How to create value
Spend a few minutes searching the web for ways to make money online. Go ahead; I’ll wait.
If you didn’t do that search just now, it’s probably because you’ve tried it before and already knew what you would find. Almost every site, course, and guru out there will tell you that to make money online, you should sign up for AdSense (or maybe for a large advertiser’s affiliate program), rustle up some long-tail keywords, and start gaming Google traffic.
I’m not going to tell you that doesn’t work . . . but I am going to tell you that it didn’t work for me, and that it’s unlikely to work for you if you’re even one iota like me.
Here’s why I don’t like the AdSense strategy as a business model:
1.) It’s not a business model. Any time you can talk about “monetization,” you’re probably not talking about a real business because “monetizing” a business is redundant. “Monetizing” is slapping a moneymaker on top of something that doesn’t naturally produce income. The way that 99.99% of people dive into AdSense, they’re simply putting something out there and waiting for the dollars to roll in. There is no real planning, no accounting forecasts, no intention down the road to improve workflow or expand offerings or enlarge the sales funnel, no exploiting the best abilities of yourself and partners to create benefit for others.
2.) It doesn’t add value. Technicalities aside, there is no real product or service in the way most AdSense “make money online” campaigns are run. There is simply arbitrage. You’re not increasing widget sales; you’re trying to make sure more of the existing sales will occur through your ads. I learned my lesson trying to play the stock market (and failing) and then investing in real estate (and failing at an epic level): Sustainable incomes come from using your talents to create value for others, not from gambling and playing the numbers.
3.) It contradicts the way the Net is supposed to work. Yes, yes, I know . . . some people blog in a heartfelt manner about cabinetry and run cabinetry ads, and visitors click them to buy cabinets and the site owner makes money. But most AdSense strategies are all about gaming the system. When I was creating insurance niche sites, I couldn’t have cared less about insurance. I was simply trying to draw traffic away from the legit insurance sites so that people would click on my ads instead of finding an insurance company a different way. That’s not the way that the Web is supposed to work . . . which is to efficiently connect the searcher and what she’s searching for.
4.) It’s anonymous. Few “make money online” strategies will tell you to blog under your own name, include your own picture, and make a big deal about being the guy or gal who created this site. In fact, I spent a lot of my time trying to obscure who I was. Many courses even tell you to use hosting that will generate random, non-sequential IP addresses for each site, so that even Google won’t know that one person owns them all. Anonymity conflicts directly with what I consider to be the most important reasons for my success, which are honesty, authenticity, trust-building, and transparency.
You can do better, no matter who you are
I worked really, really, really hard on those AdSense sites. I worked 15-hour days; I wrote keyword-laced post after keyword-laced post; I entered them in article directories and put them through social media bulk submitters; I launched site after site, tweaked, customized, and researched.
And by doing that, I made $111 in a year.
Maybe I didn’t work hard enough. Maybe I used the wrong system. Maybe, if someone else had done it, they might have done it twice as well. And maybe that same person would have done it for three times as long as I did, building sites for the whole year instead of only doing it for four months.
So yeah, maybe that super-ambitious person might have made $888.
Now, stop and think about that for a second.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that they could start a business today, being themselves, playing to their own strengths, and creating value for others, and not make more than $888 in a year should . . . well, those people should really just stop reading about business right now.
Am I saying that you can’t use AdSense to make money online? No. Am I saying that every “system” for striking it rich on the Net — like creating anonymous niche sites that use AdWords ads to draw traffic to affiliate products — is an impossible scam? No.
I’m just saying that the average person is probably going to have better luck building a real business. Meaning:
- One that you can stand behind publicly.
- One that’s based on helping others in exchange for pay.
- One that benefits from being a real, authentic person.
- One that matches your best abilities to the needs of others.
Above bullet points practically describing Electromedical Distribution model. EMT is standing behind their product for over 10 years now and you can benefit from helping others.
There is over 100 Million people in US alone that suffer from chronic or acute pain…Should I continue pointing the obvious?
The moral of the story
Giving away your time can be extremely valuable. It can even transform your entire business if you do it right. If you decide to give something away, make sure that you can build relationships with potential clients in return. It also helps if you can get exposure in front of the right audience as part of the deal. Also, always remember to do your research before giving away anything, or else you might end up losing a lot of money.
Some people claim it isn’t worth the time or money—but in my experience giving away free stuff is one of the best ways to market a small business.
Recruiting advices
There is no one right way when it comes to recruiting. Nevertheless, if you have these secrets in mind when approaching your recruiting process, you’re definitely going to be much happier and more productive in your network marketing business.
Here are the secrets:
Secret Number One: Follow-Ups
You heard before saying that the money is in the list. The fortune is in the follow up. This is true. The money is actually being made during the “follow-up” conversation after a presentation has been given, and any questions have been answered. This is when your prospect actually buys something.
