Dear readers,

After a month long vacation my 40 Ways to Grow Your Business webinars are back!

This week’s topic is: Prospecting for Customers

Wednesday September 7th
9 PM Eastern / 8 PM Central / 7 PM Mountain / 6 PM Pacific

Register for the webinars online at:

http://www.40waystousecards.com/ben

This week we’re talking about prospecting for customers:

• Building Your Mailing List
• Making Cold Calls Warm
• Expanding Your Network
• Growing Your Customer Base
• Getting Past the Gatekeeper
• and more…

You’ll probably want to take notes as some of these strategies are very unusual and creative:

Join me Wed. Sept. 7th at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific.

Register for the webinar here and I’ll send you email reminders each week so you don’t miss it!

- Ben Fittsикони

MLM Training > Home Business Blogs > Network Marketing > Business Plan

Dear readers,

As we begin 2011 you may be wondering how you can make 2011 your best?

Here are a few tips for you:

• Treat your business just like you were starting over again.  Even if you’ve been in your business for 2 years or 5 years or more, go back and treat it like you would when you were starting out.  Make your warm market list. Get aggressive in going to your friends and family.  Over the years new people may have come into your sphere of influence that aren’t aware of what you do.  Others may have been watching you for years and may finally be ready to take a look at your business. Maybe their situation has changed and now they are open to the idea of joining a network marketing business.
• Write your goals. It goes without saying that the most successful people are goal oriented people.  The beginning of the year is a great time to reflect on the goals of the past year and set new goals for the future.  Make sure to put them into writing. Don’t worry about the things you didn’t accomplish last year. You can wipe the slate clean and start over. 2011 is a new year!
• I also suggest taking a notebook and sitting somewhere quiet for a bit. Begin to dream again. Exercise your brain and let yourself dream. Let yourself envision what your dream life would be like.  What would you do with your time? What would you do with your money? What would your family be doing?  I took a notebook on about January 2nd and sat down and wrote out several pages.  The first page were my positive present tense affirmations.  “I am a success.” “I am attracting the right people into my business.” “I am a world class business partner.” That kind of thing.  The second page was were I started to envision my future and what it could be like.  What would my business look like?  What would my personal life look like? Where would I live? Who would I live with?  What would my partner be like?  What would we enjoy doing together?  What charities would I support? What would I do for fun?
• Now a lot of people would stop here… they’d make some goals and some dreams… but the next step is a plan of action!  Make a plan for how you can begin to achieve those goals. You don’t need to know how to reach them all but you need to at least have a plan to begin with.  Are you going to build a mailing list? How?  Are you going to blog more? How often?  Are you going to buy leads?  Are you going to join a networking group like BNI?

You need a plan to get from point A to point B.  You could have a goal to get from San Diego to New York but if you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have a map, if you don’t have a vehicle, it will be hard to do.  You might eventually get from San Diego to New York if you don’t have a plan but it will take awhile and you will probably get sidetracked along the way.  However if you have a clear plan of action you could drive to the airport, buy a ticket, and be in New York in a few hours.  Or you could buy a map, get some gas, and get in the car and start driving.  In a week (or even less – I think some race car drivers did the cannonball run in less than 36 hours driving non stop at high speeds) you could drive across the country and be in New York.  Or if you had no plan at all you could maybe just set out, hitchiking, walking, hoping to meet people along the way… but you don’t even have a map you’re just going where the world takes you.  A lot of obstacles would come up to prevent you from getting to New York.  At the very least it’d take a lot longer than the other methods.

Do you have your goals written down?  Do you have your plan of action to achieve those goals?  Do you have any tips on how to make 2011 your best year yet? We’d love to hear them! Leave a comment and let us know!

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > Home Business Blogs > Network Marketing > Business Plan

Dear readers,

Last week I mentioned dream building and setting goals.

I recently re-read Think and Grow Rich. Most people who read the book think only of setting their own goals and building their own dreams.  However as you read it over again and as you develop as a person you begin to realize there are stories in the book of people who built dreams for others.

Napoleon Hill built the dreams of his son who had no ears.  He told him that he could accomplish anything. He made him attend regular schools.  He made him believe he could achieve anything he wanted too, and he did!

I decided to apply this same philosophy in my network marketing business.  I decided to envision my team as a team having success. I decided to do dreambuilding on behalf of my team.  Then I began to share this dream with my team.

I’ve begun to share this vision on conference calls, in emails, on facebook, everywhere I can.

Some of my team don’t know how to dream build for themselves.  Some of them don’t have their goals set high enough. Some of them don’t believe they can do it.  But… If I tell them over and over they can do it… If I tell them I have seen this story… If I tell them I have seen in my dream them on stage accepting awards… Then maybe a few more of them will believe it.

