Blogs are everywhere and there are many good ones but there are more bad ones.  Is your blog one with attractive content that will bring a reader back again and again?

What is attractive content?

Attractive content is value based where sharing experience and insights will help the reader be a better person, blogger, marketer.

To over-market oneself is considered very unattractive and will just make you and your blog very lonely.

However, one person’s spam could be another person’s “ah-ah” moment.

So how do you know what to do?

• First, you must achieve balance.  You get to decide which way you want to lean.  Are you going to lean toward value or toward promotional?   That also goes when you create your profile within a community.  There is nothing wrong with promoting oneself, but like everything, there is a time and a place where it is more appropriate.

There are certain factors to consider when deciding which way you will lean:

1. who are you attracting
2. put on your target audience’s shoes: what will they think of you?
3. more promotional will bring in more targeted but less leads
4. more value will you give more leads but less qualified ones

Your content needs to be well balanced.  Don’t just look at one aspect but the whole enchilada.

• your title wording will set the tone (is it a review, sharing insight or personal opinion?)
• your opening paragraph will either score high on the promotional billboard or give value
• your overall subject matter will also contribute to value based or promotional based
• how your content looks to the eye: short or long hubs, bolding words, using pictures
• using specific anchor text will indicate value or promotional content
• linking clusters can also attract or detract

These are just guidelines to consider.  But people blogging to attract leads are there to make money in the end and there is nothing wrong with that as long as its done in a respectful value-based manner.

These are the people that will succeed over those that just promote.

I’ve learned that the best way to work with prospects is to take the consultative approach.

You must provide value way before you can pitch your business opportunity.  The old way of selling your opportunity is the old way of network marketing.  That model comes from a very selfish mindset, even if the belief help by the prospector is one of wanting to help people.

People hate being sold to but they love buying.  ONLY if it’s their idea!

The key is to assist the person in any way you can.  But for you to provide value you must have learned how to do this in the first place.

You must never stop learning so that you can be ahead of the masses.  This will translate into something that you can teach and bring value to your prospect.

You share your experience with your prospect and continue to move forward all the time.

Set your business opportunity up so that your prospect will be the one to mention it first. While connecting with the person and getting to know them, you will be able to continue adding value and the prospect will be more open to hearing about your opportunity.

Look at it this way.  You want to get to the point where they will be calling you and coming to you.

So providing value first is the key that will make your prospects come running and the building of a list of quality leads prepared to come on board will explode.

Learning is not hard but it takes time and yes money.  But if you’re not ready to invest in yourself, your success will be very shortlived.

Getting the necessary training with someone that will teach you simply but effecitvely how to market yourself can be life changing.

Are you someone that believes anything you are told?

So if you were told that having a network marketing business is the key to fulfilling your dreams and that anybody can do it, you would believe it. Right?

Well, you would be right in believing it, because network marketing can be done by anyone who wants to.

There are, however, 2 very critical aspects that a person needs to be able to do so.

Number one, you must have skills.  Now skills can be learned by anyone who applies themselves.  Most network marketing companies have training where you will be able to learn these skills.

It takes determination, application and practice.  A good training program should teach you all the aspects of network marketing the old way.

Why do I say that?

Well we know that network marketing the old way, where you approach family and friends and do cold calls, does work.   And that may be how you would like to run your business. So you need to at least know that this type of network marketing is what is generally being taught.

If you choose not to go that route, you will have discovered the most talked about aspect of the “new” network marketing strategies on the net, that of attraction marketing.

That’s what I chose.

And that brings me to the second aspect I wanted to bring out here.  Your MLM business will be a great success but you will need to have customers and business builders.

You attract customers by applying the concepts learned in attraction marketing.  You attract business builders by showing them a system that eliminates cold calls and uncomfortable approaches the old way of network marketing relies on.

This relationship starts to blossom and creates confidence which then leads to you generating the leads you want for your network marketing business.

It isn’t very complicated.  With skills and an audience, there are no limits to what you can do to be a great network marketing success.

But you must have the desire to never stop learning.

So you’ve been network marketing for a while now and things aren’t happening as quickly as you thought.

It’s quite frustrating and you’re starting to doubt whether you made the right choice and especially whether this MLM business wasn’t all bull in the first place.

