MLM or network marketing can be both an incredibly difficult business to crack and an incredibly lucrative one if you crack it. The percentage of people who really do make it though is infinitely small, so you are going to have to be one tough cookie if you want to join that elusive group.
And most ladies that I know who enter this industry simply aren’t prepared for the long haul. Also, unfortunately, there are some incredibly bad practices out there that justify why it gets such a bad name.
These include, amongst many more …
• Setting up a Facebook group for your products and automatically adding people to it without their consent. • Adding anyone and everyone, whether you know or them or not, as a friend on Facebook to add them to your group as per the point above or to then send them spammy private messages. • Misleading prospects that you are doing way better than you are to deceptively lure them in as a consultant. • Promising prospects it will be an easy way to make money from home and the results will be fast and the income huge. You and I both know this just isn’t the case. • Going into numerous Facebook groups to just sell, sell, sell!!!! It’s yucky!! No one likes it. It is doing you far more harm than good.
At the end of the day, keep it honest, keep it simple, build relationships and be prepared to give it plenty of time
Take a look through my MLM marketing tips below and if you need more help, get in touch.
MLM Marketing Tips
1. Know your target market
Know your target market for who you want to become a team member and who you want to buy your products. These are quite possibly two different people to start with. Who are they, what are their interests and where do they hang out?
2. Understand needs
If you want to sign up team members, understand their needs and what drives them to want to make a change in their life. What problem do they have and how you can solve it?
3. Find out their why
When talking to them, find out their why. What do they want that network marketing could provide for them? Is this financial freedom, time freedom, being in control of having their own business or something else? Find out the driving force that will keep them committed for the long term.
4. Be honest
When recruiting, set realistic expectations. It will take longer to find consultants but the ones who know the truth about the length of time and dedication it takes to make it will stick around for much longer than those who get sugar-coated half-truths.
5. Understand your target market
To sell your products, as above, know your target market and what problem they want to solve. Get specific on the benefits your products provide.
6. Niche down
Become the expert on a particular product range rather than trying to sell all things to all people. If one of your products has helped someone you know cure their eczema, research this subject, know the product and its benefits as to how it helps alleviate the problem. Focus on this in your marketing. If someone says they look and feel 10 years younger by using skincare products, again, research and focus on this one product range.
7. Focus on one thing at a time
If you try to promote too many products at once you will dilute your message and appeal to no one. (see point 6 above). Focus on products to appeal to your niche and promote to these people. By choosing one key product area, you can join groups that talk about the specific problem your product alleviates and become active in conversations.
8. Build relationships
DON’T try to sell immediately but build relationships so that people start to trust you and then over time you can introduce them to your products. (obviously, if someone is showing a strong interest in a product sell to them)
9. Get creative
Get creative with your marketing message. MLM posts all sound the same. Create something different to stand out from the crowd (within your company limitations)
10. Be consistent and persistent
Be patient and prepared to see this through for the long term. Success will be won through tenacity and perseverance. Create yourself a plan, write this down and stick to it! It will take time but the only way you will see results is to not give up.
Having a positive mindset is crucial to running a successful business. But at times this can be easier said than done.
We hit hurdles. We lose a client. We have stress at home. We get tired and run down.
Sound familiar?
To create and retain a positive mindset we need to reduce the amount of negativity we are surrounded by. Things which affect us and can turn a positive mindset into a negative one are who you surround yourself with, what you see on social media and what you watch on the television.
If we are surrounded by people who are negative or draining, this rubs off on us and we start to feel drained and fed up with ourselves. If we constantly see posts on social media or the news full of doom and gloom this is going to start to weigh us down and have a negative impact on our mental wellbeing.
To help retain a positive mindset, or regain it if yours is somewhat lacking, try the following three tips.
1. Distance yourself from negative people
This is something I did a very long time ago when I attended a workshop. It isn’t easy but I promise you it works.
Grab a piece of paper and write down the people you spend the most time with. Then add to this list people you don’t see very much but would like to see again. Try and get at least 10 names (you can have as many as you want). Include absolutely everyone from friends and family to colleagues and occasional acquaintances.
Now, on another piece of paper write down the numbers 10 to -10 in a column as below.
The next step needs to be done quickly and without much thought. If you have someone to help you, it can be easier. Get the other person to randomly read out the names you have written down with just a short pause between each. As they read out each name, you write down the name against the relevant number. Number 10 is for when you feel a surge of happiness and excitement at hearing the person’s name and the thought of seeing them. Minus 10 is when you feel sick to the stomach and would do anything to get out of meeting the person whose name has just been read out. This exercise can be quite telling and may well shock you. It may that you spend a lot of time with a family member but you mark them as minus two. Don’t feel guilty about this. You must be honest with yourself.
