Making sense of Attraction Marketing solutions

By Andrea Beadle

www.Online-HomeBusiness-Opportunities.com

Like me, you probably downloaded an ebook that hit you straight between the eyes and knocked you out! You signed up to a program or system and had sleepless nights with your head spinning trying to work out how to implement it? I certainly recall having to get up at 4am one morning because I had lain awake most of the night my head buzzing with ideas!

In the early days I floundered big time. I thought I understand the concept that I had bought into but had no idea how to apply it. My laptop was my new best friend and I became obsessed with surfing the Internet working out how to implement all I was learning so that I could start to make money.

Every day I stumbled across more and more information promising me that THIS was the system that would make my fortune. I devoured everything I came across getting more and more confused as I did so....

I understood that I had bought into an incredibly powerful marketing system that worked. I had bought into such a system so it must do! I placed a few ads and sent a few emails but nothing happened! I spent time building a website that no-one visited and I spent more and more money buying into systems that were no better than the original ones I had signed up to.

Whatever you may be led to believe, Network Marketing success does NOT come overnight! Many Network Marketers struggle for years before they become successful. If that wasn’t the case there wouldn’t be so many programs out there showing you how NOT to make the same mistakes when you start out!

Whether you are new to this whole approach to Network Marketing or have been at it for some time and are trying to breakthrough to the next level, I’d like to share some thoughts with you.

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My Epiphany

The breakthrough for me was when I realised how the Internet whilst an incredibly valuable resource was becoming my own worst enemy!

Our time is our most valuable resource and we have to make choices about how best to use it. If we spend our valuable time on activities that do nothing for our business we are going to stand still and will never make a success of it.

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Be selective with your time

My first piece of advice has to be to make sure that you spend your time on high quality activities that will add value to your business. Your time is the one resource that is finite.

Just remember, anytime you're looking at a given task for your business, always ask yourself, what else could I be doing with my time? Are there other activities that will help me get ahead faster?

And most importantly, what will happen if I DON'T do those activities?

The following are a selection of activities that you should consider spending time on:

• Positioning yourself so that people seek you out ? for example writing and distributing articles such as this! Submit them through a source like Article Marketer.
• Setting up sales and marketing systems that automate the hard work for you and weed out all but the best prospects (see the two systems that I use later in this article).
• Setting up automated follow up systems that build relationships with prospects and customers using autoresponders like Oprius or AWeber. Consider a powerful physical card campaign marketing system like Send Out Cards when you already have a relationship with customers or distributors.
• Take time to develop relationships with mentors and people you can learn from.

Warning! Take care over the amount of time you spend on the following activities. Inevitably you will need to spend some time on these but make sure that your time is targeted and focussed. DO NOT allow yourself to get distracted unless it will truly add value to what you are doing.

• Surfing the internet
• checking email compulsively
• instant messaging
• cold-calling
• prospecting
• attending company training and meetings that are little more than social events
• repetitive administrative work that could be automated

These are activities that will make you feel busy and give you a false sense of having worked hard.

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Don’t get distracted

It is far too easy to get distracted by every opportunity that you come across!

Bookmark sites in a new folder of things to explore later. After all, if you begin to make a success of this, your focus will be very different and they may not seem quite so attractive or necessary for your long term success in a few months time.

Diversify only once you have mastered your initial systems!

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Don't spend too much time prospecting!

You'll notice I have warned you about spending too much time on prospecting activities. Why?

Prospecting can be one of THE most un-leveraged methods for acquiring new customers or business partners there is unless you are doing it to people that are already highly qualified leads in the first place.

This brings me to my second piece of advice.

In Dan Kennedy's 'No B.S. Time Management' book he says"

"If you're looking for the answer that turns your time into the most money and wealth possible, then turn your attention to marketing.

Get free of as many other parts of your business as you can, get passionately interested in and good at marketing, and invest your time there...

Marketing is the highest paid profession and MOST VALUABLE PART of a business. The person who can create systems for acquiring customers, clients, or patients effectively and profitably is the "money person." He is the equivalent of a "high impact" or "franchise" player in sports."

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Marketing systems

In our early days we are not marketing experts and are fortunate enough to be able to bypass this learning until later, once we are already successful. Fortunately for us there are many great marketing systems out there that we can easily tap into.

Choose one or two marketing systems that you really connect with and stick with them in the early days.

But how do you decide which marketing system to go with in the first place? At the very least your system should:

• be one that you can easily duplicate and that takes care of the initial marketing for you
• generate quality, targeted leads that you own
• have a low cost, high volume retail product that funds your advertising, erases your expenses and produces a never-ending source of leads for your network marketing system
• provide you with ongoing training, coaching and support to ensure your success

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I chose two incredibly powerful marketing systems that fulfilled all of the above. Both have ‘teachings’ that I felt in tune with and that are intertwined with each other. Each gives a slightly different slant on things and both have something unique to offer that complements the other.

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Clever concepts!

The whole concept of these systems is that we are not selling or advertising our business opportunity directly. In fact the majority of people we speak to will not be interested in our system or product, no matter how great we think it is!

The liberating thing about this new approach is that it doesn’t matter whether we manage to sign them up to our primary opportunity! They have already made a purchase from us that has covered the cost of our advertising and what’s more, we have not spent hours cold calling or alienating our friends and family to get these leads in the first place.

It took me a while to "get it" but when we use these systems; our business has nothing to do with our primary Network Marketing Company. Our business is to generate quality leads that we can market a variety of products and opportunities to.

If all we manage to do is make $20 from each lead then that can’t be a bad thing can it? If we then go on to sell another product that makes us $100 that is an added bonus.

Yes, we may eventually sign some of these leads up to our primary opportunity and that is the icing on the cake!

So our products and services are not really our primary focus. All that matters is that your product holds real value and provides a solution to the end consumer which is the necessary ingredient for long term success.

In short, your primary focus is working with whichever marketing system you use. If this is not working, you will have a hard time succeeding with any Network Marketing Company!

The sad thing is that the marketing system used by many of the Network Marketing companies doesn't work or is absent leaving you to generate your own leads or pay for leads from genealogy lists. Most of the effort is directed at getting and converting these leads which is time consuming and soul destroying. That is why over 95% of distributors fail. Many people switch from system to system thinking that the product or compensation plan might be the reason for their failure...

Remember what I said about not spending too much time on prospecting? Do you understand what I meant now?

What we all need to do is realise that it is the skill and knowledge of the person using the system (YOU) that matters, not the company or the compensation plan.

Finding customers who will become distributors because they like a product is not effective marketing. Just because you like a product does not mean that you have the necessary skills or desire to become a distributor. Ok you may find a few distributors that way but they are not likely to be your huge earners...

The focus needs to be to market your product to your target customer and your system to your target market. After all, they are the ones that already believe in the Network Marketing business model, have already spent money in the industry, want to succeed and are willing and eager to use anything that will help them succeed.

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The perfect marketing model

The model we are looking to set up consists of three or four overlapping parts where the network itself comes last instead of first...

• Free information that will attract your target market to you
• A low cost, high volume retail product that funds your advertising, erases your expenses and produces a never-ending source of leads for your network marketing system
• Further products and services that will generate additional income without any further effort or input from you
• A network marketing opportunity that creates long term residual income

Both of the systems that I am working with provide just that. If you haven’t signed up to either (or both) of these then you should seriously check them out!

To your success!

Andrea