I heard something pretty interesting in an interview the other day. This genteleman was a minister and also a very successful network marketer.

He pointed out that in the bible everyone had a business. No one had “jobs”. Everyone was self employed. The only people who had jobs were: slaves and soldiers!

Why is it that in modern times many Christian’s have come to feel a stigma towards being a business owner? Why do Christian’s especially feel so negative towards money?

- Ben

*As an aside: I’m a Christian, I went to a Christian College, My parents both graduated from Christian Seminary and have been ministers, My grandfather was also a minister.*

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This is for novices who want to learn more about internet marketing. One of the most important things you can do is to buy your own domain name.

A domain name is the way people find internet sites. Google.com is a domain name for the company Google. Gmail.com is Google’s email service. It’s the domain name for their email service.

Having a domain name also gives you a professional appearance. Take for example a new person who starts their business. Most new people will do something like go get a new email from Yahoo:

mynewbusiness@yahoo.com (fake example)

Compare this to the person that buys a domain name and gets email for their business:

ben@mynewbusiness.com (another fake example)

Having a domain name gives you a much more professional image than the guy who is using a Yahoo email. Plus the guy using a Yahoo email is actually helping Yahoo build their brand! He isn’t braning himself!

One more reason to get your own domain name… And perhaps this is a bit technical… It allows you to forward the domain name to your company web site. That way on your business card they see:

www.mynewbusiness.com instead of www.mymlmcompany.com/userid/ben

Again you’re building your brand and you look more professional. Plus you don’t have to risk typos or risk people who just go direct to your company instead of typing in all the information. Finally if your company ever creates a better web site you don’t have to change your business cards, your ads, etc. You just change where your domain forwards to. It’s kind of like call forwarding. You can forward your calls to your cell phone, or you can change it and forward it to your summer home on the beach. With a domain name you can forward it to mymlmcompany.com today or mynewflashwebsite.com tomorrow.

In short having a domain name gives you flexibility and provides a more professional image for your business.

- Ben Fitts

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A lot of people ask me how I’m so successful at sales.  They ask me what to say to a prospect or client. 

What’s funny is I don’t really have a canned speach or pitch or anything.  I keep it real simple.  I start by asking them some questions.

So in my card business I simply start by asking: “How do you communicate with your customers?”

Then I stop and listen.

Usually they set themselves up and give me all the ammunition I need to close the sale.  They say things like:

• I don’t really communicate with my customers enough.
• I know I should communicate with them more often I just don’t have time.
• I used to send cards but I’ve been so busy I haven’t sent cards in years.
• I use email to communicate with them but it’s getting harder and harder to get my emails delivered.

You see how easy the sale process is after the customer gives you feedback like that?  Even if you’re horrible at sales you could probably close that deal.  Right?

So what are some leading questions you could ask people in your business?

- Ben Fitts

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I’ve always believed that if you’re on a limited budget in your MLM business you should begin by investing in yourself.  Invest in training yourself.  Invest in learning new skills whether or not they are sales skills, marketing skills,  or personal development. 

Benjamin Franklin said ‘If you empty your purse into your mind your mind will fill your purse full of gold.’

That’s a pretty darn powerful statement and pretty much is in line with what I’ve alwas said. 

I was listening to an audio the other day from a powerful network marketer and he was discussing how much time he spends learning and studying and going to seminars and things.  Even though he is a millionaire he still invests in training and personal development.

- Ben Fitts

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Let’s look at this another way.

Many of you have commented on my post about “sticking with your MLM” and said, “What if I have no upline support?”

That’s a tough one.

On one hand if you have a successful upline you have a leg up.  Your upline knows what to do.  Your upline may have systems in place.  Your upline may have training in place that you can plug your new people into.

Having an active and successful upline can make your job easier.

HOWEVER the buck stops with you.    You don’t usually hear about the top money earner’s upline.  Very rarely do you find a top money earner whose upline helped them much.  The buck stops with them.  They are the ones who are successful.  They are not successful because they joined a strong upline.  Know what I mean?

I personally feel that it helps to have a successful upline if you’re new.  However if you’ve been in the business for awhile it’s more about YOU than it is your about your upline.

- Ben Fitts

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You will encounter problems with your MLM as I wrote about earlier this week.  It’s inevitable. It’s bound to happen.  It happens with all companies.

You might be tempted to jump ship.  The grass is always greener on the other side, right?

Or maybe you begin to make a name for yourself and a guru or expert or new company owner calls and offers you a position right at the top of their downline.  You might be tempted to jump ship.  However let’s take a look at what your downline sees.

Your downline joined you hoping you could make them successful.
They put time and effort into your company.
They probably told their friends and family.
They don’t want to start over again!

But you, their team leader just jumped ship!

So what do they do?  Do they jump ship too?  Heck they might not even like the new company.  Or maybe they’re just afraid of what all their friends and family are going to say. They aren’t going to be able to go back to them and tell them about this new company because they JUST told them how great their current company was!