Now for the difficult part!
Cut out the negative people
Take a look at anyone in the negative bracket. These are the people you want to start to distance yourself from. This of course can be easier said than done, particularly if this is a work colleague or someone in your family who you live with. It could be your current ‘best’ friend but who over the years has turned into a moaning Minnie and who always has a drama going on. When you meet them you always come away feeling drained. Start to cut back on the number of get-togethers you have. Make yourself busy with other things or pre-book to go to events/meals etc with other people. This is going to feel uncomfortable to begin with and it’s going to take time, but it can be done. Believe me, as I’ve done it myself many years ago. The relief over time is huge!
Surround yourself with positive people
Now, look at the people in the positive bracket, particularly those in the higher range. Start to bring these people into your life more often. Arrange to meet up or have a chat on the phone. Maintain regular contact with these people. These are the ones you are going to bring positivity and happiness into your life. You don’t need to start stalking them or hanging out every week but just knowing they are there can be a huge boost.
2. Cut out negative social media
There is a huge amount of negativity which surrounds us on social media and here is tip number 2.
Go to your social media channels. I personally use Facebook for most of my social media. And so that was my focus.
Start to scroll down through your newsfeed and identify the repeat offenders who consistently post negative chatter. These can be the people who constantly post and share scaremongering stories, conspiracy theories, political diatribes or just moan and groan.
Pick out every post you see where you feel your energy instantly drain from you, or even just by seeing a particular person’s name, you feel your energy drain.
Remove the negativity
Now, do one of two things.
If this is someone that you really do not care whether you ever see or speak to them again in your life, I suggest that you simply go and unfriend them.
However, if it’s someone that you feel you would like to keep in contact with in the future just unfollow them. They won’t know that you’ve done this, they will stay as your friend, but you will stop seeing the negative chatter popping up on your newsfeed, day after day.
You can follow this procedure with groups you are in where all you see is negativity and arguing. Simply unfollow.
Surround yourself with positivity
The next thing to do is to go back through your newsfeed and look at the people who when you see their name instantly feel your energy being lifted, whether because they ooze positivity, or whether it’s because they make you laugh.
Now select those to pop up in your newsfeed first. You want to be filling yourself with these positive-minded people to help you stay in a positive mindset.
Honestly, I promise you if you do this, you will feel so much better.
Get rid of the mood hoovers – those people that suck the energy out of you. And fill your life with people who make you feel good.
Instructions: To unfollow or add friends to the top of your newsfeed, watch the video below.
3. Choose more carefully what you watch on tv
Start to become more aware of what you watch on television and how the programme or movie makes you feel. I for one have drastically cut back on watching the news. No, I don’t want to bury my head in the sand and become oblivious to what is going on in the world around me, but I also know that watching the News at Ten and seeing children being killed in a war zone is not going to give me a good nights sleep.
We are constantly being bombarded with news articles and documentaries on global warming, crime rates, soaring energy costs and the like. No wonder we start to feel anxious and lose our positive mindset. You don’t need to cut these out entirely, but do limit the amount you watch. Anxiety and watching television are well documented.
If you are going to watch tv, start to watch things that make you feel good. Watch uplifting movies or documentaries or choose a good comedy. Schitt’s Creek is my all-time favourite for a good belly laugh. And cut out the binge-watching. Again, binge-watching television has been shown to affect mental health. This can be due to tending to binge-watch alone, increased inactivity and disturbed sleep. Try to switch to reading a good book or taking up a hobby rather than getting suckered into the television.
Follow the three top tips above and see how your mindset improves.
So how many emails do you have sat unchecked in your inbox? I had a message from a lady yesterday who had 16555!!!! And yes, she told me this was not a typing error!! This is a frightening thought. If you have read the article The dangers of an overflowing inbox you will know that this could be costing her business a great deal of money from missed opportunities and disgruntled clients.
But if you find yourself in this situation, or something rather less extreme but still rather concerning, read on to find out what to do.
How to clear and control your email inbox
Firstly, if you have anything like the amount of undealt with emails as above, you are going to have to be ruthless. It takes time for this amount to build up so, in the law of averages, anyone who had anything you needed to respond to will have probably given up on you by now.
Block out a day to deal with them
To really sort out your inbox problem, you are going to have to put aside some time.
Block a day out in your diary and turn off everything apart from your emails. That means your phone, Facebook and anything else that is going to distract you.
The five-second rule
Sort your emails in reverse order and then be strict. Click on each one and give yourself no more than 5 seconds to decide whether to ditch it or deal with it. I don’t mean deal with it now. I mean that it is important enough to keep and deal with later. If you haven’t made the decision within 5 seconds, the decision has been made for you. Go ahead and hit delete.
