This subject is so profitable and so much fun that entire companies (e.g., BNI – Business Networkers International) focus on it. The ‘how’ of networking is the subject of a few good books, such as Ivan Misner’s, “The 29% Solution: 52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies.” This kind of knowledge is important for making networking events productive. Too many events are like the typical chamber of commerce meeting, where people exchange business cards and call that ‘networking’. According to good networking advice, the best thing you can do is collect business cards from a few key people whom you have spoken with. And the conversation is best when it centers around questions that you ask of another person, and the answers that you can use in later follow up as a reminder of your encounter. Indeed, it seems to be a law of the universe that you will come across as a great conversationalist by saying almost nothing!

Typical Network Marketing Is Ineffective

How does this compare with a typical ‘network marketing’ meeting? No wonder those things are such a glorious waste of time. One or two people do all the talking for the presentation, then you get to spend your time afterwards in selling, convincing, and pitching to your guest(s) about whatever the products and opportunity might be. I don’t know about you, I just think this is one of the least effective ways to build your MLM business.

By the way, the reason for the typical meeting structure has little to do with your success and a lot to do with the company’s success. I’ll have much more to say about this in one of my upcoming newsletters, so be sure to subscribe to it. I will also have a lot to say about what you can do that is much more effective than bringing guests to a company presentation. MUCH more effective.

Why to Network

Networking is the activity that builds better relationships with others. If you can get to know others and get to be known by them, you form a basis for trust. A good relationship is the key for any kind of success in network marketing. After all, just in case someone takes you up on your opportunity, you will have to have a level of trust that translates into your leadership of that new person. And any new person has to see how you do that so he or she can do the same.

Some of this perspective seems like a no-brainer. Nevertheless, your company and any other company that you join will most likely ‘teach’ you MLM building the old fashioned way: making gazillions of calls, using the 3-foot rule, browbeating your warm market, attending meetings and conferences, listening to teleconference calls or their  insidious tech version, the webinar, etc., etc. Just think, if you actually have just 10 hours per week to build your business, all of it can get chewed up in being ‘woo-busy’ with all this stuff, and you will never have time to actually sponsor and develop a leader into your organization.

Ah, this is fun, isn’t it? It is easy to take potshots at these kinds of things. It is harder to find good advice that works by doing something else. However, there is plenty of other stuff that you can do with your 10 hours per week that will actually lead to income. I’ve put together a little lead-in on this topic on my page, “Can MLM Work for You?” This is a start, so take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Dr. D

Attracting the right client, one who comes through your door or to your website and buys your product or service, seems to be the first step in growing any business. However, who is your ideal customer? This concept came across my desk in the new book by John Assaraf and Murray Smith, “The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life,” recently. The is the best book of the year for business development.

Who Is Your Ideal Customer?

The standard view of defining an ideal customer entails demographic information: gender, age group, income level, marital status, geographic location, etc. Although the value of this kind of information may seem obvious, most businesses put no effort into defining these categories. This means that finding and marketing to the ideal customer just won’t happen.

What Does Your Ideal Customer Want?

A second and equally valuable definition, as described in the book, is psychgraphic information. In other words, why does someone buy from you? This is not so easy to know unless you ask your current customers. You can buy plenty of “who” lists of customers from list brokers, although your “why” list is best when you build it yourself via questionnaires, interviews or surveys that you conduct yourself. This may seem like a lot of work. However, Assaraf and Murray offer a little number-crunching to explain how valuable this effort can be, as outlined here:

How to Multiply Revenue by Sixteen-Fold

Consider the concept that 20 percent of your customers generate 80 percent of  your revenue. Now the math gets to be really fun: the 20-percenters generate four times as much revenue as the rest of your customer base, and there are four times fewer of them. The value of each of the 20-percenters is therefore sixteen-fold higher than the non-20-percenters. Your most effective strategy to increase business is obvious: Get more 20-percenter type customers. When you know who your ideal customer is and why they buy from you, you can put more effective effort into getting more of them. When ALL of your customers are of the original 20-percenter type, then you will have increased your revenue by sixteen-fold. Now doesn’t that seem like fun?