So you see… it makes a lot more sense to stick with your company.  When the trouble comes fight through it.  Continue to help your team members grow their business.  Don’t abandon them.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 17% [?]

Someone pretty smart once told me this phrase: There is no perfect MLM company.

That is something we will all deal with at some point in our business.

One of the reasons why people switch companies a lot is because they feel that “The Grass will be greener on the other side”.

They encounter a problem in their company which frustrates them. Then they go looking for a new company because it must be better than their current company. However that’s almost never true!

Just because you switched to a new company doesn’t mean it’s going to be any better than the company you are with now. You might find a better company or you might get there to find that they have just as many problems (or more!)

If you do decide to take a look at a second company make sure you do so with integrity. Don’t burn your bridges with your existing company. Don’t make a big deal out of your leaving your company to join the new one. Don’t target your downline. Those are things that can get you in trouble and can come back to haunt you.

I’ve had few issues lately with my company. My inital knee-jerk reaction was screw it, I’ll go find another company. After thinking about it however I realized you know this is a pretty darn good company and a few “hiccups” are bound to happen. I can either choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

I could have taken the tactic of going somewhere else but there’s no guarantee it’d be any better. Why not stick with it and help my company get through these hiccups. I’d rather be known as the guy who helped fix things than the guy who abandons ship! Wouldn’t you?

- Ben Fitts

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Hey Guys,

Sorry I haven’t written  lately.

I’ve been pretty busy doing some consulting and growing my network marketing business.  I apologize for not maintaining a regular posting schedule on the blog.

I’m going to start a regular schedule of posting 2x a week.  Every Monday and every Thursday I’ll post a new article to the blog.  If I have time to post more often.

I’m also going to be launching a podcast soon.  I’ll keep you posted of the details on the podcast but the goal there is also to post at least once a week and occasionally twice.

 If you have any suggestions for articles or questions about your business or just anything I can help you with leave me a comment and let me know.

Talk to you Monday!

- Ben Fitts

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One of the problems I see with the recession is that so many people have been living on the edge.  When the economy changes and they suddenly have to spend more on gas, food, electric, etc.  They suddenly don’t have enough money.  Why?

Most people don’t live within their means.

They spend every last dollar they make.  Many spend more.  They put extra on credit cards.  So if suddenly gas costs them an extra $100 a month, groceries cost an extra $100 a month and utilities cost an extra $100 a month they don’t have enough money left over to pay for it all.

The problem is spending.  If you make $5000 a month you shouldn’t spend it all.  You should pay yourself first.  Set aside just $500.  Put it in an IRA or Money Market or something so you can call on it if you need it.

Most people do just the opposite.  They make $5000 a month and spend a little more.  They make extra purchases and put it on their credit cards.  Pretty soon the credit card minimum payments creep higher and higher.  Then they end up getting deeper in debt and they can’t keep up with all their payments.  That’s the real problem in America right now.  Credit is killing us.

Learn to live a little beneath your means.  Pay yourself FIRST at the beginning of every month.  When you take money out at the beginnig of every month you won’t even realize it.  Within just a few months you’ll begin to see your bank account grow and you’ll be better able to handle these economic swings and downturns.

- Ben Fitts

 PS. We’ve been bit by credit in the past too so it’s a lesson we’ve had to learn from experience!

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Have you ever wondered why most MLMers quit too soon?

Here is an example of what many companies teach in their business opportunity presentations. Many of them show you a diagram and tell you all you have to do is sponsor 3 who get 3. Then they show you how on your 7th level you’ll have 2100 people.

The problem is that in reality this is NEVER how it works. It never works out perfectly where you get 3 who each go out and get 3, and then they get 3, etc.I repeat it never works out this way. It usually takes several people before you find just ONE that will work at the business. Because of this most new network marketers (MLMer’s) give up right here:

You see they have been told that all they have to do is get 3 and they’ll be millionaires so most MLMers quit here. Many of them spend a lot of time trying to teach these 3. Many of them stop recruiting and spend all their time trying to work with these 3 and drag them with them. They get discouraged and give up.

Even future leaders can get discouraged. They may go out and sponsor 5 or 10 or more people and get discouraged when it doesn’t work out. Why? Because they’ve been mislead.

In reality it usually takes 20-30 people to find just one leader. The potential leader in the above example might have given up just before he found his next leader!

In reality this is probably a better example of what your organization will look like from a successful MLMer.

You see this person stuck around long enough. They personally sponsored 20 or so people and while only a small percentage (20% or so) did something with their business, they found that one person who was a leader and their business began to really grow. And pretty soon they found another leader. It may not come from someone you personally sponsor. It might be several levels down. If you stick with it and sponsor enough people and train enough people it will happen.

If we began to show examples like this, would we be more successful in MLM?

If we began to show examples like this would we have less people who get angry thinking “we took their money”?

If we were honest like this and showed how much work is required would we sponsor less people but sponsor more qualified people?

What do you think?

- Ben Fitts

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