But this is not about that company. If you want to know more, you can email me.

I wanted to follow up with where I left off. I left off with web 2.0 marketing, or what is also known as social marketing.

I want to follow up because it is a huge subject, of which I really don’t think 1 or 2 posts can cover. Especially in it’s relation to network marketing.

Let’s just call it Social Network Marketing. Network Marketing has always been social, but it usual was face to face, belly to belly. Well you know I don’t advocate that too much, although it does work.

No this social network marketing is all about using the internet and what is known as web 2.0.

As I said, 1 or 2 posts will not do it justice. But I do have a source that does. And it is completely FREE. It’s called the Authority Black Book. If you want to know what all the hype is about in regards to Social Network Marketing, download it today.

When I read that, it blew my mind.

Why?

Let me explain.  What are we taught when we join an MLM company?  Tell everybody about your opportunity.  Write down 100 names of friends and family.  Show them the plan.  Market to all the folk.”

How did that work for you?  Did you not run into people who were not interested?  Did you not run into people who just didn’t get it?

How much time did you waste?  Several hours everyday.  Drove around town trying to pitch everybody.  Or how about wasting money taking people out to lunch, covering the bill, only to run into non interested prospects.  Waste of time, waste of money.  “You want to go broke, market to all the folk.”

“You want to get rich, market to a niche.”

Do you realize Network Marketing is a niche.  Sure everybody wants to make extra money.  Everybody would want the lifestyle a successful MLM business would bring.  But not everybody gets this industry.

They don’t get recruiting and building for a residual.  They don’t get the idea of getting paid off of others efforts.

Who does?  The millions of people who have already tried Network Marketing.  They are our “niche”.

You don’t have to explain the concept to them.  You don’t have to sell them the dream or the lifestyle.  You don’t have to sell them the idea of recruiting.  They get it.

That is our “niche” we need to focus on.  Millions of network marketers.  Millions of people who have tried and failed at this industry.  And millions who need a solution to fix the cycle of failure.

“You want to get rich, market to a niche.”

How do we market to them?  Not by pitching the latest greatest Network Marketing product or comp plan.  They’ve been there, done that.

No, we need to market to them a solution to the challenges they had in their previous network marketing ventures.

We offer to solve their challenges in the form of an information product, we get paid on the front end.  Once we show them a way to solve their problems, now they look to us as a person who can help them make it in MLM.

We get paid on the front end with our information product.  We solve their problem giving them value.  We now have a loyal prospect willing to listen to what we have to offer, our back end, which is our MLM opportunity.

Imagine that, instead of paying for leads, prospects pay us to show them the plan.

Imagine that, instead of chasing down prospects, they chase us down with credit card in hand.

“If you want to go broke, market to all the folk.  If you want to get rich market to a niche.”

To the top,

Ernesto

So now we know we are Marketers first and foremost.  But now we need to know how to market.

We already went over in Lesson 2, we do not want to market the traditional old school MLM methods.

They are too inefficient and not effective for the average person.  So how do we market?  We are going to use direct response marketing.

What that is, is using sales copy powerfully written that conveys a message emotionally to your prospects and offers a solution.

It is the most powerful form of marketing out there and has made people millions in other industries.  But to use it and apply it to your MLM is probably a concept that was not taught to you.  It is time to change that.

So who do we apply this technique to?

Another one of the problems that I haven’t mentioned in the old school network marketing methods is that it assumes that everybody is our prospect.  At least that is what your company leaders tell you.

I have news for you.  Everybody is not our prospect.  Sure everybody wants more money, more time, more whatever, but everybody does not have an interest in doing it through MLM.

But that is ok that everybody is not our prospect.  That is another poweful component of direct response marketing, is understanding we have a specific audience, our "target market", we want to reach and because we know who this audience is, we also know their problems.  And because we know their problems, we can address those problems and offer solutions in our direct response marketing message. 

So let’s find our target market.  Do you realize there are over 40 million searches everyday online (the internet) for home based businesses?  Isn’t that what we have?

But wait, that still isn’t our target prospects.  Of those 40 million there are going to be millions of people who have tried and failed at MLM but are looking for a way to make it work.  Bingo!

They are our target market.  They are our ideal prospect.  Who better?  We don’t have to explain to them Multi level marketing.  We don’t have to explain to them the freedom this business can get them.  We don’t have to sell them the dream, they get it.  They understand and want residual income.  They are perfect.

Now is where Direct Response Marketing comes into play.  How we go about prospecting them is going to be the trick.  And for that, we are going to do our best direct response marketing.