Several have already shared with me that they are inspired by this dream.  It remains to be seen what the outcome for my team is but I’m pretty excited by the potential.

Here is the vision I shared with my team.

A massive group from your team has won the Eagles Challenge VIP trip. They are being invited to join you and the VIPs and SOC staff at the Wyndham Resorts Orlando. You have a whole cluster of luxury rooms for your team. Send Out Cards wines & dines you. The food is delicious. The pool is just right. The excitement & passion for this business continues to build. You and your team sets amazing goals, writes them down, and develops a strong plan of action to achieve these goals during the next year.

…

The VIP event at the 2011 convention is amazing. Send Out Cards takes the VIPs to a Las Vegas show & delicious 5 star dinner. 100 VIPs from our team join you for the event. The fun starts at the hotel before we even leave in our luxury limos. The show is spectacular and everyone has a great time. The dinner is one of the best you’ve ever had. The camaraderie and friendship that is developed will last years. The photos & memories that are brought back will encourage even more of our team to attain VIP next year. We have fun and all of SOC takes notice of our team.

…

I envision the 2011 convention. I envision you standing up on stage to receive your reward. Your friends run up to the front to take photos & videos of you. Everyone is on their feet applauding. Several people raise up a cheer. The smell of the smoke machines fills your nose while the flashing lights from the visual effects splash your face. Kody has a special reward for you. It tastes salty as tears of joy stream down your face. Kody gives you a giant embrace. The roar of the crowd builds to crescendo. You pause for a moment to drink it all in. As you come to the edge of the stage we, your team, are there to greet you and cheer you on!

…

As Kody announces the nominees for distributor of the year our team buzzes in anticipation. As each distributor is called more and more of our team are ushered on stage. No one is surprised that you are receiving this recognition. We have seen how hard you work and how fast your business has grown. The nominees are anxious but you are calm. You know your name will be announced as distributor of the year. You set this goal a year ago & worked hard to accomplish it. The crowd erupts and cheers for you as your name is called. Your team, your friends, and fellow leaders on stage rush forward to congratulate you. The music blasts and the lights dance. The hair on your arm stands up electrified. Your mouth even tastes sweet like a savory victory. You have achieved your dreams. You are the 2011 Send Out Cards distributor of the year.

What do you think? Would this vision inspire you?

Are you beginning to see the power of dreambuilding for not only you, but your team?

MLM Training > Home Business Blogs > Network Marketing > Business Plan

Dear readers,

Do you have goals? Do you have them written down? Are they in present positive tense?

The first step is creating goals. Most people don’t even have goals. Less than 2% of people not only set goals but write them down. Harvard Business School did a study. They followed a class of students after they graduated for 20 years. Of the ones who had created goals and written them down they were the ones that made more than the other graduates. The 2% of students who had clear written goals made more than the other 98% of students combined!

Here are a couple of my goals written down on a dream board in my bedroom. This particular dream board is focused on my reaching the goal of Eagle in my company and increasing my income to $20,000 per month. I know that if I sponsor 50 new distributors the odds are that 1 or 2 of those 50 are going to be leaders. I know that I will at least reach my goal of $20,000 per month and I’ll be well on my way to Eagle.

This is also a visual reminder to me every day… and I can see my momentum. I can see the board filling up with names. I know I can accomplish the goal because I can clearly see what I’ve already accomplished.

Here is my dream board:

Click to see full size image

Do you have goals? Do you have them clearly written down? Do you have a dream board?

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > Home Business Blogs > Network Marketing > Business Plan

2010 is here!

What is your plan to grow your MLM business?

I heard a great tip from a friend of mine who is the top money earner in my company. He said he starts with a plan of action every year to pretend like he is starting over in his business. He acts like January 1 is the first day he is starting and puts together a plan of action based on that philosophy.

I know for me personally when I start a new project I’m excited. When I start in a new network marketing business in the past I’m very aggressive. I build my lead list. I call all my friends and family. I get aggressive with my advertising and marketing.

The problem I personally experienced is that I built a large business quickly. I then got into a mode of managing and working with my team. I have 6200+ people on my team. I let myself get too busy managing my business, training others, etc. It’s a different mindset than when I was first starting out.

Plus over my many years of being involved in my business I’ve met new people and my friends list probably needs to be updated.

Starting now I’m refocusing and pretending I am starting out from scratch again. I’m setting my goals. I’m building my list of friends and family. I’m contacting my warm market. I’m going back to basics. I’m going to work hard again just like I was starting out from scratch. I’m not ignoring the people already in my business I’m just refocusing on building again. Leading by example.

I think it’s a great idea.

If you were to pretend to start over in your business, what would you do?

Leave us a comment and let us know!

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > Home Business Blogs > Network Marketing > Business Plan