That being the case, the “follow-up” process is where you want to spend the majority of your time. The more follow-ups you have, the more orders you take.
There are two types of follow-ups: Active and Passive.
1. Active follow-ups consist of the personal calls you have with the prospects who have voluntarily shown an interest in becoming a customer or distributor.
2. Passive follow-ups is where you can leverage your time and efforts by building rapport, respect, and a relationship with your prospects via an email auto responder.
But, calling your leads personally will always bring better results. You have a much higher chance of getting them to buy or join your business.
This is human psychology. People who are willing and ready to spend money on your offer would like to know who you are in their eyes. There is a real person behind the system on whom they can rely to help them. Simply, people want to talk with real people. Your phone calls give you the ultimate competitive advantage.
DSA (Direct Sales Industry) statistics state that less 2% of those you prospect the 1st time will be interested enough to make a decision. That percentage stays about flat until you get to about the 5th-6th contact where nearly 80% will be prepared make a decision.
First Approach 2% sign up
Second Approach 3% sign up
Third Approach 4% sign up
Fourth Approach 5% sign up
Fifth Approach a WHOPPING 80% sign.
Never forget to go back to the people you have approached. You might be the 5th approach! (In a recessionary environment it may take few more than 5 approaches)
The best way to sell during a recession is to stay calm and focus on solutions.
One of the worst mistakes you can make during a recession is act panicked as in the crazy “mad” dash rush that some leaders try to put their teams through at the end of every month. Marketers who act too aggressive or too hungry in order to sign someone up will scare off most of their best prospects. Instead of hysteria, offer calm, focused solutions during the course of the entire month. Hard sell “scripted” sales tactics will ruin some of your best prospects. If you don’t believe it, try it some time…but don’t say we did not warn you.
Secret Number Two: Posture
If you’re going to sell something to someone, you’ve got to find a way to get “invited” into their world as a welcomed guest, instead of a pest.
If you want to make the sponsoring process effortless, you need to increase your value to your prospects by increasing your level of knowledge and experience like showing them how to generate their own leads online, how to build their own capture pages and etc.
Recruiting is about leadership and you must demonstrate that you are the leader through both verbal and non-verbal cues, otherwise they will not join you.
Here are some examples of you having good posture:
1. Be healthy and fit. It shows self-respect and they generally have a more positive outlook about themselves.
2. Dress sensibly. It is better to be dressed neatly and not too much out of date fashion for it conveys a lack of social intelligence.
3. Be comfortable with yourself. Stand or sit relaxed and talk calmly. You’re confident.
4. Have a sense of humor and smile. It is attractive.
5. Don’t be needy. Having an abundance mentality will allow you to let go of your fears, your neediness and the emotional attachment to the outcome from prospecting.
6. Be unaffected by others. Don’t react to people’s negative emotions or try to impress them.
7. Always be the one to lead interactions and conversations.
There are a lot of tips on recruiting on the internet which will make a huge impact in your business. Believe it or not, when you can communicate well in all forms (email, copywriting and speaking), you will start exuding magnetism and people will be naturally drawn to you. This is one of the greatest gifts you’ll ever receive. It will allow you to truly see yourself for who you are, where you’re strong and where you’re weak, which then gives you the ability to transform yourself in to who you want to ultimately become.
Twitter advices
At first glance, many small business owners have a hard time seeing a use for Twitter. It’s a site that allows you to post only short messages, and it seems like many users are effectively posting random comments. But Twitter can be a very effective tool for your business — and you can use it to market your product or service for free.
Here are some tips for those just starting out:
About Twitter and basic How to (video)
Getting Started With Twitter
The first step to leveraging Twitter for your business is to set up a Twitter account. You want to pick an account name that is relatively short — it’s preferable to use your company’s name, but an abbreviation can make it easier to communicate effectively on the site. You’ll also want to fill out your bio as completely as possible: link to your website, describe your business and put up a logo or other image.
From the start, you’ll also want to use a few external services to help you keep an eye on who is saying what — unless you want to spend hours a day on the site. Luckily, these tools are free as well.
- TweetDeck: This is an extremely popular desktop application that will let you handle replies, direct messages, search lists, and multiple accounts. There are other desktop applications as well, and using them make Twitter easier to follow and interact.
- TwitterLocal: If your business relies on local buyers or clients, you’ll want to have a good idea of what’s going on in your area. TwitterLocal provides you with a tool to read tweets made in locations you specify. (Relies on Adobe AIR, which is also free).
- SocialOomph: With SocialOomph, you can write posts ahead of time and set them up to automatically post at a time of your choosing, among other things that this service provides.
