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

Popularity: 6% [?]

One of the biggest challenges facing most people who start a home business is finding the time to work the business. Most people work a full-time job and start their business to make some extra money, and eventually leave their job behind.

Yet, how do they do it?

How do they manage their job, their family, their personal lives and their new home business?

One of the biggest things I’ve found in my network marketing career is the importance of consistency. Consistency of working even a little bit every week is far better than working hard, then stopping for a while, then working hard again. If you can find a way to consistently build your business each and every week you’ll look back a year later and see a successful business growing. However if you stop and start a lot you’ll probably find that your business is struggling.

I came up with this schedule to help out part-time network marketers.

The schedule allows you to create a time schedule of your week. You can put in times for working your job, spending time with your family, even time to have a personal life. As you create the schedule you’ll begin to find that you have little pockets of time where you can build your business. It might be your lunch hour at work. It might be Tuesday nights…. It might be on the weekend. You’ll still be able to have time to do all the things you enjoy doing, but with a little sacrifice you can find some time to consistently build your business.

Download a copy of the schedule for part-time MLMers here.

This is my first draft at this schedule. Leave a comment and let me know if you find the schedule useful or if you have any suggestions. I appreciate you!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 6% [?]

Hi everyone,

I’ve written a couple of times recently about how I’ve had to go back to work part-time. (read them here and here)

One of the key things you want to do when you build your business part-time is to always be prepared. You might be at your job or at your kid’s soccer game. No matter where you are you always need to be prepared to do business.

One thing I do to stay prepared is I keep a plastic storage container in my car.  Inside this container I keep all my marketing materials. It has rungs to hold file folders. In these folders I store things like flyers, brochures, magazines, DVDs, business cards, etc.  That way when I’m out and about and an opportunity arises I’m always prepared.

For example in my ebook on how to effectively market with flyers I talk about how I use tabbed flyers like you might see in a convenience store or grocery store.  The other day I was at my new part time job and I went to a local shopping area to get some lunch.  As I got out of my car I noticed this shopping area had some little community bulletin boards setup where I could post a flyer.  I got a flyer out of my car and tacked it up on the board.

If I wasn’t prepared I would have missed that opportunity!  Sure I could come back another day and put up a flyer but I’d have missed my first opportunity.  Maybe the next big money earner came in that day and I would have missed them.

The difference between success and mediocrity is very small.  In baseball 3 extra hits per 100 at bats is the difference between being an all-star or a average joe.

The same goes for your network marketing business.  By being prepared 100% of the time you’ll find a few situations where you can capitalize on that opportunity.  It only takes a few of these opportunities for you to distinguish yourself from everyone else!

Do you have any examples of missed opportunities or examples of how you always stay prepared?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sample thank you card I use

I’ve been writing a series of articles on my business plan for 2009.

One of the things I believe in and I’ve read a lot about is sending thank you cards.  One mistake many people make with their thank you cards is they write their thank you card expecting to get something in return.

MOST business people will send a thank you card with their full business card information inside. Or they’ll send a thank you card that will say something like “the best compliment I can receive is you trusting me with a referral.”

The problem is that is an expectation of getting something in return.  You’re giving to get not giving to give. When you give to give you win trust and favor with the person much more than giving to get.  Sometimes people give expecting to get something in return.  If you give just to give to the person, then they have a deeper appreciation for you.

I send thank you cards for lots of occasions.  I have a card (pictured here) that I send to say “it was great to meet you”.  I have thank you cards I send to every new client or customer.  I even send thank you cards when I get good customer service.

Just the other day my wife and I went to the AT&T store to get new cellular phones.  We received really excellent customer service from a fellow named Matt. We took up an hour or more of his time and it even went past closing.  He went the extra mile to make sure our phones got setup properly.  So I sent Matt a little thank you card along with some brownies.

I just returned to the AT&T store to switch phones.  Matt came over to me immediately.  He wanted to thank me for the brownies.  Even though another associate was already helping me Matt was more than happy to give me some extra help in picking out my new phone and accessories.  He was so thankful that I thought of him and even sent him some tasty brownies as a treat.  I guarantee you every time I go in to that AT&T store I’m going to get GREAT customer service. All from a little thank you card!

