5 Reasons Why You Must Have Your Own Network Marketing Website

Network Marketing – You Just Must Have Your Own Website
By Audrey Okaneko

For as long as I’ve had an online presence I’ve had my own website. This is in addition to any company generated website I might also have.

There are many reasons why a website of your own is a must:

1. The URL – When you have your own website, you’ll have a URL that is www.yourdomain.com. This URL can be anything you choose. You can have your name, www.yourname.com. You can have something related to the products you are selling such as www.typeofproduct.com. There really are no limits on what you choose. This URL can be put on business cards, used in online profiles, used when you write articles and much more.

2. With a website of your own, you have the option to offer something other than your company products. You can offer ebooks. You can offer affiliate products. You can even accept advertising from those who want the traffic you receive to see their ad.

3. You are able to add as many pages as you want. With a company website, you are limited to having only the pages they allow you to have. If you want a special page, you can’t do that on a company site. With your own domain you can have whatever you want. An example would be a testimonial page. These are great to have. Not all company sites have space for this. On your own site you can create a testimonial page.

4. Company URL’s are very often not picked up by search engines. When you have a website of your own, you can optimize each individual page for the search engines. You can research keyword terms and then build pages according to what is being looked for in the search engines.

5. If for any reason the company goes out of business, you still have your website. With some minor changes, you can offer a different product and your website will still be listed in the search engines, in your profiles and on your business cards. Your website is yours and you won’t have to “start over” with a new website, just to make some minor changes.

These are five of the top reasons to have a website of your own when you are a network marketing consultant. Consider buying your own domain and then watch your business grow.

Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or you can Become a Tupperware Consultant

Website tools to help you get started:
Budget domain names and websites
Small Business Web Hosting
Professional Website Builder

7 Cost-Effective Marketing Tips for Your Small Business

7 Cost-Effective Marketing Tips
by Kathleen Gage

Companies often seek cost-effective, high-return marketing strategies. They may be as close as your wallet or the business next door. Below are seven easy to apply strategies for virtually any business.

1. Business cards
Business cards are often one of the most underutilized tools in marketing. Use the front and back of your business card to gain full benefit. You can put valuable information on the back such as a sports schedule, emergency numbers, or special dates people want to remember.

Creatively distribute your card. When you eat out, leave one with the tip. If you borrow a library book, use one as a bookmark. Hand them to clerks in stores who may know other people who could use your product or service.

2. Send a picture
A great way to keep your name fresh in a customer’s mind is to send them a picture of when they purchased a product or service from you.

Put a picture of a buyer’s auto purchase in a beautiful calendar. Likely, the proud owner of the vehicle will display the calendar for the next 365 days.

For specialty gift shops, when a customer makes a substantial purchase, have a picture taken with the shop owner. Frame the picture and send it to the customer. Chances are very good the picture will be displayed proudly for friends and family to see.

A dentist who specializes in smile makeovers can easily arrange to have a professional makeup artist and photographer capture the patient’s beautiful new smile. No doubt the patient will be more than happy to show others their new look.

3. Associations
Associations relevant to your market are a great resource for marketing. There are associations specific to virtually any industry, job type or business. A quick web search will show you how many associations exist in your market.

Most organizations have the following opportunities that can help you to gain visibility and do some very effective marketing:

-Newsletters
-Internet listings
-Links to your website
-Discounted advertising rates
-Networking opportunities
-Business referral services
-Special recognition events
-Educational seminars
-Business and membership directories

4. Committee involvement
Committee involvement is a great way to give back to an association or community while building visibility for you and your business. In some cases, you may want to get involved in a committee where you have little experience or knowledge. This will give you an opportunity to stretch yourself and meet and network with individuals you may not have otherwise had the chance to meet.

5. Contests and drawings
Contests are a favorite for many businesses with high foot traffic, such as a restaurant. Contests are a great way to build your database quickly. You will generate very hot leads when you have a contest with people who have already frequented your place of business. The key to making this work is to do follow up with back-end marketing. Far too many businesses hold contests, get lots of names and do nothing with them.

You can advertise a contest to gain new foot traffic in your place of business. Be sure to check local ordinances for any restrictions on holding a contest.

6. Cross-promoting
Join with other companies who have products or services that compliment yours and promote each other. A landscaping company can cross-promote with an outdoor spa company. A real estate company could easily cross-promote with a mortgage lender. A hair salon with a tanning salon.

