I’m curious.

How is the economy effecting you?

I know a few people who are hurting but I also know that MOST people I know are doing great.  In fact some of us (myself included) are making more money than ever before!

I’m so glad to be a network marketer!  I have a great solution to the economic woes!  I have a big fat residual income check that comes in each and every month plus weekly bonus checks.

The economy may be bad but what if you were able to:

1. Save money on your taxes.
2. Generate extra income every month.

Would the economy be effecting you as much?

Now is the BEST time to be involved in a home business. Do whatever you possibly can to go out and spread the word.  When the economy is down it’s a great time for network marketers like us to be out there promoting our businesses!

What are you doing today to use the US economy as an example to promote your business?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 8% [?]

Are you a bulldog with your followup?

Ever heard the phrase, the fortune is in the follow up?

How about these statistics:

• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the 5th-12th contacts

These statistics show that the longer you follow up the better your chances are.  For each contact your chances of signing them up increase.

Are you a follow up pit bull?  You should be!

- Ben Fitts

PS. I’ve got three upcoming webinars this week on customer follow up systems.  If you don’t have a follow up system in place check them out.

Popularity: 11% [?]

On our teleconference the other night a new lady in our business shared this checklist.

I thought it was a brilliant checklist and wanted to share it with you.

She had done network marketing with her husband before and had been burned out.  So they decided to look for a new business. They were not neccessarily looking for MLM and if you look at this list you might even say that it blocks out some MLM companies.

You don’t have to use this list.  You for example might enjoy home parties. You might enjoy having people in your home or going to other homes.  She didn’t want to do home parties so this is the list she came up with (with her husband.)

1. No home parties
2. No opportunity meetings
3. No inventory
4 A company with a 5 year track record and growing
5. Unique product
6. No high monthly volume required
7. Product for business and individual
8. Widely used product for both men and woman
9. Minimal start up costs
10 Competitively priced for consumer
11. Balance of right now money and residual money
12. Should be fun
I think it’s a pretty good list.  Do you think she missed anything?

- Ben

Popularity: 11% [?]

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?)

Popularity: 24% [?]

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?)

Popularity: 22% [?]

Hi MLM’ers.

Are you proud to be a network marketer?

It’s kind of funny. Our industry has such a bad reputation that many of us are shy about what we do!

The other day I was visiting a new accountant trying to find a good person to keep the books for my business.  Of course he asked about my business and I immediately told him it was a network marketing company. He wasn’t upset by it at all. Later the conversation turned to other people he knew that were doing network marketing. Now these are potential prospects for my card business!

Many of you are scared to tell people what you do.  You want to talk to strangers because you’ve maybe done a few of these businesses before.  Maybe you didn’t handle it great so they might look at you skeptically this time.

But the other side of the coin is… if you’re afraid to talk to people, then maybe it is a scam!  Maybe it is something weird you’re involved in or something.  At least in their mind.  Right?

When you approach everything from a point of view of you love MLM and think it’s a great business model… then the people you speak to tend to be more positive about it.  I haven’t had a negative conversation about MLM in I can’t remember how long!

So think about it.  Are you happy to be involved in an MLM?  Are you proud of it?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 12% [?]

I thought today I’d discuss a recent issue that has come up in my own organization.

I have a big organization. (thousands of people in my downline.)

My self and the leaders thought we were doing a good job of keeping up with everyone.  We offer a ton of training:

1. weekly conference call/webinar
2. email list
3. discussion board
4. recordings of past trainings
5. email autoresponder basic training series (which covers all of the above topics.)

Unfortunately I found quite a few people weren’t included in these.

You see I assumed that their upline was doing a good job of passing the information down to them.  I assumed most people knew of all the resources we had available.  Yet several people came up to me at convention and told me they wanted to get onto my training list and had no idea how to do so.

So don’t ever take for granted that people in your organization know about all the methods of training you provide.  Make sure you remind everyone.  Whether or not it is at events like convention, or by blasting out emails to your entire back office, or using updated tools like voicemail blasts to let your people know.

As soon as I blasted out an email reminder I got dozens of feedbacks from orphans in my downline

I also discovered some people weren’t able to get access to the discussion board because the email confirmations weren’t working right.  39 people had registered but not been able to participate in any conversations!

Don’t take your team for granted.  I’m not saying you have to drag anyone but don’t take it for granted that everyone knows what are your tools and training materials are.  Make sure you remind them, just like you have to do “basic” training once in awhile you need to remind everyone of what your tools and trainings are.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 12% [?]

Good News everyone.

I’m going to continue with the blog!

My friend Jack as well as many of you talked me out of abandoning the blog.  So I’m going to begin posting again.

Too many of you are benefiting from the information here so I’m going to do my best to keep up my two posts a week schedule.

I’d like to start by asking you guys for help. Do you have questions or ideas for topics you’d like me to cover? Leave a comment on this post or leave me feedback and let me know!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 11% [?]