Do you send thank you cards to your customers or prospects? Do you have any stories to share?

Click on the “comments” to the right of this story and leave us a comment and let us know!

- Ben Fitts

PS. Are you looking for an awesome solution to send custom thank you cards like the one pictured here? I’d be happy to help you get setup with a free account to try it out.

Popularity: 27% [?]

In my series on my business plan for 2009 I talked about how one of my goals was to develop new friendships.

You might be wondering, why?

First of all I think we sometimes don’t want new friends because we maybe got hurt by old friends.  So we keep our friendships to a minimum.  At least I know I sometimes get like that.

Remember network marketing can also be called relationship marketing.  So think about those “relationships”.

That means you need to work on developing new friends.  You don’t want to simply target these new friends for your business though.  You want to actually BE a friend.  You want to GIVE to them.

One thing I did to meet new people was to get out locally and meet new business people.  I joined a BNI group.  BNI is a group that is designed to help other business people with referrals. One of the main tennets of BNI is that “giver’s gain”.  In BNI you give referrals to others.  You participate in the group.  Maybe you bring coffee/breakfast to your group meeting.  Maybe you go meet some of your other group members one on one to learn about their business.  You learn to look for ways to help other people.

As soon as I started to do this in my BNI group I began to get referrals back.  You see the people had learned to trust me and we had developed relationships.  I was giving out referrals. I was assisting the group by sending out welcome cards to visitors and new members.  I was sending invitations to the open house.  I was becoming an active member of the group.  When the other members saw this they began to trust me with their referrals, but it took awhile to build that trust.

So that’s what I mean by making new friends.  I mean looking at these relationships as friendships not simply business connections.  You would go out of your way to assist a friend. You would probably not go out of your way to assist a business connection you just met at a chamber luncheon.    By building relationships you grow stronger bonds.  If that business connection had gone out of his way to help you, if he had show genuine interest in you, your family, your business… then you’re much more likely to go to extremes to help that person.

Do you agree or disagree?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 27% [?]

In my 2009 business plan I’ve laid out a plan of action.  One new activity every single week.  New actions to expand my business.

My week 5 action is to lookup old friends.

You might think, you don’t want to spam your old friends, and I agree! I don’t want to spam anyone!

In my opinion your MLM enterprise is about building relationships. EVERYTHING we do is about building relationships.  Working with your customers and getting referrals from them is about realtionships. Working with your downline and helping them grow their business is about building relationships, and trust with them. Being a mentor to them.  Helping hold them accountable.

Prospects? Same thing.  Most prospects are joining someone because they feel that person can help them achieve their dreams and their goals.

So how does that apply to my old friends?  You have realtionships with these people already. Why not expand on those relationships and friendships? You never know when the time is going to be right for someone.  I’m not talking about spamming them with your opportunity, but just renewing that friendship and seeing where it will go.

I use Facebook a lot. To me, it’s a more grown up version of Myspace.  I also find it’s easier to find people and make connections on Facebook.  I’ve been able to connect with quite a few old friends as a result of Facebook.  One of them has expressed some interest in my business and is even working with me part-time as a programmer.  I didn’t renew the friendship for that. I renewed the friendship because he is a friend.  We all need more friends in our lives.  The fact that he started to work for me and is planning to join my MLM business is just a result of our friendship.  It’s a product of learning what his needs are and that he needed to supplement his income.

Some other web sites you can use to find friends are Classmates.com.  That’s a good one for looking people up by school affiliation.  Another good one which is becoming popular for baby boomers is BoomJ. A new one that is a bit different but still can help build realtionships is Twitter.

How many old friends have you connected with recently?

Got questions about these web sites? Leave a comment and let me know!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 34% [?]

Do you notice a theme in my 2009 business plan?

A lot of my action items are intended to stretch my personal development and help me grow better as a person as well as to grow my business.

