Dear readers,

I have a to brag a little.  I’m stoked to use a phrase from my teenage days in California.  (Stoked means really excited)

I just made the Send Out Cards top 25 money earners list!  This is my first time on the list since the very early days of the company. I’m so excited to be back in the top 25!

Sorry to brag but I’m just so excited I had to share!

- Ben Fitts

PS. On another note I just added a Google Call me widget to my site! You click the widget then put in your name and phone number and Google will try to connect you to me.

PPS. Some of you might be wondering… I just made the top 25 where was I before? Last time the list was updated: July 15, I was ranked #35. In about 2 months I’ve moved up 10 positions on the list.

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I wrote this message to my Send Out Cards team today. I thought it is a good message to share with everyone as there will be times in ANY company where you have problems.  Here is the message I wrote:

Hi team,

As you know we are going through some big changes at Send Out Cards.

I wanted to share with you one of my favorite quotes from one of my network marketing mentors.  He says:

“You can make excuses or you can make money, but you can’t make both.”

In Send Out Cards you can allow yourself to get sucked down into the bugs and problems with the new card editor OR you can rise above it all and continue working extra hard and building your business.

Now which person do you think is going to be the most successful?

The person who allowed the bugs to hold them back?  The person who blamed their lack of success on Send Out Cards? The person who took time off waiting on the problems to be fixed before promoting SOC.

OR the person who forged ahead.  The person who worked twice as hard to grow their business during the difficult times.

Let’s put it another way.

What is Jordan doing?  Do you think Jordan is making excuses?  Or do you think Jordan is out there working extra hard?

I know Diane is working extra hard. I am too.

The leaders don’t allow these little problems to bother them.  In the grand scheme of things they are TINY problems and EVERY company goes through phases like this.

Some companies go through issues where they have problems fullfilling orders.  Maybe the demand is so high the product is out of stock for long periods of time.  Some companies go through issues with investigations from the Attorney General.  Some companies go through financial troubles. Some companies go through periods of bad publicity with 60 minutes or whatever doing investigative reports on their company.

We don’t have those issues.  Our little issues with the new card editor are tiny and these issues will go away soon.

I encourage you all to do whatever you can now to work extra hard at building your business.  Come this winter when we’re experiencing our holiday rush, when all the bugs are worked out of the system, when we have a 2nd printer in Ohio, when we have new gift items available…  You’re all going to be rewarded for your persistence and hard work.

So you can make money or excuses.

Which one do you want to make?

- Ben Fitts
A Send Out Cards LEADER
Are you a leader?

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I hope you get some “brownie” points this week (And if you want to send a gift people who become customers can use my web site to send gifts like candles, brownies, gift baskets, etc.)

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Hi readers,

Today is December 12th and that means the holidays are right around the corner. Have you sent your Holiday cards yet?

As you may or may not be aware my business is greeting cards.

If you have a last minute need to send out holiday cards (including cards customized with your photos) I can help.  Since we print cards on demand you can pretty much make up your card at the last minute and we can still help you out.

If you need any help getting your cards out just give me a call at: 877-236-3488 in the USA or 860-896-5837.

Or if you want to try it yourself you can go to my web site.  Then click the banner that says “click here to send a free card”.

I don’t normally write about  my business but thought this would be appropriate since some of you may be trying to get your cards done last minute and might need some assistance.

Have a great weekend!

Ben

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Hi everyone,

I wanted to follow up with you to give you a status report on using Success from Home magazine to market my business.

As you know my company was featured in the October 2008 issue of Success from Home.  We’ve had copies available since mid August.  So we immediately started promoting them.  You can see previous discussions here and here.

One of the things I did was I created a simple lead capture page to promote free copies of Success from Home magazine.

So far I’ve had 13 requests for the magazine.

3 were requests from Mona Vie distributors that were confused.  They thought they could order any issue. One was from a prepaid rep that was confused.

9 legitimate requests have so far lead to 1 new customer and 1 distributor.

My cost for sending out those 9 copies was $72.  My commissions from the new customer and distributor have been so far $231.  This means I’m making a profit of $159 so far.

