Recently, I saw an ad for a great product on a Social Networking site.  I clicked the link in the ad and noticed that the product was offered through a network marketing company.  I replied to the person telling them that I would check out their product and that it looked great. I also offered to add this person as a connection on the site.

Her reply was something to the tune of:

Yes, it’s a great product… if you want to learn more we have a meeting on Tuesday night at 7… it is a great product and a great opportunity.

I replied and thanked her but also asked if I could offer her some business  advice related to network marketing.

Problem #1 - If someone shows interest in your product or service, they most likely want to buy it, but I am sure they don’t want to go to a meeting to learn more about it.  Can you imagine if Amazon invited you to a book signing every time you showed interest in a book?

Problem #2 - Opportunity?  I will use Amazon again as an example.  If you were going to buy a book from Amazon and they had a popup that stopped you from buying but let you know that they had an affiliate program where you can make money by referring people to the site, do you think that would annoy most people? (the answer is YES!)

 Most people that show interest in your product will not be intersted in your opportunity, but MANY will be turned off by an offer of a business opportunity and people will miss out on the quality products and services.

Most network marketers fail by never knowing what message they are sending to their prospects or sending a mixed message. 

Here is a strategy that I recommend, that will make you lots of money:

1. Close your sale first (which puts money in your pocket). If someone asks about your product, sell it to them. End of story.

2. Follow up with your prospects and ask them for customer referrals. Again, resist the temptation of sharing the business opportunity with them (no matter what you have been taught). Your customers WILL refer you customers if they are happy with your products.  Keep in mind that making sales is how you make money.

3. After you close at least one of the referrals, go back to the referrer and thank them again for the referrals.  THEN, drop this line “by the way, I get paid for all of the business that my customers refer me… I am curious to know if you are interested in getting paid for the referrals you’ve been sending me?”  Some will want to know more, but most will not. You should be happy with this referral source, and I would personally give them a gift certificate or something depending on how much I made off of their referrals.

4. Find out how you can help them. Ask them if they have any needs that you might be able to help them with. If they have a business, ask them who their ideal client is and sincerely try to send them referrals (and do not ask for a referral fee).

The key here is finding customers because happy customers make the best referrals.  This is how traditional business works, and how most network marketers fail.  If you are prospecting for reps, then do just that.  Sell the opportunity and focus on the money making, but in the end, know that your reps will have to have passion about your products or services or they will rarely succeed.

I hope this helps you build a solid business.  I’d love to hear how this helps you or if you have any questions.

Have a great day!

Yesterday I went to an amazing Independence Day celebration at my church.  We honored those who have fought for our freedom which was a very moving time.  So few give thought to those who have given their lives for our freedoms, starting with those who signed the declaration of independence to all of those who have fought for our great land and continue to do so.  This isn’t about whether or not you beleive in war or not, so don’t let your personal opinions cause you to neglect to honor those to whom honor is due.

If you are in another country, then just bear with me as this is written toward the US audience.  As you think about freedom, I ask you to think about several things:

1. What is means to live in a free country.  We are the most blessed nation on Earth, and it’s not because we are better or deserve it, so we need to be thankful every day and remember that everything we enjoy today is because of the sacrifices of others. This includes those who put their lives on the line every day to protect our great land.

2. What it means to be emotionally free. Take a good hard look at how any toxic emotions that you are holding on to might be holding you back in life. Most of us are not prepared to correct this on our own, so if you need to seek out someone help you get  through your emotional past, know that there is honor in doing that (and no shame). Here is a resource that might give you some guidance.

3. What it means to be spiritually free.  God send His son Jesus to set us free from the power of sin and death.  It is a free gift and the walk of faith is a wonderful life.  Being free spiritually also leads to emotional freedom. If you want to learn more about how to live a life of spritual freedom, I recommend visiting Billy Graham’s website.

4.  What it means to be financially free.  Most people are stuck in the bondage of poverty and debt and have no idea how to become financially free.  The good news is that because we live in a free country, we have the freedom to start our own business and take control of our financial destiny.  This site is dedicated to helping people along that journey. If you want to learn more about how we can help you become financially free by building a business of your own (with a proven system), then visit this page to learn more about what we do.

Don’t let anyone hold you back from enjoying your freedoms. Often you will find that the people that want to hold you back in life are those who are not free themselves and want to keep you where they are.