Nothing seems to be working even though you work non-stop making calls, follow-ups and presentations but nothing is happening inspite of being so busy with these activities.

Let’s look at this a little closer.  In MLM, a difference does exist between being efficient and being effective.

Most average distributors are very efficient and are doing things the right way.

However, most leaders in MLM are very efficient at doing the right things in an effective way.  See the difference?

Being efficient is a great quality and good to have but being effective at doing the right things in the right way is the difference between having some success and unlimited success.

Ask yourself whether you are doing the right things in the right way? The only thing in MLM to be doing in the right way is communicating, connecting with others. Did you think the answer was a great secret?

Think about it.  What do all top leaders have in common?  They can communicate very effectively with everyone.  Simple.

Teaching your new recruit these next 3 criteria may just save your business:

1. you’re NOT in MLM to SELL
2. you’re NOT in MLM to RECRUIT
3. you’re NOT in MLM to TRAIN

How can this be?  Well, selling your products, attracting recruits to you and showing them how to work their MLM business are all the FRUITS of your effective communication and exposure.

Your priority is to effectively expose your business and products using attraction marketing.  People want what you have if you let them know what it is you have.

So how do you create effective exposure?

• we are often told in MLM that you are an information giver.  This is only partially right but can be a trap as people get caught in giving out too many details and fact.  The key is to make an impact in other people’s lives by moving the prospect from the inside.  You move other people when you keep the focus on them.  It’s all about their dreams, their wants, their future.  Moreover, the focus is on their paycheck not yours.

• creating an emotional connection with your prospect is also very important.  How do you do that?  Simply focus on what your prospect wants to change for the better or have in their life the most and then show them how your products and your business can help bring that into their life.  What is paramount is for your prospect to develop an emotional connection to the product, or the business or you as the leader.  This is easily done during an effective presentation.

• Giving VALUE to your prospect is KING. If your prospect doesn’t see value in what you are offering, doing or who you are, then your prospect will not move toward you.  Giving value is not hard.  Find out what they value in their life and then show them that your products, your business and you can help increace it.  In general, most people want to increase what they have physically, expand as persons emotinally, enlarge their circle of influence and feel totally empowered in their lives.

Your “job” is to simply show them how you can help them do that.

Taking all the above into consideration, then stop worrying about networking, selling, recruiting, training and being busy.  Start getting effective at exposing your business and products and you will see that the rest will take care of itself.

To read more about how to attract others, there is a free book by Mike Dillard called “Magnetic Sponsoring” that puts into clear perspective a very simple method to do just that.

There is a category of people out there that folks in network marketing and MLM seem to totally ignore.

These people have a lot to offer us as they are usually linked to many contacts around the country and also have existing clients.

They not only have experience in the marketplace but also have credibility and money to buy products.

So who are these people?  None other than small business owners.

Don’t think that because they are already involved in a business of their own that they wouldn’t be interested in something that could increase their bottom line.

They already know and understand what multiple streams of income means and quickly grab the concept of residual income as I’m sure many of them wished they could close up shop and live on what is coming in from their past efforts and that of others, not just from what they worked so hard to save up to retire on.

So how do you identify these small business owners?

Think about it.  Who do you buy your insurance from?  Who cuts your hair?  Where do you buy your books from?  Who pumps your gas?  Who manages your money?  Who owns your grocery store?  Who does your taxes?  Who writes your prescriptions?  And so on..

Everywhere you turn, there is a small business owner who have one thing in common and that is to multiply their profits.

Here are a few tips to keep your approach to business owners more manageable:

• try not to approach an owner with more than 20 employees
• ask for help from owners that you know.  Maybe your product could help improve employees lives.
• offer to do a seminar after hours

You might like to refer to this video I made a while back which can help you set up an interview with business owners whether you know them or not.

And if you feel like listening to an audio series by one of our top leaders you can download it here.

Here’s to great prospecting in 2009!

Qualifying your prospect in network marketing can be a time consuming operation if you let it.

Many people let the prospect direct the interview.  Not a good tactic.  Sure your prospect wants information but think of it this way.

They are at a job interview and you are the interviewer.  You have a position to fill and you are looking for the best applicant.

The best applicant for you will have to have certain qualities.  He/she must first have the desire to do this business.  It’s all very well to get someone who’s interested but will they be committed?