I have NOT promoted this other than mentioning it on my blog, in one forum, and putting it on my web site.  I think the next step is to promote it via PPC and see what happens. Also I am going to make this lead capture page available to everyone on my team for them to use in promoting the magazine as well.

Pretty cool, right? Have you guys come up with any new methods to market Success from Home magazine for your businesses?

- Ben

Click here to request your copy of October 2008 issue of Success from Home magazine featuring our custom greeting card company and 5 members of my team.

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What is with this new MLM philosophy?

What is with this new philosophy where people expect you to work hand in hand with them even though they JOINED SOMEONE ELSE!

Yesterday I was hosting a webinar for my team to invite prospects too.  I was going through the prospects and realized that one of the “prospects” wasn’t a prospect at all.  He was already in the business with another team.  He was NOT a member of my team.

When I emailed him and let him know I was going to have to unsubscribe him he emailed me back all greater than thou.  He signed his email that he was on “Kody’s team”.

Uhm dude.  This is BUSINESS.

Let’s face it.  I know in the 21st century you don’t like to hear this but… If you aren’t on my team you are the competition! I share tons of free information with people that are my competition but I’m not going to sign people up for you!  I’m not going to host a webinar for prospects for YOU.  That’s for my TEAM.

I’m sorry that you joined the wrong team.  BUT if you are coming to me for help you obviously joined the wrong team.

I know this 21st century philosophy on internet marketing is all based on “the Secret” and that I should give give give… but come on man this is business!  You can’t let people walk all over you and abuse you.

I can give to an extent.

Let’s make a sports analogy.  It’s one thing to help people and have friends in the business.  If you were a coach you could have other coaches who you were friends with and shared information with.  BUT when you played against one another you wouldn’t show your signs to them.  You wouldn’t show them your gameplan.

I can provide free training and even occasionally offer advice to people that are my competition but I’m not going to host webinars for signing up prospects and have people who aren’t on my team.  It would be disrespectful to my team members!  I need to give them my all. I need to give them 100%.

If helping other people who are my competition is going to take away from helping my team, then I need to focus on my team.  My team comes first.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with that!

My team comes first!  I hope even you guys reading this from other companies understand?  What do you think? Am I crazy?

- Ben Fitts

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Last week I wrote about how our company was featured in the October 2008 issue of Success from Home magazine. (click here to read that article).

I’ve been working on ideas and have been using the magazine myself for the past couple of weeks. (The magazine came out in September even though the “cover” says October.)

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing:

1. I found the magazine was on bookshelves in Barnes and Noble bookstores. Since I live in a heavily populated part of the country I’ve been traveling to the bookstores to place my business cards inside. These are my standard company card with the company logo on them. That way if someone buys a copy and wants to talk to someone they have my info and don’t have to call the company directly!

So far I’ve been to 8 Barnes and Nobles and found 30 copies of the magazine on the bookshelf. That’s a little less than 4 per store. One store actually had zero copies left and a couple had 9 or 10. Most had 2 or 3. I put a few business cards in other “business opportunity” related magazines as well while I was there and sometimes books like 4 Hour Work Week, Rich Dad Poor Dad, etc. Sizzle cards would probably have worked better in those magazines.

2. I gave several copies to friends and family. Some of my family wants to help in the business but don’t know how. They aren’t distributors and they don’t know MLM so they have a tendancy to try and talk to much. The great thing about the magazine is they can help just by passing them out. They don’t need to know anything!

3. I gave copies to all my front line distributors to make sure they were aware of this great resource/tool.

4. I gave copies to several of my hot prospects that were sitting on the fence and trying to decide what to do.

5. I got “packing list enclosed” envelopes from the office supply store and used them to put my business cards in the front of some magazines. I put labels on the outside and am leaving them at places like doctor’s offices.

Some other people gave some great feedback on how to market the Success from Home magazine.

