.

The second, and more immediate, value of the social networks is in advertising your blog posts. I have my blog set up to automatically tweet the title of my post to Twitter every time I publish new content. Then all of my followers on Twitter know about my new post and can come read it. The Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress does that for me.

I also use the Networked Blogs application on Facebook to publish my new post to my wall on Facebook and my LinkedIn account automatically pulls my tweets from Twitter so that my new post shows up there as well.

These are the basics that I use to get traffic to my internet network marketing blog every day and it works. If you have a tip that you use to help get traffic to your blog then please tell me about it in a comment below. Also, please share this out with your followers on the social sites.

Wayne Woodworth

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Internet Based Network Marketing Success

Aug 27

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

Your success in network marketing is based on how well you can provide service to your customers, prospects, and downline. This is especially true when building a network marketing business online because you will have trouble even finding prospects unless you are offering value.

There are many ways to build a network marketing business online. Connecting on the social sites, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and article marketing are all methods that can lead to success in internet network marketing. What ever method you choose though, you will probably want a blog as your hub, and that is what I use. All of the other methods you may use to build your business can be used to syndicate your content and drive traffic to your blog.

The key to make a blog work and get repeat visits from your readers is to freely provide the valuable content that your readers are looking for. In other words, don’t just blog about how great your product or you MLM company is. If your blog is about network marketing, then you could offer tips and suggestions about how to build a successful network marketing business, regardless of what company they may be with. If your company sells nutritional supplements then you could blog about the what to look for in nutritional supplements or the benefits in taking nutritional supplements.

The idea is that if you focus on providing service then the rest will take care of itself. By providing service to your readers you are also establishing your own value with your readers. When that happens, your readers are more likely to follow you and some will become customers and / or join your business. When that happens, continue to provide service. Help them build their success and yours will naturally follow.

Always provide service first.

I hope you found this valuable. Please share a time when you achieved some form of success by being of service to someone else. I would also appreciate it if you would share this with your followers on the social networks.

Wayne Woodworth

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Do You Really Know Your Network Marketing Prospect?

Aug 18

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

Most people in network marketing don’t really know who their prospect is. That really isn’t a surprise because we’re all taught the 3 Foot Rule by the network marketing companies and our upline leaders. If you think everybody is your prospect then you’re in for a lot of disappointment because most people are not interested in building a home-based business.

Tailor Your Network Marketing Message

To really be successful in your network marketing prospecting, you need to tailor your message to the right people, and you need to know who those right people are to be able to do that. So, who is your ideal prospect? Is it stay-at-home-moms or dads? A good place to start is with other people who are like you. For example, if you have medical training then your idea prospects could be other people with medical training. You already know who to communicate with other people who are like you. You speak the same language and probably have a lot of other things in common.

For me, stay-at-home-moms and dads could be a good choice because I am a stay-at-home-dad thanks to my network marketing business. I am also a massage therapist so other massage therapists and maybe chiropractors and other body workers and energy healers would be good choices too. The thing about these different groups of people is that I need to use different words and ideas when I communicate to them.

To tell other massage therapists and body workers about my network marketing opportunity I would talk about the product and how having a product like this would help them in their current business. It just so happens the the MLM company I am with does have a few items in their product lines that make great massage tools.

When I am talking to stay-at-home-moms and dads then I would put my focus more on how this network marketing business lets them have more time with their kids. I could also focus on how the product can help their kids stay healthy if that is the type if product that the company sells.

As you can see, I use a completely different message for the 2 groups of people. You need to know who your audience is so that you can customize your message to them as well. Don’t try to get everybody in the world onto your team. Just get the people that you know how to talk to.

So, who are your ideal prospects? Who are the people that you know how to communicate the benefits of your network marketing opportunity to? Share you ideas in a comment below then share this message with your followers on the social networks using the buttons below.

Wayne Woodworth

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A Day in the Life of a Network Marketer

Aug 15

Posted by Wayne Woodworth in Network Marketing | No Comments

I want to share what a typically day can look like for me as a network marketer so that you can see if this is something for you.

I’d like to start off by telling you that I get to sleep in as late as I want, but that’s just not true. My cat still thinks that I have a regular job and wakes me up every morning between 5:00 and 6:00. Once he is taken care of though, I have the option to go back to sleep if I want to. Usually I take advantage of the morning quiet and get to work cleaning out the email that I received during the night and write a new blog post, as I am doing right now.

Soon it is time to get my daughter, Tessa, up and ready for school. I get cleaned up while my wife makes sure that Tessa has everything she needs and then I drive her to school. She’s in first grade this year and we enjoy having time with each other for the half hour drive. When I get back home it is time to take my son, Kelby, to pre-school if he wants me to go along, which he usually does.

I’m back home to stay by about 9:30. Now I can finish up the blog post that I started earlier and get it published. Next I find some other people’s blogs to leave comments on. This has a lot of benefits for a network marketer. I find some great information and meet new people who are doing things similar to what I am doing. I also get my name better known in the blogging community and get links back to my blog that can bring in additional traffic. It really is a lot of fun checking out other people’s blogs.

I can take a break and help around the house, which my wife really appreciates. I have the freedom to do just about anything I want to do while most normal people are stuck at their normal jobs. I try to take a morning off once a week and go hiking with my wife. It gives us a chance to get away, take a break from our normal routine, and enjoy nature for awhile.

While working in the morning I might also work on a draft of a blog post for later in the week, work on a newsletter that I am putting together to stay in touch with my retail customers, or record a training video for my business prospects and new team members. I try to get most of my “working” done in the morning so that I have the afternoon free for my kids.

I break for lunch and afterwards it is time to pick up Kelby from pre-school. Soon after that it is time to go get Tessa from school too. Then it’s time with the family for the afternoon. I don’t usually take much more time for work until after the kids go to bed. I’ll spend another hour or two working on a webpage or some more emails then call it a day.

So, that’s my normal day. With network marketing I have the luxury of working from home and making my family a much higher priority than if I had to go to work at a job every day. For me, that’s what this is all about. If this is something that you are interested in, then check out my Work with Wayne page and sign up for more information. There I share with you how I make money with my network marketing business.

If hope you found this interesting. If you have anything to share about the benefits of working from home then please leave a comment below. I would also appreciate it if you would share this out with your followers on the social networks.

Wayne Woodworth

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