Secret 5

Keep them close

You new team member is like a young child. You wouldn’t send your child to school and not expect them to come home to tell you how their day was right?

Same thing here. Ask your team member to check in with your after their first couple of invitations. Help them to get better and don’t forget to PRAISE them for taking action.

Secret 6

Teach them to follow up professionally

Depending what skill set your team member has when they arrive you may have to teach them how to schedule appointments. Some guys don’t even use a planner when they start!

Either way teach them exactly how to follow up and what to say, and what not to say!

If you do a good invitation the follow up process has already been set up and should be smooth because the prospect knows what to expect.

As with the invitation it is very helpful to do some role-playing with them here.

I hope you’re enjoying this series of short posts revealing the 7 secrets of helping your new team member to get off to a fast start.

If this was helpful to you please share, retweet or leave a comment about your experiences with getting your new team members started.

Don’t forget to tune in for Secret 7 which will be posted very soon.

Network Marketing fascinates me. If it didn’t I probably would have quit long, long ago. There is something about it that is simply addictive.. don’t you think?

What is it exactly? It’s hard to put your finger on.

It’s one of the toughest business models out there but still we cling to this concept of greatness through building a huge network.

Last week as you may recall from my ezine, Amateurs versus Professionals I attended a company convention and also had a special European leadership session with Randy Gage prior to the event which was by special invitation only. It got me thinking…

Randy is convinced that Attraction Marketing is devil’s spawn! This came as no surprise to me, as those of you who follow him know full well that he doesn’t mince words. With Randy it is his way or the highway.

That is actually what is so attractive about him. There is no room for doubt. He has complete conviction, the cheques and the success record to back up his philosophy. That is strong leadership that brings you back to the centre line.

During the leadership session he threw out a few acidic comments about Attraction Marketing and aimed them square at me. I shifted uncomfortably but looked him straight in the eyes. We laughed about it later as I know he wants only the best for me.

I am well aware that I manifested all of this because I dreamed of working with Randy Gage and his systems years before he even got back into a Network Marketing company.

Still..anyone would think I created Attraction Marketing. I mean come on Randy.. I am not Michelle Dillard!

Randy thinks that Attraction Marketing is ‘bullshit’ and that lots of the online gurus are just mining the minors. (When you think that apparently there was more money made in the Gold Rush from the selling of shovels and levi jeans, than from the gold itself this is obviously a good business to be in!

Anyway it got me to thinking again as I so often do about this online and offline MLM puzzle or conundrum.

I have never said that online MLM is the only way to go because right from the get go I have been very aware of the advantages of building MLM with a traditional (but smart step-by-step) business plan.

Not ever doing fliers again though guys!

I’ve never begged my prospects to join or cried when they said no. (At least not in a long, long time) In previous posts I have written about much of the online nonsense that is going on as newbie network marketers try to figure out what to do, and spam our profiles.

Randy Gage and Eric Worre teach professional network marketing at its very best. Duplication and creating massive organizations that are built to last is their speciality.

Hence they have no time for the latest internet gimmicks and create an army of distributors who know exactly what to do.

Attraction Marketing and Internet Network Marketing on the other hand can get very complicated. By its very nature your people are all doing different things. This makes duplication very, very challenging. (If you didn’t read my story and why I created my own Attraction Marketing system yet, you can download my free Attraction Marketing e-book here)

I do love working online and bring in some great people this way. But you have to have a real business plan for them to get started fast with your company or team.

They then add in online marketing to the mix if they want to.

Going online straight away is awesome if you are experienced and already have a network circle to contact online. For some, especially younger people it is easy to get their heads around driving traffic to their web page. For others who barely know how to get their own domain name, it can be a very slow process.

Personally I advocate doing what you love and what makes sense for your personal circumstances. I for instance live in a very remote location and because of the internet have been able to enrol people from all over the world. Pretty exciting hey?

That being said I have some advanced internet skills and have created an excellent online marketing funnel that does a lot of the work for me.

If I lived in London I probably would do more local networking, so you see how it’s best to create your plan around your skill-set and your life as it is now. (That being said I have done so much local networking in my MLM career and I know the power of it)

I could go on. There’s so much here to elaborate on in another post but enough is enough. You guys are busy and short is better than long these days.

In closing I’m finding myself wondering how many of the Attraction Marketing gurus are really building an MLM downline?

I’ve always done the business with a mix of on and offline because the tools I have access to with my team are way too good to ignore for warm market.

