Dear friends,

My family is in the midst of two family emergencies and we would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

My wife has asked me not to share the details but we would appreciate your prayers for her and her family.

In addition I also heard that my aunt on my mother’s side of the family is in intensive care.

Needless to say have had to cut our cruise short. We left the ship and are sitting in an airport in Cozumel Mexico. We’re flying out in a few minutes for Syracuse, New York so my wife can get back to her family as soon as possible.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

With love,
Ben & Jen Fitts

Popularity: 24% [?]

Hi everyone,

Today’s the day!

Jennifer and I are off for a cruise to Cozumel!  I won the prize for being one of the top distributors in Send Out Cards over the past year.  They offered the prize to the top 100 people who earned points by: sponsoring new customers, sponsoring new distributors, helping new distributors get started fast, and by helping people promote.

This is the first of many prizes I expect to win in my network marketing career (I won $500 in a sales contest, vip status, and other things but this is the first big prize I’ve won based on an entire year of effort.)

I called this the “joys of network marketing” because this is a business that can offer a lot of fun rewards. You can win lots of things.  Cruises are just one option. I know other people who have won “cars” or “rolexes” or similar prizes in their network marketing enterprises.  Most companies (mine included) have special rewards when you reach the top.  We all get a specially designed “eagle” ring when we reach the eagle rank in our company.  The ring is not only beautiful and custom designed but it is also symbolic of the reason our company started in the first place.

There are other joys from being involved in MLM and Network Marketing.  What about the joy of having more time to spend with your family?  What about the joy of getting to work from the comfort of your own home instead of having to go to a job every day?

Often we think about the money… but there is much more to MLM and Network Marketing than money.

Well I need to head out.  Our boat is leaving shortly.  I hope to keep in touch with you guys and maybe post some photos and things as I can.

Have fun and be productive while we’re gone!

Ben & Jen Fitts

Popularity: 25% [?]

Secret Strategies for Effective Flyer Marketing

Remember the old phrase:  “KISS”

Keep It Short and Simple

This definitely applies to network marketing. Network Marketing is a business of duplication.  Remember to focus your activities on things that are easily duplicable.  You want anyone who joins your business to be able to do it regardless of their skill level.

I’ve written some network marketing ebooks on this topic that you can download for free.  For example I have an ebook on how I created some very effective flyers that get me up to 15% response rate.  Once you have a flyer that works well all you have to do is show people where to hang the flyers and you can even give your new people my ebook.  It explains the whole process and where I found good places to hang flyers.  That’s duplicable.  You’ve taken the hard work out of the equation. You’ve got the “flyer” already done.  They don’t have to create one from scratch.

Darlene from California called me about this issue last week.  She has several team members she’s trained to do the flyers and they are having great success with it.  BUT what they do is one on one business presentations.  They drive all over doing presentations, spending money on gas, car bills, etc.  What’s worse is that one on one presentations are hard to duplicate.  Unless you have a DVD or something that does the presentation for you new people get scared to do their presentations.  They are afraid they might say the wrong thing.  If you can simplify the presentation then you’ll have better success.

Some ways Darlene could simplify her presentation are:

1. Start new team members by doing presentations with them. The first presentation you do entirely for them. The second presentation you help them do. The third presentation they do it with you watching over them so you can help them if they stumble.
2. Use a automatic presentation like a DVD or web site presentation.  That way the new person doesn’t have to remember a lot.
3. Do a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly business presentation FOR your team.  That way all they have to do is invite people to your presentation.  That’s possible the most effective system because all they have to do is learn to invite prospects and because you can develop a lot of energy by getting a bunch of like minded people together and excited about the business presentation you’ve just given them.

Remember to focus on duplication and the easier you make things the easier it will be for new prospects to jump in and get started FAST in your organization.

Do you have tricks you use to help your prospects get started fast when they join your business?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 25% [?]

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: 26% [?]

Local Ad Link - the newest advertising FAD

Many of you have probably heard of the latest advertising gimmick, Local Ad Link. (NOT an affiliate link.)

In my opinion Local Ad Link is just a FAD that most businesses should avoid.

First of all people contacting me about Local Ad Link are idiots.  They’re telling me it’s ok if I don’t like it. I should buy a position and market it to others anyway. Hello?  McFly?  Are you there? Don’t you realize that if you are telling me to do it anyway just to make some money, this screams out “SCAM” to me.

Second of all, the advertising packages with Local Ad Link are HORRIBLE.

$50 a month for 3 zip codes and 2 search terms
$100 a month for 10 zip codes and 2 search terms
$200 a month for 50 zip codes and 3 search terms

Here is my big problem with this.

If you know anything about Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising you can get a better deal for yourself.

My dad has a web site for granticrete countertops.  He is only licensed to do these in Rhode Island and Connecticut.  So we have a simple pay per click campaign setup to target keywords in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

#1 My dad can buy more than 3 search terms.  We’re currently targetting 24 terms.
#2 My dad can target more than 3, or 10, or even 50 zip codes. We can target as many as we want.
#3 My dad spends less than $10 a month on average on his pay per click ads.
#4 My dad can specify the landing page! He can have a page that’s unique to Connecticut or a page that’s unique to Rhode Island.

Now take a look in comparison to LocalAdLink.  My dad targets the entire state of Rhode Island for example. He’d have to pay $200 a month to get even close to that with LocalAdLink.  Yet my dad spends less than $10 a month.

Are you getting the picture?

Do you see why this is a big scam?