Be strong here folks. It is the only way you are going to get through this with the minimum amount of pain.
Now based on the extreme example above of 16,555 emails, using this method would take a full 23 hours to complete and that is not allowing for any comfort breaks, food or drink breaks or your eyes giving up completely on what they are focusing on.
So in this scenario, I would simply go in and delete all but the last two months’ worth of mail (or even more than that if you get over 150 emails per day).
Hopefully by the end of this, and yes it will take time, you will have a slightly more manageable number to deal with so give yourself a pat on the back.
Block out more time
Yes, more time is needed. These emails didn’t all pop up at once overnight so don’t think they can all be dealt with instantly.
You now need to go back and once again in reverse order, deal with them. This does not mean reading them and saving them for later or putting them into a folder. You won’t ever get back to them. Deal with them or delete. Ruthless and simple once again. If you need to send a reply to someone, make it short and sweet. Try and keep it to a one-liner where possible.
If you have subscribed to newsletters and have articles you want to read, later on, my guess is that you won’t have time, so get rid of them and have a clear inbox to read new articles as they come in. If you really have to keep them, send them to Evernote or create a folder on your bookmarks bar and save each article in there.
How to keep future emails under control
Once you have completed the mammoth challenge, give yourself a HUGE pat on the back and give yourself a treat – I believe treats are incredibly important to reward ourselves having done a good job!
But how are you going to control your inbox in the future?
Unsubscribe
First of all, go visit Unroll Me. This is a neat bit of kit (and free) that lets you see how many sites, newsletters etc you have subscribed to. It can be quite scary! It will scan your inbox and then give you the option of choosing which subscriptions you want to keep and which you want to delete. You will probably find that you have signed up to numerous ones just to get a freebie or access to a site, so if the site no longer interests you, get rid of it.
As the site says:
With just one click, you can unsubscribe from the emails that you never want to see again. And for the subscriptions, you’d still like to receive? Add them to your Rollup! Instead of being bothered with newsletters and deals every 3 minutes, your subscriptions are organized into one daily email, sent to you at the time of your choosing.
Make sure you put all your non-work subscriptions into Rollup and have them delivered at a time when you are not normally working. I set mine for the evening when (hopefully) I have finished work and am on downtime.
Dealing with new emails
Remember how you dealt with all those old emails? That is exactly how you need to deal with new ones. You read, take action, and delete or save. No scrolling through to see which ones you want to read. Deal with and move on.
This does take practice, but I promise you, it is worth it when you get the hang of it.
If you really struggle, have just one folder titled ‘to deal with later’. Diarise once a week to go through this folder and anything that gets to one-month-old needs to be deleted. If you haven’t dealt with it by now, you never will.
Getting and keeping emails under control is an important daily process that will help you be more productive and help you make sure you don’t miss that all-important gem that you may have otherwise missed.
Take a look through these tips to help your small business survive (and retain a sense of humour where possible).
Tip number one is to not panic. Panic doesn’t help anything and is more likely to harm your business than the virus itself.
Communicate
Now, more than ever, it’s critical to communicate with your customers about what protective measures you’re putting in place and how they will be protected when they visit your business.
Let them know you are taking the situation seriously and
care about their welfare. Make the
communication about the customer though, not just about you. I saw one post where the business owner was telling
people they didn’t want to get infected, so customers needed to ensure they didn’t
have the virus before visiting. Yes, a valid
point but the way it was worded would have put me off visiting even if I knew I
was clear.
Take a tip from this gym who are retaining a sense of humour
(love the last paragraph)
Look at your cash flow NOW
Cash is king. Do not
wait until you run out.
Take a good hard look at your cash flow. How much do you have on hand and how long
will it realistically last for? Can you make
it last for six months or longer? If
not, what can you do about it? How you
cut costs or increase income. It’s time
to get creative and think outside the box. More on this in a moment.
Control expenses
When was the last time you took a good hard look at where
your money is going? Are there any areas
that you can cut costs? Do you have online or magazine subscriptions that you
don’t really use? Cancel or pause them. Are you paying too much for your insurance?
Are you spending money on Facebook ads that have never got you a return on investment? Stop them!
Talk to suppliers and see if you can work together to find a
way to ease the burden for you both.
Reduce what you pay yourself. Yes, it’s time to tighten your
belt.
Look at your household budget also as to where you can make
savings. Is now the time to switch
energy supplier and get a better deal?
Again, how many subscriptions do you have. Do you really need Amazon Prime, Audible, Sky
and Netflix? How about dropping one or
more for a few months.
How often do you eat out or grab takeaways? If income is reduced, it’s time to start cooking fresh again (if you can get your hands on pasta and rice that is!). Look on the positive of how much healthier you will be.
Get creative with your marketing and services.