For week 4 my action item is to speak to 10 people I wouldn’t normally talk to.  Again I do this because I want to get out of my comfort zone and stretch myself.  Maybe one of these people will be my next big leader? You never know.  The goal is to combat my fear and to go out and do something about it.  The only way I’ve found to handle fear is to take action.

So week 4 what am I going to do?  Cold Call 10 people?  Call on 10 local businesses?

I’ve already done one of those. I contacted a friend to try and get a presentation at her local real estate office.  Now I just need to setup 9 more similar activites.

I’m going out this week to take action on this and I’ll post a follow up for you later this week.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 35% [?]

In my business plan for 2009 I’ve put together a list of weekly actions to take to grow my business to the next level.

My week 3 action is to attend a personal development seminar.

I recommend this because when people join you in your network marketing business they join YOU.  You need to be constantly working on improving you and growing as a person.  By doing so you’ll attract more people to you and perhaps even attract a better quality person to you.

I did this activity. I flew down to Tampa Florida to support my team. We had a company provided personally development seminar called a “Treat Em Right” Seminar.  It’s a lot of fun and it’s a great personal development seminar.

There are a lot of personal development seminars you can attend.

You could attend a seminar like Jeff Combs Breakthroughs to Success (I went in October 2006).  That’s one I had the opportunity to attend a few years ago. You could attend a seminar on how to be a public speaker.  You could attend a seminar on the law of attraction.  Maybe for you attending a personal seminar might be going to a Yoga retreat.  Maybe the meditation and excercise would be personal development for you.

The important thing is to find something and take action.  Don’t delay.

For me attending my company’s personal development seminar probably isn’t enough of a stretch. I’m going to continue to seek out more opportunities and see if I can find some more good seminars for this year.

What personal development seminars do you plan to attend this year? Maybe you can help me find another good seminar to attend this year?

BTW if you want to attend a Treat Em Right seminar with me and see what our seminars are like, I’ll be in San Diego on February 28th.  Want to come? Just contact me!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 30% [?]

In my series on my business plan for 2009 I’ve been discussing a plan of action.

My week 2 plan of action is to do something that makes me feel uncomfortable. Why would I want to do that? It makes me feel uncomfortable right?

The reason is because I’m trying to stretch myself. I’m trying to push myself.  When I do these things I grow as a person and my business grows because of it.  If you are comfortable you probably aren’t making enough money.

Think about the athlete.  If they didn’t constantly make their workouts longer and harder they’d never get any stronger.  By stretching themselves and pushing themselves they allow themselves to grow.

So what might make you feel uncomfortable?

For me, I’m an internet guy.  Going out and joining a networking group makes me a little uncomfortable.

For you it might be talking to your family.  Your family might be the person you are most afraid of rejecting you.

Or maybe it’s cold calling.  Maybe it’s just a fear of the phone.

If you can push yourself you can grow and your business will grow as a result.  You won’t be perfect at it the first time and that’s ok!  Learn from it and get better.

Are you willing to push yourself to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable? What makes you feel uncomfortable?  Let’s start a little discussion on this… Leave a comment and let’s talk!

- Ben

Popularity: 33% [?]

As I’ve been discussing recently one of the most important things you can do for your MLM enterprise in 2009 is to start with a business plan. (see the business plan category for related posts.)

So far I’ve come up with a little over 30 different things to work on in 2009.  I’m going to attempt to do these myself.  You might find some ideas here that are things you’re interested in. You also might be able to share some comments and give me some new ideas.  Please do!

This is week 25-36… the first 12 weeks can be found here, weeks 13-24 can be found here.

Week 25 Join some link / advertising exchanges
Week 26 Buy some text links
Week 27 Setup Google PPC Advertising
Week 28 Live everyday like it’s your last
Week 29 Recognize someone on your team that deserves recognition
Week 30 Hire an accountant
Week 31 Hire a virtual assistant
Week 32 Incorporate your business
Week 33 Join a networking group, like BNI
Week 34 Hire a PR Firm
Week 35 Write an ebook
Week 36 Setup a mailing list with an autoresponder

That’s all I have so far for 2009, but I’m sure I can find a few more things to add.  Do you have any ideas on things I can add to my action plan?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 29% [?]