You need someone that will be coachable, even if they belonged to another network marketing company before.  The training you will be providing will be new in some ways to what they experienced.

You want someone that is sincere, honest and a leader or a would be leader just waiting for the right training to soar.

You must be able to dictate the terms of that application and yes you are willing to give that person the benefit of the doubt before you accept them as part of your team, but…

There is one question that can disqualify your prospect right from the get go.  This question will show you whether this prospect is just a casual looker versus one who is serious about starting a network marketing business.

This is a question I would never have thought of before had I not heard it from someone that I consider a mentor, even though he doesn’t know me personally, Mike Dillard.

And that question is, (drum roll please)  What are you currently reading?

That’s a silly question, you say?  Think about it.

Would you not rather have someone to work with that was interested in the actual business they are applying for?

There’s nothing wrong with reading fiction, but in order to grow and learn, a person must have interests in improving themselves or they will stay just the way they are, poor and unaware.

A little harsh you say?  Not really.  It’s the ones that go that extra mile that will succeed past what society would like us to docilely accept.  I guess I have always been a rebel at heart.

You don’t need someone who is just a casual looker waste your time.  So right off the bat ask that person what type of literature or videos or magazine they are readying or watching. Ask them if they have ever read books such as “The Millionaire Mind” by Harv Eker or taken self discovery courses with personalities such as Jack Canfield or David Wood or any of any type.

I know that I am constantly reading and attending seminars and intensives that will help me to grow first and my business second, because with growth comes increase and that translates into a bigger cheque at the end of the week.

That’s who I want to have as business partners.

It will happen at the very beginning of your network marketing carreer that you will have times when you just won’t know the answer to a question your prospect is posing.

Are you to panic and get bent out of shape?

Of course not!  Relax!

Ok, so you practiced all the different types of answers to objections you could get your hands on and you were ready, until that fatal question was asked and deflated your confidence balloon.

So what if you couldn’t answer the question?

Do you know everything there is to know about your opportunity?

Even the top earners will tell you that they are learning something new every day.

You will only feel that you are in a corner if you let it.  That is reacting in opposition to responding.  When we react to things, our emotions take over, our vulnerability will show and our prospect will pick up on it.

Thinking too much about what you should say will make you tongue-tied.  There really is not only one right answer.  Were you really listening to your prospect and what he was saying?

Asking yourself that question will steer you back on track.  After all, it really is all about your prospect and not about you.

If you can’t answer a question, simply respond to your prospect that you will look into it further and get back to them because you want to provide them with as complete an answer as possible.

This makes for a stress free, simple and natural process to move on to the next step of your information giving process.  After all it’s only conversation and nobody’s life depends on it.

Be good to yourself, you deserve it.

Whatever network marketing opportunity you have, the fuel of your business whether clients or partners, hinges on the leads you can attract.

There are some basic success secrets that will insure your success:

• You have to know what type of lead you are looking for and make sure your lead knows what type you are looking for.  You do that by qualifying your lead on 5 different traits.  The first one is friendliness.  If your lead has  a sour puss of a personality.  They surely would not attract others to them.  The second has to do with their desire to do the business.  There is nothing wrong with being ambitious.  That is what is driving you to succeed and that is also what should drive them too.  Being a positive person is also a prerequisite.  The glass should be half full! The fourth and fifth go hand in hand.  The person should be a leader as well as a good communicator.  Although these traits can be developed in depth, the person should at least be able to express themselves clearly and have leadership qualities.
• Setting boundaries during your call is a must.  The person should not feel coerced into the interview and should always feel like they can stop it at anytime.  It’s to your advantage to let them know right from the start that if this is not for them that they can end the call without you feeling put out.  After all, you are in information giver.  It is either received or not. It’s not about you.
• I’ve talked about “asking questions” a lot.  This is crucial.  It’s all about your lead, not about you.  One sentence that disarms is “Tell me about yourself?” Your prospect has to feel that you are not out to just prospect them but also to get to know them as a person, their wants and their needs.
• I’ve also mentioned connecting with your prospect before and making them comfortable.  How do you expect to have someone receptive to what you have to say if you are not attentive enough to hear them first?
• Let your prospect know that you only need 1 minute of their time.  Too often, they are kept for longer periods that can run way past their tolerance level.  This will make them impatient and you are going to be let down with a negative reaction to your request.  It’s easy to say “I really need only a minute of your time, as I’m not sure if this is something that will work for you or not” .  If they are being quiet and you are looking for a response, you can also add ” is this making any sense to you?”