Now is the time to look at doing things differently. A few quick ideas are listed below:
Travel and tourism
The travel, tourism and hospitality businesses are being hit
hard. So are those businesses that run
workshops and conferences.
Where your business simply cannot deliver what you normally
do, create vouchers for the future and promote the hell out of these.
This one is going to take some effort, but if you have
clients who have had to cancel travel plans, how about offering a ‘holiday box’. Create holiday boxes for different countries.
For France, you could include French wine, cheese, croissants and a recipe card
for Coq au Vin or a voucher to a local French restaurant (providing they are
still open!) Yes, this will take planning
and may not be right for you or your business but it’s trying to come up with
creative ideas for extra income.
Or how about a Live the Spanish Life card. Jot down what clients have to do each day for a week in a typical Spanish day. Include dressing up for mid-morning coffee and a light bite to eat, afternoon Siesta, sightseeing (suggest a video set in Spain), go for a stroll and eating tapas.
Workshops
If you run workshops, think about running smaller groups and
explaining that you will be keeping participants two metres apart.
If workshops etc cannot run, either because you need to
cancel or the participant does not want to attend anymore, offer a credit note
for a future date rather than a refund which will hit your bottom line.
Can you run the workshop via group video conferencing? Send everyone the materials they will need or
ask them to get their own.
Food industry
If you are in the food industry, can you do deliveries or offer take-aways. A pub/restaurant local to me has already set up a takeaway and delivery service. They are staying calm and thinking ahead!
Coaches and counsellors
If you are a coach or counsellor, continue sessions where
possible via video conferencing.
Fitness instructors
Record do at home routines and send to members. Do a group online session – could be fun!
Masseurs/Beauty therapists
Create gift cards and vouchers. Sell your massage oils and products.
All businesses
Offer gift cards for later use – this can apply to practically
anything!
Is there anything you can start to sell online? Products are easy but even with services, how
about doing some video tutorials and selling? Your loyal customers may be happy
to purchase these from you to help support you.
Cleaners/Declutters
If your clients are virus-free, assure them you are too and promote that cleanliness is even more important now.
Increase your marketing efforts
If more people are going to be at home, more people may have
time to go online. Up your online
marketing.
Ask customers to support you. There are still plenty of people who aren’t panicking and whilst they can, are going about their daily lives as normal. I saw a post for a pub that explained that they were starting to struggle. They explained what precautions they were taking and asked for people to support them. I visited them yesterday!
The day to day practicalities
Work remotely
If you employ staff, can they work remotely? Test out a system now rather than wait. Set up a remote work policy that covers when you expect your team to be online or available, how to communicate (via email, video call etc), and what each team member is responsible for.
Have an emergency plan
If you get the virus you need to be prepared.
Keep your database up to date of everyone you meet through
your business. You will need to let them
know if you become infected.
Let customers know what has happened, how long you will be closed for and when you will re-open. Assure them you will open only when you have had the all-clear and a deep clean has taken place
In a worst-case scenario, if your business goes on lockdown, use the time wisely. Do a full business review. What has been working and what hasn’t. What could you do differently?
I had a client call me who was in complete meltdown as her
business is suffering terribly already. Once we got through the tears and panic, we came
up with some ideas for the future that she would have never thought about
otherwise. As she said ‘she was suicidal
when she called me but finished up laughing and excited for the future.
You are not alone in this.
There will be people far worse off than you are. You WILL get through this, however painful
the process. Just keep things in perspective and if all else fails, remember
the Buddhist chart to worrying:
Last week Paddy McGuinness posted on Twitter. And as you can
see from the screenshot below. It says
Found out a shop nearby has
put the price of hand sanitizer up from 99p to £4.99! How do these people sleep
at night? That’s the price of milk, bread and eggs for families that are
already financially stretched. Sad to hear but even sadder that I’m not
surprised. #coronavirus
This, of course, is due to the coronavirus epidemic that’s
happening at the moment. And it reminded me of when there was a petrol crisis
many years ago,
My local garage doubled the price of fuel overnight, as it
was in such short supply.
Yes, he thought he was being clever. He knew that it was all a case of supply and demand. And as he had the only petrol left in the town, everyone was going to go to him and would have no choice but to pay the price he demanded.
All well and good, or so he thought. He made some extra money. Quite a lot actually. But what happened when the petrol shortage
came to an end? His regular customers
boycotted him and told everybody else to boycott him also.
Three months later and he was bankrupt. The garage closed.
Before you think about taking advantage of your loyal
customers, think of the long term impact, rather than immediate gains for
yourself. Why not try building even more
loyalty by doing something special to help those customers in their time of
dire need.
Come on, folks. Don’t be greedy. Look after others, and they’ll look after you.
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