Cross-promoting can considerably cut down the cost of business promotion and allow each business to use promotion techniques that might be too costly to implement alone.

7. Bonuses
Secure special offers from various businesses who share a similar market. When a customer buys a minimum amount they would receive a bonus packet with various offers from the other vendors. This creates a win/win situation all the way around. The other vendors gain visibility, you have something extra to offer your customers and the customers get an incredible value for their purchase.

Marketing does not have to be expensive nor does it have to be mundane. The possibilities are merely limited by imagination and your willingness to implement them.

About the Author

Kathleen Gage is a business advisor and marketing trainer specializing teaching clients cost effective, high return strategies. She is the author of “Street Smarts Marketing and Promotions”, “Street Smarts Making Money with the Internet” and “The Law of Achievement..” Kathleen Gage is also an award winning inspirational keynote speaker for conferences and conventions. Visit her site at www.kathleengage.com.

Click here for more Small Business Marketing

Business Mentoring Groups- A Great Way to Grow Your Business

A business mentoring group consists of a group of people who come together because they want to succeed in business. They want to be surrounded by like-minded business people and share their goals, celebrate their triumphs, and find solutions for their problem areas.

Business mentoring groups can be found both online and offline. Your local paper may list meeting times for various groups. There are also many business mentoring groups online. Some groups may be free and others may require a membership fee. Try searching Google or asking other online business friends for any recommendations that they may have. You can also join Meet Up, a free online networking service, to find a local business mentoring group or to start a local mentoring group on your own.

Business mentoring groups provide motivation in many ways. These people are going through the same things that you are. When you are facing a business problem or are trying to make a decision, the members of your mentoring group can offer sound advice. Each of these people will have a unique perspective and will offer different opinions.

These groups offer you a great way to stay motivated and accountable for achieving your goals. You can simply tell your group what goals you would like to accomplish for the month and give them weekly feedback on your progress. No one will want to report back to the group and confess that they didn’t do anything during that week.

Since your group is made up of other business people, they will understand exactly what you are going through and how hard it can be to achieve the goals you have set. This makes it harder to give them excuses when you haven’t accomplished your goals. They know what it’s like to be a busy parent, to have errands to run, a house to clean, and dinner to cook. They are finding a way to accomplish their goals, and they will expect you to do the same.

This “tough love” can do wonders for your motivation. Knowing that there are a group of people who are rooting for your success, and that they won’t accept your excuses, can really help you work harder.

Gift Albums Make Perfect Business Gifts

Business Gift Albums are the perfect gift to give when showing appreciation to loyal customers, valued associates, to celebrate birthdays and holidays or simply to say thank you.

Each of our 21 Business Gift Albums include quality merchandise from top brand-name companies ranging in price from $25-$750 making them a practical gift choice for any budget. Each unique gift album comes elegantly packaged in an upscale “Black Envelope” and can be delivered directly to your receipient at no extra cost to you.

Here are just a few of the many occasions and events where a gift album is appropriate:

• Holiday
• Boss’s Day
• Service Anniversary
• Promotion
• Employee of the Month
• Attendance Award
• Safety Reward
• Sales Incentive
• Wedding
• New Baby
• Birthday
• Anniversary
• Showers
• Customer Loyalty

Choosing a Gift Collection Album is Easy as 1,2,3!!

1. Click on a category to select a gift album of your choice.
2. Select how you want your receipient to redeem their gift album choice.
3. We send your gift album directly to the recipient, they choose their gift and it is shipped directly to them.

Increase Business by Communicating Your Credibility

Developed for Small Business Owners and Sales Professionals

Many business owners and sales professionals often don’t realize the number one way we can gain new business is by increasing our credibility. During this information-packed presentation brought to you by communication consultant and coach, Felicia Slattery, you will learn important factors to increasing your credibility, which will almost automatically increase your business. The main topics covered include: how to truly know your audience, understanding the three C’s of credibility, and discovering what specific materials you’ll need when presenting to your particular target market or audience.

Felicia Slattery

Felicia Slattery is a communication consultant, speaker, and coach specializing in training busy professionals to succeed by communicating effectively with clients and prospects. She teaches teleseminars, leads workshops, and offers private coaching to individual clients on improving their communication skills in order to present their best image.

Having taught communication skills all over Chicagoland for more than 10 years, Felicia describes herself as a communication “generalist,” meaning that she has expertise in teaching all forms of communication including interpersonal, public speaking, persuasion, business communication, interviewing, research, male-female communication— you name it she’s probably taught it-and she loves teaching!