• Ask people to read a specific article and look at a specific distributor spotlight. Preferably someone from your team.
• Ask one of those companies that passes out the real estate newspapers in grocery stores if they’d be willing to distributor your magazine. (I haven’t done this yet but am going to try it.)
• Run advertisements specific to the magazine. Call those prospects FIRST to find out if they are qualified. Then send them a copy of the magazine.

Pretty much everyone has said just leaving them around is not very effective or just sending them to people without pre-qualifying them.

If you have more ideas I’d love to hear them!

Thanks for sharing!
- Ben Fitts
PS. Click here if you want to request a copy of the magazine featuring my company (and 5 members of my downline including one I personally sposnored?)

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My company was featured in the October 2008 issue of Success from Home magazine. (that actually means the issue that hits newsstands in September)

I know MANY of you are involved in companies that have been featured in the past.  Usana, ACN, Prepaid Legal, Zrii, Nouveau Riche, YTB, and many other companies have previously been featured.

I wanted to discuss some ideas.  How have you used the magazine to promote your business?  Obviously getting it into the hands of existing prospects so  you get the credibility boost of being featured in a magazine.  BUT What else have you done?  What innovative techniques have you used to promote it?

Leave a comment and let me know.

I’ll discuss some of my ideas and strategies I’ve been using in one of next week’s blog posts.

- Ben Fitts

PS. Click here if you want to request a copy of the magazine featuring my company (and 5 members of my downline including one I personally sposnored?)

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I just wrote this to letter to the people on my team.  I wanted to encourage them to do whatever they can do to get to our company convention.  I thought you guys might benefit from this information as well. (the idea of 10 extra people for example.)

—

Hi Team,

I want to encourage you to do whatever you can possibly do to attend convention in Salt Lake next week.

I have a feeling there are going to be some really exciting announcements from SOC.

Sure you can wait and get the announcements later, but the energy you will receive from being there and being around THOUSANDS of other SOC people who share the same passions as you… That’s HUGE!

Jordan Adler says that someone once told him for every person in his downline who attends convention it’s like having 10 extra people in your downline next year.

Why?

Because the people who come to events like this get super excited and motivated.  They are unstoppable.

I know the economy is down and gas prices and inflation are up.  But if you can come, even for a day, I encourage you to come.  Heck just come hang out with us in the hotel… Whatever you can do I want to encourage you to come.

I am looking forward to meeting all of you!

- See you soon,
Ben Fitts

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I got this comment on my blog post yesterday about the daily activities I use in my business. I didn’t post it to get this kind of attention, I posted it for people from my company that read my blog. However I guess I should take some time to address this.

Please keep in mind these answers will be specifically about my company. If that doesn’t interest you just skip this post.

Bob Walton Says: February 5th, 2008 at 9:14 pmHey Ben,

I hope you don’t mind, but what are the real costs involved in starting up this business, not to mention the time costs as well?

It would be helpful to know as every start-up requires upfront costs to kick start any business.

It helps to go into any venture fully armed and eyes wide open to help weather the initial storms of adversity that most new business owners encounter.

I look forward to you response; it could be a full future blog post of its own. Thanks.

Hi Bob, I’m with Send Out Cards.

Our startup costs are on par with many network marketing companies. Our costs are $398. You’ll probably want to spend about $500 in total because you’re going to want to purchase some additional things to get your business going (like business cards.) I don’t recommend people go out and buy advertising and such right away. I want them to learn the basics first and make a little money before going out and doing more aggressive advertising or spending more money.
As far as a time commitment. What I like about the “Daily 8” is that it gives you a clear guide of what activities to do on a daily basis. These don’t need to take you 8 hours a day. If you can do them in 2 hours a day for example then you could theoretically do only 10 hours a week in your business. If you were able to do this consistently you’d grow a very nice business. Perhaps it takes someone else 4 hours a day to get them all done.

The interesting thing is that this helps focus on the important daily activities you need to do build a business in our company. It’s so often to get stuck doing busy work that doesn’t actually help grow your business. This helps focus your attention on the activities that are going to lead to building a strong business.

Bob, I’m not sure if this answers your questions appropriately or not?

- Ben Fitts

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