This little overview us just a glimpse of how the combined use of demographics and psychographics can boost your business. I don’t pretend to do justice to this strategy here, so I simply encourage you to get the book and dig into it for yourself. Oh, and this book offers a lot more than this topic, so I will mention more of it later.

Dr. D

Internet in marketing is almost a must these days, so gazillions of people are screaming for attention in cyberspace in hope of making money. One of the relatively new ways to get attention is Blog Talk Radio, where you can sign up for a free account and host your own radio show.

My Standard Radio Experience

For comparison, I hosted a weekly radio show for about a year in the Phoenix, AZ, area not too long ago (”Natural Health Show” about nutrition). The details were: I paid a $1200 per month fee; it was up to me to get advertisers to cover my expenses; and a break even ROI required roughly 60 new customers in my retail nutrition store per week from the show. Even though it was fun, it never came close to breaking even. And this was in spite of having a consulting naturopathic physician, Dr. Joe Brown, as my co-host. The listenership simply wasn’t there.

Cyber Radio

Just this past week I recorded my first 30-minute show on Blog Talk Radio. Now that broadcast is archived for future accessibility to anyone, worldwide, at any time. I used my scientific expertise in plant biochemistry as the basis for talking about natural shingles treatments. Now I can send people there, link it in my newsletters, or even broadcast it in my store. And all for free! As an added bonus, you can also get code for displaying graphic links, like the one below:

The SEO Boost

Besides all of he marketing benefits that I’ve mentioned so far, it seems that Google likes this venue and boosts ranking faster than almost any other strategy. Who knows how long this will last. However, since Google gets a lot of ad revenue from the wide exposure of online radio shows, having your own show will be of benefit for SEO for a good while. So, put your SEO hat on and imagine the possibilities … they are endless. Take a listen to a few shows and see what I mean.

Dr. D

Do you qualify as an Internet Marketing Sucker, like I do? I hope I don’t sound too paranoid on this topic. However, I have wondered whether marketing scammers have a committee that is devoted to how to get me, personally, to buy marketing materials from them. Have you ever felt that way? Have you had your fill of ’secrets’ and ‘buy now or you will never in all eternity see an offer this good again’ or ‘you will get these gazillion really hot bonuses for free if you just click here’ …ad nauseum.

I must admit that, in spite of my scientific background, and in spite of knowing exactly how marketing psychology works, I bit on another really awful deal a couple of days ago. A seemingly harmless price of $27 was easy to pay for an all-everything webinar (and aren’t they all?), because the sales audio was just so convincing about everything that I would get from the webinar. My webinar purchase was also used for upselling me on an irresistible $47 book with lots of bonuses, which was linked to someone else’s report for another itty bitty $9.97. I finally stopped the bleeding there, although I’m sure it went much, much further. I’m also sure that I disappointed a whole chain of affiliates at that point.

Hindsight on Product Value

I forget all of the details, probably just as a way to bury a bad memory. What happened was that I cleared my schedule, secluded myself, put on my headset, and signed into the webinar 5 minutes early just to be sure that I got my spot. I was the only one there for a while.

The webinar was two guys chatting about one of the guy’s copywriting business. Even though the voice quality of the interviewee was horrible, I did learn that ghostwriting is a lot of work without any residuals. I confirmed that observation by visiting a site (freelance.com? – it doesn’t matter) that advertises jobs for freelance writers. As near as I could tell, most jobs offered in the neighborhood of $1-$4 for researching and writing a 500-word article. I couldn’t get off of that site fast enough. Slave wages!

I also learned from the webinar that I’ve got to build networks of satisfied clients who refer more clients if I want to really hit the big time as a copywriter. When I heard that I thought, “Omigod – I actually paid someone to tell me this?” The “interview” went on like this for about an hour. By the end of it I had not taken any notes. This is a sure sign that I heard nothing of value.

Getting Product Value Before You Lose Your Money

If any of this sounds familiar to you, then what I’m about to say will be of great value to you. (And I promise to follow my own advice from now on!) In a regular retail setting, you almost always have an opportunity to see and look over what you might want to buy – a printed book, a set of tires, a magazine, a sandwich, etc. – which is not generally the case online. Ebooks, in fact, are routinely the worst possible value for your dollar on the planet, and you aren’t allowed to examine them ahead of time. Indeed, they routinely have wide margins, big print, and lots of white space, and they are WAY overpriced. Audio and video marketing materials are equally shallow for the money you pay. So what can you do about this?