When we market to them, we do not want to pitch them our opportunity first.  They have been there, done that.

They don’t want to hear you tell them you have the greatest vitamin in the world or the greatest comp plan.  Tell them something they don’t know.

No, to market to them effectively, you need to offer them a solution to their problems.  What is their problems?  More than likely, they have tried MLM, usually the friends and family or buying leads methods, and have failed.

So now they are looking to see what they did wrong or how can they build their MLM Network Marketing business.  So they are online looking for a solution.

Marketing 101, we offer them that solution.  Our marketing needs to address their problems and show them there is a way to solve it.  We need to show them there is a way to make MLM work.

So what do we offer?  We offer them an inexpensive, yet highly valuable information product.  That is what we sell them, and believe me, they will be more than willing to buy.

You will not need to convince them, compared to all the convincing you would have had to do if you marketed your opportunity to them first.

Once they purchase, what you have now, is a highly qualified prospect who is willing to spend money on their success.  Could you have asked for a better scenario?  Could you have asked for a better prospect to try and get into your business?

This is called the funded proposal.  This is the system that I use to generate tons of highly qualified propects with credit card in hand, paying me, in essence, to show them the plan.  I love it.

To the top,

Ernesto

Lesson 4 – Benefits of the Funded Proposal to your MLM

It is not finding the latest and greatest cure to all of our health problems.

It is not finding the greatest comp plan out there.

It is not showing my product is cheaper, better, faster.

It is not "me too".

Sure, when you get involved in an MLM, you want to make sure your product or service holds real value.  But beyond that, you need to understand something else.

Network Marketing is "Marketing".  The business you are in is marketing.  You need to get that in your head.  So forget about you being in health or wellness, or diet, or travel, or whatever.  Those are products of our business, and hopefully great products.  But your main home based business is Marketing.

Because you are in the business of marketing you need to learn true marketing principles.  You need to become a true internet marketer who understands who your target market is, the people you are selling to.  You need to be a marketer that knows how to convey a message to your target market.  And you need to be a marketer that knows how to show your prospects that you have the solution.  And when I say these things, I am not saying you are the one who will be physically saying these things.  No, correct marketing messages will do the selling for you.

Do those things, and you will have no shortage of prospects to grow a huge business.  You will have no shortages of being able to sell your products.

Fail in becoming a true marketer and you will continue to experience the painful rejection filled methods of the past.

Mike Dillard, an expert Network Marketer put it best when he said "Most people don’t realize that network marketing is a business of marketing and promotion pursued by people who have no idea how to market or promote!"

Huh?

Think about that statement.  If you are honest with yourself, you more than likely fall into that category.  Here you are involved in an industry with the word "marketing" in it, but do you really know how to market or promote?  To go even further, does your upline know how to market or promote?

Even most of the top guns of a company fall into that category as well.  They have no idea on truly how to market and promote.

It is not their fault, more than likely, they are regurgitating what they have been taught.  And not that it doesn’t work.  Obviously it has for some.  But did it work for you?

We need to level the playing field.  We need to create a field that allows the average person, who is not your super slick salesman (which is most people you get into your business), to be able to become an MLM rockstar.

Right now everybody is being taught and still doing all the same old inefficient "so called marketing" methods that just don’t cut it.

What are they?  You know them and probably have done them.  How about pitching friends and family?  How did that work for you?

What about dragging people to home meetings or hotel meetings?

Or how about the old favorite (favorite for the lead companies) buying super hot, extremely qualified $5 or $10 "exclusive" leads?  If you are like me, you ran into disinterested, broke, annoyed people because you are the 10th person to pitch them that day.

How many annoyed family and friends did it take before you got the hint? Or how much money did you shell out before you realized this will lead to bankruptcy?

So the problems with these methods are numerous, but one of the glaring problems that I haven’t mentioned is efficiency.

Didn’t we get involved in Network Marketing because of the leverage?  Didn’t we get involved because of the time freedom?

I don’t think driving all over town to pitch one prospect is very leveraged.  Or dialing hundreds of names and barely talking to 2 or 3 prospects in 3 hours is very leveraged.

Think about it.  All of these methods require a lot of personal time and personal effort, with minimal results.

The old adage of earning 1% off of the efforts of 100 people don’t apply.  Heck, at times it seems like it isn’t even an earning of 1% off of our own efforts through these methods.

So where do we go from here…?

Lesson 3 – Direct Response Marketing your MLM