Achieving success when contacting a lead is not difficult when you know what to look for and ask for.  That where a good training system and trainer can make all the difference in the world.  Make sure you are part of a winning team.

You wanted to make money and that’s why you joined a network marketing company.

But your’e finding that in your search for prospective buisiness builders such as yourself, you often lose that prospect.

Why is that?  Could it be because you are marketing your compensation plan in such a way that loses the prospect?

If so, then what do you do to change that?

Let me suggest a very simple strategy. Don’t get too complicated or technical during your presentation.

The greatest way you can market your compensation plan is to paint a picture. Your prospect has no idea what a binary, team, matrix, unilevel, leg etc means.

Explaining the very specifics will lose your prospect right from the start.  But you can paint a picture that will capture your prospect’s imagination.

There are 4 basic ways you can do this no matter what type of comp plan you have.

1. The first area is simply explaining the opportunity of retail profit. Tell the prospect a little story.  Show them that when in  a retail store, the store buys at wholesale and sells you the goods at retail.  They are making a profit.  Let your prospect know that they also can earn a 30 to 50% profit on products depending on the markup set by the company. The prospect will easily identify with this as shopping is something we do every day.
2. The second area is team overrides.  Just like a mortgage , insurance or real estate broker, you can develop a team of reps and help them become successful and get paid a certain percentage of override off of their efforts of volume.  We know insurance brokers since most of us need insurance to drive our cars. Well, these brokers have agents that go out there selling policies.  These agents make a commission on the sale while the broker also makes money every time agents make a sale.  If there are a lot of agents out there then the broker makes a team override bonus leveraging all of their efforts to be translated into cash for them.  That’s what network marketing is really about.
3. The third area has to do with leadership bonus.  You get paid for developing leaders and get an additional override or bonus on their sales.  This happens when building deep into the organization.
4. The fourth area is rewards. These can be in the form of trips, cars, etc. that the company offers as incentives to motivate leaders.  Many people work harder for the rewards than they do at other things in their lives.

The key in all of this is to paint a picture that will captivate your prospects imagination.  Just make sure that it relates to every day things.  In other words, keep it simple.  What is simple is duplicatable.

Asking for the order is a gradual process and for you to be successful, you need to follow certain steps that will naturally bring the conclusion to a yes decision.

Most times closing is not done correctly but these 5 rules, if followed will help you to close properly:

1. You have to move past the word close and move up to a higher perspective of what it really is.  Closing is not done as effectively as it should by most people.  People resist it subconsciously.  But what if you were in the business of collecting decisions?  Already there has been a shift.  So in your mind it’s really a matter of getting the decision.
2. Never close or go after the decision too early.  You have to give your prospect time to connect to you and feel comfortable in the process of conversation.  If you rush your prospect into a decision, it may not be what you want to hear.  I had a prospect that during my ignorance on fire stage, I innocently pressured into buying my product.  Well, it was a total disaster.  My prospect did not get the benefits I  hoped for and my hope for future follow ups were dashed.  Take your time!
3. But don’t take too much time.  All right.  I’m telling you to slow down but now I’m telling you to not go too slow.  You must strike while the iron is still hot so that your prospect doesn’t cool off and become a lost prospect.  That’s why getting back to the prospect within 48 hours is  so crucial.  You are not forcing them in any way but you are impressing upon them that you are serious about your offer and you at least need an answer of some kind from them.  It’s not something they can put on the back burner and forget about.  This is important to you if not to them.
4. Zero pressure. You don’t want to pressure your prospect and then come across as desperate and amateurish.  Tell them “I only want is what is best for you and your family and whatever decision you make is alright”
5. Care about the person not the results.  Don’t be too emotionally attached to the results.  You are not in charge of the results, but you can get better at getting the decisions.  That’s where excellent training will make the difference.  Role playing is especially important here. Once you get an answer from your prospect you then look at the next name and call them because you are looking for someone that is ready now, for your products and for your business.  Keep focused on getting the decision that is right for the prospect.  All you worry about is who to call next.

All I have to remember is that I’m only 2 persons away from achieving untold success.