How is LocalAdLink getting their ads on Google in the first place…. Pay Per Click!  Basically what you are paying LocalAdLink for is having them manage your advertising for you.  If you a computer novice then maybe LocalAdLink is for you… but if you are someone who is willing to learn you’d be much better off actually investing the $200 in Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Google Adwords. In an hour’s time you could manage your own PPC ads and save yourself hundreds of dollars a month AND do more effective ad campaigns than you’ll get with Local Ad Link!

And I haven’t even gotten into the real Pay Per Click tricks like customizing your campaigns based on your keywords, sending them to a landing page that targets that keyword, etc.  Local Ad Link sends you to their site (because they need to bump up their search engine and alexa ratings to convince more people to advertise!)  The person then has to click on a link from local ad link to be taken to your actual web site! So Local Ad Link is adding in an extra step in the process and you’ll loose some of your prospects right there!

Is Local Ad Link a scam? No. It’s not a scam but it is a company that is specifically targetting ignorant business owners that don’t know much about how to market online.  Personally that’s the kind of company I like to avoid. AND who the hell wants to go door to door selling internet advertising anyway? YUCK!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 95% [?]

Hi readers!

I want to pay you to help me get the word out about my little blog. I’m starting a membership drive to try and get my reader total up over 1000. We’ve been hovering around 240-260 for several months now (you can see the total on the right hand side of the page.) All you have to do is click here to send an email to your friends to tell them about Home Business Blogs!

I will give away $25 gift certificates as a reward for you helping refer your friends and associates to Home Business Blogs! I will pick one person at random each month who has referred new people to the blog to win a $25 gift card of their choice. The more referrals the greater your chance to win! We have about 10 different gift cards to choose from.

• American Express Gift Card
• 4 in 1 restaurants: Chilis, Macaroni Grill, Maggianos Little Italy, On the Border
• Starbucks
• Cheescake Factory
• Tim Horton’s
• Barnes & Noble
• Home Depot
• Bed Bath and Beyond
• The Options: Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic
• Wal Mart
• Canadian 6 in 1 Variety: Swiss Chalet, Second Cup, Kelsey’s, Harvey’s, Milestone Grill & Bar, Montana’s Cookhouse

PLUS everyone who refers a friend will get to download FREE copies of my ebooks on:

Dirt Cheap Advertising for your MLM or business opportunity
and Secret Strategies for Effective Flyer Marketing (how I get up to 20% response rate on flyers)

Get these 2 ebooks FREE when you refer a friend

Both these ebooks are free downloads to anyone who refers a friend to Home Business Blogs!

AND you’ll have a chance to win $25 each and every month that you refer a friend! The more times you refer a friend the more chances you have to win!

Click here to refer some friends now.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 24% [?]

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?

Popularity: 28% [?]

Hi all,

Do you like to hear from other top Network Marketers?  Do you like to hear audio interviews about how they got to where they are today?

What about hearing from the top authors on MLM and Network Marketing?  What about hearing from personal development coaches?

What would over 130 hours of audio interviews be worth?

If they were worth $10 each that’d be $1300, right?

What if you could get all these audio interviews plus one year of upcoming interviews for only $99?

http://TheMasterMindSessions.com/SpecialOffer

You see my friend John Milton Fogg (Aka. author of the Greatest Networker in the World) has quietly been running an excellent web site called the Mastermind Sessions.  Every week John lines up great guest speakers and convinces them to give one hour of the best training AND usually they throw in a special bonus as well.

John is going to raise the price of the Mastermind Sessions soon.  Before he raises the price he has offered 100 special memberships at only $99 for one year.

Keep in mind in my opinion this is CONSERVATIVELY worth over $2000.  Needless to say $99 for a year of access to over 130 hours of audio interviews is well worth it!

Check out John’s special offer and make sure to tell him I sent you

http://TheMasterMindSessions.com/SpecialOffer

- Ben Fitts

If you’re curious you can check out some introductory audios from previous Mastermind Sessions at John’s Blog.

Popularity: 23% [?]

The scam otherwise known as Chat to Text is back. I hate it and I recommend all of you avoid it.

This is a facebook application that allows you to get facebook chat messages sent to your cell phone. It costs $6 and has an MLM payplan associated with it.

Here is one example of why I hate it.

I got an email yesterday from a friend.  She is not a technical person.  In fact she has told me she hates being on the computer all day.  She is an outdoors person. She likes being outside. She enjoys traveling.  She enjoys meeting people and networking face to face, NOT working on the computer all the time. She explicitly told me she doesn’t want to spend a lot of time on the computer.

Yet this woman emailed me and asked me to take a look at Chat to Text.  This is a woman who doesn’t want to be on the computer all the time and yet now she is promoting a product that puts your computer chat on your cell phone.  If anything it’s the exact opposite!  This woman wants to try and get away from the computer and yet now she’s getting text messages on her cell phone?!?!

I feel like the ONLY reason she is pushing this crap is because:

1. Someone she knows probably sent her the link.

2. She hasn’t thought it through.

3. She is promoting it because of the MLM component and the ability to get paid for referring others.

In reality this is a product she won’t use. This is a product she actually won’t like at ALL!  Yet she is promoting it to others!

Chat to Text is one of the worst examples of MLM scam and is what causes people to not like MLM.  The majority of people promoting this JUNK aren’t even going to use it.  They are just promoting it for the MLM. That is how MLM get’s a bad name.

I encourage all of you to boycott Chat to Text.  Next time someone asks you emails you about Chat to Text send them here to find out why what they are doing is so bad for our industry.

Popularity: 27% [?]