I wish you freedom in every way (physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially) on this July 4th weekend!

Wealth means different things to different people. If I asked you what it means to be wealthy, you would most likely think of a sum of money that sounds like a lot of money.  It would be a different number for everyone, but let’s say you said having $5,000,000 would make you feel wealthy.  Most people cannot envision having that kind of money, nor do they have a realistic game plan to help them obtain that kind of money.  In the end, many people fail to acquire wealth simply because they have a mental block that tells them they will never have that kind of money (and it is often based on their past).

I would like to challenge your thinking and offer you a new definition of wealth. Think of wealth as “how long you can survive without working”.  We will look at a combination of your savings and your residual income, with a focus on building both.  This will help you see exactly what it takes to be “truly wealthy” by building a residual income that matches, then exceeds your monthly expenses.

Let’s say your monthly expenses are $3,000 per month, and you make just enough money on your job to pay your bills, but you’ve got $1,500 in savings.  At this point, you are about two weeks wealthy.  The obvious question is how to correct both the lack of savings and lack of residual income .  The answer is a home based business that pays you monthly for every customer you acquire. 

You can choose different strategies, but one strategy might be building your savings up by an additional $1,500 which would give you a one month cushion, or make you one month wealthy.  Next, set a residual incone goal to shoot for such as one weeks worth of your salary.  At $3,000 per month that would require that your business earns an additional $750 per month.  It certainly won’t happen overnight, but imagine how it would feel to know that you cold pay for 1/4 of your bills if you somehow lost your job?  Your next goals could be doubling that residual income so that you have 1/2 of your monthly expenses covered by your business income, and then the final phase is to have your business income match your job income. Even if it takes you 5 years to reach this goal isn’t it worth it? You would be able to save as much every month as you earn on your job, building up your savings, and therefore increasing your wealth position.

I hope I conveyed the message effectively here as this is a challenging topic to share in print. In closing, I have a few questions for you:

1. How wealthy are you? Literally, sit down and figure out how much your expenses are and how long you could survive if you somehow lost your job tomorrow.

2. If I could show you an affordable way to get started in a business that allows you to generate long term residual income for each customer that you acquire, allowing you to increase your wealth position, would you be interested in learning more? (if so, call me at 800-453-9290 and leave me a message).

3. If you answered no to question 2, with unemployment at an all time high, what is your plan for building wealth… or just surviving a layoff?

This is something that I am passionate about and I welcome your feedback. I am happy to answer any questions you might have, so feel free to leave them in the comments below so others can benefit as well.

Until next time…

Coach Tony, The Naked CEO

This strategy is effective whether you are in traditional business, have a solo pratice, are a network marketer, have a home based business, or are the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation.  I experienced it firsthand when it was modeled by a lawyer that I met at a networking event, and I have also seen it work firsthand in my own business. Best of all, it won’t cost you a fortune. I am referring to the lost art of the handwritten letter.

Let me first say that most people don’t even have the courtesy to send a typed letter anymore as email has nearly destroyed our sense of professionalism.  If you don’t feel that you are able to write a simple handwritten letter to someone who has just paid you money for your product or service you need to re-evaluate how you spend your time (a life coach / business coach may be a great investment for you). It also means you need to learn about the lifetime value of a customer, not just in terms of what they pay you, but their referrals to you.  If you truly have a massive number of customers, then at a minimum make sure they get some sort of written thank you in the mail as opposed to just an email.

Trust me, I am as busy as anyone else,  and likely more busy due to being involved in multiple businesses and other professional activities .  In fact I owe a few people letters that I am going to work on today, but I know the impact it had on me when I casually met a partner of a law firm in a networking setting and I got a handwritten card from him.  It said that although he was busy as a practicing partner of a law firm, he valued meeting me. It also said that as a networker, he was serious about building a business relationship and he wasn’t just “collecting business cards” as most people do. When you spend money with a business, don’t you want to feel like they appreciate your business and don’t just take you for granted? Your customers are no different.

Recently, I wrote a handwritten thank you card to a business associate that had sent me a referral.  She replied via email and said that she was impressed that I sent her a handwritten card ans also said that she was going to talk to more of her customers to try and send them my way.  If I had just sent her a thank you email, I am confident that the response would not have been as great.

So who should you send handwritten cards to?