Here is one strategy: Note that all sales pitches guarantee your money back if you aren’t satisfied, usually within 30 days (which is mandated in the U.S., anyway) and sometimes longer. You have no way of knowing the truth of such guarantee. You do, however, have a grace period through your credit card company, during which you can reverse any charge. The grace period varies, although 24-72 hours is common.

Yes, what I am saying is simply to get the product and seriously evaluate it for whether it measures up to the claims in the sales pitch that led you to buy it. Unless you are brand new at this and truly naïve, you will be able to tell immediately if you have a good product. If not, call your credit card company and cancel the charges.

Be Honest and Expect the Same

It is crucial for you to keep this uppermost in your mind: The universe pays back what you give out. So if you do, in fact, reverse the charges on something or get your money back from the seller, then ethically you must discard the product. Keeping and using something that you didn’t really pay for is stealing, and if that is the way you get through life then that is what you will attract.

If an Offer Sounds Too Good to Be True…

…then it is. Here is where the best strategy, which you have to develop on your own (sorry, I know this isn’t really concrete advice), is to keep a list of other entrepreneurs whom you trust, and listen to them. Sure, many will want you to buy something from them or their affiliates. That is the nature of business, which is fine. You will be able to tell whether they are giving you good value for what they offer.

You can also choose whom you trust from a referral. For example, if you have decided to trust me yet, you can then trust my referral to John Thornhill’s blog at Planet SMS (http://www.planetsmsblog.com). I don’t earn any affiliate income through him, so this referral is genuinely based on my experience with his blog and his products, because of their value to me. Indeed, a clear thread that runs through all of John’s marketing is providing value. He even gives more away free of charge than anyone else I know.

These are just a few things for you to think about and act on, in defense of your money and your time. Don’t waste either. There is, of course, much more to do that will propel you to making money, instead of just defending yourself against spending it foolishly. It will be much more fun for me, and I’d bet for you, when I truly show you how to bring in real dollars. There is so much exciting stuff to write about, and to hear about from you, that this blog is already becoming a great resource for my visitors.

And Now for One of MY Favorite Ways to Make Money

Network marketing. Actually, making money by helping others become successful in network marketing. Like most businesses, online or offline, network marketing businesses (meaning, individuals doing network marketing), have a huge failure rate … 80-90% or more in the first year.

This is a big topic, which deserves a lot of its own space. So for now I’ll just say that the little offer at the top of this blog’s first page, about building your business on a budget, is the best idea for home-based entrepreneurs that I have ever seen. Generating leads is the key to getting off the ground profitably while you are building your main business. It is definitely worth your time to take a little peek at the videos that tell how to do that.

Dr. D

First of all, the whole notion of being in a recession is just an agreement. Financial changes, and even the value of money, are just agreements. So it should be no surprise that agreements change, values of money and commodities change, and money moves. The key concept here is that money moves. It does not leave the planet. It doesn’t disappear. People are now moving their money differently, sometimes only in response to media brainwashing.

Where the Money Is

My favorite quote recently, which actually comes from the 1970s, is by the Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi (if I got that spelled correctly). In response to Johnny Carson, who asked the Mahareshi where he was going to get the money to expand the Transcendental Meditation movement worldwide, the Mahareshi said, “From wherever it is now.” Wow – what a great attitude!

If you are doing all the things that your high-priced business coach tells you to do, that the most-hyped books advise, that the “buy-this-right-now-cuz-you-will-never-get-this–chance-again” marketing programs and products scream at you, and whatever else you can do used to work, and you are still not making a profit … well, then the money that you are going after has moved. You’ve got to do something different to go get it from wherever it is now.

What Insanity?

Stop the insanity (i.e., doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results) and change your approach. For example, this would be a great challenge: figure out how to market something valuable to hedge fund owners. The top hedge funds, which are out of reach of any nation’s regulations, control $14 trillion – which means they control the economy of most of the world.