There are many though who claim that they can do it all online. Network Marketing is about people and relationships so whilst I agree that A LOT can be done online with technology, I also know that meetings make money, cement relationships and build belief.

I see the transformation that happens to our team members when they attend events, especially major ones.

I do however LOVE online lead generation and for me it has always been about being able to teach people what to do to attract more prospects once they have been through their warm list.

In my experience most people are open to working their warm list if you give them realistic expectations and quality business tools to do it with.

Where it all falls down (I find) is when you have nothing else to teach them after that. It can be very challenging to meet enough NEW people to do another ‘major blast’ or create enough continued momentum and first line recruiting.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. It seems to me that the roles have been reversed.

The die-hard online network marketers (the Renegades and the Magnetics) who refuse to do any offline marketing have long accused MLM uplines such as Randy Gage and Dani Johnson, of doing one thing but teaching another.

Funded proposals and affiliate marketing are amazing and I have generated a lot of income with them but they do distract people from building their MLM cheque unless they have a systemized approach to it and really understand it.

In a strange irony it seems to me as though the shoe is now on the other foot. The MLM leaders who have built huge downlines with person to person and warm market lists are now calling out the online gurus as doing one thing and teaching another!

Are Attraction Marketers for the most part just selling online affiliate courses and losing sight of the MLM dream?

When you figure that the big players in Attraction Marketing such as Mike Dillard and Mike Klingler are no longer building the MLM model…

Ann Sieg is in MLM but has a huge business with affiliate marketing…

Jonathan Budd is a big player but again I don’t know how much of his earnings published on MLM authority sites are actually from his MLM.

Perhaps Randy Gage has a good point.

What do you think? Leave your comments on the blog. I know this is a heated subject for many so please show respect!

p.s Every name I have mentioned in this blog has been of tremendous value to me in building my business and I in no way which to discredit any of them. They all bring incredible leadership and training to Network Marketing with their own unique style.

It’s been a confusing few weeks in the world of Attraction Marketing for MLM. Would you agree? I’m not just talking about the usual overwhelm and endless offers you receive to your inbox, but rather about the game changing strategic moves from Attraction Marketing leaders like Ann Sieg, Mike Klingler and Mike Dillard.

I mean what’s really going on?

You get all fired up for building your MLM business online and then just as you’re getting the hang of it, Mike Dillard emails you that actually he’s now developing an offline system! There was a great interview he did this week that talks about this in more detail with Jerry Chen. You can watch it here if it’s still up. Mike Dillard and Jerry Chen Interview

It’s a long one but worth listening to if you are real student of this stuff. I extracted a few of the key points and will share them with you in case you don’t want to invest 77 minutes of your life watching this now:

Mike Dillard has recognized the need for an offline system. This has been triggered by the huge downturn in the economy and his realization that his parents can’t do what he does online. (Or may not want to bury themselves in Pay per Click campaigns etc.)

I can almost hear Randy Gage chuckling and saying ‘I told you so.’ The key to duplication is to have a large group of people taking a few SIMPLE actions over a long period of time. Okay Randy we hear you.

Mike Dillard said he is developing an offline system for his primary company so that the huge crowd of baby boomers heading our way can plug into building the business with their real life networking and warm market skills. (I hear ‘Ouch!’) I bet there were a lot of moans and groans from the diehard online crowd who almost spit at us guys who dare to talk to our friends and family about the best opportunity of our lives!

From my point of view I think Mike Dillard deserves credit for being honest about that. He could after all have just kept quiet about it and not risked messing with the enormous success of his Magnetic Sponsoring system.

What he actually observes in the interview is that offline is still not for him but he understands that it is needed for the baby boomers who are now much more receptive to MLM after many of them have experienced losing their ‘nest egg’ and pension plans.

This of course brings us full circle back to what I’ve been blogging about since I started two years ago. Even though I have a mad passion (some might say ‘obsession’) for creating systems and using social media for online marketing, I have never lost sight of the fact that it is not going to be for everyone.

The systems that are 100% online (until this point) are generally not Network Marketing programs. They are affiliate programs or direct sales programs which often have just a couple of levels in their compensation plan. Many people are working these types of sales businesses now and they are usually the first to knock MLM. This is because their hottest market is frustrated network marketers who are tempted by the promises of instant riches.

