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.

Are You Up For Changing The World?

Well the debates are over and the campaign is heading down to the wire. The attack ads are in full force, and the rumors are swirling. Emails are being sent out, quotes taken out of context, and the smear tactics are being dragged into the mud.

Unfortunately I’m not referring to the election, but the attacks on your Agel business!

Sigh. Why do some people think the only way to grow a network is to tear down another one?

Last week people in Asia were saying that Eric Worre had left Agel.
Now this weekend they started spreading the rumor in Mexico, Israel and other places that I left the company. Well to paraphrase Mark Twain, “the accounts of our demise are greatly exaggerated!”

Eric and I are still here, we are still your partners in success, and we still have gel running through our veins.

The fact that other people feel that these kinds of tactics are necessary to build their networks says a lot about their state of desperation and their opportunity. I would ask that you not respond in kind.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a competitor and I love a good contest.
And I’ve always been happy to debate the merits of Agel versus anyone in the business. I have 20 years of experience and perspective in the profession, so I’ve certainly developed some strong beliefs. And I have no problem debating the merits of top heavy compensation plans versus balanced ones, one product versus strong product line extension, having a duplicable system in place versus a “flavor of the week” approach, or other business support components.

But that means a real discourse of facts, evaluating the benefits of the products, how the comp plan rewards people, and what kind of a team system is in place to help people. It’s certainly not about spreading false rumors or anything like that.

If I reflect on my success so far with Agel, a lot of it would be because of my ability to focus. I’m really good about knowing what I want to do, creating a game plan, and then sticking to it. I never let distractions pull me away from the outcomes I’m seeking.

Think about when you’re driving and the traffic gets bottled up.
You creep along at two miles an hour, starting and stopping.
Finally after 45 minutes you get to the front of the line. Only to discover that there is an accident in the other direction, on the other side of the median. The only back up was people slowing down to rubber neck, hoping to see a dead body lying on the road.

I guess it’s my prosperity training, but I never do that. If I see that the emergency responders are there, I move right past the accident scene at a regular speed.

Same thing in business:

I’ve been getting some calls lately with people wanting to tell me about smear tactics being said about me on webcasts or conference calls from competitors. I thank the callers for wanting to alert me, but let them know I have absolutely NO desire to hear what is being said. I am focused on supporting my team, and I can’t be concerned about what anyone else is doing. And neither can you.
There are hundreds of other companies and I learned a long time ago, you can’t track everyone else’s business.

Agel is not for everyone, and I’m OK with that. There are lots of fine companies in network marketing and I wish for success in all of them. I don’t think we have to all fight over the same piece of the pie. I would much rather bake a bigger pie. There are still
6.4 billion people not in network marketing yet.

I’ll admit when we had some people take deals elsewhere, I listened to a couple webcasts. After all, when someone attacks your business and tries to steal your people, you want to know what they’re up to. But once I knew what their strategy was, I moved on.

The truth is, the company in question is a fine company that has helped a lot of people. There are just a few distributors taking this nasty, dishonest approach and the universe always sorts these things out.

I spent a long time doing my due diligence when I came to Agel. I chose Agel for the following reasons:

1) It was an original product idea, and the freshest one I had seen
in 15 years.
2) The Quadra-Plan was a wonderful new innovation in compensation,
offering fast start money for new people, transition income while someone built their team, and lucrative rewards for professionals that choose to take it serious and build a large team. Most importantly, it is balanced and fair, not top heavy.
3) I saw a chance to partner with Eric and create a very strong
duplicable system to support the team and get it into place quickly.
4) Agel had a very aggressive international launch and expansion
plan, so people could build a residual income to earn across many time zones, even as they slept.
5) Agel began from a position of strength, with a strong financial
partner to ensure that they could survive the initial bumps in the road.
6) There were great people in corporate, coming from good, with the
success of the team members at heart.

So what has changed about any of that? Absolutely nothing.

So why would I look at anything else? As I said at Agel World, if you’re married to Angelina Jolie, why would you lust after Rosie O’Donnell?

Not that there’s anything wrong with Rosie. She’s right for someone. But you have to know who is right for you. Agel is right for me because it fits my philosophy of prosperity.

I think the work we do with Agel is extraordinarily important and makes the world a better place. Our President, Craig Bradley often talks about the three primary ways we do this:

1) Promoting Better Health. We are leading the fight with breakthrough wellness products to combat the effect of all the junk food and empty calories being foisted on us by the big conglomerates. Suspension gel technology allows more people better and easier access to proper nutrition, wellness, and optimum health.

Our products are the only ones I have ever used that have reversed my vitaligo, so I swear by them. The Ageless line is simply world class. The tangible results people get from the FLX, OHM, FIT and now HRT speak for themselves. These are products that can help a lot of people.

2) Building Financial Security. The Agel business opportunity is helping people all over the world take charge of their financial future. Whether they want to eliminate debt, supplement their retirement, or create complete financial freedom, Agel gives them the chance to do that.

There has never been a time in our lives when this was more important. The current economic meltdown is wiping out people’s retirement funds, vaporizing their savings, and threatening their security. Many are getting their cars repossessed, losing their homes and filing for bankruptcy. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Yes it’s wonderful that we have 23 Diamond Directors in Agel and others on the way. We’re all grateful for the lifestyle and incomes that provides us. But right now we all have to focus on sharing the Agel message to those not aware of it yet. We need to help people make $300, $500 and $1,000 a month with Agel. Believe me when I tell you that just bonus checks like these will save a lot of people’s houses and cars, pay doctor bills, or stave off bankruptcies. Down the road we can help them get to Senior Directors, Corporates and Diamonds. Right now they need help paying for gasoline in their cars, heating oil for their homes and groceries. Agel can help millions with that.

3) Giving Back. The Agel Cares Foundation allows us all to give back, and help others less fortunate than ourselves. Sometimes that means delivering essential medical or nutritional assistance in an impoverished nation far, far away. Other times it means providing life-sustaining skills to someone just down the street. But no matter what the project, the Agel Cares Foundation allows you to give back to a world that has given to you.

Just the smallest donation from you can pay for a child’s cleft palette surgery, finance a micro loan in a leper colony, or put books in a school. I hope you’ll join me and put an Agel Cares donation in your back office on autoship. Even a small donation can improve someone’s life forever.

Those three things are the essence of what we do. I would ask you that as we move forward that these are the things we talk about.
We don’t need to put out anyone else’s light to make ours seem brighter. We don’t need to poach distributors from other companies to grow Agel. We don’t need to lie, distort, or cut and paste quotes out of context from other companies. In fact, we don’t need to talk about them at all. Let’s just build our businesses on the foundation of the great benefits that Agel has to offer. Please keep your focus on that and leave the rumors, distortions and poaching campaigns to others.

When we say, “I am Agel” it stands for something. And we are proud to stand with you on that.

All this wasn’t even the reason I’m writing you today. It was simply going to be a reminder about the Leadership Training Call tonight. But since these rumors and emails were circulating, I wanted you to know the truth.

Success in Agel – and in life – comes from accepting a challenge to grow. You don’t chase success, you attract it by who you become.
So I hope you’ll join Eric and I both in growing your business by growing yourself. Building our teams, and building our dreams, by building up our people. And doing it from a prosperity consciousness, based on the three things we stand for:

1) Promoting Better Health.
2) Building Financial Security
3) Giving Back

I guess I’m one of those corny people that still believe that a small group of people, working together, on purpose, really can change the world. That’s what “I am Agel” is really about. Now let’s go do something about it!

-by Randy Gage

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