Okay, now thinking more realistically (I don’t have a clue about marketing to hedge fund owners), all you have to do is define your ideal client, locate him or her, and market your product or service directly to this specific new niche. If I sound like a guru here, that’s because I’m not giving you any solid direction. Gurus are infamous for giving out great ideas without any real direction on how to fulfill them unless you buy their $7 or $27 or $497 or $2,497 must-have crapola.

And the Good News is…

I’ll have a LOT more to say about all this, in digestible pieces, day by day. Mostly what I wanted to accomplish with this little post is to provide an encouraging word. There is plenty of money moving around, and your fair share is there for the taking. You must get the right advice on how to do so, without being chewed up and spit out by all the guru sharks who take your money and run. I look forward to comparing shark bites with you, as a means to spreading the word on achieving financial success without losing your shirt.

Dr. D

Just sit quietly for a moment and think about how you can answer that question. It asks how you can make added cash, meaning more than you are otherwise making right now. Can you come up with one way to make more money, or ten ways, or fifty ways? Can you make one dollar, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, or even more – in the next 24 hours? Robert Allen, the “No Money Down” real estate guru, once bragged that he made more than $90,000 in a 24-hour period. And it had nothing to do with real estate. Of course, he is one of the many “gurus” who make their success sound as though you, too, can make a gazillion dollars in the next microsecond, if you just buy whatever they are selling so you can be like them.

Ask me sometime how Mr. Allen actually did what said he did, which I believe to be true, and why it is highly unlikely that you can make any money at all by buying anything from him whatsoever. This goes for all of the other “fast-cash” gurus, too.

Here is a fact to take to heart:

Some people are making lots and lots of money, and most people are not. And it doesn’t matter one bit whether the economy is booming or heading into recession, whatever that is. A small proportion of people are rich and most people are not. This is the case regardless of whether the economy is booming or heading into a recession, whatever that is. Money does not leave the planet. It just moves!

The key to getting all the money you want is simple:

You must get it from wherever it is now. That’s what rich people do, and they are not any different from you. It is not hard finding money, and it is not hard getting it for yourself. In fact, all you really have to do is get the right directions from someone who has already done so. I am putting together a starter kit on how to begin, pieces of which I will begin to post soon.

Dr. D

Just a quick note while I come to the end of a fabulous week at High Valley Ranch, California, with some of the smartest marketing geniuses of our time: John Assaraf, Bob Proctor, Mark Victor Hansen, Berny Dohrmann, and a cast of movers and shakers in one place, not seen anywhere else on the planet. I can tell you this with certainty: if you are taking advantage of what you already know how to do, you will be a millionaire in a heartbeat. Sales and marketing is only one part of the game. Coaxing what you can do out of your own brain is the key. Here is the MAIN thing you can do: get a mentor, or even more than one. Don’t reinvent the wheel when so many people are already out there who have done what you want to do. The trick is to find them and benefit from their experience. Stay tuned here to find out how to analyze, condense, and accelerate this process.

Dr. D

Here is the bottom line:

You must start out (and maybe continue for a LONG time) selling other people’s stuff. I have more than 2500 products in my nutrition store, Doctors Nutrition Center, and only four (4) of them are my own formulas. They were not, of course, in my store when I bought it. The key to my success is that the products that I offer in my store are high quality and in demand. Read that again: high quality and in demand.

The internet is bogged down with “information products” that you can sell, most of which are of poor quality. You absolutely must work only with the ones that are of high quality and in demand! I’ll be giving you some strategies, pointers, advice, etc., on what you can do to enhance your odds in finding the right products for your own business, whether it be ebooks, CDs, coaching, internet marketing programs … the whole ball of wax.

Dr. D

Internet marketing is a shark-filled ocean, full to the brim with “viral marketing” – aka, the Never-Ending Upsell – where YOU are the fodder for eternally hungry predators. Finding the right information for growing your income, without being swamped by more links to buy more marketing stuff to sell, with still more links to buy even more marketing stuff, ad nauseum, sometimes seems impossible. Ebooks are generally no better than overblown pamphlets full of hype, offering almost nothing useful. Audios and videos are worse. How do you find out what works and what doesn’t work? If you don’t know how to do the research, then just ask around until you find someone who does. Good mentors are worth their weight in gold.

Dr. D