I’ve got nothing against sales businesses but they are not MLM and therefore operate much more smoothly with internet marketing sales techniques. On the downside they don’t offer the kind of hands off long term passive income that MLM does. Don’t get confused by this!

So what is the future of MLM? Is it online or offline?
Well you know what? I think it is online AND offline. It is old school AND new school. It is integrating good marketing and being an attractive person and marketer BOTH online and offline.

Whether you focus online (as I do) or offline as many do – it is a personal preference. Go with the flow of what you want to do and what fits best with your life.

Better still do BOTH! I’m very happy doing online but I have offline marketing skills ingrained in me from years of meeting people and doing MLM meetings offline prior to this.

I won’t lose these skills and if I meet a great prospect for my business out in the real world I know what to do, so it isn’t an issue for me. (Go here to read in my recent Attraction Marketing series how to drive offline prospects online if you need help with this integration)

What about you? Are you doing both or are you closing your mind to your upline business partners and refusing to do anything other than online?

This is okay if you have experience. If you don’t then I highly recommend that you plug into your team system (if there is one!) and get the skills you need for talking to people.

What many online marketing pro’s forget to mention is that they would not have the coaching and people skills that they have to be successful online if they hadn’t been through the trenches OFFLINE. (I know it’s a pain but I tell you the truth!)

Even if you generate 100 leads a day – unless you are in an online sales deal, you will need to speak to your business partners (whether you phone them or they phone you.)

You will need to COMMUNICATE with them and build trust with them.

Can a lot of this be done with blogging and email auto-responders?

YES of course it can. BUT you still need to be ready to connect with a real live person and say, ‘John – are you ready to get started?’

So with Ann Sieg sending out emails about offline Cash flow Seminars, (which has incidentally already been implemented by Randy Gage and Eric Worre for our MLM team system some time ago)..see press release: Randy Gage Cashflow System,
Mike Klingler promoting high level coaching courses which are not MLM specific, and Mike Dillard building a system for his parents to work offline with a sales business model… where does that leave YOU?

It leaves you in a place where you may be even more confused than when you started a few months ago.

So here are my top soul searching questions and answers for you to cut through the confusion and get yourself back to the centre line. (Building your MLM)

1) Q. Ask yourself – Am I a good socializer and busy outgoing person?

A. Yes = Go for massive offline campaign to get you started and build your business in your local area for starters.
B. No = Brand yourself online and get your MLM online funnel up TODAY. Otherwise you will just be faffing about chatting online.

2) Q. Do I enjoy spending a lot of time out of the home and am I turned on by being a local leader who supports and/or presents at my local meeting?

A. Yes = Go for it BIG. (Make sure to use tools, rather than just your mouth, and SYSTEMIZE your process)

B. No = Support your local meetings and do the basics for your warm market in your local area. Also work online and develop your marketing skills.

3) Are you a busy parent who is mostly based at home and likes it that way?

A. Yes = Online can be amazing for you. Invest in some good online training and coaching so that you can create a systematic marketing funnel for building and generating leads online. Also focus on interacting with people you meet as a busy parent. These can be the BEST prospects for you because you will have shared interests and a common desire to make a better life for your children.

B. No = Well you are probably not going to be at home on your computer but out working so you may be suited to doing more of an offline marketing campaign.

4) Do you like writing and/or creating videos?

A. Yes = Start a blog. (But do other offline/online stuff as well because 3 blog posts is NOT going to brand you and build your downline!)

B. No = Learn the basics online such as Facebook & Twitter. Start to build your online brand and have your MLM funnel set up online for hot prospects to request info about your MLM.

5) Do you enjoy spending hours working at your computer? ( I say working because Farmville is NOT working!)

A. Yes = Go for massive online action but remember that when you launch your business you must launch with your warm market also if you desire fast results.

B. No = Exit your home and do mostly offline but remember that branding yourself online is the future so make sure to do the basics with that aswell so that when your prospects are googling and researching they can find YOU online too.

Online takes more TIME to build than warm market because you have a lot of skills to learn and you have to develop lots of new relationships.

There are great residual long term benefits to building your own list though so it’s a great idea to do both if you have the patience and determination.

Okay my online-stopwatch.com has rung so I’m out of time today guys!

I hope this has helped you to get a bit clearer on the online/offline MLM issue.

If you’d like to get more details about working with me using both my Attraction Marketing online system, AND our offline Randy Gage Team Cashflow system for my MLM business go here: Cashflow System