There are thousands of other free Twitter tools, but deciding which ones can help you requires first deciding just how you want to use Twitter.
Sharing Information on Twitter
Success on Twitter is measured — at least by prospective customers or clients — by your authenticity. As a matter of course, most Twitter users have no interest in following an account that is nothing but links and company announcements. Instead, they’re looking for a little interaction. There’s nothing wrong with including announcements, but you want to respond to comments that other Twitter users make about your business or your industry.
You can jump into a conversation very easily on Twitter, especially if you have set up alerts about topics relevant to your business. If you see that someone is talking about your industry, for instance, take a minute and look at what he has said: agree or disagree, you probably have an opinion about the topic that you would like to share. On Twitter, there’s no need to wait for an invitation — just jump in and start sharing.
The same holds true if someone mentions your product on Twitter. Good or bad, you should acknowledge the mention. If it’s bad, take a moment to see if you can address the issue. If you can fix the situation, you know that you’ve got a satisfied customer who will tell the world about it. The more happy customers you have commenting about how good you are on Twiter, the more potential customers will hear about it. It’s word of mouth marketing taken to a higher level.
Getting Followers of Your Own
There are tools available that you can plug in your Twitter account information and automatically add a thousand contacts on Twitter. However, taking this approach won’t help you in the long run. In a worst case scenario, you can get banned as a spammer. In the best case scenario, most Twitter users will ignore you as just another marketer.
The better option is to grow your Twitter contacts organically. Find someone interested in your business or industry? Start following him — and a put a little extra effort into conversing with him. Get a notification that you’re being followed by someone new? Check out his profile and start a conversation (and follow him back). In just a few months, you’ll have a solid network of Twitter contacts that are actually worth knowing.
Printing advices
Despite claims that all marketing is headed for the web, printed marketing materials can be crucial to your small business. Brochures, business cards and other printed materials can help you stick in a prospective customer’s mind in a way that a website may not. After all, it’s easier to keep a business card than it is to keep track of a business website. The importance of your printed marketing materials means that you need to make sure that they’re high quality. In some cases, that can mean paying extra to get the best printing — but if you know the facts about getting your marketing materials printed, you can often find better deals with better printers.
However, knowing what’s important when it comes to using a printer can be rather tricky, especially if you’ve never had anything printed before. In order for you to understand what’s involved with the printing process, here are 5 facts you need to know.
5 Must-Know Facts about Printing
No matter what printer you work with, you’ll find that his or her primary business is definitely not design. That doesn’t mean that you can’t find a printer with a good design staff, but the cost of the design work will almost always be more than you can arrange through an individual designer. If your preferred printer recommends a designer or two, it’s fine to check them out — but you’ll often find a better price by looking for a designer on your own. The only drawback with bringing in your own designer is that you must make sure that your designer gets the printer’s specs. An experienced graphic designer can tell you exactly what specifications he or she needs to complete your project.
Different printers offer different specialties. Online printing solutions, for instance, offer good quality service on relatively simple projects. If you need a business card — and you already have the design — you can get them printed up with high quality and low expense by going online. But those same printers just can’t offer as good a solution on anything even a little out of the ordinary. In those circumstances, you’ll be better off with a printer you can describe your needs to in person.
While the weight or brightness of a paper may not seem important, it can make a huge difference in how your marketing materials turn out. You have to know throughout the planning, designing and printing portions of the process just what paper you are going to use — a change in materials at any point can change both your budget and just what your designer and printer need to do to guarantee a quality product. Printers are very aware of this fact, and a good printer will walk you through your paper options if you ask.
If budget is a concern whenever you’re thinking about a new marketing project, it’s important to build a close relationship with a local printer. Small print shops have more flexibility to make deals. If, for instance, you’re willing to work with the paper the printer has on hand, it can make a major difference to your budget. It is important, however, to keep in mind that paper costs are on the rise, reducing just how much of a bargain you can make.
No matter how many copies of a particular marketing piece you’re printing up today, you’re probably going to have to go back for another batch at some point. Business cards are a good example — you’ll probably be using the same business card design for quite a while, and you want each printing of your business card to look the same. That means going back to the same printer whenever you can. If you want to make sure your business cards match your brochure (and it’s definitely worthwhile to do so), you’ll also want to be able to go back to your designer.
With these facts in hand, you can set out to find a printer capable of completing your project — within your budget. As you work through a few printing projects, you’ll find that you’ll pick up more information about printing and what kinds of materials you can use to market your business. But you’ll also find yourself coming back to these simple facts time and again.
If all of this information seems like too much to process, you could hire someone trusted to do it all for you. Most marketing companies, including SmallFuel, will handle all of these details and be able to make informed and insightful marketing decisions based on your needs and marketing goals.