A published author and popular public speaker, Felicia began her consulting and coaching business in early 2006 when she decided it was time to take the communication skills she’d been teaching for years and offer that same knowledge to people outside the classroom. She holds two Master’s Degrees: one in Adult Education and Training and another in Communication. In her business, she teaches small business owners, sales professionals and corporate professionals powerful communication skills they need to succeed at work and enjoy happy and fulfilled personal lives.

Network Marketing Success: Putting Your Prospects First

Jane and Mary are both in network marketing. (They’re also both fictitious and are not intended to depict any real persons, living or dead.) For the sake of this story, we’ll assume they both possess equal talent, resources, and motivation. However, their approaches to recruiting and business-building are quite different.

Jane is determined to enroll as many new business partners as possible into her organization each month. So far she’s been pretty successful at it. In the last year, she signed up 300 people, averaging twenty-five new associates per month and even winning her company’s “Top Recruiter” award.

In looking at her organizational charts, however, she notices that the great majority of her new distributors aren’t doing anything, and quite a few of them have even resigned from the company already. She’ll be lucky if she still has fifteen active people left in a few months. And she’ll be really lucky if any of them are duplicating what she’s been doing.

Oh well, she thinks. Most people are lazy. I’ll just work with the ones who really want to improve their lives. Meanwhile – back to recruiting! After all, if the drop-out rate’s going to be that high, I better get as many new people as I can to compensate for it.

Mary, on the other hand, has been averaging one or two new enrollments per month. She’s been carefully screening and interviewing her prospects, making as sure as she can that they have the skills, resources, and attitudes they’ll need to be successful. She takes the time to get to know them, learn what their needs are, and most importantly, find out if they really want to do what she does. Above all, she wants to make sure her opportunity will be a good fit for her new business builders.

She also expects to do a lot of training and hand-holding with each person she accepts into her organization – at least during their first few weeks. And she knows this will take time.

When Mary looks at her organizational chart, she feels very satisfied that nearly all of her recruits are still active.

In fact, many of them are successfully duplicating what she does and continue to enroll one or two qualified prospects per month. Consequently, thanks to the power of multiplication, her organization has grown in size to several hundred business builders over the last year.

It’s quite clear in this story that Mary is trying to put her prospects’ needs first, and Jane has other priorities.

Now please don’t think I’m about to start preaching some goody-goody philosophy of network marketing. While I admit, I usually prefer kindness and generosity over greed while traipsing down the road of life, there’s actually a very practical, down-to-earth reason for considering your prospects’ welfare above your own…

It’s good for your business.

After all, wouldn’t you prefer to work with loyal, qualified people who stick with it? (Emphasis on the words, “stick with it.”) It doesn’t matter how many starter pack bonuses you earn in the short run, in the long run you’ll never reach cruising altitude unless you have a lot of dedicated folks under you. And that doesn’t happen unless you earn their trust and loyalty by showing them in a very authentic way that you care about their success. And of course, by teaching them how to be successful.

And admit it. Doesn’t it make life a lot more fun when you build long-lasting personal relationships while you build your business?

Giving your recruits what they need and want, thereby reducing your drop-out rate, is also good for the network marketing industry. Just imagine how many disgruntled ex-MLMers there are out there, telling everyone they know that network marketing is a rip-off and that it’s impossible to succeed at it. You know what a problem that creates. If you would seriously like to change that image, join the “Put Prospects First” movement.

In summary, here are four things you can do to accomplish this:

1. Find out what your prospects’ needs are and help them decide if network marketing will help fill those needs. If it won’t, let them go.
2. Get to know your prospects well enough to determine if they have the skills, resources, and attitude necessary for success. If not, steer them gently in another direction. You’ll be doing them a favor, and they’ll probably be grateful for your honesty.
3. Don’t twist their arms or use any other form of manipulation to get them to sign with you. If they’re not already genuinely enthusiastic, you’ve got a guaranteed drop-out on your hands.
4. After they’ve joined your team, take however much time they need for training and hand-holding. Commit yourself to their success.

By putting your prospects’ needs before your own, you’ll be building a stronger organization, giving the network marketing industry a better image, and creating some awesome friendships.

About the Author

Liz Monte enjoys writing articles about new 21st Century approaches to network marketing that solve old traditional problems. Visit her website for additional liberating ideas. www.wisenetworkmarketer.com