(High Priority)
- Anyone who spends money with you.
- Anyone who sends you referrals.

(Highly Recommended)
- Former customers you want to reconnect with.
- People you meet at networking events
- Friends and family that may not know about your business

(Bonus)
- If you can track birthdays of your friends, family, and customers those go a long way. Even more effective if you don’t put a business card in them, so it seems more genuine.

One of my favorite trainers and business coaches always says “it’s so easy to beat the masses” because they are rarely wiling to do what it takes to be successful.  Are you willing to do something simple to set yourself above the masses and create success?

Many people often think that the best people to recruit for their network marketing business are network marketers. It is a reasonable assumption, especially for someone who is new to the business or perhaps has not had any quality training. The faulty logic says “if I show them a better product or compensation plan, surely they will want to switch companies.” Here are a few reasons why this is not true:

1. So few people are successful in network marketing that chances are you might get a new rep without seeing any positive impact (i.e. income) to your business.

2. If they are not committted to their current company, they most likely won’t be committed to yours.  You will sign them up and have them on your team until they find the new “flavor of the month.”

3. Most network marketers are lazy and not willing to work for the money that is sitting right in front of them. If you are offended by this, then you have some work to do (on your personal development).

4. Most network marketers do not invest in training or personal development, therefore will likely share more misinformation about your company, products, or services (and maybe even your team) to people they talk to. You need to make it very clear up front that you have a solid training program and that is mandatory for them to go through it in order to work with you.  You will “filter out” some people up front, but this is not a loss, it is just saving time.

5. If you recruit them based on your compensation plan, they won’t stay.  Why? If they don’t beleive in the product, they will never sell enough or recruit enough to earn money at the lowest level of the plan, let alone “real money”.

So where should you seek to find prospects for your business? I would start with your satisfied customers. If you don’t have any you need to go get some customers, after all that is how money is made in network marketing, right? Assuming you do have customers, go back to your customers and ask them for customer referrals. If you get referrals then pitch them on your product or service and try to acquire them as customers. As you close those referrals, simply go back to the referral source and thank them and then ask if they would be interested in getting paid for their referrals. If they say yes, then move into your recruiting dialogue. If they say no… move on. Do not try to convince them that they need to join you, simply keep on getting those referrals and getting paid.  They may come around and they may not; it doesn’t matter as long as you are building your customer base and giving people the opportunity to join you.  Sure it’s a soft sell, but keep in mind that most people can’t sell and if you “hard sell” someone into your business or product, they will pick up on that and you will never recruit them because they will realize that they don’t want to have to hard sell people to make money.

I hope you found this insightful  For more helpful tips, please download my free ebook, Why People Fail in Network Marketing.

Sounds crazy, huh? Stay with me and you just might get a new perspective… one that could make you a fortune.  Now you really think I am messing with you, but I’m not.

If I asked you about your goals, there is a good chance that money would be in there somewhere. Sadly, for many people a goal based on money would be the only goal.  The real question is “what would you do if you had more money than you could spend?” Whatever the answer is to that question is the goal that your network marketing efforts need to be working towards helping you accomplish.

For me, it is seeing people set free spiritually, physically, financially, and emotionally. For you it might be something different, but my point is that you should set goals based on what you can attach your emotions to, not just money.  If you do this and you can connect your emotions to goal setting, you will be amazed at how much faster you see that goal coming into being. Thankfully, I am seeing it more and more every day.

One of the biggest things I have alway heard about goal setting is that your goals must be written down. While this is true, you will accomplish your goals much more effectively if they are written down AND you read them aloud twice a day while connecting your emotions to them.  What I mean by this is you have to not just read it aloud, but visualize yourself being in the moment or living as you would while fulfilling your goals and dreams.

If you want to learn more about goal setting and attaching your emotions to your goals, I highly recommend reading “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolron Hill (the new version). If you have read it and you are not 100% clear on the process or not getting the results you want, reading this new version will help. If you are reading it for the second time, read it slowly maknig sure you grasp all of the points, but most of all, do all of the exercises. You will be amazed at your results!

Wishing you success!

Imagine you are shopping at the local department store and the sales assocaite walks up to you and asks you “if you are making all the money you want to”.  You hold your purse a little closer and reply something about “ahh, I’m ok… I am happy with my job”.  They proceed to tell you why you should want to own your own department store (and that your J.O.B. is keeping you Just Over Broke) and start selling you on all of the benefits of  “business ownership”.  You kindly thank them and ask where you can find a shirt.  Rather than telling  you directly they ask  a series of questions… “how many of your friends buy shirts?” and “wouldn’t you like to get paid every time one of your friends buys a shirt?”  “what if you could get a cut on every shirt sold in your local community?”  Let’s not stop there… “I am sure you and your friends know people all across the country, and eventually you could be getting paid for shirt sales all across the country from people you don’t even know!!!” “Can you imagine how much money you would be making?” (provided you personally bought enough shirts every month to qualify).

You nod, and excuse yourself for interrupting and ask where the restrooms are.  They not only tell you, but proceed to walk you over there and continue to talk to you about how many shirts they sell through their network of “friends”.  Finally, you make it to the restroom. While inside, you look for an emergency fire escape becuase you know that “a certain someone” is waiting outside… and very likely with a department store franchise appliction in hand.

You concede and decide to re-emerge from the restroom, only to find “Mr. Happy” sitting on the couch outside of the restroom.  You decide to take a rest and just sit down (and not so close to him). Suddenly, you sense that someone is rubbing your back…. you are curious… then… you wake up.   Thank God it was just another dream sparked by the deluge of people trying to get you into MLM lately.

So what is the moral of this story? If you are in the network marketing business, keep in mind that you need to actually make a sale to earn money.  If someone wants to buy your product or service, make the sale and do not sidetrack a customer by trying to turn them into a rep for your company.  I would much rather have a customer advocate who refers me customers, than try to convince someone (who has not tried my product or service) that being a rep is a good thing for them.  If you pursue customers than become customer advocates you will make for more money because they will “sell” without ever selling as a rep. Their testimonials will pre-sell the customers they send you and you will be paid well for what you do.

I hope you enjoyed that little story.

For more insight on network marketing and how to effectively run a profitable network marketing business, visit www.NakedCEO.com and download your free copy of “Why People Fail in Network Marketing” (scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see the book offer).

If you aren’t getting the results you want in your network marketing business, you’ve got to ask yourself if you are doing the right things. Take a serious look at what you to market your products or services and how you recruit and ask yourself if you want people to model you.

One of the things I realy appreciate about network marketing is the emphasis on personal development.  The sad thing is that so many people don’t even take advantage of those resources.  I would venture to say that if someone joined a network marketing company any just plugged in to the trainings, they would be happier and live a more fulfilled life. They would most likely earn more money in their “day job” and eventually come around and earn money with the network marketing company they are associated with.

So let me ask you; are you leading by example when it comes to personal development? Don’t tell me you don’t have a team so it doesn’t matter. If you become a leader worth following, people will beat a path to your door to join your team. Leaders are leaders because they do the right things, not becasue they have a team of people looking to them for help.

Maybe you don’t have a great role model in your company? If that is the case, I invite you to condider joining our amazing team. We have some of the best leadership and training in the network marketing industry - hands down!

If you’d like to learn more, please download my ebook, “Why People Fail in Network Marketing“.  After you have read it, you will have my contact information in the book, but also it will answer many of your questions about our team.

I wish you success because you deserve it!

Network marketing has a bad name for many reasons.  One of them is that peolpe often try to “sell” someone on a network marketing opportunity promising them that they will somehow get rich.  The real clue should be that the person “sharing” this information is rarely rich. In fact, many times they are in fact, quite the opposite; poor, and destined to be poor until they learn that the only way you get rich quick in life is through the lottery.   Next they need to learn that stastistically they could survive two plane crashes before winning $1,000,000 in the lottery.

Sure, there are those companies out there that will tell you that they have “high profit margins”, but the problem is that they want you to buy one first, then give up your first few commissions to your “sponsor” (who rarely does anything to deserve it), then go out and find more uneducated dreamers (suckers) to drop 4 or 5 figures on your product. Let me also say, this is not true network marketing, it is high pressure sales and it continues to discredit network marketing.

If you want to build a business from the comfort of your home, and over time generate a solid residual income that you can leave as a legacy to your family, then let’s chat.  I promise I won’t try to sell you becuase if I have to “sell you” to join, I will have to “sell you” to work, and you wouldn’t work and you would just become another disillusioned dreamer who thinks that network marketing doesnt work. Learn how to join our team.